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SECOND LETTER

ARCHDEACON SINGLETON,

THE THIRD

Catfcetiral gutter*,

BY
THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH.

LONDON:
LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.
1838.

LONDON :
Wilson and Son, Printers,
57, Skinner-Street.

SECOND LETTER,
fyc.

Mv Dear Sir,
It is a long time since you have heard from me,
and in the meantime the poor Church of England
has been trembling, from the Bishop who sitteth
upon the throne, to the Curate who rideth upon
the hackney horse. I began writing on the
subject to avoid bursting from indignation, and
as it is not my habit to recede, I will go on
till the Church of England is either up or
down — semianimous on its back, or vigorous on
its legs.
Two or three persons have said to me — " Why,
after writing an entertaining and successful
letter to Archdeacon Singleton, do you venture
upon another, in which you may probably fail,
and be weak or stupid?" All this I utterly
despise ; I write upon these matters not to be

entertaining, but because the subjects are very
important, and because I have strong opinions
upon them. If what I write is liked, so much
the better ; but liked or not liked, sold or not
sold, Wilson Crokered or not Wilson Crokered,
I will write. If you ask me who excites me, I
answer yon, it is that Judge who stirs good
thoughts in honest hearts — under whose warrant
I impeach the wrong, and by whose help I hope
to chastise it.
There are in most cathedrals two sorts of
Prebends — the one resident, the other non
resident. It is proposed by the Church Com
mission to abolish all the prebends of the latter
and many of the former class ; and it is the
Prebends of the former class, the Resident
Prebends, which I wish to save.
The Non-resident Prebends never come near
the Cathedral ; they are just like so many country
gentlemen ; the difference is, that they are elective,
not hereditary. They have houses, manors,
lands, and every appendage of territorial wealth
and importance. Their value is very different.
I have one, Neasdon, near Willesdon, which

consists of a quarter of an acre of land, worth a
few shillings per annum, but animated by the
burthen of repairing a bridge, which sometimes
costs the unfortunate Prebendary fifty or sixty
pounds. There are other Non-resident Prebends,
however, of great value ; and one, I believe,
which would be worth, if the years or lives were
run out, from £40,000 to £60,000 per annum.
Not only do these Prebendaries do nothing,
and are never seen, but the existence of the
preferment is hardly known ; and the abolition
of the preferment, therefore, would not in any
degree lessen the temptation to enter into the
Church, while the mass of these preferments
would make an important fund for the improve,
ment of small Livings. The Residentiary
Prebendaries, on the contrary, perform all the
services of the Cathedral Church ; their
existence is known, their preferment coveted,
and to get a stall, and to be preceded by men
with silver rods, is the bait which the ambitious
squire is perpetually holding out to his second
son. What Prebendary is next to come into
residence is as important a topic to the Cathedral
town, and ten miles round it, as what the

6
evening or morning star may be to the astronomer.
I will venture to say, that there is not a man of
good humour, sense, and worth, within ten miles
of Worcester, who does not hail the rising of
Archdeacon Singleton in the horizon as one of
the most agreeable events of the year. If such
sort of preferments are extinguished, a very
serious evil (as I have often said before) is done
to the Church — the service becomes unpopular,
further spoliation is dreaded, the whole system is
considered to be altered and degraded, capital is
withdrawn from the Church, and no one enters
into the profession but the sons of farmers and
little tradesmen, who would be footmen if they
were not vicars — or figure on the coach-box if
they were not lecturing from the pulpit.
But what a practical rebuke to the Commis
sioners, after all their plans and consultations
and carvings of Cathedral preferment, to leave
it integral, and untouched. It is some comfort,
however, to me, to think that the persons of all
others to whom this preservation of Cathedral
property would give the greatest pleasure, are
the Ecclesiastical Commissioners themselves.
Can any one believe that the Archbishop of

Canterbury or the Bishop of London really wish
for the confiscation of any Cathedral property,
or that they were driven to it by any thing but
fear, mingled, perhaps, with a little vanity of
playing the part of great Reformers ? They
cannot of course say for themselves what I say
for them ; but of what is really passing in the
ecclesiastical minds of these great personages
I have no more doubt than I have of what passes
in the mind of the prisoner when the prosecutor
recommends and relents, and the j udge says he
shall attend to the recommendation.
What harm does a Prebend do, in a politico-
economical point of view? The alienation of
the property for three lives, or twenty-one years,
and the almost certainty that the tenant has of
renewing, give him sufficient interest in the soil
for all purposes of cultivation*, and a long series
* The Church, it has been urged, do not plant — they do
not extend their woods ; but almost all the Cathedrals possess
woods, and regularly plant a succession, so as to keep them up-
A single evening of dice and hazard does not doom their woods
to sudden destruction ; a life tenant does not cut down all the
timber to make the most of his estate ; the woods of ecclesi
astical bodies are managed upon a fixed and settled plan, and
considering the sudden prodigalities of Laymen, I should not
be afraid of a comparison.

