201., with one of 50l. to his widow. Miss Eliza Meteyard, author of the 'Life of Wedgwood,' and other works published under the name of 'Silverpen.' Pensions of 507. Mrs. Turnbull, sister of Dr. Leyden, the Orientalist, in consideration of his literary merits.' The widow of Dr. Glen, for his services to Biblical literature, by translating, while a missionary in the East, the Old Testament into Persian. The widow and daughter of Mr. Joseph Train, ‘in consideration of his personal services to literature, and of the valuable aid derived by Sir Walter Scott from his antiquarian and literary researches.' The widow of Mr. James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, with 40l. to his daughter at her mother's death. Mrs. Lee (widow of Mr. T. E. Bowdich, the African traveller, author of An Account of the Mission to Ashantee'), 'in consideration of her contributions to literature' as the author of 'Memoirs of Baron Cuvier' and of various works on Natural History. Mr. John D'Alton, in consideration of his contributions to the history, topography, and statistics of Ireland.' Miss Thomasine Ross, 'in consideration of her literary merits.' Dr. John O'Donovan, for his valuable contributions to ancient Irish literature and philology, with one of the same amount to his widow. Mr. Charles Swain, in consideration of his literary merits.' The widow of Rev. Robert Montgomery, author of 'The Omnipresence of the Deity,' 'Satan,' and other works. Mr. Francis Davis, for his contributions to Irish literature. Mr. John Bolton Rogerson, of Manchester, author of Rhyme, Romance, and Revelry.' Mr. Thomas Roscoe, editor of the Landscape Annual,' and translator of Benvenuto Cellini, Sismondi, and Lanzi. Mr. John Wade, author of 'British History chronologically arranged,' in consideration of 'his contributions to political literature, more especially during the time of the Reform Bill of 1832. The widow of Mr. John Leaf, of Friskney, near Boston, author of 'Biographic Portraitures,' and of numerous contributions to the periodicals published by Messrs. Chambers, of Edinburgh. Mr. Henry Laing, 'in consideration of his services to the study of Scotch antiquities and Scotch historical research.' Mrs. Lucy Sherrard Finley, 'in consideration of her services to literature.' Pensions of 40%. author of Memories, a Pastoral Poem,' and editor of the Middlesex Chronicle,' a local paper published at Hounslow. Mr. Robert Young, in recognition of his services as an historical and agricultural poet in Ireland.' Pensions of 301. Mr. Alexander Maclagan, in consideration of his literary merits.' Miss Julia Tilt, author of five novels. Pension of 251. Mr. Joseph Hayden, author of 'The Dictionary of Dates,' with four successive grants of 251. each to his more fortunate widow. Pension of 201. The daughter of Dr. Robert Bisset, LL.D., author of "The Life of Burke,' and 'The History of the Reign of George III,' granted sixty years after her father's death. No one who knows what English literature has been during the reign of our present Queen, and how vast have been the numbers of those who have made it their profession, can read the names of these pensioners without a feeling of disappointment. No Minister, if called upon to select 166 persons, from the writers of both sexes, who, by their literary attainments during the last thirty-two years, have merited, in the words of the House of Commons' resolution, the gratitude of their country,' would consider that he had fulfilled what the same resolution calls his bounden duty' by making such a selection. It is, no doubt, one of the evils of having to apportion annually among so many classes of literary applicants a part only of the fixed sum of 1200, that the Minister is precluded from taking a more discriminating view of the claims before him, to say nothing of those which may have been left to him as a legacy by his predecessorassuming that the latter claims are not set aside or forgotten on each change of administration. The small amount, also, which remains after the best cases have been provided for, frequently compels a Minister to assign inadequate pensions to claims with which he would willingly deal in a more liberal spirit if he had a larger margin at his disposal, or induces him to bestow petty sums on inferior writers, on whom, under other circumstances, he would never dream of conferring pensions, however small. This is the only excuse that can be offered for granting of pensions to writers of whose productions men of letters hear for the first time when the annual return to Parliament is published. Authors of books which have never commanded a sufficient sale to defray the cost The daughter of Mr. John Banim, the Irish novelist, in consideration of his suffering under severe illness, which has deprived him of reason,' with one of 50%. to the widow at his death. Mr. Benjamin Thorpe, in addition to one of 1607. granted in the last reign, for his contributions to Anglo-Saxon literature. The widow of Mr. James Kenney, author of 'Sweethearts and Wives,' Raising the Wind,' and numerous other dramas, with one of the same amount to his two daughters at the mother's death. Mr. Henry John Doogood, a parliamentary reporter, author of "The Coming Day,' of