The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 07 (of 12)

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Edmund Burke. The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 07 (of 12)

FRAGMENTS AND NOTES. OF. SPEECHES

SPEECH. ON. THE ACTS OF UNIFORMITY. FEBRUARY 6, 1772

NOTE

SPEECH

SPEECH. ON. A BILL FOR THE RELIEF OF PROTESTANT DISSENTERS. MARCH 17, 1773

NOTE

SPEECH

SPEECH. ON A. MOTION MADE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS BY THE RIGHT HON. C.J. FOX, MAY 11, 1793, FOR LEAVE TO BRING IN. A BILL TO REPEAL AND ALTER CERTAIN ACTS RESPECTING RELIGIOUS OPINIONS, UPON THE OCCASION OF. A PETITION OF THE UNITARIAN SOCIETY

SPEECH. ON. THE MOTION MADE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEBRUARY 7, 1771, RELATIVE TO. THE MIDDLESEX ELECTION

NOTE

SPEECH

SPEECH. ON. A BILL FOR SHORTENING THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS. MAY 8, 1780

SPEECH. ON A. MOTION MADE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, MAY 7, 1782, FOR. A COMMITTEE TO INQUIRE INTO THE STATE OF THE REPRESENTATION OF THE COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT

SPEECH. ON. A MOTION, MADE BY THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM DOWDESWELL, MARCH 7, 1771, FOR LEAVE TO BRING IN. A BILL FOR EXPLAINING THE POWERS OF JURIES IN PROSECUTIONS FOR LIBELS. TOGETHER WITH. A LETTER IN VINDICATION OF THAT MEASURE, AND. A COPY OF THE PROPOSED BILL

LETTER

LIBEL BILL

SPEECH. ON. A BILL FOR THE REPEAL OF THE MARRIAGE ACT. JUNE 15, 1781

SPEECH. ON A. MOTION MADE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEBRUARY 17, 1772, FOR LEAVE TO BRING IN. A BILL TO QUIET THE POSSESSIONS OF THE SUBJECT AGAINST DORMANT CLAIMS OF THE CHURCH

HINTS. FOR. AN ESSAY ON THE DRAMA

NOTE

HINTS. FOR AN ESSAY ON THE DRAMA

TOWARDS AN. ABRIDGMENT OF THE ENGLISH HISTORY. IN THREE BOOKS. AN. ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY

BOOK I

CHAPTER I. CAUSES OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE ROMANS AND BRITONS.—CAESAR'S TWO INVASIONS OF BRITAIN

CHAPTER II. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN

CHAPTER III. THE REDUCTION OF BRITAIN BY THE ROMANS

CHAPTER IV. THE FALL OF THE ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN

BOOK II

CHAPTER I. THE ENTRY AND SETTLEMENT OF THE SAXONS, AND THEIR CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY

CHAPTER II. ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY—OF MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS—AND OF THEIR EFFECTS

CHAPTER III. SERIES OF ANGLO-SAXON KINGS FROM ETHELBERT TO ALFRED: WITH THE INVASION OF THE DANES

CHAPTER IV. REIGN OF KING ALFRED

CHAPTER V. SUCCESSION OF KINGS FROM ALFRED TO HAROLD

CHAPTER VI. HAROLD II.—INVASION OF THE NORMANS.—ACCOUNT OF THAT PEOPLE, AND OF THE STATE OF ENGLAND AT THE TIME OF THE INVASION

CHAPTER VII. OF THE LAWS AND INSTITUTIONS OF THE SAXONS

BOOK III

CHAPTER I. VIEW OF THE STATE OF EUROPE AT THE TIME OF THE NORMAN INVASION

CHAPTER II. REIGN OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

CHAPTER III. REIGN OF WILLIAM THE SECOND, SURNAMED RUFUS

CHAPTER IV. REIGN OF HENRY I

CHAPTER V. REIGN OF STEPHEN

CHAPTER VI. REIGN OF HENRY II

CHAPTER VII. REIGN OF RICHARD I

CHAPTER VIII. REIGN OF JOHN

CHAPTER IX. FRAGMENT.—AN ESSAY TOWARDS AN HISTORY OF THE LAWS OF ENGLAND

Отрывок из книги

During the period of Mr. Burke's Parliamentary labors, some alterations in the Acts of Uniformity, and the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, were agitated at various times in the House of Commons. It appears from the state of his manuscript papers, that he had designed to publish some of the Speeches which he delivered in those discussions, and with that view had preserved the following Fragments and detached Notes, which are now given to the public with as much order and connection as their imperfect condition renders them capable of receiving. The Speeches on the Middlesex Election, on shortening the Duration of Parliaments, on the Reform of the Representation in Parliament, on the Bill for explaining the Power of Juries in Prosecutions for libels, and on the Repeal of the Marriage Act, were found in the same imperfect state.

Mr. Speaker,—I should not trouble the House upon this question, if I could at all acquiesce in many of the arguments, or justify the vote I shall give upon several of the reasons which have been urged in favor of it. I should, indeed, be very much concerned, if I were thought to be influenced to that vote by those arguments.

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If this be the case in the present instance, certainly you ought to make the alteration that is proposed, to satisfy your own consciences, and to give content to your people. But if you have no evidence of this nature, it ill becomes your gravity, on the petition of a few gentlemen, to listen to anything that tends to shake one of the capital pillars of the state, and alarm the body of your people upon that one ground, in which every hope and fear, every interest, passion, prejudice, everything which can affect the human breast, are all involved together. If you make this a season for religious alterations, depend upon it, you will soon find it a season of religious tumults and religious wars.

These gentlemen complain of hardship. No considerable number shows discontent; but, in order to give satisfaction to any number of respectable men, who come in so decent and constitutional a mode before us, let us examine a little what that hardship is. They want to be preferred clergymen in the Church of England as by law established; but their consciences will not suffer them to conform to the doctrines and practices of that Church: that is, they want to be teachers in a church to which they do not belong; and it is an odd sort of hardship. They want to receive the emoluments appropriated for teaching one set of doctrines, whilst they are teaching another. A church, in any legal sense, is only a certain system of religious doctrines and practices fixed and ascertained by some law,—by the difference of which laws different churches (as different commonwealths) are made in various parts of the world; and the establishment is a tax laid by the same sovereign authority for payment of those who so teach and so practise: for no legislature was ever so absurd as to tax its people to support men for teaching and acting as they please, but by some prescribed rule.

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