of elected clergymen is rather more likely to
produce valuable members of the community
than a long series of begotten squires. Take, for
instance, the Cathedral of Bristol, the whole
estates of which are about equal to keeping a
pack of fox-hounds. If this had been in the
hands of a country gentleman instead of Pre
centor, Succentor, Dean, and Canons, and
Sexton, yon would have had huntsman, whipper-
in, dog feeders, and stoppers of earths ; the old
squire, full of foolish opinions, and fermented
liquid*, and a young gentleman of gloves,
waistcoats, and pantaloons : and how many
generations might it be before the fortuitous
concourse of noodles would produce such a man
as Professor Lee, one of the Prebendaries of
Bristol, and by far the most eminent oriental
scholar in Europe ? The same argument might
be applied to every Cathedral in England,
How many hundred coveys of squires would it
take to supply as much knowledge as is con
densed in the heads of Dr. Copplestone or Mr,
Taite, of St. Paul's ? and what a strange thinsr
it is that so truly great a man as Lord John
Russell, the Whig leader, should be so squirrel,
minded as to wish for such a movement without

9

object or end ! Saving there can be none, for it
is merely taking from one Ecclesiastic to give it
to another; public clamour, to which the best
men must sometimes yield, does not require
it ; and so far from doing any good to the
Church, it would be a source of infinite mischief
to the Establishment.
If you were to gather a parliament of Curates
on the hottest Sunday in the year, after all the
services, sermons, burials, and baptisms of the
day, were over, and to offer them such increase
of salary as would be produced by the con
fiscation of the Cathedral property, I am
convinced they would reject the measure, and
prefer splendid hope, and the expectation of
good fortune in advanced life, to the trifling
improvement of poverty which such a fund
could afford. Charles James, of London, was
a Curate ; the Bishop of Winchester was a
Curate ; almost every rose-and-shovel man has
been a Curate in his time. All Curates hope to
draw great prizes.
I am surprised it does not strike the moun
taineers how very much the great emoluments

10
of the Church are flung open to the lowest
ranks of the community. Butchers, bakers,
publicans, schoolmasters, are perpetually see
ing their children elevated to the mitre. Let
a respectable baker drive through the city from
the west end of the town, and let him cast an
eye on the battlements of Northumberland House,
has his little muffin-faced son the smallest
chance of getting in among the Perries, enjoying
a share of their luxury and splendour, and of
chacing the deer with hound and horn upon the
Cheviot Hills ? But let him drive his alum-
steeped loaves a little farther, till he reaches
St. Paul's Churchyard, and all his thoughts are
changed when he sees that beautiful fabric ; it
is not impossible that his little penny roll may
be introduced into that splendid oven. Young
Crumpet is sent to school — takes to his books —
spends the best years of his life, as all eminent
Englishmen do, in making Latin verses— knows
that the crura in crum-pet is long, and the pet
short — goes to the University— gets a prize for an
essay on the Dispersion of the Jews— takes orders
— becomes a Bishop's chaplain — has a youno-
nobleman for his pupil — publishes a useless
classic, and a serious call to the unconverted 

11
and then goes through the Elysian transitions
of Prebendary, Dean, &c. and the long train
of purple, profit, and power.
It will not do to leave only four persons in each
Cathedral, upon the supposition that such a num
ber will be sufficient for all the men of real merit
who ought to enjoy such preferment ; we ought
to have a steady confidence that the men of real
merit will always bear a small proportion to the
whole number; and that in proportion as the
whole number is lessened, the number of men of
merit provided for will be lessened also. If it
were quite certain that ninety persons would be
selected the most remarkable for conduct, piety,
and learning, ninety offices might be sufficient;
but out of these ninety are to be taken tutors to
Dukes and Marquises, paid in this way by the
public; Bishops' Chaplains, running tame about
the palace ; elegant Clergymen of small under
standing who have made themselves acceptable
in the drawing-rooms of the mitre; Billingsgate
controversialists, who have tossed and gored an
Unitarian. So that there remain but a few re
wards for men of real merit— yet these rewards

12
do infinite good ; and in this mixed chequered
way human affairs are conducted.
No man at the beginning of the Reform could
tell to what excesses the new power conferred
upon the multitude would carry them; it was not
safe for a Clergyman to appear in the streets.
I bought a blue coat, and did not despair in time of
looking like a Layman. All this is passed over.
Men are returned to their senses upon the sub
ject of the Church, and I utterly deny that there
is any public feeling whatever which calls for
the destruction of the resident Prebends. Lord
John Russell has pruned the too luxuriant Bishop
rics., and has abolished Pluralities : he has made a
verymaterial alteration in the state ofthe Church :
not enough to please Joseph Hume, and the
tribunes of the people, but enough to satisfy
every reasonable and moderate man, and there
fore enough to satisfy himself. What another
generation may choose to do is another question :
I am thoroughly convinced that enough has been
done for the present.
Viscount Melbourne declared himself quite

13
satisfied with the Church as it is ; but if the
public had any desire to alter it, they might do as
they pleased. He might have said the same thing
ofthe Monarchy, or of any other of our institu
tions: and there is in the declaration a permis
siveness and good humour which in public men
has seldom been exceeded. Carelessness, however,
is but a poor imitation of genius, and the forma
tion of a wise and well-reflected plan of Reform,
conduces more to the lasting fame of a Minister
than that affected contempt of duty which
every man sees to be mere vanity, and a vanity of
no very high description.
But if the truth must be told, our Viscount is
somewhat of an impostor. Every thing about
him seems to betoken careless desolation : any one
would suppose from his manner that he was
playing at chuck-farthing with human happiness ;
that he was always on the heel of pastime ; that he
would giggle away the Great Charter, and decide
by the method of tee-totum whether my Lords
the Bishops should or should not retain their
seats in the House of Lords. All this is the mere
vanity of surprising, and making us believe that
he can play with kingdoms as other men can

