THE HIEREU-MANIA. 327 I have committed to jail, till the pleasure of His Majesty's wise Ministers shall be communicated to me. I have little doubt that when the public shall know what I have done, through the channel of your entertaining paper, that every one will agree that some high honour is due to the person who has been the means of recovering papers of so much consequence to the public at large. The moment I can investigate the contents of the red box, I shall not fail to communicate to you as much as shall appear prudent to be generally known, without injury to the state. I am, Sir, Your very obedient and very humble servant, TIMOTHY MITTIMUS, Justice of the Peace of Hackney Marsh, and Hackney Marsh, Oct. 3, 1811. THE HIEREU-MANIA. [We have received the following letter; whether it be genuine, or a hoax, we leave our readers to determine.] TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE. [Oct. 11.] SIR, A1 LTHOUGH we are not in the habits of communication, I am, nevertheless, desired by Mr. P-r, to trouble you with a letter, to request you will have the goodness to inform him how he can address a Scotch physician, who, he understands, has lately written on the Hiereu-Mania. With this disorder our good and pious Premier, as you well know, has long been grievously afflicted; at present it smarteth him sore. It is, indeed, a dangerous disorder for a Minister, and he begins to fear, that, if it shall continue, it may carry him off, as it has already done Viscount Sh. Oh, that my patron could recover ! "Is there no balm in Gilead??? I should should rejoice greatly within my heart, and sing with the brotherhood at Clapham, canticles of joy, if I saw any prospect of amendment; but there is none. Alas! Sir, should Mr. P go, great will be the tribulation of the saints. They ne'er in office will see his like again. Who like he will bind our kings in fetters? . Although naturally meagre, you cannot imagine how much poor Mr. P. is reduced-he is brought quite low. He has never suffered so much as at present from this Hiereu-Mania, and the fit having ceased for a while, he feels more strongly its effects. It prevents his paying his daily court at Y-k House, where he has to make up for many former inattentions which cannot ́ easily be forgotten. The P-R is also known to have expressed his dislike to persons subject to attacks from this horrible complaint. He conceives, moreover, that they did much harm to his Royal Parent, and were principally the cause of the melancholy calamity, which we all, yourself included, equally deplore. Apropos, Mr. P requests me to expresshis hopes, that your known good nature will kindly excuse the trouble you were occasioned some time ago in Westminster Hall, because you conceived the Prince of Wales capable of wearing the Crown, and making himself gloriously popular among his subjects. I had nearly forgotten this part of my commission. If you have any copies remaining of your trial, Mr. P will readily now take them off your hands. We have, during a long time, been making a collection of many rare and curious tracts, which the Premier thinks of presenting to H. R. H. Mr. Thornton, the new Marshal of the Admiralty, promises to procure many via Hague. Poor Mr. P.! he certainly is in a bad way. The Doctors themselves, they who have so long attended him with flattering hopes, even they begin to shake cir heads in silence and they think of taking leave -we THE HIEREU-MANIA. 329 —we shall have none to comfort us. I wish Mr. P.. had never taken prescriptions and bilious bills from: clerical mountebanks. He would have continued the circuit; in time the attornies would have given him briefs; and I should have gotten my half-crowns. No good things remain for me. -y We must absolutely try a new regime. If Mr. Pl could only keep within the house in Downing Street, he has half a mind to try Jesuits beans. He was talking of this the other day, whilst playing with the little Pls in the nursery. But the maids cried out, "Lord, Sir! they are poisonous, they were found out by the wicked Popish priests to destroy heretics at the time of that there Popish plot, when there was all that fuss and noise about Titus Oates, just as when you went down to Northampton about No Popery." Mr. P. was frightened, and stood aghast. The council had been waiting below; and the Marquis Wcame up stairs to find the Premier, who immediately consulted him about what the maids had told him. The Marquis burst into a loud fit of laughter, and cried out," Why, Pl, they are patent pillsdo you want them?" Mr. P. did not at first understand the Marquis, but, upon explanation, was angry, and assured him on his honour his Lordship was mistaken. Lord El-n hearing a noise, came in, and the matter was resumed. Mr. P. declared he firmly be lieved all that the nursery-maids and old women had told him. The Chlor had his doubts, and required time to make up his mind. He would not take with him, however, any papers (the first time, I believe, when he declined reading any thing banded to him), but said that he had at home many collections of the Jesuits upon conscience and casuistry, to which he was partial, and that he should find there inform ation how to advise.-N. B. His Lordship is rather friendly to the Order, and would have made an excellent confessor to Lewis XIV. As As Mr. P is, as you have experienced, very liberal upon all points connected with the liberty of the press, he has had no objection to my communicating the above anecdote. I will write to you further in a day or two. SIR, I remain, &c. PRAISE-GOD BARE-BONES, LETTER II. TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE. (Oct. 18.] WE have no intelligence of the Scotch Doctor→→ where can we find him? We dare not write to Earl Grey, who lives near the border, and he would not, if we did, answer our letter; therefore, I must trouble you again, for we cannot get information even from our own friends. Mr. P had applied to Viscount M-J-le about this doctor, and also about the treatise, which he an nounces to be already in the press; but we cannot distinctly understand his Lordship's answer, with which we are not altogether satisfied. He says there is no work of the kind in the Advocates' library (we suspect his Lordship has not made the proper search), and that as to the disorder itself, his late father always expressed a decided horror of it; he used to say it was the most fatal complaint with which a statesnian ever could be seized-and on all occasions, he advised his son and all his friends to keep clear of it, and fly away from those infected. His Lordship seems alarmed; and although too civil and polite to say it, we fear neither himself nor his friends, if the disorder continues, will come near the House. . The Duke of Me writes more succinctly. He says, he never heard of the complaint before in Scot land; THE HIEREU-MANIA. 331 land; and, if it existed formerly, it has in Scotland long since been eradicated. His Grace confines his attention principally to Horses, and we believe was in a hurry to ride out with the Earl of Fingall. His Lordship, you must know, whilst in Scotland, invited both His Grace and the Duke of B-h to Killeen Castle; and the manners of the Earl are, unfortunately for us, so mild, amiable, and conciliatory, that we believe the above personages are inclined to accept his invitation, and to go over to Ireland. The Scotch are very uneasy respecting that country. I wonder they should be troubled about such a contemptible set of bog-trotting, bare-legged, vile Irish Papists. I am not, however, surprised, when I remember that they have neither Bishops, Deans, nor Prebends, and very small livings. King Harry allowed us there to cry out Jacobinism as loud as we pleased; but he absolutely prohibited, within his dominions, any sermons or discourses upon No-Popery, and he patronized in that country the Catholic Clergy. Was not this impious? I hope his soul may not suffer in the other world for his great sin in supporting the abettors of their damnable doctrines and idolatrous rites! His successors, however, we fear will follow his example: we must, therefore, send to Scotland some of our good Protestant divines, and get an establishment for Episcopacy. The Scotch are getting rich, and can pay for it. But the Jesuits Beans!!! We fear they are hard of digestion; and, if we took them, that the dose with which we should be drenched in the House of Commons, to work them off, would be too potent for our constitution. We would, however, swallow them; but we cannot get them. They are to be had, we are told, only from Hibern-Anglus, the Irish Giant ; and he swears, by his soul and St. Patrick, we shall not have them, nor any one whom we shall send. We |