have received a reward to which I was not entitled.* prayers he asked, had been a little more sparing in the abuse of his enemies; but a good deal must be forgiven to the sick. I wish that every Christian was as well aware as this poor Bishop of what he needed from Divine assistance; and in the supplication for the restoration of his sight and the improvement of his understanding, I most fervently and cor I presume that what has drawn upon me the indignation of this Prelate, is the observations I have from time to time made on the conduct of the Commissioners; of which he positively asserts himself to have been a member; but whether he was, or was not a member, I utterly acquit him of all possible blame, and of every species of imputa-dially join. tion which may attach to the conduct I was much amused with what old of the Commission. In using that Hermann* says of the Bishop of word, I have always meant the Arch- London's Eschylus. "We find," he bishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of says, "a great arbitrariness of proLondon, and Lord John Russell; and ceeding, and much boldness of innovahave, honestly speaking, given no tion, guided by no sure principle;" here more heed to the Bishop of Gloucester, it is: qualis ab incepto. He begins than if he had been sitting in a Com- with Eschylus, and ends with the mission of Bonzes in the Court of Pekin. Church of England; begins with proTo read, however, his Lordship a fane and ends with holy innovationslesson of good manners, I had prepared scratching out old readings which every for him a chastisement which would commentator had sanctioned; abolishhave been echoed from the Seagrave ing ecclesiastical dignities which every who banqueteth in the castle, to the reformer had spared; thrusting an anaidiot who spitteth over the bridge at past into a verse, which will not bear Gloucester; but the following appeal it; and intruding a Canon into a struck my eye, and stopped my pen: Cathedral, which does not want it; "Since that time my inadequate quali and this is the Prelate by whom the fications have sustained an appalling proposed reform of the Church has diminution by the affection of my eyes, been principally planned, and to whose which have impaired my vision, and practical wisdom the Legislature is the progress of which threatens to con- called upon to defer. The Bishop of sign me to darkness: I beg the benefit London is a man of very great ability, of your prayers to the Father of all humane, placable, generous, munifimercies, that he will restore to me the cent; very agreeable, but not to be better use of the visual organs, to be trusted with great interests where employed on his service; or that he calmness and judgment are required; will inwardly illumine the intellectual unfortunately, my old and amiable vision, with a particle of that Divine school-fellow, the Archbishop of Canray, which his Holy Spirit can alone terbury, has melted away before him, impart." and sacrificed that wisdom on which we all founded our security. It might have been better taste, perhaps, if a mitred invalid, in describing his bodily infirmities before a church full of Clergymen, whose * I understand that the Bishop bursts into tears every now and then, and says that I have set him the name of Simon, and that all the Bishops now call him Simon. Simon of Gloucester, however, after all, is a real writer, and how could I know that Dr. Monk's name was Simon? When tutor in Lord Carrington's family, he was called by the endearing though somewhat unmajestic name of Dick; and if I had thought about his name at all, I should have called him Richard of Gloucester. Much writing and much talking are very tiresome; and, above all, they are so to men who, living in the world, arrive at those rapid and just conclusions which are only to be made by living in the world. This bill past, every man of sense acquainted with human affairs must see, that as far as the Church is concerned, the * Ueber die Behandlung der Griechischen Dichter bei den Engländern. Von Gottfried Hermann. Wiemar Jahrbucher, vol. liv. 1831. thing is at an end. From Lord John | after degradation. The Church is Russell, the present improver of the gone, and what remains is not life, Church, we shall descend to Hume, but sickness, spasm, and struggle. from Hume to Roebuck, and after Whatever happens, I am not to Roebuck we shall receive our last im- blame; I have fought my fight. provements from Dr. Wade: plunder Farewell. will follow after plunder, degradation SYDNEY SMITH. MY LORD, THOUGH, upon the whole, your Residence and Plurality Bill is a good Bill, and although I think it (thanks to your kind attention to the suggestions of various Clergymen) a much better Bill than that of last year, there are still some important defects in it, which deserve amendment and correction. Page 13. Sect. 31.