usually strong expostulations, and the most convincing arguments and satisfactory statements from some of the best writers and most respectable and learned churchmen that we have. From the mass of their discussions we shall extract what relates to a few more striking points. "The worst feature," says Mr. Benson," of the Commissioners' Reports is yet behind. I allude to the proposition to transfer to the Bishops a large proportion of the patronage which was bestowed upon Deans and Chapters by the free bounty of their founders. The claim for this transfer can be built only on some supposed improprieties in the exercise of the confiscated patronage, and on the increased probability of its being more correctly administered by Episcopal hands. An inquiry into the respective merits or demerits of Bishops and Chapters as Patrons is thus forced upon our notice. I enter on it reluctantly, and in vindication of the body to which I belong. It is admitted by the Commissioners in their first and third Reports, that the patronage of Bishops is placed in their hands as a means of rewarding laborious and deserving clergymen. How far has this rule been observed by the Bishops? The list of incumbents shows that a very great number of livings have been conferred by Bishops upon their own children, relations, and friends, when they had any. Is it unfair then to conclude, that in these instances the claims of nature, the ties of blood, and the feelings of friendship had as much influence in the selection of incumbents, as the labours and merits of the clergymen preferred? It ever has been, it ever will be thus, both with ecclesiastical bodies and individuals as patrons. Nay, an Act which was in "The revenues of St. Asaph, in the time of Luxmore, were worth at least 12,000. a-year, and the parishes belonging to his relatives were worth at least 15,000l. a-year more. This family still possesses, in church property, in the dioceses of St. Asaph and Hereford, 10,7661. a-year. The French Revolution is said to have been chiefly brought about by the profusion of the Court. What was the profusion of the French Court in comparison with this? And was Bishop Luxmore at all remarkable, or ever heard of, for piety, zeal, for learning, for genius? Here, however, is a family in possession of 27,0001. a-year, arising from the English Church!! a larger sum than was enjoyed at the same epoch by all the admirals and commanders who fought under Nelson and served our country. The amount of half a year's income of this princely revenue has not been distributed among all the Poets and Historians and Philosophers of England, since the invasion of Julius Cæsar."-See Letters of a Conservative to Lord Melbourne, p. 91. Again, "All the learned men of the most learned nation upon earth, in all its universities, in all departments of its administration (for, strange to say, learned men and men of the most extensive information are admitted even there) did not divide among them so large an income as a Luxmore or a Magendie, successive bishops of St. Asaph: two personages who could hardly read the Testament in GREEK, and not at all in Welsh; in which, if they had done their duty, they had to examine young clergymen, who were to read it and expound it in that language. The minerals of one parish belonging to this diocese, have produced to the Bishop, in a single year, 3000l. The parish is Diserth. Hæc videbis et feres? The most exemplary and zealous curate of this parish, Mr. George Strong, received from his rector, the bishop, 757. a-year, out of which he established a school at his own expense, to which the Bishop refused a subscription of five guineas. He paid another curate for his own parish, where his presence was less necessary, for the reformation and instruction of the people, out of this sum, and the Bishop told him he ought to pay more !!"-See Ditto, pp. 39, 40. Had Mr. Landor referred to Dr. King's Memoirs of his Own Time, p. 183, he would have seen other instances of Episcopal fortunes:"I know nothing that has brought so great a reproach on the Church of England, as the avarice and ambition of our Bishops. Chandler, Willes, Potter, Gibson, Sherlock, all died shamefully rich, some of them worth more than 100,000l. I must add to these Gilbert Archbishop of York. G. Burnet left his children nothing but their mother's fortune. He always declared that he should think himself guilty of the greatest crime, if he were to raise fortunes for his children out of the revenues of his bishopric," &c. Now is it not most inconsistent, that while Episcopal wealth is allowed by a churchman, Dr. King, to be the greatest reproach to the church; while another dignified churchman, S. Smith, says the incomes of the bishops and archbishops are exorbitantly and absurdly great; that the first step of the Reform-commission is to add to this large patronage, while nothing whatever has been done for the body of the clergy? troduced by Archbishop Sutton seems to sanction the preference of relations to all other men. It legalizes a bond of resignation in favour of any one special nominee; not only so, it legalizes such a bond in favour of two special nominees when each of them is connected with the patron, either by blood or marriage, within certain degrees. Even in late years I have known cases where, when a clergyman unconnected with a bishop was promoted to an important station in the church, some happy coincidence introduced a near connexion of the bishop into the vacated benefice. I know that in one of these cases, there was a previous arrangement of the whole transaction. But the appointments referred to have proved most satisfactory to the public and beneficial to religion and the church, I do not therefore introduce these cases for the purpose of condemnation, but