14
with nine-pins. Instead of this lofty nebulo,
this miracle of moral and intellectual felicities,
he is nothing more than a very sensible honest
man, who means to do his duty to the Sovereign
and to the Country : instead of being the ignorant
man he pretends to be, before he meets the depu
tation of Tallow-Chandlers in the morning, he
sits up half the night talking with Thomas
Young about melting and skimming, and then,
though he has acquired knowledge enough to
work off a whole vat of prime Leicester tallow,
he pretends next morning not to know the dif
ference between a dip and a mould. In the-
same way, when he has been employed in reading
Acts of Parliament, he would persuade you that
he has been reading1 Cleghorn on the Beatitudes,
or Pickler on the Nine Difficult Points. Neither
can I allow to this Minister (however he may be
irritated by the denial) the extreme merit of in
difference to the consequences of his measures.
I believe him to be conscientiously alive to the
good or evil that he is doing, and that his
caution has more than once arrested the gigan-
i
tic projects of the Lycurgus of the Lower
House. I am sorry to hurt any man's feelings,
and to brush away the magnificent fabric of

15
levity and gaiety he has reared; but I accuse
our Minister of honesty and diligence ; I deny
that he is careless or rash : he is nothing more
than a man of very good understanding, and
good principle, disguised in the eternal and
somewhat wearisome affectation of a political
Roue. One of the most foolish circumstances attend
ing this destruction of Cathedral property, is the
great sacrifice of the patronage of the Crown :
the Crown gives up eight prebends of West
minster, two at Worcester, £1500 per annum at
St. Paul's, two Prebends at Bristol, and a great
deal of other preferment all over the kingdom ;
and this at a moment when such extraordinary
power has been suddenly conferred upon the
people, and when every atom of power and
patronage ought to be husbanded for the Crown.
A Prebend of Westminster for my second son
would soften the Catos of Cornhill, and lull the
Gracchi of the Metropolitan Boroughs. Lives
there a man so absurd as to suppose that Govern
ment can be carried on without those gentle
allurements ? You may as well attempt to

1G
poultice off the humps of a camel's back, as to
cure mankind of these little corruptions.
I am terribly alarmed by a committee of Cathe
drals now sitting in London, and planning a
petition to the Legislature to be heard by counsel.
They will take such high ground, and talk a lan
guage so utterly at variance with the feelings of
the age about Church Property, that I am much
afraid they will do more harm than good. In
the time of the riots, the Guards said they did
not care for the mob, if the Gentlemen Volunteers
behind would be so good as not to hold their
muskets in such a dangerous manner. I don't
care for popular clamour, and think it might now
be defied; but I confess the Gentlemen Volunteers
alarm me. They have unfortunately, too, col
lected their addresses, and published them in a
single volume ! ! !
I should like to know how many of our insti
tutions at this moment, besides the Cathedrals,
are under notice of destruction. I will, before I
finish my letter, endeavour to procure a list ; in
the meantime I will give you the bill of fare with

17
which the last session opened, and I think that of
1838 will not be less copious. But at the open
ing of the session of 1837, when I addressed my
first letter to you, this was the state of our intended
changes: — The Law of Copyright was to be
re-created by Serjeant Talfourd ; Church Rates
abolished by Lord John Russell, and Imprison
ment for Debt by the Attorney-General ; the
Archbishop of Canterbury kindly undertook to
destroy all the Cathedrals, and Mr. Grote was to
arrange our Voting by Ballot ; the Septennial
Act was to be repealed by Mr. Williams, Corn
Laws abolished by Mr. Clay, and the House of
Lords reformed by Mr. Ward ; Mr. Hume re
modelled County Rates, Mr. Ewart put an end to
Primogeniture, and Mr. Tuke took away the
Exclusive Privileges of Dublin, Oxford, and
Cambridge ; Thomas Duncombe was to put an
end to the Proxies of the Lords, and Serjeant
Prime to turn the Universities topsy-turvy. Well
may it be said that
" Man never continueth in one stay."
See how men accustom themselves to large and
perilous changes. Ten years ago, if a cassock or a
hassock had been taken from the establishment,
c

18
the current of human affairs would have been
stopped till restitution had been made. In a
fortnight's time, Lord John Russell is to take
possession of, and to repartition, all the Cathedrals
in England ; and what a prelude for the young
Queen's coronation ! and what a medal for the
august ceremony ! — the fallen Gothic buildings
on one side of the gold, and the young* Protestant
Queen on the other : —
" Victoria Ecclesise Victrix."
And then, when she is full of noble devices, and
of all sorts enchantingly beloved, and amid the
solemn swell of music, when her heart beats
happily, and her eyes look majesty, she turns
them on the degraded Ministers of the Gospel,
and shudders to see she is stalking to the throne
of her Protestant ancestors over the broken altars
of God.
Now, remember I hate to overstate my case.
I do not say that the destruction of Cathedrals
will put an end to railroads : I believe that good
mustard and cress, sown after Lord John's Bill
is passed, will, if duly watered, continue to grow.
I do not say that the country has no right, after

