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THE 
 
 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS 
 
 THE EIGHT HON. 
 
 IR JOSEPH NAPIER, Bart. 
 
 LATE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND; 
 
 VICE-CHANCELLOR AND M.P. FOR THE DUBLIN UNIVERSITY ; 
 
 LL.D., D.C.L., M.R.I.A. 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION BY HIS DAUGETER. 
 
 FORMING A SUPPLEMENT TO "THE LIFE." 
 
 DUBLIN: 
 HODGES, FIGGIS, AND CO, GRAFTON STREET. 
 
 LONDON ; 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK : 15 EAST 16"^ STREET. 
 
 1888. 
 W 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 Introddction, 
 
 Lettees to Lady Napiek, 
 
 Letters to Mes. Gaedinek, 
 
 Letters to Me. Mark Napier, 
 
 Family Letters, 
 
 MiscELLAKEODS Letters — including those from Lord Brougham — Earl of 
 
 Derby — Earl Stanhope — John Buskin — Sir John Taylor Coleridge 
 
 — Sir Stafford Northcote — Earl Cairns, &o., &c., 
 
 Beiee Sketch oe the Connection or Sik Joseph Napiee with the 
 College Histoeical Society, ..... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 
 11 
 16 
 21 
 41 
 
 68 
 
 102 
 
 LECTUEES, ESSAYS, AND ADDEESSES. 
 
 Edmund Burke, ........ 109 
 
 William Bedell, . . . . . . . 212 
 
 , Address to Dublin Historical and Liteeaey Society, . . 243 
 
 Address to Dublin Oratorical and Literary Institute, . . 262 
 
 Address to College Historical Society, .... 278 
 
 Laboue and Knowledge, ...... 289 
 
 Address to Glasgow Young Men's Cheistian Association, . . 317 
 
 Lectuee on the Irish Difficulty, . . . . . 339 
 
 Opening Aijdress, Dublin Aeteenoon Lectuees, . . . 364 
 
 Introductory Lecture on Butler's Analogy, . . . 383 
 
 Analysis of Butler's Argument on Presumption against Miracles, 397 
 
 The Communion Service of the Church of England and Ireland, 422 
 
 Suggestions for Consideration on the Athanasian Creed, . 440 
 
 Clerical Subscription Commission : Answer to Dean Milman, . 472 
 
 Letter from Archbishop Longley, ..... 495 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 The Publishers regret that, owing to want of space, they have been 
 obliged to omit one or two Lectures, and some other Letters, which would 
 have been most interesting, but would have brought the Volume beyond 
 the prescribed limits. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Portrait of Sir Joseph Napier . . . Frontispiece. 
 
 Coat of Arms of the Napier Family from Window in 
 
 Gray's Inn Hall . . . .To face page 40 
 
Tlie two folloiving Letters, being of very special interest, are 
 reprinted from " The Life of Sir Joseph Napier." 
 
 To Right Hon. Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister 
 {afterwards Earl of Beaconsfield), concerning the 
 appointment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy 
 Council. 
 
 Whitehall Gardens, 
 
 Friday. 
 
 My dear Mr. Disraeli, 
 
 I have to express to you my grateful appreciation of 
 the kindness with which you have acted with respect to 
 the arrangement for my taking the vacant seat on the 
 Judicial Committee Council. It is a satisfaction to me 
 to receive this honour from my old political chief, who 
 has always acted towards me with kindly and considerate 
 regard, which I have not forgotten. 
 
 Your faithful and obliged friend, 
 
 Joseph Napier. 
 
 Fro77t Right Hon. B. Disraeli, Prime Mitiister 
 {afterwards Earl OF BEACONSFIELD). 
 
 Whitehall Gardens, 
 
 February 6th, 1875. 
 
 Dear Sir Joseph, 
 
 I cannot allow the Commission of the Great Seal to 
 terminate in Ireland without offering, on the part of Her 
 Majesty's Government, our thanks for the zeal, industry, 
 and learning with which the Lords' Commission fulfilled 
 the duties of that high office. I shall feel obliged to you 
 if you will convey to your late colleagues this sincere 
 expression of our feelings. I know too well that, in the 
 course of the discharge of these duties, you yourself had to 
 encounter one of those calamities which tend for a time to 
 paralyze both the intellect and the will. I will not pre- 
 sume to offer you consolation, but the sympathy of a 
 true friend may perhaps be accepted. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 B. Disraell 
 
ERRATUM. 
 
 Iiitroductior, page 6, line 7, read'' P^ve and simple "for " pure and single. 
 
LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS: 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 With a view to complete the picture of my 
 father's life, it has been advised to publish a 
 selection of his Lectures, Essays, and Letters, in 
 addition to those touched upon in his biography 
 published : for his mental qualities were not con- 
 fined to politics, nor to his profession ; and per- 
 haps some of these records, to those who loved- 
 him best, supply characteristics which made upr 
 the man. To this, then, I gladly agree ; for these 
 documents contain matters of permanent value, for 
 future historical reference for others interested in 
 this epoch of his country's history. 
 
 After his death, reading various notices of my 
 father, and looking over old letters and pamphlets, 
 the thought was forced upon me that there ought 
 to be given to the world some record of a mind at 
 once so pure and so exalted ; of the life of one 
 who combined in himself the lawyer, statesman, 
 and theologian— in whom ability, industry, and 
 
2 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 high principle were united in so remarkable a 
 degree. 
 
 Stirring events pass by and are forgotten as the 
 river of life flows on, bearing on its surface what, 
 at the time, seems so great, so eventful, but which 
 becomes, in the distance of years, a speck on the 
 wave, while the principles and faith of those who 
 take part in these events remain, and their phi' 
 losophical meditations survive their intellectual 
 combats, to " fire other minds." 
 
 No portrait of my father would be complete in 
 these days of burning questions, when emotions 
 are stirred to their depths, and bitter feelings are 
 aroused, if he were not depicted as one who could 
 hold his own principles and opinions firmly, and 
 yet patiently listen to others, and let his " mode- 
 ration be known unto all men." In the rush past 
 of events, often to him too strange, too wonderful, 
 he yet could acknowledge that 
 
 " The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
 And God fulfils Himself in many ways." 
 
 In the morning of his life he was one of a crowd 
 struggling to see and hear, hot and eager, and 
 impatient of all obstacles ; but in the quiet of the 
 afternoon and the calm eventide of life, there was 
 the pause, the breathing time, the looking around 
 on the grandeur and vastness of the scene of 
 God's world of seething humanity. He could see 
 things in God's own light. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3^ 
 
 " I read, I write, I meditate," he says, sitting in 
 his sunset chamber, " and find as I get older that 
 I get more moderate and better settled in my 
 views. It is a privilege to have it said of me— 
 ' Lenior et melior fis accedente senecta.' " 
 
 It is very gratifying to know that the biography 
 of my father has had so wide a circulation in 
 England, and that his memory has thus been 
 honoured, even by men who differ from him in 
 religious and political views. Mr. Gladstone 
 writes (as he always honoured my father) — 
 " He (Sir Joseph Napier) cannot but be con- 
 sidered as a man beyond his age. This is, per- 
 haps, the highest praise, but it implies almost 
 a necessity, a stinting of the most precious por-, 
 tions of immediate reward." I regret I have to 
 agree with Lord O'Hagan, that " fame acquired 
 by an Irishman creates no thrill of joy in the 
 hearts of his countrymen," and that " honours 
 accorded to him by every part of the world,, 
 are accepted in that country without response."* 
 This has induced me to publish this second 
 volume ; and with my father's old letters, my 
 mother has put in a few of the many she re- 
 ceived from those in high positions in Church 
 and State, down to one, not less valued, from 
 the humble missionary. 
 
 ' * Spoken at the unveiling of Burke's Statue, Trinity College, ' 
 Dublin, 1868. 
 
4 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 A curious proof of consanguinity, however 
 distant, is the mysterious one of family resem- 
 blance. My father was always reckoned very 
 Hke the Napier ancestors, of which the following 
 is a remarkable instance :— Once, entering a pub- 
 lisher's in Bond Street, who had worked for Sir 
 W. Napier, he said, " Sir, you need not tell us 
 your name ; you have the Napier face." 
 
 Nor were mental resemblances wanting. 
 
 Entering his University at the early age of 
 fifteen, at the end of his first year he published 
 a Paper on "The Binomial Theorem," showing 
 the turn of his mind, which characterized the 
 founder of the family, Baron Napier, of Mer- 
 chistown, inventor of Logarithms. I got a beau- 
 tiful photograph of his bust in India, and sent it 
 to my mother, thinking she would put it in this 
 second volume. 
 
 My father's mind was essentially legal, and he 
 had a thorough love for his profession. But this 
 could not dim still grander and higher qualities. 
 Those who knew him as I did, thank God, knew 
 the firmness of his faith and the sublimity of his 
 creed. He instilled into his children, from their 
 earliest days, a deep sense of the great things of 
 God : and his Sunday teaching, and other les- 
 sons, retained a never-to-be-forgotten place in 
 their minds, although other influence came in to 
 mould them, and various schools of Christian 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 thought claimed them. Nor did his family ajone 
 absorb this interest; but, like other Lord Chan^ 
 cellors, my father, in his early days, delighted in 
 being a Sunday School Teacher. Work was to 
 him a necessity. When, in after years, his powers 
 were waning, it was beautiful to see the joy that 
 overspread his countenance as he listened to his 
 grandchildren repeating to him the hymns and 
 scriptures he had once taught his own children. 
 
 His Lectures on Burke and Bedell, and other 
 Essays and Letters, reveal some of the tender 
 parts of his nature — his love of art and poetry, his 
 imaginative faculty. He held it would be a cold 
 and cheerless world if order and beauty, taste and 
 feeHng — if, in a word, all the grace and poetry of 
 life — were exchanged for a selfish and material 
 grossness. 
 
 The Afternoon Lectures* in which he took part 
 (they were chiefly got up for the benefit of ladies) 
 were prepared with loving care, for he considered 
 that woman should have her place in literature, 
 as well as in the economy of life, and that she- 
 would help to purify and exalt its character. 
 
 He used to say his favourite books were Butler, 
 Bacon, and Burke ; but he had also a special 
 affection for Wordsworth, saying that his writings 
 supplemented those of Bishop Butler, showing 
 the place of the imaginative faculty in the analy- 
 * See his two Lectures on Literature and Art, 1864. 
 
6 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 sis of the nature of man. Wordsworth's poems 
 were his constant companion during his tours 
 among the English lakes, on one of which he 
 addressed the working-men of Keswick.* 
 
 He concluded by allusion to the Lake Poets, 
 the profound and gentle Christian poet of Rydal in 
 particular, as the pure and single, the wise and 
 truthful, philosopher. He contrasts the cottage 
 of Rayrigg with the chateau of Voltaire, on the 
 banks of the Lake of Geneva. 
 
 "Blessed be God," he adds, "whatever be 
 the result of any such comparisons in the rival 
 forms of external nature, your lakes and valleys 
 are not clouded by the gloomy associations 
 which the evil heart of unbelief has in other 
 lands brought down upon nature's loveliness and 
 nature's grandeur." 
 
 No young man feared to bring his difficulties 
 to him ; he would always listen patiently. 
 
 His own faith firm and strong, he could yet feel 
 for others who had doubts and fears ; for such it 
 was that he delivered his Lectures on Butler, 
 They have been collected into a volume, two 
 lectures from which are republished in this book.f 
 
 His endeavour was to reduce the profound 
 philosophy of the great theologian to simplicity, 
 for minds of smaller grasp or leisure. He 
 
 * See his Lecture on " Labour and Knowledge." 
 
 f Lectures on Butler's Analogy. Dublin : Hodges, Figgis, & Co, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 rthreaded his way through the intricacies of the 
 author's argument in a manner that evoked ad- 
 miration and dehght. 
 
 In the year 1866, his party going out of 
 office, he made, with his family, a tour in the 
 Tyrol and Italy. 
 
 A little book of Professor Jex Blake's was 
 his vade mecum in visits to picture galleries, 
 and that, also, he has marked. " The Trans- 
 figuration," " The Doubting of Thomas," the 
 ■mighty power of Michael Angelo, " The Cenci" 
 — all these he loved to dwell upon ; of the 
 many he wearied, the few he loved to rest upon. 
 
 In one place, speaking of a;rt, he says, " We 
 can scarcely be familiar with literature, and 
 not be friendly with art. ' There are ideas,' 
 says Butler, ' which we express by words — order, 
 harmony, proportion, beauty — the furthest re- 
 moved from anything sensual. Now, what is 
 there in these intellectual images, forms, or 
 ideas, which begets that approbation, love, de- 
 light, and even rapture, which is seen in some 
 persons' faces upon having these objects present 
 to their minds ? Mere enthusiasm. Be it what 
 it will, these are objects, works of nature and 
 of art, which all mankind have delight from, 
 quite distinct from their affording gratification 
 :to sensual appetites.' " 
 
 Much of what he felt and saw during Lis tour 
 
8 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 will be found in the Letters, and also in his 
 Lecture on Bishop Bedell. But let me quote 
 from this Lecture a line or two upon a different 
 subject: — "Godly, well-learned bishops, well- 
 educated and enlightened clergy, an instructed 
 people — in a word, a free Church in a free State — 
 is the sum and substance of the highest policy." 
 
 Turning from the Lectures to the Letters — 
 the correspondence extends over half a cen- 
 tury — one is reminded of his own words — " Days 
 passed among old letters, though there has 
 been some sweetness in them, yet the sadness 
 has outweighed the sweetness, as most of the 
 writers have been long dead ; weeding one's 
 papers makes the past seem full of ghosts."* 
 How much more must one feel that, when, with 
 filial tread, one ranges through the correspond- 
 ence of a parent passed away. 
 
 Of the Letters I now publish, some are deeply 
 interesting — to the memory of a husband and 
 father of whom we were justly proud, and as 
 the "Life"t was to the general reader, showing 
 at once the large circle of men of varied emi- 
 nence with whom my father was associated and 
 acquainted, and the wide range of topics with 
 which he was familiar. 
 
 * See the Lecture on " Old Letters." 
 t Widely circulated and most favourably reviewed. London : 
 Longmans & Co. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 In arranging former letters for the Life many 
 of them ought to have been inserted, and so now 
 with these, in the supplernent, the difficulty of the 
 task is increased by the fact that my father 
 never dated his letters. Though he could plead 
 the example in this of the eminent Lord Chan- 
 cellor, Lord Lyndhurst, yet one could wish that 
 his usual exactness had not been wanting here. 
 However, some hint of his, or some recollec- 
 tion in his family, has generally supplied the 
 missing note of time. 
 
 The choice of Lectures has been determined 
 chiefly by the desire to exhibit the various as- 
 pects of the writer's mind and character, and 
 the manifold directions of his intellectual ac- 
 tivity. 
 
 An unexpected indication of the intrinsic value 
 of what might seem ephemeral utterances, ap- 
 pears in a note in the third volume of Mr Lecky's 
 History of England. Writing on Edmund Burke, 
 the historian says — " Sir Joseph Napier has in- 
 vestigated with great care the circumstances re- 
 lating to the Beaconsfield estate, and to a small 
 property at Clogher, which was also in the 
 Burke family, in a Lecture on ' Edmund Burke,' 
 delivered in Dublin, in 1867, to the Young 
 Men's Christian Association. This Lecture 
 contained several particulars about Burke's pri- 
 vate life which will not be found elsewhere, and 
 
lO LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 a very complete answer to some obscure slanders 
 on the subject." 
 
 My father had a filial affection for his Church 
 and University, and gave the best of his time 
 and efforts to their service. The Guardian 
 ^ays — " The Church of Ireland owes much to 
 Sir Joseph Napier's great legal ability. His 
 forethought and wise and temperate counsels in 
 the reconstruction after its disestablishment are 
 well known and ought never to be forgotten." 
 He was also devoted to the Inns of Court, 
 where he studied ' law ; and the Benchers of 
 Gray's Inn showed their -appreciation of their 
 distinguished alumnus by placing his Coat of 
 Arms in the Memorial Window of their hall. It is 
 next to those of H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught. 
 
 This volume has been compiled in the hope 
 that it may lead others to look up and around 
 in this everyday world, and, like him, to — 
 
 " Carry music in their heart, 
 Through dusky lane and wrangling mart ; 
 Plying their daily task with busier feet, 
 Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat." 
 
 GRACE GARDINER. 
 
 Rawalpindi, Aj>rt7j i888. 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 LETTERS TO LADY NAPIER. 
 
 From The Marquis of Salisbury to Lieut.-Colonel 
 W. Macdonald Macdonald. 
 
 Hatfield, 
 
 April i6th, 1887. 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 I am very much obliged to you for the " Life of the Right 
 Hon. Sir Joseph Napier," which you and the General Committee 
 of the National Club have been good enough to send mei I had 
 the honour of his acquaintance to a slight extent when first I 
 entered Parliament, and look back to his memory with deep 
 respect. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Salisbury. 
 
 From The Marquis of Salisbury, Prime Minister, 
 to Lady Napier. 
 
 Hatfield House, 
 
 Hatfield, 
 
 July ^ist, 1887, 
 
 Lord Salisbury presents his complimeftts to Lady Napier, and 
 begs to acknowledge, with thanks, her letter and the interesting 
 extracts appended. 
 
 No one would deal with the history of the Agrarian Question 
 
12 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 in Ireland without recognising the statesmanlike foresight and 
 valuable efforts of Sir Joseph Napier in the early stages of the 
 controversy. If his warnings had been listened to, much subse- 
 quent error and danger would have been avoided. 
 
 If Sir Joseph Napier's name has not been mentioned re- 
 cently, it is that the measures under discussion have not brought 
 the earlier history of the Agrarian Question into debate. Lord 
 Salisbury remembers that it was freely alluded to in i860 and 
 1861. 
 
 From The Right Hon. W. H. Smith, First Lord of 
 the Treasury. 
 
 Downing St., Whitehall, 
 
 Ju7ie 2?,th, 1888. 
 Dear Lady Napier, 
 
 Pray accept my grateful thanks for sending me a copy of 
 " The Life of Sir Joseph Napier." I cherish a very warm regard 
 for his memory, and it is very agreeable indeed to me to possess 
 valuable reminiscences of his useful life. 
 
 Believe me, dear Lady Napier, 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 W. H. Smith. 
 From The Archbishop of York to Lady Napier. 
 
 Bishopthorpe, 
 
 York, 
 
 November, 1887. 
 My dear Lady Napier, 
 
 The Life of your husband is a most interesting book, the 
 record of a noble and beautiful life, of which every part has been 
 devoted to the highest and best objects. I am sure that no one 
 can study it without great advantage. I shall always remember 
 
LETTERS TO LADY NAPIER, '' 1 3 
 
 with pleasure the intercourse I have had with so excellent a man. 
 This book will perpetuate the recollection of a career and an 
 example that ought not to be forgotten. 
 With every good wish, 
 
 I am, 
 
 Ever yours most truly, 
 
 W. Ebor. 
 
 From Field-Marshal Lord Napier of Magdala. 
 
 July ird, 1888. 
 Dear Lady Napier, 
 
 I am much pleased to learn that in a continuation of "The 
 Life of Sir Joseph Napier" you will give to the world his 
 Lectures, Essays, and Letters, which will throw a valuable light 
 on the history of his time, and on his services to his country and 
 to the Irish Church. 
 
 Sir Joseph's Life and works cannot be too widely known. 
 
 In our colonies there must be many who would be much 
 interested in them, especially Irishmen ; and I hope that a copy 
 may find its way to some of the principal libraries of Canada and 
 Australia. 
 
 Believe me, with much respect, 
 
 Dear Lady Napier, 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Napier of Magdala. 
 
 From The Bishop of Winchester. 
 
 Farnham Castle, 
 
 February "jth, 1888. 
 My dear Lady Napier, 
 
 I am much obliged to you for sending me the reviews of the 
 " Life of Sir Joseph Napier," which only do justice to his many 
 good and noble qualities. I have been much interested in read- 
 ing his Life. I had the highest esteem and regard for him, and 
 only regret that ray acquaintance with him and friendship for him 
 
14 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 began so late in his life and in my own too. However, I knew/ 
 him,, probably, in the full ripeness of his character. I was par-' 
 ticularly struck with the union in him of a firm hold of his ownj 
 opinions and a kindly sympathy for those whose opinions he 
 could not approve. Everyone knows that he disliked what is 
 called Ritualism ; yet I remember that when the " Public Worship 
 Act" was passed, which Mr. Disraeli (as he was then) supported 
 in the hope that it would stamp out Ritualism, Sir Joseph ex- 
 pressed to me his apprehension that it would turn the Church 
 Militant into the Church Litigant. The country and the Church 
 are the poorer by the loss of such a man. May I hope that 
 you, my dear madam, poor as a bereaved heart must be, are the , 
 richer in hope from the knowledge he is where we all long to be. 
 
 Ever, my dear Lady Napier, 
 
 Most faithfully yours, 
 
 E. H. WiNTON. ' 
 
 From The Canon of Winchester. 
 
 Bournemouth, 
 
 April 2'^th,\%Zi. '. 
 My dear Lady Napier, 
 
 It is most kind of you to allow me now to speak of the pre- 
 cious volume you have given me, to my friends. 
 
 It is to nie intensely interesting. I am reading it with no 
 ordinary pleasure and profit too. 
 
 Of course I have only got a certain way in the work at pre- 
 sent, but it seems to me well done as far as I have gone. 
 
 It certainly brings out veify brightly your beloved and ho- 
 noured husband's character and labours and honours. 
 
 It might have been well if those letters you mention had been 
 inserted from such distinguished men. But there is a gratifying 
 succession of remarks about the eminent labours, which were s6 
 truly and justly appreciated by some of the greatest men of the 
 time. 
 
 I think you may fairly dismiss from your kind heart all dis* 
 appointment at the manner in which the Life has been written. : 
 
 The whole is so honourable, so noble, so pious, and sp highly 
 
LETTERS TO LADY NAPIER. 1 5 
 
 estimated, that we may well thank God that such a bright ex- 
 ample of all that is good and great has been at length published. 
 
 I have had much writing to-day about Church matters, and 
 am not very able to write more. 
 
 We unite in kindest Christian love to you. We often think 
 of you, and wish the choicest blessings for you. 
 
 Ever your affectionate friend, 
 
 W. Carus. 
 
 From The Lord Chancellor of England. 
 
 House of Lords, S. W., 
 
 July <)tk, 1888. 
 Dear Lady Napier, 
 
 I am very heartily obliged to you for your kind letter and 
 present of Sir Joseph Napier's Life. I venture thus to address 
 you, as I have had the honour of being presented to you now 
 more than forty years ago. 
 
 When I was a boy at Boulogne-sur-mer, you had a daughter 
 born,* whom you desired to call Grace ; but some of the French 
 officials demurred, upon the ground that Grace was not a 
 Christian name recognised by the French law. 
 
 At that time I had several walks with Sir Joseph, and I was 
 particularly impressed by the kindness with which he, a cele- 
 brated and learned lawyer, conversed with a lad just going to 
 the University. I did meet him once or twice in after life, and 
 none who knew him, even as little as I did, could fail to be 
 struck with his kindly, amiable spirit, as well as by his great 
 learning and wisdom. His is, indeed, a history of which a wife 
 may be proud, and I anticipate much pleasure from reading the 
 volume you have been good enough to send me. I have no 
 doubt it will give me more reason still for admiring one whose 
 memory I have ever held in reverence. 
 
 Believe me, dear Lady Napier, 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 Halsbury. 
 
 * The daughter born, forty-four years ago, was registered Marie Louise, 
 christened Grace, now Mrs. Gardiner, who has done so well to keep alive her 
 father's, memory. 
 
1 6 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 From The Bishop of Exeter. 
 
 The Palace, Exeter, 
 
 March ith, 1888. 
 
 Dear Lady Napier, 
 
 I beg to thank you for your kind letter, and the enclosure of 
 your husband's speech on the Sabbath. 
 
 How delightful for you to know the seeds of truth your hus- 
 band sowed were imperishable. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 E. H. ExoR. 
 
 LETTERS TO MRS. GARDINER. 
 From Rev. D. Heron. 
 
 Muorce, 
 
 November, 1887. 
 My Dear Mrs. Gardiner, 
 
 I return, with many thanks, the " Life " of your father. I 
 have read it with the deepest interest. It is a record of a truly 
 beautiful and noble life. I admire the high principles on which, 
 the subject of it invariably acted, and the faithfulness to his 
 convictions of truth and duty which he always evinced. The 
 feature in your father's life which more than any other com- 
 mands my admiration — I might say, my veneration — is his 
 fearless advocacy before the politicians and great men of the 
 world, of the paramount claims, in all cases, of God's Word, 
 and his easy, loving acknowledgment in his speeches and 
 writings of loyalty to the Lord Jesus. Would that this charac- 
 teristic were more seen in the public men of India. You have 
 indeed, you and your children, a rich and noble inheritance in 
 the character and life of such a father. 
 
 D. Heron, 
 
 Missionary. 
 
LETTERS TO MRS. GARDINER. 17 
 
 From The Rev. Teignmouth Shore. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Gardiner, 
 
 I regard the Lectures and Essays as valuable in relation to 
 the Biography, because it exhibits a very beautiful aspect of 
 your father's character. 
 
 I am strongly of opinion that the greater number of theni 
 ought to be preserved, if possible, in a separate volume. > 
 
 I send herewith a list of those which appear to me to have a 
 distinct interest and value. To attempt to give an abstract of 
 any of these, or a mere running commentary upon them, in 
 preference to reprinting them in extenso, would be, to my mind> 
 a great pity. 
 
 From Professor {now Sir) William Thomson. 
 
 The University, Glasgow, 
 
 February 26t/i, 1883. 
 Dear Madam, 
 
 I received some time ago, from the Master of Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, your letter of the 23rd of January, and I was on the 
 point of answering it when I received your letter of the 23rd of 
 February, on Saturday last. I had delayed my answer to make 
 some enquiries of my brother. Professor James Thomson, on the 
 subject. I find that we have no memorials left among my 
 father's letters, or otherwise ; but both my brother and I well re- 
 member the name of your father as having often been mentioned 
 to us by our father as one of two or three of the ablest pupils 
 that he had had in Belfast. We think we remember the three 
 nanies of Whiteside, O'Hagan, and Napier, as being the three 
 cleyerest pupils that he had had. 
 
 I am sorry, however, that I am not able to give you any of 
 the more particular information or memorials that you desired. 
 
 Believe me, yours faithfully, 
 
 William Thomson. 
 
1 8 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 From the Right Hon. Spencer Walpole, M.P. 
 
 109 Eaton Square, 
 
 March Ml, 1883. 
 Dear Madam, 
 
 I am very glad to hear that you are thinking of publishing a 
 short Biography of your excellent father, the late Sir Joseph 
 Napier. His virtues and abilities well deserve such a memorial 
 of him. I only wish I had any letters of his which would help you 
 in the furtherance of so good an object ; but I do not think that 
 I have any at all— certainly none, excepting those of a purely 
 official character. Our intercourse, though constant while Par- 
 liament was sitting, was necessarily interrupted during the recess ; 
 and I do not recollect that we ever carried on anything more 
 than an occasional correspondence. 
 
 Wishing you well through such an undertaking, 
 
 I am, dear Madam, 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 S. H. Walpole. 
 
 From A. J. B. Beresford-Hope, Esq., M.P. 
 
 Bedgebury Park, Cranbrook. 
 
 Dear Mks. Gardiner, 
 
 I am shocked to see that, with a great press of occupations, 
 I must have left your letter — which greatly touched and interested 
 me — so king unanswered. 
 
 You only do me justice when you say that I loved and re- 
 spected your eminent father. Still I never knevv him so inti- 
 mately as to make me a valuable contributor to your memoir. 
 
 If the following sentence, as a quotation from a letter of mine, 
 would be of any use to you, pray use it. 
 
 May I be allowed to offer my testimony to the honour, the 
 sincerity, and the deep religious conscientiousness of Sir Joseph 
 Napier ? The world could appreciate his intellectual capacity, in 
 considering the high dignities which he so worthily filled ; but 
 
LETTERS TO MRS. GARDINER. I9 
 
 these were only one side of his character. His Church opinions 
 were pronounced, but were always upheld with charity and can- 
 dour, while he was always glad to co-operate with men of differing 
 views. 
 
 Believe me, dear Madam, 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 A. J. B. Beresford-Hope. 
 
 From OcTAVius A. Blewitt, Esq. 
 
 Royal Literary Fund, 
 
 7 Adelphi Terrace, W.C, 
 
 March 22nd, 1883. 
 Dear Madam, 
 
 Sir Joseph Napier became connected with the Royal Literary 
 Fund in 1852 by becoming a Steward of the Anniversary Dinner 
 of that year, under the presidency of Lord Chief Justice Campbell. 
 
 I believe he was also present at the Dinners of 1861, '62, '64, 
 '67, and '68. 
 
 Whenever he was present he was called upon to propose or 
 answer to a toast. 
 
 For many years after 1852, through my old friend, Mr. White- 
 side, your father corresponded with me on literary subjects, as 
 he mentions in his Lectures ; and also professed great friendship 
 for me, of which I was naturally very proud. 
 
 He was once elected a member of the Committee, and presided 
 over at least one of their meetings ; but he lost his seat by his 
 inability to attend. 
 
 Believe me, dear Madam, 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 OcTAVius A. Blewitt. 
 
20 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 From W. St. J. Wheelhouse, Esq. 
 
 Pension Chamber, 
 Grafs Inn, February 27M, 1883. 
 
 Dear Madam, 
 
 I send you a rough draft of the Coat of Arms now occupying 
 the middle top compartment of the most easterly window in the 
 South Front of Gray's Inn Hall (these windows having, for 
 many years past, been specially reserved for our " great men"). 
 There are six compartments in each window. 
 
 May I say that you will find him "in very good company"? — 
 though I am sorry to add that Mr. Justice Manisty is the sole 
 now survivor of the six ; — Mr. Justice Manisty being, as I dare 
 say you know, one of the Judges of our Supreme Court in 
 England. 
 
 If at any time you would like to see whatever we can show 
 you, I shall have very great pleasure in promoting your so doing 
 any day it may suit you to call (say about one p.m.) at Gray's 
 Inn, and asking for the Steward, or 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 W. St. J. Wheelhouse. 
 
CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 WITH 
 
 me; maek napiee, 
 
 A DISTINGUISHED MEMBER OF THE SCOTCH BAR ; 
 
 S^tiiff principal of % fflnutttg fionrt; 
 
 JUDGE. OF DUMFRIES-SHIRE; 
 
 AUTHOR OF SEVERAL PROFESSIONAL AND LITERARY WORKS;' 
 
 AN ASSIDUOUS STUDENT OF THE HISTORY OF Hrs COUNTRY; 
 
 AND (as sir JOSEPH) ' ' 
 
 A DESCENDANT OF THE NAPIERS OF MERCHISTON. 
 
 . Merrion Square^ ' 
 
 Wednesday. 
 
 Dear Mr. Mark Napier, 
 
 I hope you got the copy of the Lectures on Butler which , \ 
 forwarded to you. I will send you in a few days what I have 
 written on the disputed chapter — Par): II., chap, ii.— ^and to which 
 I have appended a very able analysis of Butjler's .argument by 
 Mr. Mansel of St. John's College, Oxford. 
 
 I incline to think that a dissolution of Parliament is not very 
 far off. This, however, is merely my own conjecture. I do not 
 think there is any disposition in the Conservative party to dis- 
 turb Lord Palmerston, although they feel that he has got into his 
 position, and holds his headship of the Liberal party, rather 
 under " false pretences." 
 
 , . Believe me, most faithfully, 
 
 Joseph Napier: 
 *C 2 
 
22 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Monday. 
 Dear Mr. Mark Napier, 
 
 I read the judgments in the Yelverton case as given in the 
 Times. I confess I came to the conclusion that a Scotch fraction 
 and an Irish cypher could not make a unit — much less " a pair." 
 The whole affair is a desecration of marriage, but I am not so 
 confident as to the final decision. 
 
 There was plainly not a valid Irish marriage, and I confess 
 the leaning of my opinion was, that there was not a good Scotch 
 marriage. But as this depends on a careful consideration of all 
 the facts — which are spread over a wide period — there is room 
 for doubt and difference. 
 
 I did not confide in her veracity, and would not act on her 
 evidence. He is a grossly sensual and weak man, who was 
 regularly ensnared by the wily " pursuer." 
 
 I have no sympathy with either of them — both are profligate 
 in morals — and whether they be tied by the law or left loose, has 
 no great interest for me, further than this — that I desire to see 
 the marriage relation saved from desecration. 
 
 I have a very high opinion of the Lord Justice General, who, 
 I observe, dissents from his brethren, Lord Curriehill and Lord 
 Deas. 
 
 My head is nearly cracked to-day with clearing off correspon- 
 dence ; so excuse this scrambling scrawl. Mrs. Yelverton (other- 
 wise Longworth) still keeps the House of Lords in fling. I hear 
 that the general impression is against her, and that the judgment 
 will probably be reversed. Westbury's judgment will be racy. 
 
 Give my very kindest regards to Mrs. Napier. 
 
 To the Same. — Politics and Social Science. 
 
 I suppose your Law Term has begun. I am under sentence 
 for an uncertain term, doomed not to labour hard. I leave the 
 work of garrotting to my friends in the House of Commons. 
 
 I do not know exactly what their tactics are ; but I would 
 suppose that it is not desired to embarrass Lord Palmerston, 
 unless he be the victim of combination and division in his own 
 Cabinet. 
 
LETTERS TO MR. MARK NAPIER. 23 
 
 I have not yet heard when the Social Science Association, 
 propose to hold their meeting in Edinburgh ; but I hope it will 
 be so arranged as to enable me to avail myself of the kind invi- 
 tation of you and Mrs. Napier, to whom I beg to present my, 
 kind respects. 
 
 To the Same. 
 On the Scottish Bar and Lord Palmerston. 
 
 Merrion Square, 
 Wednesday. 
 
 One of our Fellows here has asked me whether a graduate in 
 Arts, who has attended a Law Class in a College for one Session, 
 can be called as an Advocate to the Scotch Bar, after studying 
 for two Sessions in a Scotch University. This refers to the class 
 of men who are in India who have not been called to the Bar, 
 but wish to qualify for judicial appointments. What is the 
 minimum time within which one of these could be called after 
 entering on his Scotch career, supposing him already to have got 
 a degree in Arts, and to have availed himself of such facilities as ' 
 India affords ? 
 
 Lord Palmerston seems to have got on admirably. His 
 speeches, &c., were excellent, showing clear good sense, and that 
 thorough sympathy with the public feeling which gives him so 
 much power. But his day is almost setting. After him — " the 
 deluge." 
 
 To the Same. — A Political Extract. 
 
 I should not be surprised at a recall early in the year, for my 
 belief is, that the Nemesis is at hand to execute justice on those ' 
 who, by fraud and under false pretences, turned us out, and gave ' 
 us a sermon on " Rest and be thankful." 
 
 To the Same. — The ''Edinburgh" re Butler. 
 
 Wemyss Bay, on the Clyde, 
 Tuesday, iZth. 
 
 I have been reminded of you by reading the "diatribe " in 
 the Edinburgh Review, in which the writer seems to think that 
 
24 " LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 superlative abuse is equivalent to positive evidence. I have not 
 your pamphlet beside me, but I read it very carefully in Dublin, 
 and I do not find that the critic in the Review has fairly met the 
 clear and exhaustive comment in your pamphlet. The real diffi- 
 culty on his side is — to sum up the evidence — to show some 
 proof of a reliable kind on which our belief is to be founded. 
 Instead of which he merely plays on the credulity and the pre- 
 judices of the grievance-mongering section to which he belongs. 
 His admission at the close seems to say he is not able to dis- 
 place the case made by the pamphlet. 
 
 To Mrs. Mark Napier. 
 
 Wemyss Bay, 
 
 Thursday, loth. 
 Dear Mrs. Napier, 
 
 1 heard that the article in the Edinburgh Review was written 
 
 by the Rev. Cunningham of Crieff. Whoever is the writer 
 
 may be a good scold, but he is a feeble advocate, and his con- 
 clusions are lame and impotent. The criticism in the Courant 
 is very cleverly written ; but I think you need not much disquiet 
 yourself with the Review. If the pamphlet had not cut deep, it 
 would not have been noticed, and if it could be refuted by refer- 
 ence to reasonable proof and by fair argument, it would not have 
 been met by flippant scurrility and appeals to sectarian prejudice 
 and credulity. It is not so easy to part with a pair of martyrs, 
 whose memory had been canonized by the presbytery, and had 
 in honour by the children of the Covenant ; and to rob them of 
 the testimony of Macaulay, or rather to make that testimony 
 valueless, must have been in their eyes the highest form of high 
 treason. 
 
 People of sense and candour will naturally ask now, Where is 
 the evidence of the martyrdom ? The stream cannot rise above 
 its source, and until some reliable positive proof can be adduced 
 and appealed to, rant and abuse must go for what they are worth 
 and nothing more. 
 
 Believe me, dear Mrs. Napier, very faithfully, 
 Joseph Napier. 
 
LETTERS TO MR. MARK NAPIER. 25 
 
 To Mr. Mark Napier. 
 
 Dear Mr. Mark Napier, 
 
 I hope Mrs. Napier is now quite well. I presume she is at 
 Portobello, getting the benefit of the sea air, which is far better 
 for her than either London or Edinburgh. 
 
 I had a busy time in watching the passage of the Subscription 
 Bill, and checkmating the Bishop of Oxford, which I managed 
 effectually at the last. I was enabled to prevent both him and 
 Lord Shaftesbury from interpolating their respective crotchets, 
 and so preserved the moderate and impartial character of the 
 measure free from sectional desecration. 
 
 Sir Geo. Gray behaved very well, and gave me full scope for 
 securing what I desired. I have not a fault to find with the Act 
 as it now stands. 
 
 I expect that we shall soon have a stout fight on the question 
 of the Established Church. Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England — 
 that will be the order of attack. If " the rule of three " is to be 
 the test of our policy, we must all go to the wall — put up with 
 universal suffrage and all its consequences. But I am not dis- 
 posed to think that, when we are roused to fight, we shall not 
 have a powerful party in support of our institutions. 
 
 Commercial prosperity begets selfishness and short-sighted 
 policy — looking merely to a daily balance. It is of the earth, 
 earthy. Men must be reminded that the Church is a Divine 
 institution, and not a branch of the Civil Service. 
 
 I see you have sent old Black to the right-about. I only 
 wonder how the Lord Advocate escaped. I suppose the Govern- 
 ment influence saved him and the power of patronage. 
 
 How does your new Lord get on— the former David Muir ? 
 I believe he was a steady, good lawyer, and a highly respectable 
 man in private life. I liked Gordon very much. I spent a most 
 agreeable evening at his house when we visited you in Edinburgh, 
 and it was something to make an evening agreeable to me, who 
 enjoyed the benefits of 6 Ainslie Place, which rather spoiled one 
 for any other mansion. 
 
 Here I have no news. I am away from the din of every 
 kind of strife and bustle — procul negotiis. I expect my son from 
 circuit on Friday. I ride almost every day with my daughter. 
 
26 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 And I know of nothing to stir me up until the beginning of 
 October, when I have to attend the Church Congress at Norwich, 
 and read a paper on the position of the Irish Church. 
 
 Awaiting your absolution, and with kindest regards to Mrs. 
 Napier and your daughter, 
 
 I am, most faithfully, your friend and kinsman, 
 
 Joseph Napier. 
 
 To the Same. — Elections in Ireland, &c. 
 
 Barsby Lodge, Ryde, 
 Tuesday. 
 
 I was amused on calling in London at a publisher's in Dover 
 Street who had worked for Sir William. When I came in, he 
 said, " Sir, you need not tell me your name ; you have the, 
 Napier face." If I have any of the distinctive lineaments, either 
 of mind or body, of the noble clan of Napier, I am proud of it. 
 Still I remember — " Sed genus, et proavos et quae nan fecimus ipsi 
 vix ea nostra voco." 
 
 We are pleasantly and peaceably settled after a quiet season 
 in London, but a stirring period in the elections. I went over 
 to Dublin to vote in the city and in the University. On the 
 whole, we have done very well in Ireland. We have considerably 
 more than one-third Conservative — nearly two-thirds Protestant. 
 In two counties we have been beaten by mob violence and 
 terrorism, for we had a majority of electors if free to vote. 
 
 The tendency generally seems to be to political indolence — 
 a policy by which men may talk Liberalism, wink at Radicals, 
 &c., but keep the Whigs in office, and so range with those who 
 " say and do not." I think that this Parliament is merely pro- 
 visional, because old Pam must soon be shelved, and then parties 
 will gravitate into their natural position. There must be a party 
 of movement and a party of order. I hope the latter may be 
 the stronger. 
 
 In Scotland I see the commercial element getting into the 
 counties. As men make money in the towns, they build and 
 purchase in the counties. 
 
LETTERS TO MR. MARK NAPIER. 27 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 A description of Sir Joseplis fatnily. — Question of right 
 to an old Baronetcy. 
 
 I have two sons and three daughters, all living and prosperous. 
 My eldest son has been called to the Irish Bar, and is likely to 
 do very well. I have another who is a handsome young oflScer, 
 and has already got his Lieutenancy in the 23rd Royal Welsh 
 Fusiliers. My eldest daughter is married to a son of the Bishop 
 of Meath, and is happily and usefully placed in an attractive 
 glebe and quiet parish. I have two young ladies undisposed of, 
 who are most cherished companions, now that I am compelled to 
 live in freedom without hard labour. 
 
 I might think of getting the extinct baronetcy revived, but I 
 never thought of a peerage. It was usual in earlier times to 
 make the Lord Chancellor a peer, but this has been discontinued, 
 and I think wisely. Enough to make Na peer an Irish Chan- 
 cellor. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Merrion Square, 
 Tuesday, 2W1 , 1863. 
 
 Just as I had finished your pamphlet, I had an attack of ill- 
 ness, from v/hich I am only beginning to recover, and am pro- 
 hibited from any effort or exertion for some time. I had been 
 too continuously occupied with "head-work" — the circulation 
 was disturbed. I lost a good deal of blood, and could not get 
 through any kind of business. So I put all work aside, and now 
 I must not take too much liberty with myself. 
 
 I read the pamphlet twice. I think it is quite conclusive. It 
 has brought conviction to ray mind fully and clearly. 
 
 If you have at hand a little work recently published, entitled 
 " Earl Stanhope's Miscellanies," look at two letters of Macaulay, 
 one in pp. 115-16, the other in 125, and note how truly of him it 
 may be said : — " Quam temere in nosniet legem sarcumus iniguam V 
 
 I had intended to have given you more precisely the view I 
 takfe of the evidence which you adduce, but I must forbear at 
 present, and content myself with giving you the result — that I 
 
28 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 take you to have made out your case ably, clearly, and con- 
 vincingly. 
 
 I got a letter from the local secretaries as to the Social 
 Science Meeting. I have mislaid it ; but if you know or see any 
 of them, would you say on my behalf, it is my purpose, God 
 permitting me, to attend the meeting ? 
 
 To the Same. — The Bishop of Oxford. 
 
 Saturday, 
 wthjtine, 1864. • 
 
 I will hail your genealogical contribution, which I have for 
 some time been anxious to procure. 
 
 If you despatch your opponents as successfully as you did in 
 the case of the Wigtown Martyrs, you will have achieved a 
 triumph. 
 
 I return on Wednesday. I have been contending with and 
 conquering Sam of Oxford, on our Commission, as to subscrip- 
 tion. I wish to avoid the excesses of both Puritan and Prelatist, 
 and abide by the cautious and wise moderation of the Church 
 herself. 
 
 I have carried my point against him, and have the three 
 Archbishops on my side, and the three Regius Professors of 
 Divinity in Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin. 
 
 There is a lull in politics. War would be unpopular. The 
 greed of gain seems to have more influence than the feeling of 
 national honour. Gladstone lost his head, and got into a fog. 
 He will be made use of by the Radicals ; but I doubt if he will be 
 able to place himself at the head of more than a restless section. 
 
 It is not unlikely that after the Conference there will be an 
 outburst. 
 
 To the Same. — '^ No leisure for Genealogy" 
 
 Merrion Square, 
 
 Tuesday, 20th January, 1865. 
 
 , I got the books quite safe, and return you many thanks. I 
 have been so busy with various duties at this time that I have 
 no leisure for genealogy, nor do I expect it for some months. 
 
LETTERS TO MR. MARK NAPIER. 29 
 
 But I hope to make myself master of the materials which you 
 have so kindly supplied, should God spare me in health and 
 strength. 
 
 What I would wish, if I do not ask too much from you, is to 
 have the proper drawing prepared on paper (coloured) for Gray's 
 Inn, and to forward it direct to the steward, and to have 
 another copy on vellum for myself I leave it in your hands to 
 -secure its exactness and propriety. 
 
 To the SaMe. 
 
 Merrion Square,, 
 
 Tuesday, , 1866. 
 
 I have had a letter from Lord Chelmsford, which leads me to 
 expect that I may soon hear what is intended as to myself. The 
 Peerage man (Editor of " Debrett ") has written to get the earliest 
 information to have (if possible) in his new volume for next year. 
 I am therefore anxious to know as soon as I can how I really 
 stand on the Napier pedigi'ee. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Letter about expected honours. Baronetcy, &c. 
 
 Merrion Square, 
 Thursday, < • , 1866. 
 
 The Chief Justice has just called to say that he sees they have 
 made four Privy Councillors and two Baronets. I am not in this 
 batch. Newspaper correspondents say I am to be a Baronet and 
 a Privy Councillor. Until I hear from some " lawful authority," 
 I will say nothing more on the subject. Political ingratitude is 
 here proverbial. 
 
 Well, at all events, I have resources of Which they cannot 
 deprive me ; and — " A man's a man for a' that." 
 
 I hope all goes on satisfactorily as to the marriage. Of course 
 it must be a trying event to you ; but I most sincerely hope that 
 n the end it may add to your happiness. 
 
■30 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Important Letter on Lord Derby's Leadership, and 
 
 other topics. 
 
 Merrion Square, 
 Monday, 12th December, 1866. 
 
 I returned on Saturday from Nidd Hall, where I spent a few 
 days with Miss Rawson, who is one of your many friends dis- 
 persed throughout the kingdom. I had got Mrs. Napier's letter 
 giving the account of your daughter's " betrothment," and I could 
 readily enter into the feelings of both under the circumstances. 
 For my own part, I am always desirous that such a union as mar- 
 riage should be based on mutual afifection, and without undue 
 influence from other considerations, which, although not to be 
 overlooked, are yet to be regarded as subordinate. I most sin- 
 cerely trust it may turn out happily in every respect, and by 
 increasing the domestic circle, widen the sphere of happiness for 
 you all. 
 
 I enclose a letter from Mrs. Napier, in which (to use a judicial 
 phrase) I entirely concur, and do most heartily hope we may 
 have you over here with us as proposed. When I got your Mrs. 
 Napier's letter, I was at York ; I sent the substance of it to 
 Brussels ; but, strange to say, it was in one of four letters which I 
 posted at different times after I left Switzerland, none of which 
 were received at the foreign Post Offices by Mrs. Napier. I was 
 " on the whirl " in Yorkshire, and so postponed replies to all my 
 letters until my return here. 
 
 I am in expectation of hearing about the baronetcy soon. 
 Meanwhile I should be very grateful to you if you would give me 
 some general outline of the Luton Hoo Baronetcy. As I under- 
 stand, it was created by James I. (of England), and has become 
 extinct by forfeiture, or some fatality. My brother (as I believe 
 you know) had some kind of abnormal investigation, which was 
 formally in his favour. 
 
 It occurred to me that it would be meritorious to revive and 
 restore what was " Napier privilege and property ; " and I think 
 it might lead to a final arrangement if I had the correct abstract 
 of the extinct title. 
 
 I found everywhere a very kindly appreciation of the line I 
 
LETTERS TO MR. MARK NAPIER. 31 
 
 took in relieving Lord Derby, and upholding the standard for the 
 administration of justice in Ireland, so far as I could at the time ; 
 but I am bound to say that I think the policy of the Government 
 has been timid and somewhat sneaking, and that it will heat 
 their enemies, and cool their friends. Towards Lord Derby I 
 feel (as I have always felt) a dutiful attachment ; but some of his 
 officials are disposed to a time-serving policy, which never can 
 suit a Conservative party. Their new allies in Ireland will use 
 them, and betray them as may be convenient. I do not think 
 the present Cabinet can last six months, and what may follow is 
 an enigma which I leave for future solution. 
 
 I doubt very much whether Lord Derby has any desire to 
 leave his present easy position, and yet there is no other head to 
 whom we can look up. He has many fine qualities, and great 
 ability ; but of late he has not, I think, looked after his men as a 
 leader should who desires to keep up his commandership. Our 
 men have been left to drift, when they should have been carefully 
 piloted, and thus have they got on the rocks on more than one 
 occasion. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 On being appointed Vice-Chancellor. 
 
 Merrion Square, 
 
 Wednesday, , 1867. 
 
 I heard of the accession to the clan, and beg to congratulate 
 you on the happy event. 
 
 I was in Switzerland during the end of August and the greater 
 part of September. I went to St. Montz in the Engadine, high 
 up in the world, where I breathed a pure and bracing air. It is 
 a place singularly adapted to revive me, and I had just had a 
 long and tedious spell in the Jerusalem Chamber on the Ritual 
 Commission. We resume in November. 
 
 Since I returned I have been appointed to the high and 
 honourable office of, Vice-Chancellor of the University, in the 
 place of Blackburne. Lord Rosse (Chancellor) appointed, with 
 the cordial and general approval of the Provost and leading 
 members of the College. It was settled in summer, but the ill- 
 ness of Lord Rosse delayed the appointment. It has been 
 
32 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 formally executed, and I have been sworn in. I fear we shall 
 soon have to elect a new Chancellor ; but I believe I am not 
 likely to be deposed so long as I choose to hold the office of Vice- 
 Chancellor. The Chancellor's place has never been held by a 
 Commoner, although a Na-peer. If I wished I could have a 
 good support in the Senate, but I think it would not be judicious 
 at present. I am disposed in favour of Lord Cairns. 
 
 Grace tells me that we are to have the protection of your 
 son-in-law, and the pleasure of your daughter's presence in 
 Dublin at an early date. I shall be truly glad to make his 
 acquaintance, and to renew my former acquaintance with her. If 
 she still inclines to a scamper on horseback, I will be ready to 
 accompany her, at least with as mucli speed as I can manage. 
 
 I will have a busy week with Dizzy and the Reformers. 
 I hope for the best, but one cannot but feel that the experiment 
 is fearful. May God overrule all for good. We must now try to 
 make the best of it, and there is no use in moping and predicting 
 perils. 
 
 I have my hands full with the work of two Commissions, and 
 the duties incidental to the new post of Vice-Chancellor. But I 
 like work, and I thank God that I am in good health, and in 
 full force. 
 
 To Mrs. Mark Napier. 
 
 The Papers laid before Sir Bernard Burke. 
 
 Merrion Square, 
 Saturday. 
 My dear Mrs. Napier, 
 
 Do not trouble him about it, until he is properly able to give 
 attention to such matters. I have had my papers before Sir 
 Bernard Burke, who is our great authority here on pedigree 
 matters, &c. He speaks in very higli terms of the great authority 
 of Mr. Napier in all genealogical matters. 
 
 Mrs. Napier has been very ill, confined to her room for 
 upwards of a week, and now she begins slowly to recover. 
 
 iviost faithfully, 
 
 Joseph Napier. 
 
LETTERS TO MR. MARK NAPIER. 33 
 
 To Mr. Mark Napier. 
 On his brother's title, used for some years. 
 
 MefTton Square," 
 Monday. 
 
 I thought I had mentioned that the proceedings which my 
 brother carried through the Court in Edinburgh, took place 
 about 1843 or 1844. 
 
 As I am anxious on account of the probable communication 
 from Lord D. before the end of the year, 1 should greatly desire 
 to be able to say who and what I am. 
 
 To the Same. — Party fears, — On the Baronetcy. 
 
 Merrion Square, 
 Wednesday, 
 
 I have not as yet heard from Lord Derby, but I expect a 
 letter soon. If he offers a baronetcy, I should greatly desire to 
 get the old title confirmed by new Letters Patent, rather than 
 have a new creation. I have written to my nephew to get his 
 consent, which I hope to get. 
 
 May I ask whether, according to the law of Scotland, the 
 finding of the Mercer's jury, as returned to the Court of Chancery, 
 is evidence to support the claim ? Is there no one at Luton 
 Hoo who would give information as to the links of the alleged 
 pedigree, or is there no available means of testing its general 
 accuracy ? 
 
 I suspect that Lord Russell and Co. will soon make an on- 
 slaught on Lord Derby ; and the leaders are so time-serving, and 
 some of them so timid, that I have little expectation of their 
 holding on. 
 
 To the Same. 
 On Baronetcy T^eceived from the Queen, f of servicis rendered. 
 
 Whitehall Gardens, 
 
 Wednesday, , 1867. 
 
 I got the official communication from Mr. Streatfield, last 
 night, enclosing the sheet of the Gazette in which the Queen's 
 
 *D 
 
34 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Warrant is announced. I am placed at the head of the batch of 
 four. So all is right at last. 
 
 I thought, on the whole, that it was better not to entangle 
 this dignity, conferred for services, with the old baronetcy ; and, 
 therefore, I gave up the territorial addition. It might have been 
 unpleasant for my nephew either to refuse or to allow the assumpr 
 tion of Luton, and I think it is more appropriate, as to this new 
 creation, to give the true and simple addition. I am described 
 in the Patent as " our right trusty and well-beloved councillor, 
 Joseph Napier, of Merrion Square, in the city of Dubhn," 
 
 I need not say how grateful I am to you for all the inferdsl: 
 you have taken in this and other matters dear to the clan of 
 Napier — one of which I am very proud to be. S. Warren wrote 
 to me, and happily said — 
 
 " Honours happiest thrive 
 When rather from our acts we them derive 
 Than our foregoers." 
 
 But I could say, in reply, I am the more happy to claim both 
 from the new and old treasury of honour. 
 
 I am here for a few days, and return on Saturday. I have 
 just seen MacDonald MacDonald, who gave me a good account 
 ,of you. He is in great deliylu with your gallant son-in-law, to 
 whom, he says, he took a great fancy. 
 
 Politics are passing into a new stage of transition, so that I 
 feel relieved by being quite free from official obligations. I fear 
 that the experiment to be made in favour of Popery in Ireland, 
 and Democracy in Great Britain, is very perilous. May God 
 defend the right ! 
 
 With kindest regards to Mrs. Napier, and your daughter. 
 
 To the Same. 
 Same subject — also disappointment with some party moves. 
 
 Merrion Square, 
 
 Monday, , 1867. 
 
 I was in London when your kind letter arrived. I am much 
 pleased to find that you approve of my adhering to " Merrion 
 'Square." I thought it mighlf be felt by my nephew as ndt 
 
LETTERS TO MR. MARK NAPIER. 35 
 
 generous to appropriate Luton Hoo. As Scotland supplies 
 Mercliiston, and England I,uton Loo, it is but fair to give Ire- 
 land a share in the local habitation, as she has in the name. 
 
 " I am glad to be out of politics. The new regime is devoid 
 of manliness and principle. It takes the colour of the stalk ori 
 
 which it crawls and the leaf on which it feeds. made such 
 
 a mess of his department, from lack of plainness and pluck. 
 Wavering, amiable, feeble in purpose, sensitive, and conscien- 
 tious, he was utterly unfit for the office he held. I heard the 
 debate in the Lords on Thursday, and I thought the defence 
 broke down. Cairns could not make it better than Lord Derby 
 had tried and failed to do. 
 
 To the Same. 
 Shows a family connection with the Napier s of Luton. . 
 
 Friday. 
 
 I got the work on Prescriptions, which seems a very solid 
 volume, and must have cost much labour and research in the 
 preparation. I value the gift, and thank you very much for it. ■ 
 
 It is said that in the event of the Conservatives resuming 
 office, the Duke of Richmond is to be the Viceroy of Ireland. 
 
 As to the inscription, it must have been put up about 1826 
 or 1827. My father died in 1830, and was then 74. He put 
 up the stone after he was 70. I think my grandfather, Joseph 
 Napier, died about 181 2. My great-grandfather came from 
 Luton to Ireland. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 References to Scott and feffrey. — Prefers appointment of 
 Trench rather than Stanley to Archbishopric of Dublin. 
 
 Merrion Square, 
 
 Saturday. 
 
 We must not let our good fellowship die out — though I am 
 not apprehensive of forgetting the happy week we spent together 
 in Edinburgh, or the genial hospitality which I met in Ainslie 
 Place. We had a quiet visit at St. Martin's, where I met the 
 
36 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Bishop of St. Andrew's, who seemed a kindly, agreeable man; 
 We had a free conversation, and he sent me afterwards his 
 publication about a United Church. 
 
 I have set about reading the Life of the old Baron again, 
 and as I proceed, I the more fully appreciate the diligence, the 
 research, and the spirit with which you got it up. I hope you 
 will be able to complete for me the genealogical note of my 
 pedigree ; but take your own time, and do not inconvenience 
 yourself. I merely wish to have it within what we call " a 
 reasonable time." 
 
 I wrote to Lord Neave, and ventured to ask him for a copy 
 of his song on the Scotch Matrimonial Law, which my son is 
 very anxious to get. I suppose this is a busy time, and that until 
 Term is over I may not hear. I got the resolutions and Corre- 
 spondence about the Speculative and Historical Societies. I have 
 sent copies to the Secretary of the Speculative. The Societies 
 joined in 1783, and cemented the union in 1795. There was a 
 letter signed by Jeffrey as President and Scott as Secretary. It 
 is probable the Speculative Society will print this new matter in 
 an Appendix to the special Report of the Centenary Banquet. 
 
 We feel somewhat relieved here by the withdrawal of Stanley 
 and the nomination of Dean Trench. I think that, on the whole, 
 the selection is good, and likely to be serviceable to the Irish 
 Church. 
 
 I hope you found Lady Ruthven in full force. I liked her 
 greatly, she seemed so natural— so full of quick intelligence, and 
 so genial. We look forward with pleasurable anticipation to 
 seeing you and Mrs. Napier, with such of your young people as 
 can accompany you, here on our own soil and in our own home- 
 stead, as soon as convenient. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 " The Claimant^ — On certain clerics and other topics. 
 
 Merrien Square, 
 
 Saturday. 
 
 I left London before I could conveniently answer your kind 
 letter, and also thank you for your interesting volume, which I 
 have added to my book stock as your special gift. I marvelled 
 
LETTERS TO MR. MARK NAPIER. 37 
 
 (I confess) at your having been softened by the Tichborne 
 traitor, whom I from the first instinctively beUeved to be a 
 " Satanic " impostor. There were a few small things that made 
 an impression that became indelible. But I admit that there 
 were grounds for suspending judgment, so far as this was prac- 
 ticable, and so long also. 
 
 I hope you find Bournemouth to answer your expectations, and 
 that you are deriving benefit from it. My friend, H. Reeve, our 
 principal officer of the Judicial Committee of Council, has gone 
 there for a fortnight, and puts up at the Hotel (Newlyn's). He 
 is a fine, genial, sensible man, with a highly cultivated mind and 
 a kindly heart — one of the very best specimens of a Whig of the^ 
 old school. I am satisfied you will be much pleased with him, 
 if you come in contact with him. He is merely gone down for a 
 rest and good air — a lucid interval in official work. 
 
 Public affairs are in a sorry mess. Gladstone's general miis- 
 management has damaged the national prestige sadly. I do not 
 see my way as to the future at all. I hope against hope. 
 
 I go over on the 22nd April to attend a Conference on the 
 24th for'* the settlement of the judgment in Bennett's case. 
 These clerics suppose that they have the benefit of clergy, and 
 are above law. I do not much approve of prosecutions by a 
 Company (limited) ; but where there has been wilful violation 
 and defiance of law, I would make the offenders feel that they 
 are sub lege. 
 
 Our Synod meets here in the next week. We have difficulties 
 to meet that will require discretion and forbearance ; but I am 
 not without hope that we shall be able to pull through. Every 
 man nowadays is a king in his own eyes, and deference is no 
 longer a part of the " grace of life." The shallow and super- 
 ficial are naturally rash and presumptuous, and yet I trust that 
 "truth will prevail" — " adversa rerum immersabilis unda." 
 
 When you have unemployed leisure and a " currens calamus" 
 at hand, you may be tempted to send me a line to report pro- 
 gress. Meanwhile, with kindest and best regards (in which Lady 
 Napier unites) to you and Mrs. Napier. 
 
38 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 To the Same. 
 Party fears. — Disestablishment and " Reform!' 
 
 We have no fixed principles upheld and expressed by known 
 political parties. I have been surprised to find how well our men 
 have kept together under Lord Derby ; but when he goes (and he 
 cannot be long at the head), all will be division and confusion. 
 
 Gladstone seems crazed, and cannot be trusted for a day. 
 
 has no influence of character, and with no appreciation 
 
 of the moral and religious elements which are the life and soul of 
 the nation. He will try to follow popular indications, but not to 
 give them sound guidance. 
 
 The rebels here, if I mistake not, are not to be executed. 
 There is a sympathy for treason amongst the friends of Bright 
 and Co. But I must conclude. 
 
 Gladstone seems to have given himself over to the Irish 
 priestly party and the English Radicals. They seem resolved on 
 pulling down the Irish Establishment ; then the Scotch will 
 follow ; then in Wales ; and then — when England must look to 
 the support of her local M.P.s against all the others — where is 
 her majority to be found who will stand by the English Church 
 in selfish isolation ? 
 
 I met the Lord Advocate- We were speaking of the probable 
 effect of the Reform Bill in Scotland and Ireland. He thinks 
 that in Scotland it might be difficult to make matters worse than 
 they are. There is much difference of opinion as to the effect in 
 England. 
 
 To the Same. — Fragment on the Bennett Case. 
 
 I have now to work up my comment on the Chancellor's 
 opinion in the Bennett Case, which is vapid, diffuse, illogical, and. 
 tnost likely to do incalculable mischief. I hope, however, to get 
 the matter set right in the end, although I strongly suspect that 
 Bennett will get off. He is likely, I think, to have a majority of 
 the high, the broad, and the secular portion of the Committee. 
 
 The Government are in extremis. I do not see how they can 
 Stand, unless it be that the want of cohesion and of sufficient 
 popular support is not available. ' 
 
LETTERS TO MR. MARK NAPIER. 39 
 
 To the Same. 
 " The Bennett Prosecution " rather mischievous than useful. 
 
 — Fear of Gladstone starting a crusade against National 
 
 Churches. 
 
 Folkestone, 
 Tuesday, 1st. 
 
 For a long time I have been meditating to write to you for 
 auld lang syne. I have been detained by an arbitration between 
 the Postmaster-General and a Railway Company ; I have to act 
 As umpire, and in the interval between the close of the claimant's 
 case and the openiiig of that of the P. M. G., I have come down- 
 here. Lady Napier has been waiting for me, and when free (as I 
 expect to be on Saturday), we leave for Germany. Our Irish 
 Church work requires me to be at my post in Dublin on or 
 before the 4th October. 
 
 I was indeed grieved to hear of your severe illness, but hope 
 that you may be not only set up again, but re-invigorated. 
 
 I lead an easy life, with work sufficient to keep me from 
 rusting, but not such as to press on me and wear me. I expect 
 to have to take part in the Bennett Case next November. These 
 prosecutions are rather mischievous than useful. They embitter 
 controversy on subjects, mysterious if not awful, and with which 
 angry controversy should not be associated. Except where 
 things are done with a view to symbolize or signify some special 
 view of doctrine which pleases some and greatly offends others, 
 I incline to think it is safer and wiser not to interfere with liberty 
 of opinion. Liberty of common worship is another matter. 
 
 The Government have got a well-deserved rebuke from the 
 House of Lords, and I believe that the sound feeling of the 
 country will accord with this vote. 
 
 Gladstone {mejudice) will end by a crusade against the Na- 
 tional Churches, when next in opposition. 
 
 I see you expect to have great doings in Edinburgh. The 
 Scott Centenary and the British Association meeting must put 
 you all on your mettle. 
 
 I look back with pleasure to the happy visit we paid to you 
 and Mrs. Napier on a former occasion, when we were joyously 
 and hospitably received, and spent a week of real festivity, intel.- 
 lectual and social. 
 
40 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 We must live in the hope that we shall have fitting oppor- 
 tunity, not far off, for renewing our friendship and kinship 
 feeling — remembering our common privilege of belonging to the 
 clan Napier, " sans tache." 
 
 With kindest regards to Mrs. Napier. 
 
 To the Same. — " This is not your rest!' 
 
 " This is not your rest," is written upon all things which the 
 
 contemplative spirit can look upon with the eye of faith. May 
 
 God direct us and support us, so as to keep us in a plain path of 
 
 duty. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Gray's Inns. — Baronetcy. — Opinions worthy to he recorded. 
 
 Merrion Square, 
 
 Tuesday, , 1862-3. 
 
 Within a week or two I got a communication from the 
 Benchers of Gray's Inn, to the effect that they resolved to put up 
 my name and arms, &c., in their hall, with the other judicial and 
 official persons who have been thus commemorated as members 
 of the Inn who have held high places and offices. They request 
 a copy of my armorial bearings, crest, motto, &c. This led me 
 to look over the paper which you so kindly drew up for me some 
 years ago, and the enclosed, of which I did not before know the 
 existence, nor of the tombstone on which the inscription is. It 
 seems to have been put up by my father in memory of my grand- 
 father, for whom I am called Joseph. What my father had in- 
 scribed may be thoroughly trusted, as he was a man of the strictest 
 veracity, and quite incapable of any exaggeration or misstatement. 
 
 Might I now ask a great favour ? I want to have executed 
 two copies of the motto, crest, and arms, to which I am properly 
 entitled, and which I take to be the " Sans Tache!' the hand 
 and crescent, and the St. Andrew's Cross engrailed, with the four 
 roses (ruby) on the shield. 
 
 One of these I propose to send to Gray's Inn, the other to 
 keep ; and, as I presume they could be done with exactness in 
 Edinburgh, I will be happy to remit to you, with many thanks, 
 whatever may be the cost of the execution by a competent person 
 under your direction. 
 
FAMILY LETTERS. 4 1 
 
 To his Wife. 
 
 Parliamentary. — Lord Brougham. — Speech. — Independence 
 of Judges. 
 
 I had a very severe attack of cold, and the weather has been 
 close and wet, so that I have got no exercise. Last night I spoke 
 nearly an hour and a-half. But I had a most singularly attentive 
 audience, and was at the close cheered on all sides of the House. 
 Lord John Russell was peculiarly complimentary, and I feel that 
 I have advanced materially a great and useful work. If I had 
 been disposed for mischief, I could have put the Government in 
 an embarrassing minority ; but I have had the full approbation of 
 all the sensible and able men on both sides in the line I adopted. 
 
 To-morrow evening I must defend the independence of the 
 judges ; and although they did not act generously in 1852, yet 
 I will not allow myself to be influenced by any other feeling than 
 my duty to the country as a Christian senator. 
 
 I am most anxious to be well prepared for the 21st. The 
 debate will be looked to with deep interest. We had a depu- 
 tation, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Shaftes- 
 bury, myself, Mr. Wigram, Lord Dungannon, and other members 
 of both Houses. We waited on Lord Palmerston on the subject. 
 As I am to take a prominent position in the debate, it is my 
 intention to make diligent preparation, and, the Lord helping me, 
 to do my duty faithfully. 
 
 There is an invitation for you and C to an evening party 
 
 at Lord Malmesbury's on Saturday. 
 
 Everyone asks are you coming over. And indeed, I think, 
 you ought to come, were it only for a month, during some part of 
 the season. 
 
 2 o'clock. 
 
 I had a visit here from Lord Brougham yesterday. He is to 
 present me with other books, and he cheered me on heartily in 
 my Parliamentary course. 
 
42 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Parliamentary. — Church Discipline Bill. — Opinion of ■ 
 Political Life. 
 
 National Club, 
 
 Friday. 
 
 I have had hard and weary work. I did not get to bed untiL 
 two o'clock, after being engaged on a Select Committee, at a con- 
 sultation, and then in the House from six o'clock in the evening. 
 
 Joey came to me after the consultation. He looks remark- 
 ably well, indeed. I got him under the gallery, and he remained 
 and took tea with me at the House. To-day Captain Baxter 
 takes him down to Windsor, and to-morrow we go into lodgings 
 for the week. 
 
 Joey has heard at school a dull account of Rhyl ; but I hope 
 you may find it healthful, which is the main thing. 
 
 To-morrow morning Joey and I are invited to breakfast with 
 Mr. and Mrs. Shirley at ten o'clock. I intend to take him with 
 me to see the Whytes, the Capes, and the Primate. 1 am to be 
 at a second consultation with Sir F. Kelly at three o'clock, and 
 must spend the evening in preparing for the argument on Monday. 
 
 I fear the English bishops have blown up the Church Discip- 
 line Bill. How I would rejoice to be relieved from the harassing 
 toil of political life. To an Irish Conservative, it is irksome and 
 odious. If he be honest and discreet, he is subjected to so much 
 suspicion and misconstruction ; and if he be a thorough partizan, 
 lie is brought into such nasty collision. 
 
 Joey's report is very good, and will give you both pleasure 
 and satisfaction. He certainly appears to have been a good boy, 
 and attentive in every branch of his business. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Your note, &c., has just arrived. I got it on returning from 
 the Levee, where we all were obliged to attend, as the Queen (it 
 is said) notices everyone who neglects attendance when the 
 
FAMILY LETTERS. 
 
 43 
 
 Prince acts for her. She is not able at present to encounter 
 the fatigue, as her confinement approaches. 
 
 I have had so much correspondence recently, and am so 
 much less equal to it than I used to be. 
 
 I have been with the Eglintons. Lady Eglinton inquired 
 after you most affectionately. I saw him this morning on busi- 
 ness ; he invited me for to-day, but I had a long invitation for ' 
 Mr. and Mrs. Warner's. He is very anxious about my statement 
 on the 17th, which I hope I will do satisfactorily. 
 
 The Marquis and Marchioness of Londonderry entertained 
 me on Saturday — a small select party, very friendly and very 
 elegant. Her daughter-in-law. Lady Seaham— a most pleasing, • 
 intelligent person— 1 took to dinner. I went in Court dress, as I 
 had to go to the Levee at ten o'clock that night. 
 
 Lord Fitzwalter was asking for you this morning. 
 
 To the Same. — Disraeli's Speech. 
 
 I Whiiehall Gardens, 
 
 Tuesday. 
 
 I postponed writing until I received the parcel which arrived . 
 this morning. 
 
 We were late in the House. Disraeli made one of his bril- 
 liant displays, and blew up the Government policy most terribly. . 
 
 I wrote to Mr. Jeffery to use his own discretion in allowing 
 Joey to come up, and only to do so in case his conduct had been 
 quite satisfactory. He came up in high spirits. Lord Clancarty 
 is here, and his son William came from Woolwich, so that thfr 
 two youngsters soon coalesced. Lord Clancarty took the 
 greatest fancy to Joey, and he went back by the early evening 
 train quite happy. I also introduced him to Mr. Powys, who 
 goes out on Saturday to see his nephew, and will take the parcel. 
 Joey is not to come in again until you come over; but on 
 Saturday week I propose to run down and see the arsenal, and 
 take him with me after school on next day. We dine to-day at 
 Mr. Christopher Hamilton's, who is married to a sister of Lord 
 Elgin. He is one of our stout Conservatives, and has an enor-' 
 mous income. . . ; 
 
44 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 To the Same. 
 Indian Mutiny, 1857. — China Question. 
 
 Monday. 
 
 I was so wearied on Saturday that I felt the relief of the 
 partial rest of that day and the better rest of yesterday. I was, 
 however, very sorry to be away from home, when Joey and Grace 
 leave you so soon. I hope I may be released before Thursday ; 
 but it is not possible to know before to-morrow night, from the 
 peculiar state of the business, and the Irish Bills, on which my. 
 attendance is a public duty. 
 
 The news from India is awful. I could not read it without 
 deep emotion. How full of Satanic cruelty are the dark places 
 of the earth ! Oh 1 what a blessed thing to have the light of the 
 Gospel and the preventing grace of God to keep us free from 
 such bondage of sin. I think I never read such awful fiendish 
 villainy. The ferocity of the wildest brute beasts is nothing to 
 the savage cruelties of these Orientals. 
 
 Every day convinces me how right we were about China. 
 England is now involved in wars with the Eastern world, and God 
 alone knows how it is to end. My belief is they will get a hum- 
 bling, if this course be not stopped. 
 
 I got Miss Whately's note, and will present the Petition. I 
 think I will get Lord Shaftesbury to present the one for the 
 Lords. 
 
 I cannot find out any desirable person coming over to the 
 Association to ask to be our guest ; but you might find out from 
 Dr. Lloyd which of the German visitors might be acceptable. 
 
 Whenever I know my day of departure, I will write. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 National Club, 
 
 Monday. 
 
 I had a very calm passage, and found everything in readiness 
 for me here. It is a very comfortable house, with every con- 
 venience. Dr. Whiteside and J. W. went with me last night to 
 the Evening Service at Westminster Abbey, where we heard 
 
FAMILY LETTERS : TOUR IN ITALY. 45 
 
 Stowell preach an excellent evangelical sermon, though I thought 
 he exaggerated the view of verbal inspiration in a way I cannot 
 accept. In the morning I was at the Temple, where I heard a 
 very clear, instructive, and well-delivered sermon, and a beautiful 
 service. Who should sit within one of me but the Bishop of 
 Ossory ? Neither of us shewed any sign of penitence, and so we 
 separated. 
 
 There is to be a great debate in the House this evening, 
 which I am going down to hear. To-morrow there is a very 
 special meeting of the Club. It is now quite prosperous and 
 full of members. 
 
 Every one of my old friends whom I have seen is quite glad 
 to meet me again. At the Commission I met the two Arch- 
 bishops, Sir J. Coleridge, Walpole, our Primate, the Bishop of 
 Oxford, Lord Harrowby, &c., &c., all most civil and glad to have 
 me here. 
 
 Believe me. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 J- 
 
 To his Daughter. 
 
 Tour in Italy. — Pictures. — Opinions on state of Italy. 
 
 Tempietta, Rome, 
 
 January 16th, 1861. 
 
 My dearest C , 
 
 The city has much exceeded what I had expected ; it is pro- 
 vided with everything except truth and freedom — though the 
 stranger is not hindered in seeking for himself, and providing for 
 himself. The English church is very tidy and commodious, 
 close to the city gate, but outside ; there are libraries, with a 
 limited collection of English books, but one or two good shops, 
 where very nice books are sold. The shops, generally, are very 
 good ; and the view of the town, from the heights around, most 
 classical, and to me most interesting. But there is a mere mirage 
 of old Rome, and myths of all kinds are current. St. Peter's is 
 truly grand and beautiful ; it grows into gigantic magnificence as 
 the eye becomes trained to appreciate its marvels. But the 
 Colosseum, and the Forum, with its majestic desolation, are to 
 
46 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 rae far more attractive than the " idol's temple," where the knee! 
 is bent before the bronze image of St. Peter. If he were there,: 
 would he not say— " Stand up, I myself also am a man"? 1. 
 enjoy a quiet walk here and there, when I can look on the Scene,- 
 and think on the events of ages gone, and the doings of the; 
 great men of the great Empire of Rome. 
 
 For the palaces and villas — the pomp and luxury of Roman 
 degeneracy — I have no great £^ciuf, though it is needful to visit 
 some to see pictures of rare excellence. That of Beatrice Cenci,' 
 in the Barberini Palace, is the most truly touching portrait I ever 
 beheld. I could not look on it, I cannot think on it, without; 
 strong and deep emotion. I thought the " Dismissal of Hagar," 
 which I saw at Milan, was tlie perfection of the portraiture of 
 female sorrow; but this of Guido far exceeds it. It is a grief too 
 deep and burning for tears — it is hallowed by its intensity and 
 subdued stillness. A fiice of loveliness, innocence, tenderness^ 
 helplessness, bereavement, you feel as if you could give all the 
 sympathies of your inmost soul to solace this " child of misfor- 
 tune," and weep with her tear for tear — if tears could be shed by 
 eyes sanctified with sorrow, and the sustained agony of her afflic- 
 tion. Oh ! what a world is this if we had not hope in Christ — if 
 sin and suffering were not overshadowed by the great economy 
 which tells us of the glory yet to be revealed — when the creature 
 itself shall be delivered into the liberty of the glory of the children 
 of God. I saw the splendid pictures in the Vatican, which are 
 indeed magnificent. I am inclined to give the palm to Dome' 
 nichino's " Last Communion of St. Jerome." At all events, it 
 bears to be put in competition with Raffael's grandest work — : 
 " The Transfiguration." This Vatican collection is very select 
 and admirable. I do not enjoy a mass of pictures heaped in 
 rooms, or crowded together. I like the few and the excellent, 
 and leave the others to the truants who abound, and muddle 
 away months in this lounge of itinerant life. 
 
 On Saturday we saw the Catacombs of St. Agnes ; we traverse^ 
 many a passage, with the places of the dead, and the recesses of 
 secret worship, provided by the early Christians, who had to 
 struggle through the difficulties of dark days. There is, I suspect, 
 great tampering with these places, in order to make out argu- 
 jnents for Papal pretences, and to invest with traditional reve-, 
 
FAMILY LETTERS : TOUR IN ITALV. 47 
 
 ketice the unscriptural practices of a corrupt Church, which has 
 fchanged the truth of God into a lie, and worships the creature 
 rather than the Creator, who must be worshipped in spirit and in 
 truth, and enjoins us to walk hy faith, not by sight. 
 
 These places, however, have a solemn interest, and it is well 
 to see what we can of early Christianity in its first struggles. 
 Though this place has much to interest, and I would say to ele- 
 vate the mind, it is sad to see such a specimen of " Catholic 
 Christianity." I heard, however, of a Bible being openly exposed 
 for sale ; and as Roman Cathohcs here admit that the people 
 and working clergy of Rome are all for Victor Emmanuel, there 
 is a hope even for Rome. Let the Word of God have free 
 course, and it will yet be glorified. It was indeed joyous to see 
 it openly and freely exposed for sale at Florence and Naples. 
 Piedmont has a free spirit. We propose to leave this on the 
 ,13th for Genoa, and in the next week to be in Turin ; in the 
 next, about the end of February, in Paris. Dear Grace has been 
 ill for a few days with her head, which is very sensitive, and will 
 require to be carefully dealt with. We are very nicely placed 
 here on the Pincian Hill, and everything within easy range. The 
 appearance of the city, in fine weather, is very classical and 
 beautiful, though sombre — perhaps because it is sombre — and 
 with such rich variety of structures, and more than sevenfold 
 undulations. 
 
 I have been endeavouring to understand the realities of 
 Italy — politically and religiously — so as to judge of its future ; 
 but I have not made up my judgment, nor will I until I visit 
 Turin, and have had a good conference with Sir J. Hudson. At 
 present I am well satisfied with the policy of our Derby Cabinet, 
 which I think Was wise and sound. 
 
 To-day I dine with Mrs. Monck, widow of the late Bishop of 
 Gloucester. You may remember our meeting them at Chamouni. 
 They come to Rome every winter, and stay until May. All the 
 household go to the reception in the evening. On Friday 
 evening we go to old Lady Lurgan. I have not yet seen the 
 Pope ; but 1 will not be presented to him. I regard him as a 
 usurper, though I believe he is an amiable man. Grace is up, 
 and much better ; and Posie is preparing to ride in Rotten Row 
 .fashion, I will rejoice to head homeward. I am so glad to hear 
 
48 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 of your happiness, and the prosperity of the parish. Give my 
 affectionate regards to PauUis. I write on my own account, so 
 as to leave others no cause for not writing. 
 
 Ever your affectionate 
 
 Father. 
 
 To his Son. 
 
 Merrion Square, 
 
 Monday. 
 My dear Willie, 
 
 Though I did not expect so large a majority against us, I did 
 anticipate a defeat, for I saw that the Budget and Treaty tempted 
 trade and commerce, with all their raammonism. Whiteside's 
 speech seems to have been a very able reply to Bright, though 
 rather more personal than the style of the House usually warrants. 
 It showed both research and readiness ; but he must be in very 
 dull spirits, as I have had not a line from him for a week and 
 more. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Dunoon, N.B., 
 
 Monday, %fh , 1856. 
 
 The scenery around is very beautiful, but the want of horses 
 is severely felt. The steamers are dirty and crowded, so as to be 
 unpleasant. There are, however, some agreeable walks. We 
 went to Arrochar on Thursday, arid walked over the hill to 
 Tarbet, which is on the banks of Loch Lomond (opposite to Ben 
 Lomond), "fhe scenery is most impressive and beautiful. 
 
 I find the British Association conimences its labours on the 
 14th September, at Aberdeen. We Will thus have a clear fort- 
 night for seeing Glencoc, Staffa, the Lakes, Inverary, the Tros- 
 sachs, &c., ahd we will be probably a week at Edinburgh. 
 
 To the Same. — Studies. 
 
 1856. 
 Our return to Ambleside enabled us to make acquaintance 
 with Mrs, Arnold and her interesting household at Foxhow. 
 
FAMILY LETTERS : TOUR IN ITALY. 
 
 49 
 
 Certainly we had a most agreeable and instructive tour. I think 
 I now understand much of Wordsworth's pure and profound 
 views ; the study of his life, with the poems, and the views of the 
 scenery, enable one to enter into his gentle and good philosopihy. 
 When you emerge from your Mathematics, I hope to give you 
 some aid in your Ethics ; and then you can begin Jurisprudence. 
 It will be more of a delight than a duty, dear Willie, if I can make 
 you an enlightened jurist. A Nisi Prius buffoon I despise; but 
 a sound and enlightened advocate, skilful and honourable, is well 
 worthy of your highest ambition to attain. 
 
 I think I can mould your course of study satisfactorily. 
 
 To the Same. — Fermoy Case. — Disraeli. 
 
 National Club, 
 Thursday, , 1857. 
 
 I was deeply grieved to hear of the melancholy fate of young 
 Borough. What a trial of his afflicted parents. May God enable 
 them to sustain this weighty sorrow, and sanctify it to them. 
 
 I expect to be able to leave this at the farthest on Wednesday 
 evening. I have got over the argument in the Fermoy Case, 
 and the debate on the Abjuration oath. The former awaits the 
 decision of the judges, but it is expected that it will be in my 
 favour. It was considered a great honour to me to be chosen 
 to appear for the Lords, as they were directed to choose from the 
 entire Bar of England and Ireland their own man. There were 
 five counsel against me. Sir F. Thesiger and Sir F. Kelly were 
 heard, and I answered both. There were nine of the judges 
 present, a great many peers, and amongst them the Lord Chan- 
 cellor, Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Campbell, and Lord St, Leonards. 
 
 I have two long cases here for opinions, several matters in 
 the House of Commons, and an arrear of letters, &c., so that my 
 hands are quite full of business. 
 
 The weather has been both wet and chill. It is a little more 
 genial to-day. The growl about the peace is heard, though in 
 subdued tones. I think there will be a break-up and a dissolu- 
 tion, and an entire reconstruction of Government, with a view to 
 administrative reforms. 
 
Sp. LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Disraeli bolted from us yesterday, and caused much dissatis-, 
 faction amongst our men. We had a good force, and the majority 
 against us was very much smaller than I expected. 
 
 How do you go on with your T. C. D. studies ? 
 
 I will be able to let you know on Saturday with as much cer- 
 tainty as God's permission may allow. Give my affectionate love 
 to each and all at home, and believe me, 
 
 Your ever attached 
 
 Father. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 TeiHpidta, Rome, 
 
 \st February, 1861. 
 
 The post leaves this twice a week. I have deferred writing 
 till I hear from you. I wrote from Florence and from Naples. 
 Your letter from Naples has been, I fear, lost in the execrable 
 post. Here we have been a month. You have been called to 
 the Bar. Gone to London to an office there. I advised you to 
 get the Lord Justice to propose you at the Benchers, and agreed 
 that Whiteside would sign your certificate. It is nearly thirty 
 years since I was called, in 183 1. I began Circuit in the spring 
 of 1832. You will, I hope, begin in 1862, and, on the whole, 
 I think you should prefei" the North-East. I presume you will 
 take, in the first instance, to the Common Law. Judge Hill 
 could give you excellent advice about the best office. There is 
 a capital man, a son of Sir J. T. Coleridge, in very good business. 
 Indeed, there are so many able men, the difficulty is to make a 
 wise selection. The Criminal Law is easily mastered, if you once 
 thoroughly understand the Law of Evidence. The examination 
 of witnesses requires great training, and is only to be learnt by 
 careful practice. You should make yourself well up in the Law 
 of Contracts, and in some of the excellent chapters of Selwyns, 
 then " Prince Broom's Maxims," a most useful book. For Ire- 
 land, the Law of Lanrdlord and Tenant ; but this you can grapple 
 with on your own soil when you return. I think you decided 
 wisely not going to Sessions. A barrister may go anywhere that 
 he may be required for the protection of his client ; but I think 
 that in going to Sessions, he should be careful not to seem to seek 
 
FAMILY LETTERS. 
 
 ST' 
 
 employment there. I suppose you had no difficulty in framing 
 your Watercourse plaint. The great case on the subject is Mason 
 and Hill in 2nd New. There, I think, the law is clear and 
 intelligible ; the two usual cases are diverting the accustomed 
 flow, and throwing back AA'ater on the wheel. I used to be a 
 great hand at these cases on Circuit ; but Gilmore and Holmes 
 were the best men we had. 
 
 2nd February. 
 
 Rome, Pagan and Imperial, is very grand and very impres- 
 sive. Yesterday I saw the Vatican Library, and some of the 
 choice manuscripts. It is a wonderful place, exhibiting the 
 rarest specimens of human skill in the construction, decoration, 
 and furnishing with learning's treasures. 
 
 One of the high functionaries of the Chief Court of the Rota 
 has made my acquaintance. He is a very kind and very intelli- 
 gent man — dignified and courteous — speaks English very well, 
 and instinctively fond of Jurisprudence. We talk law and politics. 
 His impression evidently is that Napoleon will, in the end, gain 
 ascendancy in Italy, and have his own " Murat " at Naples. 
 It seems on all sides assumed that Rome will soon be transferred 
 in temporalibus to Piedmont, and that this is the almost 
 universal desire of the people. The fact is the old system is 
 effete and rotten ; but what is to replace it ultimately is the prob- 
 lem, and the course of events has brought Piedmont into the 
 van — though I think it has moved with an ambitious and accele- 
 rated pace, which will meet with the repulse of reaction, though it 
 may not lead back to the old despotism. In the confusion 
 which is yet probable, France looks to profit — Austria shoved 
 out — the Papacy pent in the Vatican — Sardinia dependent on the 
 material aid of French bayonets — and the sympathies of the 
 Latin race and the " Catholic " religion giving to the interven- 
 tion of France the influence of the guiding power. It is obvious, 
 I- think, that there was some secret understanding and arrange- 
 ment at Warsaw, which will shew in the course of the spring ; 
 and I fear our Russell policy is neither worthy of England nor 
 wise in our generation. We will be estranged from the old allies 
 of England, and we make no new friends who can be of any 
 value to us in our European relations. - - ^ 
 
52 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 I have no doubt if you were here you would enjoy it very, 
 much. But it seems to me absurd to talk of the need of spending 
 months to see it. Ancient Rome is one thing, Papal Rome and 
 picture galleries are another. Anyone of energy and observa- 
 tion, in good health, and not a devotee, may get his appetite satis- 
 fied in a fortnight, and his taste gratified in a month ; but to be 
 poking and lounging about churches, and " holy families," and 
 images, and statues, and pictures, and old inscriptions, and broken 
 sculpture, and hearing lying legends and myths, and seeing the 
 tomfooleries which go forward in one cycle of stupid servility, 
 does seem to me to be a mere wasting of human life, and un- 
 worthy of manly minds. I am therefore glad to say that we 
 propose to leave this about the 20th for Genoa, where we will 
 stay a day or two, and thence go to Turin about the zsth. I 
 should think that we will be in Paris in the first week of March, 
 and in London before the end of March. I have had enough of 
 vagrancy. I really must resume my studies, and improve my 
 knowledge of Law and Equity. I have not heard from Ireland, 
 but I observe that in your aunt Whiteside's letters to Anne, she 
 says that in the North they are still pelting me about education. 
 I suppose Drew is at the head of this. Whilst I feel not less 
 attached to the old friends who stood to me faithfully in my 
 public life, I cannot but thoroughly condemn the sinful violation 
 of the Pauline charity, without which all this cry for the Scrip- 
 tures is but sounding brass. I am as friendly as ever I was 
 to the Parochial Schools, where they can be efficiently kept 
 up ; but if the State schools involve nothing against conscience, 
 and provide what the Parochial Schools cannot give to the general 
 population, and do not give even to their own children, then I 
 feel it to be a duty binding on a Christian citizen to make use of 
 this as the best practicable system in those places in. which a 
 better is not available. The Irish clergy are now retiring from 
 the State education of the people, and the Church will gradually 
 cease to be the State institution for education. Will it continue 
 to be the State Church either of or for the people educated ? 
 
 Here we are on the Pincian Hill. The Seven Hills are diffi- 
 cult to trace out, but they are discoverable. There are very 
 
 good walks and great gallops over the Campagna. P and 
 
 J — - both ride, but I do not like to mount the hacks I see here., 
 
FAMILY LETTERS. 53 
 
 There is a great supply of dowagers and devotees. The eccle- 
 siastics I have met are very courteous to me, and I find nothing 
 in the place which justifies the bigotry by which it is often 
 assailed, as if under an external blight. The people seem quiet, 
 orderly, comfortable — excellent shops, great social intercourse, a 
 most convenient Protestant Church ; and I have not heard any 
 bigotry or intolerance broached in any quarter, or any unchari- 
 table allusion to any form of Protestantism. Still the system of 
 ■government is essentially wrong, and, doubtless, in its inner 
 working, inflicts many a secret injury, as it suppresses all the 
 aspirations of freedom, and the reasonable hopes of human 
 progress. 
 
 The Appian Way, with its lines of sepulchres and monuments 
 here, is one of the most impressive of all the sights after the 
 Colosseum and the Forum. I have been in two sets of Cata- 
 combs. I think they show clearly how simple was the faith of 
 the early Christians. But there is great obscurity over their 
 history. It is wonderful how obscure all the period of these 
 early struggles is, and how it is buried under legends and lies 
 without end. It is refreshing to turn to the clear page of the 
 Scriptures, to see Paul and Peter in the Acts and their Epistles, 
 rather than to hear the wretched traditions which have been 
 trumped up here about both. 
 
 Believe me, your affectionate 
 
 Father. 
 
 To the Same. — The Lakes of Killarney. 
 
 Rosanna, Cork, 
 
 Thursday. 
 
 We were in time ; but we cut ourselves rather close in start- 
 ing. The day improved as we proceeded, and became fine at last. 
 We arrived safe in Cork, and got a genuine Irish car to bring us 
 out, with a driver who knew everybody, from " the Captain " to 
 the new Bishop, and gave us gossip and information, more 
 Hibemico. 
 
54 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 This place is very beautifully situate. We are on a kind of 
 terrace elevation. The river Lee winds most beautifully through 
 ' the valley beneath, and the city is about three miles towards the 
 ■ sea. We went yesterday to Queenstown — to Passage by train, 
 thence to Queenstown by steamer, and afterwards came up by 
 steamer to the quay of Cork. The town is very smart and 
 extensive, and many pretty seats about it on the sides of the hills. 
 The scenery along the river is very pleasing ; but it has not the 
 grandeur which I had anticipated. There is a want of high 
 mountain, and Cove did not impress me with the extensiveness 
 which the ideal had prefigured to my mind. But, on the whole, 
 it is very fine and very pleasing. 
 
 We go, God permitting us, to Bandon, Bantry, Glengariffe, 
 Killarney. There is a railway to Bandon, and from that we car 
 it. The weather has kept up, and is bright and beautiful. 
 
 But that I feel you are better employed, I could heartily wish 
 you were with us. 
 
 I was so delighted and profited by the admirable conclusion 
 which is now given from a MS. of Dugald Stewart, and published 
 in the new volume. 
 
 He was a wise, thoughtful, and enlightened man. The law 
 of the association of ideas, and the power of habit, are most 
 admirably turned to a moral account in his valuable suggestions 
 for social and individual improvement. Indeed, this may be 
 learned, with perhaps more study, from the profound views of 
 Butler. I hope you will yet relish both, and not merely appre- 
 ciate their wisdom, but apply it for your own progress. 
 
 Ever your affectionate 
 
 Father, 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Description of a Tour in South dnd West of Ireland. 
 
 Saturday Morning, before breakfasts 
 
 Friday, i8ih. At ii a.m. C ', P , Lord Radstock, and 
 
 myself set off on a good " outside," and went direct to J. L 's 
 
 house, which is very beautifully situate, and from an adjacent hill 
 
FAMILY LETTERS; TOUR IN KILLARNEY, &C. 55 
 
 of very easy ascent, one of the finest views of the Lower Lake, &c., 
 is had. We were most kindly received — first had a walk in his 
 garden, were regaled with peaches, and then he came as our 
 guide through Muckross. We met Mr. Herbert with Mrs. H., 
 going on a circuit of morning calls. He rebuked me for not 
 writing to inform him of my coming. He arranged to send his 
 grand boat for mother this morning, and bring us all to his beautiful 
 place, which is fit for royalty ; so we expect the royal galley after 
 breakfast to-day. 
 
 We drove through Muckross, with J. L as outrider; saw 
 
 the house, which is new and most elegant ; but the old Abbey is 
 more replete with interest from its great antiquity, and having the 
 tombs of the MacCarthymnes and the O'Donoghues, &<i., &c. 
 We met Mr. LeHunte near the town of Killarney, and he was 
 delighted to see us. The demesne of Muckross is very beautiful — 
 of vast extent, with occasional bursts of lake and mountain views. 
 The grand mountains fencing the district, and the profusion of 
 the richest evergreens, with the mountain trees, give a Hibernian 
 colouring to the whole scenery. The day was both bright and 
 genial. After winding us through every spot in every conceivable 
 corkscrew fashion, along paths, up hills, and down braes, we came 
 
 at last to a shady spot, where Mrs. L , with her sister and 
 
 another lady, had arrived in their barge with a nice cold dinner, 
 which was most acceptable to his Lordship. Two fires of leaves 
 and branches were lit to keep off midges, and then we went to 
 work after the manner of,picknickians. 
 
 A walk, and then a pull across an arm of the lake, brought us 
 ■^ithin range of a waterfall, which we visited, and then had a re- 
 turn row of about seven miles ; the sun had set, and the softened 
 mellowed light, as it sank behind the mountains, was most' 
 soothing and very sublime. It was well worthy of a Claude, in 
 fiis best humour for a sunset. 
 
 ■ The stars now lit up the sky, and with the aid of their pale 
 lights and the marks of the known lights on land, we got to the 
 boathouse, where our car met us, and brought us here again about 
 9 p.m. Lord Radstock wound up the evening by taking tea with 
 us ; he has left early this morning. 
 
 This day (Saturday) was ushered in by the arrival of Mr. 
 Herbert's grand boat at the landing-slip of the hotel. It was a 
 
S6 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 new four-oared, London-built. The Scotch steward took the 
 helm, and with four trim mariners, all in Muckross uniform, we 
 scudded over the Lovrer Lake, visited Innisfallen, Ross Castle, 
 and the more remarkable of the other islands, and arrived at the 
 Muckross landing-place at lunch hour, where Mr. and Mrs. 
 Herbert received us very cordially ; and after lunch, Mrs. H. 
 drove mother and the young ladies to the old Abbey, and soon 
 after we re-entered the boat, visited O'Sullivan's cascade, and got 
 home before evening set in. 
 
 On Sunday we went to the small church. Mr. LeHunte read 
 service, and a Mr. Dalton preached. The Romanists abound 
 and superabound about Killarney, but they seem quiet and 
 kindly. They have a grand cathedral, with a great cross outside 
 on the ground — for what I do not exactly understand. Sic iturad 
 astra. 
 
 On Monday we set out for the Gap of Dunloe — the girls on 
 ponies, but they were tricked out of good ones. Mother and I 
 went on a good " outside." You ride or drive about nine miles, 
 and then walk through the pass, unless those who mount ponies. - 
 
 C and I walked ; Mother and P rode. It is a fine pass, 
 
 with grand mountain scenery above and around. This brought 
 
 us round to the top of the Upper Lake, where J. L had 
 
 arrived with his fine four-oared barge and a " spread " of picnic 
 variety. 
 
 We then got into the boat, and having viewed the charms of 
 the Upper Lake, came down through the "long range " (as it is 
 called) to the Lower, and across to his landing-place : this was a 
 row of about thirteen miles. By this time it was nearing 7 p.m., 
 and we were taken hastily to his place, and regaled with a good 
 dinner, and every kind of hearty hospitality. 
 
 On Tuesday we joined with Mr. LeHunte to ascend Man- 
 
 gerton, which is very high, about 2,756 feet (I think). P and 
 
 I got ponies. C and his reverence walked to the summiti 
 
 Before you reach the highest point you pass the singular scooped 
 spot or a place called "The Devil's Punch-bowl," which forms a con- 
 siderable lake, and is surrounded with a lofty bank (some hun- 
 dred feet high). The views from this summit are grand beyond 
 description, and most commanding. The wind was at the top of 
 its power— I mean its ordinary equinoctial vehemence— and we 
 
FAMILY LETTERS : TOUR IN KILLARNEY, &C. S7 
 
 had to secure our hats, and with every kind of device. I strapped 
 mine across my head. This was the first day on which there 
 was any tendency to a change of weather ; but still it kept dry 
 overhead. We were well repaid for the ascent by the splendid 
 views of the grand mountain scenery of Kerry and the lakes, as 
 a whole. 
 
 ' On Wednesday morning we left for Tralee, sending our lug- 
 gage by coach, and taking an "outside" for ourselves. The 
 drive is most uninteresting, the country rather dreary, and very 
 thinly inhabited. Tralee is a good town, the county town of 
 Kerry. This was twenty-one miles. We then came on to Lis- 
 
 towel, which is eighteen miles further (English), and then P 
 
 was " floored," and we stopped for the night. We found here 
 two of the boxes, and heard, to our dismay, that the car which 
 had- our luggage from Tralee had broken down on the road, and 
 that these had been brought so far, one left behind, and my port- 
 manteau sent on. Next day the rain came down a la mode. 
 The missing box made its appearance on the next car, and we 
 put up the others, got into a covered car, came on to Tarbert, got 
 an old travelling chaise and pair, and having picked up all our 
 " bagages," went on to Mount Trenchard under a volley of rain — 
 siii generis. 
 