for the purpose of affirming, that after a ten years' connexion with one Chapter, I never knew patronage to be exercised in a manner so objectionable, if objectionable it be, as that which I have just detailed. So far, then, as my own experience goes, I feel that there is no greater impurity in the mode of administering church patronage, no greater purity in administering that of Bishops, to justify the transfer of it from the one to the other. * * * Suppose, however, that the Chapters have been so corrupt, as to deserve a forfeiture of their patronage, yet it may be asked, in the case of Worcester at least, what possible claim the Bishop of the diocese can have to be invested with the forfeiture? He has no interest whatever in Chapter possessions; he loses nothing by the proposed changes, and he has no right therefore to benefit by those changes at the expense of the body to whom the patronage legally belongs. The Crown is there the only sufferer by the proposed suppression of the stalls. The Crown, therefore, in all equity has the claim for compensation. And after the first Report of the Commissioners had spoken of the Bishops OR the Crown being made partakers of the forfeited livings, the utter forgetfulness of the Crown, and perpetual remembrance of the Bishops, which may be observed in all subsequent propositions, is surprising. It cannot indeed be just towards the legitimate influence of the Crown; it cannot be expedient for the maintenance of that true religion which is taught and upheld by the Established Church, to diminish to so large an extent the interest which the Government of the country has in its support, by suppressing without compensation so many of the Stalls in the Royal Patronage. I ask not then that the Dean and Chapter should obtain, through these changes, an increase of their power to provide for others. I ask only that the Crown, which is injured, should be recompensed, and that the Chapter should not be stigmatized as corrupt in its patronage; and the accusation be made subservient to the gain of the Bishop, who has been no loser by the reform. If it be alleged that these forfeited livings are to be conferred only on Curates and Incumbents, I would enquire why it is necessary that the patronage should be transferred to the Bishop for that purpose, and the Chapter be deprived of the gracious office of disposing of its own preferment. Could not the Dean and Prebendaries confer a favour upon a Curate or Incumbent of six years standing? Nay more, could they not have been required to consider in all cases something of far more importance than time, I mean testimonials to character and conduct. It would, also, have been quite as reasonable, and more equitable, had some portion of the patronage of the Bishops themselves been irrevocably appropri ated to this purpose of rewarding curates and incumbents, instead of leaving the whole of it in their uncontrolled power to bestow as they may please, and spoiling others to furnish them with the means of satisfying the claims of the clergy. Such an idea, On the possible effect of the suppression of stalls, on the future election of Bishops, see the Memorial of the Chapter of Worcester. + Certainly, the assurance with which this proposition has been advanced, is most startling; to say nothing of bad means not justifying good ends, what probability is there, that patronage in the hands of a Bishop should be more purely and conscienciously bestowed than in any other? What proofs from experience? Let the diocese of Winchester, under Bishop North, respond. Let Ely, under its last possessor. With such and other examples before them, to hold out such a pretence for robbery of the Chapters, is to realize the picture in the old emblem-book of the wolfbishop in a hood of lambs-fur, and to shake all confidence in the integrity of the purpose." Dolus ipse, nefasque hac mercede placeat."-Yet the Commission (4th Report) says "It is to the Bishop that the clergy of the diocese naturally look for encouragement and reward; and it is on every account desirable that the connexion between them should be strengthened by all possible means:"-i. e. by taking the however, seems never to have been entertained, even with regard to patronage which might most properly have been subjected to this limitation. In the dioceses of London and Bristol, funds are raising for the erection of many new churches. The disposal of these it has been proposed to vest in the Bishops, without any restriction to Curates or Incumbents of meritorious character. Yet if, in any case, the principle is expedient, there could have been none more proper for its introduction than the creation of a number of new benefices, which being formed by the voluntary contribution of the public, might with great consistency have been exclu sively employed as rewards for the deserving. At any rate it would have been much more fitting to have introduced the principle on such an occasion, than to commit an act of spoliation upon other and independent bodies for that purpose. With one further remark, I will quit this unpleasant subject. If the plan of giving to Bishops the Chapter preferment for the reward of Curates be persevered in, it is to be feared that it may lead Bishops to look upon the rest of their patronage as free from such an incumbrance, and more exclusively their own, to deal with at the pleasure of their private friends." We do not know any one anxious for the prevalence of truth, and for the promotion of the best efforts working on the soundest principles, who will not acknowledge the force, the justice, the temperate propriety of this reasoning to our minds it is unanswerable. But is it received and supported by others placed in a situation similar to that of Mr. Benson? Let us hear what