19
the death of individual incumbents, to do what
they propose to do ; — I merely say that it is in
expedient, uncalled for, and mischievous, — that
the lower Clergy, for whose sake it is proposed to
be done, do not desire it, — that the Bishop Com
missioners, who proposed it, would be heartily
glad if it was put an end to,— that it will lower
the character of those who enter into the church,
and accustom the English people to large and
dangerous confiscations ; and I would not have
gentlemen of the money-bags, and of wheat and
bean land, forget that the word Church means
many other things than Thirty-nine Articles, and
a discourse of five-and-twenty minutes' dura
tion on the Sabbath. It means a check to the
conceited rashness of experimental reasoners^-
an adhesion to old moral land marks — an
attachment to the happiness we have gained from
tried institutions greater than the expectation of
that which is promised by novelty and change.
The loud cry of ten thousand teachers of justice
and worship, that cry which masters the Borgias
and Catilines of the world, and guards from
devastation the best works of God —
Magna, testantur voce per umbras
Discite justitiam moniti et not temnere divos.

20
In spite of his uplifted chess-board, I can
not let my old schoolfellow, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, off, without harping a little upon
his oath which he has taken to preserve the rights
and property of the Church of Canterbury : I am
quite sure so truly good a man as from the bottom
ofmy heart I believe him to be, has some line of
argument by which he defends himself; but
till I know it, I cannot of course say I am con
vinced by it. The common defence for breaking
oaths is, that they are contracts made with another
party, which the Creator is called to witness, and
from which the swearer is absolved if those for
whom the oath is taken choose to release him
from his obligation. With whom, then, is the
contract made by the Archbishop ? Is it with the
community at large ? If so, nothing but an act
of parliament (as the community at large have
no other organ) could absolve him from his oath ;
but three years before any act is passed, he puts
his name to a plan for taking away two-thirds of
the property of the Church of Canterbury. If
the contract is not made with the community at
large, but with the Church of Canterbury, every
member of it is* in decided hostility to his scheme.
O'Connell takes an oath that he will not injure

21
nor destroy the Protestant Church ; but in pro
moting the destruction of some of the Irish
Bishoprics, he may plead that he is sacrificing
a part to preserve the whole, and benefiting, not
injuring, the Protestant establishment. But
the Archbishop does not swear to a general
truth, where the principle may be preserved,
though there is an apparent deviation from
the words ; but he swears, to a very narrow
and limited oath, that he will not alienate the
possessions of the Church of Canterbury. A
friend of mine has suggested to me that his Grace
has perhaps forgotten the oath ; but this cannot
be, for the first Protestant in Europe of course
makes a memorandum in his pocket-book of all
the oaths he takes to do, or to abstain. The oath,
however, may be less present to the Archbishop's
memory, from the fact of his not having taken
the oath in person, but by the medium of a
gentleman sent down by the coach to take it for
him, — a practice which, though I believe it to
have been long established in the Church, sur
prised me, I confess, not a little. A proxy to
vote, if you please, — a proxy toconsentto arrange
ments of estates, if wanted ; but a proxy sent down
in the Canterbury Fly, to take the Creator to

22
witness that the Archbishop, detained in town by
business or pleasure, will never violate that
foundation of piety over which he presides, —
all this seems to me an act of the most ex
traordinary indolence ever recorded in history.
If an Ecclesiastic, not a Bishop, may express any
opinion on the reforms of the Church, I recom
mend that Archbishop and Bishops should take
no more oaths by proxy ; but, as they do not
wait upon the Sovereign or the Prime Minister,
or even any of the Cabinet, by proxy, that they
should also perform all religious acts in their own
person. This practice would have been abolished
in Lord John's first Bill, if other grades of
churchmen as well as Bishops had been made
Commissioners. But the motto was —
" Peace to the Palaces — War to the Manses."
I have been informed, though I will not answer
for the accuracy of the information, that this
vicarious oath is likely to produce a scene which
would have puzzled the Ductor Dubitantium.
The attorney who took the oath for the Arch
bishop, is, they say, seized with religious horrors
at the approaching confiscation of Canterbury
property, and has in vain tendered back his

23
6s. 8d. for taking the oath. The Archbishop
refuses to accept it ; and feeling himself light and
disencumbered, wisely keeps the saddle upon the
back of the writhing and agonized scrivener. I
have talked it over with several Clergymen, and
the general opinion is, that the scrivener will
suffer. I cannot help thinking that a great opportu
nity opens itself for improving the discipline of
the Church, by means of those Chapters which
Lord John Russell* is so anxious to destroy :
divide the diocese among the members of the
* I only mention Lord John Russell's name so often,
because the management of the Church measures devolves
upon him. He is beyond all comparison the ablest man in
the whole administration, and to such a degree is he superior,
that the Government could not exist a moment without him.
If the Foreign Secretary were to retire, we should no longer
be nibbling ourselves into disgrace on the coast of Spain. If
the amiable Lord Glenelg were to leave us, we should feel
secure in our Colonial possessions. If Mr. Spring Rice were
to go into holy orders, great would be the joy ofthe three per
cents. A decent good-looking head of the Government might
easily enough be found in lieu of Viscount Melbourne ; but
in five minutes after the departure of Lord John, the whole
Whig Government would be dissolved into sparks of
liberality and splinters of Reform. There are six remarkable
men now living, who, in diiferent methods and in different
degrees, are now affecting the interests of this country — the

