‘Oh, he and I have had some conversation upon the state of his affairs,’ said the man in black; ’I think he might make a rather useful convert in these parts, provided things take a certain turn, as they doubtless will.  It is no bad thing to have a fighting fellow, who keeps a public-house, belonging to one’s religion.  He has been occasionally employed as a bully at elections by the Tory party, and he may serve us in the same capacity.  The fellow comes of a good stock; I heard him say that his father headed the High Church mob who sacked and burnt Priestley’s house at Birmingham, towards the end of the last century.’

‘A disgraceful affair,’ said I.

‘What do you mean by a disgraceful affair?’ said the man in black.  ’I assure you that nothing has occurred for the last fifty years which has given the High Church party so much credit in the eyes of Rome as that,—­we did not imagine that the fellows had so much energy.  Had they followed up that affair by twenty others of a similar kind, they would by this time have had everything in their own power; but they did not, and, as a necessary consequence, they are reduced to almost nothing.’

‘I suppose,’ said I, ’that your Church would have acted very differently in its place.’

‘It has always done so,’ said the man in black, coolly sipping.  ’Our Church has always armed the brute population against the genius and intellect of a country, provided that same intellect and genius were not willing to become its instruments and eulogists; and provided we once obtain a firm hold here again, we would not fail to do so.  We would occasionally stuff the beastly rabble with horseflesh and bitter ale, and then halloo them on against all those who were obnoxious to us.’

‘Horseflesh and bitter ale!’ I replied.

‘Yes,’ said the man in black; ’horseflesh and bitter ale—­the favourite delicacies of their Saxon ancestors, who were always ready to do our bidding after a liberal allowance of such cheer.  There is a tradition in our Church, that before the Northumbrian rabble, at the instigation of Austin, attacked and massacred the presbyterian monks of Bangor, they had been allowed a good gorge of horseflesh and bitter ale.  He! he! he!’ continued the man in black, ’what a fine spectacle to see such a mob, headed by a fellow like our friend the landlord, sack the house of another Priestley!’

‘Then you don’t deny that we have had a Priestley,’ said I, ’and admit the possibility of our having another?  You were lately observing that all English literary men were sycophants?’

‘Lickspittles,’ said the man in black; ’yes, I admit that you have had a Priestley, but he was a Dissenter of the old class; you have had him, and perhaps may have another.’

‘Perhaps we may,’ said I.  ’But with respect to the lower classes, have you mixed much with them?’