printing, or which, if once read, will never and other poems. Mr. George Thomas Tho-be read again, are not the persons who can mason, formerly a printer in Thames Street, be considered as having 'deserved the grati turns before us, which show that of the 385 pensions granted since her Majesty's accession, nearly a quarter were made to Scotchmen, nearly a fifth to Irishmen, and only two to Welshmen; and these were not men of letters, but two tradesmen of Newport, who were pensioned for their loyalty in assisting the late Sir Thomas Phillips in suppressing the Chartist riots in that town. เ tude of their country;' while others who may have more pretensions to attainments in literature,' secure a more profitable return from the Minister who pensions them, than they are ever likely to obtain from the reading public, because a few years' payment of the pensions will more than realise the full value of their copyrights, assuming that, in the judgment of publishers, they have any value at all. There are, of course, some The sixth and last class is that of Attainsignal exceptions. Every one will recognise, ments in the Arts,' which appears to have among the names we have recorded, those found so little favour in the eyes of succesof men whose genius has enriched literature sive Ministers, that the total amount granted with works which will live as long as the to it during the present reign has been less English language itself; others who have than one-sixth of that granted to Public Serperformed good and honourable service in vices, and little more than one-seventh of fields of thought not calculated to com- that granted to Literature. Of the 19 penmand large pecuniary results; others who sions of which this class consists, one of have spent their lives in researches of which 2007. was granted to Lady Shee, widow the full value will be reaped only by poster- of President Sir Martin Archer Shee, with ity. Such men have earned a right to look one of 200l. to his three daughters on their to the nation for their recompense, and it is mother's death; one of 3007. to Lady Eastdue to the nation to say that it has never lake, widow of President Sir Charles Lock grudged them a generous acknowledgment. Eastlake; one of 150l. to Mr. Richard CocIn honouring such claims the Minister kle Lucas, in consideration of his merits as honours himself; and the only regret that an artist, and for presenting some valuable has ever been expressed in regard to them ivory carvings and antiquities to the South has arisen from the feeling that the pensions Kensington Museum;' pensions of 100%. each assigned to them have, in many cases, been to the widow of Mrs. Welby Pugin, the archiinadequate to their deserts. This feeling tect; to the widow of Mr. John Hogan, the will be understood by comparing the Irish sculptor; to the widow of Mr. Cross, the amounts granted in the various classes of painter; to Mr. George Thomas Doo, F.R.S., literature: a process which will at once prove, the line-engraver; to the widow of Mr. if proof were needed, that the grants have George H. Thomas, the artist, and to the not been made on any principle of compa- widow of Mr. John Leech, the artist of rative merit. This will be especially observ-Punch,' with subsequent pensions of 501. able in the classes of the historians, travellers, translators, novelists, and poets, to some of whom pensions have been given as much below the merits of their work as those which have been given to others have been beyond them. In no other way can we account for one historian receiving three times as much as another of far more learning and research, or one novelist receiving five times as much as another of much greater genius and inventive power. As to the poets, the petty sums granted to mere poetasters have simply vested money which might have promoted the comfort and rewarded the talent of men of real eminence, who would rather submit to the proverbial vicissitudes of a literary career than lose caste by accepting an inadequate pension from the State. Another question suggested by an examination of the names of the literary pensioners relates to their nationality. It has frequently been asserted by the Welsh journals that no author born in the Principality ever succeeded in obtaining a pension on the Civil List. So far as the present reign is concerned, the question is settled by the re each to his son and his daughter; a pension of 951. to Mr. George Cruikshank, the caricaturist; a pension of 80l. to Mr. Kenny Meadows, the illustrator of Shakespeare; pensions of 751. to the widow of Mr. W. H. Bartlett, the illustrator of various works of home and foreign scenery; and to Mr. John Burnet, the line engraver; pensions of 507. to the widow of Mr. Benjamin Robert Haydon, the historical painter; to the three daughters of Mr. Archer, in consideration of his valuable contributions to the science of photography;' and to Mr. John Hayter, the portrait painter. If we were to draw from these names and figures the inference that artists have been in easier circumstances than men of literature and science, we fear that the inference would be contradicted by the facts; and we may therefore presume that they have been more modest in the assertion of their claims, unless