24
Chapter, and make them responsible for the
superintendence and inspection of the clergy in
their various divisions under the supreme control
of the Bishop ; by a few additions they might be
made the Bishops' Council for the trial of de
linquent clergymen. They might be made a
kind of college for the general care of education
in the diocese, and applied to a thousand useful
purposes, which would have occurred to the
Commissioners if they had not been so dread
fully frightened, and to the Government, if their
object had been, not to please the Dissenters,
but to improve the Church.
The Bishop of Lincoln has lately published a
pamphlet on the Church question. His Lordship
is certainly not a man full of felicities and facili
ties, imitating none, and inimitable of any ; nor
does he work with infinite agitation of wit. His
creation has blood without heat, bones without
marrow, eyes without speculation. He has
Duke of Wellington, Lord John Russell, Lord Brougham,
Lord Lyndhurst, Sir Robert Peel, and O'Connell. Greater
powers than all these are the phlegm of the English people —
the great mass of good sense and intelligence diffused among
them — and the number of those who have something to lose,
and have not the slightest intention of losing it.

25
the art of saying nothing in many words beyond
any man that ever existed ; and when he seems
to have made a proposition, he is so dreadfully
frightened at it, that he proceeds as quickly as
possible, in the ensuing sentence, to disconnect
the subject and the predicate, and to avert the
dangers he has incurred : — but as he is a Bishop,
and will be therefore more read than I am,
I cannot pass him over. His Lordship tells
us, that it was at one time under consideration
of the Commissioners whether they should not
tax all benefices above a certain value, in order
to raise a fund for the improvement of smaller
Livings ; and his Lordship adds, with the greatest
innocence, that the considerations which prin
cipally weighed with the Commissioners, in
inducing them not to adopt the plan of taxation,
was, that they understood the Clergy in general
to be decidedly averse to it : so that the plan of
the Commission was, that the greater benefices
should pay to the little, while the Bishops them
selves — the Archbishop of Canterbury with his
£15,000. a-year, and the Bishop of London with
his£ 10,000. a-year — were not to subscribe a single
farthing for that purpose. Why does John, Bishop
of Lincoln, mention these distressing schemes of
the Commission, which we are certain would have

26
been met with a general yell of indignation from
one end of the kingdom to another ? Surely it
must have occurred to this excellent prelate that
the Bishops would have been compelled by mere
shame to have contributed to the fund which they
were about to put upon the backs of the more
opulent parochial clergy ; surely a moment's
reflection must have taught them that the safer
method by far was to confiscate Cathedral pro
perty. The idea of abandoning this taxation, because
it was displeasing to the Clergy at large, is not
unentertaining as applied to a Commission who
treated the Clergy with the greatest contempt,
and did not even notice the communications from
Cathedral bodies upon the subject of the most
serious and extensive confiscations*.
* Upon this subject I think it right to introduce the follow
ing letters, the first of which was published Jan. 23, 1838: —
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
" Sir, — I feel it to be consistent with my duty, as Secretary
to the Church Commissioners, to notice a statement emanating
from a quarter which would seem to give it authenticity — that,
of seven Chapter memorials addressed to the Board, the
receipt of one tvas only acknowledged.
" It is strictly within my province to acknowledge com
munications made to the Commissioners as a body, either

27

" The plan of taxation, therefore," says the
Bishop, " being abandoned, it was evident that
the funds for the augmentation of poor Livings,
directly or through me ; and it is part of their general
instructions to me that I should do so in all cases.
" To whatever extent, therefore, the statement may be true,
or whatever may be its value, it is clear that it cannot attach to
the Commissioners, but that I alone am responsible.
'* In the execution of my office I have endeavoured, in the
midst of my other duties, to conduct an extensive correspond
ence in accordance with what I knew to be the feelings and
wishes of the Commissioners, and to treat every party in com
munication with them with attention and respect.
"If, at some period of more than usual pressure, any acci
dental omission may have occurred, or may hereafter occur,
involving an appearance of discourtesy, it is for me to offer,
as I now do, explanation and apology.
"I am, sir, your obedient humble servant,
"C. K. Murray.
"Whitehall Place, Jan. 21."

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
" Sir, — A more indiscreet and extraordinary communication
than that which appears in your own paper of the 23d in
stant, signed by Mr. C. K. Murray, I never read. ' Apparet
domus intus.' It is now clear how the Commission has been
worked. Where communications from the oldest Ecclesias
tical bodies, upon the most important of all subjects to them
and to the kingdom, were received by the greatest prelates
and noblemen of the land, acting under the King's Commis
sion, I should have thought that answers suitable to the occa
sion would, in each case, have been dictated by the Commis
sion ; that such answers would have been entered on the
minutes, and read on the Board-day next ensuing.
" Is Mr. C. K. Murray quite sure that this, which is done at
all Boards on the most trifling subjects, was not done at his
Board, in the most awful '•/¦j^ic^SVrcyer known in England ?

