ABSTRACT
Peter Plymley has to convince Abraham, the narrow and suspicious country parson of the old school, whose opposition to Catholicism is not based on dogmatic differences but on fear for the stability of his own position, and, above all, on fear that Catholic Emancipation will bring loss of tithes. Sidney Smith never really openly reveals his own standpoint. He prefers to attack the bigotry and inconsistency of certain of the Protestant clergy and placemen, rather than to defend the Catholic position on its own merits. But the Roman Church as a visible body, or what he calls ‘the Romish hierarchy’, is dealt with as ‘the third possible Church, the Church of Antichrist’. Coleridge maintains that a too-conciliatory attitude is held by the Church of England towards the Church of Rome. Cobbett was convinced that Catholic Emancipation in Ireland was bound up with the economic question.
