Lord BYRON rose and said:—­

My Lords,—­The question before the House has been so frequently, fully, and ably discussed, and never perhaps more ably than on this night, that it would be difficult to adduce new arguments for or against it.  But with each discussion, difficulties have been removed, objections have been canvassed and refuted, and some of the former opponents of Catholic emancipation have at length conceded to the expediency of relieving the petitioners.  In conceding thus much, however, a new objection is started; it is not the time, say they, or it is an improper time, or there is time enough yet.  In some degree I concur with those who say, it is not the time exactly; that time is passed; better had it been for the country, that the Catholics possessed at this moment their proportion of our privileges, that their nobles held their due weight in our councils, than that we should be assembled to discuss their claims.  It had indeed been better—­

                       “Non tempore tali
  “Cogere concilium cum muros obsidet hostis.”

The enemy is without, and distress within.  It is too late to cavil on doctrinal points, when we must unite in defence of things more important than the mere ceremonies of religion.  It is indeed singular, that we are called together to deliberate, not on the God we adore, for in that we are agreed; not about the king we obey, for to him we are loyal; but how far a difference in the ceremonials of worship, how far believing not too little, but too much (the worst that can be imputed to the Catholics), how far too much devotion to their God may incapacitate our fellow-subjects from effectually serving their king.

Much has been said, within and without doors, of church and state, and although those venerable words have been too often prostituted to the most despicable of party purposes, we cannot hear them too often; all, I presume, are the advocates of church and state,—­the church of Christ, and the state of Great Britain; but not a state of exclusion and despotism, not an intolerant church, not a church militant, which renders itself liable to the very objection urged against the Romish communion, and in a greater degree, for the Catholic merely withholds its spiritual benediction (and even that is doubtful), but our church, or rather our churchmen, not only refuse to the Catholic their spiritual grace, but all temporal blessings whatsoever.  It was an observation of the great Lord Peterborough, made within these walls, or within the walls where the Lords then assembled, that he was for a “parliamentary king and a parliamentary constitution, but not a parliamentary God and a parliamentary religion.”  The interval of a century has not weakened the force of the remark.  It is indeed time that we should leave off these petty cavils on frivolous points, these Lilliputian sophistries, whether our “eggs are best broken at the broad or narrow end.”