dition, and other generations of the same spawn, leaves us no better than we were, or should have been, had no commotion taken place. The angel may have washed his dirty wings in our Bethesda, but the frogs and toads have long ago gobbled up all the sanative qualities with which he imbued the water, and he has only-no more about it. But 'tis a fact, a grand essential characteristic fact, which truth and fair play require, should be rung from one end of the kingdom to the other, that with all the resistance to the diffusion of scriptural or any other sort of knowledge, and the suppression of free opinions and free discussions, which we are trained to charge exclusively on the divines of the Catholic communion; at this day there is more freedom of speculation and inquiry, more allowance of dissent to the widest possible extent of dissenting, more inquiry after truth, and love of it when found, and more cordial, unbroken, and unbreakable charities towards those who differ from them, among Roman Catholics, and especially among the Catholic priesthood, than among any sect of those who profess and call themselves Christians, on earth besides. Of these facts, my proofs are:

1st. After I had opened the Grafton-street theatre, in Dublin, as an oratory of avowed infidelity, I continued to enjoy the friendship and friendly confidence of two Popish priests, and was by one of them, even at his own table, introduced in the most friendly manner to a gentleman who went a great way further into scepticism than I did, mainly for the purpose of affording to his holiness the gratification of hearing and being moderator of the most unrestricted argumentation.

2nd. It was wholly a Protestant and Evangelical mob that assailed my life in the Grafton-street chapel, and it was wholly by the prodigious exertions and zeal of a Popish officer of police, that my life was preserved from their murderous piety.

3rd. I have been credibly assured by a friend, who lately was at Rome, that he there received the holy Eucharist from the hands of a Popish priest, who overruled his objection to do so, by an argument which would have gone nigh to have shaken the resistance even of Richard Carlile. "Really, Sir," said my friend, "I beg to be excused, for I am not only not a Catholic, but not a Christian!" "What matters that, said the priest, can't you take it, out of good fellowship?"

4th. But I am in possession of the litera scripta of proof, that if on any subject of biblical criticism you seek for a fair and candid statement, an ingenious speculation, or a frank admission, it is among commentators of the Catholic communion you shall 'he rather find it. "The Roman church has allowed far greater freedom of discussion to its members than has ever been enjoyed in those churches which profess to make free inquiry, the boon which they offer, and the very badge of their distinction."

Palæoromaica, Murray, 1822, p. 186. Dr. Geddes will often speak like an honest man, when a Bishop Marsh will show you his prodigious talent and learning in finding out a hundred thousand ways of explaining a difficulty, not one of which would an honest man have had any occasion for. Thus comparing Catholicity and Protestantism, and judging each by the evidence of facts and results of experience, I conclude that whatever issues may arise in the yet unconjecturable dénouements of futurity, we have nothing to fear from a change of masters. I remain truly yours, Bishop's Palace, Oakham, Nov. 16, 1828.

ROBERT TAYLOR.

P.S. My grateful acknowledgements are due for the additional and further subscriptions announced in No. 19. We have hearts in the right places among us, which make wholesome musie without any excitement of enthusiam. My best respects and compliments to every hand at work on DIEGESIS! The manner in which he comes up is truly gratifying to a parent's heart. Nothing can be better. I see a care and pains-taking on the part of the compositor, which nothing short of his participation in the interests of our great and glorious cause could produce. O Let not any who wish us well, lose their opportunity of suggesting or supplying whatever it shall seem to them that DIEGESIS ought not to want. Be it remembered that there is no Robert Taylorism about DIEGESIS. He is strictly and entirely the offspring, the effect, and champion of our cause.

"Go forth DIEGESIS, of mightiest reasonings chief,
-Bring forth all our war,

Our bow and thunder, and almighty arms.

About thee gird thy sword, O work of works elect,
With proof, and truth, and argument

Thou art most richly deck't.'

TO THE REV. ROBERT TAYLOR.

RESPECTED SIR,-I cannot condescend to use the appellation reverend, as a title of respect, and indicating that the wearer is possessed of talent and virtue, when so many itinerant ragamuffins have added that appendage to their names, while they were prowling the country, not like roaring lions, but like insidious foxes, seeking whom they may devour; and urging the last remaining drop of sweat from the brow of the toil-worn labourer; and the last grain of sense and reason from the understanding of those they can make their dupes, that they may be enabled to live in luxury and laziness. In my mind, the word reverend is a synonyme for consummate hypocrite, and the sooner you can dispense with it the

better.