 The place is prettily situate on the margin of the noble Shan- 
 non, which expands majestically as it moves on to the Atlantic. 
 
 Friday was fine. We saw the place and its incidents — Model 
 Farm, Works at Foynes, &c., &c. 
 
 Saturday. — Rain again. Cleared up after breakfast. We 
 started for Tarbert. Arrived in tremendous rain, and embarked 
 per steamer for Kilrush, where we arrived about seven. The 
 evening cleared up. Got here about nine ; found hotel full. 
 But fortunately the proprietor had taken for a month an extra 
 house for the accommodation of guests during the races, and so 
 we have got very good apartments close to the hotel. The 
 Bishop of Limerick is here, and offered us most kindly his sitting- 
 room. It is a wild but very beautiful place. A circular bay, 
 which recedes from the Atlantic, and on each side high land, 
 ■which is a fine common of green sod ; splendid rocks and cliffs ; 
 waves rolling like mountains, and surge breaking and seething 
 cumfurore. Rocks separated, and portions of the land divided, 
 
58 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 so as to stand out in solitary majesty. The sea makes perfo- 
 rations, arches, curves, &c., &c. 
 
 We went to church, which is commodious, and was well filled 
 with a "genteel" congregation. Met Mrs. Vandeleur and her 
 daughters. They are at the hotel. They with the Bishop walked 
 with us after church along the cliffs, and arranged for a picnic to 
 the point where the Shannon meets the Atlantic. We went to 
 evening service, and found the church full of a humbler class than 
 in the morning. 
 
 Yesterday (Monday) we started off on our picnic. The day 
 kept up very well, indeed ; the views were splendid ; the bold 
 wave of the mighty Atlantic surges so majestically along the cliffy 
 shore ; and the bridges and arches formed by the power of the 
 persevering waves are wonderful as well as beautiful. We dined, sub 
 divo, at the lighthouse of Loop Head, where we saw, right and 
 left, under us, at a single glance, the Shannon and the ocean. 
 It is plain that great portions of the headlands along the coast 
 of Clare have been gradually absorbed into the Atlantic. Mr. 
 Keane, who lives near the liglithouse, in a most curious little 
 cottage, has formed tunnels and small hanging gardens looking 
 down hundreds of feet directly over the monster billows ; and 
 the sea-fowl deposit piles of eggs on inaccessible promontories. 
 We returned about half-past seven, and joined in a tea-party to 
 which the Bishop came, and was most agreeable ; and as Mrs. 
 Vandeleur had a good piano in the room, we had some excellent 
 
 music. P gave us one or two of her best, and the Bishop 
 
 gave us, in his own delightful style, "The Meeting of the Waters." 
 We had a very pleasant evening. 
 
 This morning (Tuesday) is fine and autumnal. We start for 
 New Hall, near Ennis, after breakfast. It is about twenty-six 
 miles. I presume we will leave it on Thursday morning for 
 Galway. I Wrote to the Bishop of Tuam, but he has not replied; 
 so that I suspect he is not at home. 
 
 I think we shall be in Achill early in the next week, and with 
 Mr. Wynne in the following week. We can go over from Sligo 
 to Lord Erne for the 19th. 
 
 If you can get a copy of Salmon's sermon, preached at St. 
 Ann's, for the Church Missionary Society, send it to Achill for 
 toe. 
 
FAMILY LETTERS 59 
 
 I think I have now brought up our tour to this time, and 
 
 hope it may amuse you. P is by far the most agreeable 
 
 companion for travel. 
 
 Has there been any account of Joey, and has he given up his 
 foolery about India ? 
 
 Ever your affectionate 
 
 Father. 
 
 To Rev. Achilles T^hXit^k-x, afterwards Dean of Cork, in 
 reply to letter on the death of Mr. William Napier. , 
 
 Merrion Square, 
 Friday, December yd, 1874. 
 
 Mv DEAR Pastor and Friend, 
 
 Dearest Willie has been taken. We submit with humility to 
 our loving Father's will. He does not willingly afflict. He gave 
 him. He took him, and He will restore him ; and " dfeath hath 
 no sting, for the Saviour hath died." 
 
 His dear mother bears up with Christian heroism. May the 
 blessed hope of reunion in a better, happier home, cheer and 
 elevate us; the last tear will be wiped away with God's own 
 hand. 
 
 He was to his mother daughter and son, and to me all that a 
 son, a dear companion, with love pure and tender as a woman's 
 love, could be to a loving father. 
 
 Mr. Brooke has written a beautiful testimony to the discharge 
 of his official duty. It was remarkable how children always were 
 attracted by him, he was so genial, simple, and attractive. 
 
 I feel that I ought rather to thank God for what I gained 
 whilst I had him, than to repine for his loss. In looking for a 
 blessed reunion, we will be cheered and elevated with strong 
 consolation — the only comfort for us ; and in this blessed hope I 
 add : "The will of the Lord be done." "Though He slay mcj 
 yet will I trust in Him." 
 
 Ever your very sincere and afflicted friend, 
 
 Joseph Napier* 
 
6o LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 From Archbishop Trench. — On the death of Mr. 
 William Napier. 
 
 The Palace, 
 
 December "jtk, 1874. 
 
 Though there is very little which one can say, I would not 
 willingly fail in expressing to yourself and Lady Napier my wife's 
 and my own very deep concern at the sorrow, so great and so 
 unexpected, with which it has pleased God to visit you. We are 
 not ourselves altogether strangers in the school of affliction, and 
 can therefore feel a quicker and a deeper sympathy with those 
 who are passing through the same. I can a little guess what in 
 the taking away of such a son you and his mother have lost — for 
 I always heard praise, and indeed myself have seen something of 
 the dutiful affection which was so marked a feature in his cha- 
 racter. I have found proofs, too, in more matters than one, of 
 his earnestness and thoughtful diligence in works of Christian 
 charity and love. Much more might be said, as I well know, 
 but I will not say it — for I should then be speaking beyond the 
 sphere of my knowledge. I will only pray that for you and Lady 
 ■Napier those strong consolations may not be wanting, as I am 
 sure they will not, which our Heavenly Father has ever for those 
 whom He chastens, but whom, at the same time. He loves. 
 
 From the Same, with a copy of his " MedicBval Church 
 History" 
 
 Palace, Dublin, 
 
 December 28M, 1877. 
 
 Dear Sir Joseph Napier, 
 
 I have asked my publishers to send you a book of mine just 
 published. You will not, I know, like everything in it ; but I 
 trust you will approve of many parts of it — and, in one sense, I 
 am sure it will be welcome, that is, as a slight expression of the 
 affectionate remembrance in which I must ever hold one from 
 whom I never found aught but courtesy, kindness, and all helpful 
 concert in times of need. It is my earnest prayer that a time like 
 this, bringing bacl^ as it needs must, to Lady Napier so many 
 
FAMILY LETTERS. 6l- 
 
 sad and tearful memories, may also be rich in those true conso- 
 lations, in that heavenly comfort, which, as the world does not 
 give, so neither can it take away. 
 
 Pray remember me to Lady Napier most kindly, and 
 
 Believe me ever, 
 
 Dear Sir Joseph, 
 
 Yours in truest regard, 
 
 R. C. Dublin. 
 
 From the Same. — Church Congress, Dublin, 1868.— Question 
 of Disestablishment of Irish Church. 
 
 [This Letter is placed here, so as to preserve the continuity of those 
 relative to Mr. W. Napier.] 
 
 Broonifield, .' • 
 
 October 20th, 1868. 
 
 We were very sorry to miss your presence at the Congress— 
 and that you had so good a reason for your absence. You would 
 have been greatly pleased. The impression made on our English 
 visitors, both as to the ability of Irish Churchmen, their self- 
 restraint, and their churchmanship, so far from either extreme, 
 was profound, and will profit us in many, and, it may be, quite 
 unexpected ways. 
 
 I quite agree with you that it would be most unwise for us to 
 be suggesting compromise at the present. Whatever we proposed 
 to yield would instantly be seized on as having been virtually con- 
 ceded by us ; while what we claimed would at the same time be 
 disallowed. Moreover, our adversaries have not yet discovered 
 how big a job they have got to put through. When they are a 
 little more aware of its difficulties — when it has upset, as pro- 
 bably it will, one or two Governments, and broken up one or two 
 combinations of party — they will be readier to come to terms 
 than they now are. 
 
 One must see with great regret the visible deterioration in 
 Gladstone's tone which is finding place. His speech at Liver- 
 pool was the least noble — far stronger words might be used about 
 it — th^.t he has ever uttered. 
 
63 LECTURES/ ESSAYS, AND LETTERS 
 
 To Mr. {afterwards Lord Chief Justice) Whiteside, 
 his brother-in-law. 
 
 Barsby Lodge, 
 Ryde, 
 Tuesday, ^th. 
 
 I got your letter on Sunday. I should have written to you, 
 but did not know your address. I merely saw that you had 
 moved to Shane's Castle, but nothing as to the subsequent stages. 
 I can quite go with you in your Scotch tour. Tarbet is exquisite, 
 and the grandeur of the scenery, through Glencoe, Loch Awe, 
 &c., &c., not to be surpassed. I only wonder you do not try to 
 " do" the Hebrides, and follow the tracks of the old and mighty 
 Doctor, who was a giant in intellect, and yet a frail creature in 
 many respects. I have been reading many of his writings, and 
 am wonderfully impressed by his acuteness of observation and 
 his deep wisdom.. Have you read the "Life of Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds," recently published ? It is a curious medley, and shows 
 some of the inner chambers of fashionable life in the days of 
 polished profligacy ; but it gives one a very graphic view of Sir 
 Joshua and those who enjoyed his confidence. 
 
 I attended Divine Service in the Cathedral of Glasgow when 
 the judges were present. We had an able sermon from a clergy- 
 man called Robertson (I think) of the Scotch Church. The 
 Cathedral is a fine specimen of ecclesiastical architecture, and the 
 crypt is very interesting. How strange to see the Presbyterian 
 service substituted for the ritual of the olden times ! Each is an 
 extreme or tends thereto. I like the well-ordered service of our 
 own Church, when it is managed with Christian moderation. 
 It keeps free from either extreme of subjective or objective 
 religion. 
 
 The thoughts to which you refer not unfrequently flit across 
 my own mind, when I am led into contemplation of the days and 
 njen that are gone. Political and professional associates, per- 
 sonal friends and intimate companions, are gone before us ; and 
 
FAMILY LETTERS. 63 
 
 one is reminded o" the beautiful lines of Tennyson, in one of the 
 minor poems in the In Memoriam : — 
 
 " We pass — the path that each has trod 
 
 Is dimm'd^or shall be dim with weeds ; 
 What fame is left for human deeds 
 In endless age ? It rests with God." 
 
 I have thought of getting up some good memorial of our old 
 Circuit leaders, and presenting it to the North-East Bar. We might 
 sketch Holmes, Tombe, Gilmore, Perrin, and others, not forgetting 
 dear old Sir Thomas Staples, and incidentally bring in Bushe, 
 Burton, Joy, &c., &c. Should we be spared to meet happily 
 after the Vacation rambles, we might make the attempt at some 
 such a record as seems to have occurred to yourself, and which I 
 have for some time had in contemplation. 
 
 What a change there is at the Bar and on the Bench 1 By 
 the way, I was shocked to see that Hayes was so pig-headed in 
 that case of the murder of Mr. Clutterbuck. There was no ques- 
 tion of venue whatsoever : the statute enlarged the King's County 
 by extending its margin 500 yards for the purpose of dealing 
 with the offence. It was simply a question of local description ; 
 and as murder is not local but transitory, within the venue, nO 
 description more narrow than that implied in the venue was neces- 
 sary. The case was very badly argued, and the Law officers had 
 bunglers' luck ; but that does not excuse Hayes for being so 
 " bull-headed," as well as pig-headed. 
 
 By the way, you see that Lord Wensleydale feels the same 
 objection that I felt to the right assumed by judges in discharging 
 a jury in a felony case, without some necessity which can be stated 
 on the Record. I abide by old Burton's judgment, backed by 
 Perrin's — I think it is the sound Constitutional law of England — 
 which does not substitute a judge's option for the law's objection. 
 
 I suppose you saw the review of your Lectures on the 
 Church in the press of Saturday last. I have been trying to get 
 the Archbishop of Dublin to take a manly course, and show that 
 we have some spirit in our Church in Ireland. He has his trien- 
 nial visitation in the next month. He convenes his suffragans 
 and clergy in Synod. I advise him to pass a resolution in Synod, 
 approving of the matter of the new law, and suggesting that th6 
 
64 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 canons of the Church in both countries should be made con- 
 formable thereto. I have advised the Primate to take a like step 
 in Armagh. But no — the feeble and timid prelates are content 
 to carry on a futile correspondence with Sir George Grey, and to 
 do nothing to vindicate the rights and privileges of the Church. 
 In England, the new statute was passed after the new canons were 
 fashioned — but they have not been ratified as yet. The effect is, 
 that the old canons, in both countries, have been superseded by 
 Parliament. The new canons in England, if they shall be rati- 
 fied, may amount to the echoing of the statute, by each of the 
 two Provincial Synods there; but, to say truth, my own opinion 
 is, that, according to the sound construction of the statute, they 
 are not and cannot be made worth more than mere Synodical 
 resolutions, having no legal force whatsoever. If the two Arch- 
 bishops in Ireland had the courage, or rather the wisdom, to pass 
 Synodical resolutions to the like effect, we should put ourselves 
 in as good a position as the English Provinces can be placed in, 
 even by the ratification. The more I reflect, the more I am satis- 
 fied that any form of convocation is a sham which does not 
 make provision for the combined action of all the Provinces of 
 the United Church. But so long as we are passive in Ireland, 
 we shall be left to our moaning and groaning. The laity ought 
 to get up a manly address to the Queen, as supreme ruler of the 
 Church, asking for equality of treatment for all the Provinces of the 
 National Church. 
 
 I have been thinking over the political future. I believe that 
 our party is still very effective as a Conservative opposition, sub- 
 ject to some qualification which I shall notice. But I do not 
 see at present any reasonable ground for expecting a change of 
 regime, until Palmerston is set aside. The country is gaining 
 wealth by commerce and manufactures — ^and this engenders a 
 good deal of political indolence and laxity. To tide over diffi- 
 culty — to get principles in what seems to be most convenient for 
 the occasion — to avoid collisions and evade difficulties — these are 
 the prevailing dispositions. And I think you will find the ten- 
 dency to be, to give up, everything that does not touch what is 
 felt by all to be vital. Thus it is that we appear as a party with- 
 out any distinctive policy or decided attitude, and without leaders 
 who exercise the mqral influence of men who not only command 
 confidence but respect. 
 
FAMILY LETTERS. 6$ 
 
 I doubt very much whether Lord Derby has any desire to 
 leave his present easy position. And yet there is no other head 
 to whom we can look up. He has many fine qualities and great 
 ability ; but of late, he has not, I think, looked after his men as a 
 leader should who desires to keep up his commandership ; our 
 men have been left to drift when they should have been carefully 
 piloted, and thus they have got on the rocks on more than one 
 occasion. 
 
 You will soon have to deal with the question of the Oaths, 
 and if you look to the incidents of the late election, you will find 
 that there are some of our men committed to the seductive 
 scheme of one oatli, i.e., in effect, to give up the old national oath 
 of supremacy — the very corner-stone of the Constitution. I know 
 that there are many of our men who will contend to the death for 
 the preservation of the oath ; but the party will be divided. The 
 Liberals will chuckle over us, and after one or two divisions in 
 our favour in the House of Lords, we shall at last see the con- 
 cession made, and Protestant confidence and sympathy shaken. 
 
 But I may be drawing too gloomy a picture. And yet, if our 
 leaders do not convene their party, and lay down some distinct 
 programme of policy by which, as a party, we are prepared firmly 
 to abide, I see nothing before us but a gradually loosening of our 
 hold upon the best part of the Protestant middle class in England 
 and Ireland. Without their sympathy and cordial support we can 
 do nothing that we can count as a success. 
 
 I suspect that so long as Palmerston remains, no change of 
 Ministerial policy will be made or required. After he departs or 
 withdraws, there will be such a measure of Reform proposed as 
 may meet the exigency of the time in the mildest practicable 
 form. When I find such men as Kinnaird voting for Mill, whom 
 he must believe to be a kind of spurious infidel, I see the lengths 
 to which Whiggery can carry its votaries. 
 
 I think Palmerston will hold on as long as life remains and 
 strength enables. I had a note from Lord Derby lately as to 
 the subscription for Stanyan Bigg. In replying I alluded to the 
 result of the elections, and the effect on our party ; but he keeps 
 reticent and reserved for the present. 
 
 I met Lord Eversley here at the Horticultural Show. He is 
 strongly in favour of one oath. He says that fighting for out- 
 
66 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 posts is a waste of strength, and is an advantage to the aggressive 
 party, and he reminded me how often he gave me the hint of not 
 fighting the Church battle on such questions as that of ministers' 
 money. He says that at this time many excellent men, who will 
 stand firm in defence of the citadel, look upon the skirmishing for 
 defence of outposts as a waste of power, and that every occasion 
 on which we show division in our party, weakens its influence and 
 damages its prestige. On the other hand, Stapleton says that 
 the abandonment of what are called outposts is regarded as poli- 
 tical cowardice, and when the outpost is a fortification erected 
 with a view to defence and protection, it is for the time in reality 
 a citadel. 
 
 The result of all is, that in my judgment there should be a 
 conference of leaders, and afterwards a clear understanding with 
 all the members of our party as to the line of action and the pro- 
 gramme of policy. If it is left to hap-hazard, as of late, then it is 
 not difficult to predict the consequences. When Gladstone's time 
 comes, it may be necessary to change tactics, and if he is com- 
 pelled to put himself under Bright and Co., then we may hope for 
 a reinforcement from such of the Whigs as are not rotted into 
 Radicals. jij^no 
 
 This is a peaceful and healthful place ; but there is not much 
 society for which I care. The French fleet have been here, and 
 the week has been full of smoke and sentiment, and all manner 
 of feasting, firing, sailing, dancing, hooraying, and so forth. Their 
 ships are formidable machines — uglier far than our ugliest — 
 with good officers and fine men. Still I think that in all respects 
 we have the advantage, though, it is said, we are not so speedy. 
 Well, we do not want to run. We fight and conquer, or perish 
 gloriously. The old verse in Tyrtaus is beautiful : — 
 
 " Death, when time or chance may call, 
 Is nature's stern decree to all ; 
 Death — his native land to save — 
 Is nature's bounty to the brave." 
 
 I go to the Norwich Congress on the 2nd October. Butcher 
 and I read papers on the condition of the Church in Ireland ; the 
 Dean of Emly and Salmon speak in support. We expect a very 
 good meeting. I will send you a copy of our papers, if you let 
 
FAMILY LETTERS. 61 
 
 me know your address, about that time. I am not going into 
 defensive details, but try to set forth the principles on which we 
 must stand or fall, and which are not peculiar to us in Ireland. 
 England must share the destiny of Irish Protestantism. 
 
 I could well understand the drain of advertising and corre- 
 sponding, &c., as to the election. I hope it was not forgotten to 
 send a letter of thanks to your trusty supporters. Men like to be 
 individually noticed. Canon Boyd should get a letter in your own 
 handwriting. I think G., A., H., & I, sent a lithograph to all our 
 supporters in 1857, thanking them for their efforts in our behalf. 
 
 Heartily do I wish to see you honourably placed in the posi- 
 tion which you have honourably won, and, doubtless, the trial of 
 patience is considerable. And yet, after all, a few years soon 
 blot out all the differences of positions, and leave us with God 
 to dispose us according to His mercy and goodness. The load 
 of this unintelligible world would weigh us down but for the strong 
 consolation and immortal hope of the glorious Gospel of Christ. 
 
 Ever your sincere and attached friend, 
 
 J. N. 
 I will try to make your Lectures known at Norwich and else- 
 wherei 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Brook Hall, 
 
 Near Norwich, 
 
 October Zth. 
 My Dear Whiteside, 
 
 I got your letter at Norwich. We had a splendid meeting, 
 and I believe that the Irish deputation was considered to be very 
 successful. 
 
 I send you a copy of my paper. Butcher was excellent — 
 clear, steady, and impressive. Salmon's sly, terse, epigrammatic 
 sentences produced a great impression. I heard several say they 
 never heard more forcible views more ably put. The Dean of 
 Emly was highly eloquent, and all I can say of myself is, that I 
 was uncommonly well received. I was told that our cause had 
 made a great advance. Lord Harrowby made a very good speech 
 in our favour, and Denison (the Archdeacon) spoke as heartily 
 for us as yourself, in your most earnest condition. 
 
68 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Wordsworth intends to make the Irish Church the subject of 
 four University Sermons at Cambridge. 
 
 At the wind-up meeting at Norwich, when the great Hall was 
 crowded to excess, the Bishop of Oxford alluded to the Church 
 of England and Ireland in very emphatic terms, and appealed to 
 me as the representative of the Irish branch, and expressed his 
 desire for greater unity and more intimate union. To this I 
 responded suitably. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 On the death of his brother, the Rev. Dr. Whiteside. 
 
 He is with a cloud of witnesses, and if, as we believe, the 
 spirits of the just made perfect are privileged to be ministers and 
 messengers of mercy, according to the laws of the spiritual world, 
 we have, even here on earth, communion with him whose citizen- 
 ship is in heaven. 
 
 Letters from Lord Brougham. 
 Ministry of Justice, &€. 
 
 House of Lords, 
 Mv DEAR Mr. N., iiih March, 1836. 
 
 I am beyond measure obliged to you, and I hope to profit 
 greatly by your kind communication for my next edition. 
 
 I shall probably write to you again from my southern country- 
 house, where I hope to be next week, and expect (D.V.) to leave 
 town on Saturday morning. 
 
 Meanwhile I shall send you the Law Alliance Societ/s pub- 
 lication of my statement on Judicial Statutes, which, after the in- 
 tolerable fatigue of making it (in which I fear my audience shared 
 fully), I had the almost as intolerable fatigue of correcting for the 
 press. But it was quite necessary. Many things were suppressed 
 in the reports, among others what I said in favour of peace, and in 
 support of your great proceeding on Ministry of Justice. The two 
 subjects of Peace and Praise are always suppressed in these times. 
 I was very near bringing in your famous epigram as to 
 tongues and consciences, but I was able to refrain, and did. 
 
 Yours ever truly, 
 
 H. Brougham. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 69 
 
 From the Same. — On his installation at Edinburgh. 
 
 4 Grafton Street, 
 
 <)th May, i860. 
 
 Many and very hearty thanks, my dear ex-Chancellor, for your 
 most kind and acceptable present, which I received at the House 
 of Lords yesterday evening. It will be my companion in my 
 northern expedition next week, when I go to the Edinburgh 
 Installation. You are aware that Gladstone's was severed from 
 mine by force of the statute, else we had intended to have both 
 together. 
 
 Make my best regards and respects accepted by Mrs. N. and 
 Miss. 
 
 From the Same. — On a Department of Justice. 
 
 2(^thjuly, 1862. 
 My dear Colleague, 
 
 I endeavoured to see you before I left town, but I found you 
 had gone. I wanted much to confer with you on a motion I 
 intended to make upon your subject — Department of Justice ; 
 thereon, as you would see by the papers, I made the motion and 
 asked the question. There was little and poor report of what 
 passed, but I had it fully given in the Globe on both occasions ; 
 and if I were sure of your whereabouts, I would send you the 
 paper which I have here. 
 
 Lord Granville undertook to have the paper produced after I 
 left him, but I don't know that he has done it, or given the answer 
 to us, inquiring what had been doing ? — which I suppose will prove 
 to be nil. The paper will shew the two entries in the Commons 
 Journals, 12th and i6th of February, 1857, when you carried 
 your motion. I have given a full account of the matter in the 
 number of the Law Magazine, and I write by this post to Gran- 
 ville to remind him of his promise, and that the matter may be 
 set right. 
 
 P.S.— The D.P. bill for a department will be sent to you. 
 
-JO LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 From the Same. — On the same subject. 
 
 Brougham, 
 
 2ph October, 1862. 
 
 I owe you many and hearty thanks for your kindness in send- 
 ing me the photograph, which I value most highly ; the likeness 
 is excellent. I enclose the article to which I referred before in 
 the Law amendments of the session, and the great omission of a 
 Department of Justice. The duplicate proof has been sent to 
 the printer, so that you need not return the enclosed. 
 
 From the Same. — On a saying of Lord Plunkets. 
 
 Brougham, Penrith, 
 
 ^oth October, 1862. 
 
 I recollect your informing me that a great mistake was preva- 
 lent respecting that celebrated figure of Lord Plunket, which we 
 understood to have been used by him (about Time with his 
 scythe and hour-glass) in a case in the Irish Court of Chancery. 
 Will you be so good as to tell me, or remind me if you mentioned 
 it before, on what grounds the impression rests of the common 
 opinion being erroneous ? 
 
 I have reason to believe that P himself considered the 
 
 common account as correct. 
 
 I remain here a week longer ; and then, as warned by the 
 frost to-day, shall seek the south. 
 
 If you are near your brother-in-law, pray remember me most 
 kindly to him. 
 
 From the Same. — On his Work on the English Constitution. 
 
 Brougham, Penrith, 
 
 2i)ih October, 1866. 
 
 I am much obliged by your letter, and thank you for the hint 
 you give me of revising the chapter on the Church, should a new 
 edition of the " English Constitution " be printed. I have to-day 
 written to the publishers to ask if there is any probability of this 
 being done, and if so I will then avail myself of your most kind 
 offer to get the statistical part set right. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 7 1 
 
 There must be a note to the Dedication of the " British Con- 
 stitution," that the only precedents for Collateral Peerages were 
 those of St. Vincent and Nelson, as stated by the Prince Consort 
 and the Government. This is the meaning of that passage in 
 the Dedication. 
 
 From the Same. — On Sir Joseph's undertaking to correct 
 " British Constitution "for the press. 
 
 Brougham, Penrith, 
 
 •jth November, 1866. 
 
 Nothing can possibly be more friendly than your ready 
 acceptance of my proposal that you should take the trouble to 
 revise and correct the " British Constitution." I am well aware 
 that there are many errors, for some portions of the work were 
 sent to press without having the careful revision a subject of 
 such importance required. 1 am therefore only too happy to 
 think that this new edition will pass through such careful and 
 skilful hands as yours before it sees the light. 
 
 I shall probably be here till the 25 th ; but should any change 
 take place in my movements, due notice shall be given to you. 
 I feel that it is desirable to give you as much time as possible to 
 complete the work you have so kindly undertaken. 
 
 Correspondence with the Earl of Stanhope. 
 
 To Lord Stanhope. — The Vestment Controversy. 
 
 Whitehall Gardens, 
 
 Saturday, August iTth, 1867. 
 Dear Lord Stanhope, 
 
 I am quite confident that our wisest and best course is simply 
 to report so much of our resolutions as sufificiently discloses 
 what we have deliberately decided as to vesture, without adding 
 any comment for the present. 
 
 I should be satisfied with what you have selected ; but I think 
 the Dean of Ely will contend for noticing the propriety of the 
 scarf or stole, and also that it is not necessary to interfere with 
 Cathedrals and Collegiate Churches and Chapels. 
 
72 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 I do riot see any objection to our reporting the five resolu- 
 tions simpliciter as our first Report. It is the course least open 
 to any fair objection. As to unfair objections, the most simple 
 and direct course is always to be preferred as the least vulnerable. 
 
 Another course is open to us, and that is to get the Queen's 
 permission for the Archbishop of Canterbury to state in the 
 House of Lords the substance of what we have done as to vesture 
 of the clergy ; and to add, that on our reassembling we expect to 
 complete our enquiry and report both as to ornaments of the 
 Church and ministers thereof. 
 
 I think, however, it is very material that there should be no 
 wavering amongst us on Monday ; and that those who habitually 
 agree should be united and resolved. In no other way can we 
 successfully encounter the foe. 
 
 I may observe that by simply reporting the resolutions, we 
 leave it quite open hereafter to supply reasons or qualifications, 
 or other comment, as may be advisable. 
 
 Let " ten or more " ho. firm on Monday, and we shall get the 
 signatures of twenty at least. 
 
 Most faithfully, 
 
 Joseph Napier. 
 
 To the Same. — Sir Robert Phillimore accepts Sir Josephs 
 suggestion. 
 
 Merrion Square, 
 
 Monday, March iitk, 1868. 
 
 Since we met I have endeavoured to amend the proposed 
 draft of the second report in the clauses yet to be considered ; 
 and I hope when you get the printed papers, you will find that 
 the form is materially improved. 
 
 I am happy to say that Sir Robert Phillimore has agreed to 
 accept the form of remedy which I have arranged. There may 
 be some alteration of mere detail, but he agreed to the substance 
 of the arrangements. I presume you will get the new draft on 
 Wednesday. 
 
 I received your proposed clause, which, in its substance, 
 scope, and spirit, I fully approve. I hope that you will not think 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 73 
 
 me presumptuous in sending you what I think might be an im- 
 proved form. It certainly is not in substance different, and it 
 retains much of your language. 
 
 I merely send it for your free criticism. 
 
 We meet to-day at the Church Commission here to arrange 
 as to our meeting in London, and I presume that we shall fix on 
 Monday next for our sitting in London. I presume that we 
 must take Monday and Tuesday for our days of meetings in 
 each week. 
 
 Lord Mayo is anxious about our giving some intimation as to 
 an early report ; but I think this we cannot do at present, nor do 
 I think it would be of any value. If the opposition are resolved 
 to make the question available for dislodging the present ministry, 
 they will care little whether our Report be made soon or late; 
 Their cry is, " Delenda est Carthago ;" and improved reconstruc- 
 tion of the Establishment in Ireland is. the last thing they will 
 care for. I am sure that the wisest course for the Government 
 is to state honestly that they will, so far as is practicable, remove 
 anomalies, and remedy what is defective and objectionable in 
 the Establishment in Ireland, but that they will pledge them- 
 selves to nothing more. 
 
 If they try to shirk the expression of any opinion, so as to 
 leave an open for amendment or abolition, as may be required 
 hereafter, I think they will cool their friends and heat their 
 enemies. 
 
 I go over on Wednesday night. 
 
 To the Same. — The Ritual Commission. 
 
 Saturday, 
 
 March 15th, 1868. 
 
 Allow me first to thank you very much for your kind and 
 acceptable token of regard, which I much value. 
 
 I expect to have a visit from Ball either on to-morrow or 
 early on Monday, and will arrange for our meeting at 11.30 at 
 the Westminster Chambers, as you suggest. 
 
 I really must ask you not to adopt the " non possumus," until 
 at least we have had a fair opportunity of convincing you that 
 your acceptance of the office of our Chairman is of public im- 
 portance. 
 
74 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 From the first I looked to you as the most fit and proper for 
 the office. I believe it was Lord Derby's wish ; and I know that 
 it is the wish of the most influential members of the Commission. 
 
 We will all endeavour to relieve you from any labour that 
 might be troublesome, and to make your position one rather of 
 influence and authority than of extra work. 
 
 As to the other Commission, I hope we may get through the 
 clauses of the proposed Report before we rise on Friday. 
 
 I have given up Clause 7. It merely tempted a further 
 reference to the matters with which " lights and incense " are 
 associated ; and I think it did not convey any meaning that re- 
 quires to be formally put forward in this Report. 
 
 If you can carry your clause, in which you explain the general 
 principle on which we have proceeded, it may be serviceable. 
 My impression has been that we must reserve the decided state- 
 ment of our views until we embody them in our concluding 
 Report. 
 
 Our aim at present should be the maximum of unanimity. 
 
 To the Same. — On same subject. 
 
 Tuesday Evening, 
 
 March 24M, 1868. 
 
 I am anxious, so far as I can, to reconcile the Bishop of 
 Oxford to our proposed draft. But I cannot think that it would 
 be politic to make it optional for the bishop to inquire into a com- 
 plaint as to any of the three points on which we have pronounced. 
 Our real meaning is that in any case in which complaint is 
 allowed to be made, and the facts are established, the order for 
 discontinuance should be issued. If the bishop dislikes the 
 duty, might it not be confided to his Chancellor ? 
 
 The truth is we are in a difficulty which I anticipated long 
 ago. The majority really intend that the use of vestments, lights, 
 and incense, if not now against law, should be declared to be 
 unlawful ; that usage should prevail, and the letter of the law 
 made conformable. The minority are willing to restrain in cer- 
 tain cases, but not to prohibit in all. 
 
 I drew up the clause for a speedy remedy, so as to leave the 
 question of law to be decided, and leaving it for us, when we come 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 75 
 
 to deal with the Ornament Rubrics, to say how it should be 
 amended or explained. But I was overruled by the resolution 
 to deal specifically with the three cases of vestments, lights, and 
 incense, and this precipitated us into the device of a restraining 
 order, that is, in effect, a declaration of illegality. 
 
 Personally I am not very careful how this special remedy is 
 moulded, because I think the main question must arise on our 
 dealing with the Rubric itself. I do not see any difficulty in recon- 
 ciling the terms of it with the usage ; but if such difficulty should 
 be found to exist, it is plain to me that usage must finally have 
 the upper hand. 
 
 Beresford-Hope, Perry, and the other dii minorum, will 
 obviously have a protest against prohibition, whilst they will in 
 certain cases allow a restraint on these contraband uses. 
 
 Perry will go on the Congregational principle, which seems to 
 me to be irreconcilable with the fixed principles of our Church 
 system. 
 
 Gladstone seems to set the Treaty of Union at defiance, and 
 to open up the whole question of National Establishments. 
 
 To the Same. — On same subject. 
 
 Whitehall Gardens, 
 Friday, November 6th, 1868. 
 
 Having been led to reconsider the question of our authority 
 under the Ritual Commission, I candidly confess I have come to 
 the conclusion that I had given too rigid a construction to the 
 terms of the Commission, and was thus placed in a position 
 during our last sittings which I should not have taken up if I had 
 seen the question in the light in which I now see it. 
 
 In order to guard myself against mistake, I sent a copy of the; 
 Commission to two friends of the highest character and greatest 
 experience in judicial questions of construction. I simply stated, 
 as a matter of fact, what were the rival constructions, and asked 
 each independently (one in England, the other in Ireland) to 
 give me a candid opinion as to the true construction. 
 
 I got a reply from each, most carefully drawn up, and they 
 are quite in accordance with the views which I now hold. 
 
 I have set forth my views in the paper which I enclose. If 
 
;6 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 you approve of it, you are at liberty to show it to the Bishop of 
 London, and any of those who desired to move in this direction 
 in revising the Rubrics. 
 
 I know not whether we are to resume our labours before the 
 new Archbishop shall be added to the Commissioners. I think 
 that the first act wheti we reassemble should be to record in our 
 proceedings our united feeling of regret for the loss we have sus- 
 tained by the death of our beloved and venerated chairman. 
 
 His mild wisdom, gentle goodness, unvarying courtesy, and 
 benign dignity, cannot but be remembered with much affection. 
 He was one of the excellent of the earth. From no one would 
 the tribute emanate more suitably than from you. No one is 
 more competent to embody and express in appropriate terms 
 what is required for the occasion. 
 
 With kind respects to the Countess Stanhope. 
 
 From Lord Stanhope. The Ritual Commission, and 
 the controversies connected with it. 
 
 Chevening, 
 
 November ?,th, 1868. 
 Dear Sir Joseph, 
 
 I thank you very much for your memorandum, which I have 
 not failed to read with the care it deserves, and which, according 
 to your suggestion, I have forwarded to the Bishop of London for 
 his perusal. We shall see what view he takes of it. For myself 
 I will acknowledge that, while feeling the great weight of your 
 authority on any subject, and more especially on any point of 
 legal construction, I have some doubt whether those who desire 
 to see certain formularies, and, above all, the Athanasian Creed, 
 made permissive or optional, instead of compulsory — who hold 
 for may in the place of shall — might not act most wisely if they 
 adhered to the paper which the Bishop of London drew up last 
 summer for that object, and of which, when I showed it you, 
 you expressed your approval. I am told that there is very great 
 prospect of carrying that paper through, stating as it does that we 
 should have desired to make that alteration, had we felt ourselves 
 at full liberty to do so. This, if carried, would be nearly as eiFec- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. "j"] 
 
 tual as making the alteration itself, arid avoid the risk of a split 
 among us if we insist upon the latter. 
 
 I should like very much to have an opportunity of speaking 
 to you upon this subject, after the Bishop of London has replied. 
 I observe that you date from London. Would you like to come 
 down here on Friday or Saturday next, and stay over the Sunday ? 
 We have no party, but should be very glad to see you. 
 
 I observe in your letter that you speak of the new Archbishop 
 (whoever he may be) becoming as of course a member of our 
 Commission. This I should rather doubt. If he be not a mem- 
 ber already, he might, perhaps, find it the preferable plan to 
 remain an outsider, and to sit in judgment as an umpire on any 
 recommendations we may make. 
 
 Believe me always very faithfully yours, 
 
 Stanhope. 
 
 To the Same. — Important Letter on Judicial Committee, Irish 
 Church Disestablishment, and Disestablishment gene- 
 rally; also on Dean Stanley's sermon on " The King as 
 Supreme'' 
 
 Wednesday Evening, 
 
 June 24th, 1869. 
 Dear Lord Stanhope, 
 
 I have to go to Dublin to-morrow night, but propose to return 
 in the next week. 
 
 If you could give me what the lawyers describe as " reason- 
 able notice " of the time of bringing forward your motion, I 
 would make an eifort to be present, and support you pro 
 virili. 
 
 I have been very busy on the Judicial Committee. The 
 sittings continue until the 22 nd July. 
 
 I do not see my way as to the Irish Church Bill ; but I am 
 better pleased at what has taken place than I should have been 
 if the second reading had been rejected by a small majority. 
 
 The movement against Establishments seems to me to be 
 consequent on the extension of popular privilege and Republican 
 equality. We may not be able to suppress the movement, but 
 we may guide it and leaven it with saving principles. ■ 
 
78 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 At all events I think the Church should adapt itself in faith 
 and patience to the altered circumstances and conditions of the 
 age, so as to preserve, as far as it can, its efficiency and means of 
 usefulness as the Church of Christ. 
 
 I wish you could persuade the Dean of Westminster to pub- 
 lish the sermon which he preached on Sunday afternoon at 
 Westminster, on " The king as supreme." It was admirable, and 
 in the highest degree instructive. 
 
 Believe me to be, 
 
 Most faithfully, 
 
 Joseph Napier. 
 
 Letters to Lord Stanley, afterwards 14TH 
 Earl of Derby. 
 
 Lord Roden's Case. 
 
 National Club, 
 Thursday, February 22nd, 1850. 
 
 Dear Lord Stanley, 
 
 I was anxious to have expressed to you the very great satis- 
 faction and delight with which I heard, and afterwards read, your 
 speech on Lord Roden's case. I naturally felt much anxiety 
 about it, and I must say, that all of us who felt deeply interested 
 for the personal honour of Lord Roden, and a sympathy with 
 so revered and high-minded, so purely Christian and Irish-hearted, 
 a nobleman, ought to feel, as I believe we do, thoroughly grateful 
 to you for your clear, comprehensive, and most effective statement 
 of the case. In saying this, I merely touch on the matter, and 
 do not feel myself at liberty to express what I think of the man- 
 ner — more than this, I was abundantly satisfied. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be prudent to clear up the intended impeach- 
 ment of the verified Report ; but I am disposed to think that in 
 the House of Commons the question should not be introduced. 
 It would go off in some indecent scolding, or merely political 
 controversy. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 79 
 
 I believe it is the purpose of the National Club Committee to 
 publish your speech, which I trust you will not object to revise. 
 
 I should be very glad, also, to have an opportunity of speaking 
 with you on the Landlord and Tenant question as to Improve- 
 ments. It is an irritating question, which should not be left for 
 the Government to trade upon and keep open as a running sore. 
 I am not fully satisfied what is the most safe and discreet line to 
 take ; but from the state of things in the north of Ireland, some 
 decisive conclusion should be had, and the discussion may arise 
 on Monday next. 
 
 Believe me 
 
 Most truly yours, 
 
 J. Napier. 
 
 To the Same. — Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. — Headlamps 
 Motion. — " Policy under which Ireland is to rise or 
 sink" — " Desire to preserve, not invade, (R.C.) liberty!' 
 
 3 Old Palace Yard, 
 
 Tuesday. 
 
 I send you a draft of the Bill as I should wish it to stand. 
 Mr. Walpole and myself had considered and framed clauses 
 whifth afterwards we separately modified and amended. I had 
 a conference with him yesterday, and we have substantially 
 agreed in our views ; but I think it is well to give you a fair 
 copy of what I should at present approve. 
 
 Mr. Headlam's motion will dispose of the Mortmain law, and 
 will, I think, deal with a very important subject, so as to enable 
 us to part with the 3rd Clause of the Government Bill, which I 
 never liked, and of which I disapprove. 
 
 Mr. Lacy's Bill deals with Convents, and appropriates that 
 subject. 
 
 The state of the Canon Law, the operation of Synodical 
 assemblies, &c., &c., will properly be subjects for searching 
 inquiry — with kindred subjects — including the efficacy of the 
 clauses of the Emancipation Act as to Jesuits and monastic 
 orders. 
 
8o LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 ' The motion to exempt Ireland seems to me a favourable op- 
 portunity of fixing the policy under which Ireland is to rise or 
 sink, arid may, I think, be debated in a useful manner, and so 
 as to show the Roman Catholic laity that our desire is to preserve, 
 not to invade, the liberty to which all Her Majesty's subjects are 
 equally entitled. 
 
 I am confident there is a large class of the Roman Catholic 
 laity in Ireland in their hearts anxious to be sheltered by our 
 interference, and as to which I think our best motto is — nee temere 
 nee tiviide. 
 
 To the Same. — Question of Lord Derby for Chancellorship 
 of University of Dublin. — Maynooth Grant. — Education, 
 Land, and other Irish questions. 
 
 Mountjoy Square, 
 
 Friday Evening. 
 
 Dear Lord Derby, 
 
 I have received both the letters which you have so promptly 
 written, and I may, in the first place, assure you that you shall 
 not be subject to the peril of a defeat. From the constitution of 
 the elective body, this can be avoided. 
 
 I now enclose the printed replies to the inquiries of the Royal 
 Commission, .which will afford the necessary information. The 
 Lord Primate is the Vice-Chancellor, but not ex-officio. The 
 Chancellor names his Deputy. The duties are not onerous, but 
 the influence is considerable, and the office honourable. 
 
 Lord Rosse's name and your own have been suggested, not as 
 rival candidates, but having due regard to the great qualifications 
 for the office, as offering an occasion of filling it with advantage. 
 I shall take strict care that no contest, nor anything savouring 
 of it, shall take place. The members of the Board will calmly 
 and privately consider by whom may the office be most suitably 
 filled, and I am sure you will be gratified to know that the body 
 of the Junior Fellows hope and wish that your Lordship may 
 be elected. 
 
 The College opens its advantages and its Degrees to all creeds 
 and classes. Whilst its foundation and its corporate offices are 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 8 1 
 
 preserved in the hands of members of the united Church, all 
 its general emoluments, not connected directly with the founda- 
 tion, are open to all. 
 
 Its course of education is liberal and sound, and the Divinity 
 School not inferior to any other in the kingdom. 
 
 So far, therefore, I cannot doubt that the ofi&ce, whilst it would 
 not tax your time or attention, would enable your Lordship, when- 
 ever required or inclined, to interfere to discharge a duly, not 
 irksome, but in accordance with what I believe to be your own 
 views and principles. 
 
 I thought it prudent, when I heard your name suggested, to 
 write at once, so that I might, if consulted, be prepared to speak 
 with certainty. I should not be surprised to find that it might be. 
 considered by the Board that Lord Rosse should be selected. 
 But this I do know, that there is an amount of confidence in 
 your Lordship's integrity and honour, and general fitness for the 
 office, that, under any result, cannot but be gratifying, though 
 not surprising, to your friends, who know and value your cha- 
 racter. 
 
 I think that I can exacdy enter into your feelings on the sub- 
 ject, as collected from your two letters ; and from my opportunity 
 of intercourse with the electors, I can secure you against any 
 probability of contest and defeat. 
 
 And now as to other matters. It does strike me that great 
 caution is needed in the course of our proceedings in the coming 
 Session. I do not see my way on the Maynooth question further 
 than this, that I am satisfied the heart and mind of England and 
 Scotland have always been against the increased grant, and that 
 the Act will be repealed and the grant withdrawn. 
 
 I think it of great consequence that our course should be tem- 
 perate, but 'firm ; that we should carefully avoid all occasion of 
 pressing the Roman Catholic laity ; and that we should seek to 
 make common cause with them against the ecclesiastical con- 
 spiracy of Rome. 
 
 For my own part, I will not take part in any public meeting 
 on this question, but reserve my judgment and sayings for the 
 necessary discussion in Parliament. 
 
 Still I am satisfied that we must carefully respect the Protestant 
 feeling of the nation. It is, under God, our great mine, our 
 
82 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 great resort for strength and success. It is neither to be damped 
 nor inflamed, but nurtured and moderated, and soberly guided. 
 
 Pardon, my Lord, what I merely offer currente calamo,iQX such 
 use as it may ireally afford. 
 
 Most faithfully, 
 
 J. Napier. 
 
 ' The printed paper is only intended for private use, so that 
 when you have sufficiently examined it, I should wish to have it 
 again. 
 
 A copy of the Statutes I will take care to have forwarded to 
 Knowsley. 
 
 I am gratified by your Lordship's approval of the reply to 
 Lord Monteagle, which has, so far, been generally and largely 
 acknowledged as fair and conclusive. ' 
 
 J. N. 
 
 To tke Same. — Primate Beresford elected Chancellor. — State 
 of France. — Extreme demands of " ardent Protestant 
 friends" in Ireland. 
 
 Mountjoy Square, 
 Saturday. 
 
 Dear Lord Derby, 
 
 I sent some College papers, and a communication from myself, 
 addressed to you at the Clarendon Hotel. I hope you received 
 them in safety. 
 
 The election for the Chancellor took place to-day. The Lord 
 Primate has been chosen. Of the smen Senior Fellows, three 
 (including the Vice-Provost and the Provost's son) were for your 
 Lordship, three others for the Primate, one for Lord Rosse. Of 
 the three who were for the Primate, two, / know, and all, I 
 believe, would have voted for your appointment, but that it was 
 signified by persons in the household of the Primate, who knew 
 his feeling and wishes, that it would not merely be a gratification 
 to him to be appointed, but that he would be hurt if passed 
 over. He is so much respected for his dignified and generous 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 83 
 
 demeanour— his munificent liberality to the Church and clergy 
 
 his donations to Schools — and his foundation of a new Professor- 
 ship in the University— that his wishes, once known, became 
 almost mandatory ; but for this your name stood No. i—fadlHme 
 princeps. There has been no publicity ; nothing of rivalry or 
 contest ; and I think the general feeling throughout College has 
 been very strong, indeed, in favour of your Lordship, and (as I 
 already mentioned) almost the entire body of Junior Fellows are 
 on your side. 
 
 I got copies of the Statutes, and the Calendars containing a 
 sketch of the foundation, which I would take the liberty of asking 
 you to accept ; it may be that they may not be altogether useless 
 for reference. 
 
 The case against Sir W. Sommerville, at the suit of the Editor 
 of the World newspaper, has ended. The verdict has, of course, 
 been for the defendant, but the disclosures most painfully re- 
 vealed a course of policy in employing the most abominable 
 agency for the purposes of Government, which cannot but lower 
 all authority in public estimation. 
 
 I forgot to add that the Provost voted for the Primate, so that 
 he had a majority. I trust, therefore, that there has not been 
 anything in this election which is not honourable to your Lord-i 
 ship's character, especially as I may take upon me to say, that 
 had it not been for the peculiar personal feeling in reference to 
 the Primate, you would have had the suffrages of all the electors 
 but one. 
 
 The state of France is now a matter of great anxiety, and it 
 cannot but be an admonition to us, to be very cautious in tam- 
 pering with the great principles of our free Constitution. 
 
 We have been arranging a Conservative section of Irish 
 members, with Lord Naas as our headpiece, and hope to be 
 prepared to act with order and concert. 
 
 I am still much embarrassed about the demands made by our 
 ardent Protestant friends. I am afraid of giving the advantage 
 of a grievance to the ecclesiastics of the Pope, whereby they, 
 might rally their laity on the side of Ultramontanism. 
 
 Principles are clear in the abstract, difficult in the application, 
 and yet it would not be safe or wise to damp or offend the sincere, 
 earnest Protestant feeling of the middle classes. 
 
84 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 This is a subject on which it would seem to me to be very 
 material that our friends of the Lower House should not be un- 
 prepared with a line of policy — to carry out with firmness and 
 united action. 
 
 Believe me, dear Lord Derby, 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 J. Napier. 
 
 To thi Same. — " The World" Newspaper against Sir Wm. 
 Sommerville. — Reference to Sir Emerson Tennent. 
 
 Mountjoy Square, 
 
 Monday, December , 1851. 
 
 Dear Lord Derby, 
 
 I have to thank you very much for your kind remembrance of 
 me, in sending the pheasants from Knowsley. 
 
 Your letter on the result of the election of Chancellor was 
 most seasonable, and allayed a lingering feeling of regret in my 
 own mind, that you had not been selected. 
 
 What you say of the Lord Primate is very true. We owe him 
 very much for the generous and noble-minded course he has ever 
 pursued — the dignity, munificence, and Christian meekness of 
 wisdom which he has so long manifested in his high station ; and 
 there was a very pardonable feeling in his favour, even with some 
 who, in sound, cool judgment, gave a secret, silent preference to 
 your Lordship. 
 
 It was not possible to prevent the publicity as to the votes. 
 The single vote was given for a double object, and the voter did 
 not wish his deed to be unknown. Under the circumstances, 
 however, I cannot think that any result, which you need regret, 
 can possibly follow from publicity. It tested the feeling of a 
 very intelligent class outside the walls, and ascertained it to be 
 very favourable indeed to your nomination. 
 
 The case of Birch v. Sommerville is just published in an 
 authentic form. Mr. Whiteside, who was engaged in the case,; 
 intends to forward a copy to Knowsley, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 85 
 
 I took the exact view expressed in your note. The IVor/d 
 newspaper is not known in England, but it always has been a 
 most notoriously abandoned journal. I was twice engaged in 
 criminal proceedings against it before Lord Clarendon came to 
 Ireland as Lord Lieutenant. It violates habitually the sanctities 
 of private life, and turns to the account of criminal extortion the 
 gossip and the secrets of families and individuals. It also had a 
 secret chain of connection with the base revolutionary press, so 
 that the Castle was brought into unsuspected connection with the 
 rebel clubs in 1848. 
 
 It is most humiliating, and deeply calculated to damage the 
 influence of all executive authority. 
 
 I will most gladly arrange to be in London in good time before 
 our hot work commences. Indeed, on all the important subjects 
 to which you refer, I sincerely wish to be aided and guided by 
 the wise and chastened experience of those in whom I have con- 
 fidence. 
 
 When writing to your Lordship on a former occasion, I threw 
 out some cursory thoughts ; for although, I trust, I should not 
 so far presume as to exceed a frank and calm suggestion of diffi- 
 culties worthy to be considered, and the course which intercourse 
 here, and my own reflection, in a degree commended, I have 
 always felt that you would not misinterpret an unreserved expres- 
 sion of opinion on any of the great subjects which must form 
 topics of grave debate. 
 
 Sir Emerson Tennent may soon be with our ranks, and I am 
 sure we will find him a valuable auxiliary. His experience and 
 habits of business are most valuable, and I know he has ever 
 retained the strongest feeling of personal esteem for your Lord- 
 ship. 
 
 I would at once have acknowledged your kind present, but a 
 very laborious trial, which occupied a week, nearly exhausted me. 
 
 I will send the parcel, with the University Statutes, &c., by an 
 early opportunity, desiring for your Lordship the blessings of the 
 season. 
 
 Believe me. 
 
 Truly and respectfully yours, 
 
 Joseph Napier. 
 
86 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 To Sir James Graham. 
 
 Address at Drogheda. — Lectures ■ on Butler and Burke. — 
 " Why has the ' A thenceum ' been maligning his memory ?" — 
 The Longford Election. — Irish priests and Italian liberty. 
 
 Merrion Square, 
 
 Wednesday. 
 
 My dear Sir James, 
 
 I directed the publisher to send you a copy of an address 
 which I delivered in Drogheda, and which I find to have made a 
 general good impression. The Romish journals have said nothing, 
 which shows there is nothing which they could lay hold of for 
 their own advantage. I had upwards of 500 in attendance at the 
 meeting ; 470 bought tickets, and this, for Drogheda, was un- 
 exampled. 
 
 I will send you, in a few days, the lectures which I have de- 
 livered on Butler's Analogy, before a Class of Young Men of the 
 Association here in connection with the Church. I find a great 
 change for the better in our young men, and this movement of 
 the Church has been the wisest it has yet made. 
 
 I have to give a lecture on Edmund Burke, on May 7th, in 
 the Metropolitan Hall. Lord Carlisle proposes that we should 
 have a statue of our hero. I suppose that Burke and Goldsmith- 
 will be placed in front of T.C.D. It is a great theme, but here it 
 must be dealt with discreetly, and especially in my hands. When 
 one remembers his great views about America, India, Ireland, 
 France, &c., &c., and reads them in the light of history, there iS' 
 such a profusion of materials as to embarrass in selecting. 
 
 My impression is, that I should endeavour to make Ireland 
 the prominent topic ; but I greatly desire to have from you any 
 suggestions or references which you could, without inconvenience, 
 let me have. As to India, your authority is necessarily great > 
 and as to America, I would implicitly rely on you also. 
 
 Why has the Athenceum been labouring to malign the memory 
 of Burke? Is there any Warren Hastings sympathy in that 
 quarter ? With reference to Ireland, it is open to show what 
 Burke's -policy was from the first, and how it ought to enlist the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 87 
 
 gratitude of one party, and show the other what bitterness and 
 division might have been saved by the adoption then of what 
 Burke saw must in the end be conceded. His views of com- 
 mercial policy, also, and of English connection, and his en- 
 lightened principles of toleration in connection with the most 
 devoted attachment to the Protestant religion and the Established 
 Church. 
 
 The liOngford Election has thrown us back. It has em- 
 boldened the priestly party, and if the game be played in other 
 places, it may increase our internal divisions, and embitter the 
 connection with England. Sir Robert Peel's impulsive and 
 oifensive speeches have excited great irritation. A Longford, 
 priest was asked — " What did the election cost Major O'Reilly?", 
 His reverence said — " Oh, it didn't cost much — about three rows 
 of pins " 1 
 
 However, I am disposed to think the Romish party have made ■ 
 a great mistake in not backing up Italian nationality and spiritual 
 headship. They could then have used the English feeling in 
 aid of " hish Catholicity" and in derogation of Anglicanism in . 
 every form, spiritual and temporal, in Ireland. As the matter 
 stands, they are inflamed to ferocity against the Whigs, whose 
 policy seems Garibaldian in Italy, Shaftesburian in England, 
 Lemon Peelian in Ireland. 
 
 Ever your old friend, 
 
 J. Napier. 
 
 Froifi Sir John Taylor Coleridge. 
 
 Th& Bar in America.^Our need now " of tJte great, simple, 
 authoritative mind of Butler!' — The Lushington Judgment. 
 
 HeetKs Court, 
 
 July 24, 1863. 
 
 My dear Napier, 
 
 f Sincere thanks to you for your interesting and kind letter, and 
 the three lectures which followed it. When I look at the subjects 
 you handle, and anticipate how you have performed your task, I • 
 really am ashamed to make you so poor a return as I do by this ■ 
 
88 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 post. But xa.X%fa ■x^pusiioi? — one can only do what one can do — 
 and you must take theni only as evidence that I make such return 
 as I can, and wish it were more worthy. The " Recollections" 
 is an American reprint, I know not where made, but I received 
 some copies, and I send you my last, for the curiosity of the 
 thing. I have always found our cousins there very loyal to 
 English lawyers, from Story downwards. I correspond with some 
 of them on both sides in northern politics, and like them much. 
 I suppose you look at the Quarterly. Some time ago I con- 
 tributed one or two articles on little works regarding the Bar, by 
 Horace Binney, of Philadelphia, which, if you passed over, you 
 may perhaps turn to, not for the sake of what I said, but what I 
 extracted. One paper was really curious, on Washington's Last 
 Address — a judicial examination into the authorship. 
 
 My hint to you was singularly unneeded, when you can employ 
 yourself in lecturing and examining on Butler. Have you not 
 felt in these distressing controversies how much we want his mind 
 now ? We have clever and learned men in our Universities and 
 on our Episcopal Bench ; but we want the great, simple, authori- 
 tative mind of Butler. 
 
 I hear (but it is mere rumour) that Lushington's judgment will 
 not be sustained in the Privy Council. The history is curious. 
 My son, who was one of the Bishop of Salisbury's counsel, be- 
 sought him not to begin. He persevered, saying it was a case of 
 conscience with him in regard to his Consecration oath. Lush- 
 ington decided many points against him, a few for him. Then 
 his conscience interfered again. He objects to the Court of 
 Appeal, and though he was compelled to go to it as respond- 
 ent, he would not appeal, and his counsel were compelled to 
 go there with their right hands tied behind them. Yet the 
 Bishop is an excellent, most amiable man, and an admirable 
 administrator of his diocese. 
 
 Thank you for what you say of my son. Alas ! he has more 
 work cast on him than strength to bear it. His course has been 
 singularly brilliant, and he is now quite in the front rank, by the 
 confession of Bench and Bar. But I am anxious about him. I 
 am now going to our station, in the hope of meeting him and 
 bringing him home for twenty-four hours' rest between two towns 
 on his circuit. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 89 
 
 I hope some appeal may bring your son over to London, and 
 that John and I may make his acquaintance. I dare say you are 
 intensely interested in his progress. I am sure I have been so, 
 and am, in regard to John's. 
 
 But I am just now jubilant at a grandson having come out 
 eleventh of 120 candidates for Winchester College — the son 
 of my second daughter, whose husband, an excellent and very 
 able fellow, is Rector of a parish less than six miles from me. 
 
 I wish, indeed, that the Judicial Committee were opened in 
 Ireland and Scotland. It would be an immense improvement, 
 and it seems to me quite unobjectionable. Moreover, we want 
 help sadly, especially during the Session, when our peers nearly- 
 desert us, excepting Kingsdown, an admirable judge ; and we^ 
 can be little helped by Romilly or Cresswell. 
 
 Joanna and Fanny Patteson have settled at St. Mary's Church, 
 close to Torquay, in a new house, which they like much ; but 
 the latter is now at Aix-la-Chapelle, taking a course of the 
 baths and water for her health, which is but indifferent. They 
 had resolved before they settled to devote two years to a visit to 
 their brother, the Missionary Bishop at N. Zealand, but he wisely 
 and very unselfishly dissuaded them from coming out. Did you 
 know him ? He is a remarkable person — the delight of his dear 
 father's eyes, who gave him up, however, without a struggle. It 
 was the trial of his life, and so nobly sustained. 
 
 I must leave off, and remain, with kind remembrance to 
 Mrs. Napier, 
 
 Most truly yours, 
 
 J. T. Coleridge. 
 
 From, the Same. — On Sir Joseph's Chancellorship. 
 
 6 Southwick Crescent, Hyde Park. 
 
 April Tp, i860. 
 
 It is only just now that I received your very kind note, and 
 the volume of your Reports at the Athenaeum, and I am on my 
 way, as soon as this meeting is over, to Hampshire, to perform 
 the last duty to the remains of a most dear old College friend. 
 
90 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 But I will not delay to thank you most heartily for your kindness. 
 I assure you I value and shall value both very much. 
 
 I cannot but congratulate you on your having performed your 
 duties as Chancellor with so much good acceptance and so well, 
 and I shall be very glad to see you called to the same duties 
 again. You are not yet what Bethell says he is — conviva istur, 
 and I trust you would sit down again to the Table with a good 
 appetite. 
 
 I return to London on Wednesday, and after two more meet- 
 ings here, go down to my own home in the far West on Friday, 
 there to stay until compelled to come up again ; that will be, I 
 dare say, before you leave London, and then I will certainly 
 try to see you. I am my son's guest when in town. 
 
 With kind remembrance to Mrs. Napier. 
 
 From Sir Stafford Northcote, afterwards 
 Earl of Iddesleigh. 
 
 Dublin Church Congress. — Fenian Conspiracy. 
 
 Pynes, Exeter, 
 
 January 4, 1868. 
 
 My dear Mr. Napier, 
 
 It will give me great pleasure to add my name to the list of 
 the Vice-Presidents of the Church Congress, though I cannot 
 foresee whether I am likely to be able to attend it. 
 
 I trust that we may be spared a Fenian outbreak, though v/e 
 may reckon on a very uneasy and anxious winter. If we can lay 
 hands on the leaders, and keep them when we catch them, I 
 think we may paralyze the conspiracy; but our police system 
 needs some fortifying and perhaps recasting. 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 Yours very faithfully, 
 - SxArroRD H. Northcote. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 91 
 
 From Archbishop Longley. 
 
 Report of Royal Commission. — Irish Church Establishment 
 " doomed." 
 
 Melsted Rectory, 
 
 April 14, 1868. 
 Dear Sir Joseph, 
 
 I was aware of the two alterations you mad? in the copy of 
 our Report ; and I feel no difficulty in giving them my sanction. 
 
 I entirely approve of the insertion in our Appendix of the 
 Paper you drew up, commenting on Mr. Russell's evidence. 
 If left unconfuted in the instances in which he has fallen into 
 mistakes or overstated his case, our plea would not be so well 
 substantiated. , . 
 
 As to the Irish Church, I fear the Establishment is doomed — 
 all we can hope for is to save as much of the endowments as 
 possible from the wreck. 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 Dear Sir Joseph, 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 C. T. Cantuar. 
 
 From Earl Cairns. 
 
 2nd May, 1870. 
 My dear Napier, 
 
 Nothing could be more agreeable to me than to take a part 
 in the centenary of the Historical Society of Trinity College, 
 Dublin; but, alas ! I am tied here by endless engagements every 
 day this week. 
 
 We have had a delightful winter at Mentone, and are all the 
 better for it. 
 
 The Land Bill is rather in a mess. I hope myself that it may 
 pass divested of some of its objectionable features; 
 
 I shall be very glad to see you when you come over. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 : CAIRNS,- , . 
 
92. LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 From Dean Liddell, Vice-chancellor 
 OF Oxford. 
 
 Invitation to the Deanery. 
 
 Hollington House, Newbury, 
 
 September i7,th, 1873. 
 Sir, 
 
 I understand that you propose being present in Oxford at the 
 " Union " Festival on the 22nd of October. In this case, it will 
 give me great pleasure if you will honour me by becoming my 
 guest on the occasion. 
 
 I am, 
 
 Yours very faithfully, 
 
 W. G. Liddell 
 
 ( Vice-Chancellor of the University 
 of Oxford). 
 
 To The Rev. Canon Carus. 
 
 Macaulay at the Martyr^ Memorial, Oxford. 
 
 Merrion Square, 
 
 Thursday. 
 My dear Canon Carus, 
 
 * * * The anecdote as to Lord Macaulay was suggested by 
 what I saw and heard at Oxford. It occurred in 1853, I think — 
 on the occasion of the great commemoration when Lord Derby 
 was installed as Chancellor. I had the honour of getting an 
 honorary degree in company with Lord Macaulay and others. 
 In moving about the town, I found him at the Martyrs' Monu- 
 ment, and having gone to some other place, and after some 
 interval returned to the hallowed spot, I found him still standing, 
 in a fixed posture and with a staid expression of deep thoughtful- 
 ness. " I could stand here for a day" said he, " thinking of those 
 who suffered and the witness they bore." I am not sure that these 
 were the ipsissima verba — but they were to the same effect. The 
 martyrs — the martyrdom — the testimony — the triumph of truth 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 93 
 
 and freedom — these were the thoughts, and seemed to keep as if 
 spell-bound the mind of that eminent and accomplished man, as 
 he gazed on the monument with fixed and sustained attention. 
 I got acquainted with him in the House of Commons, and found 
 him very kind ; and from one communication which I had from 
 him, in which he spoke of his " dear friend Wilberforce," I had 
 reason to believe that he was a man who had " the root of the 
 matter " in his heart. 
 
 I am glad to find you are going to Oxford, to guide and 
 encourage the youthful minds there who may desire to be in- 
 structed. This is a great crisis. 
 
 From The Earl of St. Germans. 
 
 In regard to Sir Josephs Bill concerning landlord and 
 tenant. 
 
 Dover Street, 
 
 December I2,tlh 1852- 
 Sir, 
 
 I received on Saturday evening your letter of that day and 
 the papers which accompanied it. I hasten, in reply to your 
 letter, to assure you that I never thought, and consequently 
 never said, either in public or in private, that any of the pro- 
 visions of your Bills for amending the Landlord and Tenant 
 Laws of Ireland had been taken from a Bill framed by Mr. 
 Tighe Hamilton. 
 
 I spoke indeed of Mr. Hamilton's Bill in the House of Lords 
 on Friday evening ; but I only said that I thought it in many 
 respects preferable to the Bills which had been brought in by the 
 Government. 
 
 I had not then seen your Bills, and derived all the knowledge 
 of them which I possessed from the statement that you made when 
 you laid them on the table of the House of Commons. Being 
 thus but imperfectly informed as to the provisions of your Bills, 
 I was to blame for instituting a comparison between them and 
 those of Mr. Hamilton's Bills. This, however, was all of which 
 you can complain. I certainly did not accuse you, directly or 
 indirectly, of plagiarism. 
 
94 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 The Times report of what took place in the House of Lords 
 on Friday, which is the only one that I have seen, contains 
 nothing calculated to produce the impression under which your 
 letter was written. Lord Derby's second speech, as there given, 
 distinctly refers to " a charge made in the other House of Parlia- 
 ment." You must, I think, have been misled by a report of the 
 conversation in some other newspaper which I have not seen. 
 The report in the Times is substantially correct, and I therefore 
 beg leave to refer you to it. 
 
 I regret exceedingly that you should have thought me capable 
 of imputing to you an unhandsome or ungenerous proceeding. 
 I may differ in opinion with you on some political questions ; but 
 no such differences will ever make me unmindful of your title to 
 the respect, esteem, and confidence of all parties. I should as 
 soon have thought of questioning your abilities as your honour. 
 
 I am much obliged to you for the copies of the Bills, and will 
 not fail to study them with the attention they deserve. You will, 
 perhaps, permit me to .communicate to you any remarks on them 
 that may occur to me. 
 
 Believe me to be. Sir, 
 
 Your very faithful servant, 
 
 St. Germans. 
 
 From The Right Hon. C. Shaw Lefevre, afterwards 
 Lord Eversley. 
 
 On his resignation of the Office of Speaker. 
 
 Eaton Square, 
 
 March i^th, 1857. 
 Dear Mr. Napier, 
 
 I am much pressed for time, but 1 cannot delay thanking you 
 for your truly kind and gratifying letter — the more so, as it 
 expresses approbation of that part of my conduct which does not 
 so immediately belong to the ordinary routine of official life, and 
 which I hope to maintain in whatever situation I am placed. 
 I shall quit the Chair of the House of Commons with great 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 95 
 
 regret, for it has afforded me the privilege of becoming acquainted 
 with yourself and many excellent men for whom I entertain a 
 sincere regard, and whose friendship I shall still hope to retain. 
 
 Believe me to be, 
 
 Yours most faithfully, 
 
 C. S. Lefevre. 
 
 From The BISHOP OF Ely, 
 
 Asking Sir Joseph to a Meeting for Anglo-Continental 
 Society. 
 
 Ely House, 
 
 Dover Street, W., 
 
 July i,th, 1865. 
 SiR, 
 
 I venture to ask a favour, and I trust you will forgive me if I 
 am verj' bold. A meeting of several persons interested in the 
 Italian Mission and Anglo-Continental Society has been arranged 
 for Friday next, at my house. No. 37 Dover Street, Piccadilly 
 (Friday, the 7th). The Archbishop of Dublin, Bishop of Oxford, 
 Sir Roundell Palmer, Lord Ch. Hervey, Archbishop Wordsworth, 
 Archdeacon Bickersteth, Canon Hawkins, Mr. Meyrick, and 
 others have promised to come if possible. 
 
 Many of us feel that your presence would be very desirable. 
 The difficulty which I feel is that the meeting is to be at dinner 
 at 7.30, and you may think it very impertinent in me to ask you 
 to dine with me. If you will kindly consider it as official, and 
 yyill honour us with your company, we shall all be thankful. 
 
 I have the honour to be. 
 
 Your very faithful servant, 
 
 E. N. Ely. 
 
96 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Frofti the Same. — Same subject. 
 
 37 Dover Street, W., 
 
 July t^th. 
 
 Many thanks for promising to join our Conference. I very 
 gladly drop official style, but I thought you might naturally think 
 me impertinent for venturing to ask you to dinner. I hope 
 I said Friday, "jth, at 7.30, for I know I had some confusion 
 between Thursday and Friday. 
 
 From The Right Hon. Henry Reeves. 
 On the work of the Judicial Committee. 
 
 Privy Council Office, 
 
 December 2%th, 1868. 
 My dear Sir Joseph, 
 
 I shall send you by this post the six first cases in our List as 
 it now stands, and I enclose a copy of the List itself, or of what 
 remains of it. 
 
 These cases all relate to the affairs of one family, and should 
 be read together. They will serve to give you a pretty fair idea 
 of the curious details of Indian life and property, which form the 
 chief business of this tribunal. 
 
 When the List is reprinted in January, the order of the cases 
 will in some degree be altered, as I shall advance the Common 
 Law cases, in order that they may be heard by a Common Law 
 judge. 
 
 I have received and read with the greatest interest your paper 
 on Burke, for which I beg to offer you my cordial thanks. I 
 profess myself a very devoted, though humble, student and ad- 
 mirer of your great Edmund, and I have the honour to be the 
 Treasurer of " The Club," which Sir Joshua and Burke founded ; 
 but with all my admiration I cannot deny that Burke's passionate 
 vehemence sometimes overpowered his judgment. 
 
 Your details about his early life are especially interesting. 
 
 Believe me. 
 
 Your faithful servant, 
 
 Henry Reeves. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 97 
 
 From Lord John Manners. 
 
 Dublin Church Congress. — General Uneasiness. 
 
 Belvoir Castle; 
 
 Grantham, 
 
 January ^rd, 1868. 
 Dear Mr. Napier, 
 
 You are most welcome to enrol me among the Vice-Presidents 
 of the Church Congress to be held at Dublin, which I hope and 
 believe will be eminently successful. 
 
 I am greatly obliged by your interesting information on the : 
 subject of Fenianism. 
 
 The Duke of Cambridge, who was to have paid my brother a 
 visit here yesterday, at the last moment felt obliged to remain at 
 his post in London. 
 
 I never remember so general a feeling of insecurity and alarm. 
 But one result will be the increased efficiency of all our police 
 and internal defensive arrangements. 
 
 Sincerely reciprocating all your kind wishes for the New Year, 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 Yours very faithfully, 
 
 John Manners. 
 
 To The Earl of Harrowby. 
 
 Church Questions. 
 
 Merrion Square, 
 
 Saturday. 
 
 Dear Lord Harrowby, 
 
 I have directed two copies of the draft Report (as I would 
 
 frame it) to be sent to you by this day's post. 
 
 I propose to leave on Monday morning, to pull up at Stafford, 
 
 and proceed to Sandon. We can talk over matters when wC; 
 
 meet, but the more I reflect, the more opposed I am to Walpole's, 
 
 abridgment of the history of subscription, and to the way in which 
 
 this is used to make up our Report. .: 
 
 H 
 
98 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 It is not natural nor explanatory ; it does not seem to flow 
 from the regular execution of our commission to consider, alter, 
 and simplify existing forms consistently with the declared agree- 
 ment of the clergy with the doctrines, and conformity to the ritual, 
 of the United Church. 
 
 I thought the best way was to follow the promptings which 
 led me to construct the new form with the aid of what took place 
 in the conferences of our Commission. 
 
 What we want is a truthful, natural explanation of the " sim- 
 plified and altered form ;" and to secure this I thought the best 
 way was to give the very reasons by which it was finally com- 
 pleted and adopted. 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 Dear Lord Harrowby, 
 
 Your very faithful, 
 
 Joseph Napier. 
 
 From A. J. B. Beresford-Hope, Esq., m.p. 
 
 Church Parties. 
 
 January ^rd, 1868. 
 My dear Sir Joseph, 
 
 I am much flattered at the invitation to become one of the 
 Vice-Presidents of the Dublin Church Congress, and shall have 
 great pleasure in acting as such. 
 
 You will allow me, as one who cares more for the Irish 
 Church than I fear English churchmen generally do, to add that 
 I accept the position as an earnest that at the Congress (which 
 will be more completely the Irish Church by representation than 
 any gathering has ever before been) the High Church element of 
 the. "United Church" will have fair play, and a favourable 
 hearing. I quite recognise the temptation which may present 
 itself to the. minds of members of the Irish Church, from their 
 daily contact with Romanism, to look with disfavour and sus- 
 picion on High Churchmanship. But as myself personally 
 anxious to maintain your Church, I look on the yielding to that 
 temptation with profound sorrow, conscious as I am that the too 
 prevalent apprehension in England, that the weight of the Irish 
 side of the United Church is somewhat exclusively thrown into 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 
 
 99 
 
 one side of the balance, has tended to an enormous extent to 
 chill the zeal of a great section of the English Church as to its 
 maintenance. 
 
 I have to thank you very much for the kind tone of your 
 rejoinder to my observations which reached me yesterday. I 
 hope and pray that we may continue to the end to deliberate in 
 the same spirit. It was fortunate that the Dean of Westminster's 
 optional disuse of the initiatory Lord's Prayer in the Communion 
 Service was not pressed. I cannot now give any non-doctrinal 
 alterations more likely to have disgusted the more liturgical sec- 
 tion of the English Church, than one which would seem to place 
 the Communion Service below Morning Prayer, as this would 
 have done, by making the sequence of the two services a reason 
 for abridging the Communion Service. I fully believe that the 
 greater elasticity imported into the use of the Prayer Book, by 
 the now frequent optional division of services (a reform mainly 
 due to High Churchmen), is, and will be, of enormous benefit. 
 But the proposal of the Dean would have been antagonistic to 
 its free working, by inviting the combination of services through 
 the abridgment of that one which was the central and most im- 
 portant act of worship. 
 
 With all best wishes of the New Year, 
 
 Believe me. 
 
 My dear Sir Joseph, 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 A. J. B. Beresford-Hope. 
 
 From John Ruskin, Esq., to Right Hon. Sir 
 Joseph Napier. 
 
 Denmark Hill, S., 
 
 March 21st, 1868. 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 I cannot at present come out in the evening ; but, With yoar 
 
 kind permission, I will wait upon you on Tuesday at 12. 
 
 I fear that I cannot lecture in Ireland— though it is but ^ 
 
 private sorrow, unconquerable in its associations, that must 
 
 prevent me. , 
 
 Ever faithfully and respectfully yours, 
 
 J. Ruskin. 
 
100 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 From the Same, to Mr. William Napier. 
 
 Winnington Hall, 
 
 Northwich, Cheshire, 
 
 May 26th, 1863. 
 
 Dear Mr. Napier, 
 
 I was taken by surprise by your departure with your sister on 
 ivlonday. Had I known you were not going to stay to dinner, 
 I should not have been drawing all the while you were in the 
 garden. But whatever better opportunity I might so have ob- 
 tained, I could not have expressed to you either my own sense, 
 or Joanna's, of all your graceful and pleasant kindness to us, 
 of which since, whenever either of us began to speak, you cut us 
 short with a new story. I will let you have your own way in 
 cutting me short even now, and the rather because I could not 
 easily tell it you, if I were to assume your permission. 
 
 I have been writing some formal notes, and some difficult 
 ones, to-day, and I am tired, and cannot well put into words the 
 truth of what I want to say of the regard I should have for you, 
 if you cared for it, supposing I were to carry out my (quite 
 earnest) purpose of being much in Ireland. Neither can I at all 
 say what I would fain say to your sister and to Lady Napier — so 
 I must content myself for the moment with so much of newspaper 
 letter as you will care to read to them — to the effect that we 
 crossed yesterday morning over a bright sea, too rough to leave 
 poor Joanna any time of prudent rest on deck ; but the little 
 time she had was made pleasant to her by a shake of the hand 
 from her friend Colonel Clarke, who crossed with us, and to 
 whom she therefore desired me to tell you she had given the 
 message you had taken charge of — not better — but more directly. 
 
 I find I shall be detained here until Monday next. When 
 you are writing to your father, will you kindly mention this to 
 him, that he may not think I have returned to town without 
 waiting on him ? And with sincere regards to Lady Napier and 
 your sister, 
 
 Believe me, gratefully yours, 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. loi 
 
 From Rev. Robert Walsh, to Mrs. Gardiner. 
 
 The Parsonage, Malahide, Co. Dublin, 
 February 23. 
 
 Dear Madam, 
 
 I have received yours of the 21st. I can only say it gives me 
 much pleasure to comply with the request it conveys. The Histori- 
 cal Society owes much to the interest Sir Joseph Napier took in 
 its welfare. He became its President at a time its fortunes were 
 very low ; he saw it become under his presidency what it is now— 
 a flourishing institution. Many a member has been indebted to 
 him for kindly help and counsel, and many a young man of 
 ability and desert found his start in life made easier by Sir Joseph 
 Napier's thought and effort for him. I shall always retain a 
 grateful recollection of your father's kindness to myself, and 
 though I could wish the abler pen of Dr. Chadwick had under- 
 taken what you ask, I esteem it a privilege to have a part, 
 however small, in the work you propose to the memory of a good 
 man I so much respect. 
 
 Believe me, very faithfully yours, 
 
 Robert Walsh. 
 
BRIEF SKETCH 
 
 Of the connection of the late Sir f. Napier with the Historical 
 Society, Trinity College, Dublin. 
 
 THE connection of Sir J. Napier with the Historical 
 Society may be said to have extended over the long 
 period of fifty-eight years. It was begun as a member in 
 the year 1824 ; it was continued as President for twenty- 
 eight years until ended by his death. 
 
 The Historical Society of Trinity College, Dublin 
 University, was founded for the benefit of the students so 
 long ago as 1770. Indeed, an earlier origin might be 
 claimed for it, in a Society of a somewhat kindred nature, 
 started by Edmund Burke in 1747, and which appears in 
 time to have merged into the Historical Society. The 
 Society was established for the cultivation of History, 
 Oratory, and Composition ; its objects being very similar to 
 those of the Oxford and Cambridge Unions and of the 
 Speculative Society of Edinburgh. Since its foundation 
 it has numbered among its prominent members most of the 
 distinguished Irishmen who have been Graduates of the 
 University of Dublin. It has also been identified with the 
 h story of Ireland in some of the sadder scenes of her 
 story, by the fact that Emmet, Wolfe Tone, and other 
 revolutionary leaders, were members. 
 
 The Society held its meetings once each week during 
 the portion of the academical year in which the students 
 attended College lectures and examinations. Each session 
 was opened by an address from the Auditor or President 
 usually on a subject connected with History or Oratory. 
 The Auditor held office for one year. He was the most 
 distinguished member of the previous year, and selected 
 because of that by his fellow-members as their chief execu- 
 tive officer. The President was elected for life, or for as 
 
BRIEF SKETCH — COLLEGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 103 
 
 long as he wished to continue President. He generally 
 presided at all important meetings, and was selected, be- 
 cause of former connection with the Society, from amongst 
 those who had attained a high position in professional or 
 political life. At the ordinary weekly meetings a debate 
 took place on some appointed historical, social, or other 
 question. Speakers were nominated on either side, and at 
 the close of the session a gold and a silver medal were 
 awarded to those whom the votes of the members declared 
 were the two best speakers during the session. There 
 were also medals awarded to the highest answerers in his- 
 tory at an annual examination, and to the best essayists 
 on a given subject for an English Composition prize. 
 
 Besides the inducements thus offered for the promotion 
 of these important elements in a young man's education 
 the Society brought students of various creeds and politics 
 together in social intercourse. It was the beginning of 
 many a life-long friendship ; and in a country where creed 
 and politics are so fruitful in social animosities, it taught 
 many a man " to agree to differ" in a kindly spirit with 
 fellow-members of other ways of thinking. 
 
 During the later years of his University studies, and 
 the earlier years of his professional life. Sir J. Napier had 
 been a member of the Historical Society, which then 
 carried on the traditions of the University Society. At 
 that time the heads of the University had ostracized it 
 from its natural home, though the students, and many of 
 the Fellows, were members. It held its meetings outside 
 the walls of the University, and independent of her 
 patronage. At a time of great political excitement, the 
 University Governing Body had practically expelled the 
 Society, and it had not yet been re-admitted. Of this ex- 
 tern Historical Society Sir J. Napier was a distinguished 
 member. As Auditor he closed one of its sessions with an 
 Address. His influence and position among his fellow- 
 members showed that they appreciated the talents which 
 were yet to win the coming greater prizes of life. It is 
 probable Sir J. Napier maintained that friendly interest in 
 
I04 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 the Society " old " members so often display. The records 
 of the Society naturally contain little information on this 
 subject ; but the interval was not a long one, after which 
 they tell of an active interest, which was continued to the 
 close of his life. 
 
 In 1843 the Society had been re-admitted within the 
 walls of Trinity College, Dublin. The Provost — Dr. 
 M'Donnell — became its President. Sir J. Napier took an 
 active part in the proceedings of the restored Society. His 
 name is to be frequently found amongst the names of those 
 attending its meetings. He was also frequently one of the 
 appointed speakers of the opening night of the Session. 
 
 On the resignation of Provost M'Donnell, in 1854, he 
 was unanimously elected by the members as their Presi- 
 dent. On the occasion of the opening night of the first 
 session after his appointment, at the close of the proceed- 
 ings, and after the Auditor had delivered his Address, Sir 
 J. Napier initiated his new relation to the Society by im- 
 pressing on the members the importance of English Com- 
 position as a part of a young man's education. At the 
 request of the Society he consented to print and circulate 
 his speech. He soon showed in even a more practical way 
 his desire to encourage the study of Composition. He 
 instituted an annual prize of books, designated " The 
 Napier Prose Composition Prize," for the best essay on a 
 subject selected and announced by himself some six months 
 previously. In 1859 he substituted for this prize a gold 
 medal of equal value with the medals awarded by the 
 Society for Oratory and History. The first to win a 
 " Napier Gold Medal " was Mr. Edward Gibson, now Lord 
 Ashbourne, and Lord Chancellor of Ireland. The medal 
 excited keen competition : many who won it, or competed 
 for it, are now filling distinguished positions in life. The 
 members knew their President took great pains to bestow 
 it justly, and they appreciated the kindly spirit in which, 
 at the close of the proceedings of the opening night of each 
 session, he announced his decision. His closing speech on 
 this annual occasion became an institution. 
 
BRIEF SKETCH — COLLEGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 105 
 
 During the long period of twenty-nine years, in which 
 he was President, unless prevented by illness or declining 
 health, he never once failed to be at his post. Even the 
 pressure of official or professional duties was never permit- 
 ted to be an excuse. As Lord Chancellor, and in the height 
 of his busy practice at the Bar, he found time to take the 
 chair. The members appreciated their President's loyalty 
 to them. This Annual Opening Meeting of each session 
 was a great occasion. It was nearly always crowded. 
 The Auditor commenced the proceedings with an Address. 
 Resolutions were proposed by appointed speakers : those 
 were always chosen as men of mark — generally former 
 members, who were now filling leading positions in pro- 
 fessional or political life ; but besides they were men 
 selected for their oratorical gifts. It was after these had 
 spoken the President rose to speak. The members knew 
 their President had always something to tell them worth 
 listening to. The interest of the meeting, even at that 
 period of it, was sure once more to rise while the President 
 announced his decision as to his Composition Medal, and 
 gave his reasons, and then reviewed the work of the past 
 session, or spoke upon such topics affecting the welfare of 
 the Society as he thought well to notice. 
 
 But it was not only on these public occasions the con- 
 nection with the Society as President was faithfully main- 
 tained. Sir J. Napier took a pleasure in promoting the 
 welfare of the members individually. Not a few young 
 men of promise owed their first successful start in life to 
 help he gave, or influence he exerted on their behalf. 
 Members were made welcome when they visited him to 
 consult about their own career, as well as about the con- 
 cerns of the Historical Society. Though the Society is 
 more than a century old, it was necessarily chiefly worked 
 and managed by young men. Youth is not always judi- 
 cious ; and on a few important occasions the members had 
 good reason to feel indebted to the wise guidance of their 
 President, or to his friendly intervention on their behalf 
 with the College authorities. How great the influence of 
 
I06 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 the Society over which he thus presided, may be to some 
 extent estimated by the number of distinguished Irishmen 
 who in their College days were leading members of it. 
 The following list is by no means a complete one of 
 those who were either medalists or officers during the 
 twenty-nine years Sir J. Napier was President. Of course, 
 in the nature of the case, the latter half of these twenty- 
 nine years has yet to tell its story, as young men but 
 fifteen years entered on their careers have yet to win suc- 
 cess. The following names, therefore, chiefly belong to 
 the earlierhalf of the period of Sir J. Napier's Presidency : — 
 
 Rt. Hon. Lord Ashbourne, I,ord Chancellor of Ireland. 
 
 Rt. Hon. D. R. Plunket, m.p., First Commissioner of 
 
 Rt. Hon. G. Fitzgibbon, Lord Justice of Appeal. [Works. 
 
 Rt. Hon. Lord Ardilaun. 
 
 Very Rev. G. A. Chadwick, d.d., Dean of Armagh. 
 
 R. O'Shaughnessy, m.p. 
 
 A. E. Miller, q.c. 
 
 A. G. RiCHEY, Q.c, late Professor of Feudal and English Law. 
 
 W. E. H. Lecky, Historian and Essayist. 
 
 Rev. T. T. Shore, d.d., Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen. 
 
 D. H. Madden, q.c, Solicitor-General for Ireland. 
 
 Ven. H. Stewart, d.d., late Archdeacon of Dromore. 
 
 Very Rev. A. Daunt, d.d., late Dean of Cork, and Canon 
 
 of St. Patrick's Cathedral. 
 Anthony Traill, ll.d., f.t.c.d. 
 H. J. Wrixon, Solicitor-General for Victoria. 
 A. Wilson, Judge of High Court of Judicature, Bengal. 
 Rt. Hon. J. Naish, Ex-Lord Chancellor of Ireland. 
 
 The Society recognised with much regret, in the failing 
 health of their President, the reason why during the few 
 closing years of his life he was unable to continue the 
 active part and interest in its proceedings he had taken for 
 so many years. It retained a grateful recollection of these 
 years of effort and concern in its behalf And on Decem- 
 ber 13th, 1882 — the occasion of its first meeting after his 
 death — it adjourned as a mark of respect to his memory, 
 after having passed a resolution testifying to the eminent 
 services rendered by him as their President for twenty-nine 
 years. 
 
LECTURES, ESSAYS, 
 
 AND 
 
 ADDRESSES 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 [A Lecture delivered before the Church of Ireland Young 
 Metis Christian Association, May 28th, 1S62.] 
 
 OUR country is poor indeed in its public monuments, 
 but rich in its illustrious men. The warrior has his 
 column, and the poet his statue ; but the divine and the 
 statesman — they who have stirred the spirit, purified the 
 feelings, and enlarged the heart of humanity — are yet 
 without honour in this their native city. 
 
 Ussher has been described by Johnson as " the great 
 luminary of the Irish Church, and a greater " (he added) 
 "no Church could boast of, at least in modern times." 
 Burke he has also described as " the first man everywhere." 
 Sir James Mackintosh has said that " he was the greatest 
 philosopher in practice whom the world ever saw." His 
 wisdom has been incorporated into the learning, his elo- 
 quence into the literature of England. Ussher and Burke 
 were born in the city of Dublin ; they were sons of our 
 time-honoured University ; a bust and a portrait is the 
 homage of their country to these, the wisest and the best 
 of that noble contingent which Ireland has furnished to the 
 service of mankind. 
 
 The leading facts of the life of Burke, and the general 
 features of his character, are (or, at least, ought to be) 
 known to every educated man. The elaborate and inte- 
 resting biographies of Prior and of Macknight have done 
 much to facilitate the study ; our distinguished country- 
 man, the late Dr. Croly, has illuminated with brilliant 
 
no LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 eloquence the political part of his history. Mr. Sergeant 
 Burke has given us an excellent and instructive memoir ; 
 and in the " Dictionary of Universal Biography" there is an 
 admirable and compendious sketch of Burke from the pen 
 of our friend Dr. Waller. Besides these, we have a sketch 
 of the character of Burke by Lord Brougham ; it exhibits 
 the hand of a master — and in many respects, it is worthy 
 not only of the author but of the subject ; but takeft as a 
 whole, it has left the impression on my mind, that it is not 
 impartial, that it is unjust. Mr. Buckle has done greater 
 justice to Burke in a very able sketch in his work on 
 civilization (Vol. I., 414), and there is another of an earlier 
 date and of superior excellence from the pen of a ready 
 writer, the late Mr. Hazlitt, who was induced (as we find 
 from a foot-note), in a lucid interval of candour, to do 
 justice to the character of Burke, when (as he says) he 
 thought he might do this without injuring a cause. 
 (Hazlitt's" Political Essays," p. 361.) Dr. Waller kindly 
 directed my attention to an American publication, " Alli- 
 bone's Dictionary," which contains a valuable article on 
 Burke, in which are collected the comments of distinguished 
 rten ; of those who have placed him in the front rank of 
 genius with Shakspeare and Bacon — those who have com- 
 pared him with Cicero — and those who have regarded him 
 as of genius altogether unrivalled ; exhibiting the rarest 
 and finest combination of intellect and imagination, of 
 wisdom and eloquence, that has ever been brought into the 
 service of the State. This comprehensive and elaborate 
 article concludes by pronouncing that " so long as virtue 
 shall be beloved, wisdom revered, or genius admired, so 
 long will the memory of this illustrious exemplar of all 
 be fresh in the world's history, for human nature has too 
 much interest in the preservation of such a character, 
 ever to permit the name of Edmund Burke to perish from 
 the earth." 
 
 When His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant auspiciously 
 suggested on a late occasion in this Hall, that the time had 
 
EDMUND BURKE. Ill 
 
 arrived for a national tribute to the memory of Burke, it 
 revived a hope which I had cherished for years, of having 
 a national memorial. I thought I might help by an Address 
 to give it an impulse. This has brought me before you. 
 Whilst I appeal to the generous hearts of all classes of my 
 countrymen, I rejoice to find that the good work has been 
 already begun by Mr. Gaskin and his fellow-labourers, 
 who deserve to be successful. I desire on this occasion 
 especially to address the young men of this Association, 
 whilst I endeavour to unfold the character, rather than 
 narrate the life of Edmund Burke. A tale of sixty-eight 
 eventful years cannot be fitly told from any platform in an 
 evening lecture. I will be satisfied if I excite some of you 
 to the patient study---encourage any of you to a thoughtful 
 analysis and contemplation of his character. It cannot 
 otherwise be appreciated. The most exact model of the 
 Cathedral of St. Peter at Rome could no more give you an 
 adequate conception of the real magnificence of that 
 gorgeous temple, than the most faithful outline of the 
 character of Burke could convey a suitable impression of 
 his colossal grandeur. The mind must be gradually pre- 
 pared and expanded by repeated study and reflection. 
 
 The family of Burke is a branch from the ancient stem 
 of DeBurgh. Richard, a respectable solicitor, about the 
 year 1725, married Mary Nagle, of Ballyduffe, daughter of 
 Patrick Nagle, who was descended from Sir Richard Nagle, 
 Attorney-General for Ireland in the time of James II., and 
 whose family was connected by marriage with that of 
 Edmund Spenser, the poet. Edmund Burke was the 
 second son of Richard. In his published correspondence, 
 he writes of the 12th January, 1775, as the anniversary of 
 his birth-day. In another letter (2Sth February, 1767), 
 addressed to the Lord Mayor, Dublin is designated " my 
 native city." In the books of Trinity College, there is the 
 usual record, to which he was a party ; it was made at 
 the time of his entrance in the month of April, 1744, and 
 he is described In it as having been born in Dublin, and as 
 
112 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 then in the sixteenth year of his age. On the mural tablet 
 at Beaconsfield, where he was buried, he is described as 
 aged tiy ear s,yN\Me.n he died on the gth July, 1797. The 
 change in the calendar began with the ist January, 1752. 
 Taking this change into account, we find that the 1st Jan- 
 uary, 1728 (old style) must have been his birth-day. When 
 he entered college, the year began in March. The Janu- 
 ary immediately before his entrance was at the end of 1743 ; 
 in April he had entered on his sixteenth year, which would 
 be completed on the ist of January, 1744; if so, he was 
 born in January, 1728. In July, 1797, he was aged 6Z years, 
 and allowing for the change as to January, which began 
 with 1752, this leads also to the conclusion that he was 
 born in 1728. He has fixed the day as 12th January (new 
 style) — i.e., ist January (old style) — he was 68 on the 12th 
 January, 1797 — i.e., 1st January, 1796 (old style). 
 
 I cannot find any reliable statement which may not be 
 reconciled with this account of the time and place of his 
 birth. I have not been able to find any registry of his 
 baptism, though the most diligent search has been made 
 in the diocese of Cork, and in Dublin by my friend Mr. 
 Monahan, in whose parish of St. Michan's; Richard Burke, 
 the father, resided for several years. We have traced him 
 in the applotment books, which seem to have been most 
 carefully kept, and from 1735 to 1746 inclusive, he is de- 
 scribed as the rated occupier of the house on Arran Quay, 
 with the number 7 prefixed. The applotment for the 
 years immediately preceding 1735 is not forthcoming; 
 but in 1747, the house seems to have passed into the hands 
 of a Counsellor Dillon, and Richard Burke then appears as 
 the occupier of No. 3 Ormond Quay (afterward3 No. s) — 
 and there he made his will, and there he died. It appears 
 by his will, that several of his children, who had died young, 
 were buried in St. James's churchyard ; but there is no 
 registry in the parish of St. James, of an earlier date than 
 1742 — otherwise the baptism of Edmund might probably 
 have been discovered there. An old house, now No. 7 Arran 
 
EDMUND BURKE. II3- 
 
 Quay, is on the same side with the Four Courts, from which 
 it is not far distant. 
 
 It is not indeed quite certain that we can at this time 
 identify the house, or that it is now in existence ; great 
 changes have taken place in the locality, and some of the 
 buildings, perhaps all the numbers, are of modern date. 
 St. Michan's parish, however, did not then, nor does it now, 
 extend westward beyond Arran Lane, and therefore we are 
 able to make a nearer approach to the classic spot, than 
 has yet been suggested. 
 
 Edmund Burke had, when a child, a delicate constitution, 
 and was sent at an early age to the residence of his mother's 
 family at Ballyduffe in the County of Cork. They were 
 members of the Roman Catholic Church, and appear to 
 have been warm-hearted and affectionate in their treatment 
 of their young relative, who in after life has referred to 
 these happy days of his childhood, with a tenderness and 
 simplicity which impart a charm and a grace to his elevated 
 and generous nature. Several of his letters to the Nagle 
 family have been published in the XlVth and XVIth vols, 
 of the New Monthly Magazine.* No one who desires to 
 study the character of Burke should omit to read these 
 letters. They are full of interest. 
 
 Near to the district, in which was the home of his child- 
 hood, was the ancient castle of Kilcolman, the residence of 
 Edmund Spenser. Here he was visited by Raleigh, whom 
 Spenser called the Shepherd of the Ocean ; here he com-. : 
 posed the first three books of the Faerie Queen. Spenser 
 describes himself as " keeping his flock under the foot of 
 the "mountain Mole ; among the cool shades of green alders, 
 by the shore of Mulla, and tuning his oaten pipe, as was 
 his custom, to his fellow-shepherd swains." 
 
 We may well suppose that the impressible nature of the ' 
 young Edmund Burke must have been soon influenced by 
 the associations which were bound up with the names of; 
 
 • Vol. XIV.,pp. 380,453. 529;. Vol. XVI., p. .153. .1 
 
114 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Spenser and Raleigh. The historic ruin, the stately flow 
 of the Blackwater, beautiful and abounding ; the tale of 
 Raleigh, the maritime hero who prepared the way for 
 colonizing distant regions of the earth — the memory of 
 Spenser, the poet of nature and the friend of virtue — these 
 must have kindled the genius and fed the imagination 
 which was left to expand in its native luxuriance. Here 
 may have been dropped into his youthful bosom the seed 
 of that living interest in human destiny and progress which 
 afterwards impelled him to the noblest efforts of his 
 maturer years. He had a mission of which he was then 
 unconscious — a preparation which he knew not of 
 
 For the manly exercises of youth, he was disqualified 
 by his delicacy of constitution. This threw him inward 
 upon himself : he was gentle and thoughtful ; his books 
 were the more precious, sympathy the more grateful. In 
 the month of May, 1741, he was sent, with his elder brother 
 Garret and his younger brother Richard, to school at Balli- 
 tore ; it was kept by a worthy Englishman, Abraham 
 Shackleton, a member of the Society of Friends. He 
 learned there, amongst other things, the ordinary classics ; 
 and he was daily instructed in the Holy Scriptures, by that 
 excellent man, who added the rare but impressive com- 
 mentary of a consistent example of pure and practical 
 benevolence, in himself and his household. The favourite 
 friend and companion of Burke at school was Richard 
 Shackleton, son of his master. Richard, who was a few 
 years older, has given a description of him in these words : 
 " Edmund was a lad of most promising genius ; of an 
 inquisitive and speculative cast of mind, which was im- 
 proved in him by a constitutional indisposition that pre- 
 vented him from suffering by those secessions from study, 
 which are the consequence of puerile diversions. He read 
 much while he was a boy, and accumulated a stock of 
 learning of great variety. His memory was extensive ; his 
 judgment early ripe. He would find in his own mind, in 
 reasoning and comparing in himself, such a fund of enter- 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 IIS 
 
 tainment that he seemed not at all to regret his hours of 
 solitude ; yet he was affable, free, and communicative, as 
 ready to teach as to learn. He made the reading of the 
 classics his diversion rather than his business. He was 
 particularly delighted with history and poetry, and while 
 at school performed several exercises in the latter with a 
 manly grace." In a very interesting work which has just 
 been published, the " Leadbeater Papers," you will find 
 many pleasant details of the school at Ballitore and of 
 Edmund Burke's connection with it. It has been published 
 by a granddaughter of Richard Shackleton ; the annals 
 were drawn up by his daughter Mary Leadbeater, and there 
 are sixty-four letters of the young Edmund to his friend 
 Richard. " My father," says Mrs. Leadbeater, " used to 
 delight in detailing instances of Burke's singular aptitude, 
 and how he soon attained a superior station among his 
 school-fellows, many of whom he readily assisted in their 
 exercises. He showed thus early his capacity for exerting 
 bis abilities on a sudden emergency, and of turning the 
 ideas of others to useful account. The boys of the school 
 had got leave to go to Athy to see the judges of assize 
 enter the county town ; the condition of the leave was that 
 each of the senior lads should write a description of the 
 spectacle in Latin verse. Burke soon finished his task ; 
 but another lad of duller capacity, who tried in vain at 
 verses, earnestly appealed to Edmund to help him, remind- 
 ing him how often he had helped him before, but this was 
 the hardest task he ever got. Burke asked him, what had 
 struck him as most remarkable in the procession, and was 
 told in reply, that he saw nothing remarkable except a fat 
 piper in a brown coat. Immediately he commenced, and 
 spon completed a humorous poem in doggrel Latin. It 
 began thus— 
 
 ' Piper erat fattus, qui brownum tegmeh habebat.' " 
 
 Mrs. Leadbeater describes him as then full of genial 
 humour, and with an instinctive and invincible, hatred ta 
 
I-I^ LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 oppression. A cabin, which was too near the highway, had' 
 been ordered by the surveyor of roads to be pulled down, 
 and when the young Edmund saw the melancholy task 
 performed by the unwilling occupant, he observed with 
 great indignation, that if he were in authority such tyranny 
 should never be exercised with impunity over the defence- 
 less. He urged his schoolfellows to join in rebuilding the 
 cottage ; but this was stopped by Abraham Shackleton. 
 
