" Henceforth great D,
after "Charles Reade's" style, becomes little d. Logically speaking, it
is all over with him. If the Pope be the master of kings, he must by
analogy have the rights of a master, liberty to instruct and power to
correct. The old parallel of a schoolmaster and his scholars is adduced.
D feels he is caught; states, in the stock formula, "that this parallel
between the master of kings and the master of scholars puzzles me,
because it is unimpeachable; and yet I don't want to concede everything,
and cannot deny everything." As a last effort, he suggests with
hesitation, that "after all, a law which secured the Pope perfect liberty
of speech, action and judgment, would fulfil all the necessities of the
case; and that in other respects the Pope might be a subject like anybody
else." On this suggestion X tramples brutally. D is asked, how the
observance of this law is to be enforced, and can give no answer, on
which X bursts into the most virulent abuse of all liberal governments in
terms commensurate with the offence. "Praised be God, the days of Henry
the VIIIth are passed, and Catholics and Bishops, and all men of great
and free intellects need no longer lose their heads beneath the British
axe. But are you ignorant that the 'most catholic France' has had
proclaimed from her tribunes, that the law is of no creed? Are you
ignorant of the Josephian laws of Austria? Glory be now to her young and
most devout of catholic sovereigns! but are you not aware, that in the
reign of Joseph the bishops in that empire were not allowed to write to,
or correspond freely with, the Pope? .
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