—It would seem, from this Section, that the repairs are to depend upon the will of the Bishop and not upon the present law of the land. A Bishop enters into the house of a nonresident Clergyman, and finds it neither papered, nor painted-he orders these decorative repairs. In the meantime the Court of Queen's Bench have decided that substantial repairs only, and not decorative repairs, can be recovered by an Incumbent from his predecessor: the following words should be added: "Provided always, that no other repairs shall be required by the Bishop, than such as any Incumbent could recover as dilapidations from the person preceding him in the said Benefice." Page 19: Sect. 42.-Incumbents are to answer questions transmitted by the Bishop, and these are to be countersigned by the rural Dean. This is another vexation to the numerous cata |logue of vexations entailed upon the rural Clergy. Is every man to go before the rural Dean, twenty or thirty miles off, perhaps? Is he to go through a cross-examination by the rural Dean, as to the minute circumstances of twenty or thirty questions, to enter into reasonings upon them, and to produce witnesses? This is a most degrading and vexatious enactment, if all this be intended; but if the rural Dean is to believe the assertion of every Clergyman upon his word only, why may not a Bishop do so? and what is gained by the enactment? But the Commissioners seem to have been a set of Noblemen and Gentlemen, who met once a week to see how they could harass the working Clergy, and how they could make everything smooth and pleasing to the Bishops. The clause for holding two Livings, at the interval of ten miles, is perfectly ridiculous. If you are to abolish Pluralities, do it at once, or leave a man only in possession of such Benefices as he can serve himself; and then the distance should be two miles, and not a yard more. But common justice requires that there should be exceptions to your rules. For two hundred years Pluralities, : within certain distances, have been allowed acting under the faith of these laws, Livings have been bought and bequeathed to Clergymen, tenable with other preferments in their possessionupon faith in these laws, men and women have married — educated their children-laid down a certain plan of life, and adopted a certain rate of expense, and ruin comes upon them in a moment, from this thoughtless inattention to existing interests. I know a man whose father dedicated all he had saved in a long life of retail trade, to purchase the next presentation to a living of 800l. per annum, tenable under the old law, with another of 500l. given to the son by his college. The whole of this Clergyman's life and prospects (and he has an immense family of children) are cut to pieces by your Bill. It is a wrong thing, you will say, to hold two Livings; I think it is, but why did not you, the Legislature, find this out fifty years ago? Why did you entice this man into the purchase of Pluralities, by a venerable laxity of two hundred years, and then clap him into gaol from the new virtue of yesterday? Such reforms as these make wisdom and carefulness useless, and turn human life into a mere scramble. sioners, and a salary of 2000l. per annum allotted to him." This would have been honest and manly, to have begun with the great people. But mere tyranny and episcopal malice is not the only evil of this clause, nor the greatest evil. Everybody knows the extreme activity of that part of the English Church which is denominated Evangelical, and their industry in bringing over everybody to their habits of thinking and acting; now see what will happen from the following clause: -"And whenever the population of any Benefice shall amount to 2000, and it shall be made appear to the satisfaction of the Bishop, that a stipend can be provided for the payment of a Curate, by voluntary contribution or otherwise, without charge to the Incumbent, it shall be lawful for the Bishop to require the spiritual person holding the same to nominate a fit person to be licensed as such Curate, whatever may be the annual value of such Benefice; and if in either of the said cases, a fit person shall not be nominated to the Bishop within two months after his requisition for that purpose shall have been delivered to the Incumbent, it shall be lawful for the Bishop to appoint and license a Curate." A clause I worthy of the Vicar of Wrexhill himPage 32. Sect. 69.