28
and for the supply of the spiritual wants of po
pulous districts, must be drawn from the Epis
copal and Cathedral revenues; that is, from the
revenues from which the Legislature seems to
have a peculiar right to draw the funds for the
general supply of the religious wants of the
people ; because they arise from benefices, of
which the patronage is either actually in the
Crown, or is derivative from the Crown. In the
case ofthe Episcopal revenues, the Commissioners
Is he certain that spoliation was in no instance sweetened by
civility, and injustice never varnished by forms? Were all
the decencies and proprieties which ought to regulate the
intercourse of such great bodies left without a single inquiry
from the Commissioner, to a gentleman who seems to have
been seized with six distinct fits of oblivion on six separate
occasions, any one of which required all that attention to
decorum and that accuracy of memory for which secretaries
are selected and paid ?
"According to Mr. C. K. Murray's account, the only order
he received from the Board was, 'If any Prebendary calls, or
any Cathedral writes, desiring not to be destroyed, just say
the communication has been received;' and even this, Mr.
Murray tells us, he has not done, and that no one of the King's
Commissioners — Archbishops, Bishops, Marquises, Earl* —
ever asked him whether he had done it or not — though any one
of these great people would have swooned away at the idea of
not answering the most trifling communication from any other
of these great people.
" Whatever else these Commissioners do, they had better
not bring their Secretary forward again. They may feel
windbound by public opinion, but they must choose, as a
sacrifice, a better Iphigeriia ffiUn Mr. C. K. Murray.
" S Yn \ F-.-V SUnTw "

29
had already carried the principle of re-distribu
tion as far as they thought that it could, with due
allowance for the various demands upon the
incomes of the Bishops, be carried. The only
remaining source, therefore, was to be found in
the Cathedral Revenues, and the Commissioners
proceeded, in the execution of the duties pre
scribed to them, to consider in what manner those
revenues might be rendered conducive to the
efficiency ofthe Established Church."
This is very good Episcopal reasoning; but
is it true ? The Bishops and Commissioners
wanted a fund to endow small Livings ; they
did not touch a farthing of their own incomes,
only distributed them a little more equally ; and
proceeded lustily at once to confiscate Cathedral
property. But why was it necessary, if the
fund for small Livings was such a paramount
consideration, that the future Archbishops of Can
terbury should be left with two palaces, and
£15,000 per annum ? Why is every future
Bishop of London to have a palace in Fulham ;
a house in St. James's Square; and ten thousand
pounds a-year? Could not all the Episcopal
functions be carried on well and effectually
with the half of these incomes ? Is it necessary

30
that the Archbishop of Canterbury should give
feasts to Aristocratic London; and that the
domestics of the Prelacy should stand with
swords and bag'-wigs round pig, and turkey,
and venison, to defend, as it were, the Orthodox
gastronome from the fierce Unitarian, the fell
Baptist, and all the famished children of Dissent?
I don't object to all this; because I am sure that
the method of prizes and blanks is the best method
of supporting a Church which must be considered
as very slenderly endowed, if the whole were
equally divided among the parishes ; but if my
opinion weredifferent — if I thought the important
improvement was to equalize preferment in the
English Church — that such a measure was not
the one thing foolish, but the one thing needful
— I should take care, as a mitred Commissioner,
to reduce my own species of preferment to the
narrowest limits, before I proceeded to confiscate
the property of any other grade of the Church.
I could not, as a conscientious man, leave the
Archbishop of Canterbury with fifteen thousand
pounds a-year, and make a fund by annihilating
Residentiaries at Bristol of five hundred. This
comes of calling a meeting of one species of
cattle only. The horned cattle say, — " If you
want any meat, kill the sheep ; don't meddle

31
with us, there is no beef to spare." They said
this, however, to the lion; and the cunning
animal, after he had gained all the information
necessary for the destruction ofthe muttons, and
learnt how well and widely they pastured, and
how they could be most conveniently eaten up,
turns round and informs the cattle, who took him
for their bestand tenderest friend, that he means to
eat them up also. Frequently did Lord John meet
the destroying Bishops : much did he commend
their daily heap of ruins ; sweetly did they smile
on each other, and much charming talk was there
of meteorology and catarrh, and the particular
Cathedral they were pulling down at each
period* ; till one fine day the Home Secre
tary, with a voice more bland, and a look more
ardently affectionate, than that which the mascu
line mouse bestows on his nibbling female, in
formed them that the Government meant to take
all the Church property into their own hands, to
pay the rates out of it, and deliver the residue to
the rightful possessors. Such an effect, they
say, was never before produced by a coup de
theatre. The Commission was separated in an
* "What Cathedral are we pulling down to day?" was the
standing question at the Commission.

32
instant : London clenched his fist ; Canterbury
was hurried out by his Chaplains; a solemn
vacancy spread itself over the face of Gloucester ;
Lincoln was taken out in strong hysterics.
What a noble scene Serjeant Talfourd would
have made of this ! Why are such talents wasted
on Ion and the Athenian Captive?
But, after all, what a proposition ! " You don't
make the most of your money : I will take your
property into my hands, and see if I cannot
squeeze a penny out of it: you shall be regu
larly paid all you now receive, only if any thing
more can be made of it, that we will put into our
own pockets." " Just pull off your neckcloth,
and lay your head under the guillotine, and I will
promise not to do you any harm : just get ready
for confiscation ; give up the management of all
your property ; make us the ostensible managers
of every thing ; let us be informed of the most
minute value of all, and, depend upon it, we will
never injure you to the extent of a single far
thing." " Let me get my arms about you,"
says the bear, " I have not the smallest inten
tion of squeezing you." " Trust your finger in
my mouth," says the mastiff, " I will not fetch
blood."