indeed we are to conclude, what for every reason we are unwilling to do, that Ministers have been more deaf to their appeals than they have been to those of others. In conclusion, we venture to make a few suggestions as to the future management of the Pension List. In the first place, we would remind all Ministers, present and to come, of the resolution of the House of Commons passed in 1834, which expressly declared it to be the bounden duty of the responsible advisers of the Crown to recommend grants of pensions to such persons only as have merited the gracious consideration of their Sovereign and the gratitude of their country. If these sentences could be kept before the eyes of every Minister, when he sits down in future to make his annual selection of pensioners, there would be fewer mistakes on his part, and there would be more ground for Mr. Disraeli's opinion, expressed in the discussion which took place in the House of Commons on the 23rd of March, 1867, in reference to the pension which had been granted to Mr. Robert Young, that 'the pensions which have been granted to the claims of literature and science have, on the whole, been given with good taste and discretion by the Government of the country, to whatever party they belonged.' In the second place, it is clear that, if the mistakes which have occurred in granting pensions to recipients unworthy of them are to be avoided for the future, more care must be taken in the preliminary investigation of claims. The Minister must rely not only on the recommendatory signatures attached to the petitions, but must seek information from independent sources. It would also be an additional and important security against error if the grant of pensions were made the act of a Cabinet Committee, with the condition that no grant should be made unless the Committee were unanimous. When George IV. charged his Privy Purse with the sum of 1000l. a year for the purpose of giving pensions of 100l. to ten literary men of eminence, he placed the money in the hands of the President and Council of the Royal Society of Literature, in the belief that an independent body of gentlemen of literary tastes would be better able to make a just selection than any single individual, however eminent. This trust was performed for many years to the entire satisfaction of the royal donor and of the pensioners themselves, who felt honoured by having their names announced as the Royal Associates' of the Society. That they were not unworthy of the distinction may be seen from the names of the associates first elected, who were the poet Coleridge, the Rev. Edward Davies, the Rev. Dr. Jamieson, Mr. Malthus, Mr. Mathias, Mr. Millingen, Sir William Ouseley, Mr. Roscoe, Archdeacon Todd, and Mr. Sharon Turner. The necessity of obtaining more information than is likely to be given to a Minister by the applicant himself, is proved by a late narrow escape from the mistake of granting a pension to a fellow of a learned society,' who was better known to the Mendicity Society than to the Treasury. It was announced in a semi-official paragraph in the 'Times' that a pension of 751. had been granted to this individual, who was only thirty-one years of age, and of the smallest pretensions on the score of literature; but the announcement having led to inquiry, the result of which was unsatisfactory, the intended pension was revoked. 96 In the third place, we are inclined to think that no pensions should be granted of a less amount than 100l. It may, probably, be urged in defence of small pensions that they have been granted as much to distress as to merit. That this has really been the case, is shown by the numerous entries of such phrases as 'destitute circumstances, impoverished condition,' 'distressing position, scanty means,' &c. But there is nothing either in the Act of Parliament itself, or in the resolution of the House of Commons, defining the persons to whom the pensions are to be granted, which refers, directly or indirectly, to distressed circumstances. The minor pensions are too small for those who have really merited the gracious consideration of their Sovereign and the gratitude of their country.' All claims which do not commend themselves to consideration in strict accordance with these words of the resolution of the House of Commons should be reserved for the triennial grants of the Royal Bounty Fund, which is also under the control of the Prime Minister. The elimination of petty cases of small literary pretensions would enable him to give larger pensions to those which have a fair claim to national reward; and men of mark would no longer be humiliated by having their names reported to Parliament as the recipients of sums which are wholly inadequate to their merits, and which may give foreigners an erroneous impression of the value set upon them by the country. Lastly, though poverty without merit constitutes no claim to a pension, we have grave doubts whether a Minister is justified in granting a pension to any person in easy circumstances. It may, no doubt, be assumed that when a man of literary or scientific reputation accepts a pension of 1007, 60, or 50l. a year, the fact of the acceptance may be regarded as an indication of narrow means; but this is not invariably the case, as every one may ascertain for himself by glancing over the list, in which he will recognise the names of many persons of both ART. VI.