 I cannot find that before he went to this school, he had 
 got what might be called regular instruction, or been sub- 
 jected to any proper school discipline. It may be that his 
 own eloquent words, in speaking of America, are not in- 
 applicable to his own case : — " Through a wise and salutary 
 neglect, a generous nature has been suffered to take her 
 own way to perfection." The very first of the letters to 
 Richard Shackleton, now published in the " Leadbeater 
 Papers," is one of April, 1744, describing his arrival in 
 Dublin from Ballitore, after twelve o'clock at night, and 
 how he was sent on the very next morning, after breakfast, 
 to " Trinity College, near Dublin," as he describes it. He 
 gives the details of the examination for entrance, and his 
 introduction to the Provost, " an old sickly-looking man." 
 " I cannot express," he says, " nor have I the knack of ■ 
 doing it, how much I am obliged to your father for the 
 extraordinary pains and care he has taken with me, so-as^ 
 to merit the commendation of my tutor, and all I can do is 
 tx) behave myself, so as not to bring a scandal on him or 
 his school." This letter is addressed to " Dear Dicky," atid- 
 signed " Ned Burke." In the next he gives an account of' 
 the course of study in his first year : nine first chapters of- 
 Burgersdicius, the six last iEneids of Virgil, the Enchiridion; 
 of Epictetus, with the Tabula Cebetis, which he Says his 
 tutor recommended as a very fine picture of "human Ufe:- 
 " Though the- course of study which then obtained there," 
 says Richard Shackleton, " was not at all adapted to his 
 taste, yet he went through his College exercises with repu- 
 tation and Success, atid seems to have extracted from every- 
 
EDMUND Burke. iij' 
 
 science -Cvhatever was firie and useful in it, leaving th? "rest 
 to the mere scholars and pedants." This, perhaps, is rathe^ 
 too general ; with the aid of Dr. Carson, I Jiave been 
 enabled to be more precise. . . . . ) 
 
 In Trinity Term of this year, 1744, the thanks of th(j 
 House are recorded as having been given to him for dili- 
 gence at Greek Lecture. But I do not find any other 
 evidence at this time of a close attention to his ^Collegl 
 course. His letters to his friend Richard are genial and 
 natural ; he discusses in one the case of a young marl 
 crossed in love, who poisoned himself with arsenic.- Hi 
 describes him as a clerk of an acquaintance of his father, " a 
 lad untainted in his character with any sort of crime, and 
 universally beloved by all that knew him." " This accident," 
 he says, "has altered my sentiments concerning love, s6 
 that I am not only convinced that there is such a thing as 
 love, but that it may very probably be the source of ai 
 many misfortunes as are usually ascribed to it. This may, 
 I think, be a sufficient example to show to what lengths ah 
 unrestrained passion, though virtuous in itself, may carry a 
 man, and with how much craft and subtlety our great 
 enemy endeavours to work our destruction." It would 
 seem that about this time Richard had wisely begun to im- 
 press upon him the importance of diligence at his studies 
 For immediately after the October examination a most 
 interesting letter (i 5th October, 1744) was written by Burke, 
 acknowledging the value and the need of diligence. " I 
 know what is good, like the Athenians," says he, " but don't 
 practise it, like the Lacedaemonians." He acknowledged 
 that he is disposed to be restless and desultory. " I am 
 too giddy ; this is the bane of my life ; it hurries me froni 
 my studies to trifles, and I am afraid it will hinder me froni 
 knowing anything thoroughly. I have a superficial know- 
 ledge of many things, but scarce the bottom of any." The 
 remarkable part of this letter is that which was intended 
 as a reply to the distinctive views of Christianity which 
 ^chard Shackleton had pressed upon him. This is takeii 
 
Il8 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 up again in another letter of the ist November, 1744, which 
 is published in the FitzwilHam Volumes ; I will add the 
 extracts from these letters in an Appendix. Remembering 
 that they are the production of a youth not yet sixteen 
 years of age, whose childhood had been spent with his 
 Roman Catholic relatives, and his boyhood at Ballitore, 
 they are not a little remarkable. In another letter of 
 January, he gives a description of his daily life in verse, in 
 order, as he says, that he might lay out what ornaments 
 he could spare on a subject in itself dry and barren. As to 
 his studies in the College, he says — 
 
 " But here the muse nor can nor will declare 
 What is my work, and what my studies there." 
 
 I suspect that they were desultory — that he drifted away 
 into general reading, going with the current of his own 
 inclination. I cannot delay on many of these letters, but 
 they will repay with instruction, if not with delight, your 
 attentive perusal. They show the growing energy of his 
 intellect, the increase of his general knowledge, and the 
 genial goodness of his heart. There is a happy one of July 
 4th, 1 745, written to tell Richard Shackleton that he had 
 at last taken his advice as to diligence, and had succeeded, 
 as Richard foretold. "This day's judgments," he says, 
 " were given out for last examinations, and I have got the 
 premium in my division, and perhaps would have answered 
 better than I did, had we not had Wilder for our examiner. 
 Please to acquaint your father with this, for I am persuaded 
 that as my improvement while under his care gave him 
 pleasure, it will continue to do so, though I am not imme- 
 diately so at present, and that this account won't be disa- 
 greeable. I'll either choose the Modern History, or the 
 Spectator and Rollin." He means, of course, his choice of 
 books for his premium. The ambition of authorship seems 
 soon after to have seized upon him ; he made some ac- 
 quaintances, whose talents and taste encouraged this — 
 especially his friend Dennis, who had published a paper— 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 119 
 
 Brutus's Letter to the Town — relative to a theatrical quarrel, 
 in which the College men took a conspicuous part. But 
 there was not much encouragement for authorship in 
 Dublin at this period. 
 
 The public had no sort of literary curiosity, " for " (says 
 he) " books either in prose or verse seldom enter the conver- 
 sation of even people of fortune, and those who have leisure 
 enough ; so that an author's first cries cannot be heard, but 
 he is stifled in his birth." In May, 1746, he went in for 
 Scholarship. He was examined, as he says, for two days 
 in all the Roman and Greek authors of note, and was asked 
 by Dr. Foster (who examined him in Catiline's speech in 
 Sallust) from whose school he came. He was elected a 
 Scholar of the House, and at the end of July he revisited 
 his friends at Ballyduffe. It may be doubtful whether he 
 had a preference for the classics from his own taste, and 
 the course of his preparation at Ballitore, or that the meagre 
 and antiquated curriculum of science in the university at 
 that time, did not attract or stimulate his faculties, or afford 
 scope for their due development. But I can well conceive 
 how he would have luxuriated as a student in the rich 
 philosophy of Bacon, in the living pages of Locke and of 
 Butler ; how he would have relished the admirable Dugald 
 Stewart. There is a disquisition on the course and method 
 of classical instruction, in reply to his friend Richard, writ- 
 ten from Ballyduffe at the close of July, 1746, which shows 
 that he had made good progress in classical knowledge and 
 in the science of classical teaching. As the premiums were 
 then given for general answering in classics and science 
 combined, and the curriculum of science was quite unsuited 
 to a mind of such grasp and energy, we may not be sur- 
 prised that he had not gained more College honours. The 
 science course was rather adopted to force him into other 
 lines of reading, and so he took to poetry, history, and 
 literature. He now begins to speak of his "favourite, 
 Shakspeare." Pope, Addison, and Cowley had already 
 been mastered. 
 
I.20 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Before he had left College for Ballyduffe, after he had 
 got his Scholarship, he had found the means of gratifying 
 the taste which now began to develop itself freely. As i 
 Scholar of the House, he had free access to the Library. In 
 the middle of July he writes : " I have got a good many 
 new acquaintances, and some odd too, whose characters 
 may divert us when we meet. Quicquid agunt homines— 
 votum, timor, ira, voluptas, guadia, discursus, nostrae sunt 
 deliciffi. i spend three hours almost every day in thfe 
 public library, where there is a fine collection of books— ^ 
 the best way in the world of killing thought. As for 
 other studies, I am deep in metaphysics and poetry. I 
 have read some history. I am endeavouring to get a little 
 into the accounts of this our own poor country." Doubtr 
 less he was then reading Ussher, of whose researches into 
 Irish history he makes profitable use in his writings on 
 Ireland. The effect of this access to the Library, however, 
 was injurious to mental discipline. In fact, there are various 
 forms of dissipation ; it may be intellectual, aye, even reli- 
 gious, as well as sensual ; in each and all we drift when we 
 ought to steer. In a letter of 19th August, 1746, he speaks 
 of an indolence that had possessed him to such a degree, 
 as to have been lost to himself and his friends. It is not 
 improbable that it was to this period of his life that he 
 afterwards referred, in a conversation with Charles Butler, 
 as mentioned in the Reminiscences. " Mr. Burke once 
 mentioned to the Reminiscent, that at one time, for want 
 of a distinct object to which he might direct his studies, 
 his mind became perfectly inactive, and reading was an 
 unpleasant exercise to him. He accounted for it by sup- 
 posing, that after the first years of youth are passed the 
 mind requires more substantial food than mere reading, so 
 that to call forth literary application it is necessary to 
 superadd the stimulus of an ardent wish to attain a par^ 
 ticular object, to the attainment of which literary exertion 
 will conduce and therefore pleases. He observed that, for 
 the want of such an object, the generality of. those who 
 
,; -- ■ E-DMUND BURKE. • 12:1 
 
 "have'distifiguished themselves in their youthful studies, fall 
 into an idle, desultory reading which ends in nothing." 
 
 In the following March he announces that he began to 
 ■shake off idleness. For some time previous nothing would 
 tgo down with him but poetry — though he read more than 
 he wrote — but only read from impulse — an intermittent 
 effort ; and reverting to the two preceding years, he de- 
 scribes how he was first caught by natural philosophy, then 
 by logic and metaphysics, then by history, and lastly by- 
 poetry. In fact, having now got the highest classical re- 
 ward, and having no course of science open to encouragfe 
 and arouse his diligence, and not having been habituated 
 to an early mental discipline, nor trained from a child 
 according to method and system — he was carried away into 
 desultory and discursive study. He was captivated with 
 poetry ; yet Burke, with all his imagination, was not a poet. 
 His language was copious and his imagery luxuriant ; but 
 the subject-matter of his speeches and writings was the 
 real , and the actual — it was not poetical, Many of the 
 illustrations, with which he strengthened as well as decd- 
 •rated his argumerit, may be poetical, but still it is the 
 argument of an inductive philosophy. In October, 1746, 
 he was reading Cicero's Offices, which he simply describes 
 as " a blameless piece." He adds : "I got yesterday Waller, 
 -whom I never read before, nor did you, I believe ; for it 
 would be needless to tell you, if you had, that he is one of 
 the most charming poets of England." He does not in- 
 deed quote Waller's lines to " my Lady Carlisle," but he 
 comments on his softness and his grandeur. He did not 
 then suppose that Beaconsfield, which had been the home 
 and the grave of Edmund the Poet, would yet be the home 
 rand the grave of Edmund the Statesman ; his childhood 
 had been brightened by the memory of Edmund Spenser, 
 and his life was to close near the grave of Edmund Waller. 
 In April, 1747, his name appears on the College Books, 
 with others, who were cautioned for neglecting morning 
 lecture. ' I suspect that about this time .he had begun Jiis 
 
122 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 speculations on the sublime and beautiful, for he had 
 been trying, without success, to get a second-hand copy of 
 Longinus for his friend Dick, in the preceding January, 
 and he says, " Rather than you should want it, I bought a 
 new one. 'Tis, I think, a very good translation, and has no 
 bad notes." 
 
 I remember in my day in Trinity College having been 
 rebuked by the present Bishop of Ossory for having neg- 
 lected to study with attention one of the appointed text- 
 books, Burlamaqui's " Natural Law ; " I had divided all my 
 time between Butler's " Analogy " and the higher mathe- 
 matics. It was enough, said Mr. O'Brien, that the heads of 
 the College had ordered Burlamaqui to be read, and to 
 set this aside for any favourite study, however excellent in 
 itself, was against discipline and against duty. No doubt 
 he was right, though at the time I did not appreciate the 
 justice of his censure. Burke, however, had not the pro- 
 found Butler nor any mathematics in his undergraduate 
 course ; a refuge in general literature seemed almost un- 
 avoidable in his case. 
 
 He had now arrived at a stage of life when the youth 
 properly becomes his own educator, when the character of 
 the man is fashioned. Exulting in the conscious growth of 
 knowledge, in sympathy with the great deeds of history — 
 with the high passion of poetry, he was rich in the posses- 
 sion of time and the accompanying consciousness of freedom 
 and power. 
 
 On the 2ist of April, 1747, the Club was formed which 
 was the germ of the Historical Society. It met in George's 
 Lane. I have got the original record, which has been kindly 
 lent to me by Judge Berwick. Burke was one of the four 
 original members ; Dennis was another. Here we can trace 
 Burke from week to week — busy in speech, diligent in com- 
 position — now an essay on society, afterwards on painting— 
 at times speaking in a historic character — again the critic 
 of Milton. The record is full and complete ; a considerable 
 portion is in the handwriting of Burke himself. There is 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 123 
 
 the substance of an extempore comment of great excellence 
 by Burke, on the " Sermon on the Mount." It is easy to 
 trace his earnest and persevering disposition — that pouring 
 out of the very fulness of his heart, without regard to the 
 temper of his audience, which afterwards made him so un- 
 manageable in debate. He gets the thanks, on one occasion, 
 " for the matter of his oration, but not for the delivery of 
 it." On another, he is praised for a paper on malice, " on 
 account of the agreeable turn he had given it, different 
 from the common manner." 
 
 His father had designed him for the Bar — his name was 
 already entered in the books of the Middle Temple. He 
 did not, however, go to London until 1750. How the in- 
 termediate time was spent, I can merely conjecture. As a 
 Scholar of the House, he was still connected with the Col- 
 lege, and he had free access to the Library. It is probable 
 that at this time he composed much of his treatise on the 
 " Sublime and Beautiful," and also collected the materials 
 which he afterwards used in his historical writings. The 
 facility of acquiring knowledge, the wonderful power of 
 assimilation by which he digested whatever he read, and 
 the ample leisure which he had at this time, after his 
 studentship had closed, may in some degree explain the 
 richness and the ripeness of the scholarship by which he 
 was soon afterwards distinguished in London. 
 
 His father, Richard Burke,has been described by Richard 
 Shackleton as an attorney in middling circumstances ; a 
 man of fretful temper and punctual honesty. Edmund 
 Burke has qualified this. He says his father "was for 
 many years not only in the first rank, but the very first 
 man of his profession in point of practice and credit — ^until 
 by giving way to a retired and splenetic humour, he did in 
 a manner voluntarily contract his practice." In 1747 he 
 changed his residence, and went to Ormond Quay. At the 
 close of this year, the College friend, Dennis, writes :— " My 
 dear friend Burke leads a very unhappy life from his father's 
 temper, and what is worse, there is no prospect of bettering 
 
124 LECTURES, "ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 it He mu'st nr)t stir- out at night by any means, and if- he 
 stays at home, there is some new subject for abuse. There 
 is but one bright spirit in the family, and they'd willingly 
 ■•destroy it. All the little oddities which are found in itien 
 -of genius, and are below their care, are eternal matter for 
 .railing with him. Pity him and wish a change is all I can 
 do." He then adds that Burke told him that morning (21st 
 'November, 1747) he wanted peace of mind, and his trouble 
 was so great that he often forms desperate resolutions. 
 
 His only refuge could have been in reading and writing, 
 :with an occasional "visit to his friends at Ballyduffe, until 
 at last the tirne came for his going to London. At that 
 time it was " in parts beyond the seas." About ten years 
 eigo I found at Dundalk an octavo volume containing the 
 -narrative of a journey from Dublin to London at a period 
 'still more recent than the departure of Edmund Burke for 
 'the great metropolis. He gives, in a letter to a school- 
 • fellow, his first impressions of London. But firsf he refers 
 'to -what he felt after leaving Ireland : " My mind was occu- 
 pied with many thoughts, and my eyes often filled with 
 tears' when I reflected on all the dear friends I left behind." 
 He describes what he observed in England — " the country 
 Seats" sprinkled on every side, some in the modern taste, 
 some in the style of old De Coverley Hall, all smiling on 
 the neat but humble cottage ; every village as neat and 
 'compact as a beehive, resounding with the hum of industry, 
 and inns like palaces. What, a contrast to our poor 
 country, where you'll scarce find a cottage ornamented 
 with a chimney ! But what pleased me most of all was 
 the progress of agriculture, my favourite study and my 
 favourite pursuit, if Providence had blessed me with a few 
 paternal acres. , , 
 
 " A description of London and its natives would fill a 
 :volUme. . The buildings are very fine : it may be called the 
 •■sink of vice ; but its hospitals and charitable institutions, 
 'whose turrets pierce the skies, like so many electrical con- 
 ;ductors,.. avert the wrath of Heaven." After giving h?s 
 
EDMUND BURKE. - i2§ 
 
 impressions of Englishmen and Englishwomen, he proceed/ 
 to comment on the neglected state of men of genius, and' 
 the cultivation of literature notwithstanding. He speaks 
 of the occasional eloquence in the House of Conimons, as' 
 superior to that of Greece and Rome in their proudest days.' 
 It is easy to see that he had found an atmosphere more 
 congenial than that of his native city. - 
 
 He was deeply impressed, as we rhay well believe, by- 
 his visit to Westminster Abbey. " Some" (says he) " would' 
 imagine that all these monuments were so many rnonu-' 
 ments of folly; I don't think so; what useful lessons of 
 morality and sound philosophy do they not exhibit?' 
 ...... They show besides how anxious we are td 
 
 extend our loves and friendships beyond the grave, and tc* 
 snatch as much as we can from oblivion — such is our na-i 
 
 tural love of immortality yet after all, do' 
 
 you know, that I would rather sleep in the southern corner' 
 of a little country churchyard than in the tomb of the" 
 Gapulets ? I should like, however, that my dust should 
 mingle with kindred dust. The good old expression,' 
 'family burying-ground,' has something pleasing in it, at 
 least to me." ^ 
 
 May he not have felt, when leaving Dublin, that the 
 Irish Bar was not to be his final destination ? Chafed as 
 he had been at home by an unsympathizing severity ; 
 cheered- onward by the expansive energy of those great' 
 faculties with which God had so wonderfully endowed him I- 
 stored with an abundance of ripe knowledge, and gifted 
 with an earnest and impassioned nature^hopes of the 
 future may have mingled with memories of the past, when' 
 the tear trickled down his manly and modest cheeks 
 There may not have been any settled purpose of resisting 
 his father's wishes, but there may have been a presentiment 
 that these wishes might yet be overruled by the course^ of 
 Providence. ' '' 
 
 > That he loved literature, and looked forward to it as 
 a source of support, cannot -be -doubted. -At .this -time 
 
126 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 William Burke, who was connected in some undefined 
 way with Edmund's family, was his companion in London. 
 It would seem that, on account of his health (and there 
 may have been other reasons), they made occasional ex- 
 cursions to Bath and to Bristol, and other parts of England. 
 At the end of August, 1751, Edmund wrote to Richard 
 Shackleton from Monmouth, in which he speaks of himself 
 as having been "so long an invalid and a traveller, and 
 either too weak or too much hurried to set about any- 
 thing." He refers to his former attempts at poetry. 
 " Though a middling poet" (he says) " cannot be endured, 
 there is some quarter for a middling lawyer. I read as 
 much as I can (which is, however, but a little), and am just 
 beginning to know something of what I am about, which 
 till very lately I did not. This study causes no difficulty 
 to those who already understand it, and to those who never 
 will understand it : and for all between those extremes, 
 God knows, they have a hard task of it. So much is cer- 
 tain, though the success is precarious, but that we must 
 leave to Providence. I am now at Monmouth, where I 
 live very satisfactorily, am well, and know by experience 
 of the contrary what a blessing that is." 
 
 The friend to whom he had unbosomed himself about 
 the unhappy life he led, in consequence of his father's 
 temper, is mentioned at the close of this letter to Richard 
 Shackleton. " Dennis," he says, " has acquainted me of 
 his good intentions towards me." He left Monmouth, and 
 spent the term time in London, and the rest of the winter 
 in Croydon. " About the beginning of summer," he says, 
 " finding myself attacked with my old complaints, I went 
 once more to Bristol, and found the same benefit. I thank 
 God for it, and wish I had grace to take in its full extent 
 your very friendly and rational advice." His account of 
 the various surmises at Monmouth about himself and, 
 William Burke is most entertaining, especially from the 
 fact that they could spend so much of their time at books, 
 and received so^any letters. Their old landlady, however, 
 
EDMUND BURKE. I27 
 
 declared, " I believe that you be gentlemen, but I asks no . 
 questions." This is put in amusing contrast with the case 
 of a little parson, equally a stranger, who spent a good part 
 of his hours in shooting and other country amusements, 
 got drunk at night, got drunk in the morning, and became 
 intimate with everybody in the village. He surprised no- 
 body — no questions were asked about him. 
 
 His next letter to Richard Shackleton is from Battersea, 
 August loth, 1757. What had he been doing in the five ■ 
 intervening years ? It is quite plain that he had given up 
 the Law as a profession, and had been undecided as to his 
 future course in life. He had made a trip to France ; he 
 had thought of going to America. This project was com- 
 municated in a letter to his father, but was received with . 
 grief and anger. He had written to his father from London, 
 in March, 1755, and expressed his deep regret at what had 
 occurred. " I have nothing," he says, " nearer at heart 
 than to make you easy ; and I have no scheme or design, 
 however reasonable it may seem to me, that I would not , 
 gladly sacrifice to your quiet and submit to your judgment.'* 
 After announcing his readiness to do whatever his father 
 might direct, he concludes : " I feel to the bottom of my 
 soul for all that you have this long time suffered from your 
 disorder, and it grieves me deeply to think that at such a 
 time your sufferings should be at all increased by anything 
 which looks ill-judged in my conduct. May God make ■ 
 them lighter every moment, and continue to you and my 
 mother very many very happy years, and every blessing 1, 1 
 ought to wish you for your care, your tenderness, your in- 
 dulgence to me." At this time he was twenty-six years of 
 age. Thus was he kept for England by the providential 
 severity of his father, and his own sense of dutiful submis- ' 
 sion. The latter held him back from going to America, 
 the former from returning to Ireland. But how was he to 
 subsist in England ? 
 
 He now had completed his treatise on the "Sublime and 
 Beautiful " which was ready for publication. His attention, 
 
I?8: LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 moreover, had been drawn to the works of Bolingbroke,' > 
 which had been published about two years before, and . 
 were pubHcly denounced " as subversive of rehgion, govern- .. 
 njent, and morahty." In 1736, Butler, with his profound, 
 wisdom, had laid prostrate the sophistry of the Deistical 
 school, and now Burke was led to deal in a like spirit with 
 the polished fallacies of Bolingbroke. He composed thcj 
 spiall but celebrated work entitled, " A Vindication of 
 Natural Society." It was published in 1756, without the 
 name of the author. It was written in a most successful 
 imitation of what was then supposed to be the inimitable 
 style of Bolingbroke ; it proceeded on the principles on 
 which this author had assailed revealed religion. The j 
 design was (as afterwards declared by Burke himself) to i 
 show " that without the exertions of any considerable ' 
 forces, the same engines which were employed for the' 
 destruction of religion, might be employed with equalj 
 success for the subversion of government ; and that: spe- : 
 cious arguments might be used against those things which ! 
 they who doubt of everything else will never permit to be 
 questioned." This work was, therefore, a finished repre- 
 sentation of Bolingbroke carrying out his own principles 
 in his own peculiar style, to their legitimate but monstrous 
 results. Bolingbroke was thus made to be his own execu- j 
 tioner. "Who now reads Bolingbroke?" asks Burke, in; 
 his Reflections on the Revolution in France. Again, he. 
 says, " I do not often quote Bolingbroke, nor have his ; 
 works in general left any permanent impression on my ■ 
 mind. He is a presumptuous and superficial writer.'' ; 
 The treatise on the "Sublime and Beautiful" was published , 
 in this year, 1756, with the name of the author. It ^x- ; 
 hibited much excellence of style, and attracted considerable 
 attention. Johnson commended it in very corriplimentary 
 language; Blair, Hume, and other eminent men signified; 
 their approbation. Amongst these was one who afterwards- 
 became one of Burke's dearest and most devoted friends, 
 the celebrated Sir Joshua Reynolds^ In 1 7.5 7. .ja .new: 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 129 
 
 edition was demanded, and to this was prefixed the in- 
 troductory chapter on Taste. A copy was sent to his 
 father, who received it with paternal pride, and remitted 
 the acceptable present of ;^iOO as a substantial token of 
 approval to his truant son. 
 
 Early in this same year, Burke married the daughter of 
 Dr. Nugent, the physician whom he had consulted on the 
 state of his health, and who kindly brought him to his own 
 quiet residence, where he would be under his immediate 
 and vigilant care, which the precarious state of his health 
 seemed to require. His marriage proved to be a happy 
 one : all who afterwards came in contact with Mrs. Burke 
 agree in the appreciation of her character. " She was soft, 
 gentle, reasonable, and obliging," says Fanny Burney ; and 
 in the comparatively straitened circumstances in which 
 they had to eke out life, she managed his affairs with 
 prudence and discretion. Every care, he said, vanished 
 when he crossed his own threshold. 
 
 From a letter of loth September, 1760, which is given 
 in the New Monthly QJoX. XIV., p. 382), it would seem that 
 he had occasion to enlist the services of a mutual friend, 
 Mr. Vesey, in bringing about a reconciliation with his 
 father, who was, no doubt, disquieted and disappointed in 
 the course which Edmund had pursued, without a provision 
 or a profession to enable him to maintain a family. In 
 1758 (February) his son Richard was born ; another son 
 was born in December, but died in its childhood. This 
 was to him an eventful year. His attention had been 
 already directed to America. He had diligently studied 
 the history of the European settlements there, and in 1757 
 he had composed a part, if not the whole, of a work on this 
 subject, which has been greatly and justly commended. 
 He then projected the publication of the Annual Register, 
 which has occupied so important a place in the history of 
 our periodical literature. His aim was an elevated one. 
 It was the instruction and enlightenment of those of the 
 public who were capable of appreciating what is wise and 
 
 *K 
 
I30 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 politic in public affairs, but had not the leisure or the 
 opportunity to investigate for themselves, or the capacity, 
 without assistance, to form safe conclusions on the complex 
 and concrete problems of political and social life. The 
 time was eventful. The British arms had been victorious 
 in Hindostan, and triumphant in America. Clive was the 
 hero of the East, Wolfe of the West. Empires had been 
 secured by conquest ; but how were they to be preserved ? 
 Johnson and Goldsmith had begun the noble work of puri- 
 fying the literature of England. There was no daily press, 
 with its spirited and suggestive comment ; the education 
 of the general public had scarcely at all begun. Politicians, 
 under the guise of statesmen, were intent on turning to 
 their own account the popular feelings and the national 
 prejudices, which were earnest and patriotic, but narrow 
 and unenlightened. The men of literature, above the age 
 in which they lived, laboured for a noble end, and by far 
 more worthy means. The Annual Register came out in 
 1759, under the direction of Edmund Burke. It was 
 designed for the instruction and entertainment of a class 
 of general readers. It placed before them, at the outset, a 
 lucid and instructive history of the American campaign ; 
 and in each succeeding year it contained a summary of 
 public affairs, drawn up with clearness and impartiality. 
 The spirit of Burke pervaded the whole. About ;£'ioo a- 
 year was his recompense for this invaluable labour. To 
 him, moreover, it proved to be a training school. 
 
 At the end of 1758, on Christmas Day, he met Dr. 
 Johnson at dinner, for the first time, in the house of Mr. 
 Garrick. The great subject of conversation was Bengal ; 
 and to the surprise of those present who knew the extra- 
 ordinary powers of Johnson, and his impatience of any 
 kind of contradiction, he quietly submitted to the correc- 
 tions of the young Irishman. A few years before this, 
 whilst walking in St. James's Park, Burke had been 
 accosted by a young Armenian, Joseph Emin, who had 
 made away from his father jn Calcutta.. He had been filled 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 131 
 
 with an irresistible desire of visiting England, and acquaint- 
 ing himself with the ways of a nation which he believed 
 was destined to be the rulers of India : he had worked his 
 passage to London. His autobiography has been pub- 
 lished. It was revised by Sir W. Jones. He describes 
 Burke as a tall, noble-looking man. Burke was taken with 
 him on the first impression, and brought him to his cham- 
 bers. On leaving, Burke offered him the last half-guinea 
 he then had, which was declined by Emin. There was 
 something in his own circumstances which awakened the 
 sympathy of Burke. He lent him books, assisted him in 
 his reading, made him the copyist of the manuscripts of his 
 two publications, and recommended him to the notice of 
 others by whom he was befriended. He was a man of 
 great energy of character and heroic enterprise. From 
 him, doubtless, Burke learned much about India ; and, it 
 may be, Emin had assisted him in acquiring the knowledge 
 of Bengal by which he was enabled to edify Dr. Johnson. 
 
 Burke had a providential escape in 1759. The consul- 
 ship at Madrid was vacant, and had not been filled up for 
 some months. Through Dr. Markham, the head master 
 of Westminster School, the Duchess of Queensberry was 
 induced to exert her impressive influence on Mr. Pitt to 
 get this situation for Burke. Happily the application was 
 not successful. 
 
 " There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Rough-hew them how we will." 
 
 He was reserved for a higher mission. Mrs. Montague 
 speaks of him about this time, that " however excellent as 
 a writer, as still more estimable for his virtues. He is in- 
 genious and ingenuous ; modest and delicate ; and in all 
 serious subjects full of respect and veneration." He now 
 came in contact with the gentleman who bears the historic 
 name of " single-speech Hamilton," who then had a seat at 
 the Board of Trade, of which Lord Halifax was the presi- 
 dent. Hamilton became acquainted with Burke through 
 the intervention of the Earl of Charlemont, who had been 
 
132 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 already captivated by the talent which Burke had displayed 
 in his writings. Burke now gave his attention to the trade 
 and commerce of England, and the principles and details 
 of our colonial policy. Hamilton had engaged him as a 
 helpmate in his studies. In 1761 Lord Halifax was 
 appointed to the Viceroyalty of Ireland, and Hamilton was 
 the Chief Secretary. Burke was offered the post of private 
 secretary to Hamilton. At this time his father had been 
 reconciled to his marriage, as appears from the letter to 
 which I have already referred, which was written in 
 September, 1760, to Mr. Vesey, in which he says, " I can- 
 not express how much I am obliged to you for your kind 
 and successful endeavours in my favour. Of whatever 
 advantage the remittance was, the assurance you gave me 
 of my father's reconciliation was a great deal more pleas- 
 ing." 
 
 On the 2 1st July, 1761, Horace Walpole met Burke at 
 the house of the newly-appointed secretary, Mr. Hamilton, 
 where they dined. " There were," says he, " Garrick and a 
 young Burke, who wrote a book in the style of Lord Boling- 
 broke that was much admired. He is a sensible man, but 
 has not worn off his authorism yet, and thinks there is 
 nothing so charming as writers, and to be one. He will 
 know better one of these days." 
 
 He arrived in Dublin with his wife and children. His 
 father was then living on Ormond Quay, and soon after 
 made his will, which bears date on the 4th November, 1761. 
 Edmund is one of the witnesses to it. I have got a copy 
 of it. It was made in the prospect of his approaching 
 death. " I bequeath and resign my soul," he says, " to y° 
 Almighty God, my Creator, believing and hoping for a 
 remission of my sins, and everlasting life by the merits and 
 passion of Christ Jesus my God, my only Saviour and 
 Redeemer." He desires, if he dies in Dublin, to be buried 
 in St. James's churchyard, near his departed children. 
 With reference to Edmund and Richard, he speaks of them 
 as having been " before otherwise provided for by me." 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 1 33 
 
 Their legacies are, therefore, small. Burke has himself 
 stated that about ;£'iooo had been already expended by 
 his father on his education in the Temple, and that he died 
 worth very near ;^6ooo. He gave small legacies to the 
 two children of his son " Ned ;" and he makes Garret, his 
 eldest son (then a solicitor), his residuary legatee. Some 
 years afterwards, in the House of Commons, Onslow, who 
 was the son of a Speaker of the House, and grandson of 
 another Speaker and descendant of another, spoke of those 
 who were descended from Parliament men. Burke proudly 
 and promptly replied : " I am not descended from Members 
 of Parliament, nor am I descended from any distinguished 
 characters whatsoever. My father left me nothing in the 
 world but good principles, good instruction, good example." 
 May I add, that this was a noble bequest from an upright 
 parent to a wise and virtuous son ? How happy for him, 
 moreover, that he was now permitted to receive the last 
 blessing of his dying father. 
 
 Early in 1763, Hamilton had completed an arrangement 
 for securing a pension of ;^300 a year to Burke, from the 
 Irish Treasury. Such grants were not unusual, but seldom 
 so meritorious. Before he actually got the pension, Burke 
 wrote to Hamilton, and explained that it would be neces- 
 sary to have some occasional leisure to enable him to keep 
 up his literary position, which he had latterly neglected. 
 It is plain that he felt that he had heretofore sacrificed too 
 much of his time and labour to his new patron, and his 
 sensitive nature shrunk from the possible imputation of 
 dishonourably relaxing his efforts after he should have se- 
 cured the pension. He, therefore, stipulates beforehand 
 that if he cannot have the reasonable leisure which he asks, 
 the pension should be postponed. The pension was 
 granted, however, and Burke returned to London with his 
 patron. 
 
 It would appear that Hamilton afterwards insisted on 
 his right to the undivided services of Burke for life, as if he 
 had bought him in the slave market. This led to a cor- 
 
134 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 respondence, conducted, on the part of Burke, in a respectful 
 but a manly spirit ; and it ended in his giving up the pen- 
 sion, of which Hamilton had the meanness to take an 
 assignment to his own nominee. It is a passage in the 
 life of Burke which greatly redounds to his honour. He 
 was a poor man ; he had no profession ; he had a young 
 wife and a child whom he loved tenderly, altogether depen- 
 dent upon him ; he incurred the hostility of a man of poli- 
 tical influence and large connection ; he gave up the 
 pension, which he had honourably obtained, rather than 
 forfeit that self-respect and independence of spirit which 
 were dear to him as life itself. On the loth April, 1765, 
 this transaction was wound up. " Six of the best years of 
 my life," says Burke, " he took me from every pursuit of 
 literary reputation or of improvement of my fortune. In 
 that time he made his own fortune (a very great one), and 
 he has also taken to himself the very little one which I had 
 made." Other letters have recently appeared, which are 
 to be found in the published correspondence ; his character, 
 in this transaction, is exhibited in a very favourable light, 
 indeed. It is not to be overlooked that these six years 
 proved to be a providential preparation for the new scene 
 in which Burke was soon to take a leading part. In 1764 
 the Literary Club was founded by Reynolds, who, with 
 Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, Dr. Nugent (Burke's father-in- 
 law), and Bennet Langton, with one or two others, were the 
 original members of this famous Association. It is familiar 
 to all the readers of Boswell's Johnson ; great justice has 
 been done to it in the graphic narrative of Mr. Forster, in 
 his admirable biography of Goldsmith. The object was ' 
 social and literary ; politics were advisedly excluded. 
 Such companionship must naturally have re-animated 
 Burke's literary propensities, and interfered with the de- 
 signs of Hamilton to appropriate to his own use Burke's 
 time and talents. This led to the separation which took 
 place in 1765. Not long after Hamilton had stripped him 
 of the pension, a political crisis took place. A change of ' 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 135 
 
 ministry was at liand. The taxation of America by Eng- 
 land was the great question of the day. America was now 
 in a ferment. Rioting and resistance had begun. In a 
 later to Henry Flood, dated May 18, 1765, Burke says of 
 the expected change — " There is a strong probability that 
 new men will come in, and not. improbably with new ideas. 
 Nothing," he says, " but an intractable temper in your 
 friend Pitt, can prevent a most admirable and lasting sys- 
 tem from being put together ; and this crisis will show 
 whether pride or patriotism be predominant in his char- 
 acter ; for you may be assured, that he has it now in his 
 power to come into the service of his country upon any 
 plan of politics he may choose to dictate, with great and 
 honourable terms to himself and to every friend he has in 
 the world, and with such a stretch of power as will be equal 
 to everything but absolute despotism over the king and 
 kingdom. A few days will show whether he will take this 
 part or that of continuing on his back at Hayes talking 
 fustian, excluded from all ministerial, and incapable of all 
 parliamentary, service; for his gout is worse than ever, 
 but his pride may disable him more than his gout." 
 
 The change took place — a new ministry was formed — 
 the pride of Pitt prevailed over his patriotism. The Mar- 
 quis of Rockingham was placed at the head of the admini- 
 stration. "No man," says Lord John Russell, "ever carried 
 into public affairs a purer love of the public welfare. His 
 good sense was never at fault — his judgment clear ; his 
 power of expression in writing not inferior to his judgment ; 
 his capacity for uniting and guiding men of separate views 
 and jealous tempers, generally acknowledged." He was 
 not an orator — he was indisposed to speak in Parliament ; 
 he had not a strong constitution, and was deficient in 
 physical energy. The ruling desire of the king and the 
 courtiers by whom he was surrounded, was to undermine 
 party as unduly conti'olling his prerogative ; and the per- 
 sonal ambition of Pitt unhappily assisted the designs of 
 the Court. Lord Rockingham had a-task of great difficulty, 
 
136 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 in which he had every right to claim the support of all the 
 true Whigs of the Revolution — those wfho sought to unite 
 indissolubly liberty with order and justice, to restrain the 
 prerogative of the Crown and the power of the people, so as 
 to keep both within the settled limits of the Constitution. 
 But he had besides a peculiar 'claim on Pitt, for his policy 
 was wise and pacific — to heal the breach with America, and 
 put an end to domestic struggles and intrigues, which were 
 injurious to the cause of constitutional freedom. Pitt was 
 imperious and impracticable ; he was also vain and ambi- 
 tious. His health was unequal to sustained exertion, and 
 his opinions on trade and finance were old-fashioned, nar- 
 row, and unsound. 
 
 Through William Burke and Mr. Fitzherbert, who was 
 then a member of the Literary Club, and had been ap- 
 pointed to the Board of Trade, Edmund Burke was recom- 
 mended to Lord Rockingham as his private secretary. 
 But scarcely had he been appointed, when the Duke of 
 Newcastle, one of the Cabinet, came to the Marquis to 
 warn him of the trap which was supposed to have been laid 
 for him. The Duke had heard confidentially that Burke 
 was a Jesuit, educated at St. Omer's ; that his real name was 
 O'Bourke ; it was part of a Popish plot to get him into the 
 confidential position of private secretary to the Premier ! 
 The Marquis, with the straightforward simplicity of his 
 noble nature, frankly placed before Burke all that he had 
 been told. It was soon displaced. The Marquis was fully 
 satisfied with the choice he had made. But the sensitive 
 nature of Burke was pained and wounded. He felt that 
 the lurking suspicion might mar the freedom of his inter- 
 course with the Marquis, and therefore suggested, as the 
 better way, to break off the connection. The Marquis was 
 too high-minded and honourable ; the instinct of his nature 
 told him that all was right ; he insisted on Burke remain- 
 ing with him, and thus began a connection which soon 
 ripened into an intimacy, which was not interrupted for 
 eighteen years, and only terminated with Lord Rocking- 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 137; 
 
 ham's death. The Duke of Newcastle, on ascertaining the- 
 truth of the matter, ever afterwards treated Burke with 
 entire confidence and affectionate regard. 
 
 Lord Verney was the patron of the borough of Wen- 
 dover, which had been represented by John Hampden ; 
 through William Burke and other friends, the return of 
 Edmund Burke for this borough was secured, and he now 
 took his seat in Parliament in January, 1766. The House 
 of Commons had already engaged his earnest attention. < 
 He has told us that he sate in the gallery when Grenville 
 brought forward his proposals for taxing America. His: 
 commercial studies, since 1759, had unconsciously prepared 
 him for his new position, and had already suggested to his 
 mind a very different view of the policy of Grenville from 
 that which seemed to prevail in the Parliament by which it 
 was adopted, where an insignificant minority in the Com- 
 mons opposed it in a languid debate ; and in the Lords 
 there was neither debate nor division. His preparation 
 was strikingly providential. He had been engaged in pre- 
 paring for publication an abridgment of English History. 
 He had made considerable progress in the study of English 
 law ; he had examined the early and (what he aptly called) 
 the interior history of Ireland, and put together his reflec- 
 tions on the course of the English misrule, the obvious 
 consequerices of an unsound policy. He had already ac- 
 quired a great deal of knowledge of India. He had made 
 himself thoroughly acquainted with the history of the 
 European settlements in America ; and from the oppor- 
 tunity afforded by his connection with Hamilton, he had 
 investigated the principles and details of trade and com- 
 merce. In addition to all this general preparation, he has 
 stated the special preparation he made when he entered 
 Parliament, to enable him to deal with the great question ' 
 of America. England and America had been recently 
 united against France and Spain, and been triumphant. 
 The war had necessarily interrupted the commerce of the 
 country. After the war, commerce speedily revived. The 
 
138 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS.' 
 
 complicated system of Revenue Laws led to contraband 
 trading. The naval service was employed in the attempt 
 to put this down by force. The country became disquieted; 
 and discontented ; military force was now to be provided, 
 and a supply was needed to keep up this force. The policy- 
 of Grenville consisted in taxing America for the protection 
 of a monopoly for England. His character has been graphic- 
 ally sketched by Burke. He came from the narrow school 
 of English law. He passed through the routine of office ; 
 but neither could give him largeness and liberality of mind — 
 the comprehensive sagacity, that insight into the purposes 
 of society and the relations of things, which is different 
 from reason only by being above it, and which is the ulti- 
 mate measure of civil right and the basis of policy. 
 
 As a war minister, Pitt was unrivalled ; but the war had 
 ceased. Pitt had now, for a policy of peace, a political 
 dogma — no taxation without representation. This was his 
 specific. He would restrain the American trade ; he would 
 prohibit their manufactures ; he would bind and fetter 
 them with all the chains of English monopoly, but he 
 would not tax them directly for the purpose of supply. 
 
 Burke felt the greatness of the crisis. He was then (as 
 he has told us) in the vigour of his manhood ; he came 
 not from a school forensic or official, though he had made- 
 progress in the study of law, and had seen a little of the^ 
 mechanism of office. He came from the higher school of 
 literature and philosophy. There he had graduated in his-' 
 tory and in poetry ; in classics and in morals. But this 
 was not all. " I did not come into Parliament," he says,^ 
 " to con my lesson. I found it necessary to analyze the 
 whole commercial, financial, constitutional, and foreign in-: 
 terests of Great Britain and its Empire. Then in the 
 vigour of my manhood, my constitution sunk under my 
 labour. I seemed to myself very near death." What a^ 
 noble preparation for duty, in a public trust ! Thus could' 
 he look on the whole question with the eye of a statesman ; 
 not, as it appeared to Pitt, an isolated denial of the mere 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 1 39 
 
 right of England to tax, but as a concrete question of con- 
 stitutional and commercial policy. Here were colonies 
 founded by the Saxon race, who carried with them the 
 indomitable spirit and imperishable traditions of Saxon 
 freedom ; the freest and boldest offshoot of the Reforma- 
 tion ; proud of their descent and connection ; with the 
 energy of an expanding commerce, which could not be 
 confined with paper chains. The bounds of their habitation 
 were in the ocean, fixed by Him who hath made of one 
 blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the 
 earth — and hath spread out the paths of the seas as the 
 great highway of free intercourse and commerce. Bacon 
 had proclaimed that nature could only be conquered by 
 obedience ; Burke soon perceived that the penal policy of 
 Grenville could not be maintained, and that the partial 
 policy of Pitt, though it might be palliative, could not be 
 remedial. He had sprung up in Parliament like Pallas from 
 the head of Jove. The profound historian of Greece has 
 said of Pericles and Epaminondas, what is no less true of 
 Burke : — " It is alike true of both, and the remark tends 
 much to illustrate the sources of Grecian excellence, that 
 neither sprang exclusively from the school of practice and 
 experience. They both brought to that school minds 
 exercised in the conversation of the most instructed philo- 
 sophers and sophists accessible to them — trained to varied 
 intellectual combinations and to a larger range of subjects 
 than those that came before the public assembly." (Grote's 
 Greece, Vol. X., p. 491.) 
 
 There was no precedent, as Burke observes, for the case 
 of America, and therefore all solid reasonings were to be 
 derived from its actual circumstances. As colonies founded' 
 for commerce, as colonies of the English race and religion, ' 
 it was needful to take into account the principles of trade 
 and commerce, as well as the essentially free spirit of the 
 English Constitution, sensitive above measure on this very 
 matter of taxation. The right to tax America, as a ques- 
 tion of mere power, was involved in the dependency of the 
 
I40 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 colonies on the mother country ; it could not, perhaps, be 
 given up altogether without renouncing that dependency, 
 but it might be given up almost, without prejudice to the 
 dignity of the mother country. It was only to be used (if 
 at all) in an emergency of the last resort, which had not 
 arisen, and was not likely to arise. It was odious and op- 
 pressive to the Saxon spirit ; it was not restrained within 
 the customary limits of a free grant of the local legislature ; 
 it wounded their pride and inflamed their hostility. It was 
 the sting of a system of revenue laws which were mischiev- 
 ous, to preserve trade laws which were worse than useless. 
 We have no published report of the first speeches of Burke 
 on this great question. But we have an account of his labor- 
 ious preparation, and the unexampled effect which these 
 speeches produced upon the house. Johnson wrote at the 
 time, " They filled the town with wonder." Grenville's 
 policy [was reversed — Pitt's was rejected. The legislative 
 supremacy of the mother country was maintained as a con- 
 stitutional right, but to be exercised for the purpose of 
 protection only. But what is meant by protection? To 
 protect men (as Burke has finely said) is to forward, not to 
 restrain their improvement. Else what is it more than to 
 avow to them, and to the world, that you guard them from 
 others, only to make them a prey to yourself? "This 
 fundamental nature of protection," he says, " does not be- 
 long to free but to all governments, and is as valid in 
 Turkey as in Great Britain. No government ought to own 
 that it exists for the purpose of checking the prosperity of 
 its people, or that there is such a principle involved in its 
 policy." Thus the assertion of the right which soothed the 
 temper of England, was softened by the acknowledgment 
 of the duty which satisfied the spirit of America. Peace 
 and economy, commercial and constitutional freedom, were 
 the main points of the charter which Burke was now 
 labouring to stereotype as the creed of the Rockingham 
 party. He had a firm and enlightened conviction that the 
 general laws of the moral as of the material world were, 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 141 
 
 wisely arranged for the good of man ; that the knowledge 
 of these laws, in order that we might follow their benign 
 guidance, was the key to human progress and to human 
 welfare. He felt that government was not the mere exer- 
 cise of power — a right to make others miserable ; it was a 
 sacred trust from God, a delegated authority to restrain 
 evil and promote good. To the abuse of this authority, to 
 the ignorance or disregard of these discoverable laws, he 
 traced the inevitable consequences, which were of God's 
 appointment. A foresight which sometimes seemed to be 
 to a degree prophetic was simply philosophic. 
 
 The Marquis of Rockingham naturally attracted the 
 affection and the reverence of Biirke. His high sense of 
 honour, his directness, his excellent common sense, his wise 
 moderation — his prompt appreciation of the growing claims 
 of commerce, and his readiness to hear the views and 
 wishes of the leading merchants and manufacturers — led to 
 the inauguration of a healing and healthy policy — a policy 
 which would, moreover, have led to the gradual removal of 
 that undue and corrupt influence of the Court party, which 
 was not more opposed to the true spirit of the Act of 
 Settlement, than it was to the good of the people ; a 
 policy which would have led the way to that commercial 
 freedom which seems to have been designed to follow in 
 the wake of civil liberty, as this was the consequent of the 
 great work of the Reformation. Regulations, however re- 
 strictive, are not commerce. Taxation, whether internal or 
 external, is not revenue. Penal laws are not morals. Abso- 
 lutism, with all its ritual accompaniments, is not the liberty 
 wherewith Christ has made us free. 
 
 Notwithstanding the honourable motives, the wise and 
 liberal policy of the Rockingham Cabinet, the ambition of 
 Pitt and the intrigues of the mercenaries of the Court party 
 brought about another change of Administration. The 
 Duke of Grafton, who had served with Lord Rockingham, 
 was the nominal chief of a new Cabinet on a plan arranged 
 by Pitt, who was now made Lord Privy Seal, and Earl of 
 
142 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Chatham. In a small publication, entitled " A Short 
 Account of a Short Administration," Burke placed before 
 the public a summary of the measures which had been car- 
 ried by the Rockingham party in the year and twenty days 
 in which they held office. 
 
 The Marquis was desirous to get employment for Burke 
 in the new Administration ; and the Duke of Grafton 
 strongly urged Pitt, now Lord Chatham, to seek the ser- 
 vices of Burke. The Duke said that he had the means of 
 knowing his integrity — that he might thoroughly be trusted. 
 And in a letter of October 17, 1766, to Lord Chatham, he 
 says : " Of those whom I should wish, and Mr. Conway 
 also wishes, to see to support him is Mr. Burke, the readiest 
 man upon all points, perhaps, in the whole house." Lord 
 Chatham replied : " The gentleman your Grace points out 
 as a necessary recruit, I think a man of parts and an in- 
 genious speaker. As to his notions and maxims of trade, 
 they never can be mine!' He had promised the first open 
 place at the Board of Trade to Lord Lisburne. There was 
 no room for the Irish Commoner — the young Irishman of 
 whom General Lee had then written to the Prince Royal 
 of Poland, that he " had astonished everybody by the power 
 of his eloquence and his comprehensive knowledge in all 
 our exterior and internal politics and commercial interests. 
 He wants nothing but that sort of dignity annexed to rank 
 and property in England, to make him the most consider- 
 able man in the Lower House." He was distanced by this 
 Lord Lisburne. Chatham, who in the House of Commons 
 had congratulated Burke on his first success, and his friends 
 on the value of the acquisition they had made (as we learn 
 from the excellent Earl of Charlemont) — Chatham, at this 
 crisis of the American question, turned aside from Burke 
 as from a basilisk. With a view to complete a job for his 
 brother-in-law, James Grenville, he made Charles Townsend 
 his Chancellor of the Exchequer — Townsend whose char- 
 acter Burke has so inimitably sketched — who treated 
 Chatham's distinction of internal and external taxation as 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 143 
 
 simply ridiculous, but pledged himself to find a revenue 
 nearly sufficient to meet the expense properly required for 
 the colonies. And of this Chatham was apprised. De- 
 spising the wisdom of Burke, and enduring the folly of 
 Townsend, Chatham and his composite Cabinet, which 
 Burke has painted in colours that have not yet faded, in- 
 augurated a system of taxation affecting British manu- 
 factures and therefore not properly within trade regulations ; 
 duties were imposed and to be -collected in America, in a 
 way which marked their imperial origin and purpose ; thus 
 inflicting indirectly on the colonies, against the soundest 
 principles of commercial policy, what Chatham had so 
 strenuously contended to be against constitutional right 
 directly to impose. With such a ministry Burke could 
 have no communion. 
 
 He had become one of a party with a creed of en^ 
 lightened policy, and a purpose of promoting the best 
 interests of England. He was comparatively a poor man ; 
 he had not the influence of social position : but he had so 
 far won his way by the self-elevating power of industry 
 and virtue, under the blessing and guidance of God. His 
 nature was earnest and artless ; he had not the finesse that 
 is often miscalled sagacity, nor the cunning, which (as 
 Bacon says) is but the counterfeit of wisdom. Lord 
 Charlemont has described him as amiable and excellent, 
 but sometimes allowing his zeal to carry him beyond the 
 bounds of prudence. Horace Walpole says, that of all the 
 eminent men he ever met, Burke had the least political 
 art., This exactly squares with what we might collect from 
 his own admissions. He had no reserve— no kind of con- 
 cealment ; whatever the subject was, he poured forth the 
 affluence of his thoughts and feelings. Sir Philip Francis 
 happily remarked, " You always see both the best and the 
 worst of him." 
 
 There can be little doubt that politics and party now 
 engrossed his attention, and must have greatly interfered 
 with the literary intercourse which was so agreeable to 
 
144 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Goldsmith and Johnson. Goldsmith, who looked up to 
 Burke with pride and with affection ; impulsive and genial — 
 with a heart overflowing with that charity which embraces 
 everything human — bringing into gentle relief those truths 
 which are of aspect the most benign, and those suggestions 
 and hopes for the erring which are mo-st full of consolation 
 — could never recognise the purposes of any party less 
 comprehensive than the whole family of man. Johnson 
 with his sturdy common-sense, could fully appreciate the 
 working of party as a necessity in a free country, which 
 even Butler admits it to be, and an instrument of sound 
 policy, which Burke has shown it to be. But Johnson 
 hated the Whig party with a perfect hatred. He could 
 not, of course, encourage Burke in his hot political pursuit 
 " I can live very well with Burke," he said ; " I love his 
 knowledge — his genius — his diffusion and affluence of con- 
 versation ; but I would not talk to him of the Rockingham 
 party." Burke had from the first commanded the esteem 
 of Johnson by his conscious self-respect, his kindliness, 
 his boundless knowledge, his high cultivation, and his 
 moral consistency. " What I most envy Burke for is " 
 (says Johnson) " his being constantly the same." The 
 palm of superiority everywhere and in everything was at 
 all times freely conceded by Johnson to Burke, his connec- 
 tion with the Rockingham party always excepted. The 
 publication of the Cavendish debates, or, I should rather 
 say, of a part of them (and it is not creditable to Parliament 
 that the whole should not have been printed), enables us 
 to follow Burke's career in the House of Commons from 
 1768 to 1771. It was an eventful period. Strangers were 
 excluded from the gallery ; there were no public reporters. 
 The debates which have been published were taken down 
 in shorthand by Sir H. Cavendish, then a member of the 
 House. Junius's letters have done much to excite an in- 
 terest about some of these debates, but perhaps not less 
 interest about the great unknown himself Burke had been 
 long and often suspected to have been the author of these 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 145 
 
 letters. I do not delay upon the subject. It is now put 
 beyond doubt that Burke had nothing whatsoever to do 
 with them. 
 
 I have gone through these debates. I find Burke taking 
 an active share in the discussion of every important ques- 
 tion r but his position was unfavourable to his personal 
 influence. He was in opposition, in a divided minority. 
 The servile adherents of the Court party sneered at his 
 manly wisdom — what they could not refute they could 
 resist — and they took refuge in impatient interruption. 
 For a prudent politician, I would say with Johnson, he 
 spoke too often and too unreservedly ; but, as Johnson 
 added, " No one could say he did not speak well." He 
 spoke earnestly, for he felt not less than he thought, and 
 from the abundance of the heart, as well as the profusion 
 of the intellect and imagination, he spoke copiously. Coarse 
 minds repudiated the refined and thoughtful wisdom, which 
 with them passed for subtlety and dogmatism. 
 
 " The spirit thoroughly faithful to itself 
 Is to society's unreasoning herd 
 A domineering instinct." 
 
 There are two letters which, in connection with this 
 period of his public life, deserve our attention. One is in 
 the Fitzwilliam Correspondence, Vol. I., p. 276 ; the other in 
 the " Leadbeater Papers," Vol. H., p. 109. They throw much 
 light on the course he took, and why he took it. " It is 
 but too well known " (he says) " that I debate with great 
 vehemence and asperity, and with little management either 
 ,of the opinions or persons of many of my adversaries ; they 
 deserve not much quarter, and I give and receive but very 
 little." Whether it arose from the intensity of his nature 
 and the conscious superiority of his knowledge, or from the 
 want of an early discipline of deference — an habitual 
 allowance of those equities which a free assembly, like the 
 House of Commons, always enforces — and having come 
 into the House in the full maturity of his powers, and with 
 
 L 
 
146 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 habits fixed — certain it is that he was on some occasions too 
 didactic, on others too impatient ; and, considering that at 
 that time official or social position was almost necessary to 
 command attention in the general business of the House, 
 it cannot be doubted that in this part of his career his zeal 
 and honesty of purpose are more conspicuous than his 
 judgment or discretion. But when he took up his pen, there 
 was nothing but wisdom. The " Observations on the 
 Present State of the Nation," which were published in 
 reply to a pamphlet supposed to have been composed by 
 Grenville, is a remarkable specimen of his masterly ac- 
 quaintance with details as well as principles. And in the 
 next publication, the best perhaps of all his political writings, 
 I mean the " Thoughts on the Present Discontents," we 
 have what was meant for the Rockingham creed. It was 
 revised, and in some respects altered, by the leaders of that 
 party. It cannot fail to instruct the historian, the philo- 
 sopher, and the statesman. 
 
 It is evident throughout that he ^kept in view the one 
 object of consolidating the Whig party, on what he held to 
 be genuine Whig principles — to restrain on either side the 
 encroachments of the Crown and the excesses of the 
 people. On the success of this seemed to depend the 
 prosperity of England. Whilst this effort was almost a 
 forlorn hope, and, notwithstanding, called forth all the 
 energy and taxed the resources of Burke, Goldsmith wrote 
 his celebrated poem of " Retaliation," which was not pub- 
 lished until after his death, He died early in 1774. Burke 
 was deeply affected at the death of his friend and country- 
 man. He burst into tears when he heard of it. Goldsmith 
 had looked on Burke as a being from another sphere, and 
 would not allow the superiority of Johnson. " Is he like 
 Burke " (said he) " who winds into his subject like a ser- 
 pent ? " It is curious that Goldsmith's humorous descrip- 
 tion of his friends, including Burke, in the " Retaliation," 
 was published on the i8th April, 1774. On the very next 
 day Burke made his great speech on the repeal of the Tea 
 
EDMUND BURKE. I47 
 
 Duty in America. This we have now in print The 
 Ministry with blind fatuity clung to this miserable impost, 
 as if resolved to humiliate America. The paltry sum of 
 ;^ 1 6,000 a year could not raise a question of revenue. 
 Burke has truly said that — " Nothing can read so awful 
 and so instructive a lesson, as the conduct of the Ministry 
 in this business, upon the mischief of not having large and 
 liberal ideas in the management of great affairs. Never 
 have the servants of the State looked at the whole of 
 your complicated interests in one connected view." The 
 American trade of tea, just at this time, had become im- 
 portant, to realize the benefit of the East India conquests. 
 Three-fourths of the duty of teas exported to America was 
 taken oiif as drawback, the remainder was to be collected 
 in America by English Commissioners appointed for the 
 purpose. What was capable of being easily collected 
 without any risk was given up — what must necessarily 
 have roused the hostility of America and injured the trade 
 was enforced. 
 
 Dugald Stewart has given a valuable dissertation on the 
 men of business or detail, and the men of abstraction or 
 philosophers (El. Phil., Vol. I., p. 229), and refers very 
 happily to the character of Grenville, which Burke has 
 drawn. The observations of Burke, he says, "are ex- 
 pressed with his usual beauty and felicity of language, 
 and are of so general a nature that, with some trifling 
 alterations, they may be extended to all the practical 
 pursuits of life." " In a perfect system of education, care 
 should be taken to guard against both extremes, and to 
 unite habits of abstraction with habits of business in such 
 a manner as to enable men to consider things either in 
 general or in detail, as the occasion may require." He 
 ends this important chapter with an extract from Lord 
 Bacon — " Expert men can execute and judge of particulars 
 one by one ; but the general counsels and the plots, and 
 the marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are 
 learned." In the ninety-fifth aphorism of the "Novum 
 
148 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Organum," you will find that Bacon compares the men 
 of experiment with the ant — they only collect and use ; 
 the reasoners with the spiders, who make cobwebs out of 
 their own substance. The bee takes a middle course : it 
 gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of 
 the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its 
 own. This is the course he commends to philosophy, by 
 which a closer and purer league may be made between the 
 experimental and rational faculties, and from which (he 
 adds) much may be hoped. 
 
 I call Edmund Burke, emphatically, the Bacon of 
 Statesmen. In the great question of America, his in- 
 ductive philosophy was as practical as it was profound ; 
 there was the happy combination of the most comprehend 
 sive and exact reasoning on the principles of the Constitu- 
 tion and of commerce, with the most careful observation 
 of all the realities — the antecedent and existing circum- 
 stances ; the temper, habits, feelings— nay, even the pre- 
 judices of the colonists ; it was, indeed, a question of 
 political and social philosophy of the highest order. 
 When we now look back at the astounding folly of 
 Grenville, the narrow commercial prejudices, the fitful 
 temper, and political phdantry of Chatham ; the fatuity 
 of his wayward, vacillating, composite Cabinet ; the petty 
 intrigues and influence of the Court, and not the considera- 
 tion of the great interests of commerce, or the welfare of 
 the colonies, swaying the decisions of the Ministry ; then 
 the servility of Lord North and his followers — the wilful 
 disregard of the very first principles of political and eco- 
 nomic science ; and when we think how these principles 
 were again and again expounded and enforced by our 
 illustrious countryman with a power, a perspicuity, and 
 an eloquence never surpassed, and then compare the 
 results which followed the fatal policy of ignorance, weak- 
 ness, and folly with what might have been the fruit of the 
 enlightened wisdom of Edmund Burke — contented colonies, 
 commercial freedom, the relation of interest and affection 
 
EDMUND BURKE. I49 
 
 with England, even if not always one of acknowledged 
 dependence — may we not read a lesson of the high crimi- 
 nality of State ignorance, of the tremendous penalties which 
 it may bring upon a country, whose rulers, blinded by pre- 
 judice, or misled by servility, dishonour the law of liberty, 
 and despise the light of truth ? On the 22nd March, 1775, 
 Burke brought forward his resolutions for conciliating 
 America. There was yet an opportunity for retreat, and 
 on this occasion he made a speech which (says Lord 
 Russell) " combining profound knowledge of the vast sub- 
 ject on which he spoke, wisdom in devising remedies for 
 pressing evils, eloquence in expounding his views, beauty 
 of language, and fertility of fancy, has no superior in the 
 records of Parliamentary discussion. Other occasions may 
 have produced a close phalanx of argument or a splendour 
 of diction, or a quickness of reply, which have won equal 
 or more admiration at the moment; but as a work of 
 human genius and a lesson of statesmanship, this speech 
 will ever command the veneration of the student of English 
 history and English eloquence." 
 
 A few years afterwards, he made that celebrated speech 
 on the employment of Indians in the war with America, 
 which seemed (says Lord Russell) to have anticipated the 
 eloquence, if not the glory, of one of his greatest orations 
 against Hastings. Horace Walpole describes it as the 
 chef d''(£uvre of wit, humour, and just satire, and also of 
 pathetic description. At one part. Lord North was almost 
 suffocated with laughter ; at another. Colonel Barre was in 
 tears. " I wish," he writes to his friend, " I could give you 
 an idea of that superlative oration. He was pressed to 
 print it, but says he .has not time during the session." 
 Governor Johnstone said he "rejoiced there were no. 
 Strangers in the gallery, as Burke's speech would have 
 excited them to tear the ministers to pieces as they went 
 but of the House." Horace Walpole significantly observes^ 
 " They were much more afraid of losing their places." 
 
 On the fall of the Rockingham Administration, he came 
 
ISO LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 over to Ireland. He wished to avoid any negotiation with 
 the new Cabinet. Chatham's views and his were not re- 
 concilable. On the question of the mere right of taxation, 
 indeed, he probably would have relaxed, for, in the end, he 
 seemed willing to leave it as an open question. It had, by 
 the course of events, become shadowy and abstract, and 
 scarcely worth contesting in the House of Commons. On 
 the question of policy — the right, under the circumstances — 
 how striking is the contrast between his sound practical 
 wisdom and the narrow, limited views of Chatham 1 " You 
 ought not to tax at all ; all the circumstances show con- 
 clusively that it is at present unsound in policy, and must 
 be perilous in event. If you ought rrot to do it directly, 
 neither ought you to resort to a device which indirectly 
 violates your own dogma, and directly conflicts with the 
 freedom and prosperity of trade and commerce." Such 
 was the substance of Burke's appeal. 
 
 Is not the reply of Chatham simply this ? " I abide by 
 my Constitutional dogma. I adhere to my commercial 
 policy. I must not, it is true, directly tax the property of 
 America, for the purpose of supply ; but I can and I will 
 tax British commodities in America ; I will, moreover, 
 maintain the monopoly of England in their market— the 
 right of England to fetter their trade and. limit their manu- 
 factures ; and I will collect in America, under another 
 name, the duties which I will indirectly compel America 
 to pay as a tax in aid of imperial supply." 
 
 " It is useful" (says Dr. Arnold in his History of the later 
 Roman Commonwealth) " to see what dreadful actions the 
 best men of ancient times were led unhesitatingly to com- 
 mit, from the utter absence of a just law of nations, and the 
 fatal habit of making their country the supreme object of 
 their duty!' Chatham loved England, and gloried in her 
 proud pre-eminence. But the time had arrived when, in 
 the course of Providence, navigation and commerce began 
 to invite a freer intercourse of nations — when the sound 
 principles of colonial policy, combined with the free spirit 
 
EDMUND BURKE. I51 
 
 of the English Constitution, had unfolded a new page of 
 political philosophy for the advancement of national pros- 
 perity and human progress. Chatham could not even spell 
 the lesson which Burke had read and inwardly digested. 
 Chatham had enabled the mercenaries of the Court to 
 break up the Rockingham Cabinet, and cheat the country 
 of their saving policy. Capricious in his temper, and in- 
 termittent from his health, he left Charies Townsend to 
 commence what was then left to Lord North to complete — • 
 the humiliation of England and the independence of 
 America. 
 
 When Burke came over to Ireland, his first visit was to 
 Ballitore. " I cannot forget," says Mrs. Leadbeater, " the 
 first visit of this illustrious man. Edmund Burke was 
 expected ; we naturally loved every friend of our parents, 
 but to these predilections were superadded sentiments of 
 respect and admiration in the present instance, which 
 caused his visit to be expected with impatient wonder. 
 The chaise stopped at the big gate, which unfolded wide, 
 and my imagination still presents the graceful form of 
 Edmund, as I beheld him from the nursery window leading 
 in his wife, a pretty little woman, with no covering on her 
 head but her beautiful, unadorned auburn tresses. On 
 Elizabeth Shackleton expressing surprise that she wore no 
 cap, in which respect she was singular at that time, she said 
 that she dressed conformably to her husband's taste ; how- 
 ever, she promised to put on one, and next morning ap- 
 peared in the first French night-cap that was ever seen in 
 Ballitore. The plain dress of Edmund disappointed my 
 expectation, and I thought the postillion's habit, daubed 
 with livery lace, much more elegant ; the sight of our 
 guest's laced waistcoat, however, a little reconciled me. 
 Yet when, in taking a survey of the family of his friend, he 
 stood over me, as I sat in a little chair, and viewed me 
 through the glass which assisted his short sight, I felt so 
 abashed and confused, that I directly annexed the idea of 
 austerity to his countenance ; nor could the testimony of 
 
152 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 many witnesses efface that idea till I afterwards saw him 
 in London, in the year 1784, when, with a very uncommon 
 sensation of pleasure and surprise, it was at once put to 
 flight ; for never did I see so much benignity and intelli-- 
 gence united, as in the manly beauty of that countenance, 
 in which were blended the expressions of every superior 
 quality of the head and of the heart." 
 
 His next visit was to his sister, Mrs. French, at Lough- 
 rea. Garret Burke had died in the preceding year. His 
 mother, his brother Richard, himself and his wife, all met 
 together at Mr. French's hospitable mansion. The warm- 
 hearted people of Galway received him with an Irish 
 welcome, and the freedom of the city was presented to him 
 in a silver box. What a day of joy to his mother's heart, 
 to see her gentle Edmund, now a celebrity of the English 
 Parliament, and the pride of Galway itself 1 Her letter on 
 the occasion is quite delightful : " My dear Nelly, I believe 
 you will think me very vain, but as you are a mother, I 
 hope you will excuse it. I assure you that it is no honour 
 that is done him that makes me vain of him, but the good- 
 ness of his heart, which I believe no man living has a better, 
 and sure there cannot be a better son, nor can there be a 
 better daughter-in-law than his wife." These were the 
 days of the genuine old Ireland jollity. Loughrea was in 
 its glory. " This is" (writes his mother) " a very agreeable 
 town to live in, and I believe there is not a little town in 
 Ireland that has so many families of fortune as there are 
 here. I hope to be in Dublin about the middle of next 
 month, where I will find a great change from a very good 
 table here — two courses ; abroad, a coach and six to take 
 the air — to return to a leg of mutton, and good strong 
 boxes to walk in." 
 
 When on this visit, he was found one day in the town 
 of Loughrea, in the midst of a number of children who 
 were gathered around a show-man with his movable 
 theatre, during a fair. Burke was making a bargain with 
 the show-man for the admission of the entire group, when 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 1 53 
 
 Mr. French and other friends came up and caught him in 
 the act. Mr. French proposed to join in the expense. 
 " No," he said, " this must be my own pleasure. I shall, 
 perhaps, never again have the opportunity of making, at so 
 small a cost, so many human beings happy." 
 
 He next visited his friends in the county of Cork. 
 There was a property there called Clogher, which had been 
 leased by Lord Doneraile to Edmund and Edward Nagle, 
 for a term of thirty-one years, ending about the ist May, 
 1762. He further demised the same lands to Charles 
 Butler, a Protestant, for the term of 999 years, to commence 
 from the ist of May, 1762. The Nagles were Roman 
 Catholics, and as the law then stood, they could not acquire 
 a greater interest than for thirty-one years. Before the 
 month of July, 1757, John Reade, of this city, took the 
 usual proceeding of what was called a Protestant discoverer, 
 by filing a Bill in the Equity Exchequer, in which he stated 
 the making of the lease to Butler, and that Butler had 
 executed a declaration of trust to Edward and Edmund 
 Nagle. A decree was made in favour of Reade, who then 
 became entitled to the leasehold interest. It is, however, 
 more than probable that all this was a contrivance the 
 more effectually to evade the operation of the odious and 
 oppressive laws ; that Reade was a friendly party, and was 
 put forward in order to prevent any selfish member of the' 
 family, under the title of his conformity to Protestantism, 
 from proceeding to appropriate the whole of the property, 
 in which he could in justice have but a limited interest. 
 In the leasehold each of the next of kin might have a dis- 
 tributive share. The Nagle family had applied to Garret 
 Burke to become the leaseholder ; and on their solicitation, 
 and on an arrangement with them, he consented. It is likely 
 that in this way Reade's name had been used as a formal 
 plaintiff, for, on the 2nd July, 1757, Reade conveyed all the 
 interest he acquired under the decree to Garret Burke. 
 What was then the precise nature of the sub-interests, I 
 cannot say ; but I find on the registry a deed of the 1 5th 
 
1 54 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 July, 1758, by which Robert Nagle mortgaged his interest 
 in these lands to the Rev. W. Nash for ;£'io, and other 
 considerations not mentioned. Garret Burke seems always 
 to have lived on terms of intimacy and affection with the 
 Nagle family, and he left several of them complimentary 
 legacies in his will. Garret appears to have had a steward 
 on the property, to have made improvements and planted 
 trees, and as to the part not occupied by himself, to have 
 protected the interest of the Nagle family according to their 
 own arrangement. 
 
 In his will he says : " As to the lands of Clogher 
 Shanagh and Killevulling, which I hold under Lord Don- 
 eraile for a long term of years, I leave and bequeath the 
 same to my said brother, the said Edmund Burke, and all 
 my right, title, and property therein, to hold to him, his 
 executors, administrators, and assigns ; and as to the lower 
 part occupied by me only, on account of some improve- 
 ments and planting several trees thereon, I beg he may not 
 sell the same ; but in case it should appear to be to him 
 inconvenient to hold at the distance he lives, and that he 
 may not be imposed upon in the value, I was offered a 
 guinea an acre for them, which are computed to contain 
 forty-nine acres and upwards." 
 
 When Edmund visited the property in 1766, he saw, 
 the members of the Nagle family, heard their own state- 
 ment as to the arrangement with his brother Garret, and 
 proceeded to deal with it, in accordance with these repre- 
 sentations, in the most kindly spirit. In the letters in the 
 New Monthly Magazine, there is a series, beginning in 1765, 
 from which it appears that, in every way he could befriend 
 the family and connection, he was forward and generous. 
 All the customary gifts and presents in the neighbourhood, 
 which his brother had been used to bestow, are directed to 
 be continued, different members of the family are provided 
 for in various ways, and the most friendly intercourse kept 
 up without interruption, until the claim, to which I have to 
 advert, was made on behalf of Robert Nagle, in 1777. 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 1 55; 
 
 Burke's letter on the expected death of his uncle Nagle 
 (Vol. XIV., p. 386) is characteristic :— " We shall all lose, 
 I believe, one of the very best men that ever lived ; of the 
 clearest integrity, the most genuine principles of religion, 
 and virtue, the most cordial good-nature and benevolence 
 that I ever knew, or think ever shall know. However, it is 
 a comfort that he lived a long, healthy, unblemished life, 
 loved and esteemed by all that knew him, and left children 
 behind him who will cultivate his memory, and, I trust, 
 follow his example ; for, of all the men I have seen in any 
 situation, I really think he is the person I should wish 
 myself, or anyone I greatly loved, the most to resemble. 
 This I do not say from the impression of my immediate 
 feeling ; but from my best judgment, having seen him at 
 various times of my life, from my infancy to the last year, 
 having known him very well and knowing a little (by too 
 long habits) of mankind at large." This was in March, 
 1768. From this worthy man, Edmund Burke had learned 
 what was the nature of the arrangement with his brother 
 Garret as to the Clogher property. To have it carried out 
 in its proper spirit, he appointed his cousin. Garret Nagle, 
 as his agent ; and it would seem that no act of kindness 
 was omitted, nor one of his kindred forgotten, during the 
 many years of his toilsome public life. The correspondence 
 speaks for itself. For eleven years matters went on, with- 
 out a claim or a complaint from any quarter. I find upon 
 the Registry a deed of 7th August, 1768, by which Robert 
 Nagle covenanted to convey to the Rev. W. Nash the half 
 of the said lands, or such part of them as the said Robert 
 Nagle should recover the possession of, at half the rent pay- 
 able to the head landlord. It was not, however, until the 
 month of November, 1777, that an application was made 
 for the first time to Edmund Burke on behalf of this 
 Robert Nagle, who had nearly twenty years before mort- 
 gaged whatever interest he had to Mr. Nash for ;^io, and, 
 nine years before, covenanted to convey to Nash whatever 
 he might chance to recover ; and at last he submits his 
 
156 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 case and claim, stating that in Garret Burke's time he had 
 turned Protestant in order to entitle himself, as a Protestant 
 discoverer, to file a bill for vesting in him the whole interest, 
 and charging Garret Burke with having betrayed the trust 
 reposed in him by the family. The fact, that all the other 
 members of the Nagle family acquiesced in what had been 
 done — that the respected head of the family had put Ed- 
 mund Burke in possession of the facts — that for eleven 
 years the property had been managed by one of themselves, 
 as the agent of Edmund — that neither this Robert Nagle 
 nor his mortgagee had made application to Edmund Burke 
 when on the property, and when all the parties to the ar- 
 rangement with Garret were alive and at hand — ^that, 
 during the eleven years after he had visited it, they had 
 been silent — and that what Robert Nagle sought was to 
 appropriate the whole to himself, on the false pretence that 
 Garret Burke had acquired it dishonestly, and not under 
 the family arrangement, which had been religiously re- 
 spected — it is not surprising that Edmund should have 
 written, on the 9th December, 1777, in answer to this stale, 
 dishonest demand : " I could not admit his claim, made as 
 he made it, without affecting my brother's memory, and 
 without bringing to beggary the motJier of this unhappy man, 
 his brother, and a very large family of children, his and your 
 nearest relations. Your father, I think yourself, I am sure 
 Garret Nagle, all told me that this would be the infallible 
 tvent of his success in his suit." The whole of this letter I 
 will print in an Appendix. If anyone can read it, in con- 
 nection with the facts I have stated, and retain the most 
 lurking suspicion as to the justice and the generosity of 
 Edmund Burke, I do not envy that reader his head or his 
 heart. 
 
 The following extract from a pamphlet, said to have 
 been published by the late Sir G. Cockburn, is to be found 
 in a recent number of the Notes and Queries : — 
 
 " To elude the persecuting rigour of the penal laws in 
 Ireland, a Roman Catholic family made over their estate in 
 
EDMUND BURKE. I57 
 
 trust to a brother of Mr. E. Burke, a practising attorney in 
 Dublin ; but he thought proper to avail himself of their 
 confidence, claimed and held the estate for himself, and 
 bequeathed it to his elder brother. Mr. O'Connor was 
 employed by this unfortunate family to carry on a suit in 
 the Irish Exchequer to recover this estate. But as the 
 rigid letter of the law was decidedly against their claims, 
 Mr. O'Connor appealed to .Mr. Burke's humanity in their 
 favour. He candidly acknowledged the cruelty and in- 
 justice of the penal laws, and fairly and liberally owned 
 that he would with conscientious pleasure restore the 
 estate, if he did not apprehend that his doing so would 
 throw an indelible stain on his brother's memory." To 
 this extract there is added a comment which begins thus-: 
 " The general truth of these statements is strengthened by 
 a letter from Edmund Burke, dated gth December, 1777." 
 This is the letter to which I have already referred. I have 
 examined every document which I have been enabled to 
 get at, which could throw light on this transaction ; I have 
 communicated with Mr. Nagle, the respected Master of the 
 Crown Office of the Queen's Bench ; I have carefully read 
 the correspondence between Edmund Burke and the Nagle 
 family for many years after he got this property under his 
 brother's bequest, and especially the letter of gth December, 
 lyyy, and I hesitate not to condemn, root and branch, the 
 discreditable publication in the Notes and Queries. The 
 Nagle family never made any claim on Garret or Edmund 
 Burke, for the restoration of any estate, nor ever suggested 
 any breach of trust or confidence. The only claim made 
 on Edmund Burke was made in 1777, not by or on behalf 
 of the Nagle family — not by any complainant establishing 
 that the family arrangement (whatever it was) had in any 
 respect been departed from — but by a single individual, 
 seeking to avail himself of the Popery Laws in derogation 
 of rights and interests which it was the sacred and the 
 bounden duty of Edmund Burke then to protect. It now 
 appears from Garret Burke's will that he himsdf occupied 
 
IS8 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 but a small portion of the Clogher property. No record 
 can be found of any proceedings ; I can find nothing but 
 the recital about the suit of Reade. It is not possible to 
 suppose that if Garret Burke had acted with any unfair- 
 ness, the heads of the family would not, in 1766, have sub- 
 mitted the matter to the consideration of Edmund, when 
 on the spot. As to Edmund Burke, could an upright man 
 have acted more honourably or generously than he did ? 
 He receives from the family — from the most respected of 
 its members — their own account of the arrangement with 
 his deceased brother ; he appoints one of themselves to 
 carry it out ; he disturbs no possession, he changes no in- 
 terest, he violates no trust. But when, at the end of 
 eleven years, a claim is made, which, on its own showing, 
 was selfish and dishonest, subversive of the ascertained 
 family arrangement, an impeachment of the honour and 
 good faith of Garret Burke, and not merely without the 
 sanction of one Roman Catholic member of the family, but, 
 according to the expressed opinion of several of them, 
 calculated to work the grossest injustice, even to the aged 
 mother of the man who made it — in rejecting that claim, 
 Edmund Burke acted with a just regard of what was due 
 to his brother's memory, the protection of the Nagle family, 
 and his own high character for honour and humanity. It is 
 false, then, that Garret Burke claimed and held the estate for 
 himself, in breach of any trust or confidence whatsoever. It 
 is equally false that Edmund Burke was appealed to on 
 behalf of the Nagle family, or that he owned that he would 
 with conscientious pleasure restore the estate, if he did not 
 apprehend that his doing so would throw an indelible stain 
 on his brother's memory. It is false that the general truth 
 of these charges is strengthened by the letter of 9th De- 
 cember, 1777. They are each and all displaced — utterly 
 falsified by that very letter. The family made no claim 
 whatsoever, and the only claim which was made by 
 Robert, the conformist, was rejected mainly on the ground 
 that it would defeat the very arrangement under which the 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 1 59 
 
 family alleged that Garret had been induced to take the 
 assignment. 
 
 I cannot conceive a greater desecration than this of the 
 honoured memory of the illustrious dead. Without a par- 
 ticle of evidence, against all the plain inferences of reason 
 and justice, to rely on the loose, unscrupulous slanders of 
 a disappointed adventurer, who had been baffled in the 
 attempt to break up, for his own benefit, the arrangement 
 by which all the other members of the family, abided, and 
 from which neither Garret nor Edmund Burke had been 
 shewn to have departed, either in the letter or in the spirit 
 — and next, to paraphrase the rejection of this baseless and 
 dishonest claim repudiated by the family, as an admission 
 by Edmund of a conscientious claim on behalf of that same 
 family, whom Edmund Burke is thus charged with despoil- 
 ing, in compliment to his brother's memory — surely this 
 cannot receive the sanction of any honourable or conscien- 
 tious man. I have dwelt on this perhaps tediously ; but 
 the memory of Edmund Burke is dear to me, his character 
 is now the property of his country. I read the calumny 
 with indignation ; I refute it with gladness. 
 
 On the 1 6th January, 1767, the freedom of the city of 
 Dublin was presented to him by special grace "in con- 
 sideration of his distinguished abilities so frequently exerted 
 for the advantage of Ireland, in Parliament." In his reply 
 to the Lord Maydr, written from London on the 25th 
 February, 1767, he says : " The honour which I have lately 
 received from my native city has been much heightened by 
 the polite and obliging manner in which your Lordship has 
 been pleased to convey it to me." He concludes by ob- 
 serving that " they cannot overrate my intentions for the 
 welfare of Ireland, for the total of which, if I were not soli- 
 citous, I should ill discharge my duty as a member of this 
 Parliament." 
 
 This recognition of an imperial trust has been stereo- 
 typed in his memorable speech at the Bristol election in 
 1774. The altered position of Lord Verney in the county 
 
l6o LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 of Buckinghamshire made it needful to change the repre- 
 sentation of Wendover. The honourable return for Bristol 
 is familiar to most of you ; and you remember that cele- 
 brated address, which has always been referred to as the 
 most unexceptionable exposition of Parliamentary duty. I 
 would advise our younger friends to read the speeches at 
 Bristol in 1774, before they study the speeches on America 
 in Parliament ; after these speeches, then to read the 
 " Thoughts on the Present Discontents," and then the 
 " Observations on the State of the Nation." And this may 
 be well followed up by reading the celebrated letters to the 
 Sheriffs of Bristol, and to the other gentlemen of that 
 city — with the memorable and admirable speeches on the 
 occasion when Bristol disgraced itself by rejecting the 
 man who had honoured the constituency by his transcen- 
 dent talents, his comprehensive knowledge, his consistent 
 integrity, and his manly spirit of independence. He had 
 advocated religious liberty because he believed it to be a 
 part, and a vital part, of religious truth, and he hated every 
 form of injustice, partiality, or oppression. He supported 
 the claims of Ireland to share in commercial advantages 
 which were available to England, because he believed that 
 commercial freedom should be available to all, on the 
 terms of equal justice and of common interest. 
 
 These were the grounds, on which he was now obliged 
 to retire from Bristol, and take refuge in Lord Fitzwilliam's 
 borough of Malton. There was another charge, indeed, 
 made against him — that he had supported a Bill for the 
 relief of insolvent debtors. To this we are indebted for his 
 unrivalled sketch of Howard, the hero of humanity. I 
 dare not begin to give extracts from Burke, for I know not 
 where I could fix the limit of selection. Hazlitt has truly 
 said : " To do him justice, it would be necessary to quote 
 all his works ; the only specimen of Burke is, all that he 
 wrote. He brought his subjects along with him — he drew 
 his materials from himself. The only limits which circum- 
 aqribed his variety were the stores of his own mind. His 
 
EDMUND BURKE. l6l 
 
 mine of wealth was a profound understanding — inexhaust- 
 ible as the human heart, and various as the sources of 
 nature. He, therefore, enriched every subject to which he 
 applied himself, and new subjects were only the occasions 
 of calling forth fresh powers of mind which had not been 
 before exerted." I may, however, observe, in passing, that 
 Sergeant Burke has published a volume of extracts, en- 
 titled " The Wisdom and Genius of Burke " — a book of 
 gems, selected with a nice discrimination. 
 
 I have brought Burke again to England, after his visit 
 to Ireland, which I have described. He was now much in 
 communication with the heads of his party, and especially 
 with the Marquis of Rockingham and the Duke of Port- 
 land. I have already adverted to Beaconsfield, in connec- 
 tion with Edmund Waller, Burke's favourite poet. This 
 was near to Hillingdon, where Lord Rockingham then 
 resided, and convenient to Bulstrode, where the Duke of 
 Portland resided. There was a demesne called " Gre- 
 gories," or Butler's Court, close to Beaconsfield, which then 
 belonged to a Mr. Lloyd, who desired to dispose of it. 
 His price was ;^20,ooo for the house as it stood, fully fur- 
 nished, and six hundred acres of land; Doubtless the 
 Marquis must have desired, for many reasons, to see Burke 
 in possession as a proprietor and a neighbour ; and by his 
 delicate and judicious assistance this was already accom- 
 plished. 
 
 In April, 1768, the treaty was concluded. On the ist of 
 May, 1768, Burke writes to Richard Shackleton : " As to 
 myself, I am, by the very singular kindness of some friends, 
 in a way very agreeable to me. Again elected on the same 
 interest, I have made a push, with all I could collect of my 
 own, and the aid of my friends, to cast a little root in this 
 country. I have purchased a house with an estate of about 
 six hundred acres of land in Buckinghamshire, twenty-four 
 miles from London, where I now am. It is a place ex- 
 (Ceedingly pleasant, and I propose (God willing) to become 
 a farmer in good earnest. You, who are classical, will not 
 
 M 
 
l62 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 be displeased to hear that it was formerly the seat of 
 Waller the poet, whose house, or part of it, makes at pre- 
 sent the farm-house within an hundred yards of me." 
 
 Mr. Lloyd died before the transaction was completed, 
 and his property was administered under the direction of 
 the Court of Chancery. The Court by its decree directed 
 the contract with Mr. Burke to be carried into execution. 
 I have been furnished with copies of the proceedings, and 
 of the documents, from which I find that there were incum- 
 brances and charges on the property, which were paid off 
 by Burke in the month of February, 1769, amounting to the 
 sum of £6,611 17s- lod. There was a further sum of 
 ;£'io,400 advanced to Burke in mortgage by Caroline 
 Williams, and £'^,600 advanced on another mortgage by 
 Admiral Sir Charles Saunders. These two mortgages re- 
 mained outstanding until the sale of the property by Mrs. 
 Burke, in 1 8 1 2, when they were paid off out of the purchase- 
 money. The furniture and effects in the house were valued 
 at .£'2,823 8s. Not long before this. Garret Burke had left 
 Edmund almost the whole of his property — his house and 
 effects in Dublin, his mortgages, judgments, and all costs 
 due to him from clients — and made him his sole executor 
 and residuary legatee. Garret was a bachelor, had suc- 
 ceeded early to his father's business, was his executor and 
 residuary legatee, and was very successful himself in his 
 profession. 
 
 It is obvious, therefore, that the property which Garret 
 had left to Edmund, and which probably had been realized 
 in cash just about this time, enabled him, with an advance 
 which he got from Lord Rockingham, and with the sums 
 secured by the two mortgages, to complete his purchase. 
 He had not to resort to the Clogher estate, which continued 
 to be managed as the Nagle family had themselves ap- 
 proved. It would have been easy to have raised more on 
 mortgage ; but it was not necessary. Lord Rockingham, 
 with that delicacy of feeling which characterized him, 
 merely took a bond for the amount of his advance, just to 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 163 
 
 relieve Burke from the pressure of obligation ; for it now 
 appears that he wrote a discharge upon it, and cancelled 
 the obligation ; this was not communicated to Burke until 
 after the death of his lordship. Lord Fitzwilliam, who in- 
 formed Burke of what had been done, added that the Mar- 
 quis never did an act in his life which gave him greater 
 satisfaction. 
 
 Through the courtesy of Mr. Dupre, the present pro- 
 prietor, and his respectable solicitor, Mr. Young, I have 
 been furnished with all the information which can be 
 derived from the title-deeds and the proceedings in Chan- 
 cery. I got the copy of Garret Burke's will from the 
 office in Dublin. There is nothing discoverable in the 
 whole transaction which is not consistent with the honour 
 of Burke ; but until this day, it has been a theme for in- 
 sinuations intended to disparage his memory. One author, 
 who wrote a History of Buckinghamshire, has ventured to 
 announce that Lord Verney was so closely attached to 
 Lord North and Fox, that in his zeal he gave Burke 
 ;C20,ooo to purchase Butler's Court. Fox had not even 
 entered the House of Commons when the purchase was 
 contracted for. Burke was at that time in the height of 
 opposition — resolute opposition — to Lord North. But the 
 money of the two mortgages at least was not supplied by 
 the liberality of Lord Verney. This was honestly repaid 
 in 18 1 2, when it was deducted out of the produce of the 
 sale of the property. 
 
 Another authority, Mr. M'Cormick, gives Lord Rock- 
 ingham the merit of the entire advance of £20,000. 
 Lord Verney, who became involved in much embarrass- 
 ment, and who may have had pecuniary transactions with 
 William Burke, afterwards, about 1779, made a general 
 demand against Edmund, which he repeated in 1782, but 
 without specifying its nature or amount; and in June, 1783, 
 filed a bill in Chancery stating that in, or shortly before, 
 1769, he had been applied to by William Burke to advance 
 :^6,ooo, to be secured by bond and the assignment of a 
 
164 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 mortgage from Edmund, and that in March, 1769, he paid 
 the ;^6,ooo to the account of Joseph Hickey, an attorney 
 of WilHam or Edmund Burke, and that it was, soon after 
 the month of March, applied for the benefit of Edmund 
 Burke, in the discharging the money then due on his estate. 
 Now, in the first place, this is a mere unsupported asser- 
 tion of a man who appears then involved in several suits 
 in Chancery ; William Burke was absent in India, and no 
 account is given as to the drawing out of the money so as 
 to show how it was in fact applied, or for whose use or 
 benefit. It does not appear that any bond from Edmund 
 had ever been required, or any assignment of a mortgage 
 or other security whatsoever for any such advance. All 
 the incumbrances had been paid off in February, and yet 
 the statement in the bill is, that Lord Verney paid in the 
 ;^6,ooo on the 14th March, and that it was applied for the 
 benefit of Edmund Burke after the said month of March. 
 
 But we have the sworn answer of Edmund Burke to 
 the unsworn statements of this bill. In this, Burke denies 
 that he ever had authorized any application to Lord 
 Verney for such a loan, or that he ever obtained it, or that 
 Hickey was concerned as his attorney or agent, though he 
 may have been attorney for William Burke ; that the 
 money he required was voluntarily offered by another 
 friend, and did not come from Lord Verney, and was 
 applied on or about the 20th or 21st February, 1769, in 
 discharge of the incumbrances. It does not appear that 
 Lord Verney ever took a further step in the suit — in fact, 
 he was completely put out of Court. Whatever may have 
 been his money transactions with William Burke, however 
 the balance would have stood between them, there is no 
 ground whatsoever on which a charge could then have 
 been fastened on the property, or an imputation on the 
 character, of Edmund. The contract for the purchase was 
 completed early in 1768. According to the arrangement, 
 as we now see it in all its parts, Burke could not have 
 required more than one or two thousand pounds (if so 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 165 
 
 much), in addition to what he may reasonably be supposed 
 to have had of his own. What could have been more 
 natural than for the Marquis of Rockingham to have 
 offered whatever he might require on the occasion ? What 
 could be more creditable to all parties than the simple 
 solution, which is now confirmed by the letter of Lord 
 Fitzwilliam ? And, just as in the case of Clogher, it was 
 not until after the lapse of years that any complaint was 
 preferred. " Believe me," said Bishop O'Beirne, " if there 
 be an obscure point in the life or conduct of Edmund 
 Burke, the moment the explanation arrives, it will be 
 found to redound to his honour." I have found it so, in 
 the two instances to which I have been induced to direct 
 my attention by the insinuations of the anonymous assail- 
 ants in the Notes and Queries of very recent date. 
 
 The last of these attacks shows the animus with which 
 all have been written. Two autographs of Edmund Burke 
 — a bond and bill of exchange — were bought in July last, 
 and these have been formally published in the Notes and 
 Queries of the 26th April, in order to show that Edmund 
 Burke had been in great want of money, and had very 
 little credit. What a miserable attempt at calumny is 
 this ! The English trader, who had just invested some of 
 the gains of speculation in an estate, in the pride of an 
 upstart, said to a noble lord : " After all, my Lord, who is 
 this Mr. Burke that they make such a fuss about ? Why, 
 he is nobody. He has not got our number of acres, my 
 Lord!' But that men, connected in any way with the 
 literature of England, should stoop to the task-work of 
 slandering the memory of Edmund Burke — sneering at 
 his "honest poverty" — the honourable efforts by which 
 he sought to relieve the severity of his toilsome and 
 laborious life— his desire to gain a position which might 
 increase his influence without any compromise of his 
 independence — that, without any solid imputation upon 
 his honour and integrity — against the evidence that points 
 to the simple, natural conclusion on which no unworthy 
 
1 66 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 suspicion ought to be suffered to cast even a passing 
 shadow — that they who should be the foremost in the 
 defence should be the fiercest in the assault upon his 
 honoured name and memory — is deeply to be lamented. 
 Have they forgotten the well-known history of Crabbe, 
 or of Barry — the noble generosity, the genial sympathy, 
 of Edmund Burke towards the unbefriended, struggling 
 sons of genius ? " He is not with me, nor I dare say with 
 you, the less a hero for being unfortunate," writes Edmund 
 Burke of Emin, the Armenian. " He has attempted great 
 things, gone through infinite labours and infinite perils, and 
 is at last where he set out, poor and friendless in Bengal!' 
 {J)ublin Univ. Mag., May, 1833.) This was his very title 
 to Burke's special interference on his behalf It was the 
 same in the case of Barry and of Crabbe. " To esteem a 
 man's being friendless as a recommendation — dejection 
 and incapacity of struggling through the world as a 
 motive for assisting him — in a word, to consider these 
 circumstances of disadvantage, which are usually thought 
 a sufficient reason for neglect and overlooking a person, 
 as a motive for helping him forward — this is the course of 
 benevolence which compassion marks out and directs us 
 to ; this is that humanity which is so peculiarly becoming 
 our nature and circumstances in this world." Such is the 
 mild wisdom, such are the monitory words of Butler. 
 Slanderers of Edmund Burke, go and do likewise ! Miser- 
 able and pointless, indeed, is the last effort to dishonour 
 his good name. Richard Burke, the younger brother of 
 Edmund, was called to the Bar in 1778, and the bond 
 which has been so heartlessly paraded is probably the 
 common security which was required to be lodged before 
 the call. It was executed by Richard and Edmund Burke 
 to Christopher Hargrave, of Lincoln's Inn. The bill is for 
 £Z77> in favour of William Burke, who was just about 
 leaving England for India, and may have required, either 
 as a repayment or an advance, this sum of money. It is 
 not a little remarkable that, just about this period, a 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 167 
 
 number of the Roman Catholics of Dublin, in their ap- 
 preciation of the services of Edmund Burke, in procuring 
 a relaxation of the penal code, had resolved on presenting 
 him with a sum of five hundred guineas, as a token of their 
 gratitude, which he unhesitatingly declined. If he was 
 then pressed in his private circumstances, the more credit- 
 able was his spirit of independence ; if the bill was given 
 to William Burke merely as a matter of convenience at the 
 time, the insinuation attempted is as baseless as it is un- 
 generous. 
 