-There are the self. Now what will happen? The strongest possible objections to this Bishop is a Calvinistic Bishop; wife, clause. The Living is 410l. per annum, children, chaplains, Calvinised up to the population above 2000 - perhaps, the teeth. The serious people of the as is often the case, one third of them parish meet together, and agree to give Dissenters. A Clergyman does his a hundred pounds per annum, if Mr. duty in the most exemplary manner- Wilkinson is appointed. It requires dedicates his life to his parish, from very little knowledge of human nature whence he derives his whole support - to predict, that at the expiration of there is not the shadow of a complaint two months Mr. Wilkinson will be the against him. The Bishop has, by this man; and then the whole parish is torn clause, acquired a right of thrusting a to pieces with jealousies, quarrels, and Curate upon the Rector at the expense comparisons, between the Rector and of a fifth part of his whole fortune. the delightful Wilkinson. The same This, I think, an abominable piece of scene is acted (mutatis mutandis), where tyranny; and it will turn out to be an the Bishop sets his face against Calinexhaustible source of favouritism vinistic principles. The absurdity conand malice. In the Bishops' Bill I sists in suffering the appointment of a have in vain looked for a similar Curate by private subscription; in clause, "That if the population is other words, one Clergyman in a above 800,000, and the income amounts parish by nomination, the other by to 10,000l., an Assistant to the Bishop election; and, in this way, religion may be appointed by the Commis- is brought into contempt by their jealousies and quarrels. Little do you know, my dear Lord, of the state of that country you govern, if you suppose this will not happen. I have now a diocese in my eye where I am positively certain, that in less than six months after the passing of this Bill, there will not be a single parish of 2000 persons, in which you will not find a Subscription Curate, of Evangelical habits, canting and crowing over the regular and established Clergyman of the parish. In the draft of the Fifth Report, upon which I presume your Dean and Chapter Bill is to be founded, I see the rights of patronage are to be conceded to present incumbents. This is very high and honourable conduct in the Commissioners, and such as deserves the warmest thanks of the Clergy; it is always difficult to retract, much more difficult to retract to inferiors; but it is very virtuous to do so when there can be no motive for it but a love of justice. no danger of measures which are sanctioned by the highest Prelates of the Church; but you have chased away the bearers, and taken the Ark into your own possession. Do not forget, however, if you have deviated from the plan of your brother Commissioners, that you have given to them a perfect right to oppose you. character to apply a remedy. Nothing is more easy than to do so. Let the Bishop's Canon have no share in the distribution of the patronage, till after the death of all those who were Residentiaries at the passing of the Bill.* This unfair and wasteful creation of new Canons produces a great and scandalous injustice to St. Paul's and Lincoln, in the distribution of their patronage. The old members of all other Cathedrals will enjoy the benefit of survivorship, till they subside into the magic number of four; up to that point, then, every fresh death will add to the patronage of the remaining old members; but in the Churches of Lincoln and St. Paul's, the old members will immediately have one fifth of their patronage taken away by the creation of a fifth Canon to share it. This injustice and partiality is so monstrous, that the two Prelates in question will Your whole Bill is to be one of re-sce that it is necessary to their own trenchment, and amputation; why add fresh Canons to St. Paul's and Lincoln? Nobody wants them; the Cathedrals go on perfectly well without them, they take away each of them 1500l. or 1600l. per annum, from the fund for the improvement of small Livings; they give, to be sure, a considerable piece of patronage to the Bishops of London and Lincoln, who are Com- Take for your fund only the Nonmissioners, and they preserve a childish Resident Prebends, and leave the numand pattern-like uniformity in Cathe-ber of Resident Prebends as they are, drals. But the first of these motives annexing some of them to poor Livings is corrupt, and the last silly; and with large populations. I am sure therefore they cannot be your motives. You cannot plead the recommendation of the Commission for the creation of these new Canons, for you have flung the Commission overboard; and the Reformers of the Church are no longer Archbishops and Bishops, but Lord John Russell;;-not those persons to whom the Crown has entrusted the task, but Lord Martin Luther, bred and born in our own island, and nourished by the Woburn