Mr. Smith, a Canon of St. Paul's, says: "There is an awkward passage in the Memorial of the Church of Canterbury, which deserves some consideration from him to whom it is directed. The Archbishop of Canterbury, at his consecration, takes a solemn oath that he will maintain the rights and liberties of the Church of Canterbury. As chairman, however, of the New Commission he seizes the patronage of that church, takes two-thirds of its revenues, and abolishes two-thirds of its members. That there is an answer to this I am very willing to believe, but I cannot at present find out what it is. And this attack upon the revenues, and members of Canterbury, is not obedience to an Act of Pariament, but the very Act of Parliament which takes away, is recommended, drawn up, and signed by the person who has sworn he will never take away and this little apparent inconsistency is not confined to the Archbishop of Canterbury, but is shared equally by all the Bishop Commissioners, who have all (unless I am grievously mistaken) taken similar oaths for the preservation of their respective Chapters. It would be more easy to see our way out of this little embarrassment, if some of the embarrassed had not, unfortunately, in the Parliamentary debates on the Catholic Question, laid the greatest stress upon the King's oath, applauded the sanctity of the Monarch to the skies, rejected all comments, called for the Oath in its plain meaning, and attributed the safety of the English Church to the solemn vow made by the King at the altar to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and the other Bishops. I should be very sorry if this were not placed on a clear footing, as fools will be imputing to our Church the pia et religiosa calliditas, which is so commonly brought against the Catholics," &c. Mr. Smith next addresses himself to the question of the manner in which this new mass of patronage, taken by the Bishops from the Chapters, will be dealt with by them; and of this, the judgment of the future must fairly be formed on that of the past- Il faut prendre les souvenirs pour les esperances.' Then comes the question of Patronage: "Can anything be more flagrantly unjust, than that the patronage of cathedrals should be taken away and conferred upon Bishops? I do not mean to go into a long and tiresome history of episcopal nepotism, but it is notorious to all, that Bishops confer their patronage upon their sons, and sons-in-law, and all their relations; and it is really quite monstrous in the face of the world, who see this every day and every hour, to turn round upon Deans and Chapters, and say to them- patronage of the Chapters. Dr. Wordsworth calculates" that the whole increase of preferments to the Bishops will be nearly a thousand (v. p. 62); as if the Bishops had not enough before wherewith to reward the clergy, if they chose. 'We are credibly informed that there are instances in your Chapters where preferment has not been given to the most learned men you can find, but to the sons and brothers of some of the Prebendaries. These things must not be; we must take these benefices into our own keeping.' And this the language of men swarming themselves with sons and daughters, and who, in enumerating the advantages of their stations, have always spoken of the opportunities of providing for their families as the greatest and most important. It is, I admit, the duty of every man, and of every body, to present the best man that can be found to any living of which he is the patron; but if this duty has been neglected, it has been neglected by Bishops quite as much as by Chapters; and no man can open the Clerical Guide, and read two pages of it, without seeing that the Bench of Bishops are the last persons from whom any remedy of this evil is to be expected. . . Justice is not changed by the magnitude, or the minuteness of the subject. The old cathedrals have enjoyed their patronage for 700 years, and the new ones since the time of Henry the Eighth, which latter period even gives a much longer possession than ninety-nine out of a hundred of the legislators who are called upon to plunder us, can boast of for their own estates. And these rights, thus sanctioned and hallowed by time, are torn from their present possessors, without the least warning or preparation, in the midst of all that fever of change which has seized upon the people, and which frightens men to the core of their hearts: and this spoliation is made, not by low men rushing into the plunder of the Church and State, but by men of admirable and unimpeached character in all the relations of life!-not by rash men of new politics, but by the ancient conservators of ancient laws!by the Archbishops and Bishops of the Land!-high official men, invested and created and put in palaces to curb the lawless changes, and the mutations and madness of mankind; and, to crown the whole, the ludicrous is added to the unjust, and what they take from the other branches of the Church, they confer on themselves. It may be said that the Bishops will do better in future; that now the public eye is upon them they will be shamed into a more lofty antinepotic spirit; but if the argument of past superiority is given up, and the hope of future amendment resorted to, why may we not improve as well as our masters? But the Commission say, 'These excellent men (meaning themselves), have promised to do better; and we have an implicit confidence in their word; we must have your patronage.' In the mean time, we are ready to promise as well as the Bishops." Mr. S. Smith then shows the great disadvantage of placing preferment almost exclusively in the hands of the Bishop. He first gives the careless casy Bishop who trucks a good living with Lord A― for his grandson's promotion in the Arethusa frigate. Then