 I must pass hastily over the great plan of economical 
 reform which he introduced in 1780. Lord Russell says : 
 "It is one of the greatest achievements of his eloquence." 
 It was a good beginning ; it helped to purify the channel 
 of government, and to raise the moral character of the 
 House of Commons. He looked to a plan of retrench- 
 ment, the reduction of sinecures and emoluments, the 
 abolishing of occasions for peculation and jobbing, the 
 abating of the corrupt influence of the Court party, or of 
 the Minister of the day, as a more urgent and more practi- 
 cal measure of reform, than organic changes in the repre- 
 sentation, which might only open a wider field for the 
 exercise of that very influence which he sought to eradicate. 
 As on other great occasions, he had mastered his new 
 subject in all its aspects and its details. He presented it 
 in one complete, comprehensive exposition ; his object was 
 to economize on principle. He kept in view the leading 
 maxim, that efficiency leads to economy, and that a service 
 which is made thoroughly efficient in all its departments, 
 is the most likely to be the least expensive to the country. 
 In all the movements of progress patience and perseverance 
 are required. There is a time of preparation — a sowing of 
 the seed — a growth — a ripening — and a harvest. When the 
 Rockingham Cabinet returned to office early in 1782, Burke 
 was himself appointed to the office of Paymaster. Lord 
 Rockingham may have at first selected this for him, in con- 
 sideration of his fidelity to his party, and his invaluable 
 
1 63 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 services as their chief counsellor. The emoluments of the 
 office made it one of the most lucrative, and the receipt of 
 these emoluments continued long after the tenure of the 
 office had expired. The balances usually in the hands of 
 the Paymaster were considerably in excess of the require- 
 ments of the service, thereby enabling him to realize large 
 sums by retaining the interest, for which he was not 
 accountable. Upon his resignation, he was permitted, and 
 if he died, his representative was permitted, to retain the 
 balance until the final adjustment of his accounts by the 
 auditors. This was generally delayed for several years to 
 come. After Burke's great speech in February, 1780, when 
 he was supported by William Pitt in his maiden speech 
 that was so favourably received at the time, Lord North 
 had to take up the matter, and appoint Commissioners to 
 enquire into the state of the public accounts, and Burke 
 was enabled to give effect to his own policy, and the report 
 of the Commissioners, by the measure which he introduced 
 and carried in June, 1782. The Paymaster was made 
 merely the hand by whom the army services should be 
 paid, but no longer allowed to be the banker of the army. 
 The custody of the cash was transferred to the Bank of 
 England ; the salary was reduced to ;^4,ooo a-year during 
 the tenure of office, without the banking profits. Edmund 
 wrote on the 24th April, 1782, to William Burke — "The 
 office is to be reformed according to the bill ; there is 
 enough of emoluments ; in decency it could not be more." 
 He was the first Paymaster who gave up to the public the 
 large profits that had been previously considered as the 
 rightful emoluments of the Paymaster not only during the 
 tenure of his office, but afterwards until his accounts were 
 audited and closed. The auditing came on in a settled 
 course of rotation, and so as to give abundant opportunity 
 to each who held the office to make his fortune at the pub- 
 lic expense. When it is remembered that in this way Lord 
 Holland, who had been Paymaster, had realized for his own 
 profit, after his resignation in 1765, until 1778, when his 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 1 69 
 
 accounts were audited and closed, about £24S,^g4 of in- 
 terest on his balances, and that Edmund Burke secured for 
 the public benefit all the proceeds beyond the bare salary 
 of ;^4,ooo a-year to the Paymaster for the time being, him- 
 self being the first to accept the reduced allowance — we 
 may be the less surprised at the payment of ;^ 140,000 by 
 Lord Holland, for the gambling debts of his son Charles 
 James Fox, and the more surprised at some of the calum- 
 nies that have been hatched in Holland House against 
 Edmund Burke. For the present, I would simply say — 
 
 " Look here, upon this picture, and on this." 
 
 It was at this time (June, 1782) that Miss Burney first 
 met Burke at dinner, in the hospitable mansion of Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, at Richmond Hill. Her description of him is 
 graphic : " He is tall ; his figure is noble — his air com- 
 manding — his address graceful — his voice is clear, pene- 
 trating, sonorous, and powerful — his language is copious, 
 various, and eloquent — his manners are attractive — his con- 
 versation delightful." When she describes Richard Burke 
 as humorous and entertaining, but with a forwardness of 
 manner that she disliked, she adds, " How unlike his 
 brother !" 
 
 From all I can trace in the records of the Club in 
 Dublin, and in the Cavendish Reports, his manner in debate 
 was by no means in keeping with the matter of his 
 speeches. His accent was racy of the soil ; though he had 
 (as It is said) got Macklin (the actor) to cure his Scotch 
 friend Wedderburne of his peculiarities, he does not seem 
 to have remedied his own. His action was sometimes 
 vehement — his temper inflammable — his manner persistent ; 
 he did not modulate his voice nor sufficiently adapt himself 
 to the inexorable requirements of the Hoiise of Commons. 
 It was on great occasions — when there was a spring-tide of 
 feeling — when he had deep water and wide sea-room — that 
 his wonderful powers were exhibited, as well by the im- 
 mediate impressions of eloquence as by the enduring 
 
lyo LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 influence of his own wisdom. Nothing in his hands was 
 ephemeral. His effusions on the most passing events, on 
 the lightest things of the time, are stamped with a worth 
 and value for all time. There is an under-current of thought 
 — a wisdom in his aphorisms — which, uniting with the 
 gorgeous grandeur of his imagination, have made what he 
 thought and spoke and wrote an enduring monument. 
 Too didactic and deliberate sometimes, too curious and 
 refined in his developments for the rapid demands of gene- 
 ral debate — yet this has embalmed his eloquence. And so 
 (as Coleridge says of him in the Friend) he " has taken 
 away for Englishmen" (may I add, for Irishmen?) "all 
 cause for humiliation from the names of Demosthenes and 
 Cicero; — has left our language a bequest of glory un- 
 rivalled, and all his own, in the keen-eyed yet far-sighted 
 genius with which he has almost uniformly made the most 
 original and profound general principles of political wisdom, 
 and even the recondite laws of human passions, bear upon 
 particular measures and events. While of the harangues 
 of Pitt, Fox, and their elder compeers, on the most import- 
 ant occurrences, we retain a few unsatisfactory fragments 
 alone, the very flies and weeds of Burke shine to us through 
 the purest amber, imperishably enshrined and valuable 
 from the precious material of their embalmment." 
 
 In 1780 there was a proposal made for bringing new 
 blood into the Ministry ; and, amongst others, of getting 
 Burke and Charles James Fox to accept office. As to Fox, 
 said the old King, in communicating with Lord North, "If 
 any lucrative, not ministerial, office can be pointed out for 
 him, provided he will support the Ministry, I shall have no 
 objection to the proposition. He never had any principle, 
 and can therefore act as his interest may guide him. 
 Messrs. Townsend and Burke would be reed acquisitions'' 
 There is in this an undue severity on Fox, whose early 
 education had inflicted on him habits for which his father 
 was mainly responsible ; but under the influence of the 
 example and friendship of Burke, he had taken and main- 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 171 
 
 tained a high political position. In a letter of 26th Octo- 
 ber, 1777, Burke writes of him to his cousin, Garret Nagle, 
 on the occasion of Fox's visit to Ireland : " Don't you like 
 Charles Fox ? If you were not pleased on that short ac- 
 quaintance, you would on a further, for he is one of the 
 pleasantest men in the world, as well as the greatest genius 
 that perhaps this country has ever produced. If he is not 
 extraordinary, I assure you the British dominions cannot 
 furnish anything beyond him." {New Monthly, Vol. XIV., 
 P- S3 3") He was twenty years younger than Burke. 
 
 But the royal estimate of Burke is not a little remark- 
 able, remembering how unswerving he was on the great 
 questions in which the King took so strong an interest ; 
 how unsparing in his efforts to reduce the influence of the 
 Court, but ever with a due and dignified regard to the 
 genuine principles of the Act of Settlement, and the equi- 
 ties of the British Constitution. How was it, then, that in 
 1782 he did not get a seat in the Cabinet ? He was made 
 a Privy Councillor, it is true, and he got a valuable office ; 
 but if ever there was a man fitted for a seat in the Cabinet, 
 that man was Edmund Burke. It is often said that our 
 countrymen, with their impulsive tempers and mercurial 
 temperament, tainted with the angry controversies which 
 so often embitter and divide us, do not show the desire for 
 handling imperial policy, nor the acquaintance with the 
 larger topics of imperial government, which indicates an 
 enlightened capacity, and gives security for dealing with 
 the general interests of this great empire, with that large 
 liberality that alone deserves the name of statesmanship. 
 Whether this can be justly urged as an excuse for the 
 habitual exclusion of Irishmen from a council where Eng- 
 lish and Scotch Ministers, not always the most enlightened, 
 nor the least provincial, are unhesitatingly admitted, I will 
 not here discuss, though I cannot, indeed, deny that I feel 
 the degradation. In the case of Edmund Burke, where 
 was the wisdom so comprehensive, the knowledge of every 
 part of the empire so profound, where was the mind so 
 
172 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 enlightened ? If (as Bacon says) the general counsels, and 
 the plots and the marshalling of affairs, come best from 
 those that are learned, who was then so learned, so ready 
 in all that concerned the prosperity and the pre-eminence 
 of England, as our own Edmund Burke ? The death of 
 Lord Rockingham a few months after his return to office 
 dissolved the Cabinet. It was a great affliction to Burke 
 in every way. His exquisite sketch of his deceased friend, 
 inscribed on the monument erected to his memory, is per- 
 haps unequalled for purity and depth of feeling, tender and 
 chaste expression, for truthful and touching delineation. 
 Lord Shelburne succeeded to the office of Premier; but 
 Burke would not serve under him. He had been under- 
 mining the Rockingham Administration before the death 
 of the Marquis, but his own regime was a short one. In 
 March, 1783, Burke writes to his friend Richard Shackleton: 
 " We have demolished the Earl of Shelburne ; but in his 
 fall he has pulled down a large piece of the building ; he 
 had indeed undermined it before. This wicked man, and 
 no less weak and stupid than false and hypocritical, has 
 contrived to break to pieces the body of men whose integ- 
 rity, wisdom, and union were alone capable of giving con- 
 sistency to public measures, and recovering this kingdom 
 
 from the miserable state into which it is fallen 
 
 Adieu, my dear friend, and know the value of the sweet 
 spot of the world, and the sweet state of life, in which 
 God has placed you, far from these storms." — ("Leadbeater 
 Papers," Vol. II., p. 133.) 
 
 In the coalition Ministry which was formed under the 
 headship of the Duke of Portland, Burke resumed his office 
 of Paymaster, but again without a seat in the Cabinet. In 
 1784 this Ministry was broken up by the King, in conse- 
 quence of the celebrated India Bill ; but before I take up 
 the memorable part of the life of Burke connected with the 
 affairs of India, I may notice one or two matters collateral 
 which will be interesting to many. It has been said that 
 before he began his political life, he had sought the Chair 
 of Logic in the University of Glasgow. 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 173 
 
 I have been informed by my respected friend Professor 
 Buchanan, that from all- he has ever learned on the subject, 
 the fact was, that Burke had felt his way, but did not 
 actually come forward as a candidate, when Mr. Clow was 
 elected. In 1784, when he was chosen to be Lord Rector, 
 on his visit for the purpose of Installation, he was accom- 
 panied from Edinburgh by Lord Lauderdale, Adam Smith, 
 Dugald Stewart, and Professor Dalzel, who has recorded 
 that Burke was highly gratified with his reception. He was 
 re-elected in the following year. "In my early College 
 days " (says Professor Buchanan, in a letter to me) " there 
 was a floating tradition among our collegians, that at one 
 part of his speech, in his inaugural address, he suddenly 
 paused and got embarrassed, but that, quickly recovering 
 himself, he adroitly turned his hesitation to rhetorical ac- 
 count, ascribing his embarrassment to the circumstance 
 that he had not been accustomed to address so learned an 
 audience." Mr. Dalzel, quite as full of admiration of Burke 
 as Johnson himself was, has noticed his rare conversational 
 powers, and has added that " when dining with the Uni- 
 versity after the ceremony of the Installation, he delighted 
 everybody." No report of his address has been preserved. 
 
 There is an anecdote of Burke which has always struck 
 me as affording one of the most striking and beautiful 
 proofs of the largeness and childlike lovingness of his Chris- 
 tian heart. He was returning at night from the House of 
 Commons, when he was accosted by a female, whose tone 
 and manner caught his attention. A poor victim of sin 
 and shame, she was now wayfaring, deserted, and destitute. 
 He began to moralize, she to implore his charity ; she told 
 him her tale of sorrow — it went straight to his heart. By 
 this time he had reached the home which was always to 
 him a refuge from his cares. Here he had befriended 
 Barry ; here he had saved for mankind the genius of the 
 poet Crabbe. The suppliant now before him was but a 
 poor child of misfortune — her touching story spoken with 
 the idiom of truth, that falsehood cannot imitate ; her 
 
174 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 seeming desolation touched his sj'mpathizing heart — ^just 
 as his door was opened to admit himself. " Are you will- 
 ing," said he, "to give up your present life of sin?" He 
 was answered with that fervour which marked the sudden 
 transition from despair to hope. She would, indeed she 
 would. " Walk in then," said he. He directed her to be 
 taken care of, and in the morning handed her over to the 
 charge of his faithful wife. I have never heard what was 
 her destiny afterwards ; but the God of love and mercy — 
 He who delivered her by the hand of His servant from the 
 depth of her desolation — could also save her from her sin ; 
 and His Word has assured us " that he which converteth 
 the sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from 
 death, and shall hide a multitude of sins." 
 
 It would appear that in 1779, when a proposition had 
 been on foot for bringing in some of the Rockingham party 
 into the Ministry, one of the reasons for their refusal to join 
 was this, that the question of the East India Company and 
 their possessions was not at all noticed. They looked upon 
 it as of vital consequence. Lord Clive had returned to Eng- 
 land in 1767, and he writes at that time to a friend : " It is 
 certain that both the Directors and Parliament are superla- 
 tively ignorant of our affairs abroad ; notwithstanding the 
 great lights received in the late enquiries, yet still they re- 
 main in the dark, and comprehend nothing about it." In 
 1766 Burke had spoken on the subject in the House. Of 
 this speech Flood wrote to Lord Charlemont — " Our friend 
 Burke acquitted himself very honourably." Sir M. Fether- 
 stonehaugh wrote to Lord Clive — " The finest piece of 
 oratory was Burke's." In taking his survey of the empire 
 of England at that early time, India was not overlooked. 
 In Grote's " History of Greece" (Vol. XII., p. 357) the 
 learned author refers to the distinction which Aristotle drew 
 for his royal pupil Alexander between the colonies of 
 Greeks and the barbarians (non Hellenes) ; he recom- 
 mended him to behave to the former as a leader or presi- 
 dent or limited chief — to the latter as a master. This 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 175 
 
 distinction (says Mr. Grote) substantially coincides with 
 that pointed out by Burke in his speeches at the beginning 
 of the American War, between the principles of government 
 proper to be followed by England in the American Colo- 
 nies and in British India. Aristotle had noted the differ- 
 ence between Europeans and Asiatics. The former were 
 courageous and energetic, but wanting in intelligence or 
 power of political combination ; the latter intelligent and 
 clever in contrivance, but destitute of courage. And Mr. 
 Grote well observes, that the distinction intended by Aris- 
 totle was between a greater and a less measure of extra 
 popular authority — not between kind and unkind purposes 
 in the exercise of authority. India required the exercise of 
 power guided by wisdom and restrained by justice ; but 
 avarice and ambition had usurped the office of assessors to 
 an authority which had originated in commerce and was 
 established by conquest. I need not go behind the enquiries 
 which took place before the Secret and the Select Com- 
 mittees of the House of Commons in 1781. Dundas, the 
 Lord Advocate, presided over the one, aided by Francis, 
 who had been for several years a member of the Bengal 
 Council. Burke was the most diligent member of the Select 
 Committee. The scenes and transactions disclosed to these 
 Committees exposed a course of policy carried on under 
 Warren Hastings, which Lord Russell has tersely and truly 
 described as " conceived in an Indian spirit of trick, perfidy, 
 cruelty, and falsehood. His means were violent, his end 
 was subversive of morality." He had baffled every attempt 
 at local enquiry ; and the well-known fate of the Brahmin 
 Nuncomar had made all accusation terrible; not to himself, 
 but to his accusers. Dundas brought the matter fully be- 
 fore the House of Commons, who at his instance resolved, 
 in effect, that Hastings should be recalled ; that he had in 
 sundry instances acted in a manner repugnant to the honour 
 and policy of the nation, and thereby brought great calam- 
 ities on India ; and that the policy pursued deserved some 
 signal mark of the displeasure of Parliament. This was 
 
176 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 confirmed by the Directors ; but the proprietors of Indian 
 , stock, only concerned in the gains and profits, and caring 
 not about the means, however cruel or perfidious, by which 
 their dividends were increased, interposed and reversed the 
 order of the Directors. Thus he was enabled to baffle Par- 
 liamentary control, as he had already defeated every attempt 
 at local enquiry. 
 
 Indian conquests at this time gratified the national 
 pride, which had been humiliated by the loss of America, 
 and so may have much influenced the estimate then formed 
 of Clive and Hastings. "A man," says Butler, "whose 
 temper is formed to ambition or covetousness, shall even 
 approve of them sometimes in others." The lust of private 
 gain, and the love of national glory, were sufficient to 
 transfigure the tyranny over the feeble and oppressed 
 Hindoo, and to dignify it with the title of the British Go- 
 vernment of India. England had begun to forget what 
 her great Bishop had told the House of Lords in 1740, that 
 " the fundamental laws of all governments are virtuous 
 ones, prohibiting treachery, injustice, cruelty ; and the law 
 of reputation enforces those civil laws by rendering these 
 vices everywhere infamous." Several years had elapsed 
 since Burke had nobly written : " The poorest being that 
 crawls on earth, contending to save itself from injustice 
 and oppression, is an object respectable in the eyes of God 
 and man." This was in his letter to the sheriffs of Bristol 
 in 1777, in which he has also said : " Nor can any reason 
 whatever be given why one people should voluntarily yield 
 any degree of pre-eminence to another but on a supposition 
 of great affection and benevolence towards them." He 
 threw himself heart and soul into this Indian enquiry, with 
 a diligence never surpassed ; his giant intellect grappled 
 with questions the most abstruse — language, laws, and 
 customs — the history and the habits of the millions who 
 had been brought under our dominion ; his elevated 
 morality, his passion for justice, his large and generous 
 heart constrained him to track Warren Hastings in all his 
 
EDMUND BURKE. I77 
 
 crooked deviations from the immutable standard of that 
 eternal equity whose seat is the bosom of God. He vexed 
 his righteous soul over the career of Hastings, until at last 
 he felt that he had a mission to unmask and denounce the 
 wrongs of the oppressor. 
 
 The independence of America and the legislative 
 equality of Ireland had been recently acknowledged during 
 his tenure of office. The India Bill of Fox was the next 
 great measure of policy. The speech of Burke in its sup- 
 port is indeed much to be remembered — much for its 
 glowing eloquence, more for its lofty wisdom. The fate of 
 that Bill, the fate of the ministry by which it was proposed, 
 the undue influence of the Sovereign, and the servility of 
 the Peers, we can look back upon with complacency ; but 
 how must they have affected the spirit of Edmund Burke ? 
 Still he was not daunted ; and in the new Parliament, under 
 Pitt as Premier, upon which the influence of the Hastings 
 party (and their name was legion) had been brought to 
 bear at the General Election, he made his memorable speech 
 on the Nabob of Arcot's debts, which exposed the frauds 
 and corruptions of Indian Mammonism, and brought before 
 the conscience of England the iniquity, the cruelty, and the 
 oppression of her Indian rule. The distance of these 
 scenes, the ignorance and the indifference of the English 
 public, the opportunity for avarice and ambition to riot 
 uncontrolled, the energy and the boldness with which 
 Hastings carried forward his work of conquest, the in- 
 fluence exercised by means of the Indian patronage, of 
 which so many families in England had the benefit, and by 
 means of the plunder in which so many adventurers par- 
 took ; besides all this, the inflamed prejudices of the 
 Sovereign against the authors and supporters of the India 
 Bill — must it not have been almost a forlorn hope for 
 Burke to persevere further in the exposure or accusation 
 of Hastings ? 
 
 But he was resolved. He had a moral mission. He 
 saw that this great empire in India could only be maintained 
 
 N 
 
178 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 by a moral title, by the exercise of a righteous authority-w 
 that England would not be allowed to hold India, merely 
 to place her Belial and her Mammon among the gods of 
 the heathen. Hastings had returned to England, and 
 Burke soon commenced his celebrated course of impeachr 
 ment. 
 
 When he opened his first charge in the House of Com- 
 mons, Dundas, who was then Secretary for India, and had 
 been in communication with Hastings, seemed as if pre- 
 pared to screen him if he could ; but there stood recorded 
 his own resolutions carried in 1782. He shuffled — he 
 thought Hastings had been highly culpable, but not criniU 
 nally responsible — and then relied on the staleness of the 
 charge, and the recent acts of Hastings since the con- 
 demnatory resolutions, which he set off against his former 
 delinquencies. No man, except Burke or Francis, was 
 better acquainted with the whole matter than Dundas ; he 
 had evidently prepared Pitt to support Hastings, whose 
 powerful influence in Parliament had been given to the 
 Ministry, and the general understanding was, that the 
 friends of the Government should vote against the impeach- 
 ment. On the first charge, therefore, Burke was beaten ; 
 but Pitt had not spoken on this charge, but had anxiously 
 listened to the debate, and evidently been shaken in his 
 reliance on Dundas. On the second charge he spoke. For 
 a short time he seemed to be the apologist, but suddenly 
 became the accuser. This took the House by surprise ; it 
 was sudden and unexpected. He came over beside Wilber- 
 force, and told him he could no longer in conscience stand 
 by Hastings. The simple and natural explanation is, I am 
 confident, the true one : he had depended on Dundas, but 
 the debate undeceived him ; his clear intellect, his con- 
 science, and his moral conviction told him that the attempt 
 to screen such a delinquent was unrighteous and unjustifi- 
 able. The charges were carefully sifted ; Hastings was 
 heard at the bar of the House in his own defence ; ample 
 time was given for the most complete consideration of the 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 179 . 
 
 case in all its bearings; Pitt, aided by Dundas, minutely 
 and carefully examined into the charges, the evidence, and 
 the defence. What was the result ? " The truth is " (says 
 Dundas, in a letter to Lord Cornwallis) " when we exa- : 
 mined the various articles of charges against him, with his 
 defences, they were so strong, and the defences so perfectly 
 unsupported, it was impossible not to concur." On the 
 second reading of the resolutions, which were finally agreed . 
 to in Committee, and afterwards proposed to the House,; 
 Pitt spoke without reserve. After referring to the crimi- 
 nality of several parts of the different charges, he said : " In 
 all of these, there were instances of the most violent acts of 
 injustice, tyranny, and oppression — acts which had never 
 been attempted to be vindicated except on the plea of, 
 necessity ; what that necessity was had never been proved ;, 
 but there was no necessity whatsoever which could excuse 
 such actions as these, attended with such circumstances." 
 After pointing out what might be a case of necessity, he 
 said : " But was this the principle on which Mr. Hastings 
 went ? No, he neither avowed the necessity nor the exac-, 
 tion ; he made criminal charges, and, under the colour of 
 them, he levied heavy and inordinate penalties, seizing that 
 which, if he had a right to take it at all, he would be highly 
 criminal in taking in such a shape, but which, having no 
 right to take, the mode of taking it rendered it much more, 
 heinous and culpable." In reference to the charge as tQ 
 Cheyt Sing, he said that Hastings was " doubly criminal, 
 for the offence of rapacity and extortion, and for creating 
 the necessity of that offence by prodigality and profusion j 
 and a still higher aggravation arose from the manifest and 
 palpable corruption attending that prodigality ; to what 
 else could be attributed the private allowances made to 
 Heyden Beg Khan, the minister of the Nabob Vizier, and 
 the sums paid to the Vakeel of Cheyt Sing, when it is; 
 remembei;ed that the one led the way to the treaty of 
 Chunar, and the other to the revolution in Benares ?" Nor 
 was all this to be compared in any respect with the inveSf 
 
i8q lectures, essays, and letters. 
 
 tigation of a grand jury. There had been the laborious 
 enquiries of two Committees, who had made no less than 
 seventeen reports ; and also a full and protracted inves- 
 tigation before the House itself, with liberty to Hastings to 
 make his own defence ; and then the deliberate and careful 
 revision by Pitt himself, having at his side the most com- 
 petent man in the House to guide him circumspectly, and 
 not the least willing to relieve Hastings from the criminal 
 charge. So complete and conclusive was the result, that 
 when Burke moved at last, " that there is ground for im- 
 peaching the said Warren Hastings of high crimes and 
 misdemeanours," the resolution was carried without the 
 appearance of one dissenting vote. Lord Russell justly 
 observes: "There is no sufficient reason to doubt the jus- 
 tice of a decision by which crimes committed in the East 
 were subjected to a prosecution founded on the general 
 maxims of law and the eternal precepts of morality." 
 Who has not lingered over the description of the pomp 
 and pageantry of that scene in Westminster Hall at the 
 opening of the impeachment, which Macaulay has so ex- 
 quisitely painted in his brilliant colours, still fresh and 
 glowing? Fanny Burney was there, inhaling the Court 
 influence, which had transformed Hastings into a martyr ; 
 she describes Burke as he entered the Hall : " He held a 
 scroll in his hand, and walked alone, his brow knit with 
 corroding care and deep labouring thought — a brow how 
 different to that which had proved so alluring to my warm- 
 est admiration when first I met him, so highly as he had 
 been my favourite, so captivating as I had found his man- 
 ners and conversation in our first acquaintance, and so 
 much as I had owed to his zeal and kindness to me and 
 my affairs, in its progress. How did I grieve to behold 
 him now the cruel prosecutor (such to me he appeared) of 
 an injured and innocent man." And then, as to the speech 
 of Burke : " All I had heard of his eloquence, and all I had 
 conceived of his great abilities, was more than answered by 
 his performance. Nervous, clear, and striking, was almost 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 181 
 
 all he uttered." She then describes some of his digressions, 
 and his agreeable irregularity, and adds : " When he nar-r 
 rated, he was easy, flowing, and natural ; when he de- 
 claimed, energetic, warm, and brilliant. The sentiments he 
 interspersed were as nobly conceived as they were highly 
 coloured. His satire had a poignancy of wit that made it 
 as entertaining as it was penetrating ; his allusions and 
 quotations, as far as they were English, and within my 
 reach, were apt and ingenious ; and the wild and sudden 
 flight of his fancy, bursting forth from his creative imagina- 
 tion, in language fluent, forcible, and varied, had a charm 
 for my ear and my attention wholly new and perfectly 
 irresistible." In Lord Auckland's " Memoirs," lately pub- 
 lished, there are some letters which refer to this scene, 
 Mr. Storer, who figures much in the book, speaks of " the 
 Pro-consul of Asia attacked by the Irishman Burke ;" but 
 afterwards he says of the speech : " He was very cool, and 
 was not extravagant in action, tone, or manner, as you 
 have often seen him in the House of Commons." Again : 
 " The manners, at least the hours, of London, are com- 
 pletely changed. Everybody is up by 9 o'clock ; the 
 ladies have finished their toilette by that time, and are at 
 the door of Westminster Hall, pressing and squeezing to 
 get good places within. Wonderful have been the effects 
 of Burke's eloquence. Even she who has drawn tears from 
 so many others, has shed them on hearing Mr. Burke's 
 description of India. Mrs. Siddons, they say, was, like 
 Niobe, all tears, and Mrs. Sheridan fainted away." 
 
 There is a letter of Lord Sheffield to Mr. Eden which 
 deserves notice. " Burke's charges made a very consider- 
 able impression and alteration in the silly public ; but as 
 none but downright enemies to Hastings will come forward 
 to give evidence against him, and as such evidence will be 
 slighted, and arguments alone will not do, I suppose the 
 opinions in the end will not be unfavourable to Hastings." 
 His Lordship adds, that Hastings had declared in his de- 
 fence that profit was a justifiable and proper motive for 
 going to war. 
 
182 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 In the Committees of the House of Commons all the 
 evidence which could bring the whole truth forward was 
 got at, without any technical obstructions. Besides, before 
 the House itself, the accused was heard on his own behalf — 
 a privilege which is always favourable to innocence, but 
 generally fatal to guilt. There he was convicted. At the 
 bar of the Lords he had all the benefit of the narrow rules 
 of evidence by which at that time the truth was kept back, 
 and, witnesses adverse to the prosecution or treacherous to 
 the prosecutors were enabled so to guard their evidence as 
 to defeat justice — rules which have since been condemned 
 and repealed. Indeed, the India Bill of Mr. Pitt had recog- 
 nised the insufficiency of English procedure to get at the 
 truth, in the case of offences committed in India, which 
 deserved condemnation in England. With all this Burke 
 had to contend, and the advocates of Hastings did not 
 scruple to avail themselves of every crotchet which could 
 embarrass. They declined any defence until all the charges 
 were exhausted, thus accumulating difficulty and heaping 
 up confusion. Had each charge been taken separately, a 
 conviction on some would probably have been had. But 
 the adjournments and delays, the discussions on evidence, 
 the whining of Hastings himself, the wrangling of the 
 lawyers, the occasional vehemence of Burke, excited by 
 moral indignation and physical temperanient, all contri- 
 buted to nauseate the public, who at last began to think 
 that all this perseverance in accusation savoured somewhat 
 of persecution. 
 
 I have observed that Hastings himself made his own 
 defence in the Commons, and the insufficiency of his 
 defence had been noticed by Dundas in his letter to Lord 
 Cornwallis. In the Lords he had the protection of the rule 
 of law which does not admit the accused to be made a 
 witness. But we are told that whilst listening to Burke's 
 speech, he felt, for at least half an hour, such a deep sense of 
 his guilt, that it was not until he took refuge in his own 
 contemplations, that his conscience was quieted. If he was 
 
EDMUND BURKE. I'gj" 
 
 really guilty, this is all quite natural ; if he was not guilty, 
 I am unable to explain it. " Those courses," says Butler, 
 "which if men would fairly attend to the dictates of their 
 own consciences, they would see to be corruption, excess, 
 oppression, uncharitableness ; these are refined upon— 
 things were so and so circumstantiated — great difficulties ^ 
 were raised about fixing bounds and degrees ; and thus ' 
 every moral obligation whatever may be avoided. Here is 
 scope for an unfair mind to explain away every moral" 
 obligation to itself" Again he says : " There is not a word 
 in our language which expresses more detestable wicked- 
 ness than oppression ; yet the nature of this vice cannot be" 
 so exactly stated, nor the bounds of it so determinately 
 marked, as that we shall be able to say, in all instances, 
 where rigid right and justice end and oppression begins.' 
 In these cases there is great latitude left for everyone to 
 determine for and consequently to deceive himself." 
 
 Erskine, when he defended the publishers of a defence 
 of Hastings whilst the impeachment was pending, made 
 the " bold bad" case for him, that the British dominion in 
 India had been acquired, and could only be maintained, by 
 fraud and force. Other eminent men have rather recom- 
 mended him to mercy than made out his defence ; they 
 mix up the gains and the successes of his policy with his 
 Cruelties and his crimes, and, by a kind of set-oiT, seek to 
 reduce the criminality. Macaulay takes into account the' 
 school in which he was brought up, and the temptations he 
 had to encounter ; but give me leave to say, that these were 
 not the matters for Burke to consider when he had to deal 
 with a system of government on which the happiness of 
 millions of the feeble and oppressed, the fate of an empire,' 
 and the character of England depended. To penetrate 
 with an elevated morality English dominion in India, was 
 the teaching of his philosophy, the great object of his 
 righteous efforts. He had to expose and denounce a course 
 of cupidity and fraud, of rapacity and oppression. 
 
 " The mind of Burke," says Lord Russell (and he speaks 
 
1 84 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 in this with the spirit and in the tone of a true English 
 statesman), " comprehended the vast extent of the question, 
 and his genius animated the heavy mass of materials which 
 his industry had enabled him to master. For years he 
 persevered in his great task. Neither the dilatory plea of 
 a dissolution of Parliament, nor the appalling earthquake 
 of the French Revolution (to none more appalling than to 
 him), ever distracted his attention from his great Indian 
 enterprise. The speeches delivered by him in Westminster 
 Hall are great monuments of industry and eloquence ; they 
 surpass in power those of Cicero when denouncing the 
 crimes of Verres. Finally, though the impeachment ended 
 in an acquittal, its results were memorable and beneficial. 
 Never has the great object of punishment, the prevention of 
 crime, been attained more completely than by this trial. 
 The Lords and Commons of England, assembled in West- 
 minster Hall, in the presence of the judges, the bar, the 
 aristocracy, and the public, heard the whole record of Indian 
 transactions unrolled before them, and the acts of our agents 
 brought to the test of English law and Christian morality. 
 No palliation, no plea of necessity, could alter the character 
 of those acts ; and no man who could aspire to civil or 
 judicial authority in India would ever dare to repeat con- 
 duct which, during seven years of a solemn process, before 
 an august tribunal, had been denounced as wicked, oppres- 
 sive, perfidious, rapacious, and cruel. The conscience of 
 mankind was brought in presence of negotiations, treaties, 
 usurpations, conquests, veiled in the haze of an obscure 
 distance, and covered by the jungle of strange manners and 
 uncouth phraseology. The sentence was pronounced not by 
 the peers, but by the universal opinion of right and wrong. 
 Mr. Hastings was acquitted ; but tyranny, deceit, and injus- 
 tice were condemned. India was saved from abominations 
 disgraceful to the English name, and the hands of Corn- 
 wallis, Minto, Bentinck, and Auckland have swayed an 
 empire where Cheyt Sing was despoiled and Nuncomar 
 was executed." 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 185 
 
 The Chancellor (Lord Loughborough) voted for a con- 
 viction. But the tribunal that had stooped to the royal 
 mandate, in throwing out the India Bill, was not likely to 
 be very scrupulous about the acquittal of Hastings. Lord 
 Campbell, indeed, has intimated more than his doubts as 
 to the sound judgment or right feeling with which Burke 
 managed the prosecution ; but he was scarcely competent 
 to pronounce on this. It was not an Old Bailey indict- 
 ment. The tribunal was political ; management would 
 have been unavailing. No one, indeed, ought to have known 
 better than Lord Campbell that the best managed prose- 
 cution could be defeated, even in the House of Lords, 
 notwithstanding the establishment of the guilt of the 
 accused. 
 
 Burke's was a noble proceeding, if we can appreciate 
 the moral chivalry which sustained him to the close. The 
 best years of his mature life, with no interest but duty, with 
 no reward but from his conscience ; the unbought advocate 
 of the friendless and the oppressed, he poured forth that 
 mighty eloquence which will ever adorn our literature, 
 whilst goodness is honoured and genius is admired. The 
 grandeur of Michael Angelo, the glow of Titian, and the 
 grace of Raphael, are all here resplendent. There is not, I 
 believe, in any literature a more elevated morality or ma- 
 jestic eloquence than in that magnificent peroration with 
 which, at the close, he wound up this almost superhuman 
 effort in his last reply. 
 
 'Tis said, he was vehement, vituperative, extravagant ; 
 and language is almost exhausted in finding epithets to 
 abuse him for having been abusive. As he modestly said 
 in the House of Commons, he had been very much mis- 
 represented. But, indeed, in such a cause, and with such a 
 heart, he could not have been tame and temperate. The 
 hero who sweeps the battle-field — who plants the standard 
 of his country upon the ramparts of the enemy — may be 
 called impetuous ; it is the impulse of his chivalry which 
 has carried him triumphant. The mighty river of Egypt 
 
i86 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 is extravagant in its overflowings ; but it carries with it a 
 rich deposit, full of bounty and of blessing. The tempest 
 is extravagant when it pours forth the torrent and the 
 thunder ; yet it sets the bow of promise in the cloud — it 
 purifies the air and unveils the azure sky. The missionary 
 seems extravagant when, with burning zeal, he traverses 
 the desert and the ocean. The great Apostle seemed ex- 
 travagant even to madness ; yet, measured by a high and 
 holy standard, he spoke " the words of truth and soberness." 
 
 The labour had now worn him down. It began to tell 
 Upon his health. The angry debates on the Regency Bill 
 had also helped to shake his constitution. The sword was 
 how too sharp for the scabbard. But, when withdrawn 
 from the irritation of debate, his pen was as powerful as 
 ever. The reply of the Prince of Wales to the communica- 
 tion from Pitt, on the Regency Bill, is said by Lord Stan- 
 hope to be one of the best State Papers in the English 
 language. 
 
 " This masterly performance," he says, " came from the 
 pen of Burke ; and it may well enhance our just admiration 
 of Burke's transcendent powers, when we find him, on so 
 lofty an occasion, enabled to adopt a wholly different style, 
 lay aside his gorgeous imagery, and rise clear from those 
 ■gusts of violence in which he had so recently indulged." 
 
 About this time the French Revolution began to alarm 
 him. Early in 1790, in the debate on the Army Estimates, 
 he went at considerable length into the subject, in which 
 he spoke of England as the protector, assertor, or avenger 
 of liberty ; and of France, as at that time, in a political 
 light, expunged out of the system of Europe. At the close 
 of this eloquent speech, he said, " he was near the end of 
 his natural, probably still nearer to the end of his political 
 career ; that he was weak and weary, and wished for rest." 
 Mr. Fox spoke after him, and said, that he " had listened 
 to this speech with the greatest attention, and that, some 
 observations and arguments excepted, he admired it as one 
 •of the wisest and most brilliant flights of oratory ever 
 
£dmund burke. ' Ysy 
 
 delivered in tliat House." It was on this occasion that 
 Fox paid him that memorable compliment which, on a 
 subsequent occasion, he perverted to another purpose. 
 
 " Such was his sense of the judgment of his right hon- 
 ourable friend — such his knowledge of his principles — such 
 the value which he set upon them — and such the estimation 
 in which he held his friendship — that if he were to put all 
 the political information which he had learnt from books, 
 all which he had gained from science, and all which any 
 knowledge of the world and its affairs had taught him, into 
 one scale, and the improvement which he had derived 
 from his right honourable friend's instruction and conver- 
 sation were placed in the other, he should be at a loss to 
 decide to which to give the preference." 
 
 Fox's speech on this occasion was studiously moderate 
 and conciliatory to Burke, and calculated to impress him 
 with the conviction that there was no reason to' apprehend 
 any difference which could separate them. Sheridan, how- 
 ever, declared that he differed from him altogether as to 
 the French Revolution, and spoke so intemperately, that 
 Burke announced that he must now publicly declare that 
 he and Sheridan from henceforth were separated in politics. 
 In the end of the autumn of this year, Burke published his 
 Reflections on the Revolution in France. Of this delight- 
 ful and eloquent work, I may say, in the words of Dean 
 Bagot : — 
 
 " A book like this brings profit, and repays 
 The author's toil with European praise ; 
 This into future years prolongs his name, 
 And crowns his memory with immortal fame." 
 
 " I wish," said Horace Walpole, " I could repeat every page 
 by heart." But there is a comment on it which I value, 
 because it comes from a statesman who thoroughly under- 
 stands the English Constitution. In speaking of what h6 
 calls " the brilliant and memorable work of Mr. Burke," 
 Lord Russell says : " To all who wish to know the spirit of 
 the British Constitution, its due subordination of orders, its 
 
1 88 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 temperate solution or avoidance of difficulties, the study of 
 this book by day and by night is invaluable." He does 
 not think it is a safe guide as to the Constitution of France. 
 Soon after its publication, the Board of our University 
 agreed to mark their appreciation of Burke. On the nth 
 of December, 1790, the resolution was passed "that an 
 honorary degree of LL.D. be conferred on the Right Hon. 
 Edmund Burke, as the powerful advocate of the Constitu- 
 tion, as the friend of public order and virtue, and conse- 
 quently of the happiness of mankind, and in testimony of 
 the high respect entertained by the University, which had 
 the honour of his education, for the various endowments of 
 ,his mind, and for his transcendent talents and philanthropy." 
 This resolution was communicated to him by the Provost ; 
 and he received it on the morning of the 17th December, 
 the very day on which the important discussion began as 
 to the abatement of the impeachment of Hastings, by the 
 dissolution of Parliament. On this occasion, all the lawyers 
 were on one side, the statesmen on the other ; but the latter 
 prevailed. The reply of Burke to the Provost, which was 
 directed by the Board to be inserted in the registry of their 
 proceedings, was furnished to me by my friend Dr. Lloyd. 
 It is no inconsiderable addition to the testimonies, rich and 
 various, to the elevated feelings and character of Burke ; 
 and it confirms what I had otherwise concluded, that his 
 connection with the College had been one of early affection 
 and unabated reverence — that his College life had been 
 remembered as 
 
 " Sunshine in a shady place." 
 
 To the students of the University it speaks significantly. 
 
 " My dear Sir, — I find it difficult indeed to make a 
 proper acknowledgment to you, for the very flattering 
 mark I received of your continued friendship and partiality 
 to me, in your letter of the thirteenth of this month. This 
 proof of your private friendship is as valuable to me as the 
 public distinction which I owe to your motion, and which 
 
EDMUND BURKE. jgg' 
 
 comes through your hands, though you will believe that I 
 feel the approbation of the University as one of the greatest 
 honours which could be conferred upon me. Uhe Univer- 
 sity is, indeed, highly generous in accepting, with so much 
 indulgence, the produce of its own gifts. I am infinitely 
 happy that that learned body has been pleased to recognise, 
 in the piece it condescends to favour, the unaltered subsist- 
 ence of those principles of liberty and morality, along with 
 some faint remains of that taste of composition, which are 
 infused, and have always been infused together, into the 
 minds of those who have the happiness of being instructed- 
 by it. 
 
 " I received this most honourable testimony of your 
 approbation just as I was going to the House of Commons 
 yesterday, to recommence my tenth year's warfare against 
 the most dangerous enemy to the justice, honour, laws, 
 morals, and Constitution of this country, by which they 
 have ever been attacked — I mean the corruption which has 
 come upon us from the East, and in which I act with every- 
 thing respectable in every party in the House. Though I 
 had been for some days ill in health, and not very full of 
 spirits, your letter enabled me to go through a long and' 
 fatiguing day, if not with strength, at least with resolution. 
 I thought that the University which had bred me, called- 
 upon me not to disgrace in my last stage the lessons she 
 had taught me in the early period of my life, and I hope,' 
 old as I am, I shall prove as docile to her lessons as when 
 I was subject to her discipline. 
 
 " Excuse my not saying all that my heart would dictate 
 on this occasion, to you and the gentlemen of the Univer- 
 sity, but the consequences of a late day disable, and I hope 
 will excuse me. But believe me when I assure you, that I 
 am ever, with the most perfect respect and affection, my 
 dear Sir, 
 
 " Your most obliged and faithful humble servant, 
 
 "Edmund Burke; 
 
 " Duke Street, St. James's, 
 
 ^'■December i8, 1790." 
 
igo LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 On the isth April in the following year, in a debate on 
 the war with Russia, Mr. Fox entered again on the question 
 of the French Revolution, and wound up his speech by say- 
 ing, that " he considered the new Constitution of France as 
 the most stupendous and glorious edifice of liberty which 
 had been erected on the foundation of human integrity, in 
 any time or country." Burke immediately rose to reply, 
 but was put down by a cry of " question " by the friends of 
 Fox, though not with his approval. It is quite intelligible, 
 however, when we remember the public separation from 
 Sheridan ; and Lord Russell now lays it down in his Life 
 of Fox, that " the separation of Mr. Burke from his party, 
 was a natural consequence of the position he had assumed 
 in his book." The party had evidently resolved to get rid 
 of him, though at this time Fox had not read the book. 
 In his correspondence, there is a letter of 26th May, 1 791,, 
 to Lord Holland, in which he says : " I have not read 
 Burke's new pamphlet ; but I hear a very different account 
 of it from yours. It is in general thought to be mere mad-, 
 ness, and especially in those parts where he is for a general; 
 war, for the purpose of destroying the present government 
 of France. There is a pamphlet by one Mackintosh which 
 I hear a great character of, though it is said to go too far 
 in some respects." 
 
 Burke very legitimately expected to have the oppor-, 
 tunity of replying to the extravagant assertion of Mr. Fox 
 as to the French Constitution, and the recommitment of 
 the Canada Bill seemed to be a fitting occasion. This 
 was fixed for the 21st April. Fox called on Burke, who 
 told him what he intended to say, and showed him his, 
 authorities. There was no reserve or concealment. Fox, 
 however, was anxious that Burke should postpone the dis- 
 cussion ; but as no other more fitting occasion seemed; 
 ikely to occur, Burke declined to forego this. Theyi 
 walked together to the House, and then found that 
 Sheridan had got the discussion postponed until the 6th 
 May. A conversational discussion took place, in which 
 Fox referred to the opinion he had already expressed, and 
 
EDMUND BURKE., 19I 
 
 said that when the Bill came again to be discussed, from 
 the great respect he entertained for some of his friends, he 
 should be extremely sorry to differ from them ; but he did 
 not wish to recede from anything he had formerly advanced. 
 Burke closed the conversation in a very earnest but temperr 
 ate speech. He alluded to the pain he felt at the anticipa+ 
 tion of meeting his friend as an adversary and antagonist. 
 He referred to the way in which he had been prevented 
 from answering Fox's panegyric on the French Constitu- 
 tion, but acquitted Fox of any share in this. He added 
 that should he and his friend differ, he desired it to be 
 recollected, that however dear he considered his friendship, 
 there was something still dearer to his mind — the love of 
 his country. 
 
 I have taken this from the fourth volume of Fox's 
 speeches. I find the accounts of Lord Stanhope and Lord 
 Russell not at all sufficient to enable one to judge aright 
 of the separation question, for which it is necessary to read 
 the report of the speeches in the order of time. At the 
 end of the report of what Burke said, this follows : " Mr. 
 Fox had thus openly given a challenge which was accepted 
 by Mr. Burke, and a determination of calling the latter to 
 order was likewise avowed." 
 
 The 6th May arrived. Mr. Fox had the interval to 
 advise his friends to give Burke a fair hearing, and also 
 for himself to read the book, to enable him to judge of 
 Burke's positions. Burke began to speak, and when he 
 got into the subject of the French Constitution, he was 
 ■called to order, and an altercation began. Fox said ironi- 
 cally it was a day of privilege to abuse any government ; 
 that although nobody had said a word on the subject of 
 the French Revolution, his right honourable friend had 
 risen up and abused that event. Burke tried in vain to 
 explain why he thought himself in order, and at last Lord 
 Sheffield moved that dissertations on the French Constitu- 
 tion were not regular or orderly, &c. Fox seconded the 
 motion. Mr. Pitt, however, opposed it. Fox then prO' 
 
192 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 ceeded to make a long speech. Now before this time, be 
 it remembered, he had thrown out the challenge for the 
 discussion on this very occasion, and that too, after having 
 been fully apprised of what Burke was about to advance. 
 But he had not yet read the work which contained the 
 deliberate opinions of Burke on the Revolution. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, he argued that Burke was out 
 of order, whilst he himself went on to advert to the French 
 Revolution, on which he said he did indeed differ from his 
 right honourable friend. Their opinions, he had no scruple 
 to say, were as wide as the poles asunder, and he would not 
 retract a syllable of what he had said. He stated that " he 
 had been warned by high and most respectable authorities, 
 that minute discussion of great events without information 
 did no honour to the jjen that wrote or the tongue that 
 spoke the words." And having referred to the principles 
 on which he thought the Revolution was justified, he said 
 if such principles were dangerous to the Constitution, they 
 were the principles of his right honourable friend, from 
 whom he learned them. 
 
 It was not until I followed the discussion from its 
 opening on the 9th February, 1790, until its close in 1791, 
 that I was able to appreciate the force of Burke's " Appeal 
 to the Old from the New Whigs," or to judge correctly of 
 the share which Fox and his friends had in causing the 
 separation which followed. It would seem to me that 
 after that Burke had openly separated from Sheridan, but 
 -was given to understand by Fox that there was no likeli- 
 hood of any rupture with himself, who then spoke so tem- 
 perately and so kindly. Fox was constrained by his party 
 to go ahead, and so he began to break out on the French 
 Revolution, and at last on the debate on the Russian war 
 made his famous comment on the new Constitution. 
 
 " Alas ! they had been friends in youth : 
 But whispering tongues can poison truth, 
 And constancy lives in realms above, 
 
 And life is thorny and youth is vain : 
 And to be wroth with one we love, 
 Doth work like madness in the brain." 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 193 
 
 Fox had been taught by his party that Burke's book 
 was "mere madness," and doubtless, that the best thing 
 they could do was now to get rid of him as lumber. And 
 so, notwithstanding the challenge given and accepted on 
 the 2 1st April, and the expression of regret that Burke had 
 been prevented from replying in the debate on the Russian 
 war, and the declared opinion of Pitt that Burke was in 
 order, Fox not only supported but seconded a motion to 
 suppress the discussion on the French Revolution ; in his ' 
 speech he insinuates that Burke had written and spoken 
 without the requisite information, reiterates his encomium 
 on the Revolution, and refers to Burke as the person from 
 whom he had got his principles. A more galling and, I 
 would say, ungenerous speech, under the circumstances, I 
 could not conceive. He knew how earnest, how deep, how 
 solemn were the convictions of Burke as to the Revolution ; 
 and was he to be bearded, and bullied, and silenced by a 
 factious party now led on by his friend whom he had 
 loved and trusted ? , What could follow but a reaction of 
 feeling, necessarily causing complete political separation 
 and the loss of friendship, which Burke valued less than 
 the love of country ? 
 
 The scene which took place I do not dwell upon. The 
 last passage in Burke's will, which was written a few years 
 later, is in these words : — ■" If the intimacy which I have 
 had with others has been broken off by political differences 
 on great questions concerning the state of things existing 
 and impending, I hope they will forgive whatever of general 
 human infirmity, or of my own particular infirmity, has 
 entered into that contention. I heartily entreat their for- 
 giveness. I have nothing further to say." It was after 
 this was penned that he walked down on a summer even- 
 ing to the House of Commons, and sent in Mr. Rose, the 
 Committee Clerk, to beg of Mr, Fox to come out and see 
 a dying man. Fox instantly came ; they went into an ad- 
 joining committee-room ; Burke shed tears, and doubtless 
 there was an interchange of mutual forgiveness. Mr. Ser- 
 
194 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 geant Burke has given unexceptionable authority for this 
 interesting anecdote. It is also confirmed by the fact, 
 that Burke had visited Erskine at his residence on Hamp- 
 stead Hill, somewhat about this time. " What a prodigy 
 he was," says Erskine. " He came to see me not long be- 
 fore he died. ' Come, Erskine,' said he, holding out his 
 hand, ' let us forget all. I shall soon quit this stage, and 
 want to die in peace with everybody — especially you.' " 
 The continuation of this anecdote, as given by Lord Camp- 
 bell in his Life of Lord Erskine, has been corrected by the 
 Right Hon. Thomas Erskine, and is given in a note. 
 " Upon being conducted by my father to his garden 
 through a tunnel under the road that divided the house 
 from the shrubbery, all the beauty of Kenwood (Lord 
 Mansfield's) and the distant prospect burst upon them. 
 " Oh ! " said Burke, " this is just the place for a reformer ; 
 all the beauties are beyond your reach." 
 
 His political life had virtually closed ; he only remained 
 to finish the impeachment. He attended in the House of 
 Commons to receive the thanks of the House, which were 
 voted to the managers, and then he modestly retired to his 
 country residence, where he discharged the duties of a good 
 farmer and a good neighbour with exemplary diligence, 
 In 1792, Miss Burney met him at Mrs. Crewe's. " I esteem 
 and admire him," she says, " as the very first man of true 
 genius now living in this country. ' The French Revolu- 
 tion,' he said, 'which began authorizing and legalizing 
 injustice, and which by rapid steps had proceeded to every 
 species of despotism, except owning a despot, was now 
 menacing the universe, and all mankind, with the most 
 violent concussion of principle and order.' When he had 
 expatiated jjpon the present dangers even to English 
 liberty and property, from • the contagion of havoc and 
 novelty, he exclaimed — r' This it is that has made me an 
 abettor and supporter of kings. Kings are necessary, and 
 if we wish peace and prosperity, we must preserve them. 
 We must all put our shoulders to the work — aye, and 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 I9S 
 
 stoutly too.' On Charles Fox's name being mentioned, 
 Mrs. Crewe told us that he had lately said, upon being- 
 shown some passage in Mr. Burke's book, which he had 
 warmly opposed, but which had in the event made its own 
 justification, very candidly—' Well, Burke is right ; but 
 Burke is often right, only he is right too soon.' ' Had 
 Fox seen some things in that book as soon ' (answered 
 Burke), ' he would at this moment, in all probability, be first 
 Minister of this country.' " 
 
 I need not now go further into this question. It has 
 been handled with great ability in the Dublin University 
 Magazine, of March, 1853 — a periodical which has always 
 done justice, generously and ably, to our great Edmund. 
 Remember this — the eminent philosopher and statesman, 
 whom Fox described as " one Mackintosh," whose reply to 
 Burke was generally considered to have been the best 
 which was atternpted ; that in December, 1796, he wrote 
 to Burke-^" Since that time a melancholy experience has 
 undeceived me on many subjects, in which I was the dupe 
 of my own enthusiasm. I can with truth affirm that I sub- 
 scribe to your general principles, and am prepared to shed 
 my blood in defence of the laws and Constitution of my 
 country." I do not dwell upon the remarkable comment 
 of Dumont, or the more memorable adhesion to Burke's 
 views of our own Henry Grattan, nor do I claim for Burke 
 ■any special foresight beyond that profound and cgmpre- 
 hensive acquaintance with the course of events, and the 
 great principles of liberty and order, which he acquired by 
 study, observation, and reflection. " I learn from history," 
 says the wise and enlightened De Tocqueville, " that not 
 one of the men who witnessed the downfall of the religious 
 and social organizations that have passed away, was able 
 
 to guess or even to imagine what would ensue 
 
 But it is no less the duty of honest people to stand up for 
 the only system which they understand, and even to die for 
 it, if a better be not shown them." 
 
 It is clear, at all events, that Burke saw further than any 
 
196 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 of his contemporaries ; but if, instead of ranging himself on 
 the side of established order, he had joined with the new 
 Whigs in abetting popular excesses, and so breaking in 
 upon the genuine principles of the English Revolution, it is 
 difficult indeed to say what might have been let loose upon 
 England, and what might have swept over Europe. Those 
 who charge him with inconsistency, overlook the very 
 excellence and essence of his political philosophy, which 
 never tampered with the great and immutable principles of 
 truth and freedom, but always took into account the 
 realities and the moral facts to which those principles had 
 to be applied. There was in his syllogism what he so 
 aptly called — the minor of circumstances. The science of 
 statesmanship was not with him a dreamy discussion of 
 abstract or metaphysical theories, but a moral and a social 
 branch of inductive philosophy. 
 
 In his retirement he was visited by a deputation from 
 Trinity College who were on their way to London, in order 
 to secure, if possible, the appointment of a proper suc- 
 cessor to Hutchinson, who was then expected to resign 
 the Provostship of Trinity College, in favour of Wolfe, the 
 Attorney-General. The late Dr. Miller was one of the 
 deputation, and has given an account of what took place. 
 Lord Charlemont gave them a letter to Burke, and they 
 waited on him at his residence, and were informed he was 
 dining in the village with a party. The letter was sent to 
 him, and at eight o'clock he came to them. The conver- 
 sation was so discouraging to the deputation that they 
 thought of returning home, and whilst discussing anxiously 
 what they should do, Burke returned from his party, was 
 less discouraging, and advised perseverance, though he 
 did not expect success. They determined to proceed to 
 London at six in the morning, and when at that hour they 
 were starting, they were agreeably surprised to see Burke, 
 who had walked in from his villa to see them again, and to 
 cheer them on their way. " He told us," says Dr. Miller, 
 " that he had been thinking of our business the whole 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 197 
 
 night ; that he thought it possible we might be successful ; 
 that the effort was in any event respectable, and that he 
 wished us success with all his heart." He came up to the 
 next levee, in order (as Dr. Miller supposes) to countenance 
 the deputation. 
 
 No change took place in the Provostship until the death 
 of Hutchinson in the next year, and as this event was im- 
 pending, a report had got up, that Burke was himself to be 
 the successor. We have now two letters from Burke on 
 the subject of the appointment ; one to Mr. Windham, 
 dated the 15th August, 1794, the other to the Duke of 
 Portland, dated the 14th of September, 1794 — they are in 
 the fourth volume of the Fitzwilliam Correspondence. Burke 
 earnestly protests against such a high trust being made in 
 any way a political job. " Religion, law, and order depend 
 on this more than upon anything I know." He mentions 
 the effort made, by the deputation, and advises that the 
 place be given to one of the body — " and, for a thousand 
 reasons, only to an ecclesiastic ;" that " the sense of the body 
 should guide the choice ;" and he adds, that " it contains 
 persons of great solidity, great erudition, and very enlarged 
 and capable minds." The letter is the more interesting, 
 from his state of mind, as it was written soon after the 
 death of his loved son. The letter to the Duke of Portland 
 is strikingly beautiful, instructive, and affecting. Hodgkin- 
 soh, afterwards the Vice-Provost, was sent to the Duke, on 
 the part of the College ; he had an interview, and got his 
 assurance that all would be right. He also saw Burke, and 
 reported that these words were used by Burke : " If you 
 separate learning from religion, learning will destroy reli- 
 gion." The history of France had taught him what a 
 scourge to a nation unsanctified, unbelieving intelligence 
 might become. 
 
 The old friends of his younger days were dropping 
 away one by one. Goldsmith was gone ; Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds was gone ; Johnson was gone ; Abraham Shackleton, 
 his dear old venerated master, and, at last, Richard, his 
 
198 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 loved friend, whose affectionate attachment had never 
 abated until his heart had ceased to beat. His literary 
 friends never wavered in their attachment; the noblest 
 blood of England had sought his counsels and courted 
 his companionship. Lord Charlemont and Henry Grattan, 
 like "the high-souled Windham," loved him to the last. 
 Noscitur a so cits. 
 
 A patent for a peerage was now ordered by the King. 
 It was a tardy tribute, but still it was a graceful and gene- 
 rous recognition of services otherwise unrequited. His 
 isolation, at this time, clearly proved how high and how 
 honourable were his motives ; and whatever he wrote for 
 public purposes, his letters on France, his " Thoughts on 
 Scarcity," and other public matters, exhibited the mellowed 
 wisdom of a master mind. "It was desired," says Lord 
 Stanhope, " I cannot say, with truth, to honour Mr. Burke, 
 but rather to honour the peerage by his accession to its 
 ranks. There was also, as I have heard, the design, as in 
 other cases of rare merit, to annex by an Act of Parliament 
 a yearly income to the title during two or three lives." 
 The correspondence with Pitt is given in the very inte- 
 resting memoir of Pitt by Lord Stanhope : it is, indeed, 
 creditable to Pitt, and in some parts very touching. In the 
 midst of all this he was bowed to the earth by a stroke of 
 affliction, which left his home desolate and blighted his 
 earthly hopes. The child of his young affection — the son 
 of his bosom, whom he so tenderly loved, to whom he 
 looked as the bearer of the title he had won, and the inheri- 
 tor of the property that he had with toil and effort secured 
 — he was now cut off ; but a few months after Richard, his 
 loved brother, had been taken to his rest. All, all were 
 gone ; he was now left in solitude and sorrow. In the 
 celebrated letter which he wrote in reply to the Duke of 
 Bedford, the finest diatribe in any language, for dignified 
 rebuke, and unequalled in the solemn severity and the 
 classic beauty of its composition, he says : " The storm has 
 gone over me, and I lie like one of those old oaks which 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 199 
 
 the late hurricane has scattered about me— I am stripped 
 of all my honours, I am torn up by the roots, and lie pros- 
 trate on the earth 1 There, and prostrate there, I must 
 
 unfeignedly recognise the Divine justice I greatly 
 
 deceive myself, if, in this hard season, I would give a peck 
 of refuse wheat for all that is called fame and honour in 
 the world." 
 
 " Oh ! Thou who driest the mourner's tear, 
 How dark this world would be, 
 If when deceived and wounded here, 
 We could not fly to Thee." 
 
 He made his will. After alluding in touching terms to 
 his son's recent death, he says : " According to the ancient, 
 good, and laudable custom, of which my heart and under- 
 standing recognise the propriety, I bequeath my soul to 
 God, hoping for His mercy through the only merits of our 
 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. My body, I desire, if I 
 should die any place very convenient for its transport 
 thither (but not otherwise), to be buried in the church of 
 Beaconsfield, near to the bodies of my dearest brother and 
 my dearest son ; in all humility praying, that as we have 
 lived in perfect unity together, we may together have a part 
 in the resurrection of the just." 
 
 What a grandeur there is in this simple, solemn sur- 
 render of himself to the infinite mercy and the sovereign 
 grace of God ! The closing hours of Burke have been 
 exquisitely described by Mr. Willes in his able sketch. 
 And here let me recall the memorable conversation which 
 Boswell has recorded in the Tour to the Hebrides, when, 
 with Dr. Johnson, on a rough sea, in a small boat : " We 
 spoke of death. Dr. Johnson on this subject observed, 
 that the boastings of some men, as to dying easily, were 
 
 idle talk proceeding from partial views No, said 
 
 he, there is no rational principle by which a man can die 
 contented, but a trust in the mercy of God through the 
 merits of Jesus Christ." Disquieted through life, he found 
 peace in his dying hour, when at the last he was brought 
 
200 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 to feel this simple, child-like trust in the fulness of re- 
 deeming love. The dying words of Pitt, we learn from 
 Lord Stanhope, when rising in his bed as he spoke, and 
 clasping his hands fervently together — " I throw myself 
 entirely upon the mercy of God through the merits of 
 Christ." The wise and the learned, the scholar and the 
 statesman, here, and here only, have found rest for their 
 souls. 
 
 But I must draw to a close ; and yet what a field have 
 I left untraversed ! His admirable contributions to our 
 jurisprudence — his Libel Bill — his celebrated Report on 
 the proceedings in the House of Lords — his care of the 
 emigrants — his many works and labours of philanthropy — 
 his Negro code — his letters on the most familiar topics, all 
 bearing the stamp of genius ; many, indeed, replete with 
 his habitual wisdom ; but time would fail me to go over 
 even a summary of his rich bequests to literature, law, and 
 religion. Nor have I dwelt upon Ireland — his views of its 
 eafly history, its claims on religious liberty and commer- 
 cial freedom ; its right and title to complete equality with 
 England, and their mutual and insuperable dependence on 
 each other. It was the last public topic on which he 
 poured forth his thoughts, as he lay at Bath, emaciated 
 and exhausted, in the presence of approaching death, before 
 he was removed to Beaconsfield, there (to use his own pious 
 words) " to be nearer a habitation more permanent, humbly 
 and fearfully hoping that my better part may find a better 
 mansion." 
 
 Dear Edmund Burke — what a debt we owe to thy 
 memory ! In his lifetime a statue was suggested — sug- 
 gested here in his native city ; but his own words were — ■ 
 " Such honours belong exclusively to the tomb, the natural 
 and only period of human inconstancy with regard either 
 to desert or opinion." The time has at last arrived, and 
 now, under the generous auspices of one who loves Ireland, 
 we will begin the good work in good earnest. In Beacons- 
 field he sleeps in the grave ; no monumental marble testifies 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 201 
 
 that the life he Hved for England, or the labour he exerted 
 for France, has been gratefully remembered. A mural 
 tablet in the church, a recent inscription on brass, over the 
 spot where his remains are mouldering, the offering of a 
 few kind members of the De Burgh connection — these are 
 the memorials to this illustrious man. To him I may apply 
 the lines of his own loved Milton — 
 
 ' ' What needs my Edmund for his honoured bones 
 The labour of an age in piled stones ? 
 Or that his hallowed relics should be hid 
 Under a star-ypointing pyramid ? 
 Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, 
 What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name ? 
 Thou in our wonder and astonishment 
 Hast built thyself a living monument." 
 
 The memory of the just is blessed — and a generous 
 country will not be unmindful of her illustrious dead. 
 
 We will yet look on his statue, we will think of the 
 man ; our souls will expand with generous emotion, and 
 from the contemplation of his virtues, we may catch a por- 
 tion of his spirit. Goldsmith will be at hand. 
 
 I think I hear his gentle spirit speaking thus : — 
 
 " There stands our great Edmund, whose genius was such, 
 Some blame it indeed, none have praised it too much. 
 So large was his heart and so lofty his mind, 
 That he held not with party, but clung to mankind. 
 Too honest for tactics, and when disobedient, 
 'Twas to follow the right as the truly expedient. 
 Too upright for office, and seldom in place. 
 He has left a remembrance no time can efface." 
 
 When we call to mind how every part of his life has 
 been exposed — the correspondence so various— the critics 
 so censorious — how blameless were his morals — how gene- 
 rous his affections — his self-respect — his sustained integrity 
 in times of trial and temptation — how he remembered his 
 Creator in the days of his youth, and trusted in the God of 
 his salvation as he sank in life's decline— must we not 
 admire his virtues, and reverence his goodness, whilst we 
 
202 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Stand amazed at his wisdom, and wonder at the greatness 
 of his genius ? 
 
 Teacher of statesmen ! Saviour of states ! Thine were 
 no blood-stained triumphs. From east to west, from India 
 to America, from the rising of the sun to the going down 
 of the same — Hke the path of that glorious luminary above 
 the shadows and the storms of this troubled world, thine 
 was a heavenly track of bright beneficence. Thy martyr 
 life of duty, closing in faith and hope and charity, shall in 
 no wise lose its reward. 
 
 Advocate of the oppressed — refuge of the exile — friend 
 of the friendless ! — the poor outcast, blighted by sin, flung 
 on a cold world to wither and to perish, found sympathy 
 in thy heart, a shelter in thy home. She could not recom- 
 pense thee ; " thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection 
 of the just." 
 
APPENDIX 
 TO LECTURE ON EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 The Rev. J. H. Monahan has at last made out Burke's house 
 on Arran Quay. He found in the College Library a survey of 
 Dublin in 1750, which shows the state of every house as they 
 then stood. From this it appears that what was then called 
 Arran Lane included what is to the east of No. 8 Arran Quay, 
 and that the ten houses which in the applotment book are 
 severally described as on Arran Quay, are those between Lin- 
 coln Lane and what is now No. 9, inclusive. The seventh of 
 these was the house of Burke. It is now No. 12. It appears in 
 the books as having gone into the hands of Counsellor Dillon, 
 and afterwards of Counsellor Taaffe. The name Taaffe is now 
 over the shop door ; it has belonged to that family for more than 
 eighty years. I have got a tracing of the whole taken from the 
 survey, and I have compared it with the applotment, and it leaves 
 no doubt whatsoever as to the identity of the house. I feel 
 more than the delight of Niebuhr, when he thought he had made 
 out the site of the house of Cicero, near the Forum. I cannot 
 sufficiently express my thanks to Mr. Monahan for his persevering 
 and successful exertions. 
 
 As to the Clogher property, I have, with the help of Sir 
 Bernard Burke, ascertained that on the ist July, 1790, it was 
 conveyed by Edmund Burke to Edmund Nagle, who paid him 
 _;^3,ooo for it, and afterwards sold it for more. It is now 
 obvious that Garret Burke had advanced this amount when he 
 got the title. The old method of lease and loan is familiar to 
 Irish lawyers. The bill of discovery and decree was used to 
 secure his title at the time. The property had originally be- 
 longed to the Nagles, but they had parted with it for value to 
 Lord Doneraile. At the time of the making of the lease for 999 
 years, Lord Doneraile was owner in fee. 
 
204 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 For a very interesting account of Beaconsfield, see the " Double 
 Sojourn of Genius at Beaconsfield," by Mr. Sergeant Burke, 
 to whom I am under great obligations, for the help he has 
 afforded. 
 
 Arran Quay, 
 
 October i^th, 1744. 
 
 I AM sure I should not be displeased at hearing all the praises 
 you could possibly bestow on a belief which you profess, and 
 which you believe to be the true and pure doctrine of Christ. 
 We take different roads, 'tis true, and since our intention is to 
 please Him who suffered the punishment of our sins to justify us, 
 He will, I believe, consider us accordingly, and receive us into 
 that glory which was not merited by our own good deeds, but by 
 His sufferings, which atone for our crimes. Far be it from me 
 to exclude from salvation such as believe not as I do ; but in- 
 deed it is a melancholy thing to consider the diversities of sects 
 and opinions amongst us. Men should not for a small matter 
 commit so great a crime as breaking the unity of the Church; 
 and I am sure if the spirit of humility, the greatest of Christian 
 virtues, was our guide, our sects and our religions would be much 
 fewer. Give me leave to add also, that since it is our misfortune 
 to have so many different opinions, we should not hide our talent 
 in the earth, but exert it with all diligence in the great affair for 
 the accomplishment of which we were sent into the world — to 
 witness salvation. God, all merciful, all good, has given us a 
 guide, a talent to direct us in the slippery paths of the world ; let 
 us then, my dear friend, earnestly and heartily set to work, pray- 
 ing the Divine Being of His infinite mercy to help us in our un- 
 dertaking by the saving and enlightening assistance of His 
 Holy Spirit, while we seek what manner of serving Him will most 
 please our great Creator ; for it is impossible that all can be 
 equally pleasing to Him who has declared that as there is but 
 one God, so there is but one faith and one baptism. Oh, my 
 friend, what an account will those have to give who, as if they 
 were asleep, pass their lives without the least consideration of 
 this ! Will it be a sufficient excuse for them to say that their 
 intention was to serve God in that way ? No, no ; it is the 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 205 
 
 business of everyone to search whef ler their way be good ; and 
 if any man who knows this to be his duty — as there is no Chris- 
 tian but does — if (I say) he wiUingly neglects this, and be found 
 in a wrong way, he will not be held guiltless before God. Then, 
 my dear Dick, let us take this into consideration (for indeed it is 
 a serious affair,, and worth the attention even of our whole lives), 
 and implore the assistance of the Holy Spirit, which leads into all 
 truth, and endeavour to walk piously and godlily in the path our 
 great Redeemer has showed us ; confiding very little in our 
 strength, but casting ourselves upon Him who died for us, and 
 with great humility asking His assistance in knowing what man- 
 ner of serving Him will best please Him, that we may not be in 
 the number of those whose ignorance is justly imputed to 
 themselves. If we do this, I do not in the least doubt but 
 that God, of His great mercy, will guide us in the right road. 
 I very much approve of the method you laid down for our 
 correspondence ; I will, as much as I can, observe it. I must 
 own that I can't, with any freedom, write better ; so you must 
 excuse me in that part, and in point of style, but I hope to 
 improve in that by degrees. I do not know to whom I could 
 write with greater freedom and less regularity than to you, for as 
 the thoughts come crowding into my head, I cannot forbear 
 putting 'em down, be they in what order or disorder they . 
 will. You will excuse me for this, and for what mistakes and in- 
 congruities you may find in my future letters ; because you will 
 believe that whether what I say be well or ill expressed, it comes 
 from a sincere heart, and from one who is sincerely your friend. 
 God gives me good resolves sometimes, and I lead a better life ; 
 they last for a time or so, sometimes more, sometimes less, and 
 then, through the fickleness of my temper and too great confidence 
 in myself, I fall into my old courses ; aye, often far worse. You 
 see my weakness, dear Dick, and my failings ; plead and pray 
 for me ; we will pray for one another reciprocally. Praise be to 
 His holy name for all things ; for every impulse of His grace He 
 gives me I praise Him, and trust that He will continue 'em to 
 me, and make me persevere in 'em. Let us lead the best' life we 
 can, and make it our study to please Him the best we can, 
 both in faith and works. I could write a great deal more with 
 pleasure ; I dare not say you would be tired with reading, but 
 that I find my paper almost gone. 
 
206 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Arran Quay, 
 
 November ist, 1744. 
 
 I AM of your opinion, that those poor souls who never had the 
 happiness of hearing that saving name, shall in no wise be 
 damned. But, as you know, my dear Zelim, there are several 
 degrees of felicity — a lower one, which the mercy of God will 
 suffer them to enjoy ; but not anything to be compared to that 
 of those who have lived and died in Christ. This is sincerely 
 my belief of those ; but I assure you that I don't think near so 
 favourably of those sectaries you mentioned ; many of them 
 breaking, as they themselves confess, for matters of indifference, 
 and no way concerned in the only affair that is necessary, viz., 
 our salvation ; and what a great crime schism is, you can't be igno- 
 rant. This, and the reasons in my last, and if you consider what 
 will occur to yourself, together with several texts, will bring 
 you to my way of thinking in that point. Let us endeavour 
 to live according to the rules of the Gospel, and He that pre- 
 scribed them, I hope, will consider our endeavours to please 
 Him, and assist us in our designs. This, my friend, is your 
 advice, and how hard is it for me to follow it ! I am in the 
 enemy's country — the townsman is beset on every side. It is 
 here difficult to sit down to think seriously. Oh ! how happy 
 are you who live in the country ! I assure you, my friend, that 
 without the superior grace of God, I will find it very difficult to 
 be commonly virtuous. I don't like that part of your letter 
 wherein you say, " you had the testimony of well-doing in your 
 breast." Whenever such notions rise again, endeavour to sup- 
 press them. It is one of the subtlest stratagems the enemy of 
 mankind uses to delude us, that, by lulling us into a false peace, 
 his conquest may be the easier. We should always be in no 
 other than the state of a penitent, because the most righteous of 
 us is no better than a sinner. Pray read the Parable of the 
 Pharisee and the Publican who prayed in the temple. You see 
 that 1 tell you what I think amiss in yours — why don't you use 
 the same freedom with mine ? Do, I beg you, because we shall 
 be both of us improved by it. I have a great deal to say ; but 
 as this is a holiday, and I am going to the College, to evening 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 20/ 
 
 prayers, I must write no more, but defer it till another time. I 
 was going to say something of natural philosophy, something of 
 which I now read ; and as you have lately been studying astro- 
 nomy, I beg of you to communicate to me some of your observa- 
 tions, by which we may mutually improve. 
 
 E. Burke. 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 The present unhappy state of public affairs has required my 
 daily, and almost hourly, attendance in the House of Commons. 
 I have, therefore, not had a single moment's time to answer your 
 letter of the isth of November, from the County of Kerry, and 
 which inclosed one from Mr. John Hennessy to you, until this 
 day. I am equally surprised and shocked at the picture that 
 gentleman has drawn of what he supposes the effects of my con- 
 duct. He indeed obligingly attributes it to my ignorance of the 
 true state of the rights and sufferings of the claimants. But if 
 that ignorance had arisen from any neglects imputable to me, the 
 fault would have been nearly the same as if I had been unjust 
 and inhuman with the clearest knowledge of the case. 
 
 I am sorry that I am obliged to remind you of the circum- 
 stances of a matter of which you must yourself be at least as 
 well informed as I am. I will now in a few words lay them 
 before you. 
 
 In the year 1765, my brother died, and, among other things, 
 bequeathed to me his interest in Clohir, which is the subject of 
 yours and Mr. Hennessy's letter. I understood that, during my 
 brother's lifetime, whilst the transaction was recent, and all the 
 parties and witnesses living, the affair was litigated ; that the 
 litigation had proved unsuccessful ; and that a decree of a Court 
 of Equity had established him in peaceable possession. 
 
 I suppose tha,t nobody will think me unjust ip supposing that 
 I had a fair title to what was so left, and so confirmed. In this 
 light things appeared to me ; and 1 believe facts so stood, when, 
 about a year after the death of my brother, I was for two or three 
 weeks in your country ; that is, about eleven years ago, in the 
 autumn of the year 1766. 
 
208 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 It only remains for me to account for what has happened 
 since. Not having been able to visit Ireland in all that long 
 space of time, nor consequently to look after the rights of others, 
 or even of myself, I did what I thought most effectual towards 
 remedying the ill consequences of my ignorance with regard to 
 the one or to the other. I placed that affair, together with all 
 the rest of my little concerns in Ireland of whatsoever nature, in 
 the hands of my friend the late Counsellor Ridge, implicitly re- 
 signing myself to his direction, and referring wholly to him every 
 application that should be made to me in relation to any Irish 
 business. His great integrity and his sound knowledge in his 
 profession gave me all the reason in the world to be persuaded 
 that he never would advise me to the assertion of any right which 
 I could not support in law, and which in honour and conscience 
 was not justifiable. From that time to this I have met with 
 no disturbance. I am persuaded no better method could be 
 found out to prevent any ill effects which might happen from my 
 long absence and consequent ignorance of my affairs. I most 
 certainly never desired or remotely wished him to controvert for a 
 moment the just rights of any man living. I think I should not 
 have done so for interests of the greatest magnitude in the 
 world, much less for one which, though in my circumstances not 
 to be neglected by me, is as nothing in comparison of those 
 which I slight every day of my life in favour of what I think fair 
 and honest. Indeed, it is little worthy of any injustice either 
 to obtain or hold. 
 
 So far as to my just presumption in favour of my legal right. 
 But I must say, that I should think it a very poor account of 
 my conduct, if satisfied with having such a right, I had reason to 
 think there had been any original wrong in the obtaining it, 
 though not by my act or consent. But your father, a man I 
 believe of as perfect integrity as ever lived, is my authority for 
 the fairness of the original transaction. I apprehend it is mis- 
 stated in the case which you have transmitted to me. For he 
 expressly told me, that it was carried on not only with the 
 clearest light into its true nature, but at the earnest entreaty of 
 the parties — my brother, who was in his disposition timid and 
 cautious, having for a long time declined to meddle with it. The 
 narrative says, that on some doubtful intentions of my deceased 
 
EDM,UND BURKE. 
 
 209 
 
 brother, and on having received an unsatisfactory answer, Mr. 
 Robert Nagle immediately went to Dublin, and equipped himself 
 with a new religion, in order to entitle himself as a Protestant 
 discoverer to bring his bill for vesting in him this whole interest 
 Whether he would not have acted more honestly, and in th^ 
 €vent more prudently, in endeavouring by some means to enforce 
 the agreement he had made, if the performance, as he says, had 
 been evaded, is more than I can say, unacquainted as I am with 
 the intricacies of the unhappy laws on which this business turns. 
 Most certainly, those who have adhered to that agreement hayq 
 no reason to complain of their condition. But by thus endear 
 vouring to set aside his own act, and to get the whole interest 
 into his own hands, to which if his original title had been yaUd 
 in law, he would have been entitled only to a part, he did all that 
 he could do for the ruin of his own family. His distress, what- 
 ever it may be, is of his own making. I could not admit his 
 claim, made as he made it, without affecting my brother's rnemory, 
 and without bringing to beggary the mother of this unhappy man, 
 his brother, and a very large family of children, his and your 
 nearest relations. Your father, I think yourself, I am sure Garret 
 Nagle, all told me that this would be the infallible event of his 
 success in his suit. As to his mother, whose situation Mr. 
 Hennessy paints in such strong colours, I thought I had in some 
 measure relieved instead of causing it. I saw her when I was in 
 Ireland. I then gave something, I forget what, for her relief, 
 and directed in general terms that she should have such helps 
 to put her at ease as she asked. If she had asked for more than 
 she has done, she should have assuredly had it ; for I trust I am 
 not altogether grudging or penurious on such occasions. This J 
 know, that she seemed perfectly satisfied ; whereas I understood 
 from herself, th^t she had considered her son's success and her 
 being turned out of her own little tenement, as one and the same 
 thing. As to Garret Nagle, he knows whether I have been a 
 sharp or oppressive landlord to him, either as to the term of his 
 lease or to any other particular. There are some others who 
 hold leases under my title, on what I conceive to be very mode- 
 rate terms. If you or any judicious person had told me they 
 were otherwise, I should instantly have thought it my duty tp 
 make an abaterpent. These people are all dependent, perhaps, 
 
 for their existence on my right. 
 
 P 
 
2IO LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 The question, therefore, in point of humanity (to which Mr. 
 H. appeals), was whether I ought to suffer Mr. R. Nagle to con- 
 tinue in a distress brought on by his own act, or by admitting his 
 new claims, rejected by a Court of Law, or to subvert and ruin 
 several innocent families, who are, or ought to be, in a thriving 
 condition under me ? I did in general know that he was in bad 
 circumstances; and though he has not been wholly without relief, 
 I was informed that, as he daily threatened new bills, it would be 
 dangerous to give it to him on the terms on which I heard he 
 proposed it from time to time to Mr. Ridge, that is to say, as a 
 sort of composition for his demand. I believe I was recom- 
 mended to be the more cautious on that head, as I believe he 
 knew me naturally disposed to every possible act of kindness to 
 any of your name, or connected with you by any sort of aflSnity. 
 Had it been recommended to me by any of you, I should cer- 
 tainly have done all I could to accommodate him in any way. 
 However, until the hour of your letter, I never received directly 
 or indirectly, from any of them, or anyone else, any sort of pro- 
 posal for eleven years. I now understand what you and the 
 friends of that family wish, though I am surprised that Mr. Kiernan, 
 to whom I must leave in a great measure everything of this kind, 
 was not communicated with. If by letting the lease you mention, 
 and giving the hundred pounds you mention, that family can be 
 set to rights, I shall be, just as I always would have been, willing, 
 voluntarily and cheerfully, to do it, provided it may be done with 
 perfect safety to the derivative interests of all kinds, even to the 
 smallest ; for I do not know with what conscience I can consent 
 to sacrifice them, unless I am actually driven to it by the utmost 
 process of law. It is, in truth, rather for them than myself that 
 I have ever been willing to trouble myself much about this affair. 
 When I speak of the lease, I mean a lease for twenty-one years ; 
 for, as the rest of the term is desired as a sort of compensation 
 for what they have lost, I am not willing that such a charge should 
 stand against me. If they lost any advantage, they lost it by no 
 fault of mine ; and I am not answerable for not complying with 
 proposals which I never received and never refused. It is this, 
 and not the difference of the term (which on calculation is not 
 very much), that makes me not so willing to comply with the 
 proposal for thirty-one years. In other respects, I must leave 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 21 r 
 
 the affair to be settled between you and Mr. Hennessy and Mr. 
 Kiernan, to whose joint opinion (if you can come to it) I shall 
 leave the matter. I must expect to be kept out of future litiga- 
 tions ; and I wish, on that head, when you have adjusted the 
 measures, that Mr. O'Neal should be consulted. He has been 
 kind enough to offer me his assistance in my general affairs. 
 
 I have been several times broke in upon by business, and 
 interrupted in this letter. I have only to add, that if the power- 
 ful friends of these people, whom you mention, are as willing to 
 accommodate them as I am, and will give to that the money they 
 proposed in their favour to expend in a contest with me, they will 
 put them much more readily and much better at their ease, and 
 show them much more their friends. Indeed, I have been ill able 
 to attend to this or any private business. I am much fatigued, 
 and cannot yet attend myself to anything but my immediate duty. 
 Let this be my excuse (it is a true one) for doing nothing as yet 
 in the affair you recommended to me in a former letter. Love 
 to all friends. I am ever, 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 Most sincerely yours, 
 
 Edm. Burke. 
 Westminster, ^ih Dec, 1777. 
 
WILLIAM BEDELL. 
 
 [A Lecture delivered before the Church of Ireland Young 
 Men's Christian Association, March ijth, iS6j.] 
 
 ABOUT thirty-five years ago, I made my first speech in 
 public. I moved a resolution that was seconded by 
 a young parochial clergyman, both eloquent and wise, who 
 afterwards became a successor of Bishop Bedell in the 
 diocese of Kilmore, and is now the Lord Primate, who 
 presides on this auspicious occasion. It is not without a 
 feeling of thankfulness that, after the lapse of so many 
 years, I find myself again supported by his friendly pre- 
 sence. When in the diocese of Kilmore, His Grace de- 
 lighted to honour the memory of the good and gentle 
 Bedell. The new cathedral of Kilmore, which has been 
 erected by the efforts and the bounty of His Grace, is a 
 suitable remembrancer of one whose life was devoted to 
 the preparation of living stones for the Church of Christ. 
 Nearly three centuries have elapsed since William Bedell 
 was born. It was an eventful period. A few years before 
 his birth, the Council of Trent had closed its sittings, and 
 the English Reformation had been completed under the 
 great Queen Elizabeth. It was the beginning of a vital 
 struggle between absolutism and freedom — between the 
 word of man and the word of God. The Council of Trent 
 had proceeded to reinforce the Papacy ; the English Refor- 
 mation to purify the faith and worship of the Church. The 
 one sought to concentrate Papal power, by teaching for 
 doctrines the commandments of men ; by increased rigidity 
 
WILLIAM BEDELL. 
 
 213 
 
 in its ritual and ecclesiastical system ; by bringing bishops 
 and clergy under sworn vassalage, and by suppressing 
 liberty of opinion ; whilst Protestantism, guided by the 
 Scriptures, retraced its steps with firmness and freedom 
 towards the primitive forms of Christian faith and life. 
 The Reformation was, in fact, the restoration — the going 
 back to the faith and usage of the early Christian Church. 
 
 After the lapse of three hundred years, we are well war- 
 ranted in trying these rival systems by the Scriptural test — 
 " By their fruits ye shall know them." William Bedell was 
 a native of Essex — a son of the English Church. His life 
 has been written by Bishop Burnet ; but I am sorry to say, 
 it is now discovered to be a slipshod performance. It 
 appears, from the learned research of the Archdeacon of 
 Cashel, that the life of Bedell has yet to be written. Mr. 
 Mason's work is valuable, especially with reference to the 
 use of the Irish language for the religious instruction of 
 the Irish people ; and it gives extracts from the registry of 
 proceedings in Trinity College, which Bedell kept when he 
 was Provost. Dr. Todd had transcribed this registry, and 
 lent his copy to Mr. Mason. I have been furnished, by 
 the kindness of the Lord Primate, with the copy of a 
 manuscript still more interesting, supposed to have been 
 written by a son of the good Bishop, and which has been 
 preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, but has not 
 yet been published. There is also a memoir made up of 
 recollections by a son-in-law ; but I find, in the recent 
 volumes of Notes and Queries, much additional light 
 thrown on the subject by Mr, Mayor, of the University of 
 Cambridge, who has given references to State papers in 
 England, as well as to authentic letters and publications. 
 Mr. Mayor (who is most competent) has undertaken the 
 ofiice of the biographer of Bedell ; and we may hope soon 
 to have a volume worthy of him of whom Coleridge has 
 said, that " in all ecclesiastical history he has read of no 
 man so spotless." 
 
 In this state of things, I do not propose to go into a 
 
214 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 detail that could not be complete. I have not had access 
 to the necessary documents ; and wishing not to exceed 
 the reasonable limits of a lecture, I will direct your atten- 
 tion (not unprofitably I hope) to three periods of the life of 
 Bedell which are associated with topics of enduring interest. 
 
 First, we have his chaplaincy at Venice ; next, his con- 
 nection with Trinity College as its Provost ; and thirdly, 
 with the Irish Church as Bishop of Kilmore. 
 
 Bedell had been a graduate of the University of Cam- 
 bridge. He was a Fellow of Emmanuel College, where he 
 had been trained under Dr. Chaderton, one of the eminent 
 scholars to whom we are indebted for the Authorized Ver- 
 sion of the Holy Scriptures. Here he established a repu- 
 tation for learning and piety. It has been recorded of him, 
 that whilst he continued to reside at Cambridge, he, with 
 others, set on foot a design of preaching in places adjacent 
 to the University, where there were no pastors able to teach 
 and lead the people in the ways of truth, peace, and life. 
 
 About the year 1604, Sir Henry Wotton was sent by 
 James I. as the English ambassador to Venice. He was a 
 man of great accomplishments — of sound judgment, and 
 intelligently attached to the Reformed Church. His life 
 has been written by Izaak Walton with consummate ability, 
 and affords (especially at the close) a lesson of divine in- 
 struction that comes home to the heart. To those who 
 have not read it, I earnestly commend that inimitable 
 sketch. The chaplain who had accompanied Sir Henry to 
 Venice returned to England at the end of September, 
 1606. There has been recently published in the Notes and 
 Queries a letter from Sir Henry to the Earl of Salisbury, 
 dated from Venice on the 23rd of February, 1606-7 (y°u 
 must bear in mind that the year then ended in March), in 
 which the writer says — " I have occasion at the present of 
 the begging of your Lordship's support and encouragement 
 for one Mr. Bedell, whom I shall be very glad to have with 
 me in the place of chaplain, because I hear very singular 
 commendation of his good gifts and discreet behaviour. It 
 
WILLIAM BEDELL. 21? 
 
 may, therefore, please your Lordship, when he shall take 
 the boldness to present himself before you, to set forward 
 also this piece of God's service." Soon after this, Bedell 
 repaired to Venice. It was the crisis of the memorable 
 conflict between the Pope and the State. This conflict is 
 the subject of a recent popular volume by Mr. Trollope — 
 " Paul the Pope, and Paul the Friar." 
 
 Venice had long held a distinguished place among the 
 Italian States. Her extended empire seemed as if it would 
 be the most durable which had been formed on any con- 
 stitutional principles since the days of the Romans. In 
 the eighth century she had established relations with 
 France, Turkey, and Egypt ; in the fourteenth century, 
 with England. Her commercial enterprise, and the free 
 intercourse which followed, led her to maintain religious 
 tolerance and civil right, when other States were the dupes 
 of superstition and the victims of tyranny. Her early con- 
 stitution was remarkable for the allowance, both in religion 
 and politics, to private enterprise and liberality, and hence 
 she abounded with pious and charitable institutions. The 
 widow and the orphan had their refuge ; the penitent 
 female a suitable asylum ; there were hospitals, a board of 
 health, a poor-law ; and the code of her jurisprudence was 
 enlightened and equitable. The printing press was early 
 introduced and zealously encouraged ; a love of learning 
 and a thirst for knowledge prevailed, and provision was 
 liberally made for mental culture, 
 
 Rome, on the other hand, had naturally been an asylum 
 of learning that had escaped general desolation ; and the 
 rudeness of the world was favourable for the establishment 
 of the empire that culminated in the Papacy. It began 
 with seeming moderation, but soon advantage was taken 
 to extend the Papal influence. A kingdom not of this 
 world was transformed into an empire of the earth, earthy. 
 
 Venice, like England, had in her early Constitution the 
 germs of civil freedom. The bishop received his investi- 
 ture, his ring and staff from the Doge. No synod was 
 
2l6 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 permitted without the permission of the council. The repub- 
 lic retained the right of censure on Venetian bishops arid 
 cardinals ; the parish priests were nominated by proprietors 
 in the parish ; the clergy were prohibited from meddling in 
 political affairs, and there was a complete toleration for 
 foreign rites. Venice never became, nor aspired to be- 
 come, the seat of an archbishop. Their patriarch was but 
 the Bishop of Venice : he could only convene the clergy of 
 the city. The office was generally held by one of their no- 
 bility ; and to guard against Papal encroachment in the 
 event of a vacancy, they always had a new bishop-elect in 
 readiness to succeed. Thus it was that the State had re- 
 mained free from ecclesiastical intrigue ; and, from an 
 early period, she took a firmer tone and asserted her right 
 to domestic sovereignty. 
 
 In the beginning of the thirteenth century. Pope Inno- 
 cent had in vain attempted to compel her to submit to his 
 dictation. The historian tells us that Venice did not 
 tremble at his holy censure, nor is there any record of her 
 submission on that occasion. This civil independence of a 
 State is the proper expression of the secular element in 
 society. It is embodied in our own Magna Charta ; it is 
 found in our ancient Common Law. 
 
 Towards the close of the sixteenth century a change 
 took place in the conduct of the affairs of Venice. Up to 
 that time they had been managed by a few patricians, ad- 
 vanced in years, and chosen from a small circle of families ; 
 but now a majority in the Senate, including the younger 
 members, struggled for and obtained a share in the admin- 
 istration : these were strongly opposed to all ecclesiastical 
 pretensions, and to the intolerant and ambitious designs of 
 Spain. The young statesmen and the men of letters 
 formed a Society, of which the illustrious Leonardo Donate 
 and the celebrated Fra Paolo Sarpi, the historian of the 
 Council of Trent, were members ; and the Venetians, ani- 
 mated By the spirit of these enlightened and patriotic 
 men, were the first of all the Roman Catholic Statps to 
 
WILLIAM BEDELL. ' 217 
 
 acknowledge Henry of Navarre as King of France. At the 
 opening of the seventeenth century, the election of Paul V. 
 to the Papal chair brought on a crisis. This Pope had 
 been bred a canonist ; and, from his studies in the canon 
 law, had been led to take a transcendental view of the im- 
 portance of the Papacy. He was prepared to assert, and 
 push to all their logical consequences, those claims which 
 the canonists express by "plenitude of power" but which 
 Bishop Butler more accurately describes as " an open usur- 
 pation of all human and divine authority!' The dissensions 
 between the Church and the States of Italy had been inter- 
 mittent, according to the policy of the Pope for the time 
 being. Several of these States regarded the pretensions of 
 this new Pope as extravagant, but thought they would 
 soften down ; and no State seemed disposed to withstand 
 his encroachments but the free State of Venice. There 
 were causes of contention, many and irritating — excom- 
 munications by the Papal Nuncio, and civil protection 
 against them provided by the Senate ; there were Papal 
 exemptions in favour of the rich, and to the prejudice of 
 the poor. There was also the interference with the press 
 by the prohibitions at Rome, by which the printing trade 
 at Venice was seriously prejudiced. Leonardo Donato 
 had been raised to the rank of Doge, and his friends were 
 admitted to a share in the administration. The Pope now 
 insisted on having two ecclesiastical convicts given up ; 
 and also that a mortmain law, which had been passed to 
 prevent the acquisition of real property by the clergy, and 
 another law, restraining the building of new churches with- 
 out the leave of the State, should be repealed.. The Ve- 
 netians resisted, and the Pope was inflexible : then came 
 the interdict with all its terrors. The conflict rose to its 
 height. Bellarmine was the champion of the Church- 
 Paolo Sarpi the counsellor of the State. He was one of 
 the most distinguished men of that remarkable era. Like 
 Caspar Contarini, and many other enlightened Italians, he 
 had accepted the great truths of the Gospel with a willing 
 
2l8 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 mind and a loving heart, but still clinging to the unity of 
 the Western Church, of which the Papacy had been the 
 traditional bond. 
 
 There is a little volume of letters written from Venice 
 by Bedell to the tutor of the then Prince of Wales, which 
 Mr. Mayor has kindly allowed me to make use of In one 
 of these I find the following passage : — " Master Paolo and 
 his scholar Fulgentio, Jesuits both, of great learning, piety, 
 humility, discretion, integrity of life, and, which is especially 
 to be considered as to our purpose, in great account with 
 all sorts, and deservedly — having in the late controversy 
 served their country so faithfully, as the Pope cons them 
 little thanks for their labour ; the former for a long time 
 lived in Rome, and is holden for a miracle in all manner of 
 knowledge, divine and human, the chief counsellor of this 
 seigniory, in their affairs ecclesiastical. These two, as I 
 know, having practised with them, to desire nothing in the 
 world so much as the reformation of the Church ; and, in 
 a word, for the substance of religion they are wholly ours." 
 Their opinions had great influence with several of the 
 Senate and the nobility ; and just before Bedell had arrived, 
 hopes had been entertained of a real work of reformation. 
 To use his own words : " The admirable consent of thit 
 State to stand out — the learned writings of their divines 
 against the Pope's pretended authority — the banishment of 
 the Jesuits — the sermons : some invective against the 
 abuses of Popes and their vices — some laying the general 
 grounds of reformation as the time would bear, in the doc- 
 trine of the authority of the Holy Scriptures — explicit faith 
 against blind ignorance masked with the name of Church 
 belief — the grace of God, whereby we are saved — the 
 slavery of our free will to sin — these were great signs — 
 great causes of health. But all of a sudden this hope was 
 dashed by the peace concluded with the Pope, which was 
 done a few days before my arrival here." 
 
 I need not dwell on the mode in which this truce was 
 brought about. The result was — to quiet the State, and 
 
WILLIAM BEDELL. 219 
 
 stay the movement which might have liberated the Church. 
 The encroachments of the Papacy on the civil indepen- 
 dence of the State, Venice had firmly resisted ; but in this 
 she exhausted her efforts. She had not learned how vital 
 is the watchword of Italian freedom, to which Cavour 
 pointed with his dying hand as the last prayer of his heart 
 for Italy — a free Church in a free State. 
 
 Paolo Sarpi drew up the rescripts in reply to the de- 
 mands of the Vatican. Civil authority was shown to be a 
 trust which God had committed to the State, and it was 
 the State that conferred property and jurisdiction on the 
 Church. The State was her protector, and could not be 
 lawfully subjected to foreign supremacy. A greater Paul 
 had taught the Church in Rome that all power is from 
 God, and that every soul should be subject to the higher 
 powers. " To the king as supreme," are the words of St. 
 Peter himself. 
 
 A proclamation was issued, with a title-page, on which 
 St. Mark is seen, with the book of the Gospels and uplifted 
 sword, announcing the resolution of the Senate to maintain 
 the sovereign authority, "which acknowledges no other 
 superior in worldly things save God alone." 
 
 " Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee. 
 And was the safeguard of the West : the worth 
 Of Venice did not fall below her birth — 
 Venice, the eldest child of Liberty. 
 She was a maiden city, bright and free : 
 No guile seduced — no force could violate : 
 And when she took unto herself a mate, 
 She must espouse the everlasting sea." 
 
 Bedell's account of Venice at this time is very interest- 
 ing. There were then not a few encouraged by the 
 sympathy of England. " The King's name " (says Bedell) 
 "made the Venetians stand the more upon points of 
 honour, and doth still animate them not to yield a hair in 
 all their negotiations with Rome." 
 
 With Paolo and Fulgentio he studied daily the Holy 
 
220 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Scriptures. He finished a translation into Italian of the 
 treatise of Sir Edward Sandes, with annotations for their 
 use, and he proposed to begin the good work of founding 
 a congregation for pure worship. Deodati, the translator 
 of the Italian Bible, was brought to Venice. Paolo assured 
 them there were not less than 12,000 in the city more or 
 less enlightened with the truth, and alienated from Rome ; 
 but that until there was some civil occasion of breach with 
 the Pope, nothing could be moved among the nobility. 
 Bedell observes that a summary of Scripture had been 
 published at Venice in 1567, before the Bible in Italian, 
 and that this embraced all new and fundamental points of 
 faith, without Popish corruption. The liturgy of the 
 French Churches was already in Italian, and ours was in 
 Latin, and Bedell then began and soon finished a transla- 
 tion of it into Italian. But the peace had cooled down the 
 opposition ; the traditionary tide returned ; the intrigues 
 of France, the fear of Spain, and the caution of commercial 
 policy, prevailed over higher considerations, so that worldly 
 interests regained their ascendancy. " So hard a thing is 
 it," says Bedell, " to follow Christ with the condition of the 
 cross, and leaving all." " The fathers prevented my offer 
 of myself," he adds, " saying it was not fit or convenient, 
 in regard of jealousy of state, although my poor desire had 
 not been backward — the matter itself being of such import- 
 ance, as I could wish with the Apostle to bestow and 
 spend myself in it." The opportunity was lost, but the 
 lesson remains. It appears from Dr. Wordsworth's recent 
 tour in Italy, that at the present time, by reason of the 
 conflict with Rome, there are in Italy no less than thirty- 
 four episcopal sees left without a bishop. The ancient 
 metropolitan see of Milan waits for a successor to the 
 venerable Ambrose, who never knew of Papal supremacy. 
 If Italy is to be free under a king, she must have loyal 
 bishops, godly and well learned — an educated clergy and 
 an instructed people. 
 
 The learned author of an Italian treatise, lately pub- 
 
WILLIAM BEDELL. 221 
 
 lished at Milan, thus speaks of the present state of things : 
 " It is a lamentable truth, attested by the unanimous voice 
 of the clergy and laity, that the teaching of the ecclesiastical 
 seminaries of Italy, for training the priesthood, is in a 
 deplorable state of decline. . . . The instruction is 
 miserable in regard to the subjects taught, the mode of 
 teaching, and the quality of the teachers." He refers to 
 what has been said by one of the best priests in Italy, of 
 the present age : — " We have abandoned the study of the 
 Scriptures and of the Fathers, and have declined to the 
 age of those wretched text-books which are used in our 
 seminaries, and which will one day be regarded as the 
 most trashy and repulsive compositions that have been 
 produced in the eighteen centuries of the life of the 
 Church — books without spirit, without principles, without 
 eloquence, and without method. The biblical studies 
 which have made so much progress in other countries are 
 jejune, or rather null, in our seminary. The reading of the 
 Holy Scriptures is neglected, and the study of Church his- 
 tory is treated with indifference." 
 