33
Where is this to end ? If Government are to
take into their own hands all property which is
not managed with the greatest sharpness and
accuracy, they may squeeze l-8th per cent, out
ofthe Turkey Company; Spring Rice would be
come Director ofthe Hydro-impervious Associa
tion, and clear a few hundreds for the Treasury.
The British Roasted Apple Society is notoriously
mismanaged, and Lord John and Brother Lister,
by a careful selection of fruit, and a judicious
management of fuel, would soon get it up to par.
I think, however, I have heard at the Poli
tical Economy Club, where I have sometimes
had the honour of being a guest, that no trades
should be carried on by Governments. That
they have enough to do of their own, without
undertaking other persons' business. If any
savings in the mode of managing Ecclesiastical
Leases could be made, great deductions from
these savings must be allowed for the jobbing and
gospillage of general Boards, and all the old
servants ofthe Church, displaced by this measure,
must receive compensation.
The Whig Government* they will be vexed to
hear, would find a greal deal of patronage forced

34
upon them by this measure. Their favourite
human animal, the Barrister of six years' standing,
would be called into action. The whole earth is,
in fact, in commission, and the human race saved
from the Flood are delivered overtoBarristers of
six years' standing. The onus probandi now lies
upon any man who says he is not a Commis
sioner; the only doubt on seeing a new man
among the Whigs is, not whether he is a Com
missioner or not, but whether it is Tithes, Poor
Laws, Boundaries of Boroughs, Church Leases,
Charities, or any of the thousand human concerns
which are now worked by Commissioners, to the
infinite comfort and satisfaction of mankind, who
seem in these days to have found out the real
secret of life — the one thing wanting to sublu
nary happiness — the great principle of Commis
sion, and six years' Barristration.
Then, if there is a better method of working
Ecclesiastical Estates — if any thing can be gained
for the Church — why are not the Church to have
it? why is it not applied to Church purposes ?
what right have the State to seize it ? If I give
you an estate, I give it you not only in its present
state, but I give to you all the improvements
which can be made upon it — all that mechanical,

35
botanical, and chemical knowledge, may do here
after for its improvement — all the ameliorations
which care and experience can suggest, in
setting, improving, and collecting your rents.
Can there be such miserable equivocation as to
say — I leave you your property, but I do not leave
to you all the improvements which your own
wisdom, or the wisdom of your fellow-creatures,
will enable you to make of your property ? How
utterly unworthy of a Whig Government is such
a distinction as this !
Suppose the same same sort of plan had been
adopted in the reign of Henry VIII., and the
Legislature had said, — You shall enjoy all you now
have, but every farthing of improved revenue,
after this period, shall go into the pocket of the
State, — it would have been impossible by this time
that the Church could have existed at all: and
why may not such a measure be as fatal hereaften
to the existence of a Church, as it would have
been to the present generation, if it had been
brought forward at the time of the Reformation ?
There is some safety in dignity. A Church is in
danger when it is degraded. It costs mankind

36
much less to destroy it when an institution is
associated with mean, and not with elevated
ideas. I should like to see the subject in the
hands of H. B. I would entitle the print —
" The Bishops' Saturday Night ; or, Lord John Russell
at the Pay Table."
The Bishops should be standing before the
pay table, and receiving their weekly allowance;
Lord John and Spring Rice counting, ringing,
and biting the sovereigns, and the Bishop of Exe
ter insisting that the Chancellor of the Exchequer
has given him one which was not weight.
Viscount Melbourne, in high chuckle, should be
standing, with his hat on, and his back to the
fire, delighted with the contest ; and the Deans
and Canons should be in the background, wait
ing till their turn came, and the Bishops were
paid ; and among them a Canon, of large com-
position,urging them on not to give way too much
to the Bench. Perhaps I should add the Pre
sident of the Board of Trade, recommending
the truck principle to the Bishops, and offering
to pay them in hassocks, cassocks, sermon-cases,
and such like ecclesiastical geer.
But the madness and folly of such a measure

87
is in the revolutionary feeling which it excites.
A Government taking into its hands such an
immense value of property ! What a lesson of
violence and change to the mass of mankind !
Do you want to accustom Englishmen to lose all
confidence in the permanence of their institu
tions — to inure them to great acts of
plunder — and to draw forth all the latent vil
lanies of human nature ? The Whig Leaders
are thoroughly honest men, and cannot mean
this, but these foolish and inconsistent measures
are the horn-book and infantile lessons of
revolution : and remember, it requires no great
time to teach mankind to rob and murder on a
great scale.
I am astonished that these Ministers neglect the
common precaution of a foolometer*, with which
* Mr. Fox very often used to say, " I wonder what Lord
B. will think of this." Lord B. happened to be a very stupid
person, and the curiosity of Mr. Fox's friends was naturally
excited to know why he attached such importance to the
opinion of such an ordinary common-place person. " His
opinion," said Mr. Fox, " is of much more importance than
you are aware of. He is an exact representative of all
common-place English prejudices, and what Lord B. thinks
of any measure, the great majority of English people will
think of it." It would be a good thing if every Cabinet of
philosophers had a Lord B. among them.