-St. Paul and Protestantism; with an Introduction on Puritanism and the Church of England. By Matthew Arnold, M.A., LL.D., formerly Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford, and Fellow of Oriel College. London, 1870. sexes whose annual incomes are known to be | liary to the Pension List, and might assist in from five to ten times larger than their pen- rendering it more worthy of the national sions, and who, compared with the great character and of the 'honour and dignity of mass of their literary or scientific contempo- the Crown.' raries, are really in affluent circumstances. This is especially remarkable in some pensions of recent date, which have excited a good deal of jealousy and unfavourable criticism in literary circles, on the ground that, while many deserving applicants in narrow circumstances have been passed over, these fortunate individuals have succeeded in forcing themselves on the notice of the Minister, while surrounded with all the luxuries of life, and in the possession of ample means which ought to have made them unwilling to become a burden upon the State. Having mentioned the Royal Bounty, Fund,' we may observe that as much careful inquiry is demanded in its administration as in the grant of pensions. As the names of the persons assisted by the Minister from this source are not published, it is impossible to give official details, but enough has from time to time become known to show that gross impositions have been practised on the Minister, and that grants have continually been made without any inquiry whatever. Lord Melbourne, on one occasion, made a grant of 3001. from this fund to the author of a few school books, which are now quite obsolete or forgotten. Another Minister gave several grants to persons whose histories are recorded in the begging-letter department of the Mendicity Society; while another awarded 100l. to a man of notoriety at Carlisle, who was afterwards sentenced to penal servitude for forging the name of a noble lord in order to obtain employment in the Abyssinian Expedition; but suspicions having been excited after the grant was made, the character of the applicant was discovered in time to stop the payment of the cheque. In the administration of so large a fund, the same precautions should be taken as are adopted in the Privy Purse department of her Majesty the Queen, of which it may be safely asserted that, under the control of the late Sir Charles Phipps and of his successor, Sir Thomas Biddulph, there has not been in our time a public office more ably managed in this country. Nothing is done in that department without inquiry, and special care is taken to ascertain that widows and orphans are lawfully entitled to describe themselves as such, and to detect the beggingletter class which is continually preying upon society. A few simple rules should be laid down, and strict compliance with them should be enforced. The Royal Bounty Fund might then become an important auxi Ir may be said to be one of the open secrets of our time that great religious changes are impending in England. Among them, of course, are changes in the Church, in its internal polity, and in its relations to the Nonconformist bodies and to the State. Great movements of opinion within it, great political events without, such as the thorough-going application of Cavour's principles and policy in Italy, and the disestablishment of the Irish Church at home, and of almost all branches of the English Church in the colonies, have forced on men's minds the ideas which bring forth ecclesiastical revolutions, and have familiarised them with the possibility of extensive and deep schemes of remodelling. The ground has been moved and shaken about roots which have been almost undisturbed for several generations. These anticipations of change, which to some are not much more than a persuasion or a dim feeling that something new is coming, which to some bring anxious misgivings or inexpressible fear and pain, are to others a subject of eager welcome and hope. To the mass of Liberal thinkers-and there are very Liberal thinkers in the Conservative partythe prospect recommends itself in various ways. To some it opens the way of more complete and final escape from the embarrassments which have come from the political entanglements of religion; to some, a better chance for what they think larger and worthier ideas of religion; and as there are in the Liberal party elements not only of anti-ecclesiastical but of anti-religious policy and enthusiasm, there are some who hail it as likely to cripple, if not to neutralise, a powerful but irrational and noxious influence in society and legislation. The Nonconformists, as a body, are naturally excited at seeing things brought into serious question in a practical way, about which their complaints, their charges, and their arguments have been for a long time little heeded; they are elated at finding how much their weight has told in the decision of important politi cal conflicts; and no one has a right to wonder at their triumph over the apparently