 In speaking of the effect of bringing up the clergy as a 
 caste under a separate system, the priest says : — " They are 
 shut up in the narrow cells of their own minds ; they are 
 under a rigid and heartless discipline of fear ; they never 
 attain to any noble spiritual elevation ; they become mecha- 
 nical, material, sensual. This, for the most part, is the 
 condition of the ecclesiastical seminary at Milan, which 
 contains five hundred students, the future teachers of the 
 people — the priests of the Church of Lombardy. When 
 they come into contact with the people, they will be unable 
 to sympathize with them ; the clergy will be anti-social, 
 and society will be anti-hierarchical." Italy must bear in 
 mind that if she will have her clergy a separate caste and 
 her Church unreformed; the keeper but not the witness of 
 Holy Writ, she may have her times of civil independence- 
 lucid intervals like those of Venice ; but genuine freedom 
 and true faith, which God has joined together, cannot be 
 put asunder by the hand of man. 
 
222 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Bedell returned from Venice to England in 1613, and 
 resumed his parochial work. Before we bring him to Ire- 
 land, let us glance at the measures which were adopted 
 before that time to give to this country the benefits of the 
 Reformation. Two things were admittedly required — the 
 education of a native clergy, and the instruction of the 
 people. We had then to begin where Italy has yet to 
 begin — with a Scriptural foundation. 
 
 In 1547, a proposal for a University was put forward 
 by the first Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, George 
 Browne. You will find it in Mr. Shirley's Papers on the 
 Irish Church, page 5. In page 126 there is a detailed 
 financial plan for the endowment of a College, dated in 
 October, 1 563, and indorsed by Sir William Cecil. Many 
 of the letters which Mr. Shirley has published abundantly 
 testify how general was the ignorance of the clergy, who 
 had no sort of education. Dr. Todd has given us, in the 
 well-known Introduction to the Calendar for 1833, many 
 interesting details in connection with the early history of our 
 own old Alma Mater, the foundation of which was laid on 
 the auspicious day of which this is the anniversary — the 
 13th of March, 1591. Enactments had been passed for 
 establishing parochial and diocesan schools for teaching 
 English. It seems to have been supposed that English 
 habits and the English language might be enforced by Act 
 of Parliament. Bacon, with enlightened wisdom, pointed 
 out in a letter to Cecil the true policy. He advised a course 
 of toleration ; provision to be made for the advancement 
 of religion by faithful preaching, where the people were 
 capable ; and (to use his own weighty words) — " The re- 
 continuing and replenishing the College begun at Dublin ; 
 the placing of good men to be bishops in the sees there ; 
 and the taking care of the versions of Bibles and cate- 
 chisms, and other books of instruction, into the Irish lan- 
 guage." 
 
 Trinity College was an early child — a fair daughter of 
 the Reformation. In the charter of Elizabeth, she is de- 
 
WILLIAM BEDELL. 223 
 
 scribed as intended to " endure for ever." She was founded 
 for the youth of Ireland to cultivate science and religion 
 within those precincts, where the tree of knowledge has 
 been planted at the side of the tree of life. In Ussher, the 
 first of her students, she gave to the Church one of her 
 most illustrious prelates — the first fruit of that career of 
 enlightened progress in which, with a wise liberality, she 
 has provided, for all who are willing to partake, the bene- 
 fits of knowledge hallowed by the influences of religion. 
 In her inner shrine, she guards, with vestal care, the un- 
 quenchable light of the Reformation ; her outer court, 
 spacious and well-ordered, is consecrated to freedom. 
 
 " They dreamt not of a perishable home, 
 Who thus could build." 
 
 The spirit of our reformed religion required that our 
 clergy should not be brought up as a separate caste, but 
 should be trained in the society of those who are intended 
 for other departments of life. The liberal studies, the ex- 
 tended range of information, the careful culture of the 
 mental and the moral powers, all that properly deserves to 
 be called education, is assuredly not less necessary to 
 qualify for the sacred office of the Christian ministry, than 
 for the work of the secular professions. 
 
 The College had gone through a crisis of internal dis- 
 cord before the appointment of Bedell, who in the year 
 1627 was selected to fill the office of Provost. James I. 
 had recently died ; Charles I. succeeded to the throne. 
 One of the latest acts of James was the elevation of Ussher 
 to the Primacy. I will not weary you with details, familiar 
 to many and accessible to all ; but I cannot forbear to 
 observe, that in the selection of Bedell as Provost there 
 was an evident desire to advance the prosperity of the 
 University and the good of the Church. Ireland had been 
 convulsed by civil war — the victim of imperfect conquest, 
 unstable policy, and debasing ignorance. Church property 
 was pillaged; the churches were in ruins; the clergy 
 
224 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 impoverished and uneducated ; the kingdom, divided 
 against itself, was under sentence of desolation. 
 
 Like Ussher, Bedell had the advantage of a good 
 school at the first ; he had been seventeen years at Cam- 
 bridge, where his character was formed and his reputation 
 established ; he became a Scholar, afterwards a Fellow and 
 Catechist of his College. He began his parochial labours 
 at Edmondsbury, from which place Sir Thomas Jermyn 
 presented him to the benefice which he held when he was 
 chosen Provost. He had a peculiar skill in languages and 
 grammar, and a power of mastering any subject to which 
 it became needful that his attention should be directed. 
 An exact Churchman and an earnest Christian, he con- 
 formed to the discipline of the Church with the same con- 
 scientious fidelity that he held and taught her Scriptural 
 doctrines — animated by the catholic spirit of Scriptural 
 comprehension which breathes in her formularies. His 
 moderation became known unto all. His intercourse at 
 Venice had enabled him to understand more perfectly the 
 secret working and the resources of the Papal system ; and 
 he had learned the lesson which is of the very essence of 
 the Christian life — the lesson of charity and forbearance in 
 judging others, He had found within the pale of another 
 communion men of a like spirit — ^men who loved the Lord 
 Jesus Christ in sincerity. Engaged in the active labours 
 of his ministry — appreciated and beloved by his parishioners 
 — he sought no higher preferment than this post of paro- 
 chial duty. Before honour is humility. When the Pro- 
 vostship had become vacant, and other attempts to fill it 
 up had failed, Bedell was at last thought of. Sir H. 
 Wotton's testimony had been required to satisfy the King. 
 " I am bound " (says Sir Henry) " in all conscience and 
 truth to affirm of him, that I think hardly a fitter man 
 could have been propounded to your Majesty in your 
 whole kingdom, for singular erudition and piety, conformity 
 to the rites of the Church, and zeal to advance the cause qf 
 God. This is the man whom Paolo Sarpi took into his 
 
WILLIAM BEDELL. 
 
 225 
 
 very soul, communicated to him the inwardest thoughts of 
 his heart, and professed to have received from him more 
 knowledge in all divinity, both scholastic and positive, 
 than from any he had ever practised in his days." 
 
 Such was the testimony of this most competent witness. 
 Ussher had been led to take an active part in having him 
 elected ; and when the offer of this responsible ofifice was 
 made to Bedell, his reply is truly characteristic. " I am 
 married," he says, " and have three children ; therefore if 
 the place requires a single man, the business is at an end. 
 . I have no want, I thank my God, of anything necessary for 
 this life. I have a competent living, of above .£'100 a-year, 
 in a good air and seat, with very convenient house near to 
 my friends ; a little parish, not exceeding the compass of 
 my weak voice. I have often heard it, that changing 
 seldom brings better to those that are well. And I see 
 well that my wife (though resolving, as she ought, to be 
 contented with whatsoever God shall appoint) had rather 
 continue with her friends in her native country, than put 
 herself into the hazard of the seas and a foreign land, with 
 many casualties in travel, which she, perhaps out of fear, 
 apprehends more than there is cause. All these reasons I 
 have if I consult with flesh and blood, which move me 
 rather to reject this offer (yet with all humble and dutiful 
 thanks to my Lord Primate for his mind and good opinion 
 of me) ; and, on the other side, I consider the end where- 
 fore I came into the world, and the business of a subject to 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, of a minister of the Gospel, of a 
 good patriot, and an honest man. If I may be of any better 
 use to my country, to God's Church, or of any better 
 service to our common Master, I must close mine eyes 
 against all private respects, and if God call me, I must 
 answer, ' Here I am.' For my part, therefore, I will not 
 stir one foot, or lift my finger, for or against this motion ; 
 ■ but if it proceed from the Lord — that is, if those whom it 
 concerns there do procure those who may command me 
 here to send me thither — I shall obey, if it were not only 
 
 Q 
 
226 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 to go into Ireland, but into Virginia ; yea, though I were 
 not only to meet with troubles, dangers, and difficulties, 
 but death itself, in the performance. Sir, I have, as plainly 
 as I can, showed you my mind ; desiring you, with my 
 humble service, to represent it to my reverend good Lord, 
 the Lord Primate. And God Almighty direct this affair 
 to the glory of His holy name, and have you in His merci- 
 ful protection." 
 
 After a time he was induced to accept the office. He 
 came over to Dublin himself, and we have, under his own 
 hand, a letter to Sir Nathanael Rich, who had been edu- 
 cated at Emmanuel College, and shortly before had been 
 sent to Ireland to inquire into matters concerning the 
 public revenues of that kingdom and the King's service, as 
 well in the government ecclesiastical as civil. There was 
 confusion and dissension in the College. After some pre- 
 liminary matters, he writes thus : — 
 
 " Having taken vpo me y° place, I endeavoured to sow vp the rent betweene 
 y° fellowes ; & to y'. end appointed a Communid y^ next Sonday {A thing 
 intermitted these ii yeares). Then ordered the members of o^. governing 
 Senate, I mean y° seniors ; removeing (as by o'. charter we were bound) such 
 as by tyme after their Degree of M'. of Arts were to be removed. Next we 
 chose officers, gave graces in the house for Degrees, reformed some abuses in 
 the Chappell &= Hall : as y' Evening Prayers were in the Hall, and Philoso- 
 phicall Acts in the Chappell. But my next care was about the Statutes, which 
 being part latin, part English, & in sheetes of Paper some stich'd together, 
 - some loose, a heape w' out order, w'. long p'ambles, & sometyme vnnecessary , 
 and in many things defective : w'. the cosent of y° greater part of the Seniors, 
 I digested into a new forme, and at last perfected as I hope & published in the 
 Chappell. The state of the Colledge in respect of the Revenew & Treasure 
 should have been the thing I would next have entered into consideratio of. 
 But it required a long tyme. And this in short I fownd, there was not money 
 enough in the chest to pay y^ Commons & the stipends when y^ day should 
 come. I consigned all the Bookes of former accounts into the handes of the 
 Vice-Provost (M'. Lloyd) and the Auditor (S'. James Ware) desiring him to 
 set me downe the Estate of the Colledge especially in respect of Areares. 
 Which hitherto he sayd he could never doe, in as much as he had not so much 
 as a Rentall of the Colledge revenewe, but had made vp every years account, 
 only out of what was taken out of the chest, and disbursed. Wherein not- 
 w'standing sundry Bursars had left in their hands large summes of the Colledge 
 money, never satisfied. And to mend the matter a custom was brought in of 
 
WILLIAM BEDELL. 
 
 227 
 
 giveing to the Senior Fellowes at ther departing a Viaticum as they call it. 
 Which also was demanded by those Fellowes who now left their places. But 
 to these Viaticums I have I hope given a Viaticum. And when ever I shall 
 retorne to the house, I hope to look a little better to the Accounts : & if it be 
 possible to recover some of those hundreds w"'' I doe already by a superficial! 
 view perceive are vnjustly w'helde fro the CoUedge, partly received & never 
 accounted ; partly lent (as is p'tended) but w' out assent of the greater part 
 of y° Seniors ; partly lent indeede, but never repayed ; & as it is now hoped 
 to be granted for a Viaticum to the form' Provost. S', you may by this w'"" I 
 have in short run over, conceive what a world of busines I am put into ; yet 
 I repent me not of my iorney, though I have not had there one houre voyd of 
 paines, trouble, or thought, nor do looke to have when I shall retourne, for 
 many moneths. But if I shallbe able to setle the Colledge in a good state, 
 for their maners, lawes, revenew, and studies, whereof in respect of many diffi- 
 culties in each I have great reason to doubt, yet the state of y= Country con- 
 sidered, now wholely assubjected to Romish superstition, & as it seemes, in 
 respect of religion euen abandoned by those y' should have the care and charge 
 of it, I have little hope euer to have comfortable day there. Unless w'. the 
 Aple I could rejoice in Labours, & troubles, & euen to be offered vp, on the 
 sacrifice and service of y° faith of God's people, which I do some tymes wish, 
 & have some comfort I confess even in y'. very wishing. But I should enter 
 into a Sea to goe about to relate vnto y" the p'sent state of religio in Ireland. 
 Your self I beleeve would scarce beleeve it possible y'. in a few yeares since 
 y'. being there, it should receive such a headlong downefall. I shall reserve 
 y'. to o'. meeting, which shallbe I hope ere long, when I shall receive the 
 Colledge, and my Lord Primates letters, or advice y'. they are in London for 
 me. At w"^ tyme also I hope to make my excuse & satisfaction for my not 
 seeing my Lord of Canterbury at my parting, being in truth required by my 
 L Primate to repaire to Dublin ai' all possible speeds. I hope y" have in part 
 made my excuse, & in any occasiS will further doe it. Meane while desiring 
 y" to remember my [humjble service to the Earle of Warwick my ever honoured 
 Lord I committ y" to the protection of o'. good God, and rest S' 
 
 Yours ever in Christ 
 Homingerth October the g"" to be commanded 
 
 1627. W. Bedell. 
 
 [Indorsed.] 
 
 To the Worsh" and my Very 
 good friend S' Nathaneel 
 Riche at Warwick 
 house d'. these 
 in London. 
 
228 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 The Vice-Provost Lloyd turned out to be a most unruly 
 and unmanageable Welshman, who kept the whole place 
 in a broil ; and, perhaps, no better illustration could be 
 given of the progress of the College than to place in con- 
 trast the description which has been handed down of the 
 then Vice-Provost Lloyd, with the mild wisdom and the 
 modest merit of him who now adorns the name and the 
 office which were then dishonoured. The state of discord 
 which grew up after Bedell's return to England had induced 
 him to intimate a desire of resigning the office of Provost. 
 Several of the Fellows addressed a letter to him. " Some 
 reports," they say, " have possessed very many in this king- 
 dom that you intend to resign your place of Provost in this 
 College, and to continue your residence in England, which 
 reports as we hope are most untrue, and such thoughts are 
 far from your heart, whose zeal and affection doth aim, 
 above all things, at the glory of God and the good of His 
 Church ; both which you cannot anywhere so much as in 
 this kingdom further advance, if it please you to continue 
 and persist in your former zealous and godly resolutions : 
 as we know no man so worthy of this government as your- 
 self, so our affection and duty do ever, according to your 
 deserts, prefer you before all others. Your first endeavours 
 among us do assure us of prosperous success in the godly 
 estimation of the students of this society, and pronounce 
 much future happiness to arise to this Church and Com- 
 monwealth by your longer residence and godly labours." 
 But there was a faction in the College animated by another 
 spirit, which led Bedell to write to Ussher in these words: — 
 " The arts of dutiful obedience and just ruling also in part 
 I did, for seventeen years, endeavour to learn under that 
 good father, Dr. Chaderton, in a well-tempered society: 
 the cunning tricks of packing, siding, bandying, and skir- 
 mishing with and between great men, I confess myself 
 ignorant in, and am now, I fear, too old to be taught." 
 Ussher had discovered the true value of Bedell — his ear- 
 nestness and simplicity of purpose — the strength and the 
 
WILLIAM BEDELL. 229 
 
 influence of his gentle goodness — his lofty reverence for 
 duty — and the genial kindness of his heart. He had been 
 led to suppose that Ussher himself had disparaged him in 
 his absence, as a weak man and unsuited to govern the 
 College ; but when he found Ussher so urgent for his re- 
 turn, advising him to have faith in God, and not to consult 
 with flesh and blood, he yielded all private considerations, 
 and resumed his office. 
 
 So early as 1 5 50, instructions had been sent to the Lord 
 Deputy from England, to have the service of the Church 
 in the English tongue where it was understood by the 
 people ; " and where the inhabitants understood not the 
 English tongue, then to cause the English to be translated 
 truly into the Irish tongue, unto such time as the people 
 may be brought to understand the English, giving straight 
 order for the observation thereof" The Prayer Book, as it 
 stood in 1 549, had been translated into French for the use 
 of the King's subjects in Calais and the Channel Islands ; 
 and this translation was amended afterwards so as to cor- 
 respond with the English original. But so far from his 
 attending to the injunction for Ireland, we now find that, 
 in the January following, the Lord Deputy gave an account 
 of having caused the whole service of the Communion to 
 be translated into Latin ! Mr. Shirley has published an 
 extract from this letter of the Lord Deputy, which is 
 appropriately dated from Maynooth, and another paper 
 from the State Paper Office, which shows that this device 
 came from the English Council. It seems to have been 
 the policy of an influential party to discourage the use of 
 the Irish language, and to frustrate every attempt to turn 
 it to account for education and public worship. 
 
 The Act of Uniformity (1560) thereupon recited, " that 
 as in most places there could not be found English minis- 
 ters to serve in the places appointed for common prayer ; 
 and if some good tnen were provided, that they might use 
 the service and administration of the sacraments as prescribed, 
 in such language as they might best understand, the due 
 
230 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 honour of God should be thereby much advanced; and for 
 that also that the same may not be in their native language, 
 as well for difficulty to get it printed, as that few in the 
 whole realm can read the Irish letters ;" and then it pro- 
 ceeds to enact — " That in every such church where the 
 common minister or priest hath not the use or knowledge 
 of the English tongue, it shall be lawful for him to use the 
 service and administration of the sacraments in Latin !" 
 Compare this with the injunction of 1550 — how striking is 
 the contrast ! 
 
 In 1 571, Queen Elizabeth sent to Dublin the celebrated 
 font of Irish types which afterwards fell into the hands of 
 the Jesuits, and were carried off to Douay. An order was 
 obtained that the prayers of the Church should be printed 
 in the native language and characters, and a church set 
 apart in the shiretown of every diocese, where they were to 
 be read, and an Irish sermon preached to the people. All 
 this, you observe, was before the foundation of the College. 
 The Church Catechism in this year, 1571, was translated 
 into Irish ; but nothing further was done for the space of 
 thirty years, and then the New Testament in Irish was 
 printed. It was the work of William Daniel, who was 
 educated in Trinity College, and was one of the first of its 
 Fellows. In 1608 he was made Archbishop of Tuam, and 
 published an edition of the Prayer Book in the Irish lan- 
 guage and character. In the Preface, which is written in 
 English, this excellent man takes courage and gives good 
 counsel. " The blessed Trinity," he says, " hath already 
 founded a College upon our eastern shore, wherein learning 
 and religion begins to flourish, and (rising with the sun) to 
 spread the beams thereof already to some parts with much 
 comfort and joy. And I nothing doubting but that in 
 God's good time, by the means thereof, and by the like 
 schools of good learning [the chief est means of reformation), 
 the country that doth now generally sit in darkness shall 
 in time see great light to their everlasting comfort." 
 
 " Having, out of an understanding heart, wisely con- 
 
WILLIAM BEDELL. 23 1 
 
 sidered that the Hturgy of the Church, coming in the cloud 
 of an unknown tongue, can leave no blessing behind it, as 
 both the Apostle teacheth, and this poor Church can testify 
 by woful experience, it pleased your Lordship [the Deputy, 
 Chichester] to impose upon myself the burthen of trans- 
 lating the Book of Common Prayer (the liturgy of the 
 famous Church of England) into the mother tongue, for 
 the comfort of the mere Irish Churches, to the end that 
 the ignorant may understand how grossly they are abused 
 by their blind malicious guides, which bear them in hand, 
 that our Divine service is nothing else but the service of the 
 devil. My good Lord, I was as willing to undergo this 
 burthen for the good of the Church, as your Lordship was 
 zealous to command the same ; and having translated the 
 book, I followed it to the press with jealousy and daily 
 attendance to see it perfected — pained as a woman in tra- 
 vail, desirous to be delivered." 
 
 " I humbly pray your Lordship to send it abroad into 
 the country churches, together with its elder brother, the 
 New Testament, to be fostered and fomented. God's bless- 
 ing and mine be with them." 
 
 James I. had complained that the College had not 
 satisfied expectation in providing a native ministry for the 
 Irish, although a liberal provision had been made for this 
 special object. A number of scholarships had been re- 
 served for native students who spoke Irish, but no attempt 
 had been made to encourage the study of the language 
 until the time of Bedell resuming his office in 1628, when it 
 was ordered that there should be an Irish lecture, at which 
 all the native scholars were required to be present ; and 
 Irish prayers should be read in the chapel upon holidays. 
 He had revised the College Statutes, written them out 
 anew with his own hand, and submitted them, when he 
 was in England, to the Archbishop of Canterbury. " He 
 disliked the rule," says Bedell, " as to students wearing 
 gowns always in the University, but ' only if it might be' 
 when they went into town ; whereas, he said, that of all 
 
232 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS, 
 
 Other should have been provided for. I answered, the 
 streets of Dublin were very foul." This is a badge of dis- 
 tinction by which Dublin has since obtained a world-wide 
 notoriety. 
 
 The substance of the code by which the College has 
 been long and successfully governed — under which it has 
 grown into the fulness of its prosperous condition — was, in 
 a great degree, the work of Bedell. He intimated to Ussher 
 the importance of making the College something better 
 than a mere seminary for the clergy ; and he suggested 
 the advantage that would accrue to the country from en- 
 couraging the faculties of law and medicine, and thus 
 spreading around the generous influences of well-ordered 
 learning. The primary purpose of the foundation was the 
 education of the ministry of the Reformed Church — a 
 purpose best promoted by the free admission of those 
 who desire to receive liberal instruction. It is for the 
 common good that all should mingle in the free inter- 
 course and with the fresh feelings and the sympathies of 
 ingenuous youth ; the same basis should be laid, by train- 
 ing their faculties, and enabling them profitably to pursue 
 their special studies, with enlarged and cultivated minds. 
 It is a contrast not without significance, that whilst the 
 Church of Rome refuses to the laity of her own com- 
 munion any share of the instruction given in her seminary, 
 for which an annual public provision is made that exceeds 
 the rental of Trinity College, we offer to all, without dis- 
 tinction, our educational advantages. Prizes and emolu- 
 ments are open to free and honourable competition as far 
 as can be allowed without prejudice to that Protestant 
 foundation which secures to the Roman Catholic as well 
 as to the Protestant laity the common privilege of both. 
 This is not the work of a spurious liberality, but the reflec- 
 tion of that perfect law of liberty which is the glory of the 
 Reformation. Bigotry will rend, and indifference will cast 
 lots ; it is the happy distinction of Trinity College to be 
 as free from the intolerance of the one, as the secularity of 
 
WILLIAM BEDELL. 
 
 233 
 
 the other. Our University has proved itself worthy of 
 the public confidence in its curriculum of literature and 
 science ; its schools of medicine, surgery, and law ; and 
 another school that has won an honourable reputation by 
 unrivalled success in training for the civil and the military 
 service of the State some of the best of the youth of 
 Ireland, thus realizing Milton's description of complete 
 and generous education, " that fits a man to perform justly, 
 skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both private 
 and public, of peace and war." In the midst of this free 
 and healthful atmosphere, the school of divinity has been 
 established ; and the wisdom of moderation is there happily 
 blended with an earnest love of truth. 
 
 Forgive me if I have lingered over a topic from which 
 the hour calls me away. Nor can, I part from it without a 
 passing tribute of grateful affection to the venerable Insti- 
 tution — 
 
 " Where I was awed — religiously possessed 
 With a conviction of the power that waits 
 On knowledge, when sincerely sought and prized 
 For its own sake." 
 
 There I learned to love the studies which are still my 
 solace and delight. With the protection of her interests. — 
 the sacred interests of learning and religion — are associated 
 the happy memories of my public life, and the friendship of 
 the wise and good — by me never to be forgotten. May her 
 peaceful progress continue, like the path of the just, shining 
 more and more unto the perfect day ! 
 
 Bedell's care and government of the College as Provost 
 had been noticed at headquarters as having wrought a 
 great reformation. In 1629 the See of Kilmore and 
 Ardagh had become vacant, and he was now chosen to fill 
 the office of a bishop. The state of the Irish Church was 
 deplorable. The Court of Rome had recently succeeded 
 in planting throughout the country the complete organiza- 
 tion of a rival system. In Mr. King's admirable history, 
 
234 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 and the instructive volume of sermons on the Irish Church, 
 which were preached in Westminster Abbey, and have 
 since been pubHshed by Canon Wordsworth, you may 
 read what I cannot more than glance at, but it explains 
 much of the past and present of Ireland, and with refer- 
 ence to the future should be studied with thoughtful 
 attention. The appointment of such a man as Bedell at 
 such a crisis was an earnest of good-will to the Church 
 and the people. The Papal policy is truthfully described 
 by the late Bishop Doyle, in a passage which has been 
 quoted by the present Attorney-General (Mr. O'Hagan) in 
 a published argument : — " Thus it was that in bad times, 
 in times of turbulence and barbarism, the claims of the 
 Popes to the sovereignty of almost every kingdom in 
 Europe grew up in silence, and were admitted and 
 sanctioned by nearly all the ruling powers. It must be 
 quite obvious that those claims had not their origin in the 
 Gospel, nor in the doctrine of the Catholic Church, but in the 
 state of society, in the mistaken zeal or in the ambition of 
 some Popes — a zeal or an ambition excited and directed 
 by an insatiable avarice, pride, and thirst of power in their 
 followers and dependents." 
 
 It was and it is quite obvious, though the eye of 
 " infallibility " did not see it. Happy had it been for Italy 
 and for Ireland, if what Bishop Doyle has admitted to be 
 quite obvious had been the creed of Rome in the time of 
 Pope Paul V. — happier still; if the policy of the pious 
 Bedell had been adopted. We have Sir John Davis's 
 graphic account of the district in which Kilmore is situate, 
 drawn up in 1 607, on the occasion of the tour of the Lord 
 Deputy Chichester, whom he accompanied : — " As for the 
 vicarages, they are so poorly endowed, as ten of them 
 being united will scarce suffice to maintain an honest 
 minister. For the churches, they are for the most part in 
 ruins ; such as were presented to be in reparation, are 
 covered only with thatch. But the incumbents, both par- 
 sons and vicars, did appear to be such poor, ragged, 
 
WILLIAM BEDELL. 235 
 
 ignorant creatures (for we saw many of them in the camp), 
 as we could not esteem any of them worthy of the meanest 
 of those livings, albeit many of them are not worth forty 
 shillings per annum. This country doth lie within the 
 diocese of Kilmore, whose bishop (Robert Draper) was 
 and is Parson of Trim, in Meath, which is the best par- 
 sonage in all the kingdom, and is a man of this country 
 birth, worth well nigh ;^400 a year : he doth live now in 
 these parts, where he hath two bishoprics, but there is no 
 divine service or sermon to be heard within either of his 
 dioceses. His Lordship might have saved us this labour of 
 enquiry touching matters ecclesiastical if he had been as 
 careful to see the churches repaired and supplied with 
 good incumbents, as he is diligent in visiting his barbarous 
 clergy, to make benefit out of their insufficiency, according 
 to the proverb which is so common in the mouth of one of 
 our great bishops here — that an Irish priest is better than 
 a milch cow." 
 
 Such was the state of the diocese to which Bedell was 
 now promoted. He had every qualification for his high 
 and holy office. He grappled boldly with every form of 
 ecclesiastical abuse. He enforced residence, and put down 
 pluralities ; he convened his clergy, and, in the true spirit 
 of a chief pastor, pressed on their consciences the sacred 
 responsibility of their office. The exactions and impositions 
 by which the people were oppressed under the ecclesiastical 
 courts, vexed his righteous soul ; for he had a passionate 
 love of justice, and in a memorable contest with the chan- 
 cellor of the diocese, which for years he fought single- 
 handed, he manifested such a firmness of purpose, such 
 moral courage, and such a spirit of self-sacrifice, as is, I 
 believe, unexampled in the history of the Church. " My 
 Lord " (he says, in a letter to Laud, then Bishop of 
 London), " I do thus account, that amongst all the im- 
 pediments to the work of God amongst us, there is not 
 any greater than the abuse of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. 
 
236 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 This is the opinion of the most godly, judicious, and 
 learned men that I have known, and the demonstration 
 thereof is plain. The people pierce not into the inward 
 and true reasons of things ; they are sensible in the purse. 
 . . . . Let us preach never so painfully, and live never 
 so piously ourselves, so long as the officers in our courts 
 do prey upon the people, they account us no better than 
 publicans. And so much the more deservedly, because we 
 are called spiritual men and reformed Christians." 
 
 To every form of unjust or unnecessary exaction, prac- 
 tised on the people or on the poorer clergy, he offered an 
 uncompromising resistance, as a thing forbidden by the 
 Holy Scriptures and against the spirit of the Reformed re- 
 ligion. Abuses — not yet rooted out, though much abated — 
 that still defile our Church, especially in England, this 
 godly man denounced with unflinching courage. He hesi- 
 tated not to remind the Primate of the reform that was re- 
 quired in his own court ; with untiring energy he attended 
 in person throughout his united dioceses, so as to secure 
 some measure of justice to the people, and save them from 
 an iniquitous and oppressive system. The extent to which 
 injustice was carried at that time is scarcely conceivable by 
 many whom I now address. For my own part, I say ad- 
 visedly, I hope the day is not distant, when the righteous 
 policy of the good Bishop of Kilmore will be thoroughly 
 carried out, in the true spirit of the Reformation, through- 
 out the United Kingdom. " The thing most to be wished," 
 he says, " were some good reformation in Church matters, 
 but I believe rather nothing will be done than anything 
 much bettered." It is not many years — not more, I think, 
 than seven — since the Bishops of the Irish branch of the 
 Church exhibited a different spirit from that which left 
 Bedell without any support or countenance in reforming 
 Church abuses. Our late revered and beloved Primate at 
 the head, and our present much esteemed and honoured 
 Primate, then Bishop of Kilmore, as the junior Bishop, at 
 
WILLIAM BEDELL. 237 
 
 the foot, offered to surrender all the episcopal patronage in 
 the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, to enable the Legislature to 
 provide a complete reform, by which abuses might be re- 
 moved, unreasonable exactions suppressed, and public con- 
 venience secured by a system of registries, and by a code 
 of discipline for the United Church, adapted to the exigen- 
 cies of the time. The inveterate and traditional abuses of 
 the English system, and the interests and patronage in- 
 volved, have hitherto frustrated this excellent project, and 
 stopped the way of a reform that is most necessary. There 
 is no true friend of our Church who will not rejoice in the 
 exposure and removal of every abuse and every grievance, 
 whether in England or Ireland — every impediment to the 
 free actiqn of those higher influences by which alone, 
 under the blessing and favour of God, she can strike root 
 into the hearts of a wise and understanding people. 
 
 There is an idiom in truth that falsehood cannot imitate 
 — and there is a genuineness in a good man that wins the 
 affections and respect of the people. The most trustworthy 
 writers on the Irish character agree in this, that there is 
 nothing which the people more quickly appreciate, than 
 justice administered in its own spirit. The efforts of the 
 Bishop to save the poor people from a grinding system of 
 exaction and oppression, soon endeared him to them as the 
 poor man's friend and best protector. But there was another 
 way to win their affections — a way that Parliament had 
 proscribed and State policy discouraged — the use of the 
 . Irish language. " The people have souls," said the godly 
 . Bishop, " and they ought not to be neglected till they can 
 learn English." He endeavoured to get ministers who had 
 skill in the Irish tongue, for the parishes where there were 
 many of the native people ; and he himself set to work to 
 learn the language, and was enabled, at last, to complete 
 that enduring monument which consecrates his name and 
 memory — the Old Testament in the Irish tongue. He 
 adopted the policy that Archbishop Daniel had already 
 
238 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 commended, which our excellent Irish Society has made 
 use of, with honesty of purpose and remarkable success, 
 and assuredly it deserves the cordial support of every true- 
 hearted Christian. In all his reforms, Bishop Bedell sought 
 for guidance in God's holy Word. He appealed to the text 
 in I Cor. xiv. 19 — " Yet in the church I had rather speak 
 five words with my understanding, that by my voice I 
 might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an 
 unknown tongue." This was his warrant for preferring 
 humbler men, able to converse with the natives and per- 
 form divine offices in their own language, rather than placing 
 over the people men of greater abilities and learning that 
 wanted the language. And as in the case of pluralities, to 
 set an example and take away every show of argument, he 
 resigned one of his bishoprics, Ardagh, and retained but 
 Kilmore only ; so in a like spirit he began the study of the 
 Irish language in his fifty -ninth year, and by patient dili- 
 gence attained a good perfection, by which, as I have ob- 
 served, he was enabled to leave that precious legacy to 
 Ireland, the Bedell Bible. 
 
 His difficulties were many, subject, as he necessarily was, 
 to be imposed upon by pretenders and men of inferior 
 character, who, with Irish cunning, found out his ways and 
 practised on his generous nature. This, I believe, affords 
 the true solution of the rebuke which he got from Primate 
 Ussher, who gave him credit for his good intentions, but 
 manifestly distrusted the soundness of his judgment in 
 respect of the management of his diocese. At length, how- 
 ever, these two godly men came together, on the memo- 
 rable visit of Bedell to the Primate, when all misgiving was 
 cleared up, and all distrust removed. 
 
 " floly and heavenly spirits as they are, 
 Spotless in life, and eloquent as wise, 
 With what entire affection do they prize 
 Their Church Reformed ! — labouring with earnest care 
 To baffle all that may her strength impair ; 
 
WILLIAM BEDELL. 239 
 
 That Church, the unperverted Gospel's seat, 
 
 In their afflictions a divine retreat ; 
 
 Source of their liveliest hope and tenderest prayer ! 
 
 The truth exploring with an equal mind, 
 
 In doctrine and communion they have sought 
 
 Firmly betvveen the two extremes to steer : 
 
 But theirs the wise man's ordinary lot 
 
 To trace right courses for the stubborn blind, 
 
 And prophesy to ears that will not hear." 
 
 I could have willingly enlarged on the course pursued 
 by Bedell in his episcopal office — and followed him in or- 
 daining ministers — in his whole career of exorcising out of 
 his diocese injustice and oppression— in his sympathizing 
 intercourse with all classes of the people — in the visitation 
 of his clergy — in his diocesan synod — in his correspondence 
 with Laud — in his interviews with the wise though imperious 
 Strafford — in the Convocation of the Clergy in 1634 — in 
 his care of all the churches committed to his charge. And 
 then I might have traced him in his household, where all 
 was sanctified by prayer and praise, and the pure Word of 
 God ; and at last, in that terrible crisis of the great rebel- 
 lion, when God was his hope and strength, a very present 
 help in trouble. But time does not allow me to enter upon 
 a narrative which I would not abbreviate, and I could not 
 paraphrase. Never had the Church a more true-hearted, 
 faithful, and efficient prelate — a genuine son of the Reform- 
 ation. " Bedell's character was a noble one — distinguished 
 by simplicity, courage, modesty, firmness, and single-minded- 
 ness." This is the summing up of our Chairman, the Lord 
 Primate ; and few, if any, have given greater attention to 
 the personal history of this faithful servant of Christ. In 
 the Holy Scriptures and in primitive usage, he found the 
 effective remedy for every evil, and the true principle of 
 reformation. For the real efficiency of the Christian 
 Church, no nostrums are needed — no refined policy is re- 
 quired. God's ways are not as our ways ; and His Church, 
 which He has purchased with His own blood, must be 
 ^maintained in the way and by the means which He has 
 
240 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Himself appointed. Look through the world — study his- 
 tory — and you will find this — what men sow, sooner or later 
 that shall they also reap. Godly and well-learned bishops, 
 an educated and enlightened clergy, an instructed people — 
 in a word, a free Church in a free State — is the sum and 
 substance of the highest policy. It is not the work of 
 usurpation, nor of arbitrary power ; it cannot be upheld by 
 ignorance nor by credulity ; it is an edifice which all must 
 help to build up patiently, and faithfully to preserve in the 
 spirit of freedom and with the love of truth. 
 
 Much of the personal history of Bedell I must leave for 
 your own private reading. It is a history that Coleridge 
 has said should be circulated through every parish and vil- 
 lage in the kingdom. At the last he fell into the hands of 
 the rebels ; they took possession of his house and of his 
 property, but not a hair of his venerable head was injured. 
 The old castle remains in which he lived as a prisoner ; and 
 when he was liberated, he was suffered to go to the house 
 of Mr. Sheridan, where he afterwards died. The parting 
 address to his family, spoken from the bed of death, and 
 recorded by Burnet, fitly closed a life of faith and patience. 
 " Be of good cheer — whether we live or die, we are the 
 Lord's." These were his last words. He had expressed a 
 wish to be laid close to the remains of his beloved wife, 
 near a sycamore which his own hands had planted — there 
 to be buried without pomp or ceremony. But when his 
 family and attendants were proceeding to the spot, the 
 rebel chief of the district, with his troop, met and escorted 
 the funeral procession. 
 
 His body was committed to the earth, there to rest till 
 the archangel's trump shall sound. In silent prayer his 
 few and faithful relatives and friends parted with one who 
 had been indeed their father in God. The rebel chieftain, 
 with his company under arms, gathered around the grave ; 
 and a Roman Catholic priest, who had been one of his 
 tenants — had witnessed his blameless life, and doubtless 
 often shared his kindness — stood close at hand. They 
 
WILLIAM BEDELL. 
 
 241 
 
 came not to revile an alien or to curse a heretic ; they paid 
 him the last honours of a soldier, and he was hallowed as a 
 saint. " O'er the grave where our hero was buried," the 
 rebel troop discharged a funeral volley, and " left him alone 
 with his glory." The kind-hearted priest thought of the 
 gentle spirit that had shaken from its emancipated wings 
 the dust and the dews of mortality, and soared aloft 
 amongst " the just made perfect;" he breathed forth that 
 memorable prayer — " Oh ! may my soul be with Bedell ! " 
 May the spirit of Bedell be with us in this divided 
 land ! That faithful, fearless, loving spirit, subdued the 
 enmity and won the affections of all. His were not carnal 
 weapons — the bigot's scowl — the tongue of strife — the nar- 
 row heart. The pencil of inspiration has fitly traced his 
 epitaph : " In all things approving himself as the minister 
 of God ; in much patience, in afflictions, in imprisonment, 
 in labours, in watchings ; by pureness, by knowledge,' by 
 long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love 
 unfeigned ; by the word of truth, by, the power of God, by 
 the armour of righteousness, on the right hand and on the 
 left ; as unknown, and yet well known ; as sorrowful, yet 
 always rejoicing; as poor, yet ' making many rich; as 
 having nothing, and yet possessing all things."* 
 
 * See the eloquent and suggestive remarks of Canon Stanley in his admir- 
 able Lectures on the Jewish Church, pp. 200- 1 . 
 
242 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 To Mr. Mark Napier, referring to Lecture on Bishop Bedell. 
 
 i 
 
 Thursday. 
 
 Dear Mr. Mark Napier, 
 
 I am happy to hear that Mrs. Napier has found anything to 
 interest her in what I forwarded. Mrs. Tottenham (wife of the 
 Chaplain at Turin) got a copy of the Drogheda Address, and Sir 
 James Hudson read it. She wrote to me to say that their views 
 entirely coincided with mine, and that the exposition of what 
 Italy required was, in their opinion, well founded. I have gone 
 into the subject in a recent lecture on Bedell, who was Chaplain 
 to Sir H. Wotton at Venice in 1606-13, afterwards Provost of 
 Trinity College, Dublin, and Bishop of Kilmore. 
 
 I hope to send you a copy in a few days, when it will be 
 published. I will look in return for your coming pamphlet. 
 
 If there are any of the University men who would be likely 
 to take an interest in the question as to Butler's argument on 
 miracles, if you let me know their addresses, I would order copies 
 to be sent. 
 
 Believe me, most faithfully, 
 
 J. Napier. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 Delivered before the Dublin Historical and Literary Society, 
 21 St June, 1828. 
 
 .Gentlemen of the Historical Society, 
 
 We are assembled together on this evening for the pur- 
 pose of reviewing the history of our late exertions, and of 
 brightening the anticipations of the future by reflection on 
 the past. Such periodical pauses in our career unbend the 
 bow of the mind ; they furnish resting spots for contem- 
 plation ; not suffering experience to lie fallow, as a useless 
 and unprofitable waste, but rendering it the source of 
 valuable and salutary admonition. Were every object in 
 life pursued with an earnestness and avidity proportionate 
 to its importance ; did the interest and anxiety excited in 
 the human breast bear an exact and constant ratio to the 
 utility of those means which are afforded of cultivating the 
 higher and the nobler powers of the mind, no stimulus 
 would be wanting to urge us on in the ardent pursuit ot 
 intellectual pleasures but the spontaneous operation of our 
 own emotions. But when we come to the consideration of 
 those nobler objects in connection with the nature of the 
 being on whom they are designed to operate, we find, that 
 the impression which they are calculated to produce will 
 be strongly modified ; and as the power of habit enables 
 us almost to mould the human mind, we possess the means 
 of rendering that impression forcible and lasting. It is a 
 truth as well known as it is important, that the less affected 
 the mind is with sensual objects, the more eager is it to 
 
244 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 indulge in intellectual enjoyment ; the less conversant it is 
 with low and grovelling desires, the more it thirsts for 
 what is elevated and refined. If then the cultivation of the 
 mind tend to strengthen and invigorate our ardour for 
 laudable and noble pursuits ; for the prosecution of the 
 various objects of refined research and zealous inquiry; to 
 nurture the seeds of virtue ; to mature the principles of 
 morality^; to annihilate the effects of our. pernicious appe- 
 tites ; to repress the influence of sensual desires and worse 
 than unprofitable indolence, — if these noble ends are to be 
 thus attained, would it not be a natural inference, that the 
 means, so far from being voluntarily unheeded and ne- 
 glected, would be sought out with the most anxious care 
 and unwearied diligence ? Experience tells us that how- 
 ever natural this conclusion may be, it is by no means 
 true ; for the. pursuit of these means is more frequently 
 characterized by the fitful starts of caprice, and the limping 
 pace of indifference, than the steady progress of anxious 
 and unwearied industry. In the natural world we observe 
 many gazing with vacant admiration on the wonders of 
 created nature ; but it is only the man of a cultivated 
 mind that observes with advantage, that "traces in the 
 stars the poetry of heaven, a mystery while a beauty," and 
 observes the glories of Omnipotence reflected in the mirror 
 of creation. In the moral world, while the former is insen- 
 sible to the traits of moral beauty, the latter will feel the 
 Promethean fire glow within his bosom. In the history of 
 the great and mighty men who have now gone down like 
 the evening lights from the firmament, he will mark the 
 track of glory they have left behind, and from the contem^ 
 plation of their virtues, catch a portion of their ardour. As 
 then the objects of meditation will always be in accordance 
 with the cultivation of the intellectual faculties, indolence 
 must necessarily tend to unfit the mind for the reception 
 and enjoyment of moral truths or mental pleasures ; its 
 attendant evils becoming a security to its continuance. 
 Besides, the xnind: of man js, from -its nature, subject to 
 
ADDRESS TO DUBLIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 245 
 
 incessant change, and must therefore either be advancing 
 in knowledge and refinement, or retrograding in ignorance 
 and debasement : " non progredi est regredi." Hence 
 every handmaid of mental improvement becomes deserving 
 of high regard and anxious solicitude ; more especially 
 when it contributes not alone to the satisfaction and delight 
 of an isolated individual, but to diffuse the fruits of culti- 
 vation generally through society. It is this which points 
 out to man the advantages of a reciprocity of good feeling 
 amidst all with whom he is associated, by demonstrating 
 the subserviency of individual efforts in forming the com-' 
 bined happiness and vigour of well-organized society. This 
 feeling of mutual dependence, as well as of general benevo- 
 lence, casts a gloom on the dreariness of solitude, while it 
 illumines social enjoyment, and calls into active operation 
 the finest feelings of which our nature is susceptible. To- 
 cultivate these generous principles, to give them proper 
 force and due direction by a contemplation of the various 
 relation and dependence of man on man — to remove the 
 asperities of selfish solitude, and to chasten and correct the 
 opinions of untried energy, is the leading object of social 
 combination. It appears to be a part of the great system 
 of Providence, that a feeling of our individual weakness 
 should infuse if\^to our minds a constraining bond of union, 
 and by the influence of moral compulsion connect mankind 
 in society. It is ^ principle we trace in the phenomena of 
 nature ; the material world pointing with a steady hand to 
 the advantage of co-operation in effecting stability ; show- 
 ing us that the particles which form combined strength 
 and durability would, if left in the unassisted singleness of 
 existence, be impotent and ineffective. 
 
 For what purpose have I indulged in these general 
 reflections ? Because I considered them as essential, in 
 order to awaken the lethargic mind, and to stimulate the 
 generous principle of honourable emulation ; by pointing 
 out, on the one hand, the expanded and noble domains 
 that are open for the excursions of the human mind — the 
 
246 ■ LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 rich stores of exalted pleasure and lofty pursuit, which the 
 cultivated intellect alone could enjoy ; and on the other 
 hand, by illustration, to inculcate the benefit of co-operation 
 in imparting strength and vigour to those powers and 
 faculties by which we are to soar into the regions of in- 
 tellectual delight. We confess the importance of these ob- 
 jects by our uniting voluntarily for mutual improvement ; 
 and if there be amongst us individuals who sit in listless 
 apathy, neither excited by an anxiety for improvement, 
 nor stimulated by a laudable ambition, they furnish pal- 
 pable evidence of the vitiating principle of indolence. By, 
 their enrolling themselves amongst our members, they con- 
 fess that they are conscious of the value and importance of 
 the means that are afforded here of cultivating the powers 
 of the mind ; whilst by their inertia, they prove themselves 
 mere sluggish masses, upon which the best and most 
 exalted motives cannot be brought to act ; content to re- 
 main uninfluenced by a desire of improvement, and im- 
 movable in indolence. They are suffering the strength 
 and energy of youth to be impaired and disabled by wilful 
 ignorance and obstinate sloth ; and their minds will soon 
 resemble a neglected wilderness. They are allowing the 
 precious moments of early life to pass away like the idle 
 wind ; they are omitting the nurture of the fresh greenness 
 of their youth, till the vigour of manhood will anticipate 
 the decrepitude of age. 
 
 In the morning of life, in the spring-time of existence, 
 when we are preparing those intellectual weapons by the 
 proper employment of which we may hope to enlighten 
 the Senate, to animate the Pulpit, or adorn the Bar, we 
 are too apt, whilst indulging in the visionary dreams of 
 youthful expectation, to form a false estimate of our merits 
 and defects. We listen to the voice of self-complacency 
 (for there is no greater flatterer than self) ; and the ardour 
 of youth, before it has been tempered by matured experi- 
 ence, and corrected by sober judgment, serves to colour our 
 impressions with gaudy and evanescent beauty. Such. 
 
ADDRESS TO DUBLIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 247 
 
 being the natural bias of the human mind, it becomes a 
 matter of great importance to counteract its tendency. 
 The false notion which we might otherwise entertain of our 
 own capacities, might often embitter the pangs of dis- 
 appointment, and deprive occasional success of its real and . 
 intrinsic utility. It might suffocate genius, where its ardour 
 should only be damped ; and in the destiny of some self- 1 
 elated individual, might realize the fabled misfortune of; 
 Icarus. 
 
 By bringing young minds into collision, we correct all 
 the evils of solitary study ; we create new intellectual 
 habits — a quickness of perception, a facility of detecting, 
 inconsistencies in others, while we are rendered conscious 
 of our own defects ; thus viewing, as in surrounding mirrors, 
 the powers and faults we may possess, we are enabled so to 
 arrange the lights of eloquence as to conceal what is de- 
 fective and illumine what is excellent. Intellectual caloric 
 will be often elicited, when otherwise it might have lain 
 dormant ; whilst judgment and experience will correct the 
 false estimate we may have formed of the distance of the 
 object of our anxious solicitude. 
 
 The purpose and design of our Society are particularly 
 deserving of attention. If it be of advantage that the 
 language of a country should be spoken with purity, 
 fluency, and ease — that we should be enabled to express 
 our thoughts with elegance and precision — the art of 
 oratory, which combines the acquirement of grammatical 
 accuracy, lucid arrangement, and harmonious disposition 
 of language, with intellectual improvement, is deserving of 
 our industrious and earnest attention. We assemble for 
 the purpose of cultivating this art, which can only flourish 
 in a land of freedom, but withers within the precincts of 
 cowardice or despotism ; which has made nations and , 
 empires pant for independence — the herald of high senti- 
 ment, the harbinger of heroic enterprise. It involves within 
 its comprehensive sphere the varied pursuits of literature 
 and genius ; it calls to its assistance the powers of Reason, 
 
248 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 to Convince — of Imagination, to delight — and of Knowledge, 
 to instruct ; and works upon the richest materials human 
 ability can furnish, disposing them in their due arrange- 
 ment, and imparting to them strength and beauty. The 
 materials may exist in many a mind, but, as an ingenious 
 philosopher has remarked, " only as stones exist shape- 
 lessly in the quarry, that require little more than mechanic 
 labour to convert them into common dwellings, but that 
 rise into palaces and temples at the command of architec- 
 tural genius." * We have first to acquire the materials 
 with diligence, and then to dispose and arrange them with' 
 taste and judgment. Imagine not for a moment that mere 
 volubility of language will compensate for a deficiency of 
 strength and substance ; the purling ripple of shallow water 
 is readily detected. Nothing can tend more to emasculate 
 the reason and enervate the understanding than empty 
 declamation — " vox et przeterea nil." The voice of sound 
 experience has ever declared that the mind of the orator 
 should be enriched with the stores of various knowledge 
 and solid information. We have this truth clearly detailed 
 in the language of one with whose name we are constrained 
 to associate the remembrance of whatever could convince 
 the understanding or captivate the fancy, who, in speaking 
 of eloquence, says — " Est enim et scientia comprehendenda 
 rerum plurimarum, sine quH verborum volubilitas inanis 
 atque irridenda est." f In order then that we should make 
 a beneficial use of the means of improvement which a 
 Society formed for the cultivation of Eloquence is calcu- 
 lated to afford, we must be persevering in the acquisition 
 of an extensive fund of sound and useful information. The 
 fruits of every science will contribute to assist us. The in- 
 dividual who is best acquainted with the structure and 
 powers of the human mind, and with the nature of our 
 emotions, will be best enabled to convince the reason and 
 
 * Browne's " Philosophy of the Human Mind," Vol. IL, p. 390, Lect. 42. 
 t Cicero de Oratore, Lib. I. 
 
ADDRESS TO DUBLIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 249 
 
 to please the taste. He who has carefully examined the 
 classic page of former days will be the better provided with 
 the materials of illustration, and the conclusions derived 
 from analogical reasoning ; he who has impartially searched 
 into the origin of society, and the policy of government, will 
 be the more prompt in detecting any deviation from the 
 original and immutable principles of right and justice ; he 
 who has most frequently exercised the weapons of reason 
 will be the most likely to have their polish preserved and 
 their edges keen, whenever they may be required for use ;■ 
 rust both conceals the brightness and corrodes the metal- 
 Without some such solid materials, derived from research 
 and study, all harmony of words is unavailing : fine-spun 
 sentences, devoid of stability of reasoning, burst like the 
 inflated bubble ; and, in the words of the Athenian law- 
 giver to the Lydian monarch, " The man who has better 
 iron will make himself master of all this gold." Remember 
 then, for I feel anxious to impress the importance of this 
 truth forcibly upon your minds, that the most essential 
 requisite of an orator is solid and substantial knowledge. 
 
 The art of eloquence is the power acquired of arranging 
 the valuable materials of knowledge, in the order best cal- 
 culated to please, and best adapted to edify. The Roman 
 orator says, " Sapientiam sine eloquently parum prodesse 
 civitatibus, eloquentiam vero sine sapientia, nimium obessa, 
 plerumque prodesse nunquam." In oratory we have to 
 express with force and elegance the operations and deduc- 
 tions of our minds : to throw a light on language, which 
 has been aptly denominated "transparent thought;" to- 
 convince and persuade, " delectando pariterque monendo." 
 The extempore speaker has then the difficult double task 
 to perform at one and the same time — to think, and clearly 
 to express. Extemporaneous oratory has been decried by 
 every experienced speaker as a pernicious practice, and 
 one in which we should not voluntarily indulge. If the 
 subject be difficult, the reasoning or the diction must one 
 or other be sacrificed ; for the close attention which each 
 
2S0 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 of these demands would tend to embarrass the operation of 
 the other — whereas, in the words of Sallust, " Utrumque 
 per se mdigens alterum alterius auxilio eget." * How then 
 is the aspirant to oratorical excellence to proceed ? He 
 must attentively examine the nature and bearing of the 
 question proposed for discussion. He must commit to" 
 writing the different steps of the reasoning, render himself 
 certain of the accuracy of the premises, and be cautious 
 that his conclusions have been logically drawn. He is then 
 to consider the question under different aspects, and to^ 
 adopt the one which appears to strike with force and 
 beauty ; to reflect coolly on what positions should be per- 
 mitted to work their own advancement in the conviction of 
 his hearers ; and in this he must be guided principally by 
 his experience of what had most forcibly and spontaneously 
 operated on his own mind, when an opportunity had been 
 afforded. He must then seek for natural and happy illus- 
 tration, in order to strengthen and confirm his deduction 
 by collateral aid ; and last of all, he must select clear and 
 forcible language. An abundant and useful wardrobe of 
 words can only be acquired by the attentive perusal of the 
 best works of classic authors, and by observing their happy 
 modes of just expression. From Johnson, he may derive 
 strength and power, if he be careful to avoid his measured 
 pomp and gigantic formality. From Addison, he may 
 extract that lively force which, like the vein of the marble, 
 appears to exist only on the surface, but is found to per- 
 vade the entire block. Sterne will shew him the beauty 
 and force of idiom ; Goldsmith, the power of simplicity ; 
 Stewart, the polished excellence of philosophical disquisi- 
 tion ; while Burke and Browne will afford the richest 
 imagery in a full and luxuriant vintage. The ancient 
 orators and writers of Greece and Rome afford further 
 resources ; in the spirit-stirring fire and electric energy 
 of Demosthenes, bearing his character in his name, the 
 
 * Catilin. Bell. 
 
ADDRESS TO DUBLIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 25 1 - 
 
 nation's strength ; the powerful and pathetic excellence of 
 iEschines ; the calm philosophy, the laboured ease, the 
 perspicuity and brilliance of Cicero ; all these are precious 
 flowers, from which the young rhetorician should be sipping 
 literary sweets, and should hoard them with the active in- 
 dustry of the bee. For any pains he may bestow, he may 
 feel assured he will be amply repaid ; and though he may 
 find that much toil is necessary, in order to reach the high 
 summit of excellence, yet when he do arrive there, he will 
 perceive a beautiful and expanded horizon to burst upon 
 his view, and gratefully reward him for his labour.- 
 
 By the process I have suggested, of subjecting his early 
 productions to the " lims labor," he will soon be enabled to 
 think with accuracy and express with elegance ; and diffi- 
 culties will diminish, while the facility will be gradually 
 increasing. 
 
 Let no individual, then, attempt to speak on a subject' 
 which he has not previously and cautiously examined. ' 
 The more carefully he has reasoned beforehand, the less 
 embarrassment he will feel in expressing his thoughts ; 
 and the more he has been habituated to the calm oratory 
 of the pen, he will be the less liable, on any emergency, to 
 be taken by surprise, or to disappoint expectation. Mr. 
 Brougham, in his eloquent address to the students of 
 Glasgow University, says — " I should lay it down as a 
 rule admitting of no exception, that a man will speak well 
 in proportion as he has written much ; and that with equal 
 talent he will be the finest extempore speaker, when no 
 time for preparing is allowed, who has prepared himself 
 the most sedulously, when he had an opportunity of de- 
 livering a premeditated speech. All the exceptions I have 
 heard to this principle are apparent ones only." 
 
 Let us for a moment revert to the consideration of some 
 of those mighty men whose eloquence has brightened the 
 history of a nation's fate, and endeared the recollection of 
 their honoured names. The noble and elevated style of 
 Chatham, the philosophic imagery of Burke, the skilful . 
 
252 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 rhetoric of Pitt, the pathetic and overpowering eloquence 
 of Sheridan, the philanthropic vigour of Fox, and the com- 
 manding and captivating brilliance of the lamented Can- 
 ning, were not the accidental attributes alone of natural 
 genius, but the result of diligent and laborious study. By- 
 Societies founded on principles similar to ours, the cradle 
 of their early fame was rocked, their various powers were 
 fostered and matured, and their respective capacities de- 
 veloped. In our own country, famed for its native elo- 
 quence, we find that all its illustrious orators received their 
 primary impulse from that assembly, the name of which 
 awakens so many mingled associations, " The College His- 
 torical Society" We indeed bear a portion of its title for 
 our designation ; but in the words of Lucan, " Stat magni 
 nominis umbra" — occasionally refreshing it in our remem- 
 brance, by chanting a requiem over its grave. Some of 
 us, it is true, have prostrated ourselves, perchance, more 
 than once, and invoked our " Magi " to suffer it to live 
 again — 
 
 " Qu6d si Threicio, blandius Orpheo 
 Auditam moderere arboribus fidem ; 
 Non vanse redeat sanguis imagini."* 
 
 Fortunately we have not been favoured with a para- 
 lyzing protection, but we remain insensible to the superior 
 advantages which are bestowed upon us. True, we do not 
 enjoy the importance which must necessarily be derived 
 from " the letters patent" " the sanctioned charter " of our 
 " Bounteous Mother ;" but does this in any way, or rather, 
 
 • About three years since a petition was presented to the Senior Board, 
 in the University, requesting permission to revive the Historical Society. It 
 was even submitted by the petitioners, that any salutary restrictions the Board 
 should think proper to impose, in the shape of ^'securities" should be con- 
 ceded. This petition, which was signed by upwards of 400 students (amongst 
 which were the names of all the senior students of standing and respectability, 
 and all the resident Scholars, but one who was not devoted to literary pur- 
 suits), was treated in such a manner as is consistent with the appellation of " the 
 silent sister;" namely, with silent contempt. — " Tantse ne animis caelestibus 
 
ADDRESS TO DUBLIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 253 
 
 should it in any way, diminish the utility of the present 
 Society ? Consider that we are not under the fostering 
 care and anxious solicitude of a cautious Dean, whose 
 Ulyssean ear could not listen with security to the Syren 
 strain of any generous or happy sentiment ; we are not 
 assailed with inquisitorial scissors, in order to trim the 
 question for discussion into the ielegant shape and form 
 which the etiquette of University literature might dictate ; 
 with philosophic taste and classic elegance ; with cautious 
 prudence for the welfare of those, " quibus maxima de- 
 betur reverentia." We do not enjoy these blessings, but 
 we should not despair on that account of conferring much 
 benefit upon each other, even beyond the protection of a 
 University.* We have happily several instances of men 
 putting forth their strength not until they had bidden " a 
 long farewell " to collegiate discipline ; and amongst these 
 I may appeal with satisfaction to the names of our emi- 
 nent countrymen, Swift, Goldsmith, and Edmund Burke — ■ 
 names which shed lustre on the University from which 
 they emanated, that tinge its reputation with honour, as 
 the sun will adorn with brilliant hues the dewy mists that 
 partially obscure his rising glory ; names which afford 
 great examples of character acquired and reputation se- 
 cured, even beyond the magic circle of University patronage. 
 And remember, that even under the watchful superiur 
 tendence of the " seven wise men" we find the College 
 Historical Society produced orators of commanding and 
 stupendous eloquence. I might allude to some of those 
 who have now gone to the solitude of the tomb, but have 
 left behind the ever-living memory of their virtues. I might 
 appeal to the efficacy of their eloquence, in asserting their 
 country's rights, and vindicating her honour and her glory ; 
 
 * Lest some of the remarks in the above paragraph should be misunder- 
 stood, we beg to state, that they refer to the usage of our University in the 
 time of the College Historical Society. It is particularly to be observed, that 
 no reference whatever is intended to the present Dean of the University, than 
 whom no man CQuld be more justly ai»4 deservedly respected. 
 
2 54 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 in stemming the adverse current that finally, aided by de- 
 spicable corruption, swept away the bulwarks of our inde- 
 pendence and prosperity. I prefer, however, with one ex- 
 ception, to direct your attention to some who live amongst 
 us, and still continue to adorn the records of native elo- 
 quence and genius. The sweet-flowing and placid energy 
 of Bushe ; the vigorous and manly fire of the immortal 
 Grattan — 
 
 " Nee viget quidquam simile aut secundum ;" 
 
 the classic elegance of North ; the irresistible force and 
 impetuosity of Plunket, with the lion-lash of powerful 
 sarcasm, and the enlarged conceptions of an able and philo- 
 sophic mind : these are men who have not only reflected a 
 splendour on our University, but diffused a brightness over 
 our country ; whose influence shall be experienced in days 
 yet to come, when scholastic mustiness shall be smothered 
 in Lethean slumber. In the cultivation of their oratorical 
 powers, they called to their assistance the valuable efforts 
 of laborious investigation and historical research. But we 
 are not unfrequently told that reputation similar to theirs 
 cannot now be acquired, for the times are changed. In the 
 language of an eloquent writer, " What are the times ? 
 The sun produces the seasons, and the earth produces 
 the harvest ; but it is a change in the dispositions of men 
 which unmakes the times ; for truth remains for ever the 
 same, unchangeable and unchanged, and rests upon the 
 basis of its own immutability."* The times are changed 
 because w& are changed ; we who enjoy all the advan- 
 tage of the experience of former times, and the additional 
 benefit derived from the advancement of knowledge, 
 fettered by few restrictions, and subjected to no unjust or 
 oppressive jurisdiction. We have the example of all those 
 eminent men whom I have already mentioned, to direct our 
 steps and excite our energies ; let us not, then, imagine 
 
 * Dr. Drennan's Letter to Lord Fitzwilliam. 
 
ADDRESS TO DUBLIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 255 
 
 that it is possible to attain to excellence without employing 
 the means which all experience tells us are necessary and 
 indispensable. To borrow the expression of the ancient 
 philosopher, " there is no royal road " to eloquence ; we 
 need not expect to discover an Aladdin's lamp, by which 
 we may rear a fabric of splendour in the course of a 
 single session. I cannot point to any instance of a man 
 becoming a great orator, who had not laboured assiduously 
 both to acquire comprehensive knowledge and command 
 of language. The orators of former days, as well as those 
 of more recent times, have described the toils they have 
 undergone in attaining to eminence. The persevering in- 
 dustry of Demosthenes and Cicero ; the unabated diligence 
 of Erskine ; the assiduous attention of Grattan and Curran ; 
 and the indefatigable labour of Brougham — prove to us that 
 every means were employed to enrich the mind with abun- 
 dant materials ; to write much, to correct, to polish ; to 
 send forth nothing to the world but the immediate or ulti- 
 mate result of mature and studied deliberation. Cicero 
 describes Cato as deriving pleasure in his old age from the 
 revision of the speeches of his earlier years : " Causarum 
 illustrium quascunque defendi, nunc quam maxime con- 
 ficio orationes." 
 
 Having said so much on the importance and advantage 
 of diligent preparation — having, I .hope, confirmed the jus- 
 tice of my observations by a reference to real examples — 
 I must implore you to weigh these remarks with calm and 
 serious attention. The preparation for our debates is not 
 such as might be fairly expected, and our approbation is 
 more frequently bestowed on the noisy ebullition of ex- 
 temporaneous oratory, than the sound produce of diligence 
 and previous industry. We stigmatize, as devoid of talent, 
 the person who appears only able to deliver a prepared 
 speech ; but I must say, that if such individuals as display 
 the solidity of preparation are not more encouraged, the 
 purposes of this Society will soon be frustrated. 
 
 The selection of questions for discussion is a matter oi 
 
256 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 no slight importance, and too much neglected. Questions 
 involving the principles of political economy should be 
 more frequently chosen, as they afford substantial matter 
 to employ the reason, and tend to check the natural incli- 
 nation of the young orator for florid imagery. I would re- 
 commend also, most strongly, that questions connected 
 with modern policy, should not any longer be suffered to 
 adorn our "Index Expurgatorius." It is impossible on 
 several questions to speak with satisfaction, without 
 alluding to the circumstances of recent times and existing 
 governments ; and the mystified style which our present 
 law obliges us to adopt, so far from operating as a pre, 
 vention, only increases those consequences which we are 
 anxious to avert. It has been urged that it is expedient, 
 in order to prevent the irritation which political dissension 
 might cause, and preclude discord and disunion. Should 
 we not rather infer, that by discussing these questions of 
 modern policy, a more lively interest would be excited ; 
 and that by setting forth our opinions, substantiated by fair 
 and manly argument, those unnatural asperities which now 
 unfortunately exist in our country, and which have no ne- ■ 
 cessary connection with a difference of sentiment, might 
 gradually be removed. That the feelings of gentlemen, 
 united together for their common benefit, should amalga- 
 mate dissentient and unchristian principles. We might 
 then be taught to differ, but not disagree : and as was 
 beautifully remarked by Drennan, " resemble the solar 
 beams, which, while they contain an assemblage of distinct 
 colours, afford light and heat to the world by their intimate 
 coalescence." Our artificial dissensions here might thus 
 tend to curb and finally subdue that culpable virulence 
 which not unfrequently debases and degrades the man in 
 real life. It is an unfortunate circumstance that such a 
 feverish excitement should rage in our country, that the 
 ferocious monster of party spirit should not be suffered to 
 sink into slumber, but be roused from its lair, by the empty 
 brawling- of disaffected demagogues; should we, however, 
 
ADDRESS TO DUBLIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 257 
 
 on this account be debarred from the consideration of the 
 existing position and circumstances of our own and other 
 countries, by fair and rational discussion ? And is there an 
 individual amongst us, who would find it impracticable to 
 merge the mad violence of the partisan in the feelings of 
 the Christian ? I am confident that the discussion of 
 modern questions would rob angry principles of their sting, 
 and might thus tend to hasten that period, which I sin- 
 cerely hope is fast approaching, when imaginary grievances 
 will no longer enjoy galvanic existence — when men, in- 
 stead (as Bacon remarks) of " dashing the tables of the 
 law, one against the other," will unite for the general good 
 arid permanent prosperity of Ireland. 
 
 With regard to the rewards which this Society holds 
 out for the encouragement of excellence, it seems to have 
 caught the national infection of employing a paper cur- 
 rency.* Upon mature deliberation, I must say, that the 
 conferring some substantial honour on the individual who 
 may distinguish himself most, during each session, and 
 thus turning our circulating medium into gold, would be of 
 great advantage, and is deserving of consideration. 
 
 I would also suggest the formation of a library, to con- 
 tain the orations of some of our most eminent statesmen, 
 some standard books of history and general literature. 
 Important results have often followed small beginnings ; 
 and I can myself testify that a library, which at its com- 
 mencement only dignified the interior of a tea-chest, 
 swelled in a very few years to a collection of most valuable 
 and useful volumes ; because no book was purchased but 
 what was demanded by the cravings of useful knowledge 
 and practical information.! 
 
 * The only reward at present conferred is a written return on each 
 evening of meeting of the name of the person who is considered by a majority 
 to be the best speaker. 
 
 t The hbrary here alluded to is the library belonging to the Mathema- 
 lical department of the Belfast Academical Institution, and which, like, that 
 Institution, is found to be of increasing importance, 
 
 " Mobilitate viget vires que acquirit eundo." 
 
 S 
 
258 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 I must now advert to a topic of more disagreeable 
 character, and that is the unpardonable apathy of several 
 of our members. Since the union of the two Societies, I 
 believe, nay, I am confident, the best possible feeling has 
 prevailed amongst us ; yet, in one respect, this matrimonial 
 speculation has not proved so beneficial as might have 
 been anticipated. There has not been a spirit of emulation 
 produced at all commensurate to the augmentation of our 
 numbers. As this appears to be a growing evil, I call your 
 particular attention to its existence. The senior members, 
 with I believe one laudable exception, treat us as a charit- 
 able institution that claims their annual subscription : we 
 seldom are favoured with their presence, and still more 
 seldom hear their voice, except in the earnest exclamation 
 of " order ! order ! " I can only say, that if they consider 
 themselves as perfect orators, those who are anxious for 
 improvement will be delighted to hear living examples, 
 whose eloquence has been " matured by age, and modelled 
 by experience :" and should their conceptions of themselves 
 be at all below perfection, we must infer that they never 
 have derived any advantage from their membership, or that 
 they are insensible to the utility which this Society is cal- 
 culated to afford. There is a cold listlessness which charac- 
 terises our meetings, where the apathy of indolence seems 
 to smother the generous ardour of young men, who should 
 be anxious to suffer no opportunity of mental improvement 
 to escape. There is but seldom exhibited the fire of 
 energy, or the diligence of industry ; or when it is exhibited, 
 it is damped and chilled by the frigid indifference of the 
 hearers. Promiscuous conversation too often usurps the 
 place of earnest attention ; the yawn of indolence is sub- 
 stituted for the plaudits of approbation, and well might 
 the empty benches say of their Absentee Landlords, 
 " O fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint."* 
 
 Gentlemen, I beseech you to contemplate the melan- 
 • Virgil. Georg. IL, lin. 458. 
 
ADDRESS TO DUBLIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 259 
 
 choly consideration of marking time only by its loss. It 
 is intellectual suicide ; it will demand hours of unwearied 
 toil hereafter, when the vigour of youth will perchance be 
 fled, and the ardour of emulation will have evaporated. 
 By patient industry alone can you ever expect to arrive at 
 excellence or greatness, to adorn society, or to benefit 
 mankind. If you feel anxious not to be classed with those 
 who are described as " fruges consumere nati ;" if you have 
 a desire to throw a mellowed radiance over the evening of 
 your days, you must not think lightly of the precious 
 moments of early life. You enjoy the exalted privilege of 
 being permitted to explore the rich and varied mines of 
 literature ; you must not stop to lift the golden apples, but 
 submit to early toil, arid. acquire habits of regularity and 
 diligence. You have the examples of the great and good 
 who have gone before you ; you have the experience of 
 eminent men declaring to you, " that knowledge is power," 
 that industry is strength, and that indolence debases the 
 understanding and corrupts the heart. 
 
 In this Society there is a large and extensive prospect 
 opened to your contemplation. While large unwieldly 
 bodies lie at anchor, as guard-ships of ignorance, only 
 showing the force and direction of the current of advancing 
 knowledge, you have here the privilege and the power of 
 floating down the stream, and participating in the delights 
 which crowd upon you as you move along. Awaken, then, 
 all your energies, and prepare for worthy achievements ; 
 let the next session of your meeting together derive a new 
 tone, rather from the consideration of what you might 
 effect, than what you have effected. Select important and 
 interesting questions for discussion ; apply to the con- 
 sideration of them useful knowledge, sound reasoning, and 
 well-selected and forcible language. First provide the 
 solid material, and then fashion and adorn it with repeated 
 strokes of the chisel ; correct and re-correct ; every exer- 
 tion will give increased facility. In the language of a judi- 
 cious writer, " foster the flowers that bring on the fruit, and 
 
26o LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Strip off the barren blossoms that merely encumber the 
 stem."* Be industrious, be in earnest — our countrymen 
 are more frequently admired for their talent, than com- 
 mended for their industry ; be it your endeavour to unite 
 the artificial excellencies of diligence to the innate bloom 
 of genius. To Ireland I might well apply the words of 
 Cicero : " Ingenia vero (ut multis rebus possumus judicare) 
 nostrorum hominum, multum cceteris hominibus omnium 
 gentium prsestiterunt."! 
 
 If, then, we value our own interests — if we have an 
 ardent anxiety for the welfare and tranquillity of our 
 country, let us be diligent and industrious. Let us employ 
 the proper season in the acquisition of knowledge, in order 
 that we may be enabled to dispense it liberally to those 
 around us in maturer years ; it will be the support of our 
 manhood, and the solace of declining age. We must first 
 pass through the ordeal of industry ; as the butterfly that 
 flutters in its gaudy vesture was once the caterpillar that 
 crawled from leaf to leaf 
 
 For myself, circumstances may prevent me from ever 
 enjoying the opportunity of again addressing you. I can' 
 not be insensible to the advantages I have derived whilst 
 among you, in correcting the misconceptions of youthful 
 vanity, and directing into a more beneficial channel the 
 faculties I may have happened to possess. But under any 
 circumstances, I shall watch with much delight your pro- 
 gress and improvement ; hoping that each of you may in 
 after life be enabled to look back with pleasure and satis- 
 faction on days then gone by. That when the plaister 
 shall decay and fall off from the edifice which your exer- 
 tions shall have reared, the lasting inscription shall remain 
 in clear and legible characters ; and above all, that you 
 may experience the proud delight which the independence 
 created by honourable industry must necessarily afford. 
 
 • Edinb. Rev. No. 89— Art. " Moore's Life of Sheridan." 
 t Cic. de Oratore — Lib. 1. 
 
ADDRESS TO DUBLIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 26 1 
 
 That the closing of each succeeding session of this Society 
 may resemble the evening stillness of a summer sky, which 
 not only speaks of the bright and beauteous day that is 
 then declining, but gives us anticipation of a still more 
 glorious morrow. Again I would say at concluding, to be 
 diligent is to be useful, to be industrious is to be happy. 
 Suffer not the recorded warnings of experience to pass 
 unheeded by ; but recollect the emphatic remark of the 
 philosophic biographer, " that negligence and irregularity 
 long continued will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, 
 and genius contemptible." * 
 
 * Johnson's Poets — Life of Savage. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 Before the Dublin Oratorical and Literary Institute, 
 8th January, i84.g. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Institute, 
 
 On a former occasion when I addressed you from this 
 chair, I asked your indulgent consideration, as I was 
 pressed by peculiar duty ; but the desire of giving you 
 such encouragement as might arise from an interest thus 
 manifested in the success of the Institute, and the convic- 
 tion I felt that suggestions for your improvement would be 
 accepted in the spirit which gave them birth, induced me 
 to conclude, that an Address might not merely be accept- 
 able, but useful, though simple in construction, and rather 
 intended to be practical than profound. 
 
 The like feelings have influenced me on this occasion ; 
 I claim the same candid allowance for observations put 
 together amidst the varied pressure of many cares : they 
 are tendered to you not for criticism, but for your instruc- 
 tion. I may say, however, in the outset, I feel the import- 
 ance — the grave responsibility — which belongs to such an 
 opportunity as now presented. The young, the generous 
 mind, full of impulse, clothed in the morning freshness of 
 early life, susceptible of those powerful impressions for 
 good or for evil, that may decide the character of manhood, 
 now listens with docile attention. It would profane the 
 feeling with which I desire to speak on this occasion, if 
 I allowed one sentiment of ambitious pedantry to interfere 
 and mar the simplicity of practical suggestions, to appro- 
 
ADDRESS TO DUBLIN ORATORICAL INSTITUTE. 263 
 
 priate this Institute to your moral benefit, by dealing with 
 it as an interesting part of a wise economy, by which you 
 may be usefully disciplined for the duties of maturer years. 
 
 The peculiar, or rather the avowed, object of the Insti- 
 tute, is the cultivation of literature and oratory. If the 
 attainment of excellence in either were the absorbing 
 desire by which you are merely influenced, I would not 
 acknowledge the merit of such ambition. Not that I 
 would withdraw such accomplishments from the circle of 
 liberal education ; but I place them in the circumference, 
 and not in the centre, fully acknowledging that in their 
 just position they are lawful, and may, under proper guid- 
 ance, be often employed in the service of virtue. 
 
 It is of great importance that on such a topic there 
 should be no confusion of ideas ; for truth is never bene- 
 fited by obscurity or vagueness. 
 
 The benignant hand of God has bestowed on man 
 many elements of power, which, by an appointed agency, 
 he is left to improve and mature. Their excellence results 
 in the equipoise of the whole. The individual man of 
 healthy frame, cultivated intellect, disciplined morality, and 
 instructed heart, is a noble item of society. Each depart- 
 ment enhances and augments the good of every other ; 
 and every duty borrows peculiar grace from the influence 
 of the whole. To cultivate any one element of this com- 
 bination is a part of the duty of cultivating all, and so pre- 
 serving the symmetry and increasing the strength of their 
 united power. But if the vigorous body and the powerful 
 intellect, with reckless morals or impure faith, demand the 
 cultivation of mind alone, and seek for the elegancies of 
 literature, and the principles of a heartless philosophy as 
 the proper business of education, I cannot, I own, enter 
 upon the question of comparing such intelligence with 
 general ignorance. It may be beyond human power to 
 answer with comprehensive accuracy which of these in its 
 results may merit more emphatically a commom condem- 
 nation. The choice of evils assumes the anomaly, that to 
 
264 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 choose evil at all might become a duty; and the statement 
 of the proposition is its simplest, perhaps surest, refutation. 
 
 The wise and understanding heart is not produced (so 
 far as man is an agent) by the monastic spirit which scowls 
 on the progress of mind, nor by the secular philosophy that 
 sneers at the training of religion. All partial education is 
 in principle defective ; but even when the system may not 
 be open to the charge of an imperfect partiality, it may be 
 quite disproportionate in reference to the position in life 
 which those who partake of it may be intended to occupy. 
 You will sometimes meet with men of education who are 
 made more keenly sensible of the difficulties and dis- 
 appointments of life, but not the better prepared to dis- 
 charge its duties. Knowledge has given one form of 
 power, that is, at best, valueless to them, and not conferred 
 another more especially required. An intelligent energy 
 to combat difficulty under discouragement — a general sub- 
 mission to what may be intended for discipline — all this is 
 wanting. The balance of power in the man has not been 
 preserved ; the department in which progress would have 
 been valuable, because appropriate to the sphere of duty, 
 has been unduly neglected ; and energies that ought to 
 have been regulated have exerted influences for evil. 
 
 In truth, you may observe, there is a twofold species of 
 education ; or rather, education involves two integral con- 
 siderations. 
 
 There is an education for duty requiring all the influ- 
 ences of pure religion, and the discipline of our moral 
 nature. This education is needed for all. 
 
 There is a special education for particular positions in 
 life, in which regard is to be had to the proper business 
 which may constitute the general occupation of the time 
 and energy of the pupil. 
 
 These two are neither to be separated nor confounded ; 
 for although they are evidently distinct, they are not inde- 
 pendent of each other. 
 
 I have made these observations to illustrate the view I 
 
ADDRESS TO- DUBLIN ORATORICAL INSTITUTE. 265 
 
 take of the lawfulness of intellectual cultivation. Its ex- 
 tent and its utility must depend on many personal consi- 
 derations, to be estimated rather according to general 
 principles than precise rules ; and I am anxious that on 
 such a question your opinions should be clear — exhibiting 
 both cautious candour and sound intelligence. Never be 
 afraid of the many-sidedness of truth. 
 
 The pursuit of literature has too many charms to 
 endure the rudeness of indiscriminate rebuke. Calculated 
 as it is to improve the taste, it also tends to cherish a class 
 of finer feelings, which are as sensitive as they are strong. 
 The purity of diction, the persuasiveness of manner, the 
 power of chaste expression, which literature encourages, 
 ought not to be undervalued. The communication of 
 knowledge may often much depend for its efficiency on the 
 grace of style, and the force of language : they feather the 
 shaft, which otherwise might fall wide of the mark : they 
 give celerity to its flight, and precision to its aim. 
 
 In this department written composition is entitled to 
 peculiar notice. I shall have to recur to the topic ; but I 
 may now observe upon it, that the habit of recording with 
 the pen the productions of the mind is of paramount im- 
 portance. Mere facility of utterance too often induces a 
 flippancy of thought ; and when the tongue is very busy, 
 the best powers of the mind may be very inactive. 
 Thoughts expanded on the page before us are more likely 
 to be deliberately considered and more clearly expressed — 
 to be arranged in order, and with method ; an advantage 
 that cannot be too highly appreciated. Whatever may be 
 the privilege of a mind trained in composition, accustomed 
 to sober reflection on the topics which are connected with 
 the general exigencies of life, I cannot doubt that for the 
 young student it is perilous to anticipate the result of dis- 
 cipline in diligent study and habit of composing, by a 
 childish feasting on the mere luxuries of oratory. 
 
 I need not occupy any considerable portion of your 
 attention, in order to classify for your guidance the writers 
 
366 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 whose works should be the subject of study. The range 
 of ancient classics which, in the visible improvement of 
 school education, forms part of ordinary instruction, de- 
 mands great attention. It may be, that in the gaiety and 
 giddiness of boyhood, the silent processes which form the 
 habits and taste may not be exactly appreciated ; but even 
 there, many influences are active, though not at first ex- 
 perienced, nor sensibly manifested. ' 
 
 You have survived that interesting stage of life ; and 
 when I announce to you the importance of an intelligent 
 acquaintance with the select and model writers of Greece 
 and Rome as generally necessary to form the accomplished 
 scholar, I know I but echo the opinion of those most com- 
 petent on such a matter to speak with wisdom and authority. 
 I would not be understood to suggest that this important 
 portion of study should be considered a sufficient substitute 
 for a sound acquaintance with select authors in our own 
 language. The pathos of Homer is not lost in the metres 
 of Pope, or the pure verse of Cowper ; the stem morality 
 of Juvenal echoes again in the austerity of Johnson ; the 
 graces of Virgil and of Dryden, the philosophy of Cicero 
 and of Burke, may form parts and counterparts of study : 
 and there may yet remain the sweet simplicity of Gold- 
 smith, the persuasiveness of Addison, the moral energy and 
 unrivalled candour of Butler. But the time would fail me 
 in suggesting all the sources from which knowledge may 
 not merely be heaped upon the memory, but stimulate and 
 mature the mind ; the rich treasures of our own literature, 
 which leave you no plea for ignorance, but the miserable 
 excuse of indolence or inattention. 
 
 Let me here observe, that it is not unusual — and it is as 
 unwise as it is uncandid — to condemn or reject an author, 
 if in his many thoughts some dogmas we dislike, or some 
 arguments we suspect or deny, njay be discovered. In 
 such a spirit of unprofitable fastidiousness we waste the 
 lesson of wisdom which, in a page without spot, may be 
 taught in truth and soberness. The labours of the bee 
 
ADDRESS TO DUBLIN ORATORICAL INSTITUTE. 267 
 
 might teach us that sweet and nutritious stores may be 
 sipped and collected by a wise industry even from the 
 wildest flowers ; and thus impart the lesson that ours 
 should be the effort to appropriate what is excellent, even 
 where it may require an effort to separate it from a per- 
 nicious accompaniment. 
 
 In this department of literary study, where you will 
 range amongst the productions of genius and fancy, let me 
 especially caution you against encouraging mere senti- 
 mentality. It wastes the affections — exhausts the springs 
 of feeling — and enervates the judgment. The genuine 
 impulses of the heart are intended to be carried out into 
 the activity of conduct ; and conduct generated by sound 
 feeling consolidates the character into a fixed habit of 
 virtue. There is a beautiful reproductive power in this 
 exquisite moral economy, which testifies of the wisdom 
 and goodness of Him by Whom we " are fearfully and 
 wonderfully made." It is adapted to all the realities of a 
 life of duty, to promote private happiness and public pros- 
 perity. But the brooding over passive impressions, which 
 haunt and disturb the imagination, divert the energies of 
 the soul, and bury all virtuous effort in the language of 
 extravagance, is not merely unsafe, it is injurious. In 
 this sentimental philosophy will be found all the specious 
 sophistry which lures the ignorant or the distressed into 
 crime and disaffection. ' It cannot bfe satisfied with plain 
 realities ; differences which sincerity justifies, and which 
 can alone be softened usefully by individual moderation, 
 are covered by the flimsy veil of sentimental hypocrisy. 
 Jacobinism is falsified into fraternity, and Communism is 
 merely social, because it is gregarious. All this unhealthy 
 system is high-sounding and hollow. It begins with its 
 delusions, and ends with its destructiveness. The discipline 
 you desire belongs not to this school ; but as the character 
 is vitally affected by the training of the feelings and affec- 
 tions, a watchful jealousy is needed, when surrounded by 
 the temptations of elegant literature, the glow of genius, 
 and the flash of fancy. 
 
268 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 It might be supposed by some that exposure to such 
 perils is a sufficient reason for denying the lawfulness of 
 literature as a subject of your study. What part of the 
 entire economy of life, affording opportunity for improve- 
 ment, is not exposed, I would ask, to the peril of abuse ? 
 But as the peril increases, it is the more important to note 
 the seductions against which we should be ever watchful ; 
 to avoid them with modest caution ; to keep before us the 
 proper purposes of study; and above all, to spread out all 
 our diligence to the light and warmth of sacred truth, 
 assured that no energy below can truly prosper if secluded 
 from those influences which must come down from above. 
 
 The study of History occupies, and most properly, a 
 large share of your attention. It may, perhaps, be well to 
 remind you, that we are sometimes prone to judge of men 
 of other days, without endeavouring to place ourselves in 
 their exact position, and enter into all their difficulties and 
 feelings. This may arise from the absence of that fixed 
 equity of judgment, that habitual fairness of mind, which 
 requires very great attention and gradual training to 
 acquire. From the position in which we view the past, 
 we are tempted to judge of motives by remote results, 
 and attribute previous design where even anticipation had 
 not existed. The complexity of life, with all its incidents, 
 is moulded into its results by Him " who shapes our ends, 
 rough hew them as we may ; " but when, in their present 
 fulness, the whole series of events is disclosed to us, we 
 should not forget how different was the position of those 
 whose undisclosed future was our recorded past. 
 
 The student of history who desires real improvement 
 will not overlook that remarkable portion of the moral 
 government of God that is traceable in His dealings with 
 nations. The equities of individuals are not necessarily to 
 be disposed of in this preparatory stage of existence ; but 
 the destinies of nations are differently circumstanced : and 
 although the survey even here cannot be accurate unless, 
 as it is comprehensive, there is enough to satisfy the 
 
ADDRESS TO DUBLIN ORATORICAL INSTITUTE. 269 
 
 simplest mind which examines the subject with directness 
 and candour, that it is by righteousness a nation is exalted. 
 The concentration of power, which justifies the continu- 
 ance of conquest, must be truly moral ; and the more it 
 harmonises with the rule of the Divine government, the 
 more universal and enduring will be the sway of its 
 sceptre. 
 
 I cannot part from this topic without directing your 
 attention to the work of an old and venerated friend, the 
 late Dr. Millar. His " Philosophy of History," revised by 
 his patriarchal hand, has been recently reprinted in a cheap 
 and convenient edition. It merits all that attention which 
 modest learning, chastened experience, and matured piety 
 can claim for the labours of one who has left behind a 
 memory which embalms him. 
 
 Perhaps I ought not to omit to notice, that what may 
 properly be dealt with as a national act, must in its nature 
 be considered rather with reference to the principles of 
 outward acknowledgment than as the result of individual 
 conviction. This distinction you will find to be of import- 
 ance ; for otherwise the dealing with a nation could not be 
 estimated by those who could not know the sincerity of 
 motives, though they could accurately judge the tendency 
 of any movement or measure, properly to be considered as 
 one for which the nation is responsible in its aggregate or 
 collective character. 
 
 I venture next, but with much diffidence, to approach 
 the subject of Oratory. It is impossible not to feel the 
 difficulty of dealing with this topic, and yet, to be handled 
 usefully, it must be discussed without reserve. A happy 
 facility of expression is undoubtedly of much importance ; 
 and such a familiarity with the use of speech, as may save 
 us from the embarrassment which, often discomposes the 
 mind by the struggling of the tongue ; but on this occasion 
 I feel it the rather incumbent to point out some of the 
 dangers to which you are exposed in this attractive de- 
 partment. A prattling fluency is not, perhaps, difficult 
 
270 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 to acquire ; and thoughts which float upon the surface 
 may be readily misapplied in the business of a vulgar 
 sophistry. Avoid, anxiously avoid, that pernicious habit 
 of speaking merely for the sake of speaking. I would 
 especially recommend a diligent preparation for every 
 debate ; the careful collection of details, and the methodi- 
 cal distribution of them into the order of argument. Put 
 much of your thoughts on paper beforehand; endeavour, 
 if I might so say, to create trouble in the task ; for the 
 difficulty of preparation for any duty, if rightly used, is the 
 best security for its useful performance. 
 
 Avoid the habit of understating or undervaluing the 
 arguments with which you have in, reality to grapple ; and 
 do not advocate any side of a question against your own 
 conviction. It is true, that in the profession to which I 
 have the honour to belong, and which some of those whom 
 I address may yet adorn, the rule I propose is not con- 
 sidered to apply in the sense in which I- am pressing it on 
 your attention. But the reason is discoverable without 
 requiring the disturbance of any principle of morals. 
 Human law is composed of many positive and artificial 
 rules for the control of general conduct, and it deals with 
 outward actions as injurious to society. The results with 
 which the law is conversant are such, properly, as are dis- 
 coverable by its own rules and processes, and upon which 
 a human tribunal may finally pronounce. Thus, where a 
 man is accused of crime, it is not the province of law to 
 go beyond the region in which its established rules have 
 jurisdiction, to assume or suggest his guilt. The advocate, 
 therefore, has the justifiable duty to see that the rules of 
 law are accurately observed in the prosecution of the legal 
 enquiry in which he is engaged. Whether an objection 
 allowed by the law should be relied upon as an answer to 
 a charge or the defence to a claim, may be a question of 
 conscience for the client, but can no more enter into the 
 duty of the advocate in discussing it than of the judge 
 who decides. It is in the use of the objection, not in its 
 
ADDRESS TO DUBLIN ORATORICAL INSTITUTE. 2/1 
 
 discussion or decision, that the moral question arises ; the 
 objection, which may be the sword of fraud, may be the 
 shield of honesty. Therefore it is that a system which 
 must be administered for general advantage, , must, of 
 necessity, be prejudiced in its true perfection, if a rule of 
 general application might be fixed in a case where an 
 advocate's assistance was refused, because on materials 
 necessarily imperfect, and in the absence of the true 
 elements of decision, a partial, though well-intended, dis- 
 approval had induced the advocate to be silent. 
 
 Your position, however, is altogether different. You 
 deal with questions on which opinion ought to be sincere, 
 and not embarrassed in its formation by the ambition of 
 victory in debate. The exception to the rule, as I have 
 stated it, is admitted with reluctance, and not without 
 much distrust by the common opinion of society, from 
 which we may observe how strongly this testifies against 
 the conflict of argument and conviction, 
 
 Should it be the province of some whom I address to 
 discharge forensic duty hereafter,. I trust you will not have 
 reason to regret the moral benefit of sincere advocacy in 
 your preparation in this place. It is well to blunt tempta- 
 tions which, though they must at some time be encoun- 
 tered, ought not to be prematurely courted ; and although 
 I am fully satisfied that the exception, as explained, is 
 justified by its peculiarity, I would rather isolate it, and 
 fence it round, than encourage its influences beyond its 
 foundation. 
 
 I have urged some rules by which the opportunities of 
 debate may be made subservient to a healthy discipline. 
 The observation of real life may illustrate the importance 
 of a discipline in all things. Observe the mind matured 
 and trained, steering amidst the intricacies of a life of duty 
 with safety and success. Contrast the fitful and irregular 
 deviations of the undisciplined adventurer, drifting in every 
 current, and veering with every passing breeze. Impulse 
 masters him— discouragement disheartens, and difficulty 
 
272 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 overwhelms him. But in reference to the want of careful- 
 ness in the particular departments of literary and oratorical 
 preparation, is it unusual to see sentimentality degenerating 
 into vice, and eloquence corrupted into crime ? But even 
 in earlier stages of decline, " Knowledge has become 
 useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible." 
 
 The sober-minded student will zealously guard against 
 the abuses of these attractive pursuits. He will see that 
 the struggle of discipline may sometimes deny him the 
 passing excitement of an evening's display, but will enrich 
 his nature, his habits, and his character, with less captiva- 
 ting but more enduring realities. 
 
 This Institute should be profitable or it should not be 
 supported ; and the most satisfactory answer to its possible 
 abuses will be found in its real utility. To be avoided, 
 abuses must be analyzed and noticed ; nor will your 
 generous minds ascribe to me any desire to be austere, 
 because I urge the value of a discipline which giddiness 
 may condemn as too grave for youth. 
 
 I cannot but feel that I share in the responsibility of 
 what you may here accomplish. Before I was called to a 
 post of public duty, you sought me as your President, and 
 I have ever found you desirous of guidance for good. 
 
 There are amongst you, I cannot doubt, some who may 
 yet occupy important positions in life, and mingle in its 
 activities powerful influences. The generation now ad- 
 vancing into manhood may have to fight the battle of our 
 national prosperity. It is an hour of solemn interest — a 
 time in which the maintenance of the highest forms of 
 truth, and the exercise of the most disinterested duties, 
 may, so far as man is concerned, be much more the effort 
 of a faithful few than the labour of the many. Amongst 
 large masses of society, secondary influences prevail where, 
 perhaps, their sources have never been traced. The pre- 
 cepts of a pure faith, where its standard of morals is 
 publicly accredited, may be so honoured by a public 
 opinion that a virtue may go out from it ; and thua it is 
 
ADDRESS TO DUBLIN ORATORICAL INSTITUTE. 273 
 
 that in well constituted society, with all its gradations and 
 influences striking downwards, a permanence is acquired 
 which is only lost when the fountain of influence is ex- 
 hausted, or its channels obstructed. Preparation is your 
 watchword now; it must soon be active exertion. But 
 both are individual and personal. The paralyzed powers 
 we sometimes notice, the despondence of some, the im- 
 patience of many, the prostration of all, declare to us that 
 whatever be the causes, we have not an adequate instru- 
 mentality to grapple with the difficulties of this season of 
 our country's agony. It is, therefore, as the many are 
 weak, the few should seek to be strong ; and I advert to 
 this for no other purpose than to urge on you, that every 
 opportunity of real improvement should be cherished as a 
 peculiar blessing. 
 
 How great a boon to your country, if even you begin 
 the duties of manhood with that moral attention which 
 sound reflection commends ; accustomed to expose those 
 fallacies by which discontent has often been fanned into 
 disaffection ; and the neglect of the appointed means, 
 which, in the unchangeable laws of wisdom and goodness, 
 must be used to secure prosperity, has been often sought 
 to be corrected by other processes than those of industry 
 and virtue. Every one of you thus disciplined will aug- 
 ment the moral power, and brighten the hope of our un- 
 happy country. 
 
 I have glanced at the difficulties which may hereafter 
 beset your path in life ; but remember, the whole economy 
 of life involves difficulty, discipline, and progress. It begins 
 in the divine arrangements of the domestic constitution. 
 Authority softened and commended by all the influences 
 of tender sympathies and affections, trains us to subordi- 
 nation, and duties are to be performed, the obligation of 
 which we cannot evade, for they spring from a relation of 
 divine appointment. Processes are silently active long 
 before their energy is nianifested. The fresh feelings now 
 receive impressions and impulses which go forward into 
 
 T 
 
274 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 manhood, which derives its character from the training of 
 the child. I do not propose to intermeddle with the 
 administration of family life ; but I notice it as one of 
 those agencies which consecrate the loveliest forms of life 
 to its noblest purposes. It gives the key-note to life's 
 general duties ; it inculcates order — cherishes affection — 
 commends unity, and hallows peace. The cold analysis 
 of a rational philosophy cannot fathom its mysteries ; it 
 assures us that there are principles of power within us, 
 slumbering in the deep recesses of the heart, which cannot 
 be severed from our moral existence. And when boyhood 
 brightens into man's estate, the deep springs of emotion 
 supply an unexhausted flow of feelings which rank amongst 
 the high mysteries of our being. 
 
 The great and venerable institutions of society strike 
 their roots into this region, and transmit influences which 
 never can be subjected to the test of reason alone. And 
 thus there is a secret of power not only in the individual, 
 but in society itself ; it assumes the varied forms of prin- 
 ciple, prejudice, and passion ; and one of the purest evi- 
 dences of the pure religion which hallows the Christian 
 name, will be found in its wonderful adaptation to man, in 
 regulating every latent emotion which , experience can dis- 
 cover or philosophy detect. 
 
 I am anxious to impress upon you the perilous fallacy 
 of summoning to the bar of reason, however impartially 
 disposed, agencies that are mainly intended to act upon 
 our affections. It is but another form of that fallacy which 
 regards the culture of the mind as the education of the 
 man, separating the light of intellect from the warmth of 
 the heart. 
 
 It is of much practical importance to keep this fact in 
 remembrance, that man is not merely an intellectual being. 
 It may satisfy you of the unreasonableness of expecting to 
 convince by demonstration, however logical, where the 
 truths involved cannot be withdrawn from the influences of 
 feeling. And it may also teach you, that as the powers of 
 
ADDRESS TO DUBLIN ORATORICAL INSTITUTE. 275 
 
 reason are various, and the strength of emotion not less so, 
 and the discipline , which matures, or the neglect that 
 withers, forms another element of that variety of character 
 which abounds in busy life — how practical is the duty of 
 modest deference, and how sound is that spirit of modera- 
 tion, which exhorts a meekness of wisdom, which is indeed 
 pure, but also peaceable ! 
 
 I have already observed, on the constant element of 
 difficulty in discipline ; a moral attention to duty is con- 
 stantly needed. It is the slumbering indolence which mis- 
 spends the period of active life, that brings down angry 
 messengers to rouse us into energy and action. These, 
 like the storms in nature, which correct and purify stagna- 
 tion, are not merely necessary, but merciful. It is not your 
 proper destiny, however, to lounge or dream away life's 
 precious hours, but to engage in its busy bustling realities 
 with manly vigour. But do not persuade yourselves that 
 its difficulties are few, or its temptations easily encountered, 
 nor that you may not require the aid of every weapon with 
 which truth can combat error. 
 
 It is not merely in the course of outward duties that 
 these trials arise. The difficulties of opinion are not 
 inferior to those of conduct. The sophistries, the delusions, 
 the disturbing temptations, which at the outset may assail 
 you, require a shield which no human hand can thoroughly 
 fashion. How many a chivalrous youth would brave the 
 terrors of the battle-field, and yet cower before the sneer of 
 scorn or the scoff of sensuality ! 
 