38
no public man should be unprovided: I mean,
the acquaintance and society of three or four
regular British fools as a test of public opinion.
Every Cabinet Minister should judge of all his
measures by his foolometer, as a navigator
crowds or shortens sail by the barometer in
his cabin. I have a very valuable instrument
of that kind myself, which I have used for
many years ; and I would be bound to predict,
with the utmost nicety, by the help of this
machine, the precise effect which any measure
would produce upon public opinion. Certainly,
I never saw any thing so decided as the effects
produced upon my machine by the Rate Bill.
No man who had been accustomed in the smallest
degree to handle philosophical instruments could
have doubted of the storm which was coming
on, or of the thoroughly un-English scheme in
which the Ministry had so rashly engaged
themselves. I think, also, that it is a very sound argument
against this measure of Church Rates, that
estates have been bought liable to these pay
ments, and that they have been deducted from
the purchase money. And what, also, if a

39
Dissenter were a Republican as well as a Dis
senter — a case which has sometimes happened;
and what if our antimonarchical Dissenter were
to object to the expenses of kingly government ?
Are his scruples to be respected, and his taxes
diminished, and the Queen's privy purse to
be subjected and exposed to the intervening
and economical squeeze of Government Com
missioners ?
But these lucubrations upon Church Rates
are an episode ; I must go back to John, Bishop
of Lincoln. All other Cathedrals are fixed at
four Prebendaries ; St. Paul's and Lincoln, hav
ing only three, are increased to the regulation
pattern of four. I call this useless and child
ish. The Bishop of Lincoln says, there were
more residentiaries before the Reformation ;
but if for three hundred years three residentiaries
have been found to be sufficient, what a
strangely feeble excuse it is for adding another,
and diverting £3000 per annum from the
Small Living Fund, to say, that there were
more residentiaries three hundred years ago.
Must every thing be good and right that

40
is done by Bishops? Is there one rule of right
for them, and another for the rest of the world ?
Now here are two Commissioners, whose ex
press object is to constitute out of the large
emoluments of the dignitaries a Fund for
the poorer Parochial Clergy ; and in all the
heat and fervour of confiscation, they build
up two new places, utterly useless and un
called for, take £3000 from the Charity Fund to
pay them, and they give the patronage of these
places to themselves. Is there a single epithet
in the language of invective which would not
have been levelled at Lay Commissioners who
had attempted the same thing? I am very
willing to ascribe good motives to these Com
missioners, who are really worthy and very
sensible men, but I am perfectly astonished
that they were not deterred from such a measure
by appearances, and by the motives which, whe
ther rightly or wrongly, would be imputed to
them. In not acting so as to be suspected, the
Bishop of London should resemble Caesar's wife.
In other respects, this excellent prelate would
not have exactly suited for the partner of that
great and self-willed man ; and an idea strikes
me, that it is not impossible he might have

41
been stabbed in the Senate-house instead of
Caesar. Lord John Russell gives himself great credit for
not having confiscated Church property, but mere
ly remodelled and redivided it. I accuse that ex
cellent man not of plunder, but I accuse him of
taking the Church of England, rolling it about
as a cook does a piece of dough with a rolling-
pin, cutting a hundred different shapes with all
the plastic fertility of a confectioner, and without
the most distant suspicion that he can ever be
wrong, or ever be mistaken ; with a certainty that
he can anticipate the consequences of every
possible change in human affairs. There is not
a more honest nor a better man in England
than Lord John Russell ; but his worst failure
is, that he is utterly ignorant of all moral fear :
there is nothing he would not undertake. I
believe he would perform the operation for the
stone — build St. Peter's — or assume (with or
without ten minutes' notice) the command of the
Channel Fleet ; and no one would discover by his
manner that the patient had died — the Church
tumbled down — and the Channel Fleet been
knocked to atoms. I am sure his motives are
E

42
always pure, and his measures often very able ;
but they are endless, and never done with that
pedetentous pace and pedetentous mind in which
it behoves the wise and virtuous improver to
walk. He alarms the wise Liberals ; and it is
impossible to sleep soundly while he has the
command of the watch*.
Do not say, my dear Lord John, that I am too
severe upon you. A thousand years have scarce
sufficed to make our blessed England what it is;
an hour may lay it in the dust : and can you with
all your talents renovate its shattered splendour —
can you recal back its virtues — can you van
quish time and fate ? But alas ! you want to
shake the world, and be the Thunderer of the
scene !
Now what is the end of what I have written ?
Why, every body was in a great fright ; and a
number of Bishops, huddled together, and talking
of their great sacrifices, began to destroy other

* Another peculiarity of the Russells is, that they never
alter their opinions : they are an excellent race, but they must
be trepanned before they can be convinced.

43
people's property, and to take other people's
patronage : and all the fright is over now ; and
all the Bishops are very sorry for what they have
done, and regret extremely the destruction of
the Cathedral dignitaries, but don't know how
to get out of the foolish scrape. The Whig
Ministry persevere, to please Joseph and his
brethren, and the Destroyers: and the good sense
of the matter is, to fling out the Dean and Chap
ter Bill, as it now stands, and to bring in another
next year— making a fund out of all the Non
resident Prebends, annexing some of the others,
and adopting many of the enactments contained
in the present Bill.

THE END.

WiLtan & Son, Pwntsbs, 57, Skinnik-Strekt, London.

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