approaching destruction of what they have so long and intensely wished to destroy, even if it is not to be destroyed for the reasons which have made them wish to destroy it. Within the Church, the various influences which at previous times told against separation from the State and, against internal changes, have been greatly affected by the course of thought and by the events of the last thirty years. Changes in the balance of political and religious parties, in the ideas of government, in legislation, in doctrinal bias and development; in the character, the activity, the power, the aims of religious leaders; in the fashions and understandings of religious society, all have contributed in their degree, and often on different and opposite grounds, to reconcile many among the warmest and most sincere of churchmen to innovations from which even a few years back they would have shrunk with dismay. The signs of the time portend change in the Church, and facilitate it. They point, also, to the direction which change is likely to take. Engineers tell us that when the periodic times of a ship's roll coincide with the periodic times of the waves in the trough of which she is swaying from side to side, this is the most dangerous time for her: for then the two forces act together, instead of checking one another, in disturbing her stability and balance. There never was a time, probably, in the history of the English Church, since the Reformation, when the impulse towards change from without conspired with such strong impulses towards change from within, which, though of a totally different nature, yet are acting in the same direction. To all minds which feel the interest of religion the momentous question is presenting itself,-What is to be the future of religion in England, as far as religion is affected by the outward framework and visible form under which it lives and acts? These outward conditions in England have been very peculiar. Nothing exactly like it has been known in Christendom. Religion has been organised simultaneously on two different and antagonistic principles, and on both of them organised naturally, strongly, and popularly. The Church principle and system, and the Nonconformist principle and system, have long been, like two nations and two manner of people, struggling in the womb of English Christianity. In varying degrees of strength and prominence; with alternate periods of conflict, aggression, and truce; with many vicissitudes of fortune; with great fluctuations of predominance and repulse, each often checked and thrown back, apparently at the moment when it was most hopeful of triumph-they laid hold of English society before the Reformation, and have disputed the possession of it ever since, as they do now. And the remarkable thing is, that English Society will have both of them. Both of them growing out of tendencies of unknown depth and force, and of indestructible vitality, neither of them has been able to overpower and expel the other; to make England, like France or Spain, the realm of a dominant Church, or, like the United States, a commonwealth of sects. Both of these modes of organising religion have much in common, as they both belong to English religion, which stands in sharp contrast with the different types of Continental religion. Both of them, besides their secondary differences, have points of affinity and sympathy which vary and alter in the progress of time, but which may, at any particular moment, create confusing and misleading appearances of resemblance. But they are essentially separated by a great gulf, The basis on which one rests is a public one, that on which the other rests is a private one. In contrast with the Church-quite apart from the position of the Church on the Statute-Book-every Nonconformist body, from the smallest and youngest company of Free Christians to the imposing organisations of the Methodists and Congregationalists, is a private association, the growth of private ideas and private wants, and exclusively and without challenge in its own hands and in its own power. This is just what cannot be said of the Church. It did not make itself. It could not, if it would, unmake itself. It declines, in the most peremptory way, any dependence on individuals; it rejects impatiently individual pressure; it will have nothing to do with private ideas, private doctrines, private claims. It is anything but co-extensive with the nation; yet the thought which inspires and guides it is nothing less than a national one. The one order is historical, inherited, continuous with the past, keeping in company, in troubled times and smooth, with the life and range of the nation. The other, in all its manifold shapes, starts in each instance from a fresh basis of change, reform, protest. To improve, it makes a breach; to build aright, it pulls down and clears the ground; and that which it has done on its own responsibility in order to begin its career, of course may be, and in the lapse of time is likely to be, done to it. It is the enterprise of private men. It may be right, it may be based on truth, it may be commended by imperious necessity, it may be a revival of primitive ideas and practices, it may be a return to real Christianity, and |