 In reference to opinions on many subjects of general 
 interest, it is of great consequence you should not entangle 
 yourselves in any way, by which you might be embarrassed 
 in adopting sound conclusions. But it might be well to 
 remind you in this restless age, that there are standard 
 truths which cannot be discarded without peril and without 
 presumption. Like the silent stars, which exert their 
 central influences, and preserve the harmonies of systems ; 
 where every new discovery confirms the reality of the 
 
276 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 science which reposes on the fixed laws of nature. Hold 
 first principles in reverence ; and rather believe they are 
 sometimes disturbed by other influences than doubt their 
 unchanging verity. 
 
 Cultivate a spirit of moderation — gentleness, and fair- 
 ness of mind. It is in this wisdom, that neither slumbers 
 in stagnant indolence, nor runs in reckless haste — neither 
 worships an idol nor forgets a prayer — in this spirit of 
 goodness that you will be the most likely to adopt the 
 safest conclusions for the general conduct of life. 
 
 I had observed on the influence of conduct on character, 
 by which feelings carried out in duties, and ripened into 
 habits, are permanently incorporated into our moral nature. 
 Affections which loathe the plainness of duty lose their 
 power, and enfeeble the system they were intended to in- 
 vigorate. 
 
 What encouragement, yet what responsibility ! How 
 carefully should every step be taken, especially on the very 
 verge of manhood's duties. I cannot disclose to you with 
 what feelings I contemplate your future progress in life. 
 This is not a mere casual meeting : you have presented 
 many hearts to receive impressions which may yet be 
 hallowed. 
 
 The very position in which you have placed me re- 
 minds me that its influence may give power to what other- 
 wise might be unheeded. The season, too, invests all our 
 feelings with its peculiar influences. We have (as the year 
 now past closed upon us once and for ever) sat under that 
 serene loveliness of Christian associations that casts a soft 
 splendour over every nobler emotion of the soul. Every 
 lurking sympathy, every dormant affection, has exhibited 
 the energy of life ; and now, as another year opens upon 
 us, and hope has brightened with its cheering rays thoughts 
 and memories which were not cloudless, could there be a 
 time more suited for profitable meditations to send us on 
 our way rejoicing ? And yet we have many monitors that 
 make us sorrowful. The mother of Augustine, in the days 
 
ADDRESS TO DUBLIN ORATORICAL INSTITUTE. 277 
 
 of his youthful folly, poured forth to the venerable Ambrose, 
 in the multitude of maternal tears, her anguish for her child. 
 " Courage, daughter" (said the venerable prelate), " the child 
 of such pious tears will not be left to perish." 
 
 Oh ! thus may it be with the loved land of Burke and 
 Ussher that has given to the world the early lights of a 
 pure Christianity, and in later times the bravest and the 
 wisest of the living and the dead ; and if the tear of sorrow 
 and the pious prayer shall bring down blessing and guid- 
 ance from above, be yours the ambition by preparation for 
 duty now, to be subjects of that heavenly guidance, and 
 channels of that divine blessing. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 Delivered before the College Historical Society, 
 November 2^th, i8ss- 
 
 Gentlemen of the Historical Society, 
 
 At this the first public meeting of the Society which 
 has been held since you have chosen me to fill the office 
 of President, I desire to acknowledge in this Hall and from 
 this Chair, how much I value the honour which has been 
 thus generously conferred upon me. And it seems to 
 me to be a duty which I owe to you, to record here, with 
 such authority as may properly belong to my office, the 
 views which I advisedly take of the position of this Society 
 in the system of the University, and its claims to the con- 
 fidence of all who would encourage enlightened progress. 
 To be connected with a Society ennobled by such great 
 traditions, and upon which the lights of other days have 
 shed such lustre, nay, such splendour — to attend in this 
 Hall, where, year after year, we are instructed by the elo- 
 quence, the research, and, I will add, the genuine good 
 sense displayed in the Addresses which the Auditors have 
 delivered, and which have been so well sustained to-night 
 by the graceful, and modest, and admirable Address of my 
 young friend Mr. Pigot — to mingle here with ingenuous 
 and cultivated minds, for moral and intellectual improve- 
 ment, to which the choice offerings of history and literature 
 so richly contribute — this is, indeed, a privilege not to be 
 lightly esteemed. But, Gentlemen, to preside over such a 
 Society, is not merely a privilege ; it is an honourable and 
 
ADDRESS TO COLLEGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 279 
 
 responsible office. I feel it to be both. I feel it the more 
 especially at this time, when peculiar circumstances call 
 upon us to reconsider the uses to which this Society may 
 be made subservient, and the proper place in our Univer- 
 sity education which it is fitted to occupy. It is not a 
 supplemental part, it is integral ; and this Society must 
 not be treated as an unwelcome intruder, only to be en- 
 dured, but it is to be regarded as an established Institute, 
 which has a lawful claim to be generously encouraged ; 
 and on its behalf I will add, that it is bound, by its im- 
 proved efficiency, to give completeness to a liberal Univer- 
 sity education. I do not purpose to revive the stale dis- 
 . cussion of the abuses to which such a Society may afford 
 occasion : corruptio optimi pessima. I would merely re- 
 mark, that the argument which might go to suppress 
 liberty, because it may lead to licentiousness, is assuredly 
 not sound, and cannot be allowed. 
 
 What are the uses, what are the capabilities of this 
 Society, and how may these be turned to the best account ? 
 It is to be judged, according to the practical wisdom of 
 Bishop Butler, not by its perversions, but by its genuine 
 tendencies. Its illustrious founders (and, I may say, in 
 passing, "there were giants in those days"), its splendid 
 traditions, testify on its behalf that it is worthy of a promi- 
 nent place in the system of the University. To study the 
 philosophy of history, to cultivate English literature, to 
 acquire facility of clear and elegant expression, and encou- 
 rage accuracy of thought by the practice of composition, 
 conference, and debate — to accumulate useful knowledge 
 with genial confidence, and mature opinion by an inter- 
 course generous and manly, calculated to cherish indepen- 
 dence of spirit, with a temper of forbearance, moderation, 
 and good-will — these are the objects which have been 
 bequeathed to us as a precious legacy for our present 
 benefit, and which we are to transmit without damage or 
 diminution to those who may succeed us. 
 
 In the admirable and judicious remarks of Professor 
 
28o LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Dugald Stewart on the true character of education, he 
 embodies the celebrated passage from Milton, in which it is 
 said, " that education only can be considered as complete 
 and generous which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, 
 and magnanimously, all the offices, both private and public, 
 of peace and war." The crisis of war has called for a 
 revision of our system, or at least of our curriculum of 
 education. Defects and omissions have been detected, and 
 we have at once acknowledged that the remedy should be 
 prompt, liberal, and efficient. But in this there is a temp- 
 tation against which we ought to be upon our guard. The 
 settled course of education is not to be rashly modified, 
 merely to meet a pressure under which there may be a 
 disposition to sacrifice sound and solid training in our time- 
 honoured University, to a superficial rivalry with other 
 Institutions, which work at the mint rather than in the 
 mine, and are content to issue an available currency, though 
 it may not be the sterling standard coin. Nee temere nee 
 timide, is the rule' by which we must be guided. In the 
 exact sciences — in the studies of our admirable Engineer- 
 ing School, which has been worked with such great 
 ability and such untiring zeal by the learned and respected 
 Professors under whose care it has acquired a reputation 
 so well deserved-:— in these we have sustained the character 
 of the University with credit and honour. In classical 
 literature, in history and composition, in the very branches 
 of knowledge which strike, as it were, their second roots 
 into the soil of this Society — we have not been equally 
 successful. This bears practically upon our present po- 
 sition and duties, and has mainly influenced me to bring 
 under your deliberate attention, the capabilities of this 
 Society, and the share which we might properly take in 
 giving effect to such reforms as may not merely secure a 
 supply of students generously and completely educated,, 
 but impart to the great subject of education a life, a spirit, 
 and an interest, which may realize valuable results for our- 
 selves and for our country. 
 
ADDRESS TO COLLEGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 28 1 
 
 The policy of advancing merit by public patronage has 
 been, at least in one department, inaugurated. The edu- 
 cational influences of such a policy, faithfully carried out, 
 must soon tell upon the community. It may be more 
 than doubtful, indeed, whether a single examination, with 
 so much hap-hazard in it, can satisfactorily test the real 
 merit of candidates, whilst it may encourage a system of 
 cramming with a view to conjectural success ; but in the 
 end, I am confident that the education which is most com- 
 plete and generous will be the most successful ; and I trust 
 that no consideration of passing popularity — no temptation 
 of temporary success, will induce our University to give 
 way to a temper of restless change, or seek a substitute, to 
 displace the sound training and the valuable discipline of 
 exact science and standard classics. "Raw haste, half- 
 sister to delay," must find no altar within these walls. Let 
 us consider, for a moment, the comprehensive character of 
 education, and the part allotted for our peculiar labour. 
 There are great fixed laws of moral government and social 
 economy with which we should be made acquainted, so 
 that we may bring our life into harmony with principles 
 which regulate individual duty and promote the common 
 weal. We begin with language. The study of words is the 
 fit preparation for the study of things. The study of elegant 
 words, in classic authors, cultivates the taste, gives exact- 
 ness to thought, and grace to expression. The certainties 
 of Arithmetic and Geometry, and the exercises of Logic, 
 train and mature the reasoning faculty. The quality of 
 preparatory instruction may be largely influenced by the 
 sanction or preference supposed to be given here to par- 
 ticular courses or books, whilst, on the other hand, the real 
 value of a University education may largely depend on the 
 previous training of the home and the school. Juncta 
 juvant. 
 
 The student enters the University when he is supposed 
 to be capable of self-control, and in a condition to avail 
 himself of a course of liberal study. He has arrived at a 
 
282 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Stage of life rich in peculiar advantages. With energy 
 and spirit, he exults in the conscious growth of knowledge ; 
 in lively sympathy with the generous actions recorded in 
 history, and with the high passion of poetry, he is rich in 
 the possession of time and the accompanying conscious- 
 ness of freedom and power. Such in substance is the sug- 
 gestion of the philosophic Wordsworth in his admirable 
 letter under the signatnre of " Mathetes," published by 
 Coleridge, in the third volume of " The Friend," which 
 ought to be a study for your most thoughtful hours. Here, 
 then, we have the student beginning to master knowledge, 
 which, by the activity of his mind, he gradually appro- 
 priates. Just at the right season, the Historical Society 
 invites him into its ranks. Has he entered upon the 
 study of history ? Has he considered its deep philosophy ? 
 Has he yet come in contact with the comprehensive 
 reflections of Niebuhr, or the more simple but not less 
 instructive lessons to be found in the lectures of the good 
 and gentle Arnold ? These, and others of this great 
 School, are to be studied where no undue pressure may 
 restrain the flow of youthful feeling, which ought never to 
 be repulsed or chilled. Here you bring your deductions 
 to the test of open discussion, where they are canvassed 
 with the rigour, but without the asperity, of controversy, 
 where you find a sympathy which converts opponents into 
 assessors. The interference of coercive authority might 
 so restrict the freedom of debate as to discourage the 
 growth of generous opinion ; and those great movements 
 which indicate the course of human progress, might not 
 be presented or viewed in that bold and grand outline 
 which constitutes their genuine value for the instruction 
 of the student. But whilst I thus assert its importance, 
 and claim for you as a right, an exemption from any inter- 
 ference with your own proceedings, it may be seasonable 
 to remind you that your efforts in this Society, if only 
 desultory or capricious, or without adequate and careful 
 preparation, cannot be expected to realize for you any 
 
ADDRESS TO COLLEGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 283 
 
 solid benefit. If either your proper attention to the strict 
 course of the University be distracted or diverted by any 
 attractions which may here entice you, or if your attend- 
 ance degenerate into a lounge, to satisfy the cravings of 
 indolence or repair exhaustion, I have not a word of en- 
 courageriient to offer ; such waste of opportunity is only 
 to be deplored and denounced. But to the earnest, reso- 
 lute students who look forward to a life of honourable and 
 successful industry — to you I say — search history to be 
 instructed, exercise yourselves much — very much — in com- 
 position and criticism ; study poetry and oratory to 
 acquire elegance of expression, refinement of feeling, 
 elevation of thought, and sober self-possession ; economize 
 and redeem time, gather up its scraps and fragments, so 
 that nothing be lost ; adjust the periods of your graver 
 and lighter studies, and always remember how respon- 
 sible a work you have to accomplish honourably in your 
 University career. The ancient and modern classics must 
 constitute a very important part of a complete education, 
 and the system in which they are depreciated must be 
 unsound and imperfect. In this practical age there is 
 a very dangerous tendency to idolize what is at once 
 marketable, and therfore taken to be more peculiarly use- 
 ful, and this may much disparage studies which exercise 
 a most powerful though indirect influence upon the train- 
 ing of the student. The elegance and refinement of 
 poetry may thus be despised unduly and unwisely. The 
 genuine poet, like the true orator, appeals to the deep 
 feelings and universal sympathies of mankind. He binds 
 together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of 
 human society as it is spread over the whole earth and 
 over all time ; he lives in the contemplation of the true, 
 the beautiful, and the good, by which he divests life of its 
 material • grossness. Who can rise from the sweet and 
 simple verse of our own artless Goldsmith, without feeling 
 in his soul the gentle benevolence and tender simplicity 
 which breathe through every line ? Who has ever studied 
 
284 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 without profitable delight, the thoughtful melody of 
 Wordsworth, revealing the profound harmonies of nature, 
 man, and heaven — the links of good by which all human 
 things are connected — the sublimities which belong to life 
 in its origin and its destiny ? Who does not hail with 
 gladness the deep flow of thought and feeling which has 
 so purified our modern literature, given to the material 
 universe a speech and a language before unheard, and 
 bound up an exquisite, nay, a Divine philosophy, with all 
 that is pure in thought, elevated in sentiment, deep in 
 feeling, and graceful in expression ? What mild wisdom 
 is to be found in the soft words of Tennyson — 
 
 " Beauty, Good, and Knowledge, are three sisters, 
 That doat upon each other, friends to man, 
 Living together, under the same roof, 
 And never can be sundered without tears." 
 
 Gentlemen, believe me, your education cannot be com- 
 plete or generous if the events of history be not studied 
 in the spirit of enlightened philosophy, or the great ap- 
 peals of the poet and the orator to the sympathies and 
 feelings of man, be not apprehended in the spirit in which 
 they have been conceived. History is not an old altnanac, 
 poetry is neither rhyme nor metre, oratory is not mere 
 fluency of speech, classical study is not the vulgar cram- 
 ming that sometimes chokes, but never fattens, its victim. 
 Have I not said enough to awaken a laudable ambition 
 in you to make this Society worthy of these attractive 
 subjects of study ? I might appeal directly to its spirit- 
 stirring traditions ; they live in the hearts, they are 
 treasured in the memories of some of our Vice-Presidents, 
 who stand, as it were, between the living and the dead. 
 The Angel of Death, within a recent period, has swept 
 away one illustrious name from the list of our officers — 
 I mean William Conyngham, the late Lord Plunket. He 
 was trained in this Society. Here he learned, for here 
 he practised, the severest discipline of preparation ; here 
 
ADDRESS TO COLLEGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 285 
 
 his vigorous and manly mind was laboriously exercised ; 
 here he cultivated that noble eloquence which combined 
 the symmetry and the grace of the statue, with the strength 
 and the solidity of the quarry ; and he has left on record 
 the instructive testimony, that he never succeeded in pro- 
 ducing a great impression, without the most careful and 
 elaborate preparation — a lesson which he had learned 
 within these walls. When but a stripling he began the 
 battle of life, which he fought so triumphantly. 
 
 " Nitor in adversum, nee me qui csetera vincit 
 Impetus." 
 
 And when I allude to his habitual preparation, I find, 
 that it was not the manufacture of fine sentences, nor mere 
 flights of fancy. His was the preparation of thought, 
 conference, reading, reasoning, and illustration. He con- 
 sidered the many-sidedness of the subject, and seized 
 vigorously on the most striking propositions which it in- 
 volved. He discussed its niceties and its difficulties with 
 intelligent and sagacious friends, until he was thoroughly 
 penetrated by the mature convictions which he thus 
 brought regularly to the birth ; and then, with the aid of 
 his early and continued study of standard authors, and 
 his eminent skill as a logician, his style was at once 
 simple, nervous, and classical, with that unpretending 
 plainness which is so essential to the excellence of an 
 orator, and that felicity of illustration and command of 
 imagery which were so sparingly but so successfully em- 
 ployed to give to massive strength both force and beauty. 
 
 I have, perhaps, taken up too much of your time with 
 topics which are somewhat trite ; and yet it was a wise 
 saying of the late Dean Sydney Smith, that we do not so 
 much require to be taught new truths, as to be reminded 
 of those which it is our wisdom to remember, but our weak- 
 ness to forget. This, I would observe, that there never 
 was a time when the students of the University had such 
 extended opportunities for cultivating knowledge. I may 
 
286 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 particularly notice the removal of the department of 
 English Literature from the lumber-room of the College, 
 and its formal admission into the course of the University; 
 the provision made for the class of Political Economy, and 
 the better encouragement which is offered to Classical 
 studies ; the School of Oratory settled under the conscien- 
 tious care of our accomplished Professor, whose sympathy 
 has been manifested by his habitual attendance at our 
 public proceedings. These all combine to encourage the 
 diligent student to avail himself in due course of such 
 advantages, so valuable for the purposes of his future suc- 
 cess in life. For any of the learned professions, the best 
 preparation is the discipline and cultivation of an enlight- 
 ened University education ; and this must at least include 
 an intelligent study of history and classical literature. 
 But there is more to be considered in education than mere 
 scholarship. We may meet with men who are honourable 
 and influential, but somehow they seem to despise the 
 great laws of human association, with which they have 
 never perhaps been acquainted, and they are insensible to 
 many influences by which life is penetrated. Now I am 
 most sincerely anxious that the formation of sound and 
 generous sentiment should not be disregarded in the con- 
 sideration of our educational duties. I speak not of senti- 
 mentality, which buries every virtuous emotion in the Ian:- 
 guage of extravagance ; but I advert to that enlightened, 
 elevated feeling which springs from the thoughtful study of 
 the moral and social relations of man, and the sympathies 
 which belong to the high mysteries of his being. The 
 mere man of science, the secular or scholastic pedant, the 
 cold and heartless economist, the fluent linguist, have no 
 more right to appropriate the title of an educated man 
 than the snow which glistens on the lofty Alp, or the 
 glacier descending into the valley, to be confounded with 
 the flowing river or the swelling ocean. I want for you com- 
 plete and generous education — education which trains the 
 faculties, expands the affections, and cultivates the finer 
 
ADDRESS TO COLLEGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 287 
 
 feelings of ingenuous youth. Never was it more needed 
 than now. We cannot fail to observe that modern science 
 tends to the development of individual liberty, and teaches 
 that men should, as far as possible, be left to follow their 
 own interests. It is the more important that when you go 
 out upon real life, your views of duty should be sound and 
 elevated, well prepared to give effect to such policy and 
 such principles as may most permanently secure the well- 
 being of the community. I am now looking above and 
 beyond the uses of the Society as a mere place of prepara- 
 tion for professional success. For this, I think, it may be 
 used most legitimately and profitably ; but I also affirm 
 there is in its very system of self-culture within the Univer- 
 sity, another excellence, special and peculiar. For this I 
 can find no substitute in any other department ; and the 
 testimony of experience on this point is too powerful to be 
 resisted. But, Gentlemen, let it indeed be genuine self- 
 culture — the culture of conscientious students, not willing 
 to drift, but resolved to steer, and so to use every profitable 
 occasion for its proper purpose : — 
 
 " No desponding, no repining, ■ 
 Leisure must by toil be bought : 
 Never yet was good accomplished 
 Without hand and thought." 
 
 I will not further expatiate on the value or manner of 
 preparation for your debates. It will be to me a source of 
 pleasure to communicate freely with you, collectively or in- 
 dividually, on whatever concerns your success, and to con- 
 fer with those in the University who may be willing to help 
 forward your future proceedings in the way most likely to 
 be useful. I am resolved that no available means shall be 
 overlooked which may enable us to sustain the character 
 of the Society and the credit of the University. There is 
 one aspect of our proceedings which I delight to contem- 
 plate, and I may, m concluding, direct your attention to it. 
 We meet together in that spirit of kindly intercourse, which 
 neither requires the compromise of one sincere conviction. 
 
288 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 nor sanctions the intrusion of one uncharitable feeling. To 
 cultivate such a spirit is an element of Christian life. It 
 has been beautifully said by one not more eloquent than 
 wise, that charity must in its comprehensiveness embrace 
 everything human, must shed its light upon the just and 
 the unjust, detect the soul of good in things evil, steal 
 rigidity from virtue, and bring into gentle relief those truths 
 which are of aspect the most benign, and those suggestions 
 and hopes for the erring, which are most full of consolation. 
 How often do we find in the collisions of life, distortion 
 and suspicion, where much has been misconceived, much 
 that is redeeming, overlooked ; and our only security is to 
 be found in the culture of that divine charity which 
 " thinketh no evil," and without which, even the eloquence 
 of angels is but " a tinkling cymbal." In this spirit, in 
 which we are now assembled, let me add — " It is good for 
 us to be here." We call no man master ; we set not up a 
 tabernacle for leader, sect, or party ; we stand here in the 
 presence of truth, before its pure ray is dimmed or dis- 
 persed by the lower clouds of prejudice or passion. For 
 myself, I am touchingly reminded of other days and happy 
 hours which I have spent within the walls of this our Alma 
 Mater. It is a feeling deeper than delight, and nobler than 
 pride, which at this moment fills my heart, when I look 
 upon the members of the College Historical Society, from 
 this Chair, to which their choice has elevated me. I am 
 here simply as one of ypurselves — " Commilitone me 
 utemini." 
 
 ' ' For the last secret that we learn is this, 
 That being is a circle after aU, 
 And the last line we draw in after life 
 Rejoins the arc of childhood when complete ; 
 That to be more than man is to be less." 
 
LABOUR AND KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 \Lecture delivered at the Mechanics' Institute, Keswick, 18^6.'] 
 
 ON the present occasion, I must be content to remind yoii 
 of old truths, which I have the satisfaction to believe 
 are not new acquaintances : for it is safer, if not wiser, t6 
 learn thoroughly the lessons of standard truth, rather than 
 to grope about for some new path of progress, whilst known 
 paths are neglected. We meet to-night not to lounge away 
 a listless or leisure hour in mere unprofitable amusement, 
 but as thoughtful and intelligent citizens of a great com- 
 munity, to consider the condition and cheer the hearts of 
 that section of our people which is exclusively, but per- 
 haps somewhat inaccurately, designated by the title of 
 the working-class; for this would seem to imply that 
 they, and they only, were habitually occupied in active 
 duties. It is encouraging to find that a Conference is 
 taking place about this time at Brussels, to consider, 
 amongst other things, the improvenient of the condition 
 of this working-class. May He, without whom nothing 
 is strong and nothing holy, now direct our minds and 
 hearts, and give us a spirit of pure and peaceable wisdom', 
 whilst dealing with a subject which has become so deeply 
 interesting, vitally connected as it is with the future of 
 England. 
 
 Those who are commonly called the working-classes — 
 what and who are they, and whence come they? They 
 are our fellow-creatures — our fellow-citizens — increasing 
 
 u 
 
290 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 and multiplying around us. Can we look upon these 
 millions without being stirred in our inmost souls — with- 
 out a throbbing impulse, to do them good as far as in our 
 power ? 
 
 It is recorded of Xerxes, the Persian monarch, when 
 he surveyed his mighty army collected together in its ex- 
 tended encampment, the thought that in less than one 
 hundred years not one of them should be left — that all 
 should have passed away — this so overpowered him, that 
 he burst into a flood of tears. This gush of emotion came 
 from those depths of human sympathy which are very 
 mysteries of our being. He felt as a man. Our great 
 poet (a high priest of nature) has said — " What a piece 
 of work is man 1 How noble in reason, how infinite in 
 faculties !" Another of our poets has said of man — 
 
 " As more than any thing we know, 
 Instinct with Godhead, and by reason and by will 
 Acknowledging dependency sublime. " 
 
 How, then, shall we, in a great Christian community—^ 
 how shall we regard the working-classes ? As men or as 
 animals — as things or as persons ? Are they to be isolated 
 as beings doomed to a life of toil and hopeless ignorance ? 
 Is labour to be the special burthen of some, and idleness 
 the proper business of others ? Or, on the other hand, 
 is activity and is diligerjce in the various departments of 
 labour, under its many aspects — is this a law binding on 
 all classes of society ? Are all equally entitled to a 
 Sabbath rest, and reasonable recreation ? Should all be 
 invited to partake of the benefits of knowledge, which is 
 increased daily — should these be as freely shared as the 
 greater blessings of revealed religion ? This is assuredly 
 the gracious plan and undoubted purpose of Him who has 
 not left Himself without a witness — He who has made and 
 perpetuated the Sabbath for man — He has commanded. 
 His Gospel of free salvation to be proclaimed to every 
 nation, ay, to every creature. He deals with man without 
 
LABOUR AND KNOWLEDGE. 29 1 
 
 respect of persons — with man as an immortal spirit, placed 
 under a law of discipline in a life of duty. He has or- 
 .dained human life as an institution for eternity. A life 
 of manual labour, however humble be the workman, is still 
 the life of an immortal and accountable being — one whose 
 mind and spirit are to be taught and trained for inter- 
 course with heaven. 
 
 Whether we look to the working-classes in their higher 
 or humbler relations, we must regard them in a moral, not 
 less than a social aspect. Now, it is a vital truth that there 
 are laws stereotyped in the moral government of the world, 
 by which the course of the life of man, with its lights and 
 shadows, its seasons of progress or decline, is divinely re- 
 gulated ; and it is our wisdom to search for these laws, as 
 it is our duty and our interest to conform to their require- 
 ments, by which prosperity is generally to be secured. 
 There are other laws by which nature is governed, which 
 palpably operate on the social condition of the human 
 family. These also are constant, and discoverable, so far 
 as they are discernible, by observation and comparison of 
 phenomena extending far and wide. The study of these 
 belongs to what is called economic science, and takes its 
 proper place, not in the centre, but in the circumference of 
 the circle of knowledge. The law of labour connects itself 
 both with the moral and the social departments ; and on 
 our observance of this law, in connection with both, moral 
 progress and material prosperity are in a great degree 
 dependent. This is a truth, as I have suggested, of vital 
 import. To give to the working-classes a settled habit qf 
 thoughtful reflection ; to preserve a well-regulated appetite 
 for wholesome knowledge — a spirit of contentment comr 
 bined with providence and self-respect, with a hopeful 
 desire of gradually rising to a higher platform in society, 
 by the self-elevating agency of industry, intelligence, and 
 virtue ; — this is a work well worthy of the purest philan- 
 thropy, but a work not to be accomplished otherwise than 
 by patient diligence and prayerful perseverance. The soil 
 
292 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 must be carefully prepared, the seed skilfully sown, weeds 
 unsparingly removed ; genial influences from above must 
 descend, to give life and energy to agencies from beneath ; 
 the seasons of slow growth must precede the coming forth 
 of the blade, then of the ear,' then of the full corn in the 
 ear ; — all to be crowned by the ripe harvest. 
 
 We are not allowed, in any department of the Divine 
 economy, to sow with the one hand and reap with the 
 other. The formation of Associations such as this (and I 
 am happy to find them so general) has grown out of a con- 
 viction, felt by many who are hard worked, that it would 
 be a refreshing privilege to enjoy an occasional hour of 
 leisure in gaining useful information, cultivating their 
 minds, and thus intelligently improving their general cha- 
 racter and condition. Such a movement claims a generous 
 and encouraging response from all who wish well to our 
 working-classes, for it may be guided for good to all classes 
 of society. 
 
 The workman is greater than his work, mind is nobler 
 than matter, science and skill are superior to bodily toil. 
 The faculties which God has given to man to be trained 
 by the discipline of daily life, under an economy of Divine 
 wisdom and goodness, cannot be left uncultivated without 
 incurring the penalties which the unchangeable laws by 
 which the world is governed have righteously imposed. 
 The responsible cultivation of these faculties thus comes 
 before us with all the claims of a sacred duty — a duty tp 
 be performed not merely notwithstanding, but the rather 
 because of the requirements of our holy, our glorious Chris- 
 tianity. For it has been well and truly observed by a great 
 authority, that it would be unworthy of revealed truth to 
 suppose that there could be an opposition between the 
 fullest development of these faculties, distinctively conr 
 ferred on man, and that religion, which is designed to train 
 these faculties to their highest ends. The Christian faith, 
 as Coleridge justly observes, is the very perfection of hu- 
 man intelligence ; it is adapted to every stage of human 
 
LABOUR AND KNOWLEDGE. 293 
 
 progress. And this we might well expect ; for no system 
 could be true which opposes, none false which promotes, 
 the movement of our moral being towards the highest 
 perfection of which it is capable. 
 
 It is, indeed, disheartening to find that the general pur- 
 suit of knowledge is sometimes denounced by men whom 
 we desire to respect ; but they speak of it as if it were not 
 merely delusive, but as something sinful and forbidden — as 
 if it only ministered to human presumption, or fostered a 
 spirit of unbelief, and fed the passion which eventuated in 
 the sin of our first parents. The profoundest of philoso- 
 phers. Lord Bacon, has well and wisely explained the true 
 nature of this sin : it was the attempt made, in the spirit 
 of disobedience and ungodliness, to discover the sources of 
 good and evil in separation froin, and independent of, the 
 will of the Creator. The same great authority has told us 
 that "knowledge is power;" and inspired wisdom also as- 
 sures us, " that if the soul be without knowledge, it is not 
 good." " Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue know- 
 ledge." In a frequent recommendation of knowledge, and 
 a spirit of searching but sober inquiry after truth for its 
 own sake, the Holy Scriptures are distinct and decisive. 
 Nothing is found to be so presumptuous as ignorance ; no- 
 thing so congenial to that debasing indolence which is the 
 very hot-bed of crime and sin ; nothing is more essentially 
 'hostile to all improvement. Labour is first to be regarded 
 a.s a primeval law imposed upon man after the fall ; and in 
 so regarding it, we will find that the attainment of know- 
 ledge is a common, because a consequent, duty. Both are 
 connected with the gracious purposes of Him who made 
 man in His own image. Experience tells us of the weary 
 and exhausted spirit under the weight of wasting indo- 
 lence — the credulity and corruption which are the spawn 
 of ignorance. The frequent refuge of the idle and the 
 uninstructed, in frivolity, mischief, and crime, demonstrates 
 the fixed and essential opposition of sloth and ignorance 
 to the well-being-or the progress of man. 
 
294 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 By the law of labour it may have been intended that 
 man might, in some degree, be enabled to re-conquer a 
 lost dominion over the material world, and also to disci- 
 pline his immortal spirit for a higher and nobler sphere of 
 active being hereafter. Now, observe, that I do not here 
 speak of labour in any one department. This is a common 
 error so to isolate it. The merchant is not less a labourer 
 than a mechanic, nor the professional man than the mer- 
 chant. The purest occupation of the Christian life is de- 
 scribed by the inspired Apostle as " the work of faith and 
 labour of love." Labour is thus associated with Divine 
 charity, and charity never faileth — ^^a union which ought 
 always to be preserved indissoluble. 
 
 The action of knowledge on labour, and the importance 
 of connecting these together, have, in our own day, been 
 happily exhibited, and I would invite your attention to a 
 few striking illustrations. 
 
 The average produce of wheat by the acre has been 
 about twenty-four imperial bushels ; this has been increased 
 nearly four-fold. The produce of oats has been trebled, 
 potatoes five-fold, turnips nearly six-fold. All this has 
 been brought about by the discoveries of science, skilfully 
 applied in the improvement of agricultural industry. 
 Chemistry has disclosed to us, for instance, that wheat is 
 composed of elements principally obtained from the atmo- 
 sphere, and from the dews and the rains which seasonably 
 descend upon our earth. Of 1,640 lbs. produced by an 
 acre of wheat, upwards of 1,500 are derived from these 
 common natural sources ; eighty-nine out of every hundred 
 from the air alone. The soil simply acts as the receiver 
 and storehouse of supplies taken from the elements, and 
 given out, as occasion requires, to the growing plant. 
 The preparation of the soil for thus receiving and distri- 
 buting the bounty of Providence is, therefore, a principal 
 object of intelligent labour, and, in truth, constitutes " the 
 tillage of the land," which the Divine Word faithfully 
 assures us " will satisfy with bread." Wheat is composed 
 
LABOUR AND KNOWLEDGE. 295 
 
 of oxygen and carbon in nearly equal quantities, which 
 constitute about nine-tenths of the whole. It also consists 
 of hydrogen, nitrogen, and inorganic matter. These ele- 
 ments are found in charcoal, air, and water. Water supplies 
 oxygen and hydrogen, air supplies nitrogen, which is ab- 
 sorbed from it by the soil, and when combined with 
 hydrogen, forms ammonia, which is so valuable in manure ; 
 for the application of manure which yields ammonia 
 enables the plant to take in a much greater quantity from 
 the air, than it could do without this artificial stimulus. 
 
 Again, it is found that porous bodies, such as charcoal 
 and cellular earth, attract and contain gaseous matter many 
 times their own size. Charcoal will retain ninety tirnes its 
 own size of ammonia ; so that the seasonable supplies of 
 vegetation may be stored in the soil, and by the action of 
 heat and moisture, gradually given out to the plant. 
 
 In the profitable use of manures, the aid of science is 
 absolutely indispensable. The part of manure which is 
 most valuable is what is soluble in water, and what may be 
 evaporated by heat : a significant hint to those who collect 
 the heap within view of the cottage, and expose it to the 
 action of the sun and rain, in the dunghill or the cess-pool^ 
 polluting the pure air, and wasting the useful portion of 
 the manure itself by what really and truly turns out to be 
 the extravagant folly of indolent and uninstructed improvi- 
 dence. 
 
 Ignorance may thus waste in abridging health and 
 comfort, what cheap and common knowledge would require 
 to be used for the increased production of wholesome food ; 
 a striking illustration of the harmony which subsists in the 
 ■laws by which industry is governed, in its application to the 
 common purposes of life, and the laws which regulate 
 the comforts, the decencies, and the duties of the humblest 
 rank of society ; all are, in fact, most graciously bound up 
 together. The careful pulverizing of the soil, to make and 
 keep it porous and cellular ; the regular removal of weeds, 
 which would steal the supplies that are the lawful property 
 
296 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 of the growing grain or vegetable ; the seasonable applica- 
 tion of manures at the proper stages of growth, and accord- 
 ing to the exigencies of the soil ; — these are but samples' 
 of the many channels into which knowledge is the profi- 
 table conductor of labour, and from which ignorance is' 
 content to be excluded. 
 
 • The process of draining, by which a change of tempera- 
 ture equal to a month of summer may be produced, has 
 been but recently made available to any great extent. In 
 truth, the good providence of God has bestowed most 
 bountifully an abundant supply of wholesome- food, in- 
 tended to be made available for our use by knowledge and 
 labour. Labour, so needed for man's discipline ; know- 
 ledge, so capable of promoting man's happiness ; each and 
 both prefer their claims upon us, and promise us an abun- 
 dant recompense. Then, is it reasonable, is it common 
 sense, to suppose that we can reject such claims, and at 
 the same time escape the penalties which are so justly — ■ 
 nay so mercifully — annexed to the neglect of agencies thus 
 accredited, and which the fixed laws of Divine wisdom 
 have appointed as the proper means by which prosperity 
 and progress, in departments which are so important to 
 common life, are to be advanced ? 
 
 • It is with great satisfaction that I read that, at the 
 recent meeting of the British Association which has been 
 held at Cheltenham, the President refers to the results 
 arising from the remarkable progress and extension of 
 chemical science, which has taken place within the last 
 twenty years. This had been much caused by the method 
 of analysis which Liebig (the greatest of modern chemists) 
 lias taught, and which has led to a general facility in ob- 
 taining results on which calculations might be based. The 
 ■conclusion seems to be now accredited, that plants rooted 
 in a soil well charged with all the requisite mineral ingrcr 
 dients, and in all other respects in a condition calculated 
 .to allow of healthy vegetation, may, sooner or later, be able 
 to draw from the atmosphere whatever else may be 
 
LABOUR AND KNOWLEDGE. :297 
 
 required for their full development. This important result 
 has been further confirmed in Northamptonshire, where, 
 by the careful pulverizing and stirring of the soil, after it 
 has been brought into a proper condition, the most luxu- 
 riant wheat crops have been obtained for several consecur 
 live years, without the further application of manures. 
 : In the recuperative powers of the soil, the auxiliary 
 resources of science, the increase of consumption, and the 
 convenience of the markets, what favourable prospects have 
 been opened for the intelligent and industrious farmers, 
 ready and resolved to avail themselves of their many 
 privileges in this highly-favoured country ! May they 
 under the law of labour and knowledge, become prosperous 
 ■and happy. 
 
 Let us now turn from the country into the town — from 
 agriculture to manufactures — from the sources of supply by 
 "which our food is obtained, to the agencies which minister 
 to other demands, and meet the multiplied desires of man. 
 Here we are ' encountered by difficult and complex social 
 questions, which we are bound, however, to examine, and 
 to endeavour to solve them without evasion. 
 
 The power of steam and the use of machinery have 
 placed us in a new era of civil society. 
 
 " An inventive age 
 Has wrought, if not with speed of magic, yet 
 To most strange issues. I have lived to mark 
 A new and unforeseen creation rise 
 From out the labours of a peaceful land, 
 Wielding her potent enginery to frame 
 And to produce, with appetite as keen ' 
 As that of war, which rests not night or day, 
 Industrious to destroy ." 
 
 The power which is latent in one bushel of coals is sup- 
 posed to be equal to a day's work of one hundred stage- 
 coach horses. The wonderful pyramid of Egypt, which is 
 said to have employed 100,000 labourers for upwards of 
 
298 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 twenty years, might have had all its materials lifted into 
 their final position by the agency of 480 tons of coal. 
 
 The special and providential agency by which the 
 materials of an earlier epoch in creation have been at last 
 condensed into the intense energy which the bituminous 
 substance in coal possesses, prepared, as it would seem, for 
 the period of a great development of man, in intercourse 
 and action — this must fill the mind of the thoughtful with 
 wonder, and the heart of the thankful with gratitude to 
 Him " in whom we live, and move, and have our being." 
 
 This mighty power, available now in so many depart- 
 ments of progress, is only exceeded in its results by the 
 still more wonderful discovery of electric communication. 
 This mysterious messenger can encircle the earth in one- 
 eighth of a second : 19,500 words can be transmitted and 
 written out at the distance of more than 1,000 miles, and 
 in less than one hour. Electricity also has its share in the 
 triumphs of manufacturing skill. In works of ornament 
 and design, skill and science seem prepared, if not in some 
 degree to supersede physical effort, at least to put it under 
 a new economy. 
 
 This must call forth the more diligent and general culture 
 of the higJter faculties. Mind thus acquiring ascendancy, 
 demands a corresponding moral supremacy, which Chris- 
 tian civilization must gradually bring into the active service 
 of daily life. The Shifting wind, the sudden storm, and 
 the frequent and capricious calm, contracted commerce, 
 further retarded by the sluggish and reluctant intercourse 
 of nation with nation. This fettered the merchant, and 
 often discouraged and obstructed the missionary ; but now 
 the agencies of steam and electricity — the one with a cer- 
 tainty almost moral, the other with the speed of an angel's 
 wing — these seem to prepare mankind for the day in which 
 the laws of Divine Wisdom shall be put in human minds 
 and written in human hearts — subduing selfishness, super- 
 seding fitful impulse, and hastening on the times of the 
 restitution of all things — the consummation of the great 
 and gracious promises of that economy which, in whatever 
 
LABOUR AND KNOWLEDGE. 299 
 
 form it may be hereafter manifested, we are at least assured 
 that it must establish, at last, the kingdom of the Redeemer. 
 The action of knowledge on labour has a different 
 aspect in reference to manufactures from what it has in the 
 department of agriculture. In the latter, the great agencies 
 which are made available for increasing production, are 
 rather furnished by the bounty of God, than fashioned by 
 the skill of man. The farmer is rather called on to apply 
 than to invent what may render his daily labour more pro- 
 ductive. There is a limit to agricultural production in the 
 very nature of fixed property in land which is not to be 
 found in the inexhaustible variety of manufacture, in which, 
 moreover, from the rivalry and competition of capital and 
 commerce, man has sought out many inventions ; and this 
 has caused a most remarkable change in the character of 
 an extensive and increasing section of our people. Large 
 masses are now brought together in towns, and absorbed in 
 the growing demands of a life of very peculiar and very 
 exacting toil. Now, assuredly, there must be a momen- 
 tous difference between the human agent and the material 
 ' mechanism, which at present seem to divide between them 
 the extended operations which produce clothing, and 
 various matters of comfort and luxury, for so many 
 millions of the human family. 
 
 This mechanism is truly wonderful ; the manufacture, 
 beauteous often, as if creative power had fashioned it — deli- 
 cate in the design and graceful in the finish. I can admire 
 this triurhph of skill and industry; but the reflection haunts 
 me— it cannot be shut out— what is the price which hu- 
 manity pays before the manufacture is made up for the 
 purchaser ? 
 
 It may be that with the extended prosperity of our 
 various manufactures is bound up, more or less, the na- 
 tional welfare ; but of this I am satisfied, that the moral 
 and social well-being of the manufacturing population is a 
 far higher aim, and a far nobler object, to which other 
 considerations are but secondary, whether we consider our 
 individual or our national destiny. 
 
300 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 It is not many years ago since a publication, which 
 obtained a public premium as the prize essay on juvenile 
 depravity, brought under my notice the state of the manu- 
 ;facturing districts. From this it appears that the improve- 
 ments in machinery, and the application of new powers in 
 .production, had subjected to exhausting toil the young and 
 the tender ; had sometimes emptied the school, broken up 
 the home, and dried up the sources and springs of moral, 
 and therefore of social, progress. Just look at the account 
 ,of the working-classes — upwards of £^ofxx>,ooo are stated 
 to be consumed yearly in intoxicating liquors — a sum which 
 amounts to nearly the most prosperous half year of the 
 exports of production and manufactures from the United 
 Kingdom, and falls little short of an entire year of these 
 exports at the time when the prize essay was written. 
 :More than 28,000,000 of demoralizing publications were 
 then annually circulated amongst these classes ; the little 
 children, proper and peculiar objects of tender care at 
 home, and of the training of the parochial or district 
 school, were too often prematurely doomed to pine under 
 , the exhaustion of the mill ; others, just emerging from 
 childhood, earning independent wages, live with their 
 parent^ as lodgers, paying for themselves ; thus violating 
 the sanctities of family life — whilst debasing, sensual indul- 
 gence is but too often the refuge from the fatigues which 
 attend on the weary, wasting sacrifice, exacted by the spirit 
 . of Mammon. 
 
 ' ' Our life is turned 
 Out of her course, wherever man is made 
 An offering or a sacrifice, a tool 
 Or implement ; a passive thing employed 
 As a brute mean, without acknowledgment 
 Of common right or interest in the end ; 
 Used or abused as selfishness may prompt. 
 Say what can follow for a rational soul 
 Perverted thus, but weakness in all good, 
 And strength in evil ? 
 
 " Not for these sad issues 
 Was man created ; but to obey the law 
 Of life, and hope, and action." 
 
LABOUR AND KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 301 
 
 The scale of wages is found, to a certain extent, to in-" 
 fluence the attendance at the schools, for this more or less 
 interferes with the claims upon the labour of the children. 
 And the extent of demoralization, and consequent statistics 
 of crime, register the advances of that flowing and rising 
 tide which threatens to inundate if timely and adequate 
 remedies are not liberally provided. What are these reme- 
 dies ? How are they to be supplied ? I have called your 
 attention to unchangeable laws of moral government, and 
 also to laws of economic science, which are fixed and con- 
 stant, and under and in accordance with these, the intellectual; 
 moral, and religious activity of an industrial community 
 must keep pace with its material prosperity. Here is the key 
 to the whole problem. We left the agriculturist with new 
 duties rather than new difficulties ; we found him in the 
 simplicity of peaceful life, and reminded him of the avail- 
 able agency which moderate intelligence may render 
 subservient to the increased supply of produce. We are 
 prepared to condemn him if he should wilfully disregard 
 the plainer injunctions of the great law of labour under 
 the guidance of knowledge, and persevere in the old habits 
 which ignorance may have nurtured, at the extravagant 
 cost of diminished and unremunerative production. 
 
 We have come to the manufacturer. The new spheirfe 
 of duty here unfolded is not so much found in varying the 
 details of that labour which science has so elaborately 
 appropriated to every new post which it occupies, but em- 
 phatically in the moral field, where the superiority of man 
 over material mechanism is to be maintained, and never to 
 be lost sight of ; and here are we required to save from a 
 perilous exhaustion the very springs of moral existence, in 
 one of the most important sections of our people. Here 
 labour, in its higher, i.e., in its moral and religious depart-, 
 ments, must imitate the improved action of mechanism in 
 the lower. In its comprehensive equity, the law of labour 
 calls for this great adjustment to be in readiness before 
 invention and science can safely move onward, in demands 
 
303 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 otherwise desolating, for they would spare neither age nor 
 sex — they would, in fact, perpetuate the ceaseless and 
 heartless toil which they should gradually soften, and in 
 some degree at least help to supersede. 
 
 The Education Report tells us of admirable schools and 
 excellent teachers in one great and influential country; but 
 by reason of the occasional interference of manufacturing 
 prosperity, this admirable educational agency is sometimes) 
 deprived of its proper influence, and a great opportunity, 
 for the training of the young is thus thrown away. The 
 very excellence of the schools, by giving peculiar facility 
 for the speedy learning of simple and common acquire- 
 ments, may be turned into a snare, in furnishing a pretext 
 for prematurely removing the young pupil to the mill, 
 where the lessons of the school are soon effaced, and the 
 training of uninstructed toil, with all its moral or (as L 
 should rather say) immoral accompaniments, soon mani^ 
 fests its power — 
 
 " And poverty and labour in excess 
 From day to day preoccupy the ground 
 Of the affections ; and to Nature's self ' 
 
 Oppose a deeper nature." 
 
 This must be set right, or we must take the inevitable 
 consequences, which can only be averted by the frank and 
 prompt recognition of the principles which I have been 
 so anxious to put forward in plainness before you. Con- 
 formity to the requirements of an enlightened system of 
 labour as the law of human life, is a condition of individual 
 and of national prosperity; and as this prosperity grows 
 in material wealth, it demands the corresponding activity 
 of the greater agencies by which man is, and by which 
 alone he can be, trained for immortality. 
 
 It is by the diligent use and application, not by the dis- 
 covery, of improved machinery, that production is multi- 
 plied ; it is by the like use of the well-conducted school, 
 the decent home, and the consecrated temple of God, with 
 
LABOUR AND KNOWLEDGE. 303 
 
 its attendant privileges, under the influence of a well- 
 regulated spirit of progress, and in faithful dependence 
 upon the Divine blessing, that this higher department of 
 labour can supply the demand so urgently made upon it 
 by the rapid extension of commerce, and the overpowering 
 success of manufacturing skill and enterprise. 
 
 In such a period of prosperity — in this day of freedom, 
 the earnest friends of truth and virtue must be up and 
 doing ; their elevated department of labour must be open 
 to the enlightened influence of spirited improvement. I 
 rejoice to find that excellent examples have been set by 
 many true Christian masters, who have satisfactorily solved 
 the problem of manufacturing life, keeping it " in health 
 and wealth " — and long may it so live ! — in accordance 
 with -the highest sense of Christian duty; with the laws 
 which connect therewith the greatest prosperity, securing 
 the happiness of the operatives by the most suitable 
 arrangements for promoting their religious, moral, intel- 
 lectual, and social welfare. May God bless and prosper 
 their righteous efforts ! We should encourage in every 
 way this good example, so that it might soon cease to be 
 exceptional. 
 
 " With the sense of admiration blends 
 The animating hope that time may come, 
 When strengthened, yet not dazzled, by the might 
 Of this dominion over nature gained ; 
 Men of g.11 lands shall exercise the same 
 In due proportion to their country's need, 
 Learning, though late, that all true glory rests, 
 All praisCj all safety, and all happiness. 
 Upon the moral law." 
 
 The modern dogma, that property has its duties as well 
 as its rights, is not less obligatory upon the capitalist than 
 upon the landlord. And let it be observed, that the 
 trustee of the one talent was not released from the respon- 
 sibility imposed upon the owner of the ten. Property, 
 influence, opportunity — great or small, frequent or occa- 
 
304 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 sional — each is but a trust for promoting the glory of God; 
 and the good of man. To some extent, however little, we 
 are all of us responsible. 
 
 The arrangements of every parish should secure for the 
 young, in the proper season for training them in the way 
 in which they should go, a suitable and sufficient educa- 
 tion, to which the decencies of home, the instruction and 
 discipline of the school, and the ministrations of religion; 
 should respectively contribute, and each be allowed its. 
 proper time and season. We should circulate cheap and;' 
 wholesome publications, and provide opportunity in various 
 ways for the diffusion of useful knowledge, displacing the 
 vile and vulgar productions of infidelity and lust. Recre- 
 ation, cheerful and reasonable, occasionally permitted; a; 
 genuine Sabbath-rest secured for all, in accordance with 
 its high Scriptural sanction ; and a Saturday afternoon 
 conceded, by which the great purpose of the Sabbatl^ 
 might be more fully realized, as by the old Saxon law of 
 Edgar, the Sabbath began at three o'clock on Saturday • 
 this is the arrangement of a simple but Scriptural policy. ; 
 
 The plan of early closing, now becoming so general^ 
 gives some valuable leisure to our young men, which may 
 be redeemed for purposes of mental and moral cultivation. 
 Associations like this Institute, with its useful library, 
 evening classes for instruction, occasional lectures, in which 
 the living voice and power of sympathy feather the shafts 
 of instructive and pleasing exposition ; if all this be accom- 
 panied by the good example and generous encouragement 
 and support of those who occupy the higher positions, 
 or exercise local influence, what a goodly prospect opens 
 out before us ! For on each and all of these agencies we 
 can, in humility and hope, ask for the blessing of Him who 
 has so wisely and so graciously placed the sources of prost 
 perity in the fresh springs of duty. 
 
 No legislative interference is here demanded ; and for 
 my own part, I am more and more inclined to treat it in 
 general as a trespasser; let us throw ourselves in full 
 
LABOUR AND KNOWLEDGE. 305. 
 
 fidence upon the power of a pure and simple Christian 
 poHcy. Christianity, in the fulness of its Divine resources, 
 faithfully applied as the rule of common life, is alone suffi- 
 cient to hold us up under the weight and pressure of accu- 
 mulated prosperity. We must be strong within — sound, 
 intelligent, and energetic ; and in every department and 
 in every condition of life, avail ourselves of the great 
 agencies which are worthy of a free people and a Christian 
 nation — thus may we rejoice in truth and freedom. There 
 is in nature a remarkable analogy by which we may be 
 instructed — it is this : any interference or meddling with- 
 out, generally interrupts the beautiful process of crystal- 
 lization ; it is encouraged and continued to completion by 
 energies and action from within, undisturbed from without. 
 The strong current of opinion has set in with us in favour 
 of removing hindrance and restriction, and giving increased 
 facility to individual enterprise and action. Freedom, reli- 
 gious and civil, is now a household word. 
 
 A question of deep and solemn interest has sometimes 
 been mooted as to the future destiny of England ; whether 
 its great empire is to culminate, decline, and fall, or to 
 advance in prosperity, and preserve its pre-eminence ? 
 Historians and statesmen have glanced at this, but seldom 
 touched it save with a trembling hand, and in a spirit of 
 gloomy apprehension. Wherein is to be found the sure 
 solution ? " The nation and kingdom which will not serve 
 Thee shall perish," is the assurance of the inspired Prophet. 
 Now I have endeavoured to show that the sources of in- 
 dustrial prosperity are in the inexhaustible springs of duty ; 
 and here we have our whole national destiny bound up 
 with the faithful discharge of our individual duties as a 
 Christian people. A profound writer, wise and philosophic, 
 accustomed to observe human nature, and analyze national 
 life, has recently published a disquisition on the great 
 French Revolution, and has worked out the conclusion, 
 that the acquisition of property had so largely gone beyond 
 the concession of political power, as to disturb and break 
 
 X 
 
3o6 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 iip civil society altogether. This may be true ; but we 
 should seek not merely for truth, but for the whole truth; 
 and then we will find, that however necessary it may be to 
 regulate the distribution of political power by the scale of 
 property, it is still more necessary, because more vital, to 
 have the heart and life of the nation penetrated by Chris- 
 tian principle, as the only real security for the safe and 
 permanent trust of political privilege. With this security, 
 ■public opinion is healthy, enlightened, and influential ; 
 without it, there can be no confidence in what a day may 
 bring forth. It was just as I had written this reflection, 
 that I found an authoritative exposition of this question, 
 Vecorded by one whose name and memory live in the 
 hearts of the wisest and best — who enjoyed the high pri- 
 vilege of representing the great county which honoured 
 him by its independent selection, and was more than re^- 
 compensed by the honour thus reflected upon itself. I 
 speak of William Wilberforce — the good, the gentle, the 
 faithful, the eloquent ; in a word, the Christian statesman. 
 He smashed the fetters of the slave, for he was the friend 
 'of the oppressed, and the hero of humanity; he smote the 
 rock of practical Christianity, and the stream gushed forth, 
 to irrigate the barren field of unprofitable profession, and 
 give it freshness and fertility. " It is only," says he, " b^^ 
 educating our people in Christian principles that we can 
 ■ hope to advance in strength, greatness, and happiness. By 
 their efficacy alone can we escape the operation of those 
 causes which have assimilated other States to the human 
 frame in its infancy, manhood, and decay. But the reli'- 
 gion of those States was founded on false principles. They 
 went on from stage to stage of intellectual improvement, 
 emerging from ignorance to knowledge, till the light of 
 day beamed upon the fabric, and betrayed the rotten im- 
 position upon which it was built. The pillar of our great- 
 ' hess is raised upon that basis of all intellectual and moral 
 improvement, the Christian religion." If, then, we would 
 •perpetuate our name and nation, it is by the enlightenment 
 
LABOUR AND KNOWLEDGE. 307 
 
 ■of knowledge, sanctified by religion, the action of Christian 
 -love and sympathy, the diligent discharge of every form of 
 Christian duty. There is a balance, an adjustment, to be 
 maintained in the nation as in the individual. In the in- 
 dividual, we may notice the great superiority of the man 
 whose powers, though moderate, are all well-cultivated, 
 when compared with another who is defective in moral or 
 spiritual strength, though strong or sharp in intellect. 
 Lord Bacon speaks of the work of man as showing its 
 comparative imperfection, by requiring separate parts to 
 be finished at intervals — the picture or the statue are in 
 this way completed by piecemeal ; but in God's creation, 
 the plant or the tree grows together in all its parts, increas- 
 ing in strength without loss of symmetry. So that educa- 
 tion, the proper growth and training of man, consists in the 
 nurture and harmonious increase of all his powers in due 
 proportion. The whole man thus increases gradually in 
 strength of body, spirit, mind. This is in truth education. 
 What is thus so material to the well-being of individual 
 man, becomes applicable to the nation at large. 
 
 The whole mechanism, material, intellectual, moral, 
 and religious, should move with uniform and well-regulated 
 speed, else it is liable to break up by the defect or excess 
 of action in any one department. How wonderful is the 
 , lesson taught in the beautiful consistency of God's provi- 
 dential bounty 1 Facility of intercourse and production 
 has been accompanied' by the corresponding increase of 
 gold, so recently discovered at the very crisis at which it 
 was required, to regulate the scale of prices, and render 
 our general progress so available to promote the increase 
 of human happiness. Without this there might have been 
 a great derangement of the dealings of mankind ; and by 
 the diminution of prices (regulated as they are by the 
 supply of gold) much distress might have been occasioned 
 by the very means of multiplying production. It is by 
 : the diligent observation of the laws which so graciously 
 jegulate human progress, by assigning to everything its 
 
308 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 proper time and place, and by a dutiful obedience to the 
 enlightened policy and the combinations which these laws 
 commend, that we may hope to keep our position in the 
 advancing march of civilization. We stand before the 
 world as a. great and privileged people — between the OJd 
 and the New World — a hand for each, a heart for both. 
 We have inaugurated the free intercourse of nations. Our 
 mission is, in the very spirit of Christianity, to carry peace 
 and prosperity to every part of the habitable globe ; and it 
 is gratifying to find, at the Conference now taking place at 
 Brussels, that the great privilege and duty of free inter- 
 course, and its action on the well-being of nations, have 
 been so ably and so largely acknowledged and advocated. 
 From this we may reasonably expect still happier results. 
 
 We are not, however, to be impatient or precipitate. 
 The course of the Divine dealings is slow and gradual. 
 Man sometimes thinks, by some outward arrangements 
 made on the impulse of the moment, to adjust and per- 
 petuate enduring relations ; but it is, as Edmund Burke, 
 with his habitual wisdom, observes of the economy of the 
 world, " the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding 
 together the great mysterious incorporation of the human 
 race ; the whole at one time is never old, middle-aged, or 
 young ; but, in a condition of unchangeable constancy, it 
 moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, 
 renovation, and progression." 
 
 In comparing our position and prospects with those of 
 other nations, we have reason to thank God, and take 
 courage. Representative government in other leading 
 States of Europe seems to have no resting-place, demon- 
 strating this, that truth and freedom cannot be permanently 
 separated. Better far (as an old divine says), better to 
 build up hay and stubble upon a rock, than gold and 
 silver upon the shifting, sinking sand. I do not suggest 
 this to encourage a spirit of self-sufficiency, but to main- 
 tain a feeling of self-respect, and gratitude to God, and to 
 awaken a due sense of the responsibility which so peculiarly 
 aiccompanies privilege in every form. 
 
LABOUR AND KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 309 
 
 It is not by sudden, or fitful, or impulsive efforts that 
 the good work of enlightening and elevating the working- 
 classes can be best accomplished. We must move forward 
 slowly but surely. We are not called upon to invent, but 
 to apply ; for the proper means of securing the right ends 
 are appointed and accredited ; and I am happy and thank- 
 ful to find that the conscientious use and application of 
 them are every day evidently becoming more general. 
 There is a source of unexplored strength and power in 
 our people. There are capabilities in immortal man many 
 and various, such as may recompense Christian cultivation 
 beyond all ordinary conception. What a noble privilege 
 for the highest as for the humblest, in their allotted sphere- 
 of duty, to assist in helping forward this great work of 
 progress ! The discipline of life is intended to be one of 
 difficulty ; to our working people it may be attended with 
 both toil and trouble ; and yet for each and all of us it is 
 intended to be one of solemn duty, to frame and fashion 
 us by the formation of habits which mould the enduring 
 character, and by conduct which forms these fixed habits. 
 Co-operation and sympathy are always encouraging ; and 
 how delightful it is when we see the glare of wealth soft- 
 ened by the generous philanthropy which lightens the 
 pressure of poverty and the gloom of ignorance ! 
 
 I may observe, perhaps, as connected with the estimate 
 to be formed of an Institute such as yours, that I am not 
 insensible to the abuses to which it might, perhaps, be 
 readily perverted ; but I will judge of it, as I do of other 
 things, not by its possible perversions, but by its genuine 
 tendencies. Good sense, wise moderation, and the prac- 
 tical disposition with which God has so much blessed the 
 English people, will, I trust, be here called in aid ; and I 
 would add, that whilst the co-operation, the encourage- 
 ment, the guidance, and the sympathy of the classes 
 above should always be at the service of those below, yet 
 no amount of effort can permanently elevate the social con- 
 dition of the latter, otherwise than by soberly instructing 
 
3IO LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 their minds and hearts in such a way as may render 
 them thoughtful, virtuous, and happy. Look steadfastly 
 at the laws by which the human being, whether isolated or 
 social, whether in his individual or national life on earth, is 
 evidently intended to be made truly prosperous. These 
 laws can in no instance be disregarded or set at defiance, 
 without the peril and the penalty which will as surely 
 follow, as the recompense and the blessing may be ex- 
 pected to attend the willing observance of their wise and 
 beneficent injunctions, for in keeping of them there is great 
 reward. 
 
 But all must be done in humble dependence on the 
 blessing and guidance of God. The Eddystone Lighthouse 
 was built on a rock. So confident was the builder in the 
 strength of his work, that he uttered the presumptuous 
 wish that he might be there to face the greatest storm that 
 ever blew from the heavens. His challenge was accepted ; 
 and the same night the yawning ocean swallowed in its 
 raging waters the workman and his work. Another archi- 
 tect reconstructed the edifice with all the resources of 
 human skill and science, but crowned the whole with this' 
 Scriptural inscription, " Except the Lord build the house, 
 they labour in vain that build;" and now it stands a beacon 
 and a blessing to the toiling mariner. Human effort is not 
 to be superseded ; but the Divine blessing must always be 
 sought in sincerity, for of ourselves we can do nothing. 
 
 I feel that I have already trespassed unreasonably on 
 your patient and indulgent attention. I do not address 
 you in the sentimental mood of a passing stranger, merely 
 stopping to scatter a few perishing flowers upon some 
 honoured grave, but as one who, not for the first time, 
 has felt an interest in the success of every effort by which 
 improvement has here been wisely and faithfully carried 
 forward. The name of Keswick is associated with the 
 valuable and valued labours of one of my oldest and 
 dearest friends, Dr. Whiteside,* and it is bound up with 
 
 * Now Vicar of Scarborouirli. 
 
LABOUR AND KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 311 
 
 the sacred memory of one by whose practical wisdom and 
 profound learning I have often been thankfully instructed, 
 your own admirable and lamented Southey, so long and so. 
 suitably the guardian-spirit of the head of this lovely and 
 favoured district, the Jieart of which once throbbed with 
 the living Wordsworth, the profound, the gentle Christian 
 poet of Rydal — the pure and simple, the wise and truthful; 
 philosopher : a district which held also in its impassioned 
 embrace the generous and single-hearted Arnold, and. 
 often refreshed the weary spirit of the great and good 
 Wilberforce, who so happily called it " the paradise of 
 England." What a moral loveliness is suffused over this 
 delightful region by the memories of these honoured ancj 
 illustrious dead ! Comparison is often, and perhaps un-r 
 wisely, challenged of lake with lake, and mountain with 
 mountain, for each has its own distinctive attractions ; 
 and again, the scenery of foreign lands is set in contrast; 
 with your mountain, lake, and valley. The cottage of 
 Rayrigg, with its green slopes and grassy meadows, has 
 been compared with the chateau of Voltaire on the banks 
 of the giant lake of Geneva. Blessed be God, whatever be 
 the result of any such comparison in the rival forms of 
 external nature, your lakes and valleys are not clouded by 
 the gloomy associations which the evil heart of unbelief 
 has in other lands brought down upon nature's loveliness 
 and nature's grandeur. Geneva, with its blue waters, 
 beautiful as they are, has its Ferney and its Lausanne, but, 
 alas ! associated with Voltaire and Gibbon ; Windermere, 
 with its more simple and graceful modesty, has its Rayrigg 
 and its Ambleside, but associated with these — -its Wilber- 
 force and its Arnold. These precious adjuncts, the faithful 
 and devoted friends of humanity, of whom the world wag 
 not worthy — men whose names are dear to the hearts and 
 consecrated in the affections of the wisest and the best of 
 mankind — men who have left behind a memory which 
 embalms them ; contrast them with those who, with satanic 
 energy, have struggled to rob humanity of its brightest, and 
 
312 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND ADDRESSES. 
 
 dearest hopes, its most glorious consolations — to discredit 
 and subvert our pure and holy faith, and make us of men 
 most miserable — to bring down upon human life the dark- 
 ness and desolation of blind unbelief and daring blasphemy, 
 and shut out from a benighted world the bright and cheering 
 beams of the glorious Gospel. Here, then, in the pure love- 
 liness of nature, and in the purer gifts and privileges of 
 grace, you have everything which could be needed to help 
 you forward in peaceful and progressive prosperity. 
 
 The very mountains which lift up their majestic 
 summits to the skies, in their varying aspect teach the 
 many-sidedness of great truths, and the influence of 
 position from which, and of circumstances under which, 
 , the same substantial truth may be so variously appre- 
 hended. The placid lake, with its calm, unruffled bosom, 
 reflecting the serene sky, and seeming sometimes to hold 
 the high heavens in the very depths of its crystal waters, 
 may speak to the meditative mind of the gracious descent 
 of that heavenly peace which passeth understanding, into 
 the humble and thankful heart of faith and prayer; and 
 the secluded spots of loveliness in the valley, where beauty 
 almost reposes in the lap of grandeur, may teach the 
 thoughtful and contemplative student of nature, rising on 
 the wings of faith and hope, and reading with the eye and 
 spirit of love, that in simplicity and retirement, in the lowly 
 and modest walk pf humble but contented life, the truest, 
 the purest, the best sheltered happiness may often be 
 found. It is not in a nsentimental or pantheistic spirit 
 that the grandeur and beauty of creation are to be con- 
 templated, but as the handy-work of Him " by whom and 
 for whom all things were created." And it is thus placed 
 under the light of the Sun of Righteousness. " Thy 
 creatures have been my books," said the illustrious Bacon, 
 " but Thy Scriptures much more. I have sought Thee in 
 Thy fields and Thy gardens— I have found Thee in Thy 
 Word and in Thy Temples." 
 
 How gladdening to me — how it gives me hope and 
 
LABOUR AND KNOWLEDGE. 313 
 
 confidence to reflect, that in all that 1 have urged upon 
 you this evening, I am sustained by the great authority 
 of the honoured names of those whose memories are 
 associated with many of these fair scenes of creation in 
 which they may even now be ministering spirits. With ' 
 each and all truth was the soul and source of genuine 
 freedom ; and the expression of the Divine will, whether 
 recorded in the Inspired Word, or suggested by the 
 glorious works of their Almighty Author, was the rule 
 of faith and life. The awful solemnity of all human life ; 
 the inestimable worth of each individual man ; the power 
 in duty faithfully discharged ; the hope and the happiness 
 of the human family in its humblest ranks ; and the 
 responsibility under which all of us, and especially of 
 those in elevated positions, are placed, and from which 
 there is no escape — these were the mighty themes which 
 so largely filled their sympathizing hearts and enlightened 
 minds — the more earnestly as observation and conference 
 matured conviction, and the experience of life stirred and 
 solemnized reflection. How greatly was I struck a few 
 days ago in reading the wise and touching observation of 
 Southey on the latter days and the hours of sore trial of 
 the poet Cowper. Alas ! how little did he think that they 
 might be adapted to his own solemn and sad bereavement ! 
 Clouds and darkness sometimes, in the unsearchable ways 
 of an all-wise God, are suffered to gather around and hang 
 upon the lofty summit, on which has often shone the 
 purest and brightest beams of heaven.. By undue or 
 protracted separation from ordinary life — by excessive or 
 exclusive working of great mental faculties — by the 
 unvarying pressure of peculiar circumstances or special 
 duties — by some providental interference with the balance 
 of the human being (as mysterious perhaps in its ordinary 
 adjustment as in its occasional disturbance) — by all or 
 any of these may our day of life's solemn and eventful 
 discipline be suddenly and unexpectedly shortened. This 
 may teach a lesson of humility, by showing us how the 
 
314 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 highest gifts of intellect, and the graces of life in its- 
 loveliest forms, may be fearfully darkened, even though, 
 blessed be God, they will not thus be blighted for ever. 
 
 It tells us also that humanity, in all its forms and: 
 all its conditions, has to encounter trials and afflictions 
 wrhich are common in their purpose, though peculiar in 
 their manifestation ; and, above all, it reminds those who 
 enjoy the blessing of health and strength, that they should 
 work whilst it is called day, not knowing in what pro- 
 vidential form, nor at what moment, they may find the 
 shadows of night closing around them, when they can no 
 longer work, but must wait for the morning light of 
 eternity. 
 
 I have endeavoured, inadequately I fear, but not un- 
 profitably I hope, to point out the combined claims of 
 labour and knowledge in all the departments of industry^ 
 spiritual, moral, intellectual, manual — the claim upon every 
 class — the clergy and the laity, the manufacturer and the 
 mechanic, the peer and the peasant, the student and the 
 operative — each has his post of duty in the battle of our 
 national life. In what I have criticised or condemned, it 
 has not been in a censorious spirit ; it has been with a view 
 of remedy — just as in our late campaign, the sacrifices 
 occasioned by a system of administrative incompetence and 
 neglect, forced upon us, from the instinct of self-preserva- 
 tion, the duty of rectifying the errors which were so gra- 
 ciously and opportunely exposed, and have been to a great 
 degree remedied. 
 
 Let us apply the lesson of wisdom to other departments. 
 Even in a financial aspect, nothing is so expensive as duty 
 neglected. I would suggest, moreover, that the war of 
 classes — now past and gone, I hope — may leave behind a 
 like lesson of remedial activity. There is in every class a 
 disposition to look at the extreme to which the opposite 
 class is liable, rather than to reflect upon and avoid that to 
 which itself may perilously tend. Each class has a real 
 interest in the increasing prosperity of every other. Our 
 
LABOUR AND KNOWLEDGE. 315 
 
 Blessed Lord spake but few admonitions with a political 
 application ; one, however, should never be forgotten — " A 
 kingdom divided against itself shall be brought to desola- 
 tion." How fearful is the sin — the desolating sin — which 
 foments the strife and schism of factious division ! Class 
 arrayed against class, section striving for mastery over 
 section, whilst ignorance, distrust, jealousy, pride, mam^ 
 monism, go forward to do the work of social disorgani' 
 zation ! But where fellow-citizens unite, with common 
 sympathies — Saxon spirits and Christian hearts — encour- 
 aging every legitimate occasion of kindly or profitable 
 intercourse — diligent in the several departments of labour, 
 wisely distributed — in a rivalry, not of the thorn and the 
 brier, which shall show the sharpest prickle, but of the vine 
 with the olive, which shall bear the richest fruit — then may 
 this Christian co-operation be compared to the beam of 
 heaven, with its rays of distinct colours, which, by their 
 intimate coalescence, give light and warmth to the world. 
 Go on in this spirit. May this Institute be an instrument 
 of increased usefulness, not only in imparting special 
 instruction available to many, but aiding in what is more 
 properly called education, by which good habits are 
 formed, good feeling is cherished, good sense nurtured, and 
 the temper of charity, which is greater than faith or hope, 
 maintained in its Christian fulness. Party politics are 
 wisely excluded — for here your country is your party ; 
 controversial theology is here excommunicated, for Chris- 
 tianity is here your religion — Christianity in its Divine and 
 comprehensive simplicity, as it shines in the' beams of the 
 Sun of Righteousness, when He arose upon the nations 
 with healing in His wings — a system of love and of saving 
 grace, with few doctrines to be believed, but many duties 
 to be performed — Christianity, pure and refreshing, as it 
 gushes from its Divine fountain. Can I, then, despair of 
 our working-classes, whilst society is seasoned with this 
 saving salt ? The eye of the prophet turned instinctively 
 to Him who is the great source of life, to quicken and 
 
3l6 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 reanimate the dry bones, as they lay in the solemn 
 stillness of death in the vision of the valley. May the 
 breathings of that Almighty power quicken and sanctify 
 every agency working for and with our working-classes ! 
 May the gracious Spirit, who at the first breathed into 
 man the breath of life, ever stir the soul and animate the 
 heart and spirit of England, and bind up her destiny with 
 Ihe hopes and the happiness of the whole human race ! 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 Delivered to the Young Men's Christian Association, at 
 Glasgow, ^th October, i86j. 
 
 1H AVE consented to address you on this occasion, that 
 I might give you a practical proof of the interest that 
 I feel in the successful working of this Association, which 
 has become one of the established institutions of the City 
 of Glasgow. The changes effected within living memory 
 in this locality — the industrial energy — the manufacturing 
 skill — the commercial enterprise — the intellectual activity 
 and the religious earnestness of this great community — all 
 bear witness to a law of human progress, beneficently or- 
 dained by Him, from whom cometh down every good and 
 every perfect gift. His dealings are the application of the 
 eternal truths of His Providence to the particular circum- 
 stances of man. The laws of the moral and the material 
 world are wisely ordered for our discipline and our happi- 
 ness ; and the study of these laws, in order to mould our 
 institutions and form our habits in accordance with their 
 requirements, opens out that course of improvement in 
 which man is privileged to be a fellow-worker with God. 
 We are encouraged to bring our life into harmony With 
 principles which minister to our individual well-being, and 
 advance the common weal. They are, in truth, but the 
 expression of the Divine Will with which we become 
 gradually acquainted in the discoveries of science and the 
 disclosures of Revelation — the faithful and patient study of 
 God's works and of His Holy Word. We find that it is 
 
31 8 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 His purpose that the intellectual, the moral, and the reh'- 
 gious progress of man, should keep pace with our outward 
 prosperity. 
 
 It is therefore with much satisfaction I find that this 
 Association includes in its fundamental plan these several 
 heads of improvement ; and however much may remain to 
 be accomplished in working out effectively in detail and 
 with completeness the comprehensive design, I earnestly 
 hope that it may be kept steadily in view, as worthy of 
 your unabated efforts to realize to the full. The will finds 
 out the way ; and in such a community, with its time- 
 honoured and venerable University, I confidently expect 
 that arrangements will ultimately be made to effectuate in 
 the best manner practicable the declared object of this 
 Association — " the intellectual, moral, and religious improve- 
 ment of the young men of Glasgow!' " This, indeed," says 
 Lord Bacon, " is like the work of nature ; whereas the 
 other courses I have mentioned are like the work of the 
 hand. For as when a carver makes an image, he shapes 
 . only that part wherein he works, and not the rest — as if he 
 be upon the face, that part which shall be the body is but 
 a rude and unshapen stone still, till such time as he comes 
 to it ; but contrariwise, when nature makes a flower or 
 a living creature, she forms and produces rudiments of 
 all the parts at one time." You wisely propose to follow the 
 guidance of nature. We have the material world without 
 — the moral world within — and the Word of Revelation, 
 which contains the key of the Divine cipher. Science and 
 art — philosophy and religion, scatter their teeming truths 
 around, to be gathered with patient diligence, with humility 
 and thankfulness. Our whole nature is designed for culti- 
 vation ; the health of the body, by cleanliness, regularity, 
 and temperance ; the mind, by study and conference ; the 
 moral nature, by the obedience of faith — the active disci- 
 pline of virtue ; the spiritual nature, by private devotion and 
 by public worship. Thus may we combine symmetry 
 ■with strength, and balance the complex forces, which are 
 
ADDRESS : GLASGOW YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATION. 3 19 
 
 designed to act and re-act on each other. The Christian 
 student seeks to preserve the harmony of his nature, when 
 he dedicates himself in body, soul, and spirit unto God, as 
 a reasonable service. He feels it to be at once a duty and 
 a privilege to avail himself of every opportunity of general 
 improvement. The narrow uninstructed mind is not the 
 fitting companion for a large and loving heart. 
 
 You cannot have failed to observe the change that has 
 teen wrought in recent times in the character of labour. 
 In some departments (for instance in agriculture) what was 
 at one time coarse toil and mere animal drudgery, has been 
 elevated to an industrial pursuit; in which capital, skill, and 
 science have increased production, and ministered not 
 only to the wants but to the comforts of society. Science 
 has unfolded laws of nature — art, of beauty. The applica- 
 tion of science and art has given to some departments of 
 labour an altered aspect. Labour has been regarded in a 
 light that came not from above, and in forgetfulness of its 
 Divine appointment. The Divine right and the sacred 
 purpose of leisure and rest were overlooked, when labour 
 was supposed to be the special burthen of some, and idle- 
 ness the peculiar privilege of others. 
 
 Labour is a law binding on man as man. " It is " (says 
 Edmund Burke) " the common doom of man, that he 
 must eat his bread by the sweat of his brow, — that is, by 
 the sweat of his body, or the sweat of his mind. If this 
 toil was inflicted as a curse, it is (as might be expected 
 from the Father of all blessings) tempered with many 
 alleviations, many comforts. Every attempt to fly from it 
 and to refuse the very terms of our existence, becomes 
 much more truly a curse, and heavier pains and penalties 
 fall upon those who would elude the tasks that are put 
 upon them by the great Master Workman of the World, 
 who, in His dealings with His creatures, sympathises with 
 their weakness, and speaking of a Creation wrought by- 
 mere will out of nothing, speaks of six days of labour and 
 one of rest." It is a fact revealed that God our Creator— 
 
320 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 without whom was not anything made that was made, is 
 also the Lord our Redeemer ; and He has assured us that 
 " the Sabbath was made for man." The blessing of rest 
 was provided before the sentence of labour was pronounced. 
 Thus are they connected in, the Divine economy — the one 
 as a law of universal obligation, the other as the gracious 
 provision of Divine goodness and mercy. Man, in every 
 class, is designed for a life of diligence and duty; but on 
 the other hand, rest is to be regarded as the right of all 
 who are bound by the law of labour. There is a common 
 error in speaking of a working or labouring class, as if it 
 could only include those who are engaged in manual toil. 
 There is a like error in regarding rest as mere indolent 
 inaction. 
 
 " Absence of occupation is not rest, 
 The mind that's vacant is a mind distress'd." 
 
 " Let us here " (says Hooker) " not take rest for idle- 
 ness. They are idle whom the painfulness of action 
 causeth to avoid those labours whereunto both God and 
 nature bindeth them. They rest which either cease from 
 their worlt, when they have brought it unto perfection, or 
 else give over a meaner labour because a worthier and 
 better is to be undertaken. God hath created nothing to 
 be idle or ill employed." The day without morning or 
 evening was appointed as the day of sacred rest ; on the 
 other days " man goeth forth unto his work and his labour 
 until the evening" Thus has the period of rest weekly and 
 daily recurring, been set apart under God's appointment; 
 and whilst labour is one of the earliest laws, rest is one of 
 the earliest privileges of humanity. In truth, it takes pre- 
 cedence of labour ; it was preparatory before it became 
 restorative. The seventh day of the Almighty Creator, 
 when He rested from the work of Creation, was the first 
 day for created man. For the Christian, God has provided 
 that the Lord's Day should remind him not only of the 
 work of Creation ended, but of the work of Redemption 
 finished, and the work of the Comforter begun. " This is 
 
ADDRESS: GLASGOW YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATION. 32 1 
 
 the day which the Lord hath made — we will rejoice and 
 be glad in it." 
 
 The early closing movement is but a tardy recognition j 
 of the Divine right of appropriate rest. It is one of the 
 cheering proofs of the progress of society to find that the 
 changes which have been brought about in labour by the 
 discoveries and application of Science, have been accom- 
 panied by a growing desire for the mental and moral im- 
 provement of those who are occupied with their daily 
 work. 
 
 To bring about the happy result by which labour has 
 been elevated, Science has contributed ; but let it never 
 be forgotten, that the privilege of leisure and rest has 
 been secured by the authority of God's Holy Word. How 
 could the seventh day have been rescued from the grasp 
 of Mammon — the workman saved from the grinding 
 exaction of the covetous spirit that would sa.cn?ice persons 
 on the altar of things ? How — but by the influence of 
 the Divine Word cherished in the hearts and fearlessly 
 honoured by the best and the wisest of our people ? 
 How could you have gained for yourselves the full 
 evening of leisure — the early release on the Saturday — ■ 
 the uninvaded privilege of the Sabbath — if all this had - 
 not been required by a voice from Heaven ? Blessed 
 truth for man, that rest is a Divine right ! If it were ' 
 of man — an appointment of human authority — they who 
 had bound might lose ; but as it is of God — a provision 
 of His own Almighty goodness and wisdom — then it is . 
 in all its fulness the birthright of man, which he may 
 indeed despise and barter away, but of which he cannot- 
 lawfully be deprived. When he parts with the birthright 
 he forfeits the blessing. 
 
 How may the hours of leisure be most profitably 
 turned to good account, according to the purpose for 
 which God has given them ? This is a large and all- 
 important question. Your Association proposes to answer 
 itj so far at least as your resources and opportunities 
 
 Y 
 
322 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 admit. You tell the young men of Glasgow, that the; 
 privilege which has been conceded to them places them 
 undei: a weighty responsibility. What each might be 
 unable to realize for himself, may be accomplished by ah 
 Association, in which the feelings of mutual dependence 
 tends to chasten and correct the excess of self-reliance ; 
 which seeks to provide a course of improvement, under, 
 the auspices and with the generous aid of the wisest and 
 most influential of the citizens. In this arrangement, the 
 whole community has a real interest. " A day of rest, 
 recurring every week, and hours of exercise, of leisure, 
 of intellectual improvement recurring in every day, elevate; 
 the whole man — elevate him physically, elevate him in- 
 tellectually, elevate him morally; and his elevation, physi- 
 cal, moral, and intellectual, again falls on the commercial 
 prosperity of the country which is advanced with it." 
 Such were the impressive words of an eloquent states- 
 man, the late Lord Macaulay. 
 
 Intellectual improvement takes precedence in your 
 programme. I am one of those who think that the science 
 of language — the study of words — is the fit preparation 
 for the study of things. The certainties of Arithmetic 
 and Geometry, and the exercises of Logic mature the 
 reasoning faculty. It is at least as important to learn 
 to think accurately as to express our thoughts in appro-, 
 priate language. The study of facts relative to nature, 
 and to man unfolds the laws which regulate our social 
 condition, and leads the mind to regard things in differ- 
 ent aspects as they appear to others, and thus tends to 
 correct limited or partial views. If we are ambitious to 
 make a great advance in some one department of secular 
 knowledge, success is seldom attained without a sacri-, 
 fice of that symmetry of the mind, which is, I think, of 
 the very essence of a sound and liberal education. To, 
 those who seek for special excellence in some department 
 of mechanical or scientific knowledge, with a limited or 
 selfish object, and without reference to the general cul- 
 
ADDRESS : GLASGOW YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATION. 323 
 
 tivation of their immortal nature, I cannot suppose that 
 this Association has any peculiar attractions. But for 
 those who can appreciate wholesome literature, who^ 
 desire to cultivate the study of language, to learn the, 
 lessons and listen to the philosophy of history, unfolded in 
 the biographic sketches of representative men ; for those 
 who seek to become acquainted with the outline and the 
 principles of economic science — to learn how to observe 
 and classify the facts of real life, and deduce those in- 
 ferences, by which many current errors and popular fal- 
 lacies are exploded — for such, provision may be (if not 
 already) made, by the arrangement of Evening Classes, 
 in aid of the periodical Lectures. These (if I may judge 
 from the programme for this session) are likely to be of 
 the highest value. I know how difficult it is, on the one 
 hand, to avoid arrangements too methodical to be gene- 
 rally attractive, and on the other, a lack of discipline, 
 under which the young men would be left to drift when 
 they ought to steer. But if the Association is to accom- 
 plish its professed purpose, those who join it must exercise 
 a vigilant self-control, and seek the guidance of such as 
 are most competent to give them counsel. If the attend- 
 ance of any should degenerate into a lounge, to indulge 
 his indolence or repair his exhaustion, I have not a 
 word of encouragement for him ; I have but to deplore 
 and denounce a waste of opportunity. But to the 
 earnest and resolute — to those who look forward to a 
 life of honourable and successful industry — to you, I 
 say — learn how to study history for lessons of present 
 guidance ; to appreciate literature, adapted as it is, when 
 pure, honest, and truthful, to refine and elevate the mind — ; 
 to give liberal and enlarged views, and enable you to 
 understand the hearts of men. I would especially observe 
 that, in this practical age, there is a very dangerous ten, 
 dency to grasp at what seems, for the time being," to be 
 most marketable, and this leads to an undue deprecia- 
 tion of studies which exercise a, powerful though indirect 
 
^24 ' LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 mfluence upon the mind and character. The Classics are 
 often disparaged — poetry is sometimes despised — litera-' 
 ture is regarded as a sentimental luxury. All this is not- 
 Only a mistaken but a mischievous erron The genuine 
 poet, like the true orator, appeals to the deep feelings 
 and universal sympathies of mankind. Imagination ha^ 
 not been given to us without a Divine purpose. By it we 
 idealize the present, and thus we are, in some degree^ 
 enabled to divest life of its material grossness. The true] 
 the beautiful, and the good are present to the p6et, who 
 binds together by passion and knowledge the vast eni' 
 pire of human society — over all time — over all the wide 
 earth. " The engrossing cares of business, and the quick 
 knd varied delights of pleasure, with the piquant relish 
 of all that is seen and tangible, keep the attention fixed 
 on the things that are merely secular. We must look 
 for some powerful aid to lift men up out of the world 
 of sense." Such are the words of a very distinguished 
 student of the University of Dublin, in ah' address of 
 sirigular ability, delivered before the Theological Society 
 of Trinity College, by the Auditor, Mr. Dowden. In 
 speaking of the functions of the imagination in subser- 
 viency to religion, he has added — " In the manifestation 
 of Jesus, in the helping men to the pefception of Mis 
 Divine character, in the unfolding of its beauties, in the 
 displaying to the affections the distinct conception of 
 theii- object, lies one of the noblest offices of the Christian 
 ministry;" The imagination enables Us to modify lif6— ' 
 to invest the actual with the ideal — a part Of the - ap- 
 pointed process of our ■ mysterious nature, by which wiS 
 are aided and encouraged, under the guidance and with 
 the help of the Holy Spirit, to go on unto perfecticftil 
 You may see, then, how narrow and imperfect (to say 
 the least of it) is that view of education which would 
 limit it to any special form of fragmentary instriictionJ 
 It is in the harmonious training of all the faculties — fK3 
 fiistructiOn_ of the mind— the disciptine of the imagiHatfon 
 
ADDRESS : GLASGOW YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATION. 325: 
 
 — the expanding of the affections, a process by which the' 
 head is enhghtened and the heart is enlarged. We 
 sometimes meet with men of property and position who* 
 seem to despise the great laws of human association, 
 with which, perhaps, they have never been acquainted, 
 and they are insensible to many influences by which life- 
 is penetrated. But the formation of generous sentiments 
 must not be left out of view as an integral and vital part ■ 
 of Education. I speak not of a sentimentality that buries" 
 every virtuous emotion in the language of extravagance,-' 
 but- I advert to that sound and elevated feeling which- 
 springs from the thoughtful study of the moral and social 
 relations N. of man. Never was it more needed than at 
 present. You cannot fail to observe that modern pro- 
 gress-tends to the development of individual liberty, and 
 suggests that men should generally be left to follow their > 
 own interests. Those who are not sufficiently instructed 
 to keep within the limits of regulated freedom, " give way 
 to that laxity of practice and indifference of opinion iii 
 which they too easily shelter themselves from rigour and • 
 constraint." We see every day more clearly exhibited, 
 the penal consequences of ignorance; nothing is so pre-., 
 sumptuous — nothing so extravagant in wasting the bounty 
 of the gifts of God. The progress that has been made 
 in social economy and outward prosperity, has been in 
 a great degree accomplished by a more accurate and ex- 
 tensive acquaintance with the laws of the material world-^ 
 and by a cheerful submission to their beneficial require- j 
 nients. But these, after all, we have reason to believe,- 
 are subordinate and subservient to the moral order under : 
 which man is placed — an immortal and accountable.! 
 creature — in whose heart God has written the eternal and . 
 immutable law of His moral being. Moral improvement, ' 
 then, holds its place in your programme—specified rather ' 
 for distinctness than with any purpose of separating it ' 
 from intellectual or religious improvement. God has 
 joined- them .together, and they are never put aspnder..^ 
 
326 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 without injurious results. But in this moral department 
 there is a special peculiarity that is of the most vital 
 consequence to dwell upon. Moral improvement requires 
 the formation of moral habits ; and these must be ac- 
 quired according to the method that God has appointed 
 as under the eternal laws of the moral system. This 
 metlj^od requires us to be diligent in duty^-to act upon 
 our moral convictions — in a word, to be " fellow-workers 
 with God." In the great work of Butler on the Analogy 
 of Religion to the Constitution and Course of Nature, 
 this subject is treated in a way that has entitled the 
 illustrious author to be classed in the first rank of 
 Moralists. That law of our moral nature by which 
 passive impressions are weakened by repetition, whilst 
 practical principles are strengthened by exercise, is there 
 expounded with singular and (I would add) with solemn 
 perspicuity. " But," says he, " going over the theory of 
 virtue in one's thoughts, talking well and drawing fine 
 pictures of it ; this is so far from necessarily or certainly 
 conducing to form a habit of it in him who thus em- 
 ploys himself, that it may harden the mind in a con- 
 trary course, and render it gradually more insensible, i.e., 
 form a habit of insensibility to all moral considerations. 
 For, from our very faculty of habits, passive impressions, , 
 by being repeated, grow weaker." Every moral being 
 has a vital interest in this immutable law of his immortal 
 nature. And here, in this Association, where you meet ■ 
 to learn from books and lecturers, to deepen and extend , 
 your moral convictions, how needful is it to warn you , 
 at the outset, that these convictions if not carried into ; 
 conduct, if they do not lead to the faithful discharge of, 
 the daily duties of your station, and of the relations of , 
 life in which God may have placed you — they may be 
 " the savour of death unto death ;" the source of a - 
 moral paralysis — a habit of moral insensibility. Our' 
 blessed Lord, in opening out the spiritual ethics of the 
 Gospel, in the Sermon on the Mount, has given to this ^ 
 
ADDRESS : GLASGOW YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATION. 327 
 
 law of our moral nature, a vital place in the economy 
 of Redemption. He who hears those sayings and doeth 
 them — he it is who builds securely upon a rock. He who 
 hears and doeth not, builds upon the shifting sand. The. 
 passive impression in his case becomes at last insensible — 
 the foundation fails — the superstructure tumbles into 
 ruin. We have, then, in this teaching of Him who spake 
 as never man spake, an infallible recognition of this im- 
 portant and immutable law of our moral nature. To 
 know or to hear the highest truths may become a blessing 
 or a curse according to the use which we make of them — 
 according as we continue in them— as we act upon them — 
 become doers of the word and not hearers only. 
 
 You cannot fail to remember the many instances ini 
 which this lesson of Divine wisdom is taught and enforced 
 in the New Testament. Never is it urged in the way of 
 leading us to make a merit of our works, as if salvation 
 were our rightful recompense. The duties required of us 
 are the fruit of faith that works by love — -the grateful 
 offerings of that love which is the fulfilling of the law. 
 This obedience of faith — this work and labour of love— 
 this practical Christianity forms the habits which mould 
 the Christian character. This character, as finally fashioned 
 by the "appointed discipline of life, capacitates for the enjoy- 
 ment of that reward of grace which is not the less free as 
 a gift, because it has been so mercifully adjusted as to. 
 provide not only for our happiness but for our security. I; 
 say, our security — for virtuous habits help us in resisting 
 the temptations which are part of our moral discipline; 
 The acquired habit comes in aid of the reason — of the 
 moral faculty, in controlling passions which cannot be 
 lawfully gratified. '.. 
 
 I know not a subject more solemn than this — that 
 immortal beings placed here in God's world, as His ret 
 sponsible creatures and destined for eternity— are her^ 
 daily and hourly fashioning (as it were) by repeated strokes 
 anuodying personality. Each touch may be imperceptihle 
 
3,28 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 in itself, but the result is an indestructible character. The 
 analogies of nature teach us that all growth is gradual and 
 continuous, with appointed seasons and with exact limit- 
 ations. From the seed sown until the harvest reaped, 
 there is sometimes an unseen but always a seasonable and 
 a living progress unto maturity. Youth is the sowing 
 season of human life. Opportunity may here be lost that 
 can never be recalled. We talk of this life as if it was 
 something shadowy and unreal ; but however transient 
 and temporal are the things that are seen, the life of man 
 on earth is eminently real. In eloquent and impressive 
 language Mr. Gladstone has said — " So surely as the day 
 and the night alternately follow one another, does every 
 day when it yields to darkness and every night when it 
 passes into dawn, bear with it its own tale of the results 
 which it has silently wrought upon each of us for evil or 
 for good. The day of diligence, duty, and devotion, leaves 
 us richer than it found us ; richer sometimes, and even 
 commonly, in our circumstances ; richer always in our^; 
 selves. But the day of aimless lethargy, the day of pas- 
 sionate and rebellious disorder, or of a merely selfish and 
 perverse activity, as surely leaves us poorer at its close 
 than we were at its beginning." 
 
 Thus, then, if you are in earnest in here seeking for 
 help in " moral improvement," you may find a powerful 
 incentive to a life of duty, as a security which God has 
 appointed against influences which might dry up the very 
 springs of your moral being. Let me commend earnestly 
 to your patient and prayerful study, the weighty chapter 
 in Butler's Analogy to which I have referred. Its teaching 
 has been enforced with the earnestness and the warmth of 
 his large and generous heart, by your own beloved and 
 memorable Chalmers, who has illustrated with all the 
 many charms of his elevated and impressive eloquence, the 
 profound practical wisdom of the illustrious Butler. It is 
 the subject of a truly valuable lecture of Archbishop 
 Whately, published in the volume which contains the 
 
ADDRESS: GLASGOW YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATION. 329 
 
 series of lectures delivered in Dublin in 1862, before the 
 Young Men's Christian Association in connection with the 
 United Church. I may perhaps, also, without any kind of 
 pretence, but with a heartfelt anxiety for your moral 
 benefit, refer to the published lectures on the Analogy, 
 delivered by myself, in which I have commented on this 
 chapter on habits, and endeavoured to show how it con- 
 sists with the great facts of man's moral degradation by 
 nature, his redemption by the finished work of Christ, and 
 his regeneration by the work of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 The genius of Scott has given us the inimitable sketch 
 of Old Mortality, with mallet and chisel, and with indomit^ 
 able spirit striving to repair the ruins of time — deepening 
 and renewing the lines which the winds and the rains of 
 heaven ceased not to obliterate. Oh ! for a pen like his 
 to sketch .'Young Immortality,' moulding a work for 
 eternity — an imperishable sculpture for the sanctuary of 
 Heaven. The illustrious parent of modern philosophy 
 called himself " the servant of posterity," as significant of 
 the hope that consoled his chastened spirit in the day of 
 his humiliation, that succeeding times would do justice td 
 his memory. The " heir of eternal life " is sustained by 
 a better hope, a stronger consolation. 
 
 You have recently seen those noble vessels, in which 
 science and skill have combined to give a power of resist-i 
 ance superior to the power of aggression. No expensd 
 has been spared in experiment or in construction — the 
 energies of science have been tasked— the efforts of 
 mechanical skill exhausted, in crowning these princes of 
 the ocean. Shall we not feel as deep an interest in the 
 moral security of our young men ; in having them pro- 
 tected against the aggression of moral evil^the assaults of 
 a power of untameable energy? Here we have not to 
 invent but to apply. The moral law — the facts and the 
 principles of our moral nature — the mode by which it can 
 be " habit clad " — if I may use the expression — this is of 
 God's appointment. If it is our policy, as a people, to act 
 
330 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 upon the results disclosed by science, and to provide 
 against the possible invasion of our peaceful shores-^-is it 
 not our wisdom as Christians, who have to resist the un- 
 tiring assailant of our immortal nature, to avail ourselves 
 of the means which God has provided for our moral 
 security ? 
 
 Religious improvement may be distinguished, but can- 
 not be separated from moral. They are connected by deep 
 and divine harmonies ; and indeed, you will find in every 
 false religion some denial or displacing of the moral law': 
 It is a pregnant proof of the Divine origin of the Holy 
 Scriptures, that moral truth is upheld throughout, in all its 
 integrity — whilst in matters of external nature, to which 
 reference is made for a subsidiary purpose, the language 
 is accommodated to the common understanding, though 
 never so as to offend the true spirit of science. It is 
 adapted to the occasion, and subservient to the primary 
 purpose of the Divine message, that might have been 
 frustrated by the use of words, which would have been 
 then unintelligible, or might have seemed palpably untrue.' 
 " To seek Heaven and Earth in the Word of God," says 
 Bacon, with his habitual wisdom, " is to seek temporary 
 things amongst eternal. And as to seek divinity amongst 
 philosophy, is to seek the living amongst the dead ; so, to 
 seek philosophy in divinity, is to seek the dead amongst 
 the living. The scope or purpose of the Spirit of God, is 
 not to express matters of nature in the Scriptures, other- 
 wise than in passage, and for application to man's capacity, 
 and to matters moral or divine. And it is a true rule, 
 'auctoris aliud agentis, parva auctoritas' — what a man sayS 
 incidentally about matters which are not in question, has 
 little authority." The most exact philosopher, in common 
 intercourse, scruples not to speak of sunset and sunrise, 
 and the like. And so in Scripture you find the occasional 
 adoption of so much of the current popular belief, as serves 
 to illustrate or explain parts of the Divine Message. This 
 condescension to man— ^to the humble and the simple-r- 
 shews how God intended His blessed Word to be available 
 
ADDRESS.: GLASGOW YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATION. 33 1 
 
 and open to all ; free and accessible as the wondrous 
 works of creation. But the very purpose of Revelation 
 required that one jot or tittle of the moral law should not 
 be repealed or superseded. And so it is that in the Bible, 
 the most recondite truths of our moral nature are asserted 
 or assumed ; the law is immutable — our nature is immortal. 
 I have already referred to the great law, by which duty is 
 indispensable to our moral life ; and in a degree which 
 we may not be able to apprehend, it is important to our 
 progress in religious knowledge. "If any man shall be 
 willing to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine 
 whether it be of God." A willing obedience is the path to 
 a higher knowledge of Divine truth. Nor is it merely that 
 you should come out (as it were) on great occasions, but 
 that in your humblest duties you should exercise the 
 functions of your moral life. The learned editor of the 
 noble edition of Lord Bacon's works, recently published, 
 has observed — " It is a fact worth knowing, for it may 
 serve as a caution and encouragement both, and it is one 
 of those which the reverence of posterity is too apt to 
 overlook or keep out of sight — that the various accom- 
 plishments for which Bacon was distinguished among the 
 men of his time, were not given to him ready-made. The 
 secret of his proficiency was simply that, in the smallest 
 matters, no less than in the greatest, he took a great deal 
 of pains." The physician will tell you, that what is called 
 insensible perspiration, is one of the most important func- 
 tions of the body. The religion of common life is the true 
 response to the constant beating of the believer's heart. 
 