spoils and confiscations of the Church. The Church is not without friends, but those friends have said there can be Your Dean and Chapter Bill will, I am afraid, cut down the great preferments of the Church too much. this is all (besides the abolition of Pluralities) which ought to be done, and all that would be done, if the Commissioners were to begin de novo from this period, when Bishops have recovered from their fright, Dissenters shrunk into their just dimensions, and the foolish and exaggerated expectations from Reform have vanished away. The great prizes of the Church induce men to carry, and fathers and uncles to send into the Church considerable capitals, and in this way, enable the * All objected to in this paragraph has been granted. Clergy to associate with gentlemen, the Church of England now is a very and to command that respect which, in all countries, and above all in this, depends so much on appearances. Your Bill, abolishing Pluralities, and taking away, at the same time, so many dignities, leaves the Church of England so destitute of great prizes, that, as far as mere emolument has any influence, it will be better to dispense cheese and butter in small quantities to the public, than to enter into the Church. There are admirable men, whose honest and beautiful zeal carries them into the Church without a moment's thought of its emoluments. Such a man combining the manners of a gentleman with the acquirements of a scholar, and the zeal of an Apostle, would overawe mercantile grossness, and extort respect from insolent opulence; but I am talking of average Vicars, mixed natures, and eleven thousand parish Priests. If you divide the great emoluments of the Church into little portions, such as butlers and head gamekeepers receive, you will very soon degrade materially the style and character of the English Clergy. If I were dictator of the Church, as Lord Durham is to be of Canada, I would preserve the Resident, and abolish, for the purposes of a fund, the Non-Resident Prebends. This is the principal and most important alteration in your Dean and Chapter Bill, which it is not too late to make, and for which every temperate and rational man ought to strive. You will, of course, consider me as a defender of abuses. I have all my life been just the contrary, and I remember, with pleasure, thirty years ago, old Lord Stowell saying to me, "Mr. Smith, you would have been a much richer man if you had joined us." I like, my dear Lord, the road you are travelling, but I don't like the pace you are driving; too similar to that of the son of Nimshi. I always feel myself inclined to cry out, Gently, John, gently down hill. Put on the drag. We shall be over, if you go so quick you'll do us a mischief. Remember, as a philosopher, that different Institution from what it was twenty years ago. It then oppressed every sect, they are now all free — all exempt from the tyranny of an Establishment; and the only real cause of complaint for Dissenters is, that they can no longer find a grievance, and enjoy the distinction of being persecuted. I have always tried to reduce them to this state, and I do not pity them. You have expressed your intention of going beyond the Fifth Report, and limiting Deans to 2000l. per annum, Canons to 1000l. This is, I presume, in conformity with the treatment of the Bishops, who are limited to from 4500l. to 5000l. per annum; and it wears a fine appearance of impartial justice: but for the Dean and Canon the sum is a maximum-in Bishops it is a maximum and minimum too; a Bishop cannot have less than 4500l., a Canon may have as little as the poverty of his Church dooms him to, but he cannot have more than 1000l.; but there are many Canonries of 500l., or 600l., or 700l. per annum, and a few only of 1000l.; many Deaneries of from 1000l. to 1500l. per annum; and only a very few above 2000l. If you mean to make the world believe that you are legislating for men without votes, as benevolently as you did for those who have votes in Parliament, you should make up the allowance of every Canon to 1000l., and of every Dean to 2000l. per annum, or leave them to the present lottery of blanks and prizes. Besides, too, do I not recollect some remarkable instances, in your Bishops' Act, of deviation from this rigid standard of episcopal wealth? Are not the Archbishops to have the enormous sums of 15,000l. and 12,000l. per annum? Is not the Bishop of London to have 10,000l. per annum? Are not all these three Prelates Commissioners? And is not the reason alleged for the enormous income of the Bishop of London, that everything is so expensive in the metropolis? Do not the Deans of St. Paul's and Westminster, then, live in London also? And can the Bishop of London sit in |