There was a meeting at Edinburgh on Wedneiday. the Marquis
of TWEEDDALE in the chair, for the purpose of forming a Protestant Association. The Reverend Mr. CUNNINGHAM was one of the prin. cipal orators : he accused the Papists of " speaking lies in hypocrisy," and uttered a great deal of clerical calumny against them. Not content, however, with general vituperation, Mr. CUNNINGHAM incautiously committed himself by stating falsehoods respecting individuals who were prepared to contradict him- " The meeting, he said, all knew a work entitled the Encyclopedia Brims. niers, and that a new edition of it had recently begun here, and Wig now in course of periodical publication in parts. At the time this new edition was commenced, certain Papists sent from Ireland a communication to the publisher, stating that unless he allowed them to revise and correct all articles in it con- nected with, or that had a reference to Popery, they would exert all their in- fluence to prevent the circulation of the work in that country. Ile referred to this as a striking illustration of the zeal of the Catholics in maintaining and promulgating their religion. His argument had nothing to do with the recep- tion which this application met with, but he believed that some concession or compromise was in consequence made by the proprietors of the work ; and he could himself positively say, for he was a subscriber to it, that in this new edi- tion there were plain traces to be discovered of Popish influence in altering cer- tain at ticles from the way in which they void in the former edition."
The publishers of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Messrs. ADAM and CHARLES BLACK, lost no time in publicly delaring that Mr. Cos- NINGIIAWS statement was "a piece of pure fabrication from beginning to end ;" and that they had the authority of the editor, Professor NAPIER, for asserting, that "no Catholic ever wrote, or revised, or suggested a single article in the Encyclopedia Britannica." They also intimate that the proprietors will take other steps to protect their pro- perty from this unwarrantable attack. So the reverend polemic seems to have got himself into what the Times elegantly calls "u confounded hobble "—the worst of all scrapes for a coiner or an utterer of falsehoods —a fair opportunity of prociny the truth of his statements.
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