 In carrying out the work of religious improvement, 
 the intelligent study and enlightened knowledge of the 
 Holy Scriptures must take precedence. Just consider 
 what a singular volume the Bible is. Unique in its one- 
 ness, as it is unrivalled in its variety, it has been confronted 
 with nature and with man from age to age, and has been 
 " a light unto the feet and a lamp unto the path " of those 
 who have most thoroughly explored nature and most pro- 
 foundly studied man. " Scripture," says Edmund Burke, 
 
332 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. - ^- 
 
 "is no one summary of doctrines regularly digested in- 
 which a man could not mistake his way ; it is a most' 
 venerable but most multifarious collection of the records- 
 of the divine economy ; a collection of an infinite variety- 
 of cosmogony, theology, history, prophecy, psalmody.^ 
 morality, apologae, legislation — ethics carried through dif-J 
 ferent books, by different authors at different ages, for 
 different ends and purposes. It is necessary to sort out 
 what is intended for example, what only as narrative, what' 
 to be understood literally, what figuratively ; where one 
 precept is to be controlled and modified by another — ^what 
 used directly and what only as an argumentuni ad homi-' 
 nem ; what is temporary and what of perpetual obligation " 
 — what appropriated to one state and to one set of men,' 
 and what the general duty of all Christians." This won-' 
 derful variety is treasured in that sacred Record, empha-^ 
 tically called "The Book," with its Divirie unity, the unity 
 of the Spirit. The history of your own people furnishes a • 
 pregnant comment on the practical wisdom of what Burke- 
 has suggested. Precepts of the Old Testament designed-* 
 to be local and personal, have been misapplied in violation-" 
 of the great principles of the New. Remember this — ^that 
 to misapply a principle is, in effect, to violate it. We may 
 have to take into account not only facts and circumstances 
 with which we are compelled to deal, but likewise other^ 
 principles equal in authority. This admits, if it does not ' 
 always require, an instructed and a thoughtful spirit, to 
 keep, us safe in our course of discipline and duty. It is"' 
 quite true, and we should be deeply thankful for it, that^ 
 the Bible is designed for the humblest and the unlettered, 
 as well as for the wise and learned. We must not limit ^ 
 the influence, as we cannot define the operation, of the Spirit - 
 of Truth— ' 
 
 " Whose love, whose counsel, whose commands have made 
 Your very poorest rich in peace of thought i 
 
 And in good works ; and him who is endowed 
 Witli scantiest knowledjje, master of all truth 
 ' Which the salvation of his soul requires." -. ,. . . _ >_ - - - ■' 
 
ADDRESS.:- GLASGOW- YOU N-G MEN'S ASSOCIATION. 333 
 
 " But the possessor of the one talent was not suffered, 
 without rebuke, to be unprofitable. As in natural and civil 
 knowledge, progress may be made by study and diligence 
 (in various forms — so is there a " going on unto perfection " 
 in religious attainments. When Bacon speaks of his hope 
 of providing a better guidance in the investigation of truth, 
 :he says, " wherein, if I have made any progress, the way 
 has been opened, to be by no other means than the true 
 and legitimate humiliation of the human spirit " — " the 
 rentrarice into the kingdom of man, founded on the sciences 
 being' not much other than the entrance into the kingdom 
 pf heaven, whereunto none may enter, except as a little 
 <:hild." You will do well to study diligently the remarks 
 of this wonderful man in reference to the use of reason in 
 religion. They are to be found in the 9th Book of the 
 ?' De Augmentis Scientiarum," Vol. V., pp. 113-115 (last 
 .edition). Reason has its proper place and office in philo- 
 sophy, politics, and religion ; but the realities of life, the 
 facts of nature, and the truths of revelation, are not to be 
 set aside in Order that our reason may be exalted above 
 measure. Bacon has shewn this generally^Burke espe- 
 cially in politics, Butler in theology. " The men of experi- 
 ment (says Bacon) are like the ant, they only collect and 
 juse ; the reasoners resemble spiders, who made cobwebs out 
 pf their Own substance. But the bee takes a middle course ; 
 it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and 
 the field, but transforms and digests by a power of its own." 
 There is no department of knowledge in which you may 
 Hot find something which may be available in expanding, 
 if not deepening, your views of Holy Scripture. But it is 
 unreasonable to expect to find, even in the best authors, 
 jvhat is quite suitable to us, or free from all objection; you 
 must use the discrimination, as well as the diligence, of the 
 :bee. And here much may depend on the chastened 
 .sobriety, the healthy vigour, the wise moderation which 
 the faithful and prayerful study of the Bible, may, un- 
 der .God's guidance and blessing, have imparted, Keep 
 
334 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 yourselves in sympathy with thoughtful and sober-minded 
 men ; the peril of extreme opinions cannot be overstated. 
 You might impair your simple common sense, and narrow 
 the heart without instructing the mind. I commend to 
 you earnestly the study of Butler's writings, to enable you 
 fully to apprehend the structure of your moral nature. 
 And as I have given you a friendly caution as to the perils 
 that you may encounter in the study of moral truth, so let 
 me especially warn you against a danger that is imminent 
 at the present time, in the study of the Bible itself The 
 most sacred truths of religion may come to be considered 
 rather as subjects for intellectual scrutiny and criticism, 
 than for the renewing the heart, and restoring the harmony 
 of life. Religion may thus be studied without the awaken- 
 ing of those emotions and sentiments which the truths of 
 religion are naturally fitted to produce. It is the parallel 
 of what Butler has noticed as to the truths of moral science. 
 If we view the truths of Revelation or of moral science 
 merely in a rational aspect, we may repress the emotions 
 which are proper to each, and which are designed to exer- 
 cise a practical influence. In the lectures on Butler to 
 which I have already referred, I have explained the views 
 which I have been led to adopt on matters of controversy, 
 now agitated with reference to the Holy Scriptures. 
 There is not one of the current sceptical objections that 
 ought to embarrass any well regulated and instructed 
 mind. Difficulties there are, as we might reasonably ex- 
 pect, for difficulty is a part of the discipline of life. I may 
 give you one instructive example of the removal of a diffi- 
 culty. Dr. Chalmers says he never experienced so great a 
 deliverance, as when he was enabled to reconcile the free 
 grace of the Gospel with its moral demands. He had not 
 sufficiently considered the emotional element of our com- 
 plex nature. You may have seen the spectral image of 
 the moon before day begins to decline ; it scarcely attracts 
 more than a passing notice. But when that glorious orb 
 has brightened into majesty, and nature is wrapt in repose ; 
 
ADDRESS: GLASGOW YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATION. 335 
 
 when the soul is in deep harmony with solitude and silence, 
 and all above seems mystery and beauty — and under this 
 transforming influence we think of beloved ones who have 
 parted from us in the journey of life — the founder of our 
 hopes — the child of our affections — the partner of our de- 
 parted joys — 
 
 " Departed — never to return " 
 
 — the trembling tear— the tender prayer and the spell of 
 sympathy bear witness that we are wonderfully made. 
 There are particular affections of our nature excited by 
 appropriate objects, and these exercise a powerful influence 
 over conduct and character. This had not escaped the" 
 sagacity of Butler, in whose lessons of wisdom Dr. Chal- 
 mers much delighted, and these at last enabled him to 
 solve the problem that had given him much disquietude. 
 He saw the light that was reflected from the exquisite 
 parable of the creditor and the two debtors ; that in pre- 
 senting Christ as the grand object of our affections, God 
 was drawing us with the cords of a man. We love Him 
 because He first loved us — Him who workcth for us, who 
 worketh with us, who worketh in us — and therefore tells 
 us to do all our duties heartily as unto Him, and not unto 
 man. This is the victory that overcometh the world. 
 There are some other points of interest which I might be 
 disposed here to deal with ; but I am reminded that it 
 is altogether unnecessary, where you are provided with 
 teachers so eminent and so willing to instruct and to guide 
 you, with pure and peaceable wisdom, in the faithful study 
 of that blessed Word that is able to make you wise unto 
 
 salvation. 
 
 Though I have treated the heads of improvement in 
 the order in which your programme has placed them, I 
 must now place them in the Apostolic order of — faith — 
 virtue — knowledge. Religious improvement takes pre-' 
 cedence — the influence of the mother's love before the' 
 mother's learning. The most profound historian of mo- 
 dern times (Niebuhr) has observed that religious reform 
 
336 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 should go before political ; the Reformation preceded the 
 Revolution. The fig-tree that was luxuriant with leaves 
 was barren of fruit — the order of sequence peculiar to its 
 species, was inverted, and it incurred a sentence which 
 teaches a solemn lesson of the importance of the order 
 that God has fixed in the Divine economy. It is just 
 about three hundred years since the English Reformation, 
 in the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth. Its professed 
 policy was to purify the faith by an appeal to the Holy 
 Scriptures; to open these Scriptures to the people, and to 
 liberate opinion. This recognised the great truth of the 
 sufficiency of the Scriptures, and the right of private 
 judgment. About the same period, the Council of Trent 
 reconstructed the system of the Church of Rome. Their 
 policy was to stereotype the dogmas of their new Creed 
 under an authority that was assumed to be infallible. It 
 proscribed the exercise of private judgment ; it corrupted 
 the faith, and it enslaved opinion. The two systems have 
 been under trial for three centuries — let us judge of the 
 tree by the fruit. In the year 1848, the late Archbishop 
 Murray selected a Roman Catholic Priest whom he sent 
 to Rome on business connected with the Church of Rome 
 in Ireland, and in a letter written from Rome by this 
 envoy, which was afterwards published, he refers to the 
 freedom of his Church under the English Constitution in 
 tliese words : " Hence it is clear that in no other Euro- 
 pean nation, the exercise of religious liberty is safer and 
 sounder." We have a still more striking and more recent 
 testimony from Cardinal Wiseman at the late congress 
 convened at Malines, where Montalembert, the eloquent 
 advocate of the Papacy, earnestly contended for liberty of 
 conscience and the free exercise of private judgment. He 
 has (however unconsciously) vindicated the Reformation ; 
 but he may have forgot that private judgment has its 
 duties as well as its rights. It is a moral liberty to be 
 perfected and preserved by the agencies of the Gospel. 
 There must be free education, in order to remove the 
 
ADDRESS : GLASGOW YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATION. 337, 
 
 influences which sustain the throne of intolerance that 
 must give way before the light of "the perfect law of 
 liberty." This has a large signification — it implies civil 
 liberty as well as religious freedom. ^ 
 
 " Who would be free must first be wise and good." 
 
 Thus then, our enemies themselves being the judges, the 
 Reformation has been the protector, if not the parent, ot 
 the freedom, which they have yet to realize. Sardinia,' 
 with the instinct of a people destined to be free, has 
 already followed in the wake of England. The very steps, 
 that were taken in the reign of Henry VIII, and con- 
 solidated in the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth as, 
 part of the Reformation code, have been taken by Sardinia. 
 The work so auspiciously begun, in order to make her 
 Church national and domestic in its discipline, must be 
 continued in making it also Scriptural in its doctrine ; and 
 then, by education and patient perseverance, she may 
 elevate her people to the rank and station of a free and 
 Christian community. Is it not indeed instructive to look 
 at the Papal States and at Spain — to trace the effects of 
 that ungodly intolerance, which is of the earth earthy — 
 and on the other hand in the far west, to observe how 
 liberty has become licentious — a cloke of maliciousness ? 
 Let us stand fast in that liberty, wherewith Christ hath 
 made us free. Let us rest and be thankful. The institu- 
 tions of our free country are worth preserving — the herit- 
 age of generations yet unborn. 
 
 I fear that I have already trespassed too long on your 
 indulgence. I know that I might have spoken in a way 
 more likely to be attractive to a general audience. I 
 might have alluded to Scotland as the land of story and 
 of song, the land of my forefathers, that frcftn the days of 
 my childhood, I was taught to venerate. I might have 
 eulogised the stern grandeur of her mountain solitudes — 
 the loveliness of lake and river, the lowlands laughing 
 with fertility. And above all, I might have dwelt on the 
 
 Z 
 
338 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 charms of her native literature — the humour, the tender- 
 ness, and the melody of her poets — the mild wisdom of 
 her philosophers — the " Good Words " of her godly minis- 
 ters. But I resolved to speak profitably, if I could, to the 
 young men of this admirable Association. We have met 
 to-night in that spirit of kindly intercourse which requires 
 not the compromise of one sincere conviction, nor sanc- 
 tions the intrusion of one uncharitable feeling. To culti- 
 vate such a spirit is an element of Christian life. It has 
 been beautifully said, by one not more elegant than wise, 
 that " charity must, in its comprehensiveness, embrace 
 everything human, rnust shed its light upon the just and 
 the unjust, detect the soul of good in things evil, steal 
 rigidity from virtue, and bring into gentle relief, those 
 truths which are of aspect the most benign, and those 
 suggestions and hopes for the erring, which are most full 
 of consolation." How often do we find, in the collisions 
 of life, distortion and suspicion, where much has been 
 misconceived, much that is redeeming overlooked, and 
 our security is only found in the culture of that Divine 
 charity, which " thinketh no evil." 
 
 We have met in the name that assures us of the gra- 
 cious presence of our Lord and Master. " It is good for 
 us to be here." 
 
 " Sun of my soul, my Saviour dear ! 
 It is not night if Thou art near. 
 Oh ! may no earthborn cloud arise. 
 To hide Thee from Thy servant's eyes ! '' 
 
 Be Thou the guiding light of these, the young men of 
 Glasgow. May their course through life, like the deep 
 flow of their lordly river, be ever onward and abounding — 
 
 " Till in the ocean of Thy love 
 They lose themselves in Heaven above." 
 
THE IRISH DIFFICULTY. 
 
 Lecture delivered before the Dublin Young Men's Christian 
 Association, 8th February, i86§. 
 
 IT has been well observed by Professor Dugald Stewart, 
 that " toxorrect an error or to explode a prejudice, is 
 often of more essential importance to human happiness, 
 than to enlarge the boundaries of science." Many years 
 have elapsed since I first heard of what has been called 
 (^par excellence) " the Irish difficulty." It had become a 
 kind of proverb, and had been in some degree looked upon 
 as " a lion in the path " of our national progress. It has 
 more or less haunted the minds of people in Ireland with, 
 the apprehension that there is some irremovable (though 
 undefined) hindrance to improvement, something that must 
 ever render their efforts unavailing and hopeless ; sufficient 
 to paralyse their energies, to nourish and excuse inaction. 
 The existence of such a feeling is fatal to progress. Let 
 me remind you that faith in social progress is a guarantee 
 of order as well as of prosperity; There is a Divine law 
 that regulates that progress ; that subjects society to its. 
 imperative requirements ; that calls upon us not only ta 
 encounter difficulties, but to make them subservient to the 
 higher purposes of human life. Under the belief that the 
 common notion of " the Irish difficulty " is a prejudice that 
 should be exploded ; and desirous (as I am) that the 
 young men of this Association should be encouraged to 
 acquire, truthful, temperate, and manly notions as to their 
 rights and duties as citizens of the United Kingdom, as 
 
340 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND ADDRESSES 
 
 well as to the proper claims that their native country now 
 has and hereafter must have upon them as patriotic Irish- 
 men, I venture to bring before you the subject of "the 
 Irish difficulty." 
 
 In the Divine economy difficulty is generally designed 
 to be subservient to man's moral discipline. It is used to 
 arouse and stimulate us to exertion ; to impress us with a 
 conviction of our dependence on God. On the other hand, 
 it is sometimes the penal consequence of opportunity 
 neglected — of " indolence and irregularity long continued." 
 
 The fig-tree that was luxuriant in its rank foliage was 
 barren of fruit ; the law of its natural condition had been 
 contravened, and it was smitten with a blight, under a 
 judicial sentence. A lesson of the deepest wisdom is 
 lodged in the parable. It may be our lot, indeed, to 
 encounter much difficulty which we have not consciously 
 created ; but for the manner and the spirit in which we 
 meet it, we cannot but be responsible to God and our 
 neighbour. " The Author of our being is the Author of 
 our place in the order of existence; and having disposed 
 and marshalled us by a Divine tactic, not according to our 
 will, but according to His, He has in and by that disposi- 
 tion virtually subjected us to act the part which belongs to 
 the place assigned us." 
 
 It is about seven hundred years since Ireland (or rather 
 a part of it) came under the dominion of the monarch of 
 England. Whatever else is doubtful, this is clear, that the 
 Pope of that day was an accomplice in the transaction ; 
 and native chiefs, whose name was legion, were accessories 
 after the fact. 
 
 Long before that event took place Christianity had 
 found its way into the land. The early Church of Ireland, 
 the Church of St. Patrick, was episcopal and domestic, and 
 it recognised the divine and supreme authority of Holy 
 Scripture. 
 
 " Type of the wise, who soar but never roam, 
 True to the kindred points of heaven and home. 
 
THE IRISH DIFFICULTY. 341 
 
 I may refer you to the volume recently published by 
 my friend Dr. Todd on the Life of St. Patrick — a work 
 characterized not more by profound research than by the 
 temperate wisdom and the spirit of impartiality with which 
 it has been composed. It conclusively establishes the' 
 fact that our ancient Church existed for several centuries 
 before the English invasion and the Papal intrusion, and 
 that those politicians in England who have recently been: 
 looking out for a programme for their party, and propose 
 to free Ireland from the Church as " a badge of conquest," 
 have by a curious infelicity proscribed the only Institution 
 tliat is emphatically our own ; it was the gift of the King- 
 of kings ; we have it by Divine right. 
 
 In a celebrated pamphlet published in 1810 by Thomas 
 Moore, our native melodist, and one of the Roman Catholic 
 historians of Ireland, he says that the testimonies cited by 
 Ussher abundantly prove " that to as late a period as the 
 twelfth century the Pope had not exercised a legatine 
 authority in Ireland, nor taken any share in the election of 
 her Bishops or Archbishops." And he adds, that " neither 
 by France nor by Catholic England was the interference 
 bf Rome more effectually excluded than by Ireland herself 
 during the times of her native monarchy." I may also 
 refer to Burke's Works, Vol. VI., p. ^6 (Bohn's Edition). 
 
 At an early period the Christian religion had been 
 ^embraced and cherished by pious men in Ireland with 
 great zeal, and that led to an extensive adoption of the 
 contemplative life, and to the cultivation of learning and 
 the useful arts. Edmund Burke has observed that " the 
 scheme of Christianity is such that it almost necessitates 
 an attention to many kinds of learning. For the Scripture 
 is by no means an irrelative system of moral and divine 
 truths ; but it stands connected with so many histories, 
 and with the laws, opinions, and manners of so many 
 various sorts of people, and in such different times, that it 
 is altogether impossible to arrive at any tolerable know- 
 ledge of it without having recourse to much exterior 
 
342 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 inquiry. For whicli reason the progress of this religion 
 has always been marked by that of letters." 
 ' Ireland was blessed by the advent of Christianity, and 
 by the learning that is the handmaid of that religion. 
 •' The king's daughter, all glorious within," had " her virgin 
 companions." Science flourished in the seventh and eighth 
 centuries. Then came the Danish invasion and all the 
 desolation of war ; then the destruction of the retreats of 
 learning and of piety. That was followed by civil distrac- 
 tion, ignorance, poverty, and barbarism. The Church 
 degenerated and the State became decomposed, so that a 
 pretext was afforded for the intervention of England to 
 restore civil order and religious life. 
 
 At that rude period Rome exercised a growing influence 
 over the religious mind of the West. From the Imperial 
 City had come much of the learning that had been pre- 
 served from barbarian spoil. The Papal power was at first 
 used with moderation and sagacity, until it grew into a 
 strength that was difficult to be resisted. Every available 
 instrument was used to increase it. Every turn in the 
 affairs of the countries of Christendom was watched with a 
 view to push forward the Papal power to the utmost. The 
 Papacy was a State as well as a Church : it sought to 
 establish a kingdom emphatically of this world. Its inter- 
 vention in the affairs of Europe is impartially described by 
 the late Bishop Doyle, as quoted by Judge O'Hagan, in a 
 published argument : — " Thus it was that in bad times, in 
 times of turbulence and barbarism, the claims of the Popes 
 to the sovereignty of almost every kingdom in Europe 
 grew up in silence, and were admitted and sanctioned by 
 nearly all the ruling powers. It must be quite obvious that 
 those claims had not their origin in the Gospel, nor in the 
 doctrine of the Catholic. Church, but in the state of society, 
 in the mistaken zeal, or in the ambition of some Popes — a 
 zeal and ambition excited and directed by an insatiable 
 avarice, pride and thirst of power in their followers and 
 dependents." 
 
THE IRISH DIFFICULTY. 343 
 
 So far then we find that the ancient Church of Ireland 
 was National and not Papal, and that Papal encroachment 
 on the Civil Government was not Scriptural, nor was it in 
 accordance with true Catholic doctrine. We will further 
 find, that the ancient Constitution of England in the 
 Common Law of the land, as well as the Church of the 
 Reformation in the Thirty-seventh Article of Religion, 
 maintains that the King is, under God, Supreme Governor 
 of all estates in the realm, whether they be civil or eccle- 
 siastical. St. Peter himself, under the guidance of the 
 Holy Spirit, has admonished us to " submit ourselves to 
 every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake : whether it be 
 to the king, as supreme." 
 
 The vindication of that fundamental doctrine of our 
 Church and State has been difficult and costly ; it fills up 
 many an important chapter in history. But it was vital to 
 freedom ; freedom for every class in the community. 
 
 The monster difficulty of Ireland has been mainly- 
 occasioned by dividing the kingdom against itself That 
 has been done in disregard of the Apostolic injunction. A 
 greater than St. Peter has told us what is the penalty of 
 such division — the fate of a kingdom that becomes so 
 divided. 
 
 Long before the era of the Reformation there were 
 stringent laws enacted from time to time in England to 
 restrict Papal intervention and prevent encroachment. In 
 the celebrated prosecution of Lalor, by Sir John Davis, for 
 exercising jurisdiction in Ireland, as Vicar-General of the 
 See of Rome, though he was first indicted upon the statute 
 of Elizabeth, that was afterwards abandoned, and he was 
 then indicted upon the old law enacted in the time of 
 
 Richard II. 
 
 Dr. O'Connor (himself a Roman Catholic) in his well- 
 known historical address observes— " Lalor was justly 
 prosecuted on the Catholic statute of proemunire, enacted 
 in the Catholic reign of Richard II., for the security of a 
 . Catholic State. He was prosecuted on that statute for 
 
■' 344 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AJSTD LETTERS. 
 
 ' exercising' jurisdiction within the reafni of Ireland." But 
 
 • the struggle against foreign interference has not been cbii- 
 ' fined to this kingdom. The celebrated Gallican liberties 
 'can never be blotted out of European history, and there Is 
 ' not a country in Europe, with the exception of the Roman 
 ' States, in which the right of the civil authority to restrain 
 
 • Papal interference has not been more or less exercised. 
 
 England (as Lord Plunket once observed) was pre- 
 ■ doomed to be free. The very first clause in Magna 
 " Charta is — " First, we have granted to God, and by this 
 ' our present Charter have confirmed for us and our heirs 
 
 • for ever, that the Church of England shall be free, and 
 shall have all her whole rights and liberties inviolable. 
 We have granted also and given to all the freemen of 
 
 ' our Realm, for us and our heirs for ever, these liberties 
 ' underwriten, to have and to hold to them and their heirs 
 of us and our heirs for ever." '• 
 
 How, then (it is asked), how is it, that under the Crown 
 — the free Constitution of England — how is it that Ireland 
 should appear so often as an aggrieved complainant, as if 
 she were " let and hindered " in the path of progress, tir 
 ' had come under the spell of a blighting and adverse influ- 
 ence? That is a large question. True it is, Ireland is 
 under the same Crown and the same free Constitution as 
 ' Great Britain ; true it is, there is civil liberty and equality, 
 and religious freedom is secured by that Constitution to 
 ' all creeds and classes. But how remarkable is the contrast 
 between the historical antecedents of the two countries ? 
 
 The solid foundation of England's prosperity was laid 
 
 in the work of the Reformation. It was national. It was 
 
 allied with deep religious feeling in hearts, narrow and 
 
 exclusive, perhaps, but earnest and resolute. It was asso- 
 
 'ciated with that indomitable love of freedom that is an 
 
 ' instinct of the English people. The policy of Elizabeth, 
 
 ^- guided by the wisdom of the incomparable Cecil, and sus- 
 
 ■' tained by the spirit and energy of the nation, upheld the 
 
 "Queen's- sovereignty over all estates of the realm >• and the 
 
THE IRISH DIFFICULTY. 
 
 345 
 
 Caribnicar Scriptures (and these only) were declared by 
 the Church to be the rule of faith. That was also estab- 
 lished by the State. On those fundamental positions was 
 raised the structure of civil and religious liberty. 
 
 I have already referred to the parable of the fig-treei. 
 Civil liberty comes in its natural order, as attendant on 
 religious freedom. Niebuhr has observed on the provi- 
 dential course of events in England — the Reformation 
 first, and the Revolution afterwards. The Reformation 
 'settled the faith of the Church upon the abiding truth of 
 the sure Word of God ; and the Revolution settled the 
 freedom of the State upon the basis of the Protestant 
 Religion. The liberties of England were bound up with 
 ' the imperishable work of the Reformation. 
 
 How different was the course of events in Ireland ? 
 The Anglo-Norman Church of the English Pale had been 
 "dissociated from Irish sympathies, and by an intermittent 
 'connivance with the Papacy, was kept up as a political 
 convenience for England. At the time of the Reforma- 
 'tion, the wrse counsellors of Elizabeth had their attentioh 
 drawn to the anomalous condition of Ireland. The master- 
 spirit was Cecil. There is a State Paper in the first year 
 'of Elizabeth's reign, corrected in Cecil's hand, in which the 
 '" Lord Deputy is instructed by the Queen, that he and all 
 and every of her council in all their doings and governance, 
 ■should set the Service of Almighty God before their eyes, and 
 ^prefer the same in all cases. They are ordered to use the 
 rites and ceremonies of the service of God, at the best in their 
 houses, which is by law here approved and appointed" and 
 ' Cecil has added in his own hand, "for doing whereof her 
 ' Majesty's will is, that none of them shall be impeached or 
 ■ molested." 
 
 There is, in October, 1563,3 scheme drawn up for a 
 
 College to .be erected in Dublin. It is endorsed in Cecil's 
 
 ■hand. In another State Paper, in 1565, entitled (in the 
 
 autograph of Cecil), "Advices for ordering of Shan 
 
 ' O'Neyle," there is the following programme -.-^ ' ' 
 
346 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 " To cause the people to resort to Common Prayer, 
 and to be instructed to understand the articles of their 
 faith and commandments of God, and to place convenient 
 ministers for this purpose in places convenient." " Alas I" 
 (says Mr. Shirley, from whose interesting collection of 
 State Papers on the Church I have made these extracts) 
 " it was much easier to plan such desirable educational 
 schemes, than to carry them into effect, which, indeed, the 
 distracted state of the country rendered absolutely impossible." 
 
 I believe that to be the plain truth of the matter. No 
 preparation had been made at all suitable for the reception 
 of so great a change. Quite the contrary. A disturbed 
 and divided kingdom convulsed by civil discord and Papal 
 complicity, and the hostile designs of the great Roman 
 Catholic States against England at that period, sufficiendy 
 explain the failure of what was approved by Cecil and 
 advised by Bacon. Ireland was said to be the back-door 
 of England. A careful perusal of the State documents 
 and of the writings of Lord Bacon, has led me to withdraw 
 confidence from Froude's description of the policy of 
 Elizabeth as to the Irish Church. 
 
 It is too great a subject to discuss minutely at present. 
 My immediate object is to direct attention to this, that the 
 Reformation in Ireland was but limited and partial in its 
 introduction ; it was not (as in England) popular and 
 national ; that the historical antecedents of the country, 
 and also the course of English government, had tended to 
 array much of the national feeling and to excite the energy 
 of the Papal hostility against the movement. The subject 
 is ably explained by Dr. Todd in the work to which I have 
 already referred, and well deserves to be studied by all who 
 desire to understand that important epoch of our national 
 history. I may refer also to Burke's Works, Vol. III., 
 p. 320 ; Vol. VI., p. 36. 
 
 If the native language had been turned to its true 
 account, and the old domestic Church beyond the English 
 Pale had been induced to return to the faith of the period 
 
THE IRISH DIFFICULTY. 
 
 347 
 
 when the simphcity of the Gospel was not clouded or cor- 
 rupted — if the policy of public instruction, commended 
 by Bacon and Cecil had been patiently and perseveringly 
 pursued, the Pi'otestant religion and domestic government 
 might at last have been made acceptable to the great body 
 of the people. 
 
 What an amount of difficulty could have been banished 
 for ever by such a course of policy ! 
 
 There is a remarkable passage in a recent judgment 
 delivered by Mr. Justice Keogh, in the Court of Common 
 Pleas, that deserves to be remembered. 
 
 " Let it not be supposed," he says, " that by this I mean 
 that then, for the first time, or in the fifteenth or sixteenth 
 century. Protestantism itself existed. I am far from think- 
 ing so, either as to England or elsewhere. According to 
 my notions, he who reads history aright, will find that 
 Protestantism, in its noblest sense, as embodying the 
 struggle against prescriptive authority and ecclesiastical 
 domination, for the liberty of private judgment and free- 
 dom of opinion in matters which should be, of all others, 
 beyond man's control, was almost coeval with Christianity 
 itself." The Reformation was not an innovation, it was a 
 restoration. 
 
 In 1688 the civil liberty of England was finally settled. 
 It was secured by the eventful struggle that took place in 
 the battle of the Kings on the soil of Ireland. But what 
 for England was the overthrow of a faction, was in Ireland 
 the subjugation of a people. Nearly a century of penal 
 policy afterwards elapsed, before the memorable era of 
 1782, the next great epoch in Irish history. It is not to 
 revive animosity that I refer to historic facts. I desire to 
 call attention, calmly and impartially, to the relative posi- 
 tion of the two countries, growing out of the course of 
 events, before the period of the Legislative Union. We, of 
 this generation, are not responsible for those events ; but 
 every candid mind is bound to consider them, in order to 
 form a correct estimate of our present position. 
 
348 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 The late Lord Plunket, with characteristic eloquence, 
 said, that " Ireland was conquered into a state of freedom." 
 A greater Irishman — a citizen of this, his native city — one 
 whose name and memory should be enshrined in every 
 Irish heart — our own Edmund Burke, in his memorable 
 speech on conciliation with America, told the Parliament 
 of England, " that it was not EngHsh arms but the English 
 Constitution that conquered Ireland. The benefit of Eng- 
 lish laws and liberties," said he, " was not at first extended 
 to all Ireland. Mark the consequence. English authority 
 and English liberties had exactly the same boundaries. 
 Your standard could never be advanced an inch before 
 your privileges. Sir John Davis shews, beyond a doubt, 
 that the refusal of a general communication of these rights 
 was the true cause why Ireland was five hundred years in 
 subduing." The Constitutional conquest was almost com- 
 plete before Burke died. " What grievance," he asks, " has 
 Ireland, as Ireland, to complain of with regard to Great 
 Britain, unless the protection of the most powerful country 
 upon the earth ?" " Ireland, as Ireland, whether it be taken 
 civilly, constitutionally, or commercially, suffers no griev- 
 ance." 
 
 He repeatedly referred to the question of separation 
 from England, and stated that it would be fatal to England 
 and utterly ruinous to Ireland. He maintained that any 
 attempt at separation was " a struggle against nature" 
 The course of providential arrangement has brought the 
 two countries together. " By such a separation," said 
 Burke, " Ireland would be the most completely undone 
 country in the world ; the most wretched, the most dis- 
 tracted, and, in the end, the most desolate part of the 
 habitable globe." 
 
 The Legislative Union, therefore, seems to have fol- 
 lowed as the natural result of the relative position and 
 ■the historical antecedents of the two countries. I have 
 ■adverted to our relative position at the period of the 
 Reformation ; again, at the period of the Revolution ; let 
 me now advert to the time and conditions of the Union. 
 
THE IRISH DIFFICULTY. 349 
 
 The Roman Catholic was then assured that when the 
 two kingdoms should be incorporated into one, civil 
 privileges might and should be extended to- him, which 
 could not have been granted without distrust, whilst 
 Ireland was a separate State, and the Protestants were in 
 the minority. Those privileges were afterwards conferred 
 by the Imperial Parliament. In an address to the mem- 
 bers of their Church, dated in the year 1830, signed by the 
 twenty-seven Roman Catholic Prelates in Ireland, they 
 say : — " And that Legislature which gave to you, without, 
 reserve, all the privileges you desired, is not that Legislature 
 entitled to your reverence and love ? We trust that your 
 feelings on this subject are in unison with our own, and 
 that a steady attachment to the Constitution and laws of 
 your country, as well as to the person and government of 
 your gracious Sovereign, will be manifest in your entire 
 conduct." 
 
 " Labour, therefore, in all things to promote the end 
 "Which the Legislature contemplated in passing this Bill for 
 your relief, to wit, the pacification and improvement of 
 Lreland. Let religious discord cease ; let party feuds and 
 civil dissensions be no more heard of ; let rash, unjust, and 
 illegal oaths be not even named amongst you ; and if sowers, 
 of discord or sedition should attempt to trouble your repose, 
 seek for a safeguard against them in the protection afforded 
 by the law." ^ 
 
 That law, when it is firmly and impartially adminis- 
 tered, is equal to the work of subduing sedition. To use 
 the impressive words of the late Chief Justice Bushe, on a 
 Special Commission in 183 1, when speaking of unlawful 
 combination — " it has never been able to stand against th^ 
 venerable authority of the laws, vigorously and calmly 
 brought to bear upon it." 
 
 The Protestants of Ireland had been assured that 
 they would occupy under the Union, an improved position. 
 The State, the Church, the Legislature of Ireland were tp 
 be united with the State, the Church, and the Legislature 
 
3 so LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 of England. It was an international treaty, in its very- 
 nature permanent, because on each side there was the 
 giving up of the separate and independent existence of a 
 State, a Legislature, and a National Church. The weaker 
 party could only be effectually secured by the peculiar 
 character of the treaty. It professed to be based upon the 
 union of the two national Churches as the fundamental 
 article of the treaty. They had long before been one in 
 doctrine, discipline, and ceremony, with the same Articles 
 of Religion, the same Ritual, the same Holy Scriptures — 
 the same Supreme Governor, the same relation to the 
 mixed monarchy and to the settled Constitution of Eng- 
 land. In State documents, for centuries before, they had 
 been occasionally described by the collective name of 
 " this Church of England and Ireland." 
 
 In the injunctions of Edward Vlth, in the English 
 Articles of 1552, in the injunctions of Queen Elizabeth, 
 the collective title is used. The first of the Irish Canons 
 of 1634 (which is said to have been drawn up, under the 
 immediate supervision of Strafford) is entitled, " Of the. 
 agreement of the Church of England and Ireland in the 
 profession of the same Christian Religion." The like 
 description is contained in the body of the Thirty-first 
 Canon. The two Churches — each a branch of the 
 Catholic Church of Christ — constituted, under the Crown 
 of England and Ireland, one Episcopal Church ; but they 
 were two distinct National Churches of the two kingdoms 
 at the time of the Union, and the effect of the Act of 
 Union was to incorporate them into the one National and 
 United Church of England and Ireland. It was a union 
 and incorporation of the two separate establishments, by 
 which the Protestants of Ireland were assured that " they 
 would be identified with the property -and population of 
 the empire, and placed on such a strong and natural 
 foundation, as to be above every apprehension and fear 
 from adverse interest." 
 
 That Imperial Constitution, under which Her Majesty's 
 
THE IRISH DIFFICULTY. 35 1 
 
 subjects claim to be civilly equal and religiously free, must 
 now be considered as the guarantee of public order and 
 the charter of the rights and liberties of all classes of the 
 community. Its fundamental article is imbedded in the 
 centre of the Act of Roman Catholic Emancipation, 
 10 Geo. IV., c. 7, s. 24. Whatever abridges the protection 
 or impairs the legitimate influence of that Constitution, 
 creates a difficulty, and so far as it originates or is adopted 
 in Ireland, is an Irish difficulty. 
 
 In making the union of the National Churches the 
 basis of the union of the Kingdoms, you will find that the 
 foundation was well and truly laid, in accordance with the 
 soundest views of enlightened policy. Edmund Burke 
 looked to the Church in Ireland " as a great link towards 
 holding fast the connexion of religion with the State and 
 preserving the connexion of England and Ireland." " I 
 wish it well" (he adds), "as the religion of the greater 
 number of the primary land proprietors of the Kingdom, 
 with whom all establishments of Church and State, for 
 strong political reasons, ought, in my opinion, to be 
 warmly connected. I wish it well, because it is more 
 closely combined than any other of the Church systems 
 with the Crown, which is the stay of the mixed Consti- 
 tution — because it is, as things now stand, the sole con- 
 necting political principle between the Constitutions of two 
 independent Kingdoms. I have another and infinitely a 
 stronger reason for wishing it well. It is that, at the 
 present time, I consider it as one of the main pillars of the 
 Christian Religion itself The body and substance of 
 every religion, I regard much more than any of the forms 
 and dogmas of the particular sects. Its fall would leave a 
 great void, which nothing else of which I can form any 
 distinct idea might fill. I respect the Catholic Hierarchy 
 and the Presbyterian Republic. But I know that the hope 
 or the fear of establishing either of them is, in these king- 
 doms equally chimerical, even if I preferred one or the 
 other of them to the Establishment, which certainly I do 
 not." 
 
353 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Such were the views of that profoundly wise, hberal, 
 and patriotic Irishman, who has been well described by 
 Sir James Mackintosh, as "the greatest philosopher in 
 actiorr the world ever saw." No man soared higher into 
 the region of principle ; none descended lower into the 
 region of reality and fact. He was not insensible to the 
 special circumstances and peculiar condition of Ireland ; 
 on the contrary, he accepted them as God's appointment, 
 He sought, in a true philosophic spirit, to conquer nature 
 by obedience — by following her benign guidance, observ- 
 ing her processes and submitting to her laws. There are 
 laws of the moral order of the world as fixed and as 
 imperative as those by which the world of matter is 
 governed. There are social and economic laws that regu- 
 late all human progress, whether it is impeded by our 
 default, or helped forward by diligence and duty. In 
 keeping of these laws, there is great reward ; and, on 
 the other hand, disregard or disobedience is followed by 
 an appointed penalty. The most difficult of our diffi- 
 culties may turn out to be a penal infliction. 
 
 But I was directing your attention to the ground and 
 the reason of making the union of the two Nationa^l 
 jChurches the basis of the union of the two kingdoms. It 
 was essential to the completion and the permanence of 
 the union of the two States under the mixed monarchy 
 and the free Constitution of England, as finally secured by 
 the Act of Settlement. 
 
 The evidence of a Roman Catholic layman, well ac- 
 quainted with Ireland and Irish interests (the late Anthony 
 Richard Blake), delivered on a memorable occasion, was 
 this : — " The Church is connected with the State by an 
 ^indissoluble union, and must, therefore, stand or fall with 
 it." And he added what I am about to read to you : — 
 
 " The Protestant Church is rooted in the Constitution ; 
 it is established by the fundamental laws of the realm ; it 
 is rendered, as far as the most solemn acts of the Legis^ 
 lature can render any institution, fundamental and perpe- 
 
THE IRISH DIFFICULTY. 353 
 
 tual ; it is so declared by the Act of Union between Great 
 Britain and Ireland. I think it could not now be disturbed 
 without danger to the general securities we possess for 
 liberty, property, and order ; without danger to all the 
 blessings we derive from being under a lawful Government 
 and a free Constitution. Feeling thus, the very conscience 
 which dictates to me a determined adherence to the Roman 
 Catholic Religion, would dictate to me a determined resist- 
 ance to any attempt at subverting the Protestant establish- 
 ment, or wresting from the Church the possessions which 
 the Law has given to it." 
 
 Such, then, having been the character of the Union, 
 whatever tends to prevent the treaty from being fully 
 realized is a difficulty that ought to be removed. I have 
 stated in Parliament what I still hold it to be a sound 
 opinion : that it is much to be regretted that all the ques-' 
 tions that were involved in the Union, were not closed and 
 settled at the first, and both Protestants and Roman 
 Catholics in Ireland at once put in the position which they' 
 had a right to expect under the arrangement, as citizens of 
 the United Kingdom. I can answer for the Protestants of 
 Ireland, that whatever be the difficulty of making good the 
 explicit assurance given to them, of a complete identity of 
 privilege with their Protestant brethren in England, it is a 
 difficulty which they will gladly help to remove. What- 
 ever be the peculiarities of their condition in Ireland — 
 however we haVe been brought into a position of compara- 
 tive disadvantage, I hold it to be clear and certain, that 
 the destiny of the great Protestant Institutions of the 
 United Kingdom, as now secured (the Church and the 
 Crown), is one and the same in the two countries. The 
 truest Protestant in either country is the stedfast friend of 
 that living progress that is the expression of a healthy 
 energy in society. He will abide by Scriptural truth, and 
 desire to spread its influence ; he will abide by Constitu- ' 
 tional freedom, and preserve it unimpaired. He will not 
 forget that our Church is not only a keeper and a witness 
 
 A A 
 
354 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 of Holy Writ, but a help meet for a free State that is 
 pledged to be the guardian of the rights and privileges of 
 every loyal subject of the Queen. 
 
 As part of the National Church of England and Ire- 
 land, the Irish branch has (I freely admit) a difficult and 
 responsible duty to perform in the circumstances in which 
 she is providentially placed. She has to diffuse the equi- 
 ties and reflect the genial influence of the British Con- 
 stitution, with which she is indissolubly connected, and 
 she has to do that public service without any compromise 
 of those higher duties, for the due discharge of which she 
 is directly responsible to her Lord and Master. But there 
 are some great facilities for the performance of her obliga- 
 tions. " Her clergy " (as our eminent countryman, the late 
 Dr. Croly has so eloquently observed), " not too high for 
 the humblest duties, nor too low for the highest offices, 
 with that degree of learning, which without turning them 
 into pedants, renders them associates for the most intel- 
 lectual orders of the community, with that degree of pro- 
 perty which, without rendering them insensible to the 
 necessity of exertion, or burying the desire of honourable 
 distinction in luxurious indolence, yet places them beyond 
 the caprice of congregations craving for novelties in doc- 
 trine — with that principled respect for authority which 
 renders them obedient to the throne, yet with that respect 
 for themselves which places them above being the slaves 
 of power ; the Church of England and Ireland equally 
 exempt from the loose extravagances of fanaticism, and 
 the sullen tyranny which stifles opinion in its birth, gives 
 the broadest field to that of love of freedom and the 
 strongest excitement to that intelligent enquiry, without 
 which the truth of Scripture can seldom be found, and 
 religious liberty never can be secured among men." 
 
 The aspect of the Church as the National Church, and 
 of her ministers as public servants, is not hidden from the 
 observation of the people in many districts, where in the 
 Rector of the parish the poor man finds a considerate and 
 
THE IRISH DIFFICULTY. 355 
 
 kindly friend, and the rich man meets an intelligent com- 
 panion. Where the rights of property are not forgotten^ 
 and absenteeism has but ill provided for the claims of the 
 tenantry upon the friendly counsel and the considerate 
 regards of the proprietor, the presence of an educated and 
 kind-hearted minister of Christ, impressed with the highest 
 sense of duty to God and his neighbour, bound by his 
 ordination vow, " to maintain and set forth quietness, 
 peace, and love," and imbued with the sanctifying inilu- 
 ences of family life in a Christian household, is, beyond all 
 question, a benefit (if not a blessing) to all sorts and con- 
 ditions of men around him. Such a man is " a light of 
 the world, holding forth the Word of life." Surrounding 
 darkness can never be a sufficient plea for extinguishing a 
 solitary light. 
 
 The old customs of Ireland tended to confine the use- 
 ful arts which require skilled labour, and those arts which 
 depend, to a certain extent, on natural genius, to certain 
 races in succession. And although that was sufficient to 
 preserve them from total decay, it was an obstacle to 
 general improvement, and made the people cling tena- 
 ciously to their own old-fashioned ways and habits of life. 
 That Irish peculiarity and the influence of clanship, by 
 which the people were ever led to look for and expect 
 protection and guidance, has made it doubly important to 
 have them brought everywhere, and in every practicable 
 form, under the influences of civilization. 
 
 I was much pleased to find that in the volume which 
 Lord Brougham has recently published on the British 
 Constitution — the result of early study and an experience 
 almost unequalled for the extent of enlightened and intel- 
 ligent observation — he says : " In Ireland, where the posi- 
 tion of the clergy is exceedingly difficult, from the great 
 preponderance in number of the Roman Catholics and the 
 influence of the priesthood, the good conduct of the clergy 
 is exemplary, although they are almost unavoidably drawn 
 occasionally into party feuds ; but they are a contrast, and 
 
3S6 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 should be an example to their brethern of the Romanist 
 persuasion." 
 
 I read to you a remarkable extract from the Address 
 of the Roman Catholic Prelates in the year 1830. Ireland 
 had then emerged into the light of the British system. 
 The Union had checked the flow of patriotic feeling. 
 The State policy by which it was followed up, and the 
 agitation that was consequent, tended in a high degree to 
 cherish a spirit of sectarian strife and animosity. War 
 prices kept off for a time a pressure that was gathering; 
 but it is a lesson which it is well for you to keep in con- 
 stant remembrance, that sooner or later men must pay 
 the penalties of crooked courses. In the history of our 
 country, in the history of all human progress, whether it 
 moves forward freely, or with interruptions and back- 
 slidings, there is not one interruption or one retrogression 
 that cannot be referred more or less to ignorance or dis- 
 regard of some discoverable law of the Divine Government 
 of the world. 
 
 Ireland had been left unprepared (I have pointed out 
 to you how) for the reception of the Reformation. There 
 must be a preparation of the soil for the sowing ; a seed 
 time ; distinct periods of unseen growth, and of ripening 
 into maturity. The errors of centuries had accumulated, 
 so as in a great degree to shut out the light and warmth of 
 truth from Heaven. Civil liberty was afterwards, in a 
 manner, forced upon us, and the energies which freedom 
 gradually released, were in the end desecrated in sectarian 
 strife and internal discord. What followed, notwithstand- 
 ing the authoritative address of the Roman Catholic Pre- 
 lates ? Instead of a diligent and general effort to repair 
 the disruption of the past ; instead of an abjuring of all 
 the ungodly and unlawful courses, so plainly and pithily 
 denounced in that address — courses that have been the 
 main elements of " the Irish difficulty," the monster 
 impediments of progress and prosperity, " the sowers of 
 discord and sedition " were welcomed back to their work 
 of division, " the abomination that maketh desolate," 
 
THE IRISH DIFFICULTY. 
 
 357 
 
 The system of extermination was inaugurated, by which 
 it was Sought with ruthless hand to exhaust the ministry 
 of the National Church, to confiscate her property, and 
 quench the light of her ministrations. Then came the 
 years of organized sedition against constituted authority ; 
 the memorable era of Repeal agitation, quickening the 
 energies of popular passion and trading on popular cre- 
 dulity. Ignorance, improvidence, tenacity of old here- 
 ditary customs and habits, sectarian strife, enmities of race 
 and religion, were all working together under influential 
 guidance, combined in what Burke has described as " a 
 struggle against Nature." God is not mocked. If we sow 
 the wind, we must reap the whirlwind ; if we sow faction, 
 we must reap confusion ; if we sow folly, we must reap 
 deceit. 
 
 That period of paroxysm had in some degree passed 
 away before the great change of economic policy took 
 place in 1846. Instead of being invigorated by prepara- 
 tion, we were paralysed by strife and division. We had 
 but a limited commerce, few manufactures, a mere fraction 
 of skilled labour ; population multiplied by improvident 
 marriages; farms injudiciously subdivided ; proprietors im- 
 poverished ; tenure complicated ; land clogged with incum- 
 brances ; agriculture pursued as a necessity of life, but 
 scarcely recognised, and still less understood, as a depart- 
 ment in which skill and capital were required. Our land 
 was suddenly stricken with sterility. Protecting duties 
 were withdrawn ; the storm that had been gathering burst 
 upon us with the terrible but the remedial effects of God's 
 messenger in Nature — they always purify, though they 
 often desolate. 
 
 We were then united to England with her world-wide 
 commerce, her unexhausted resources and unsurpassed skill 
 in manufactures ; her agriculture advanced ; her people 
 self-reliant, intelligent, and industrious ; a country of gra- 
 duated order and regulated freedom. What a contrast 
 to our condition, when we were called on to start with 
 
3S8 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 England in a new career of free commercial competition ? 
 The one country, like an abounding river, sometimes over- 
 flowing, but soon regaining its appointed channel, and 
 holding its course onward, with a living energy. The 
 other like the glacier formed long ago in the cold solitude 
 of an Alpine height, slow and sullen in its descent into the 
 valley, encountered by many an obstruction, carrying with 
 it earthly impurity ; split and shattered in its cheerless . 
 movement, until at last brought under the influences of a , 
 genial temperature and melting agencies, it is released,, 
 drop by drop, from its icy bondage. 
 
 Now let me ask — What is the lesson to be derived 
 from the foregoing contrast ? It is not that we might have 
 secured as large an amount of prosperity as England, or 
 that we could have freed ourselves from all the disadvan- 
 tages to which we are specially subject. But I wish you 
 to see plainly and clearly, that the difficulty that may 
 be regarded as a chief impediment in the competitive 
 struggle of industrial life, has been, not altogether, but in a 
 great degree, the result of our neglect of duty or oppor- 
 tunity, or our abuse of privilege. 
 
 The physical order of the world is subject and sub- 
 servient to the moral. All things were made for Him by 
 whom they were made. " The good and perfect and ac- 
 ceptable will of God " is disclosed in the benignant course 
 of nature, and fully revealed in the grace and truth of the 
 Gospel. All is beneficent. To know and to conform to 
 that Divine will, is the key to all progress. In agriculture, 
 in commerce, in manufactures, and in every branch of. 
 lawful industry — in public health, and the various depart- 
 ments of moral, social, and economic science, there are, 
 laws as settled as the earth on which we tread — laws in 
 keeping of which there is a great reward, and with pe-. 
 nalties appointed for ignorance, neglect, or disobedience. 
 These are not local or partial regulations ; they govern our 
 world, and all the movements therein. 
 
 The remedies for difficulty are to be found in the. 
 
THE IRISH DIFFICULTY. 359, 
 
 acquisition of knowledge and in the performance of duty. 
 We are not to revenge on Government or on society the 
 inflictions which we have brought down upon ourselves. 
 No Government, no power of Parliament, can repeal or 
 modify one provision in that code which God has stereo- 
 typed. To struggle against laws that are the expression 
 of the Divine will, is a hopeless, if not a sinful, effort. To 
 study and submit — to know and to apply — to see wherein 
 our strength and our capabilities consist — to accommodate 
 ourselves to the conditions of the age in which we live, and 
 the circumstances in which we are placed — is at once our 
 wisdom and our duty. We have a long lee-way to pull 
 up ; but if we read the past faithfully, we may enter on 
 the future hopefully. There is a proverb, that I learned in 
 the North in my younger days — " a stout heart to a stiff 
 hill." 
 
 There is no real force- of character to be found, no 
 proper self-respect can exist, where the moral element is 
 deficient or depreciated ; there cannot be a healthy public 
 opinion without general intelligence and moral liberty. 
 We are, I admit, sometimes ungenerously and (I would 
 add) unwisely dealt • with by English journals, in their 
 wholesale and indiscriminate sneers and censures. There 
 are amongst us those who are proudly conscious of the 
 injustice of that treatment. We are burthened with the 
 entire pressure of what ought to be diffused over past 
 centuries of English policy and past periods of Irish strife. 
 But on the other hand, we have not, as a people, acquired 
 that conscious self-respect and manly self-reliance that 
 always command the respect of others. 
 
 We have not mutual confidence ; we are wanting in 
 true patriotic feeling ; we have not a protective public 
 opinion, founded on moral manliness and cultivated intel- 
 ligence. We busy ourselves so much about the opinions 
 of our neighbour, that we sometimes overlook our own 
 practical duties. We are more occupied about our con- 
 tentious differences than in an honest effort at united 
 action for the common good of the country. 
 
360 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Look at the matter plainly. What real impediment is 
 there in the way of our advancing in the path of such 
 prosperity as is allotted to our climate and soil, and to the^ 
 capabilities of our people ? 
 
 I have gone over the evidence given before Colonel 
 Dunne's Committee, in the last Session of Parliament, the 
 most recent repository of Irish grievances. The pressure 
 of taxation, the effect of absenteeism, the imperfect drain- 
 age of land, the flux of emigration, the depression caused, 
 l^y three bad seasons, the changes going on in the small 
 farm system and in the uses of land, and the stingy expen- 
 diture of public money in Ireland as compared with the 
 profuse outlay in England — these, I think, constitute in 
 the main, the sum and substance of Irish complaint. I do 
 not say that it is exact, nor do I say that it is exhaustive. 
 But what is the good of moaning over grievances ? We 
 get up deputations, but what is their value ? 
 
 " Behold, we know not anything ; 
 
 I can but trust that good shall fall 
 At last— far off— at last, to all, 
 And every winter change to spring. 
 
 " So runs my dream ; but what am I ? 
 
 An infant crying in the night ; 
 
 An infant crying for the light ; 
 
 And with no language but a cry." 
 
 Nearly three hundred years ago Lord Bacon made this 
 profound and noble appeal : — " And surely when I set 
 before me the- condition of these times, from the height of 
 men's wits ; the excellent monuments of ancient writers, 
 which as so many great lights shine before us : the Art of 
 Printing, the traversed bosom of the pcean and the world ; 
 the leisure wherewith the civilized world abounds, and the 
 inseparable quality that attends time itself, which is ever 
 more and more to disclose truth ; I cannot but be raised to 
 the persuasion that the learning of this third period of 
 time, blessed beyond former times by sacred and divinely 
 inspired Religion, will far surpass the learning of Greece 
 
THE IRISH DIFFICULTY.. 36I 
 
 and Rome ; if men will but' well and wisely know their ' 
 own strength and weakness, and instead of tearing and 
 rending one. another with contradictions, and in a civil 
 rage bearing arms and waging war against themselves, will 
 conclude a peace, and with joint forces direct their strength 
 against Nature herself, and take her high towers and dis- 
 mantle her fortified holds, and thus enlarge the borders of. 
 man's. dominions, sjo far as Almighty God of His goodness 
 shall permit." 
 
 To this elevating and spirit-stirring appeal to man, 
 Dugald Stewart has appended a wise annotation, to pre- 
 vent misapprehension of the import of the figurative 
 expressions: "According to Bacon himself, the only way 
 of subduing nature is by studying and obeying her laws — a 
 maxim which will be found to hold equally true when ap- 
 plied to the moral and to the material world, and which 
 might form the text of a volume on the subject of Political 
 Economy." Difficulties would vanish like the morning 
 cloud, if we were once resolved to secure prosperity by 
 such a course of wisdom in practical life, as Bacon has 
 here commended to man as the minister and interpreter of 
 nature ? 
 
 Young men of this Association, let me add one word 
 emphatically to you before I close. Let me press upon . 
 you, as the hope of the rising generation, the sin of every 
 form of strife that tends to divide your country against 
 itself I have not sought to entangle you in any of the 
 controverted questions on which difference of opinion pre- -' 
 vails, nor have I offered a specific solution of any. I have 
 thought it more for your moral benefit, to suggest prin-. 
 ciples by which you should be guided in forming your own . 
 unbiassed and independent judgments. Above all, I have . 
 sought to impress you with an abhorrence of every form of 
 factious strife and division. 
 
 I have told you to be self-reliant. Be so, in humble 
 dependence on God, and not unmindful of your duty to 
 your neighbour. " The, thing to be lamented " (says Butler) 
 
362 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 " IS not that men have so great a regard to their own good 
 or interest in the present world, for they have not enough ; 
 but that they have so little to the good of others. And this 
 seems plainly owing to their being so much engaged in the 
 gratification of particular passions unfriendly to benevo- 
 lence, and which happen to be most prevalent in them, 
 much more than to self-love." 
 
 Our blessed Lord, in one of the most beautiful of His 
 paralbles, has reminded us 
 
 "That we have all of us, one human heart." 
 
 He has taught us that alien race and hostile creed 
 neither quench nor repel " the charity that suffereth long 
 and is kind." 
 
 " The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, 
 Are scattered at the feet of man, like flowers. 
 The generous inclination, the just rule, 
 Kind wishes and good actions and pure thoughts — 
 No mystery is here." 
 
 Such are the peaceable fruits of our common Chris- 
 tianity^ 
 
 The Dean of Westminster has suggested in his Lectures 
 on the Apostolic Age, that we have had the St. Peter 
 epoch of the Church in its passage out of Judaism until it 
 settled down into an organized Christian system ; then the 
 Pauline period, in which was fought the fight of faith that 
 triumphed in the Reformation. The next period is that of 
 love, 'the work of Christian faith. He happily associates 
 this period with the name of the beloved Disciple. It is 
 the want — it is the work of the age in which we live, 
 abounding as it does in discovery — in the comforts and- 
 conveniences of life — in the many conquests of nature; an 
 age of free and rapid intercourse, and of the increase and 
 advancement of knowledge. 
 
 It is emphatically the time to bring the pure principles 
 and the Divine energy of Christianity to bear (as much as . 
 
THE IRISH DIFFICULTY. 363 
 
 in our power) on the working of society ; in the household, 
 in the association, in all the actions and the intercourse of 
 our daily life. Let heresies of duty be regarded as not 
 less opposed to the Divine rule of life, than heresies of 
 opinion to the Divine rule of faith. Above all, remember 
 that the highest subject for your understanding — the 
 noblest object of your affections — He, in whom the Divine 
 and the human meet in the fulness of a mysterious perfec- 
 tion, our Great Exemplar triumphant over every difficulty, 
 to whom " all power is given in Heaven and in earth" — 
 " King of kings, and Lord of lords,"— the greatest and 
 mightiest of beings — " was the gentlest, and the kindest ' 
 and the best." 
 
OPENING ADDRESS 
 
 At the beginning of the Second Session of the Afternoon 
 Lectures on Literature and Art, April, i86f. 
 
 THE volume of Lectures on Literature which were 
 delivered in the session of the last year, is the appro- 
 priate prologue to the course for the present session. The 
 research and the genius which these lectures exhibit have 
 been much appreciated. 
 
 It was, however, thought that it might be acceptable, 
 at the opening of a new session, to have some general view 
 presented of the design of the Lectures, and to have atten- 
 tion directed to the opportunity for the thoughtful of both 
 sexes, to hear from some of our distinguished professors 
 and their associates, suggestive lessons drawn from the 
 refreshing sources of literature. 
 
 The programme of this year has been extended to Art, 
 and the course includes the labours of constructive and 
 imitative genius. These are worthy of being placed with 
 the finer creations of poetry. 
 
 Man is the minister and the interpreter of Nature. But 
 what is Nature that he is appointed to interpret ? Is it 
 merely that outer world of matter — that physical order of 
 things, regulated by laws which we can collect by patient 
 and philosophic induction ? Or does it not include a 
 kingdom within — " the human heart by which we live, its 
 tenderness, its joys and fears"? This to interpret is the 
 privilege of man, and it gives to literature a heavenly and 
 a human mission. I speak of literature in all its catholicity, 
 without separating it into secular and sacred. It is (I have 
 
OPENING ADDRESS.: AFTERNOON LECTURES. 36-5 
 
 sometimes thought) a fertile source of moral mistake, to 
 place what is called ^^ secular" in such a contrast with what 
 is called ^^ religious" as to suggest contradiction, and in 
 some degree to stamp the former as the currency of unbe- 
 lief. In the same spirit, time is contrasted with eternity, 
 as if the one was but a passing shadow, and the other an 
 enduring reality — in forgetfulness that to all of us time is 
 the very part of eternity that is eminently and vitally real. 
 It is that portion in which everything that elevates the 
 mind and refines the feelings ; that expands the affectiotis 
 and puts kindliness in the heart ; everything that deepens 
 and widens sympathy, acts permanently on man as ah 
 immortal being. 
 
 We cannot interpret truly the world without and the 
 world within — we cannot trace the analogies, the inwarcl 
 connection, the secret harmonies and unity of the whole, 
 without cultivating faculties which rank among the mys- 
 teries of our being. Of these, imagination has been de- 
 signed to exercise a powerful influence, and it seems to 
 have been given for a purpose that has not been sufficiently 
 considered in the comprehensive work of Education. 
 
 To this faculty, literature and art in their highest 
 achievements must appeal ; on its enlightened culture they 
 are mainly dependent. The history of man, and the hopes 
 which have cheered him onward in his progress, point out 
 how " the ideal " is adapted to sustain and to elevate. The 
 faculty by whose intervention the heart and spirit of man 
 have been thus influenced, cannot be safely regarded as of 
 inferior importance ; it cannot be neglected without obvious 
 
 peril : 
 
 " There lives 
 No faculty within us, which the soul 
 Can spare, and humblest earthly weal demands, 
 For dignity not placed within her reach. 
 Zealous co-operation of all means 
 Given or acquired, to raise us from the mire 
 And liberate our hearts from low pursuits." 
 
 These were the words of the gentle poet who, as Dean 
 Alford has happily said, "has taught us many feelings 
 
366 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 which we knew not that we had, or which, if we knew, we 
 were ashamed to own." His pure and peaceable wisdom 
 has instructed us to look for the value of things in their 
 inward realities, and not in their mere outward displays, 
 which we are too apt to look upon — 
 
 *' Unrectified, unguided, unsustained. 
 By God-like insight 1" 
 
 The minister of Nature must be submissive and pa- 
 tient ; the interpreter, intuitive and enlightened, bringing 
 the creative energies of his own spirit to bear on all that 
 comes under his observation. He will find that the book 
 of Nature and the book of Revelation, with the whole his- 
 tory of man between, are but integral and cohereut parts 
 of one comprehensive whole. Lord Bacon hjis observed, 
 that " Poesy seems to bestow upon human nature those 
 things which history denies to it, and to satisfy the mind 
 with the shadows of things when the substance cannot be 
 obtained. For if the matter be attentively considered, a 
 sound argument may be drawn from poesy to show that 
 there is agreeable to the spirit of man a more ample great- 
 ness, a more perfect order, and a more beautiful variety, 
 than it can anywhere (since the Fall) find in nature, whence 
 it may be fairly thought to partake somewhat of a divine 
 nature." We find that " the ideal " attends upon the out- 
 ward and the actual to give it a truer significance, and, as 
 it were, a moral finish : 
 
 " Nothing resting in its own completeness 
 Can have worth or beauty ; but alone 
 Because it leads and tends to further sweetness. 
 Fuller, higher, deeper than its own." 
 
 The fine thought of Bacon reappears in a suggestive 
 sentence of Hooker : " All things besides, God excepted, 
 are somewhat in possibility, which as yet they are not in 
 act." True it is, that one example (and one only) stands 
 out in all history without a parallel, the perfect embodi- 
 ment of an ideal transcending all our conceptions, in which, 
 the Divine and the human meet in the fulness of perfection; 
 
OPENING ADDRESS : AFTERNOON LECTURES. 367 
 
 the highest subject for the understanding — the noblest 
 object of the affections. 
 
 By the aid of the imaginative faculty we gain an in- 
 crease of power over nature ; we are the better enabled to 
 enter upon the study of human life and to interpret the 
 hearts of men. And we may also be enabled more vividly 
 to apprehend and be the more intensely impressed by the 
 character of our Great Exemplar, in the fulness of its his- 
 toric reality and its heavenly beauty. It was not for the 
 purpose of raising the selfish affections of hope or fear that 
 the imagination would seem to have been designed ; it was 
 given not to encourage us in idealizing the future, but that 
 we might spiritualise the present, and, above all, to influ- 
 ence those affections of our nature which find their com- 
 pleteness and satisfaction in the love of God. 
 
 Literature then, in its true conception, has a high moral 
 element. The poet descends and lives beneath the surface 
 of life, and in his reading of its outward form, he must have 
 spiritual discernment as well as creative power. Historic 
 insight is another form of the power of interpretation ; an 
 ■ intuitive perception into the nature of man, the purposes 
 of society, and the relation of things. History belongs to 
 literature. 
 
 The delicate appreciation of character, the exhibiting of 
 the movements of the inner life of humanity, the presenting 
 to the mind and heart such adequate and distinct concep- 
 tions as are worthy of being called " philosophy teaching 
 by examples," the embodiment of the real in the language 
 of fiction, the lesson of truth in the legend, the symbol or 
 the representative fact — this it is that has placed history 
 by the side of poetry. The historian and the poet deal with 
 man in his moral and social relations. They increase the 
 common stock of imperishable truth, which is the inherit- 
 ance of the human family, and neither can execute his high 
 functions without the human-heartedness and genial spirit 
 which give life to all literature. 
 
 The imagination may go to waste in rank luxuriance ; 
 its energy may be exhausted in unreality and exaggera- 
 
368 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 tion ; it will drift, if it is not steered ; it will be occupied 
 with evil if it is not exercised in good. Nature abhors a 
 vacuum. Can we doubt then that this faculty was intended 
 ' to be responsibly cultivated ? Burke, with his characteristic 
 wisdom, has observed, that however impatient of control or 
 impulsive in its infancy, " imagination cannot be usefully 
 ■ exercised without a stock of knowledge, and that the ac- 
 tive faculties of man are at first employed in selecting and 
 rejecting materials for that stock." It is of paramont im- 
 portance that we should learn to read to understand and 
 appreciate the beauty and order of the world around us ; 
 that we should study the workings of the human heart ; 
 the present in the light of the past, and the future in the 
 light of both. 
 
 To know — to think — to feel — to act — are the preroga- 
 tives of our nature ; literature keeps these prominently 
 before us as functions of our daily life. 
 
 There is an aspect of modern literature which may not 
 be uninteresting or unprofitable to notice, and it may sug- 
 gest topics which deserve a more critical treatment than I 
 can attempt to give on this occasion. I allude to the influ- 
 ence that has been exercised by the female writers who 
 have shed a lustre upon the literature of the nineteenth 
 century. We have had Woman sketched by our greatest 
 poets, from Shakespeare to Tennyson, but woman's account 
 of Woman must be her own revelation. The song of the 
 Troubadour, the romance of Chivalry, and many a tale has 
 told of woman's love and woman's devotion ; but we must 
 have in her own living words, the sympathy, the tender- 
 ness, the self-sacrifice of her nature ; the weakness that is 
 strong, the gentleness that is earnest ; the intensity of 
 emotion ; the quick and delicate perception of the true and 
 right that is peculiarly her own. 
 
 If woman in her distinctiveness has an appropriate 
 place in the economy of human life, she should also have 
 an appropriate place in literature, which is the expression of 
 life in its reality and completeness. I cannot better fortify 
 what. I have suggested as to the moral value of literature, 
 
OPENING ADDRESS : AFTERNOON LECTURES. ^6§ 
 
 than by calling attention to the acknowledged fact, that in 
 its progress it has opened a place for woman to come for^ 
 ward as an interpreter of the heart which throbs in the 
 inner life of that humanity in which she shares and suffers 
 by the law of her being. She is a help meet for man in 
 the household, for the training of the young and tender, 
 and in. all the offices that sanctify human affection; meet 
 in the intercourse of life, to refine and chasten feeling; 
 meet in both, to give to humanity its designed complete- 
 ness. Therefore she has her proper sphere in literature, 
 the character of which she has helped to purify and exalt 
 in its leading departments. 
 
 It might have the air of pedantry, if I were to parade a, 
 list of names. But there is one much to be remembered — ~ 
 one whom I had the privilege of knowing, though but for a 
 season — I allude to the late Elizabeth Barrett Browning.' 
 To her, literature is deeply indebted. In one of her early: 
 poems (" The Drama of Exile ") she has given in words of 
 truth and tenderness a portraiture of woman — woman suf-^ 
 fering and rejoicing ; with blessing in her tears, strength in 
 her weakness, peace in her conflict, and triumph in her 
 submission. She has taken a wide survey, with a boldness, 
 of imagination that makes it difficult at times to follow 
 her ; but there are passages of exquisite beauty, which 
 speak in the truest idiom of the heart. One extract may 
 here suffice : — 
 
 " Something thou hast to bear through womanhood. 
 
 Peculiar suffering answering to the sin : 
 
 Some pang paid down for each new human life. 
 
 Some weariness in guarding such a life : 
 
 Some coldness from the guarded ; some mistrust 
 
 From those thou hast too well served — from those beloved 
 
 Too loyally, some treason 
 
 Thy love 
 
 Shall chant itself, its own beatitudes 
 
 After its own life working. A child's kiss 
 
 Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad ; 
 
 A poor man served by thee, shall make thee rich ; 
 
 A sick man helped by thee, shall make thee strong. 
 
 Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense 
 
 Of service which thou renderest.' 
 
 B B 
 
370 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 It is somewhat more than three years since I saw her for 
 the last time : 
 
 " A being breathing thoughtful breath, 
 A traveller between life and death ; 
 A perfect woman nobly planned 
 To warn, to comfort, and command." 
 
 She lay weak and wasted, in the subdued softness of a 
 Roman sunset ; her eye sparkling with genius and her 
 voice trembling with emotion, as she pleaded the cause of 
 her loved Italy. It was the cause in which she took an 
 interest that never abated until the day of her death. 
 
 In words of wisdom she pointed to the moral aspect 
 of events then passing ; she expressed her abiding faith in 
 the wisdom and goodness of God, and her undying hope of 
 human progress. Nor can I forget the lofty spirit in which 
 she ended with reflections on the responsibilities of public 
 men and the sacred rights of humanity committed to their 
 charge. The light of declining day, as it melted into 
 the shades of evening, solemnized the scene which I have 
 vividly before me : the setting sun — the sinking life ; his 
 softened splendour — her chastened spirit ; the fair promise 
 of a morning, bathed in brighter sunshine — the better pro- 
 mise from above — 
 
 " Daughter of genius ! bright shall be 
 Thy morrow of eternity." 
 
 It seems to be generally admitted, that in the literature 
 of novels woman has been peculiarly successful. It is her 
 distinctive excellence to take notice of the smaller incidents 
 of life in their natural occurrence and their natural connec- 
 tion. Of these, after all, much, very much, of the interest 
 of life is made up. Literature that searches into the inner 
 workings of humanity cannot be complete without the con- 
 tributions of such an interpreter. The household facts, the 
 variety of circumstances which are linked together in the 
 order of Providence, are more vividly observed by woman, 
 with her tender nature, her delicate perception, and her 
 
OPENING ADDRESS: AFTERNOON LECTURES. 37 1 
 
 peculiar instinct. Her opportunities bring under notice 
 the home department of life, and quick sympathy and 
 purity of feeling enable her to give the ideal finish to the 
 fiction of the novel. 
 
 It has been observed, that woman studies character in 
 its bearing upon the happiness or unhappiness of others. 
 There are cases in which it is difficult to discover any 
 special or distinctive characteristic of the sex of the author. 
 Some female writers exhibit qualities which we would 
 have expected to find in males only. On the other hand, 
 feminine qualities are to be found in eminent male authors, 
 in some remarkable instances. 
 
 There is perhaps a peculiar excellence and a peculiar 
 deficiency connected with the respective characteristics and 
 conditions of each sex. 
 
 The progress of society and the benign influence of 
 Christianity have been bringing woman back to the posi- 
 tion from which she had been displaced, and as we advance 
 towards " the times of the restitution of all things," woman 
 gradually regains her place and office as a help meet for 
 man. This is the case in modern literature. Exceptional 
 instances occur (as I have suggested) in which contribu- 
 tions to literature have been made which have not the 
 special stamp of male or female, but may be simply and 
 accurately described as human; yet we should not over- 
 look the broad distinctive characteristics, the generic 
 differences ; we should not encourage imitation or rivalry, 
 nor induce the assumption of independence that might 
 only foster jealousy and contempt. 
 
 There is much that peculiarly belongs to woman to 
 reveal — much that her nature and the opportunities of her 
 position enable her best to know, and most to feel. When 
 this is given as her own experience of life, and especially 
 when it is her own interpretation of a woman's heart, she 
 takes up a position and she has a province in literature 
 which cannot be called in question. 
 
 There is in literature (as in other things) a division of 
 
372 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 labour, by which the work as a whole is profitably con- 
 ducted. But in assigning to woman what seems to be a 
 somewhat limited province in literature, I am far from 
 seeking to impose a like limitation on her studies. " We 
 wish" (said the late Mrs. Jameson, and this excellent lady 
 had a right to demand attention), " we wish to have some 
 higher kinds of industrial, professional, and artistic training 
 more freely accessible to women. We wish to have some 
 share, however small, in the advantages which most of our 
 large well-endowed public institutions extend to men only. 
 
 As I am sure men have no reason to fear women 
 
 as their rivals, so I hope women will in all noble studies be 
 allowed henceforth to be their associates and companions." 
 
 This in some degree represents the laudable and en- 
 lightened feeling with which these Lectures have been 
 founded, and the generous response of several of our dis- 
 tinguished Professors, who have come from their Colleges 
 to give you the ripe results of their learning, the mellow 
 fruit of literature, cultivated by native genius. 
 
 If I have taken a correct view of the true character of 
 literature, you will understand why it appeals to every 
 nation and each successive age, to male and female. It is 
 their testimony to the truth of life — the interpretation of 
 man; that is, of collective and complete humanity. Litera- 
 ture may exhibit the deep impress of nationality, the dis- 
 tinctive characteristics of sex, or lineaments individual andr 
 peculiar. Like the light of heaven, radiated and reflected 
 from surrounding objects, it is not a mosaic of fragments, 
 but an assemblage of colours, in themselves distinct, which 
 in and by their intimate coalescence animate and cheer the 
 world. The scattered rays of truth converge from every, 
 quarter. 
 
 It is in the combined effect of the whole that we are to 
 seek for the profitable result, to which it may have been the . 
 privilege of any to have contributed, and by which it should-. 
 be the privilege of all to be instructed. 
 
 The recent success of female authors has been accom- 
 
OPENING ADDRESS : AFTERNOON LECTURES. 373 
 
 panied by a remarkable movement in social reformation, ■ 
 which has been greatly advanced by the excellence of 
 woman's teaching and the influence of woman's example. 
 She has faithfully pourtrayed character in its bearing on 
 human happiness and misery ; she has shown the healing 
 power of sympathy, the moral and mysterious action of 
 heart on heart. Our own Goldsmith, with the tenderness 
 and simplicity of his genial nature, had long ago suggested 
 how evil might be overcome with good. In this respect, 
 indeed, we may trace in him and may observe in Dickens 
 the quick and delicate perception of the unequal pressure 
 to be found in life, with its attendant ills and sorrows, which ' 
 sympathy can mitigate, and the charity which " suffereth 
 long, and is kind " may lighten, if not remove. So far they 
 have excellencies in common with female writers who have 
 been distinguished in modern literature, and have adorned 
 our human nature. 
 
 Woman fails in the literature of imitation : she was not 
 designed for a copyist. She fails in the literature of rivalry : 
 she was intended to be the companion, not the competitor 
 of man. She succeeds in literature that is in harmony with 
 her nature — a literature of gentle influence, of kindly na- 
 tural instruction ; the instruction of pure and tender feeling ; 
 the instruction which is gradually unfolded in exhibiting 
 the growth of character under the influence of events, which 
 in the moral economy and by the discipline of life mould 
 and mature an undying personality. This literature will 
 gain by every fresh endeavour to be more true to nature ; 
 not indifferent to the moral interests of man, for it must 
 never underrate their value ; but it must not forget that it 
 is not more perilous to make vice attractive, than to make 
 virtue nauseous. Moral platitudes or vapid sentiment, 
 commonplaces threadbare and conventional, without hfe or 
 interest, never influence living thinking men. 
 
 The greatest of moralists has warned us of the danger 
 of " going over theories of virtue in one's thoughts, talking 
 well and drawing fine pictures oi it ; that this may harden 
 
374 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 the mind and render it gradually more insensible to all ; 
 moral considerations." It is a lesson of wisdom faithfully 
 to exhibit man, not under the supposed influence of mere 
 selfish passions, or governed by cold calculations of interest 
 or utility, but with the natural affections which God has 
 given him — affections to be nurtured by the charities and 
 chastened by the discipline of life. Our intercourse in 
 society, our whole treatment of human nature, may be 
 modified by the view which we take of the motives by 
 which that nature is influenced. It is worthy to be remem- 
 bered, that the human affections do not come forth at 
 command ; they are called out by their appropriate objects, 
 around which they entwine themselves and grow after a law 
 of their own. To exhibit this law in operation is a high 
 function of a true literature. Nor is it merely to give a pho- 
 tograph — we must have a painting, in which " the ideal " 
 of the artist has a noble office to discharge. Psychology, . 
 moral, mental, and physical science — in truth, whatever 
 bears on the life, the duty, or the destiny of man — may . 
 have an influence to exercise on the author's work. Litera- 
 ture grows with the growth of truth, with the interpretation • 
 of nature. It would be more than interesting to explore 
 the sources and to follow the tributary streams ; to notice 
 where they have been diverted or obstructed ; to show how 
 the general advance of knowledge, and the mild wisdom of' 
 thoughtful men, have given to literature a truer direction. 
 I merely advert to the excellence of the delicate perception 
 and nice delineation of character, and of its natural growth 
 under the normal influences of life — an excellence for 
 which we are mainly indebted to the accomplished female 
 authors by whom our modern literature has been purified 
 and adorned. 
 
 There are those indeed who grovel in sensation inci- 
 dent, or mawkish sentimentality ; others who exhaust their 
 energy in masculine imitation, and in their disobedience to 
 nature they have not prevailed ; they are non-natural inter- ; 
 preters. They have neither part nor lot in the matter with , 
 
OPENING ADDRESS: AFTERNOON LECTURES. 375 
 
 those who have nobly won their laurels in literature ; who 
 have enriched it with pure thought, tender feeling, healthy- 
 morality, and chaste expression. 
 
 Nor is the last of small importance. Language should 
 be exact and elegant. A power is gained when we have 
 language so at command, that we can use it with ease in 
 the natural and harmonious expression of thought and 
 feeling. To the female, this is especially important, on 
 account of the influence which belongs to the mother's 
 teaching. This it is that blends one generation with 
 another, and it seals the importance of having woman 
 familiar with literature that is true to nature and rich in 
 expression. 
 
 In the Lectures of the last session there was much to 
 encourage the study of such literature. The admirable 
 reading on Shakespeare has suggested to me that it might 
 be followed up by a course that would lead to a complete 
 study of the great poet of human nature. A fresh delight 
 has already been imparted by the learned and excellent 
 Professor, and he might confer a further boon that would 
 (I am sure) be very gratefully acknowledged. Mrs. Jameson 
 has left a memorial of woman's study and woman's appre- 
 ciation of Shakespeare. 
 
 Mr. Blewitt, the respected and efficient Secretary of the 
 Literary Fund Association, has furnished me with one or 
 two anecdotes' about the works of Shakespeare, which I 
 will give you in his own words. 
 
 " During my residence in Rome, I was on terms of 
 friendship with the late celebrated Cardinal Mezzofanti, 
 whom Lord Byron has so graphically described as a Briareus 
 of languages, adding that ' parbleu, he beat me in my own 
 idiom.' I believe that when he died, the Cardinal spoke 
 at least fifty languages. In one of our conversations on 
 English literature, he mentioned his admiration of Milton 
 and Shakespeare, and said that he had never possessed a 
 copy of the latter. I always carried with me in my travels 
 a copy of Tilt's beautiful pocket edition, illustrated by' 
 
^76 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Stothard and Harvey, and bound by Charles Lewis, the 
 facile princeps of English binders. I showed him this copy, 
 and he was so delighted with it I begged him to accept it. 
 A short time afterwards, being about to visit Naples, I 
 called to take leave of him, when his sister said that the 
 Pope (Gregory XVI.) had that morning sent for him very 
 early to go to the Vatican and spend the day with him. 
 At the same time she said : ' I don't think I shall shake 
 hands with you to-day, for I am very angry with you. You 
 have given my brother a book, and he has taken into his 
 bedroom all the pieces of candle he could find, and I am, 
 quite sure he is reading that book half the night' " 
 
 He mentions another anecdote of having gone to see, 
 one of the finest works of Albert Dlirer at Nuremberg ; 
 a young lady, the daughter of the proprietor, acted as, 
 cicerone. In reply to a remark upon the picture, in Ger- 
 man, she answered (writes Mr. Blewitt) in such beautiful, 
 English, that I concluded at once that she had been 'v\ 
 England. She said, however, that she had never been out 
 of Germany ; and on my complimenting her on her com- 
 mand of our language, she said that she had been induced, 
 to acquire it, by the desire to read Shakespeare in the 
 language in which he wrote. , 
 
 The literature of Germany has not been overlooked in 
 our programme. It will be duly honoured by the genius 
 and learning of my friend Dr. Anster. 
 
 We can scarcely be familiar with literature, and not be; 
 friendly to art. " There .are ideas," says Butler, " which we 
 express by the words — order, harmony, proportion, beauty 
 . — the furthest removed from anything sensual. Now whatr 
 is there in these intellectual images, forms, or ideas, which, 
 begets that approbation, love, delight, and even rapture 
 which is seen in some persons' faces, upon having these, 
 objects present to their minds ? ' Mere enthusiasm 1' Be 
 it what it will, there are objects, works of nature and of art,, 
 which all mankind have delight from, quite distinct from 
 their affording gratification to sensual appetites, and from. 
 
OPENING ADDRESS : AFTERNOON LECTURES. 377 
 
 quite another view of them, than as being for their interest 
 and further advantage. The faculties from which we are 
 capable of these pleasures, and the pleasures themselves, 
 are as natural, and as much to be accounted for, as any 
 sensual appetite whatsoever, and the pleasure from its; 
 gratification." 
 
 It would be a cold and cheerless world, if order and' 
 beauty, taste and feeling — if (in a word) all the grace and 
 poetry of life were to be exchanged for a selfish and ma- 
 terial grossness. The laws of beauty and order are of 
 God's appointment. The application of these laws con-: 
 stitutes art. 
 
 There is a desire implanted in man to symbolize the 
 spiritual, to embody and express the ideal, in outward and' 
 visible representation. The artist interprets this desire. 
 His office is to suggest an unseen perfection. He must 
 purify and elevate his own spirit, for (as Kingsley has well 
 said) " It is only the pure soul that will perceive purity ; 
 the noble soul, nobility ; the beautiful soul, beauty, whether 
 in earth or in heaven itself" 
 
 The help of art as a handmaid to literature is strikingly 
 shown in the use of wood-engraving in the illustration of 
 books of natural history and science. The perfection tO; 
 which this has been brought, has been appreciated by 
 scientific travellers. The author can incorporate his figures 
 with the text in a volume that is portable and easy of 
 reference. This could not be done with copper-plate illus- 
 trations. When Mr. Bates undertook his exploration of. 
 the Amazon region in South America, one of the few works ; 
 of reference he took with him, was the " Pictorial Museum , 
 of Animated Nature," written by the late William Charles 
 Linnaeus Martin. The Indians, to whom he showed the 
 book, recognised the native animals from the accurate 
 figures in it. 
 
 But the artist is not merely a copyist ; there are depart- 
 ments of art in which there is scope for the finest cultiva- 
 tion of true genius. In these, art deals with generic forms 
 
378 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 to which all that is personal, local, or transient, must be 
 subordinated. The ideal must be completed within, before 
 it can receive its outward expression. Barry (to whom 
 Edmund Burke addressed the memorable letters) is said 
 to have been repulsive in his exterior, and coarse and 
 vehement in his language. " But " (says Isaac D'Israeli) 
 " a pious and learned lady, who had felt intolerable uneasi- 
 ness in his presence, did not, however, leave this man of 
 genius that very evening without an impression that she 
 never had heard so divine a man in her life. The conver- 
 sation happening to turn on that principle of benevolence 
 which pervades Christianity, and on the meekness of the 
 Founder, it gave Barry an opportunity of opening on the 
 character of Jesus with that copiousness of heart and mind 
 which, once heard, could never be forgotten. That artist 
 indeed had long in his meditation an ideal head of Christ, 
 which he was always talking of executing. ' It is here,' he 
 would say, striking his head. That which baffled Leonardo 
 da Vinci, who left his Christ headless, having exhausted 
 his creative faculties among the Apostles, his imaginative 
 picture of the mysterious union of the Divine and human 
 nature, never ceased (even when conversing) to haunt the 
 reveries of Barry." 
 
 The embodiment of art can only be compared generally 
 with that of language. In both there should be a faithful 
 rendering of minute details, but in due subordination to 
 general truth. There are in both higher qualities of ex- 
 pression, the suggestion of secondary meaning, and the 
 appeal to the deep feelings within, by which we are brought 
 under the wand of the artist or the author. 
 
 It was a happy thought to introduce art into the pro- 
 gramme of these Lectures. Our people have exhibited 
 many striking proofs of excellence in works of design and 
 artistic skill. In ornamental art, Ireland has an historic 
 reputation. It is the excellence of decoration that it should 
 be so modulated as not to interfere with the form and out- 
 line of the object. In no country has this quality attained 
 
OPENING ADDRESS : AFTERNOON LECTURES. 379 
 
 the perfection which it reached in Ireland. The carvings 
 and ornament of the rudest stone-work were the richest 
 and fullest, and at the same time the most submissive to 
 the form designed by the author for the subject to be 
 ornamented. That ornament should appear to grow na- 
 turally out of structure is the simple and beautiful lesson 
 of Nature, ever bland and maternal, teeming with instruc- 
 tion that is infinite in its variety and unsearchable in 
 wisdom. 
 
 I observe that in the programme for this session, archi- 
 tecture has found an accomplished exponent in my friend 
 Mr. Samuel Ferguson. I can leave this interesting subject 
 in his safe keeping. But I must here suggest, that as by 
 the laudable efforts and munificence of the Lord Chancellor, 
 a National Gallery has been founded, and already richly 
 supplied, it is but natural to expect that we may have some 
 competent lecturer to conduct us into the attractive do- 
 mains of painting and sculpture. 
 
 It may be asked — nay, it has been asked — is it meant to 
 set up literature and art to reform and renovate mankind ? 
 Is revealed religion and all its appointed agencies to be 
 ignored or displaced ? Far from it. For myself I will say 
 I would not lend my humble sanction to any association, 
 or to any scheme, however specious, that would displace or 
 dishonour that religion which is enshrined in the hearts of 
 the best and wisest of men. But the circle of knowledge 
 has a circumference as well as a centre ; the firmament lit 
 up with stars, " the poetry of Heaven, a mystery and a 
 beauty," speaks a language as universal as that of the sun 
 in his strength. In all that is around me in creation, I can 
 trace the wisdom and the goodness of God ; and in the 
 study of the laws by which Nature is governed, of the 
 motives by which man is influenced, and the ways in which 
 character is moulded, I find an incentive to unceasing 
 diligence, and also an inducement to pious submission. 
 The laws of the moral and the material world are ordered 
 for the discipline and the happiness of man; and the 
 
38o LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 search for these laws, in order to form our habits and 
 mature our character, opens out that hopeful course of 
 human progress, in which man is invited to be a fellow- 
 worker with God. 
 
 There is a marvellous oneness and consistency in truth 
 — a harmony that will be disclosed in proportion as man 
 is the more dutiful to God and obedient to Nature. In the 
 history of man we can trace a continuous though unequal' 
 progress ; and there is not a reverse that may not be 
 referred to ignorance or disregard of some discoverable or 
 revealed law of the Divine economy. 
 
 Our own admirable literature has disclosed to us har- 
 monies of nature, man, and heaven, and it has taught us to 
 trace the links of good by which all human things are con- 
 nected. To the sincerely religious, this kindly instruction 
 is peculiarly adapted. Partial and narrow views of God's 
 dispensations, ignorance of the great laws of human asso- 
 ciation, insensibility to influences by which life is pene- 
 trated, may not diminish the depth of religious feeling, but 
 it assuredly contracts the affections of the heart. And on^ 
 the other hand — 
 
 " Creed and test 
 Vanish before the unreserved embrace 
 Of catholic humanity." 
 
 It has been beautifully said by one who loved literature 
 with pure and simple affection, " Charity must in its com- 
 prehensiveness embrace everything human, must shed its 
 light upon the just and the unjust, detect the soul of good 
 in things evil, steal rigidity from virtue, and bring into, 
 gentle relief those truths which are of aspect the most 
 benign, and those suggestions and hopes for the erring 
 which are most full of consolation." 
 
 The works of literature that thus speak to the heart of 
 man, come to us as messengers with food from heaven — 
 
 " Silent companions of my lonely hour, 
 Friends who can never alter or forsake." 
 
OPENING ADDRESS: AFTERNOON LECTURES. 381 
 
 They rescue man from the iron grasp of a gross material- 
 ism ; from the fangs of a heartless and a false philosophy. 
 Such literature combines the wholesome teaching with the 
 loving sympathy of a mother. It appeals to the whole 
 complex nature of man, as God has framed it — " fearfully 
 and wonderfully made." In the gradual diffusion of know- 
 ledge, the freer intercourse of nations, and the interchange 
 of present thought and past experience, we are each and 
 all encouraged to be hopeful yet humble, tolerant but 
 truthful. 
 
 The leaven of truth is seen everywhere fermenting in 
 the whole mass of knowledge ; there is a present confusion 
 and a seeming disturbance ; but is not this the natural ante- 
 cedent of clearness and repose ? Here you are invited to' 
 take a more thoughtful interest in literature and art. You 
 are offered the guidance of learning and experience ; your 
 attention will be judiciously concentrated on select authors, 
 so as to make the study of them profitable, and also plea- 
 sant. There is much of education that must be conducted 
 by ourselves : much that depends on our use of oppor- 
 tunity ; and, so far as the scientific study of literature is 
 concerned, I know no better (for I know no other) oppor- 
 tunity available to many of those whom I have the honour 
 to address. 
 
 I . have endeavoured to direct your attention to the 
 moral influence of the imagination, its connection with 
 those affections of our nature which are nurtured by what 
 is passing and perishable, but are themselves imperishable 
 as immortaHty. I have pointed out its connection with 
 literature, and I have demanded for literature that it should 
 be judged by its genuine tendencies, by the uses to which 
 we may make it subservient. 
 
 I have adverted to the immutable laws of beauty, har- 
 mony, and order. There is beauty in form and colour, 
 beauty in the blush of the rose, and greater beauty in the 
 blush of maiden modesty ; a heavenly beauty in all that is 
 pure and chaste and spiritual. " If" (to put the question 
 
382 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 home, in the impressive words of Butler), " if we are con- 
 stituted such sort of creatures as from our very nature to 
 feel certain affections or movements of mind, upon the 
 sight or contemplation of the meanest inanimate part of 
 the creation, for the flowers of the field have their beauty," 
 — and here I may interpolate — 
 
 " The meanest flower that blows can give 
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears," — 
 
 " certainly there must be somewhat due to Himself, the 
 Author and Cause of all things ; there must be some move- 
 ments of mind and heart which correspond to His per- 
 fections, or of which those perfections are the natural 
 object. And that when we are commanded to love the Lord 
 our God with all our heart, and with all our mind, and with 
 all our soul, somewhat more must be meant than merely 
 that we live in hope of rewards or fear of punishments 
 from Him ; somewhat more than this must be intended, 
 though these regards themselves are most just and reason- 
 able, and absolutely necessary to be often recollected in 
 such a world as this." 
 
 The allegory of Homer, the philosophy of Butler, the 
 sublime and immortal ode of Wordsworth, the choicest 
 lessons of literature and art, point to " the golden chain 
 which has again bound the earth, with all its varied in- 
 terests, to the throne of God." 
 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 ON 
 
 BUTLER'S ANALOGY. 
 
