(the), or the Meeting

of the Gothamites,

475

Protest against Paine's Rights of Man,

113

Prujean's Treatife upon the Laws of

England for the Recovery of Debt,

315

Remarks on the new Sugar Bill, and

on the national Compacts refpect-

ing

THE

CRITICAL REVIEW.

For MAY, 1792.

Six Letters on Intolerance: including ancient and modern Na tions, and different Religions and Sects. 8vo. 6s. Boards. Dilly. 1791.

Ν

IN the various revolutions of fentiments, manners, and governments, intolerance has proceeded from different views; and, though we can never call it a virtue, there has been pe riods when it can scarcely be confidered as a fault. Those who will not allow that the human mind is ever capable of abusing its liberty, those who think judgment, knowledge, and reafon are intuitive, neither requiring inftruction nor guidance, will yet admit, that the fire-worshippers of Perfia, and the fanguinary rites of the Druids of our own ifland, ought not to have been tolerated. They will pity a deluded people, blind to their own good, and endeavour to inftruct or to guide them fometimes by means not the most gentle. It is not easy to draw the line, for the untaught herd are, in every country, the fame; caprice or popular phrenzies are mistaken for convic tion, and the groffeft chicanery for divine illumination. Intolerance, in a milder degree, may be defended, we think, when it is fet up as a barrier against the introduction of those to power, whofe opinions are hoftile to the inftitutions held by the majority as facred, and, to come nearer to our author's particular object, the repeal of the teft laws was with propriety refufed. The firft of thefe Letters has already appeared, and we fhall confequently pafs on to the fecond; but on this we need not make many remarks, for it contains many of the hackneyed arguments in favour of the repeal of the test-act, arguments overballanced by preponderating motives, or refuted in other publications. Toleration is not, our author tells us, an indulgence, but a right: it is not a favour requested, but a property demanded. Be it fo: opinion fhould be

Whole as the marble, founded as the rock;

As broad and general as the cafing air.'

Every perfon fhould be free to think and to speak his thoughts but when fentiments are connected with actions, when opinions may influence conduct, it is then neceffary to fee wheC. R. N. AR. (V.) May, 1792.

B

ther

ther they militate against fyftems held facred, and fuppofed infeparable from the profperity of the country or individual. Nor is it an argument, to fay that the fmall number of the Diffenters can fcarcely be fuppofed to preponderate against the larger body of churchmen: perfeverance will effect much, and it must prevail, or fubject the nation to constant civil contests. The third Letter is a very entertaining one. The author endeavours to show, that rulers in every age and every country have been intolerant. But he only proves that they have in general confidered one religion as connected with the state, and left the particular private opinions of every perfon free; and if any doctrine is to be established by the experience of ages, the force and fpirit of all the examples adduced, fpeak decidedly against the author. The gradual introduction of numerous foreign deities shows that the intolerance of the pagans fometimes flept, or complaifantly yielded to particular circumftances. Even in Athens a democracy the moft corrupt, capricious, inconfiftent, and unjust, though confidered by the author of the Rights of Man,' as the model of virtue, and the offspring of the pureft integrity, never aimed to punish any man for his religion alone. Socrates and Aristotle might have lived there in fafety, if other accufations had not added to the fuppofed guilt.

The fourth Letter contains the fentiments of different refpectable authors on this subject, we mean the tolerance of ancient rulers. This letter is, in reality, a continuation of the fubject of the third; and the author, whofe fairness we muft commend, and whofe learning we highly refpect, finds him- . felf greatly perplexed between the oppofing teftimony of different facts. The fubject in general, fo far as refpects Rome, is ftated with fufficient accuracy in the following paflage:

Another reason, I conceive, why there were frequent inftances of abolishing foreign rites in the early parts of the repubfic, may be this: the more ignorant and fuperftitious men were, the more prone they would be to afcribe every portentous appearance and every national calamity to the neglect of the worship of the Roman deities; and vigilant, patriotic, and bigoted magiftrates would on fuch occafions be doubly active, not only to make proper facrifices and fupplications to their own gods, but to banish all fuch as were alien. This they would do in compliment to their tutelary deities; being perfuaded, like Coriolanus, that the gods have an influence in every affair, and above all in war but because the inftances of reftraint do not all ftand on record, an univerfal toleration is inferred, except in a few cafes, and then only when public danger was apprehended. The fuppofi

* Yet thefe inftances do not appear to be very frequent; the power and the exertion of that power are very different.'