enters a Bishop, a decided enemy of Calvinism, and his diocese becomes exclusive. The third Bishop can endure no man whose principles are not decidedly Calvinistic. The clergy, meanwhile, are either brought to a dead stand-still, not knowing how to climb the ecclesiastical ladder, or veering round with, and bowing to, their different patrons and diocesans. Then comes a Whig-then a Tory Bishop. "But the worst case is that of a superannuated Bishop. Here the preferment is given away, and must be given away— by wives and daughters, or by sons, and butlers perhaps, or valets, and the poor dying patron's paralytic hand is guided to the signature of papers, the contents of which he is utterly unable to comprehend. In all such cases as these the superiority of Bishops as patrons will not assist that violence which the Commissioners have committed upon the patronage of Cathedrals." Certainly, the superannuated Bishop is bad enough; yet probably his daughters and valets would insist on a belief in the Thirty-nine Articles, * No doubt but many very pretty and laudable compliments on the character of the Canons and Prebendaries passed between the Commissioners, while their hands were in the pockets of their brethren; but some how or other they always ended in the same manner, as the praise which the fox gave to the wolf, on the character of the hare, and then, my Lord Wolf, its flesh is so very sweet!" and the Chaplain would see that the protegé was orthodox; but what should we think of the whole patronage of a diocese in the hands of such a Bishop as the following :* "Dr. Watson, the Bishop of Landaff, talked openly, at his own table, as a Socinian ridiculed the miracles of the New Testament which he professed to explain as so many chemical tricks, or cases of politic legerdemain! and certainly he had as little of devotional feeling as any man that ever lived. It is by comparison a matter of little consequence that in his spiritual integrity, so little regarding the Church of which he called himself a member, he should, in his temporal interests, have been ready to lay her open to any assaults from almost any quarter. All his public, all his professional duties, he systematically neglected. He was a Lord in Parliament, and for many a year he never attended in his place; he was a Bishop, and he scarcely knew any part of his diocese by sight, living three hundred miles away from it. He was a Professor of Divinity; he held the richest professorship in Europe, the weightiest for its functions in England; he drew, by his own admission, a thousand per annum from its endowments, and for thirty years he never read a lecture, or performed a public exercise.--Spheres, how vast of usefulness to a man as able as himself!Subjects, of what bitter anguish on the death-bed of one who had been tenderly alive to his own duties !" Now what has been, may be again, and at any rate, it would not be a very necessary or salutary act of reform, to take the preferment of a diocese from the Canons of a cathedral, to concentrate it in the hands, or place it under the control, of an heresiarch like this. But we grieve to find other charges of a most grave and astounding nature advanced in some of the pamphlets which cover our table, and which, we lament to say, have been called out by this unfortunate Commission :-The author of Tremaine,' in his last work, 'Illustrations of Human Life,' makes one of his characters say " All pamphlets are lies!" If so, so much the better for those on whom they auimadvert; if not, the facts must rest on the authority of Mr. W. S. Landor, and not on our own and if true, we must reluctantly say, that we think the preferment of the Church better where it is at any rate, as in both cases some mistake may probably exist in public opinion, which, if explained, will exculpate the parties accused from any injustice or impropriety; we give them in Mr. Landor's words:† "There are few men less amused than I am in listening to gossip; few, I believe, are less disposed to be invidious or personal in their observations. But unless we mention names occasionally we shall not be attended to; and unless we make haste, we shall not be in time to arrest the trickery of the Bishops. An Act of Parliament was procured, under false pretences, by a couple of them, Beadon and Law, successive diocesans of Bath and Wells, by which the Church of which they were trustees and guardians, was thrown down and robbed. Facts connected with this gagging and violation, were circumstantially brought forward in the Chronicle of January 15, 1836. The brethren of the two Fathers, are fuming like dunghills on a frosty morning: but it cannot suspend or abate the wholesome * See Tait's Magazine, No. X. Nov. 1834, p. 687. Article on Coleridge, by the English Opium Eater (Mr. Dequincy). This opinion of Dr. Watson's No-creed, is not peculiar to Mr. Dequincy. We see Mr. W. S. Landor saying, "My firm belief is, that the people of England, if they are to have Bishops, would just as willingly see in that station what they are used to call Christians, as any other description of persons. Exceptions may be made in favour of some extraordinary men; for example, such as Watson,' &c. p. 41. This injured diocese has however received a full moral compensation for former grievances, in their present Bishop. + See Letter to Lord Melbourne by a Conservative, p. 72-3. Mr. W. S. Landor stands high as a scholar, a man of genius, and a gentleman of independence. There is no doubting his belief of the charge-and yet who can credit its truth? In the late Review in the Quarterly, of Mr. Landor's Collected Works (No. cxv.), this pamphlet was omitted-[quære, for what reason? for it is clear the Reviewer knew of it: and it is the only work of Mr. Landor's not mentioned. |