But to the purpose of my present communication; a number of your admirers, at Ashton, and Staley Bridge, have subscribed their mites to

ward supporting you under your persecutions; not more as a debt of gratitude, than one they in moral duty owe you for value received, in the manly productions of your pen; and they hope, (to use a scripture simile) not to bury your talent in the earth; but to make it produce some fifty, some an hundred-fold. At the latter place, they have formed themselves into a society denominated the Zetetic society, where they meet every Sunday, and read "The Lion," and other works on moral and experimental philoso phy; and I venture to assert, that there are young mechanics in that society, that would puzzle a Paley, or even a J. P. Smith, in theological disquisition. They held their first anniversarythree weeks since, a few toasts were passed and some shrewd and sensible addresses were delivered on the several subjects. One member who had been an itinerant in the Methodist society, declared that he had been erroneously in search of truth, until he joined this society, in which he owned, he had met with the only true saving grace. The following is their list of toasts.

1st.-May this our society be as strong in numbers, as it is in principles; in order that it may be a means of eradicating from the minds of men, the dark principles of error and superstition, and usher in the imperishable truth of reason and humanity.

2nd. The Reverend Robert Taylor, the great inspired apostle and true expounder of fabulous theology; may he continue his work of grace, until grey-headed superstition goes down with tears to the grave.

3rd.-Richard Carlile, the steady and persevering opposer of the religious and political errors of mankind.

4th. An unshackled press, the terror of despots, the bulwark of freemen, and the hope of slaves.

The meeting as might have been expected, was conducted with the greatest harmony.

The aim and pursuit of this society, is to promote rational discussion on moral, theological, and political subjects, and I should wish to see the example set in every other part of the country. We might then indeed have some dawn of hope, that society would get rid of the fiend superstition, and would be on its march to rational happiness. May your persecutors and prosecutors be among the number of converted, or may their deity be pleased to

Take them good Lord, and take them soon,

With holy Jeffries cram 'em;

Thy justice needs not fear the boon,

Posterity will damn 'em.

'For as their deeds done here on earth,

On earth can't be forgiven,

Provide them Lord, with a new birth,

And take them to thy Heaven.

Another boon of thee I ask,

When thou hast plac'd them there,

Let not a judge become their task,
At least when I appear.

And when again, in forms of men,
Thou show'rest us blessings down;
May they not be, we beg of thee,
Inhuman Knowlys and Brown.

With every good wish for your health and

happiness, I remain, on

behalf of the subscribers, as well as myself, your admirer, and well wisher.

CHARLES WALKER,

Ashton-under-Line, Nov. 10, 1828.

[The following Essay is taken from a novel in four volumes, entitled "The Empire of the Nairs," by James Lawrence. It stands as the introduction. We introduce it here as a curiosity.-EDITOR.]

AN ESSAY ON A NEW SYSTEM OF GALLANTRY AND INHERITANCE;

Shewing its advantages over marriage, in insuring an indubitable birth, and being favourable to population, to the rights of women, and to the active genius of men.

THE NAIRS.

THE Nairs are the nobility of the Malabar Coast, and affirm that they are the oldest in the world. They are mentioned in the most ancient writers of Indostan. It is the privilege of the Nair lady to choose and change her lover. When he visits her, he walks round the house, and strikes with his sabre on his buckler, as a signal of his approach. To announce his presence to any rival, he, if admitted, leaves a domestic with his arms in a kind of porch. The mother only has the charge of the children; and even the SAMORIN and the other princes have no other heirs than the children of their sisters, that, having no family, they may be always ready to march against an enemy. When the nephews are of an age to bear arms, they follow their uncle. The name of a father is unknown to a Nair child; he speaks of the lovers of his mother, and of his uncles, but never of his father.

Such are the NAIRS. At present they are to be found chiefly on the Malabar coast. If the Nair system be compatible with a government where all the distinctions, privileges and immunities of birth are in force, there can be less doubt of its possibility under a more simple constitution. This work was designed to show the possibility of a nation's reaching the highest civilization without marriage. This may seem a paradox, "Car on est convenu," says Mercier, "d'appeller dece nom toute verité nouvelle, qui n'a pas encore eu son passeport."

However singular this system may at first appear, the Nairs maintain that it is the system of nature. "All the other animals are free in love, and to the mothers alone falls the care of the offspring. Why has mankind deviated from a system which, from analogy, we may pronounce the original system of our species? Marriage, whenever it was introduced, was an innovation. Let not our system be deemed unnatural, because confined to so small a portion of mankind; if numbers were the test of truth, Christianity must give way to Mahometanism, monogamy to polygamy. It not only has always existed among ourselves, who have preceded other nations in civilization, but is practised by some of the tribes in America, whose savage state approaches the nearest to the state of nature."

Such are the arguments with which the Nairs vindicate their