FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!
TOPICS OF THE DAY.
1)Am. Stop him ! Stop him ! Murder ! Thief! Fire ! Stop fire Stop fire !
THE RIVALS.
SCRUB. There's two.and-forty of them ! • BEAUS' STRATAGEM.
YORK MINSTER has been burnt down, or at least a part of it has been ; Westminster Abbey has been nigh to being ,burnt down, or at least a part of it has All the cathedrals in the country are in clan- ger. It is seldom that misfortunes come single : in the present case they are destined to come thick and threefold. What has all of a sudden kindled up this hatred on the part of the public against old buildings ?—The Catholic Relief Bill. The Jesuit is abroad without a licence ; and roofs must blaze and walls must crumble until he he ba- nished from Britain in terms of the act. There is a plot—for the best possible reason—because we can make nothing of it. Nature com- bines with monks for the destruction of poor old England ; while the latter fire, the former freezes. We are starved at home, and if we go to church we are burnt alive. There can be but one end of these colds and conflagrations : we shall all turn Atheists, and be chilled to death in our own unbelief. The author of the burning of York Min- ster, it is now known, was a priest, who, by a refinement of artifice which his brethren know well how to practice, succeeded in per- suading a Jury of simple Yorkshiremen that he was one of them- selves. It is notorious to those behind the curtain, that MARTIN was a mere nom de guerre, in allusion to the fox-like habits of his profession. The truth is—(we mention it to our readers under the strictest injunctions to secrecy) the real name of Jonathan is Brother Bug-a-boolia : his grandfather's third cousin was foster-brother to the late Pope's aunt ! The intended incendiary of the nunnery at West- minster, we pledge our word for it, was a monk as certainly as MARTIN. It is not the first time that inch rogues have set fire to nunneries and to nuns also. It is altogether a mistake to suppose that it was Sir GEORGE ROSE who made the attempt. We can answer it was no Protestant, much less an honest Anti-Catholic Protestant like Sir GEORGE. Besides, what could possibly induce him to clamber up three hundred feet and odds in order to carry away lead from the head of the Cathedral, or from any other head either sacred or profane? Sir GEORGE has as little need of such an article as any baronet in the kingdom. No, no—a Papist it, was, unquestionably ; and ere long, we doubt not that Mr. GRANT, who attends the cathedral daily to pray the Constitution out of purgatory, will discover the rogue lurkine- behind one of the tomb-stones. In the mean time, we are resolved to follow the example of our worthy contemporary of the J ut. nal—to keep our sword—that is, our pen—sharpened ; to put on our armour of proof—that is, our best double-milled drab—that we may be ready for every attack of the enemy. Thus equipped and de- fended, we shall bid a gallant defiance to frost and to friars ; and, in spite of all the bulls of the South and the blasts of the North, stand true to our Church and our King, while the goose has opinion or the sheep has a fleece.
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