 [From Lectures delivered before the Dublin Young Men's 
 Christian Association, during 1861-62.!^ 
 
 IT is usual for those who, for the first time, visit the city 
 of Rome, to ascend some central elevation, and look 
 around on the principal objects of interest to which their 
 attention will be drawn. The far-famed Seven Hills, the 
 crumbling palace of the Caesars, the majestic Colosseum, 
 and the classic Forum, the triumphal arches of Titus and 
 of Constantine, the graceful Pantheon, the Vatican, and 
 St. Peter's — these will all be noticed — their relative position, 
 and their combined effect. This is the prelude to a careful 
 and repeated visit to each in succession' — an inspection of 
 all that can be found therein to delight or instruct, which 
 is studiously examined in detail. From time to time 
 points of view are discovered from which the outstretched 
 city, surrounded by the solitude of the Campagna, and per- 
 meated by the yellow Tiber, may be seen under different 
 aspects, in the glow of the noon-day sun, and again as he 
 sinks in the west, and sheds a softened splendour on 
 monuments of Imperial and Papal magnificence. The 
 varied view of the whole, the separate inspection of the 
 prominent parts, will be followed up by a panoramic survey 
 from the lofty dome of St. Peter's — when, the mind 
 aroused, the heart enlarged, and the spirit elevated, the 
 
384 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 expanded scene spreads itself on every side, in all the ful- 
 ness of its acknowledged grandeur. In offering myself as 
 a guide to such of you as desire to understand, and are 
 resolved to study, the great work of Bishop Butler, " On 
 the Analogy of Religion to the Constitution and Course of 
 Nature," I have been induced, in accordance with the illus- 
 tration which I have used, to avail myself of this occasion, 
 in order to lay before you, in the first instance, what I take 
 to be the general plan and outline of the work, before we 
 proceed to examine in detail the several component parts 
 of the whole. We are here on a moral eminence. It is 
 the Saturday evening. The business of the week has 
 closed — the bustle of the world is shut out — the Sabbath 
 draws on. The new year has just opened, hallowed by the 
 remembrance of past mercies, and by the hope of future 
 blessings. May our hearts be lifted up in thankfulness and 
 prayer, humbly seeking that the Holy Spirit may be our 
 guide and teacher, and may give to each of us a wise and 
 understanding heart — the spirit of a sound mind ! There 
 is a brief but appropriate sketch of Bishop Butler in the 
 number of your magazine which has just been published; 
 It is desirable that you should read, in addition to this, the 
 excellent memoir which is given in Bishop Fitzgerald's 
 edition of the Analogy. It is well to know the character 
 of the eminent author, and the circumstances under which 
 his great work was prepared for publication. For logical 
 completeness, candour in controversy, cautious moderation, 
 moral thoughtfulness, practical wisdom, and love of truth, 
 Bishop Butler has left in his memorable work " monumen- 
 tum aere perennius." The style is not popular, the reason- 
 ing is often subtle and profound, and cannot be adequately 
 comprehended without a sustained attention and repeated 
 study. With a view the more effectually to answer objec- 
 tions, which had been put forward in his day in order to 
 discredit religion, he meets his opponents on their own 
 ground. He tells us that he argues on their own principles, 
 that is to say, notwithstanding their principles; and he 
 
butler's analogy. 385 
 
 deelined to "avail himself of abstract principles, which he, 
 himself thought to be true and of the utmost importance, 
 but which he does not make use of in the argument, be- 
 cause they are by others thought to be unintelligible or not 
 true. He adds, that for the purpose of avoiding the use of 
 language formed upon the principles so disputed, he has 
 been obliged to express himself in a manner which will 
 appear strange to such as do not observe a reason for it. 
 The reason and the result are, therefore, to be carefully 
 noted as we read the book. My desire is, to make the, 
 Bishop his own interpreter — to interest you in the diligent 
 study of this volume, and assist you in patiently following 
 the course of the argurnent until you feel that you have, 
 mastered it. You will find the value of this as an exercise 
 of the mind, and the moral effect may, I trust, be found to 
 be an adequate recompense for the labour that will thus be, 
 profitably employed. Some preliminary suggestions may 
 here be given to the student of Butler. His words must 
 have their exact and emphatic meaning given to them ; and 
 his own explanations, to be found in various parts of the 
 work, are the proper glossary by which the meaning may 
 be decisively fixed. It is, moreover, incumbent on the 
 reader to make himself familiar with the treatise as a 
 whole, before he concludes that there is in any part an 
 error or omission. A word will be discovered which has 
 a saving operation, and properly qualifies the argument or, 
 the assertion. Sometimes a sentence will be found which 
 supplies in a fit place the explanation or the statement 
 which removes what otherwise might have been considered 
 a difficulty or a defect elsewhere. Bishop Fitzgerald has 
 given the verbal alterations which the author made in the 
 later editions, and these show with what scrupulous exact- 
 ness and care the language was revised to the last. Every,, 
 word seems to have been weighed, and its place cautiously 
 chosen. The right word was put into the right place. The 
 work itself, as has been observed, was carefully and closely 
 worked up out of twenty years' hard thinking. Single 
 
 C C 
 
386 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 words, limiting and saving clauses, studiously moderate 
 statements, must be attended to by those who desire to 
 apprehend and appreciate the exact point of the argument 
 and the real purpose of the author. His great object was 
 to repel and overthrow the current objections made to the 
 credibility of religion. He seeks to lay a solid foundation 
 for his argument, in the acknowledged dispensation and 
 course of Providence in the routine of daily life — in matters 
 of fact which are obvious — matters of common experience, 
 and open to the observation of all. Thus descending to a 
 level with his opponents, and arguing on common data 
 which Atheists only could dispute or deny, he sets up the 
 credibility of religion, and then completes his masterly 
 argument by summing up the proper positive evidence by 
 which religion is proved to be true. Let me call your 
 attention to the title of the volume which you may hear of 
 as " Butler's Analogy," — sometimes it is given as " Butler's 
 Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion." This is 
 likely to mislead. It is " The Analogy of Religion (natural 
 and revealed) to the Constitution and Course of Nature." 
 Religion, which is commonly divided into natural and re- 
 vealed, is compared with that system of Providence which 
 regulates our common daily life. Natural religion is the 
 moral system of the world, discoverable by human reason ; 
 revealed religion is the dispensation of God to man, dis- 
 closed by Divine Revelation. The truths which religion 
 teaches as to our present duties and our future destiny — 
 the position which man occupies in the Divine economy as 
 a moral, immortal, and accountable being — his relation to 
 God — the privileges and obligations incident to this rela- 
 tion — the scheme of religion, its publication, and the proof 
 which God has given of its truth, — these were the materials 
 of a controversy in which speculative difficulties and objec- 
 tions were put forward as sufficient to overthrow the whole 
 system of religion, natural and revealed, as altogether in- 
 credible. Many years had elapsed since Lord Bacon had 
 challenged as a folly the contentious controversies of the 
 
butler's analogy. 387 
 
 schools of philosophy in their rival theories of physical 
 science. He taught mankind a more excellent way, 
 modestly and patiently to observe the operations and 
 course of nature, and note the sequences in their appointed 
 order. This was the province of man, as the minister and 
 interpreter of nature. This was to be carried on with 
 docility and submission ; for, as he emphatically observes, 
 " that it is no less true in this human kingdom of know- 
 ledge than in God's kingdom of heaven, that no man shall 
 enter into it except he becomes first as a little child." — 
 (3 Vol. 224, Spedd. ed.) " Therefore " (as he says), " from 
 a closer and a purer league between these two faculties, the 
 experimental and the rational, such as has never yet been 
 made, much may be hoped." — (95 Aph. 4 vol., 93.) Much 
 has since been realized. In this spirit of true philosophy. 
 Bishop Butler has proposed to meet speculative objections 
 by practical answers. He assumes as already established 
 by the consideration of final causes, by the abounding evi- 
 dence of the power and wisdom of the Creator which 
 creation supplies, he takes it as admitted " that there is an 
 intelligent Author of Nature." This is all that he postu- 
 lates. He suggests that, instead of indulging in mere 
 hypothesis and speculation, which, on the subject of reli- 
 gion, must be altogether imperfect, as it is unbecoming for 
 such a creature as man, we should turn our thoughts to 
 what we experience to be the conduct of nature with re- 
 spect to intelligent creatures, which may be resolved into 
 general laws or rules of administration, in the same way as 
 many of the laws of nature respecting inanimate matter 
 may be collected from experiments. " Let us compare," 
 he says, " the known constitution and course of things with 
 what is ' said to be ' the moral system of nature ; the 
 acknowledged dispensations of Providence with what reli- 
 gion ' teaches ' us to believe and expect." This comparison 
 brings out the analogy — the resemblance of relations. 
 There is a likeness which we recognise ; the things com- 
 pared may be traced up to the same general laws, and • 
 
388 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 resolved into the same principles of the Divine conduct. We • 
 find a unity of design, which is the source of analogy — a 
 uniformity of operation, which is the source of experience. 
 This unity of design is perceived in the many relations 
 which the material and the moral worlds bear to each 
 other. There is an analogy in the laws by which their 
 phenomena are regulated, and the methods of investigation 
 peculiarly applicable to each. It must, then, be allowed to 
 be just, as Butler observes, "to join abstract reasonings 
 with the observation of facts, and argue from such facts as 
 are known to others that are like them." This is almost > 
 the language of Lord Bacon ; it is altogether in the spirit 
 of the inductive philosophy. The introduction to the 
 " Analogy " may be properly studied in connexion with 
 the 8th chapter of the second part of the treatise in which 
 he explains and defends the use which he has made of the 
 argument from analogy. This mainly consists in refuting 
 objections, in which it is irresistibly convincing. This is 
 the negative use of it, and it makes way for the affirmative 
 proofs and positive arguments by which religion is autho- 
 ritatively established. When employed as a medium of 
 proof, it may authorize a probable conjecture, inviting 
 further examination, or it may materially confirm and 
 fortify an independent proof. We must, therefore, not 
 be disappointed if we find in some parts of the treatise 
 that the argument from analogy, taken by itself, does not 
 seem convincing. This only occurs when it is used as a 
 medium of proof, for it will be found that wherever it is 
 used for its genuine purpose^ — to repel and refute specu-: 
 lative objections — the masterly hand of Butler has laid: 
 prostrate the sophistry and the scepticism which the . 
 enemies of our faith have called to their aid, in support 
 of unbelief 
 
 In matters which involve our relation to God, there is 
 a Divine and there is a human aspect in which they may 
 be viewed. The former has reference to the character of' 
 God — the reasons and the design of the Divine economy ; 
 
butler's analogy. 389 
 
 the latter to our own obligations — our proper business in 
 this present life — the connection of our duties with our 
 destiny. Religion, as Butler reminds us, "is a practical 
 thing, and consists in such a determinate course of life as 
 being what there is reason to think is commanded by the 
 Author of Nature, and will, upon the whole, be our happi- 
 ness under His government." The design of this treatise 
 (he says) is not to vindicate the character of God, but to 
 show the obligations of men ; it is not to justify His pro- 
 vidence, but to show what belongs to us to do. It is on 
 this eminently practical view of religion — the doing of 
 God's word, the keeping diligently what He has com- 
 manded, the obedience of faith, which is the proof of love 
 and the purpose of life — on this depends the power of the 
 argument from the analogy of religion to the constitution 
 and course of nature. What is the course of nature in this 
 respect ? In the concerns of our daily life, to enable us 
 to act with a due regard to our temporal interests, we do 
 not ask for mathematical demonstration. The practical 
 question in all cases is, whether the evidence for a course 
 of action be such as, taking in all circumstances, makes 
 the faculty within us, which is the guide and judge 
 of conduct, determine that course of action to be that 
 which we ought to pursue. This is what is called a prac- 
 tical proof; such a proof as will be admitted fully suffi- 
 cient in reason to influence the actions of men who act 
 upon thought and reflection. It is matter of experience 
 that the evidence on which we are naturally induced to act 
 in common matters throughout a very great part of life is 
 doubtful in a high degree. This is a matter of fact 
 Whether, and how far, we ourselves contribute to this 
 doubtfulness is a question which deserves our conscien- 
 tious consideration. Sufficient evidence is afibrded to 
 enable us to act our part in life. We cannot have, we do 
 not demand, overbearing evidence nor conclusive demon- 
 stration ; but we look for that which will satisfy conscience 
 and ought to determine conduct. Should we require 
 
39° LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 another kind of evidence in religion ? Is not the evidence 
 on which we are appointed to act in the affairs of life 
 adapted to our moral nature and sufficient for our moral 
 judgment ; and will not evidence of the like kind be suffi- 
 cient to regulate conduct as the discipline of virtue? 
 Without faith it is impossible to please God — without be- 
 lieving that He is — that He is a rewarder of them that 
 diligently seek Him. This is pre-supposed ; this is to be 
 tested and exercised. Evidence which may fail to satisfy 
 speculative curiosity is sufficient and quite suitable-for the 
 discipline of Christian life. Probability (as Butler remarks) 
 . is the very guide of life. But observe what he means by 
 probability, and how it is distinguished from demonstra- 
 tion. Demonstration admits of no degrees ; its conclusion 
 is not only certain but necessary. Probability, in the 
 proper — not in the popular — sense, admits of every variety 
 of degrees, from the highest moral certainty to the very 
 lowest presumption. A matter is properly said to be pro- 
 bable when it is like some truth or true event — like it in 
 itself, in its evidence, in some more or fewer of its circum- 
 stances ; and this, by the constitution of our nature, is 
 adapted to beget that presumption, opinion, or full convic- 
 tion, which it does necessarily produce in us. Analogy is 
 thus found to be of weight in various degrees towards 
 determining our judgment and our practice. Origen, the 
 great teacher of Alexandria, whose proper name is said to 
 mean the Son of Light, had observed that he who believes 
 the Scripture to have proceeded from Him who is the 
 Author of Nature may well expect to find the same sort of 
 difficulties in it as are found in the constitution of nature. 
 Butler quotes this with marked approval ; and, in the 
 spirit of it, he adds that he who denies the Scriptures to 
 have been from God upon account of these difficulties 
 may, for the very same reason, deny the world to have 
 been formed by Him ; and if there be an analogy or like- 
 ness between that system of things and dispensation of 
 Providence which Revelation informs us. of, and that system 
 
butler's analogy. 391 
 
 of things and dispensation of Providence wliich experience, 
 together with the reason, informs us oi—i.e., the known 
 course of nature — this is a presumption that the system of 
 rehgion and the course of nature have both the same 
 author and cause, at least so far as to answer objections 
 against the former being from God, drawn from anything 
 which is analogical or similar to what is in the latter, which 
 is acknowledged to be from Him. Identity of authorship, 
 according to Origen, leads us to expect identity of charac- 
 teristics ; and, on the other hand, identity of characteristics, 
 according to Butler, leads us to presume or apprehend 
 identity of authorship. If the authorship of one volume 
 be admitted — of another be disputed or denied, on the 
 ground of opinions or expressions contained in it, which 
 are said to be decisive against the alleged authorship — and 
 if the like opinions and expressions be found in the volume 
 of which the authorship stands confessed, the objection to 
 the identity is refuted — nay more, the presumption that 
 they are from the same author is fortified and every proof 
 confirmed. Butler has taken up the two great volumes of 
 Nature and of Revelation. The authorship of the former 
 is admitted. The style of the Divine authorship is traced 
 throughout both ; like principles, like procedure, like ano- 
 malies and difficulties to be solved in each, like purposes 
 to be answered by these in the discipline of life. The per- 
 plexity of life itself, as disclosed in the book of Nature, 
 disappears when we find in the book of Revelation that it 
 is an institution for eternity, and the speculative objections 
 which tempt men to doubt or deny the truths and facts 
 of Revelation also disappear when we turn to our experi- 
 ence of the course of nature, to the facts of common life. 
 These are subject to the same d priori difficulties ; but we 
 do not allow ourselves to be reasoned out of what we 
 feel, and see, and know. We rely on our consciousness 
 and our common-sense ; the speculative difficulties, what- 
 ever be their abstract or intrinsic value, cannot here pre- 
 vail. If they be false, we must reject them as unfounded ; 
 
392 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 if they be true, we must equally reject them as inappli-' 
 cable. Our nature and condition compel us to treat such 
 objections as if they were false, when we have to act in 
 bur daily life. This is the ground-work of the argument 
 from analogy. 
 
 The treatise is divided into two parts. In the first 
 part, three leading points are dealt with — first, a future 
 life, in which happiness and misery will be apportioned as 
 reward and punishment, and this apportionment will be 
 regulated according to a moral rule of distributive justice. 
 So far man is shown to be an immortal, moral, and ac- 
 countable being. The first chapter deals with the fact of 
 a future life, and the analogies by which it is rendered 
 f)robable and credible. The second chapter shows that we 
 are under the natural government of God ; that pleasure 
 and pain as reward and punishment follow upon our ac- 
 tions, and that we are enabled to foresee that such will be 
 the consequences of these actions. The third chapter car- 
 ries forward the argument, and shows that we are under 
 the moral government of God, as the righteous governor 
 of the world. This naturally leads to the consideration of 
 the second of the three leading points, namely^the pre- 
 sent life, as a preparatory stage of existence. It is found 
 to be a state of probation, and therefore attended with 
 difficulties and dangers in the temptations by which we 
 are tried and proved. This is the subject of the fourth 
 chapter. It is a state for moral discipline in virtue and 
 piety, in forming habits of active benevolence and passive 
 resignation, and also for the manifestation of character. 
 This is the subject of the fifth chapter. The third leading 
 point is the consideration of the argument against the 
 moral government of God as a fact, and the proof of this 
 fact — an argument based on the doctrine of necessity ; and 
 also, the objection that this moral government is not re- 
 concilable with wisdom and goodness. In the sixth chap- 
 ter the argument of necessity is thoroughly exposed and 
 completely answered. In the seventh the second objection 
 
butler's analogy. -393 
 
 is overthrown. There is then a short concluding chapter, 
 summing up the whole argument as it has been applied to 
 natural religion. The leading proposition in the first part, 
 that there is a moral governor of the world, and that virtue 
 is His law, is established in two ways — by external and by 
 internal evidence. The former is found in the profession 
 which has been made in all ages and countries ; in the 
 reception of this truth in the first ages ; in traditional 
 evidence that it was taught by a revelation. Thus we 
 have general consent, antiquity, and evidence of a revela- 
 tion to establish the truth of God's righteous government. 
 The internal evidence is found in the reason of the thing ; 
 in the principles of moral liberty and moral fitness ; in the 
 presages of conscience and the moral faculty, and in the 
 distinct natural intimations which are given to us in the 
 constitution and course of nature, and pointed out and 
 reasoned upon in the third chapter. In the second part 
 the author deals with revealed religion. He first considers 
 the general objections against it, then the special objec- 
 tions against it, and then considers the positive evidence 
 in support of its truth ; these he sums up, and clears from 
 objections. The general objections are twofold : first, that 
 before any system of Revelation is proposed, it must be 
 superfluous, because unnecessary ; and next, that it must 
 be incredible, and could not be proved by miraculous 
 attestation. The first of these objections is fully met in 
 the first chapter, and in the second chapter the other 
 objection is disposed of. There is then the further objec- 
 tion against a proposed system of Revelation, either as a 
 system, or a wise and good scheme. The third chapter 
 disposes of the one ; the fourth of the other. The special 
 objections which are made are answered by special analo- 
 gies. There is first the objection founded on the alleged 
 intricacy of means ; next, on the idea of mediation ; and 
 thirdly, on the want of universality. The appointment of 
 a Mediator and Redeemer is nobly vindicated in the fifth 
 chapter, which cannot fail to edify the faithful student. 
 
394 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Objections to this great fundamental truth of Christianity 
 having been scattered and routed, and the other objections 
 to the system of Revelation having been repelled and 
 cleared away, the positive evidence is brought forward 
 with advantage, The direct proofs furnished by miracles 
 and prophecy — the indirect, many and various, by wliich 
 Revelation and the religion which it teaches have been 
 divinely accredited — are then presented with cumulative 
 force and effect. Light is thus sown for the righteous — 
 for those who, in an honest and good heart, keep the 
 Divine Word which they have heard, and bring forth fruit 
 with patience. I have thus given you a cursory sketch of 
 this admirable treatise — the general scope and outline of 
 it — the nature of the argument from analogy, and the 
 general principles on which Butler has brought it to bear 
 upon the great practical subject of religion. We must go 
 through it with patience — may I add, with prayer ? We 
 must take it chapter by chapter, dig deep in the mine 
 for the rich ore which diligent search alone can secure. 
 Criticism has censured Butler as having dealt rather with 
 the credentials than with the contents of Christianity, but 
 I cannot think the censure has been deserved. The 
 avowed object of the work is to relieve religion from 
 objections which were levelled at its credibility; and surely 
 this has been accomplished to the full, so as to leave with- 
 out excuse all who neglect so great salvation as God has 
 offered to man. But, in addition to this, the clear and 
 comprehensive summary of the leading facts and guiding 
 truths of Revelation, the uncompromising advocacy of the 
 great doctrine of the Atonement, the solemn earnestness 
 with which we are reminded of the relation in which we 
 stand to God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, as well as 
 to God the Father, and also reminded of the responsible 
 duties which flow out of these relations — all these satisfy 
 me that he did not shun to declare the whole counsel of 
 God, so far as the plan of his treatise and the course of the 
 argument would fairly admit. He has chosen the method 
 
BUTLER S ANALOGY. 395 
 
 of St. Paul as his model — to begin on common ground, on 
 a level with those whom he sought to convince. The first 
 part, as an argument against objectors, may be taken as 
 complete for the mere purpose of controversial triumph ; 
 but when we use it for Christian instruction, we must treat 
 it as an integral part of the whole, receiving and reflecting 
 the light which radiates from the second part. When we 
 hear of a reward for the righteous, sounding from the harp 
 of David — ' the great reward in the keeping of the com- 
 mandments ' — we interpret the reward as of grace, not of 
 debt ; we read the inspired intimation in the light of the 
 glorious Gospel of the Redeemer. When we turn to the 
 instructive chapter of the Analogy, on the moral discipline 
 of life, the formation of character by habits and conduct, 
 the connection of our destiny with our duty — we should 
 place it in connection with the great chapter on the Atone- 
 ment. May we not then be led to appreciate more fully 
 the force and truthful power of the words of our blessed 
 Lord, that whosoever cometh to Him, and heareth His 
 sayings, and doeth them, he it is who builds upon a rock — 
 his foundation is secure ? We thus see how the believer, 
 trusting in Christ, taught by the Holy Spirit, perfecting 
 holiness in the fear of God, by the discipline of life 
 adapted for its moral purposes, may go on from strength 
 to strength ; conduct forming habits, habits fixing cha- 
 racter, and character capacitating for the joy of heaven. 
 And thus the analysis of our moral nature and the moral 
 system of God, and the light thrown upon both by Revela- 
 tion, make clear and consistent what otherwise we could 
 not reconcile — salvation and reward ; the one not of works, 
 the other according to works. The righteous Judge, who 
 freely gives the one, Himself awards the other, in both 
 remembering mercy. Let me then commend this work 
 to your earnest, patient, and prayerful study. It is 
 adapted, under God's blessing, to invigorate your minds 
 and elevate your hearts. Difficulties, whether of belief or 
 of practice, are part of our trials here on earth. We must 
 
396 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 seek the aid of Him without whom we can do nothing. 
 We must seek for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who 
 can lead us into all the truth. " Lord, I believe, help Thou 
 my unbelief." 
 
 In one of his many letters to Mr. Mark Napier, Sir 
 Joseph Napier writes: — 
 
 I have been very busy with a tough chapter in Butler, on 
 which I have to give a lecture to-morrow night — Chap. II., 
 Part II., of the Analogy. The highest authorities differ on the 
 merit, or rather the meaning, of the great Bishop in this chapter. 
 I think he is right, and can be fully upheld in his argument. 
 
 I need not repeat how grateful 1 feel for the trouble you are 
 taking for me. I only wish you had been in such health as that 
 it would not have taxed your strength at all. It was pleasant to 
 know that our volume gave you some agreeable reading. The 
 sketch of Burke was really more troublesome than if I had 
 expanded it into an octavo. I am glad to find it meets your 
 approbation. I wrote it con amore. 
 
 To the Same, just after the Lecture on Butler's Analogy. 
 
 I feel that so far as God enables any of us who can, we 
 ought to try to elevate and instruct others by such means as 
 seem likely to be useful, and upon which we can ask His 
 blessing. His be the praise. 
 
 My visit to the district, and especially to Keswick, will be, 
 I trust, a source of happy recollection and profitable to me both 
 in health and spirit, and I look forward to another visit with 
 hope and pleasant anticipation. 
 
ANALYSIS 
 
 OF 
 
 BISHOP BUTLER'S ARGUMENT ON PRESUMPTION 
 AGAINST MIRACLES. 
 
 THE consideration of the preliminary objections which , 
 have been made to the credibility of Revelation as 
 miraculous, included that of the supposed peculiar pre- 
 sumption against any Divine interference with the course 
 of Nature after it has been settled and during its continu- 
 ance ; or, in other words, the supposed peculiar presump- 
 tion against miracles in general. Butler proceeds to 
 establish, first, that if there is a peculiar presumption 
 against miracles in general, i.e., against any miraculous in-, 
 terposition, it appears to be relatively unimportant ; and 
 there is certainly no such presumption as to render miracles 
 in any sort incredible ; and next, that as the moral system 
 of the world enables us to see reasons for such interpo- 
 sition, this gives a positive credibility to the history of 
 miracles, in cases where these reasons hold. Thirdly, that 
 if we compare miracles as a class, not to the ordinary but 
 to the extra-ordinary phenomena of nature, then it is by 
 no means certain that there is any peculiar presumption at 
 all, from analogy, even in the lowest degree, against 
 miracles as distinguished from other extraordinary pheno- 
 mena ; but that this is of no importance to determine, as 
 the only material question is, whether there is any such 
 presumption as to render miracles in any sort incredible. 
 It is the degree, not the fact of the presumption, that is 
 important. Remember that the presumption supposed by 
 
398 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 the objector is put forward as a bar to an examination of 
 the evidence, in any case of an alleged miracle. But the 
 objector is met on his own ground, and before he leaves 
 this position, Butler examines the only argument which 
 can be drawn from analogy (and to analogy the objector 
 himself appeals), and he shows that a presumption beyond 
 comparison greater than that which the objector has sup- . 
 posed, may be removed by evidence, and therefore that 
 there is no preliminary bar to the examination of the evi- 
 dence in a case of alleged miraculous interposition. It is 
 here that the difficulty is generally felt in following Butler ; 
 and to avoid, or, at least, to remove this difficulty, a sus- 
 tained attention is required. The supposed peculiar pre- 
 sumption which he treats as small and as not to be 
 estimated, is (as I conceive) simply and merely the naked 
 presumption {prior to any evidence) against the interference 
 of God, in any respect or on any occasion, with the settled 
 course of nature. It is assumed for the sake of argument 
 and under certain limited conditions ; for, so soon as we 
 look to the moral system of nature, this presumption 
 disappears. 
 
 Miracles are left at last in all their distinctiveness as 
 significant of a Divine interposition for a religious purpose ; 
 and in no respect is the contrast weakened between the 
 settled course of nature and the miraculous interference of 
 God. I believe that it is by mixing up the consideration 
 of this contrast with the previous question as to the sup- 
 posed peculiar presumption against any interference at all ; 
 by thus complicating, however unconsciously, what Butler 
 had designedly disentangled, that much of the difficulty 
 has arisen in following or adopting his argument at this 
 stage. His caution and exactness are the more apparent, 
 as he expressly forbids the comparison of miracles as a 
 class, to ordinary facts as a class ; he had described what 
 in its very notion a miracle is, and so as to show this com- 
 parison to be inadmissible. But the happening oi par- 
 ticular events of a known class is referred to — not the 
 
PRESUMPTION AGAINST MIRACLES. 399 
 
 uniform physical sequences of nature, but matters which 
 we cannot reduce to general laws, and which are, therefore, 
 called accidental. We have to wait on testimony to certify 
 their happening ; and before any evidence, the presumption 
 against the actual happening of a particular accidental 
 event is such, that it is often beyond the limits of definite 
 calculation ; and this may be expressed by saying, that 
 there are millions to one against its happening at all. 
 
 It is (as I have observed) the objector who has appealed 
 to analogy in support of his objection ; and, therefore, 
 Butler had only to show that there was no valid argument 
 from analogy in favour of the objection. First, he says, 
 we have no parallel case ; but if we look to the whole 
 course of nature, to the facts which are within our ken, 
 what is the utmost that we are warranted to presume from 
 analogy against miraculous interposition ? The course of 
 nature (as he explains in chap. 4) consists not only of 
 uniform and occasional phenomena which by experience 
 and analogy we can bring under general laws, but also of 
 a class of events which cannot be referred to such laws, and 
 are, therefore, called accidental ; and of phenomena which 
 are called extraordinary. To compare miracles to matters 
 which are reducible to general laws, is inadmissible in the 
 very nature and reason of the thing ; but we may look to 
 the other matters, and see if there is any analogy that can 
 be derived. Now, what do we find in respect of many 
 matters in the course of common life, which is a part of the 
 course and order of nature ? " The most seemingly im- 
 probable events in human history may be perfectly credible 
 on sufficient testimony, however contradicting ordinary ex- 
 perience of human motives and conduct, simply because 
 we cannot assign any limit to the variety of human dispo- 
 sitions, passions, or tendencies, or the extent to which they 
 may be influenced by circumstances of which, perhaps, we 
 may have little or no knowledge to guide us." These are 
 the words of Mr. Baden Powell in his essay against 
 miracles in the " Essays and Reviews." Where experience 
 
400 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 cannot lead, nor analogy guide us, we are altogether de-; 
 pendent on testimony ; for in the class of events which we; 
 cannot bring under general laws, the unknown reciprocal, 
 connection and mutual influence of countless circumstances,^ 
 the action of causes that we cannot estimate or control, 
 leave us without the means of getting at the truth of events 
 which have been brought to pass, unless we have recourse to 
 testimony. Before any evidence, the presumption may be; 
 as great as we can well express ; indeed, so great, that if 
 any of such events should happen to come into one's head,' 
 without any kind of proof, everyone would conclude that 
 they were false. Why so? Simply because there is no 
 evidence of the facts. Where these avenues of knowledge, 
 viz., experience, analogy, and testimony have been closed, 
 it is a law of our nature that we cannot believe events 
 to be true and real which happen to come into our head 
 from another approach. The presumption before evidence 
 against such events is great,, simply because our ignorance 
 with regard to them is great. We are in a dim twilight in 
 which we are unable to see all that is around us ; dark and ■, 
 distant objects are concealed from observation. When we 
 come to consider miraculous interposition, we have no case ; 
 that is strictly parallel ; and then, leaving religion out of 
 consideration, we get into total darkness with reference to; 
 the probability of any interruption of the course of nature. ; 
 We are unable to say how the matter stands as to the 
 happening of an occasion for God's interference ; and the. 
 presumption against it is, certainly, not such as to render 
 miracles in any sort incredible. Now, with reference to the 
 difficulty in comparing the two presumptions — perhaps it, 
 mainly arises from the circumstance, that the question is 
 one of degree. When we are left without the light of ex- 
 perience and of analogy, and find ourselves in a twilight,: 
 we must make use of the lamp of testimony ; when we 
 pass into total darkness, this lamp is not the less available 
 nor less required. It is very easy to distinguish between 
 the light of day and the darkness of night, but most. 
 
PRESUMPTION AGAINST MIRACLES. 40I. 
 
 difficult to say at what precise moment twilight ends and 
 darkness begins. There may be just at that critical 
 period a small additional hindrance to our vision, beyond 
 that which had previously hidden from our eyes obscure or 
 remote objects ; yet its relative importance, though it be 
 peculiar, may be as nothing, and it is in itself incapable of 
 estimation. The transition from facts that are usual to 
 those that are often stranger and more improbable than 
 fiction, and from these to the extraordinary and exceptional 
 phenomena of nature ; the place also which testimony 
 admittedly holds in making known what experience and 
 analogy could not teach us — thus instructing the ignor- 
 ance by reason of which a presumption arises before evi- 
 dence and by evidence is removed ; all this may assure us 
 that miraculous interposition (if not in its nature incredi- 
 ble) may be established also by testimony, in which, by a 
 law of our nature, we instinctively confide. 
 
 This has been extremely well put by Professor Jellett, 
 in a very instructive sermon preached in Trinity College 
 Chapel, which I have had the advantage of reading, and 
 to which I am permitted, by his kindness, to refer: — " As 
 we know but imperfectly the laws of human thought, and 
 the circumstances under which that thought is developed, 
 we are obliged to have our information from testimony, and 
 are willing to accept its evidence, though it may contradict 
 the positive anticipations we had formed. And shall we say 
 that we know so perfectly the laws of the Divine mind, and 
 the circumstances under which He forms His decision, that 
 we can always afford to reject the evidence of testimony, 
 and treat the matter as one of positive science ?" 
 
 The argument, then, from particular contingencies, so 
 far as it can be applied, is against the objector, and so is 
 that which is derived from the extraordinary phenomena 
 of nature. Our first information as to these may depend 
 altogether on testimony unaided by experience or analogy. 
 If here we shut out evidence, because of a supposed pre- 
 sumption against such seeming excrescences on a system: 
 
 D D 
 
402 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND ADDRESSES. 
 
 assumed to be settled and complete, how could we arrive 
 at any knowledge of those wonders of the universe of 
 which some are at once " a mystery and a beauty "? But 
 as testimony is here admitted, and thus we are at last 
 enabled to bring within the cosmical system of nature, 
 marvels of creative skill and power disclosed to the induc- 
 tive spirit that waits patiently upon God, as He reveals 
 Himself in His works to those ministers and interpreters 
 of nature who diligently seek Him — where is the analogy 
 to justify us in shutting out testimony as to other marvels 
 which may be found to be lights of a higher system of 
 morality and mercy ? Have we not then found that parti- 
 cular events, extraordinary phenomena, and the moral 
 system, bear witness respectively against the objector, so 
 as to discredit his supposed presumption against the credi- 
 bility of Revelation as miraculous ? 
 
 I am enabled through the kindness of Dr. Salmon to 
 give you what he has said, in one of his divinity lectures, 
 when speaking on the subject of Natural Religion, as pre- 
 paring the way for Revelation ; he says — " When she has 
 ascribed to God those attributes which she has discovered 
 from the study of our own nature, will, goodness, and 
 wisdom, she sees nothing incredible in the statement, that 
 God may interfere in a manner different from that of His 
 every-day working, in order to point man to a worship 
 which may be accepted as authoritative, to give a weighty 
 support to true ethical doctrine (such support, I mean, as 
 shall induce men to practise it), and which shall reveal to 
 them a future life. Nay, it needs not this ; once admit the 
 existence of a personal God, and His interference with the 
 ordinary course of nature is not incredible, even if we could 
 tell no reason why such an interference might be expected. 
 For anyone who considers the narrowness of human expe- 
 rience, must make allowance for the possible existence of 
 causes of which we have no knowledge." 
 
 Again — " I have shown that there are many points 
 in which we can feel that Natural Religion is painfully 
 
PRESUMPTION AGAINST MIRACLES. 403: 
 
 defective, and on which we can readily believe that God 
 might be pleased to grant us greater certainty and fuller 
 information. And I have said, that besides these reasons 
 which we can see, no one can venture to say that there may ■ 
 not be reasons unknown to us making it necessary that God 
 should co}nm.unicate with men" 
 
 This is, in fact, the substance of that part of Butler's 
 argument which is contained in his second and third 
 " particular observations." To view the matter as Butler 
 did, we must not forget his habitual acknowledgment of ■ 
 the unlimited power of God, and the limited knowledge of 
 man. The course of nature he has described as that 
 " course of operation, from its uniformity or constancy, 
 called natural, and which necessarily implies an operating 
 agent " (p. 36). He assumes, from the first, the existence 
 of an intelligent Author of nature, and asserts, that " the 
 very notion implies a will and a character which we are led 
 to consider to be moral, just, and good, and in consequence 
 of this, His will and character. He formed the universe as 
 it is, and carries on the course of it as He does, rather than 
 in any other manner" (pp. 1315-7). And in another part he 
 says : — " What is natural as m,uch requires and presupposes 
 an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually 
 or at stated times, as what is supernatural or m.iraculous does 
 to effect it for once. And from hence it must follow that 
 persons' notions of what is natural will be enlarged in pro- 
 portion to their greater knowledge of the works of God 
 and the dispensations of His Providence. Nor is there 
 any absurdity in supposing that there may be beings in 
 the universe, whose capacities and knowledge and views 
 may be so extensive, as that the whole Christian dispen- 
 sation may to them appear natural, i.e., analogous or con- 
 formable to God's dealings with other parts of His creation, •■ 
 as natural as the visible known course of things appears to 
 us" (pp. 31-2). 
 
 In reference to the limited capacity and narrow expe- 
 rience of man — the connection of actions and natural events- 
 
404 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 with one another, and their possible natural relation to other' 
 actions and events, much beyond the compass of this present 
 world, he observes : " Nor can we give the whole account 
 of any one thing whatever — of all its causes, ends, and 
 necessary adjuncts ; those adjuncts, I mean, without which 
 it could not have been. By this most astonishing connec- 
 tion, these reciprocal correspondences and mutual relations, 
 everything which we see in the course of nature is actually 
 brought about. And things seemingly the most insignifi- 
 cant imaginable are perpetually observed to be necessary 
 conditions to things of the greatest importance ; so that 
 any one tiling may, for aught we know to the contrary, be a 
 necessary condition to any other. The natural world then, 
 and natural government of it, being such an incomprehen- 
 sible scheme, so incomprehensible, that a man must really, 
 in the literal sense, know nothing at all who is not sensible 
 of his ignorance in it ; this immediately suggests, and 
 strongly shews the credibility, that the moral world, and 
 government of it, may be so too. He further suggests 
 that " the natural and the moral make up together but one 
 scheme, and it is highly probable the first is carried on 
 merely in subserviency to the latter " (p. 126). By way of 
 illustration, I may refer to the treatise of Dr. S. Clarke on 
 the Evidences of Religion, pp. 219-224. His views are 
 clearly stated, and may help you in understanding the 
 text of Butler. 
 
 In dealing with the antecedent presumptions which he 
 has compared, Butler takes them as they stand prior to 
 evidence, and as relative to the ignorance of man. It is 
 the comparison — not of degrees of credibility after proof, 
 but of presumptions before proof, in cases in which, from 
 the very nature and reason of the thing, we are altogether 
 dependent on testimony. A case has been put in which a 
 definite number of contingencies are placed in the same 
 circumstances, so that some one must turn up ; and as each 
 has the same definite number of chances to one against it, 
 and it is certain that some one of this class must turn up, 
 
PRESUxMPTION AGAINST MIRACLES. 405 
 
 it is said that here the antecedent presumption does not 
 in the least render incredible the particular event which is 
 alleged to have actually taken place. The presumption 
 before proof is (as Butler himself has observed) altogether 
 removed by almost any proof But an event, or set of 
 events, which may result from countless circumstances, and 
 may be such as to defy expectation, and to be incapable 
 of being estimated in a definite form by any calculation of 
 chances beforehand, is not exactly parallel with the limited 
 contingency and its alternatives. Butler does not say that 
 of the events against which the presumption may be mil- 
 lions to one before proof, there may not be differences and 
 degrees of credibility after proof , i.e., that some may not be 
 more, some less readily believed ; nor does he say that 
 there may not be a like difference between an ordinary and 
 a miraculous narrative. This raises an entirely different 
 question from that which he discusses. It is very easy to 
 construct a comparison of an ordinary and a miraculous 
 narrative, and to present a very striking contrast of credi- 
 bility in these extreme cases. But a contrast almost, if not 
 altogether, as striking might be made out between two 
 cases selected for the purpose, one from the ordinary, and 
 the other from the extraordinary departments of nature. 
 We do not ignore the difference of day and night when we 
 compare twilight with darkness, where the question is 
 properly one of degree throughout, and not merely the 
 contrast of extremes. When it is urged, that in the case 
 of a miracle there remains what is described as an " impro- 
 bability after the fact," which Butler is said to have over- 
 looked ; I answer that he has disposed of the presumption 
 prior to evidence, and excluded any such presumption as 
 would render miracles in any sort incredible ; and I then 
 ask, what is there left to give to the objection any meaning 
 other than this — that a miracle remains a miracle ? 
 
 The account of the contingency, in the illustration to 
 
 which I have referred, may be supposed to be more cre- 
 
 ■dible {i.e., more readily believed) than the narrative of a 
 
406 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 miracle which cannot cease to be a miracle ; but, so far 
 from overlooking this, it seems to me to be the very ground 
 on which Butler insists that miracles must be compared 
 not to the ordinary but to the extra-ordinary phenomena 
 of nature in the way he has clearly explained. 
 
 The natural and the miraculous (according to Butler 
 and Clarke) may be more or less in contrast when viewed 
 in their relation to the knowledge and belief of man ; but 
 with reference to the power of God, all are alike. To a 
 mind so profound — solemnized by his deep consciousness 
 of the moral relation of man to God — a mind at once 
 elevated and humbled — how illusory must the supposed 
 presumption have appeared. It was, after all, like " the 
 baseless fabric of a vision." It could only be supposed to 
 exist by keeping the moral system out of view, and regard- 
 ing miracles merely as exceptions to the physical order of 
 nature. 
 
 In meeting the unbelieving objector on his own ground, 
 the miracle is, in the first instance, regarded in its physical 
 aspect ; but, when the preliminary objection has been re- 
 moved, the moral element is brought forward, and the 
 whole question is viewed from an altered stand-point. Be- 
 fore coming to this, it is the cautious definition of Butler 
 which has justified him in the language which he has used 
 in speaking of a miracle at all ; and this reminds me that I 
 should call your attention pointedly to a twofold view of 
 miracles. There is in every visible miracle what I may 
 call the overt act — the objective reality or effect produced, 
 and this is the proper subject of direct testimony ; the 
 moral inference, that this has been miraculously brought to 
 pass, is to be drawn from the facts in connection with all 
 the attendant circumstances. Thus there is a physical and 
 there is a moral question. 
 
 Hume published his Essay on Miracles some years after 
 the publication of the first edition of the Analogy of Butler, 
 and he has contended that the report of a miracle could 
 not be believed, as testimony was incompetent to prove it. 
 
PRESUMPTION AGAINST MIRACLES. 
 
 407 
 
 He did not say that miracles were impossible, but it came 
 very much, to the same thing, if they could not be proved 
 by testimony. It is not now denied that testimony may 
 prove all the facts of a miracle, and the accompanying 
 circumstances ; but it is insisted that it is not competent to 
 prove that the effect has been caused by the special inter- 
 ference of Divine power. " What is alleged " (says Mr. 
 Baden Powell in his essay recently published in " Essays 
 and Reviews," p. 107) is a case of the supernatural, but no 
 testimony can reach to the supernatural — testimony can 
 apply only to apparent sensible facts ; testimony can only 
 prove an extraordinary and, perhaps, inexplicable occurrence 
 or phenomenon ; that it is due to supernatural causes is en- 
 tirely dependent on the previous belief and assumptions of 
 the parties." I think it is instructive and important to 
 trace the changes which have taken place in the assault on 
 miracles ; and this will enable us to see how completely 
 Butler has dealt with the question in his compendious but 
 suggestive argument. I take Hume's theory ; not indeed 
 as Mr. Mill represents it, as if, in effect, it amounted to a 
 kind of harmless truism of no practical value ; but, as I find 
 it to be — a mischievous compound of an arbitrary and 
 erroneous definition of the word miracle, and an unwarrant- 
 able abuse of the word experience. " A miracle," he says, 
 " is a violation of the laws of nature ; and as a firm and 
 unalterable experience has established these laws, the 
 proof against a miracle from the nature of the fact is as 
 entire as any argument from experience can possibly be 
 imagined." But in the same essay (Vol. ii., p. 136, Dub. 1779) 
 he makes this confession :— " I beg the limitations here 
 made may be remarked when I say, that a miracle can 
 never be proved so as to be the foundation of a system of reli- 
 gion. For, / own that otherwise there may possibly be 
 miracles, or violations of the usual course of nature, of such a 
 kind as to admit of proof from human testimony, though, 
 perhaps, it will be impossible to find any such in all the 
 -records of history. Thus, suppose all authors in all 
 
408 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 languages agree, that from the first of January, 1600, there 
 was a total darkness over the whole earth for eight days, 
 suppose that the tradition of this extraordinary event is 
 still strong and lively among the people ; that all travellers 
 who return from foreign countries bring us accounts of the 
 same tradition without the least variation or contradiction ; 
 it is evident tJiat our present philosophers, instead of doubting 
 the fact, ought to receive it as certain, and ought to search for 
 ■the causes whence it might be derived!' According to this 
 statement, it follows that experience is not " unalterable," 
 •and testimony is competent to prove that the settled uni- 
 formity of nature has been interrupted, and " the proof 
 against a miracle from the nature of the fact" is not "as 
 entire as any argument from experience can possibly be 
 imagined." 
 
 The real difficulty with Hume seems to have been con- 
 nected with the use to be made of miracles as " the founda- 
 tion of a system of religion." It was a difficulty indigenous 
 to the " heart of unbelief" But, I must say, that he has 
 both asserted and conceded more than I am prepared to 
 admit ; for I cannot admit that a law of nature could be 
 violated at all. " The laws of nature " (says Dr. Salmon in 
 his sound and admirable lecture) " are nothing more or less 
 than the most general statements of the results of our ob- 
 servation of the processes and facts of nature. If a new 
 fact comes under our notice, inconsistent with the laws of 
 nature, such as we have laid them down, we are not to say 
 that a law of nature has been transgressed, but merely that 
 we have interpreted the laws wrongly, or that our statement 
 
 of them has been defective For no fact 
 
 that possibly can take place can be a violation of the laws of 
 nature. . . . And the progress of modern science is 
 nothing else than the patient observation of such new facts, 
 and the consequent correction and widening of our state- 
 ment of nature's laws." In truth, the inductive philosophy 
 requires us to enlarge our experience by observation and 
 by testimony, and forbids us to measure creation by our 
 
PRESUMPTION AGAINST MIRACLES. 409 
 
 uninstructed capacity, or to stereotype our ignorance by 
 the efforts oi d. priori speculation. The 109th aphorism in 
 the Novum Organum of Bacon (Vol. iv., p. 99) is here very 
 suggestive. How could we know the universal experience 
 of which Hume speaks, except by testimony and communi- 
 cation ; and how could individual ignorance be removed, 
 error corrected, or experience enlarged, unless we receive 
 from testimony what by a law of our nature it can give, 
 and we should take. Individual experience, after all, is 
 merely fractional ; and, therefore, our first lesson, and every 
 subsequent increase which our experience receives, must 
 "have, each in themselves, some positive value. If Hume's 
 main position were sound, it would seem as difficult to en- 
 large our experience beyond our individual observation, as 
 to make a unit by the addition of cyphers. 
 
 Archbishop Whately, in his well-known Treatise on 
 Logic, has thoroughly exposed the inexcusable liberty 
 which Hume has taken with the word experience ; and, in 
 the celebrated " Historic Doubts," His Grace has most 
 happily shown the absurdities to which Hume's sophistry 
 necessarily leads. Hume must have felt the difficulty of 
 his position, for he suggests a distinction between what is 
 contrary and what is not conformable to experience (p. 122). 
 But this does not relieve him. The Indian prince who 
 refused to believe the first relations concerning frost 
 reasoned justly (he says). But he is afterwards compelled 
 to admit that testimony was competent to enlarge the 
 experience, which in this very case it seemed to contradict. 
 And, indeed, this example shows the inherent fallacy of 
 Hume's position. In the note that may be found (p. 479), 
 he proceeds to modify what he had put forward in the 
 text (p. 122). " No Indian, it is evident" (he says in the 
 note), " could have experience that water did not freeze in 
 cold climates. This is placing nature in a situation quite 
 unknown to him ; and it is impossible for him to tell a, 
 priori what will result from it. It is making a new experi- 
 ment, the consequence of which is always uncertain." That 
 
4IO LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 is to say, the a priori speculative objection was erroneous ; it 
 was founded on mere ignorance, which, under the circum- 
 stances, could only be removed by testimony. Here then 
 the sceptic contradicts and confutes himself There are 
 facts, which although seemingly against experience and 
 analogy, are, for this very reason, the proper subject of 
 testimony that instructs those who could not otherwise 
 have their ignorance removed, or their experience enlarged. 
 " Such an event," continues Hume, " may be denominated 
 extra-ordinary, and requires a pretty strong testimony to 
 render it credible to people in a warm climate : but still 
 it is not miraculous, nor contrary to uniform experience of 
 the course of nature in cases where all the circumstances are 
 the same. The inhabitants of Sumatra have always seen 
 water fluid in their own climate, and the freezing of the 
 rivers ought to be deemed a prodigy ; but they never saw 
 water in Muscovy during the winter, and, therefore, they 
 cannot reasonably be positive what would there be the con- 
 sequences!' They would not reason soundly, then, if they 
 would refuse to hear testimony to prove the prodigy ; and, 
 if so, you may naturally ask, how could the Indian prince 
 be said to have " reasoned justly " ? And if neither Ought 
 to have relied on mere ignorance as a bar to the reception 
 of testimony, has Mr. Hume reasoned justly when he lands 
 himself in such palpable contradictions ? It is contrary to 
 experience, he says, that a miracle should be true. To 
 whose experience ? If he means that it is contrary to all 
 human experience, then I say this is begging the whole 
 question, for he assumes that this experience is known to 
 all, and that testimony to establish the fact alleged must 
 necessarily be false. If he means that it is contrary to the 
 experience of those who have not been eye-witnesses of it, 
 then I say this is the very case in which, according to all 
 analogy, we should receive testimony for the purpose of 
 enlarging this experience. This is the very basis of all in- 
 ductive science. The consciousness of our ignorance sug- 
 gests that we should be slow to reject a narrative as 
 
PRESUMPTION AGAINST MIRACLES. 41 1 
 
 incredible, merely because it is beyond or even contrary to 
 our very limited experience ; the ignorant and uninstructed, 
 the pretentious and speculative, may reject as incredible 
 and absurd what the patient follower of Bacon would 
 receive as the wise words of " truth and soberness." 
 
 Hume's theory, then, breaks down altogether when it is 
 applied to common life, or to the extraordinary phenomena 
 of nature. It ought (says Mr. Starkie in his excellent work 
 on the Law of Evidence, 4th ed., p. 833, n.) to be stated 
 thus : " Human testimony is founded on experience, and 
 is, therefore, inadequate to prove that of which there has 
 been no previous experience." But, as Mr. Starkie well 
 observes, "the negation of experience is perfectly con- 
 sistent with the just operation of the principle of belief or 
 faith in testimony,' which is a law of our nature ; and this 
 negation cannot reasonably be supposed to destroy this 
 principle. Negative evidence is, in the abstract, inferior to 
 positive, because the negative is not directly opposed to 
 the positive testimony — both may be true!' Again — " That 
 there may be and are general and ever-unalterable laws of 
 nature may be admitted ; but that human knowledge and 
 experience of these laws is unalterable (which alone can be 
 the test of exclusion), is untrue, except in a very limited 
 sense ; that is, it may be fairly assumed that a law of 
 nature once known to operate will always operate in a 
 similar manner, unless its operation be iinpeded or counter- 
 acted by a new and contrary cause!' 
 
 Butler has shown, by his appeal to analogy, that testi- 
 mony is competent to establish facts, notwithstanding a 
 very strong presumption against them, provided this is not 
 such as to render the facts alleged in any sort incredible. 
 Hume might have said, in these cases, that it is more pro- 
 bable that testimony should be false than that facts, which 
 neither experience nor analogy could certify without testi- 
 mony, should be true ; but here the experience of human 
 life and events (some of which are commonly said to be 
 more strange than fiction) would have repelled, if not 
 
412 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 refuted, this fallacy. It does not follow, that because some 
 testimony may be false, all testimony should be discredited 
 at the outset ; and I may add, that nothing is more con- 
 trary to experience than that the testimony of suck wit- 
 nesses as have accredited the miracles of Revelation, should 
 be false. The case of extra-ordinary phenomena, even of 
 a prodigy, Hume admits to be provable by testimony; 
 and that i priori objections, founded on our previous 
 ignorance, could not be relied on in such cases. Butler 
 most appropriately refers to this very analogy, and to the 
 presumption which naturally arises in the minds of those 
 who have but a limited knowledge of such matters, when 
 they hear of such phenomena for the first time. The 
 absence of previous experience may properly and naturally 
 induce caution, if not hesitation, in the reception of evidence, 
 which may, therefore, be the more carefully sifted. But 
 such inexperience, however constant, is not sufficient to 
 raise a preliminary bar to the reception or examination of 
 the evidence that must be considered in connection with 
 the probabilities in favour of testimony, and the moral 
 suggestions which the special circumstances supply. If 
 we but look to the lessons of experience in the advance- 
 ment of knowledge since the inductive method has been 
 adopted, we may see that new facts or phenomena, which 
 had not been observed or known before, and could not be 
 accounted for by the laws already observed, have been the 
 means by which more general, and, therefore, more perfect, 
 laws have been ascertained. 
 
 The definition of a miracle as a violation of the laws of 
 nature is founded on an assumption and a fallacy, for it 
 assumes all the circumstances to be the same where the 
 effect is natural and where it is miraculous. The action of 
 the frost, as related to the Indian prince, was the influence 
 of a new and, to him, unknown cause, that made all the 
 difference in the result. So long as, in deference to his 
 own ignorance, he took for granted that there could be no 
 other causes in operation but those of which he had expe- 
 
PRESUMPTION AGAINST MIRACLES. 41 3, 
 
 rience, he could not believe the testimony as to the effect. 
 But the testimony was sufficient to establish the truth of 
 the effect, produced by the action of the unknown cause. 
 And so in the case of a miracle, there is the direct inter- 
 position of an act of the will of the Intelligent Author of 
 nature and moral Governor of the world, " whose will," as 
 Mr. Mill has said, " being assumed to have endowed all 
 the causes with the powers by which they produce their 
 effects, may well be supposed able to counteract them." 
 What are called the laws of nature, are but some of the 
 expressions of His will with which we become gradually 
 acquainted in the discoveries of science and the disclosures 
 of Revelation. His interposition, then, is not a violation of 
 these laws. It is but the subordination of the lower to a 
 higher rule of the one comprehensive system. 
 
 Just as in our jurisprudence, equity interferes with com- 
 mon law, and mercy with criminal justice ; but equity does 
 not violate law, nor is mercy opposed to justice. We have 
 it confessed by Hume, and admitted by Baden Powell, 
 that testimony is sufficient to establish facts, though they 
 are extraordinary or even inexplicable — matters beyond 
 the range of experience and the reach of analogy. There 
 is no possible matter, however strange it may seem, how 
 unlike the ordinary tenor of our experience, which yet we 
 may not be justified in believing to have actually occurred, 
 provided that we have competent testimony to the fact. 
 Mr. Mill, therefore, plainly and properly states that mira- 
 cles, as extra-ordinary facts, are as susceptible of proof as 
 any other extraordinary facts. In all cases in which infor- 
 mation is communicated, if it is found to be either unusual 
 or improbable, and, therefore, unexpected, we naturally 
 sift the evidence and scrutinize all the circumstances, and, 
 especially consider the credit due to the witnesses. Much 
 may depend on the circumstances in the case of an alleged 
 miracle — the occasion, the manner, and the agent em- 
 ployed. But no peculiar species of testimony is required 
 different from that offered to prove other events, and 
 
414 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 especially such as are unusual or improbable. The amount 
 that may be required in any of these cases is not a general 
 question, but depends not merely on special circumstances, 
 but on the personal condition of the individual to be con- 
 vinced — his moral antecedents, his intellectual attainments, 
 his emotional temperament. But this is not peculiar to 
 the credibility or the proof of miracles. The testimony of 
 competent and credible witnesses is all that can be required ; 
 and as miracles are relative to the course of nature, the 
 same persons can attest miraculous facts who are suitable 
 witnesses of the corresponding facts that are natural. This 
 is very ably discussed in Mr. Newman's Essay on the 
 Miracles, in the fifth volume of the " Encyclopedia Metro- 
 politana." I may here also refer you to a masterly discussion 
 of the causes of doubt and disbelief, and the proper force 
 of testimony, in the celebrated sermon of South on the 
 unbelief of Thomas. When I read it, I could not but re- 
 member with satisfaction the happy expression of Hannah 
 More, as to the old divines—" I like the lean of their fat.'* 
 Well, then, our case is so far made good, that the facts of 
 a miracle can be established by testimony, and by the 
 same kind of testimony as that by which facts not mira- 
 culous may be proved. The amount of testimony is an 
 individual, not a general, question ; and it is a question 
 not peculiar to the case of miracles. Then wherein is the 
 difficulty now said to exist? It arises not before the evi- 
 dence, but after the proof of the facts. What has Hume said 
 was proper to be done in the case where he admitted that 
 testimony might prove what he assumed to be a violation 
 of a law of nature ? " Our present philosophers, instead 
 of doubting the fact, ought to receive it as certain, and 
 ought to search for the causes whence it anight be derived" 
 Agreed. What then ? If we find in such a case that there 
 is no natural solution ; if it cannot be proved to be a pre- 
 tence like that of the alleged melting of the blood of St. 
 Januarius at Naples, before we can say that it is altogether 
 inexplicable, we are bound, according to the soundest 
 
PRESUMPTION AGAINST MIRACLES. 415 
 
 philosophy, to consider whether it may not be a sign from 
 God. Now, in connection with the facts, there may be 
 such attendant circumstances incontrovertibly estabHshed 
 by the evidence, such declarations accompanying the acts 
 done, such an appeal to the moral and religious elements 
 of our nature, as ought to bring clear conviction home to 
 us that it is a miracle — that here is the finger of God. It 
 is a moral inference, for the miracle has a moral element 
 and a moral end. The question is, whether in the whole 
 matter, as it is presented and testified, there is enough to 
 leave us without excuse if we refuse to hear the voice from 
 heaven. Our moral nature is as real as the material world 
 around us. It is not because we are enabled to trace in 
 the latter some of the laws by which physical order is 
 regulated, the uniformity of which consists with that watch- 
 ful Providence without whom a sparrow falls not to the 
 ground ; a uniformity, moreover, without which we could 
 not have a miracle at all — it is not because of this order in 
 the material world, that we are to ignore other facts as 
 real : the freedom and responsibility, the weakness and 
 dependence, the religious instincts and the moral sugges- 
 tions that are the mysteries of our being. There is a 
 spiritual and a moral system, as well as a cosmical order, 
 in the universe. The spiritual and the moral transcend the 
 material. " The case of the miracle," says Professor Jellett, 
 " is no question of the universality of the law of causation 
 which the Christian theory obeys as perfectly as its oppo- 
 nents. The question is, whether, in addition to the causes 
 which we see in operation every day, another cause, the 
 direct interference of God, has acted at certain rare inter- 
 vals ; and whether this be true must be decided by con- 
 siderations of the general probability of such unusual 
 interference, the most important of these being the plausi- 
 bility of the special case which can be made out for such 
 special interference ; and secondly, direct testimony that 
 the alleged effect has been produced. General physical rea- 
 sonings do not really affect the question. All that such 
 
4l6 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 reasonings can establish is, that if no other cause act but 
 those which we see usually operating, and the laws of' 
 whose operation we know, a certain effect will invariably 
 follow. But they do not and cannot tell us what effect 
 will be produced under the influence of a new cause, the 
 laws of whose action we know imperfectly or not at all. 
 Information in such cases can only be given to us by testi- 
 mony. In fact,'where the new cause is human interference, 
 this is quite conceded." The provision made for this new 
 cause, in the exercise of our responsible freedom, may well 
 teach us that He who could so establish the moral and the 
 material world on unchangeable laws conformable to His 
 eternal nature, that they should be unaffected by human 
 interference, is able also to provide for His own gracious 
 interference with the material world, in order to restore the 
 moral harmony that man had interrupted. The creature 
 has interfered with the higher system, and caused disorder ; 
 the Creator with the lower, to restore the moral order of 
 His own creation. 
 
 There is a tribute, though unconsciously paid, to Butler, 
 in what we find in the concession of Hume and of Baden 
 Powell, and still more in the exposition of Mr. Mill. It is 
 instructive to compare the summing up of his views at the 
 close of this chapter, with a summary which Mr. Mill has 
 furnished, and to which he has kindly allowecj me to refer. 
 Butler says : — " Upon all this I conclude that there cer-' 
 tainly is no such presumption against miracles as to render 
 them in anywise incredible ; but, on the contrary, our being 
 able to discern reasons for them, gives a positive credibility 
 to the history of them in cases where those reasons hold ; 
 and that it is by no means certain that there is any pecu- 
 liar presumption at all from analogy, even in the lowest 
 degree, against miracles as distinguished from other ex- 
 traordinary phenomena." The summary of Mr. Mill, to 
 which I have referred, is in these words : — 
 
 " My view of the general question is briefly this : that a 
 miracle, considered merely as an extraordinary fact, is as 
 susceptible of proof as other extraordinary facts. That as 
 
PRESUMPTION AGAINST MIRACLES. 417 
 
 a miracle, it cannot, in the strict sense, be proved, because 
 there never can be conclusive proof of its miraculous 
 nature ; but that to anyone who already believes in an 
 intelligent Creator and Ruler of the universe, the moral 
 probability that a given extraordinarj?^ event (supposed to 
 be fully proved) is a miracle, may greatly outweigh the 
 probability of its being the result of some unknown natural 
 cause/' I have already observed that for " proved " and 
 "proof," the words "^demonstrated" and "demonstration" 
 should be substituted. Butler has assumed throughout the 
 existence of an intelligent Author of Nature, and has 
 shown that He is the Moral Governor of the world ; that, 
 although there cannot be a strict demonstration of a fact, 
 there may be a convincing proof ; that, from the facts 
 which testimony can establish, with all the attendant cir- 
 cumstances, the moral inference proper to be drawn may 
 be clear and certain ; that there is no antecedent pre- 
 sumption to make the miracle incredible, and there may be 
 moral reasons to give a positive credibility to the narrative. 
 Is not this sustained by the summary of Mr. Mill, and 
 is it not, in all that is material, logically accurate, and 
 morally sufficient ?* 
 
 Where is now the supposed peculiar presumption against 
 miracles in general ? In Mr. Mill's clear and compendious 
 summary it has vanished before the belief in an intelligent 
 Creator and Ruler of the universe. This is the only 
 "previous belief and assumption of the parties" (to use 
 the words of Mr. Baden Powell) that Mr. Mill requires, to 
 -make that a miracle properly so called, which he who ber 
 lieves not in a personal God (the atheist and the pantheist) 
 ■ will consistently regard as the result of some unknown 
 .natural law of the material world. Can this presumption, 
 then, be other than as Butler has described it? Can this 
 be too strong for testimony to overcome if it is found to 
 pass away with the unbelief that has given it birth ? Can 
 it be estimated by those who believe in a God ? 
 
 • See "Aids to Faith," p. 29. Hampd. Phil. Ev., p. 236. 
 
41 8 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 " Once admit the existence of a personal God, and His 
 interference with the ordinary course of nature is not in- 
 credible, even if we could tell no reason why such an 
 interference might be expected." Thus the question 
 of miracles resolves itself, at last, into that of atheism_ 
 There seems to be no consistent position between the dis- 
 belief in a personal God and the acknowledgment of " the 
 pure word by miracle revealed." 
 
 " I had rather " (says Bacon) " believe all the fables in 
 the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that 
 this universal frame is without a mind ; and, therefore, 
 God never wrought miracle to convince atheism, because 
 His ordinary works convince it." His eternal power and 
 Godhead, " the invisible things" of the Creator, from the 
 time of the Creation, are therein manifested, because God 
 has so created the world as to leave impressed on it this 
 testimony as to Himself. Hence it is that Bacon speaks 
 of miracles as " new creations," which are connected with 
 the work of redemption, " whereto all God's signs and 
 miracles do refer" (Vol. VH., p. 221, and see p. 243). 
 
 The discoveries of modern science bring out more 
 palpably the special character of the miracles of Revelation. 
 These gather around the great central fact which stands 
 unique in its sublime and solemn majesty — the finished 
 work of man's redemption. Science, as she progresses, 
 shuts us up the more to the acknowledgment of the mys- 
 tery of God manifest in the flesh ; for the miracles by 
 which this has been attested are found incapable of other 
 solution than this — they are signs from God. How con- 
 sistent, then, that these should stand out in such striking 
 contrast with the course and order of nature, as God's 
 witnesses to His gracious interference with the course of 
 justice ! The great poet speaks from the heart to the 
 heart in that noble passage — 
 
 " Therefore, Jew, 
 Though justice be thy plea, consider this — 
 That in the course of justice, none of us 
 Should see salvation ; we do pray for mercy.' 
 
PRESUMPTION AGAINST MIRACLES. 419 
 
 Here we expect — we implore the Divine interposition — 
 the mercy that is itself a miracle. The religious affections, 
 the instincts of our nature, speak in the voice of prayer, by 
 which we acknowledge that He who has so settled the 
 order of the world as to leave nothing to chance, nothing 
 that is not provided, is the 
 
 " Divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Rough-hew them how we will." 
 
 Events which sensibly affect our destiny we instinct- 
 ively call providential, when some special occasion re- 
 minds us of the watchful providence of God. We should 
 remember that the hairs of our heads are numbered — that 
 " in Him we live and move and have our being." In the 
 significant words of Butler : " What is natural as much 
 requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it 
 so, i.e., to effect it continually, or at stated times, as what 
 is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once." 
 
 In considering the question of the miracles, we are not 
 asked to investigate some isolated wonder occurring sud- 
 denly by surprise, without warning and without connec- 
 tion. Mr. Smith, the respected minister of St. Stephen's 
 Church, has in his valuable treatise on the Christian 
 Miracles, admirably expounded their connection with the 
 moral system and the work of redemption. This is all- 
 important. For, as Dr. Johnson has wisely observed : 
 " Although God has made nature to operate by certain 
 fixed laws, yet it is not unreasonable to think that He 
 may suspend those laws, in order to establish a system 
 highly advantageous to mankind." 
 
 " Here then we rest, not fearing for our creed 
 The worst that human reasoning can achieve 
 To unsettle or perplex it." 
 
 It is now conceded that the facts set forth in the nar- 
 rative of our historical religion are the proper subject of 
 
420 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 testimony, and that by testimony they may be accredited. 
 This is indeed the great concession. The power of God 
 had been at first denied, then, the sufficiency of testimony ; 
 but the assailant at last retreats to his native home in the 
 '.' heart of unbelief" The special difficulty is acknow- 
 ledged to be, exclusively, the moral difficulty of him who 
 does not believe in a personal God ; we need not pursue it 
 further. 
 
 I feel that I have drifted into a digression, for which I 
 ask your indulgent consideration, as the subject is one oi 
 great interest and importance in its general aspect. Nor 
 is it in other respects merely an academic question. For 
 if I have been enabled in any way to vindicate the accu- 
 racy of the illustrious Butler, to expand his argument, and 
 place it in a light that may enable some of you to appre- 
 hend it with exactness and satisfaction, I have so far done 
 a service to his honoured memory, and to the cause of re- 
 ligion, which was dear to his heart. I feel indebted, more 
 than I can express, to those esteemed friends with whom I 
 have communicated on this somewhat difficult chapter; 
 they are of " the excellent of the earth" — men of learning, 
 candour, and piety. Nor can I conclude this lecture with- 
 out acknowledging a deep sense of gratitude to God, that 
 He has led me here to examine these evidences of His 
 power and His goodness. The miracles were works of 
 mercy ; the doctrines were words of truth — " Mercy and 
 truth are met together." They point to the moral order 
 yet to be completed in " the restitution of all things," in 
 " the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness" — when each 
 
 " Inspired 
 By choice, and conscious that the will is free, 
 Shall move unswerving, even as if impelled 
 By strict necessity, along the path 
 Qf order and of good." 
 
PRESUMPTION AGAINST MIRACLES. 421 
 
 Letter to Mr Mark Napier. 
 
 I HAVE been very deep in a chapter in Butler, which has been a 
 puzzle to some of our wiseacres, and I think I have made out 
 the meaning. I have to give a reading on it to the Young Men's 
 Association in connection with the Church, on the 31st. I will 
 afterwards send you a copy. 
 
 It is a curious instance of the tendency of theological men 
 to construe an author by the light of their own dogmas. 
 
 After all, good forensic training is an admirable exercise for 
 the mind. 
 
 With very kind regards, I am, 
 
 1 
 
 Very faithfully your obliged, 
 
 J. Napier. 
 
THE COMMUNION SERVICE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Cturri} of CEnglanli anU IrclantJ. 
 
 T 
 
 HE title or heading of this Service in the authorized 
 Book of Common Prayer is this : — 
 
 THE ORDER FOR THE 
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE LORD'S SUPPER; 
 
 OR, 
 
 "IbolB Communion. 
 
 What is meant by the " Holy Communion " ? It is the 
 partaking of a heavenly Feast by communicants at the 
 Lord's Table.* Accordingly, the Twenty-eighth Article 
 of Religion says, " To such as rightly, worthily, and with 
 faith receive the same, the Bread which we break is a par- 
 taking [communicatio] of the Body of Christ, and likewise 
 the Cup of Blessing is a partaking [communicaiio] of the 
 Blood of Christ." 
 
 "The Body of Christ" (says this Article) "is given, 
 taken, and eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and 
 spiritual manner : and the mean whereby the Body of 
 Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith." 
 
 In the Twenty-ninth Article it is stated that " such as 
 be void of a lively faith in no wise partake of Christ." 
 
 * I Cor. X. 1 6. 
 
THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 423, 
 
 The Rubric directs a form to be Used " when the 
 Minister giveth warning for the celebration of the Holy 
 Communion": — "I purpose, through God's assistance, to 
 administer to all such as shall be religiously and devoutly 
 disposed the most comfortable Sacrament of the Body and 
 Blood of Christ ; to be by them received in remembrance^ 
 of His meritorious Cross and Passion ; whereby alone we 
 obtain remission of our sins, and are made partakers of thej 
 Kingdom of heaven." 
 
 The Communion is described in this form as " Hj 
 heavenly Feast," to which those who are invited are re- 
 minded that they should come " in the marriage-garment 
 required by God in Holy Scripture, and be received as 
 worthy partakers of that holy Table." 
 
 Here we have the Church's summary of the nature and 
 purpose of this Sacrament. We proceed next to the Ser-' 
 vice itself ; 
 
 First, there is the Offertory, during which " Alms for 
 the Poor, and other devotions of the people "* are directed to' 
 be Collected " m a decent basin, which is to be brought reve-; 
 rently to the Priest, who shall humbly present and place it 
 upon the holy Table" The Rubric then directs that " z£//4««. 
 there is a Communion, the Priest shall place upon the Table 
 so much Bread and Wine as he shall think sufficient.:, 
 Whether there is or is not a Communion, the prayer is 
 used in which we humbly beseech God " most mercifully ta 
 accept our alms and oblations" ''If there be no alms or 
 oblations" this part is to be left unsaid. 
 
 A question has been made, whether the word " oblations', : 
 in this prayer, includes the Bread and Wine (if any) " placed 
 upon the Table." This should be answered as a question' 
 of construction. From the Offertory Sentences, it is obt 
 vious that the collection may consist of offerings as well ag 
 alms — " other devotions of the people ;" and the whole is 
 to be. disposed of to ''pious and charitable uses" aa proivided 
 
 * Acts xxiv. 17. 
 
424 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 by the Rubric at the close of the Service. There may be 
 a collection without a Communion, and there might be a 
 Communion of poor communicants without a collection. 
 The words of the prayer are proper in the former case, but 
 not in the latter, for then confessedly there are no " alms " 
 to be accepted. We find in' the special Office for the 
 Communion of the Sick, there is no reference to any kind 
 of offering or oblation whatsoever. The prayer for the 
 acceptance of alms and oblations is not a part of this 
 Office. 
 
 Alms and oblations are the offerings of the communi- 
 cants ; but the Bread and Wine are directed by the Rubric 
 to be provided by the Curate and the Churchwardens, at 
 the charges of the parish. Waterland has truly said : — 
 "We consider not the elements when presented before 
 God, as properly our gifts to Him, but as His gifts to us, 
 which we pray may be consecrated to spiritual uses."* 
 
 From the failure of the attempt that was made at the 
 time of the last revision of the Prayer Book, to insert the 
 words, " offer up, and" before the word "place " in this 
 Rubric, we have a key to open its meaning.f There is 
 another matter not less decisive. In the Rubric which 
 provides for the consecration of more Bread or Wine (if 
 required), nothing farther is directed than to use the form, 
 prescribed in the prayer of consecration. It is assumed 
 that all the Bread or Wine that was placed on the Table 
 at the first, and afterwards consecrated, has been spent 
 before the supplemental consecration is to take place, and 
 it cannot be said, that the additional Bread or Wine is a 
 part of the " oblations " previously presented. On the 
 whole, it is plain that the word " oblations," in the prayer, 
 is applicable to, and does not include more than, the Offer- 
 tory Collection. 
 
 So far, thereforp, the Service seems to be clear and 
 consistent; and the answer given as to the meaning of 
 
 * Vol. IV., p. 740. Ed. 1843. 
 
 t Proctor on tlie Book of Common Prayer, p. 343. 
 
THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 425. 
 
 oblations, in the prayer, appears to be decisive. The re- 
 jection of the words, " offer up," which were proposed to be. 
 inserted in the Rubric in 166 1, is the more to be noticed for 
 the reason given in the admirable Preface to the Prayer 
 Book : — " Of the sundry alterations proposed unto us, we\ 
 kave rejected all such as were either of dangerous consequence, 
 (as secretly striking at some established doctrine, or laudable. 
 Practice of the Church of England, or indeed of the whole 
 Catholic Church of Christ), or else of no consequence at all, 
 but utterly frivolous and vain." 
 
 We pass from the prefatory to the introductory part of 
 the Service. The communicants are supposed to be con- 
 veniently placed for the receiving of the holy Sacrament. 
 A form of Exhortation is then to be used, in which they 
 are reminded of what is required for all such as shall be 
 meet partakers of those holy mysteries, which were insti- 
 tuted and ordained by our Lord " as pledges of His love, 
 and for a continual remembrance of His death, to our great 
 and endless comfort " — " to the end that we should alway 
 remember the exceeding great love of our Master and only 
 Saviour Jesus Christ thus dying for us, and the innumer- 
 able benefits which by His precious blood-shedding He 
 hath ordained for us."* Compare this exhortation with 
 the form of warning, and observe the complete harmony 
 between them. 
 
 The confession and precatory absolution follow, before 
 we come to the prayer of consecration of the Bread and 
 Wine placed upon the Table. This prayer requires to be 
 deliberately considered. Here it is proper to follow the 
 wise suggestion given in the Preface to our Prayer Book — 
 to " take the pains to compare the present Book with the 
 former " — the revised and authorized Liturgy with that set 
 forth in the First Prayer Book of 1 549. 
 
 * See Exod. xii. 14; Deut. xvi. 2, 3. 
 
426, LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 In the former Prayer Book, the Priest is directed to set 
 the Bread and Wine upon the Altar, and then turning to 
 the Altar, he was to say or sing the prayer that begins with 
 what is called the Canon, in which the congregation is said- 
 to have assembled " to celebrate the commemoration " of the 
 death of Christ. Then follows a prayer for the sanctifying 
 and blessing of the Bread and Wine on the Altar. In this, 
 it is said that our Lord "did institute and in His holy- 
 gospel command us to celebrate a perpetual memory of; 
 that His precious death ;" and the Priest (" turning stjll to, 
 the Altar, without any elevation, or showing the Sacrament 
 to the people") is directed to invoke the descent of the 
 Holy Spirit upon the Bread and Wine — " to bless and 
 sanctify these thy gifts and creatures of Bread and Wine " 
 (making upon them the sign of the cross), " that they may 
 be unto us the Body and Blood of thy most dearly beloved 
 Son Jesus Christ." 
 
 This is followed by the prayer of oblation in these 
 words : — " Wherefore, O Lord and heavenly Father, accord-' 
 ing to the institution of thy dearly beloved Son, our 
 Saviour Jesus Christ, we thy humble servants do celebrate 
 and make here before thy Divine Majesty, with these thy holy 
 gifts, the memorial which thy Son hath willed us to make" 
 &c. 
 
 God is then asked to accept " this our sacrifice of praise' 
 and thanksgiving :" there is next the offer of our soul's and 
 bodies as a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto Him ;^ 
 and a prayer for all who shall be partakers of this Holy 
 Communion, that they may " worthily receive the mosf 
 precious Body and Blood of Christ." 
 
 But before the celebration of the memorial has been 
 made, which is here said to have been commanded, there 
 has not been any partaking in common ; a receiving with 
 faith or in remembrance has not been required of any com- 
 municant. An objective oblation has been offered at the 
 Altar, by the officiating Priest, as the mediator and inter- 
 cessor for the people. The language is consistent ; there 
 
THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 427. 
 
 is an altar, an oblation, a memorial celebrated, and so 
 forth. 
 
 Now turn from this to the reformed and authorized 
 Liturgy. Here we have " the celebration of the Holy Com- 
 munion." This includes the consecration of the Bread and 
 Wine, the partaking in common, in remembrance, with 
 faith and thanksgiving. The whole is the act of the Priest 
 and the people together. The Rubric directs that " there 
 shall be no celebration of the Lord's Supper except there 
 be a convenient number to communicate with the Priest 
 according to his discretion." The Homily on the subject, 
 which is incorporated with the Thirty-fifth Article (and is 
 thereby made a part of it), says, " Herein thou needest no 
 other man's help, no other sacrifice or oblation, no sacri- 
 ficing priest, no mass, no means established by man's, 
 invention."* 
 
 The prayer of consecration is directed to be said by 
 the Priest " standing before the Table " — not " turning to the 
 Altar'.' The Bread and Wine are to be so placed " that he 
 may with the more readiness and decency break the Bread 
 before the people, and take the Cup into his hands" — not 
 "without shewing the Sacrament to the people" The Canon 
 is altogether omitted. The word " continue " is substituted 
 for " celebrate',' as to the perpetual memory of the death of 
 our blessed Lord. Instead of the prayer for the blessing of 
 the Bread and Wine placed on the Altar, the following is 
 substituted in the prayer of consecration at the Table : — 
 
 " Grant that we \i.e., the Priest and people], receiving 
 [not offering] these thy creatures of Bread and Wine, 
 according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy insti- 
 tution, in remembrance of His death and passion, may be 
 partakers of His most blessed Body and Blood." Every 
 word that might express or imply an oblation in any form 
 is carefully excluded. It is not a memorial celebrated by 
 an offering on the Altar, but a Sacrament to be received in 
 
 * Horn, 378. 
 
428. LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 remembrance at the Lord's Table. The prayer of oblation 
 is consistently and designedly omitted, because no oblation 
 is contemplated. 
 
 The word " celebration " is applied to the complete 
 Service of the Holy Communion taken as a whole. The 
 Bread and Wine are consecrated with the Word of God and 
 prayer. St. Paul speaks of them as the bread which we 
 break and the cup which we bless (i Cor. x. i6). "We are 
 all partakers of that one bread" (v. 17). This includes all 
 the faithful in whose name the prayer is said by the Priest 
 at the Table. As this preparatory Service precedes the 
 Communion, and assumes the rightly receiving by all to 
 be the remembrance commanded, the prayer of thanks- 
 giving and of self-dedication to God has been transposed,, 
 so as to be used by all, after all have communicated, and 
 not before. In the Prayer Book of 1549, in which the 
 oblation offered up by the Priest was regarded as the 
 memorial to be celebrated, the prayer of oblation and of 
 thanksgiving, &c., were consistently combined. In the 
 Reformed Service, the prayer of oblation was, with not less 
 propriety, altogether omitted, and the prayer of thanks- 
 giving transferred to the post-Communion service. 
 
 The comment of Archdeacon Wilberforce, in which he 
 censures this omission and transposition, is very decisive as 
 to its true import and effect. This is the opinion of one 
 who joined the Church of Rome. " The Service was 
 divested of its sacrificial character, and no longer bore wit- 
 ness as in early times to the great event which is transacted 
 at the Altar. This was done both by mutilating the prayer 
 of oblation which had been retained in the Book of 1 548,* 
 and by placing it after, instead of before, the Communion.''^ 
 
 The alterations made in this prayer are of the highest 
 importance. Here we have the Church's authorized doc- 
 trine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. It is offered by Priest 
 
 * I.f., the First Prayer Book, sometimes referred to the date of 1549. 
 t Wilberforce on the Eucharist, pp. 378-80 (3rd Ed.). 
 
THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 429 
 
 and people as a sacrifice 01 praise and thanksgiving, not 
 before, but in the Holy Communion as one entire spiritual 
 service. All who receive with faith are offerers alike ; and 
 none other is an offerer, whether he is a priest or a layman., 
 " The which thing because we ought chiefly at this Table 
 to solemnize, the godly Fathers named ' Eucharistia,' that 
 is. Thanksgiving ; as if they would have said — now, above 
 all other times, ye ought to laud and praise God." * 
 
 The post-Communion prayer describes the whole com- 
 pleted Service as ^' this our sacrifice of praise and thanks- 
 giving!' No other sacrifice on the part of Priest or people 
 is suggested, but that of offering themselves to the service 
 of God. We see, then, what the Church means by Holy 
 Communion ; what is meant by the Eucharist ; and what 
 by the Eucharistic Sacrifice. It is a spiritual and com- 
 memorative service of Priest and people, in which the 
 most comfortable Sacrament of the Body and Blood 01 
 Christ is administered to those who are religiously and 
 devoutly disposed, and is partaken by all who rightly, 
 worthily, and with faith, receive the same in remembrance 
 of His meritorious Cross and Passion. 
 
 The Minister is directed, first to receive in both kinds 
 himself, and then to minister in order to the other com- 
 municants. The form now used in delivering the conse- 
 crated bread and wine to each communicant, " contains the 
 most antient and simple words of delivery, adding the 
 prayer formed with them in Gregory's time, and continued 
 in the Missal ; and also the favorite words of the stanchest 
 Reformers, implying that each individual is to take and 
 eat and drink, with an application of the merits of Christ's 
 death to his own soul." f 
 
 There were other alterations made in this Service to 
 which it is proper to advert. In addition to what has been 
 already noticed, the Articles declared that the Sacrament? 
 
 * Horn. 380. 
 t Proctor on the Book of Common Prayer, p. 35»- 
 
43° LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 were not ordained to be gazed upon, but that we should 
 duly use them : that the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper 
 was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, Hfted 
 up, or worshipped ; that transubstantiation is repugnant to 
 Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and 
 hath given occasion to many superstitions. Every word was 
 weeded out of the Service which might be supposed to 
 imply that Christ was otherwise present than in the heart 
 and soul of such as rightly and worthily receive with faith 
 the holy Sacrament.* The posture of kneeling is declared 
 to be for a signification of humble and grateful acknow- 
 ledgment of the benefits of Christ therein given to all 
 worthy receivers, but that no adoration thereby is intended, 
 or ought to be done either unto the Sacramental Bread or 
 Wine there bodily received, or unto any corporal presence 
 of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood. 
 
 The Service was mainly compiled by Cranmer and 
 Ridley, who were assisted by other eminent Reformers. 
 Waterland says : " I may spare myself the trouble of re- 
 citing the sentiments of Bishop Ridley and Bishop Latimer 
 and Mr. Bradford of that time, and of Bishop Jewel, who 
 came not long after, for they all agreed in the main things 
 with Archbishop Cranmer, who may therefore be looked 
 upon instar omnium, while in him we have all." He de- 
 scribes Cranmer as one whose method was " not to strike 
 out any new hypotheses or theories by strength of wit, but 
 to inquire after the old paths, and there to abide. He 
 was a judicious man and a well-read divine, and more 
 particularly in what concerns the Eucharist." f 
 
 " I may shut up this account" (he says) " with the ex- 
 cellent words of Archbishop Cranmer, as follows : — 
 
 " ' The first Catholic Christian faith is most plain, clear, 
 and comfortable, without any difficulty, scruple, or doubt : 
 that is to say, that our Saviour Christ, although He be 
 
 * Hook. E. P., Vol. IL, B. V., ch. Ixvii., pp. 5, 6. 
 t Vol. IV., pp. 601, 603. 
 
THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 431 
 
 sitting in Heaven in equality with His Father, is our life, 
 strength, food, and sustenance ; who by His death de- 
 livered us from death, and daily nourishes and increases us 
 to eternal life. And in token hereof. He hath prepared 
 bread to be eaten and wine to be drunk of us in His Holy 
 Supper, to put us in remembrance of His said death and 
 of the celestial feeding, nourishing, increasing, and of all 
 the benefits which we have thereby : which benefits, through 
 faith and the Holy Ghost, are exhibited and given unto all 
 that worthily receive the said Holy Supper. This, the 
 husbandman at his plough, the weaver at his loom, and 
 the wife at her rock, can remember and give thanks unto 
 God for the same : this is the very doctrine of the Gospel, 
 with the consent wholly of all the old ecclesiastical doc- 
 tors.'"* Such is the admirable summing up of the opinions 
 — " the one voice "^of the mighty men who settled our 
 Reformed Service.f 
 
 We are further provided with an exposition of this 
 Service, that is not less authoritative from its intrinsic 
 excellence, than from its being the final interpretation 
 adopted by the Queen in Council. In this it is stated that, 
 " At the date of the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. 
 (1548-9) the doctrine of the English Church as to the 
 real presence, and the nature of the Holy Communion, 
 was undecided ; the Book therefore enjoined no change in 
 the form of the Altar, but spoke of the rite itself as the 
 Lord's Supper, commonly called the High Mass, and of 
 the structure indifferently by the names of the Altar and 
 the Lord's Table. It contains a prayer for the conse- 
 cration of the sacred elements, in which the sign of the 
 
 * Vol. IV., p. 610. 
 
 t Ridley's summary is as follows :— " The whole substance of our sacrifice 
 which is frequented of the Church in the Lord's Supper, consisteth in prayers, 
 praise, and the giving of thanks, and in remembering and shewing forth of 
 that sacrifice once offered upon the altar of the Cross, that the same might 
 continually be had in reverence by mystery, which once only and no more 
 was offered for the price of our redemption."— (Disp. at Oxford, Works, 
 p. 211.) 
 
432 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 cross is to be used. The bread is to be unleavened and 
 round as it was aforetime. The corporas, the paten, the 
 chalice, the vestments, are all articles directed to be used 
 in the Roman Catholic Ritual, and spoken of by those 
 names in the Missal. But by the time when the Second 
 Prayer Book was introduced, a great change had taken 
 place in the opinion of the English Church, and the conse- 
 quence was, that on the revision of the Service, these 
 several matters were completely altered." 
 
 After having specified some of the alterations, and 
 referred to the Articles of 1 562 as setting forth with great 
 precision the distinction between the Lord's Supper and 
 the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Judgment proceeds to say : — 
 " This change in the view taken of the nature of the Sac- 
 raments naturally called for a corresponding change in the 
 ancient Altar. It was no longer to be an Altar of sacri- 
 fice, but merely a Table at which the communicants were 
 to partake of the Lord's Supper." 
 
 In another part of the Judgment, it is said that " the 
 distinction between an Altar and a Communion Table is 
 ,in itself essential and deeply founded in the most important 
 ■difference in matters of faith between Protestants and Ro- 
 manists ; namely, in the different notions of the nature of 
 .the Lord's Supper which prevailed in the Roman Catholic 
 Church at the time of the Reformation, and those which 
 were introduced by the Reformers. By the former it was 
 considered a sacrifice of the Body and Blood of the Sa- 
 viour. The Altar was the place on which the sacrifice 
 was to be made ; the elements were to be consecrated, and, 
 being so consecrated, were treated as the actual Body and 
 Blood of the Victim. The Reformers, on the other hand, 
 considered the Holy Communion, not as a sacrifice but as 
 a feast to be celebrated at the Lord's Table, though, as 
 to the consecration of the elements, and the effect of this 
 consecration, and several other points, they differed greatly 
 amongst themselves." 
 
 The distinction stated by Cudworth, in his learned 
 
THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 433 
 
 discourse on the subject, is cited with approval : — " We 
 see, then, how that theological controversy, which had cost 
 so many disputes, whether the Lord's Supper be a sacrifice, 
 is already decided ; for it is not ' sacrificium,' but ' epu- 
 luml not a sacrifiice, but a feast upon sacrifice ; or else, in 
 other words, not ablatio sacrificii, but, as Tertullian excel- 
 lently speaks, participatio sacrificii — not the offering of 
 something up to God upon an altar, but the eating of 
 something which comes from God's altar, and is set upon 
 our tables. Neither was it even known amongst the Jews 
 or Heathens, that those tables upon which they did eat their 
 
 sacrifices, should be called by the name of altars 
 
 . Therefore, he (St. Paul) must needs call the Communion 
 Table by the name of the Lord's Table, i.e., the Table 
 upon which God's meat is eaten, not His Altar upon which 
 it is offered."* 
 
 I may here observe, that this treatise of Cudworth is 
 noticed by Archdeacon Waterland as setting forth the 
 prevailing doctrine of our divines both before and since : 
 " that there is not any proper or material sacrifice in the 
 Eucharist, but a symbolical feast upon a sacrifice, that is to 
 say, upon the grand sacrifice itself, commemorated under 
 certain symbols."-]- Cudworth published his treatise in 
 1642 ; and in 1661 the abortive attempt was made to in- 
 troduce the words " offer up" into the Rubric as to placing 
 the Bread and Wine on the Table.:[: 
 
 The injunctions of' Ridley and of Queen Elizabeth, as 
 to Tables and Altars, are set out in the Judgment. To 
 the allegation that the Communion Table is generally so 
 arranged as to be more like a fixed structure than a 
 movable table, the answer is given, " that the distinction 
 between an Altar and a Table is in itself essential; that 
 the circumstances which constitute the distinction, how- 
 ever trifling in themselves, are, for that reason, important." 
 
 * Liddel v. Westerton. Brodrich and Freemantle's Eccl. Judgment, 
 P.O. 144-152. 
 
 t Vol. IV., p. 725. I Ante, p. 425. 
 
434 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 This interpretation of the Articles and Formularies was 
 pronounced by some of the most eminent judicial autho- 
 rities in England, attached members of the Church, and in 
 every respect entitled to our deference. The late Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, and the present Bishop of London, 
 concurred in the Judgment, which was reported to and 
 adopted by the Queen in Council. It is not lawful for any 
 minister of the National Church to impugn or oppose what 
 has been thus settled by lawful authority. ■ It is binding 
 as the law of the National Church. It is no more open tc 
 be impugned or opposed by a minister of the National 
 Church, than the exposition of an Act of Parliament by 
 the House of Lords on a writ of error, could be opposed oi 
 set aside by any subject of this Realm. 
 
 It does not appear that any attempt has been made to 
 show that the Reformed Service, as it has been established, 
 is not of the character and import so clearly stated in this 
 Judgment. But a method of impugning is sometimes 
 adopted, by manufacturing a catena of extracts from the 
 voluminous writings of theologians, from which doctrine 
 is extracted, in derogation of that established by law. 
 These should never be taken on trust without eJcamining 
 the context, and having regard to other considerations 
 that are material to a right understanding of the authors. 
 Amongst the names of those from whose writings selec- 
 tions are thus made, we find several of the Non-Jurors — 
 seceders from our Church ! 
 
 In an able comment of Mr. Goode, on a catena, he 
 says : — 
 
 " The true test of the consonancy of the authors under 
 review with the teaching of any particular divine is this — 
 not whether this divine used certain phrases that they use 
 to express their doctrine, but whether they use or would 
 be willing to use certain other phrases and statements 
 which that divine used, and by which he showed what his 
 real views were."* 
 
 * Goode on the Eucharist, Vol. II., p. 958. 
 
THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 435 
 
 Two passages from Waterland (and many such might 
 be added) illustrate the force of this remark, and may be 
 used as tests when his name is found in a catena : — 
 
 " The Fathers well understood that to make Christ's 
 natural body the real sacrifice of the Eucharist, would not 
 only be absurd in reason, but highly presumptuous and 
 profane ; and that to jnake the outwai'd symbols a proper 
 sacrifice, a material sacrifice, would be entirely contrary to 
 Gospel principles, degrading the Christian sacrifice into a 
 Jewish one, yea, and making it much lower and meaner 
 than the Jewish, both in value and dignity. The right 
 way, therefore, was to make the sacrifice spiritual, and it 
 could be no other upon Gospel principles!' * 
 
 " No one has any authority or right to offer Christ as 
 a sacrifice, whether really or symbolically, but Christ 
 Himself Such a sacrifice is His sacrifice, not ours ; 
 
 offered for us, and not by us, to God the Father 
 
 He is not the matter or subject of our sacrifices, but the 
 Mediator. We offer not Him, but by Him." f 
 
 The Articles and the Formularies, including the Ru- 
 brics and the Homilies incorporated with the Thirty-fifth 
 Article, are part of the law of Church and State. It is in 
 these, and not in the writings of Non-Jurors or in de- 
 tached extracts from other divines, that we are, in the 
 first instance, to seek for the authorized doctrine of the 
 National Church. They are by law established, and as 
 such they must be interpreted according to rules of law. 
 These rules are not arbitrary or conventional, depending 
 on technical distinctions ; but, on the contrary, the well- 
 considered deductions of sound reason and common-sense, 
 commanding assent from their intrinsic propriety and 
 justice. "The most important of all these rules," says 
 
 • Vol. IV., p. 762. t Vol. IV., p. 753- 
 
436 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Dr. Lushington,* " and which must be applied before all 
 others, is that where anything has been clearly expressed 
 by the words of the Articles, no other meaning should 
 be attempted to be put upon them by reference to any 
 
 authority whatever Indeed, it is manifest that if 
 
 this rule be not observed, the Articles could no longer be 
 considered as settling the doctrines therein contained as 
 the doctrines of the Church, but it would be open to 
 anyone to try the truth of the Articles over again, and to 
 contend that their plain interpretation was not correct, but 
 ought to be reformed according to the authorities cited. 
 Hence all would be doubt, uncertainty, and confusion : for 
 it is an easy matter, among the voluminous stores of theo- 
 ■logical learning, to select particular passages which, taken 
 alone, might, by the ingenuity of disputants, if admitted 
 ;as a standard of comparison, tend, priind facie, to show 
 ■that another meaning might be put on the Articles, dif- 
 ferent in some respects from that which the ordinary rules 
 of construction would affix." f What is here said as to 
 the Articles, may be applied to the Formularies, to this 
 extent — that the doctrine therein distinctly stated, or 
 plainly involved in or to be collected from that which is 
 expressed, must be taken to be the doctrine established 
 by law, " as this Church and Realm hath' received the 
 same." 
 
 When a subject on which an author treats has not 
 • been discussed in his own time, it is not uncommon for a 
 writer of eminence to furnish a store of materials for 
 controversy rather than to give out distinct conclusions, 
 by which he is prepared to abide. " How inconsistent 
 [Jeremy] Taylor often is!" says Coleridge (and he could 
 appreciate his characteristic excellence as well as his cha- 
 racteristic faults).| In another part of the same volume, 
 
 * Ditcher v. Denison. Brodr. and Freem. 163. 
 t Special Report of Proceedings at Bath, 1856. 
 t " Notes on English Divines," Vol, I., p. 194. 
 
THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 437 
 
 where he comments on the use which Taylor himself 
 makes of a catena, he says : " It would require a volume to 
 show the qualifications with which these excerpta must be 
 read. There is no one source of error more fruitful than 
 this custom of quoting detached sentences!' * 
 
 When we use the test of the Articles and Formularies 
 to try the lawfulness of doctrine which may have been 
 preached in one of our churches, the language used by the 
 preacher should be interpreted in the sense in which it 
 must be supposed to have been understood by those to 
 whom it was addressed. If, when it is thus taken in its 
 common acceptation, it is found to be inconsistent with 
 the plain sense and import of the Articles and Formu- 
 laries, it is unlawful. 
 
 In the case of a learned treatise there may be such 
 limitations stated, such explanatory comment and such 
 a glossary superadded, that a careful or learned reader 
 cannot be misled ; but a sermon preached is not generally 
 so guarded, and may altogether mislead those who are 
 unused to scholastic distinctions, and are unequal to lofty 
 flights.f The aeronaut may be at ease and Self-possessed, 
 when the novice who has ventured on an ascent, may 
 become giddy and confused. 
 
 Two rules should be carefully attended to, if we desire 
 that our Church should continue to be National : — 
 
 1st. To ascertain the meaning of the Articles and the 
 Formularies of the National Church, from the words in 
 which they are expressed, and by the settled rules of 
 interpretation. 
 
 2nd. To judge of the teaching or preaching of any 
 minister of the National Church by the meaning naturally 
 
 ♦ "Notes on English Divines," Vol. I., p. 310- See, also, Hare's Charges, 
 Vol. III., p. 229. 
 
 t See the loth Irish Canon of 1634. 
 
438 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 conveyed to those to whom his words have been advisedly 
 addressed. 
 
 We must not suffer ourselves to be diverted, in any 
 case, from the direct comparison of what is taught by the 
 preacher, with the estabHshed standard of the Church. 
 To test it by a reference to the garbled opinion of divines, 
 however eminent, whose authority could not be admitted 
 to set aside what the Church has declared and the State 
 has established by law, is worse than irrelevant ; it is nei- 
 ther lawful nor expedient. " The Court is most anxious," 
 says Dr. Lushington, " that its Judgment should not be 
 misunderstood ; that it should not be supposed to express 
 any opinion that the clergy of this Realm should be re- 
 strained in their just liberty of fully discussing or inter- 
 preting what is really a subject (to use the words of Lord 
 Stowell) of dubious interpretation, or of advocating in such 
 cases their own opinions. What the Court condemns is 
 the imposition, by reference to extraneous sources, of a 
 meaning contrary and repugnant to that which the plain 
 words of the Article import, which, in fact, is tantamount 
 to the alteration of the Articles themselves." * 
 
 We have a National Church, and the law of Church 
 and State, which every minister of that Church is solemnly 
 bound to obey, prohibits him from teaching or preaching 
 any doctrine that is inconsistent with that which is set 
 forth in the Articles and Formularies. The final inter- 
 pretation which is given according to law, cannot be 
 lawfully opposed or impugned by a minister of the Church. 
 The obedience of our actions may be compelled : the de- 
 ference of our thoughts may be claimed : neither Church 
 nor State can go further. The Church and the State re- 
 quire that he who is authorized, and has solemnly pledged 
 himself, " to minister the Doctrine and the Sacraments, as 
 this Church and Realm hath received the same"\ should' 
 
 * Brodr. and Freem. 164-5. 
 
 t Office for the Ordering of Priests. 
 
THE COMMUNION SERVICE. 439 
 
 not use his authority to oppose or impugn any part of 
 that which he is bound to minister honestly to the people. 
 " That any clergyman should assume the liberty of incul- 
 cating his own private opinions in direct opposition to the 
 doctrines of the Established Church, in a place set apart 
 for its own public worship, is not more contrary to the 
 nature of a National Church than to all honest and ra- 
 tional conduct." * 
 
 ♦Judgment of Sir W. Scott (Lord Stowell) ia Stone's case. E. & F., 
 P. C. C, 350. 
 
SUGGESTIONS 
 
 SUBMITTED FOR CONSIDERATION ON 
 
 THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 
 
 (1876.) 
 
 SINCE the close of the last session of the General Synod 
 of the Church of Ireland, Episcopal Visitation Charges 
 have been delivered. There is not any objection to have 
 the grounds on which the Synod proceeded in their last 
 session calmly and deliberately reviewed, for the subject is 
 certainly one of the deepest interest and importance to the 
 Church of Ireland. As all her members, Episcopal, Clerical, 
 and Lay, are bound by the constitution and laws to which 
 they have solemnly pledged their submission, it is incum- 
 bent on each to contribute his help to the best of his 
 ability and opportunity, in aid of the responsible settle- 
 ment of the question at issue. 
 
 The recent Charges of the Bishop of Derry and of the 
 Archbishop of Armagh claim attention at present. It is 
 satisfactory to find from the admission made by the latter 
 that " he has had ample opportunity for a calm and con- 
 siderate review of the questions that were decided " in the 
 Synod during the last session. This would lead us to ex- 
 pect a statement of everything relevant and material that 
 can be brought forward in support of the side of the issue 
 upheld by the minority. The other side has been ably 
 sustained by the Episcopal expositions of the Bishops of 
 Meath, Killaloe, Ossory, and Limerick, and (to some ex- 
 tent) by the Bishop of Down. 
 
THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 44I 
 
 First of all then, it is to be noted that the question is 
 strictly Liturgical. It is on the omission of the rubric 
 which directs that the people are to join with the officiating 
 minister, in saying or singing at Morning Prayer, instead of 
 the Apostles' Creed, on certain appointed days, " the Con- 
 ■ fession of our Christian faith, commonly called the Creed of 
 St. A thanasius ;" and next as to the insertion of a rubric 
 directing the Liturgical use of a definite portion of this 
 Psalm (Quicunque Vult), instead of the Apostles' Creed, on 
 these days, by the minister and people standing. That 
 portion, which would thus be left without a rubrical direc- 
 tion for Liturgical use, is that which on the one side is said 
 not to be strictly part of the Church's Creed or Confession ! 
 whilst that portion of this Psalm which is affirmative and 
 declaratory of doctrine (and this part only) would be re- 
 tained for Liturgical use by the people and the ministers 
 in the public worship of our Church on the days ap- 
 pointed. 
 
 No question has been made that suggests the removal 
 of the Psalm Quicunque Vult from the place which it 
 occupies in the Book of Common Prayer. The full effect 
 (whatever it may be) of the Eighth Article will remain 
 without interference ; nothing is sought to be varied but in 
 relation to the Liturgical use of THE FIVE VERSES of the 
 Psalm which are known as the " admonitory clauses" The 
 General Synod has proceeded on the view taken by the 
 majority of our Bishops, that these five clauses are not 
 credenda* of the so-called Creed ; and further that the 
 compulsory use of them in public worship (as they stand 
 in the Liturgy) by the people and the minister, offends the 
 conscienceis of many, to whom they are a stumbling-block. 
 The Synod therefore could not regard this compulsory use 
 as edifying in public worship, when we ought with one 
 mind and one mouth to glorify God, even the Father of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, and which therefore we ought not to 
 
 * Chron. Conv. 292, May 7th, 1873. 404, May gth, 1873. 
 
442 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 make an occasion of stumbling to any of our brethren who 
 are thereby offended or made weak. 
 
 It does not appear that any further progress has been 
 made with the retranslation of the Quicunque Vult, that 
 was directed at Lambeth in 1871, and afterwards made 
 and reported in 1872. The laity of the Church of England 
 have had the express assurance of the Report of the Bishop 
 of Gloucester's Episcopal Committee, that several of the 
 clauses which they are at present directed by the law of 
 their Church, to join with the minister in publicly reciting, 
 have been mistranslated, and do not therefore convey the 
 milder meaning that may (as is said) have been intended 
 by the document, to the reception of which the Pope gave 
 his sanction, " ut quasi regula fidei habeatur." The amended 
 translation would seem sufficient to mitigate objection so 
 far as relates to some of the admonitory clauses; but there 
 would remain the second clause, which is perhaps the most 
 open to popular objection. I find, however, in the Report 
 of the Revision Committee of our Synod, 7th October, 1871, 
 the Lord Primate in the Chair, 
 
 Notice was given by the Bishop of Cork on behalf of 
 the Archbishop of Dublin — 
 
 That in the Creed of St. Athanasius, these words be 
 substituted for the second verse — 
 " Which faith it behoveth every one to keep whole 
 and undefiled : " and these words for the forty-second— 
 " This is the Catholic Faith, which it behoveth every- 
 one to keep whole and undefiled." 
 Afterwards on the 9th October, the Lord Primate in 
 the Chair, on the motion of Dr. Salmon, it was unanimously 
 resolved— 
 
 " That ' the damnatory clauses ' of the Creed of St. 
 Athanasius be not used in public worship." 
 Notice was given by the Lord Bishop of Cork on behalf 
 of the Archbishop of Dublin of his intention to move — 
 
 That the first clause be as follows — " Whosoever 
 would be saved, before all things it behoveth him to 
 hold the Catholic Faith." 
 
THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 443 
 
 This was moved on the loth October, but was rejected. 
 His Grace then withdrew his other proposals, which had 
 not then been considered by the Synod. 
 
 If this suggestion of the Archbishop of DubHn, together 
 with the recommendations of the Bishop of Gloucester's 
 Committee, should be adopted ; or if the suggestion of the 
 Cambridge Professors, as to the freedom with which (as 
 they advise) it is the privilege and the duty of the 
 Church to deal with the admonitory clauses, should be 
 acted on, in accordance with the opinion in their Report 
 made to the Bishop of Gloucester's Committee, it would be 
 quite open to settle the question, without involving the 
 apprehension of consequences or causing the distress and 
 disquietude, the fear of which (it is but too plain) deterred 
 the Convocation of York from taking decided action on the 
 motion of the Dean of Chester in 1872, and in 1873 on the 
 motion of the Bishop of Manchester for discontinuing the 
 compulsory use of the Quicunque. It may be admitted 
 that there should be in the document of Instruction some 
 form of admonition for Clergy and people, but it must now 
 be conformable to the Reformation rule of faith, i.e., the 
 Canonical Scriptures, and to them only. I presume that 
 the superseding of the recital of the Apostles' Creed will 
 not be adhered to, but that further change seems so far 
 inevitable ; and that until we secure what will be on the 
 whole the best practicable form, we shall retain without 
 wavering the position to which we have attained. The 
 Sermon of Dr. Pusey, and the second part of Butler's 
 Analogy, especially chaps. II., III., and VI., would supply 
 ample materials for framing an admonition on the respon- 
 sibility for our faith. 
 
 The issue raised being what I have stated, and the 
 Synod having, with the approval of the majority of the 
 Bishops, so far proceeded on the grounds that I have 
 pointed 'out, the onus is at present on the dissentient pre- 
 lates and their associates in the Synod, to show some flaw 
 in the argument or failure in the proof by which the course 
 of the Synod has been sustained. 
 
444 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 The Bishop of Derry opens his elaborate Charge with a 
 well-merited eulogium on the late Bishop of St. David's, 
 whom he describes as " a great prelate and deep thinker." 
 No man could gainsay the vigour, penetration, and grasp 
 of his intellect, or his fairness and moderation — his habit 
 of mind was eminently judicial. Doubtless he had no 
 liking for restless change nor for revision that was not 
 shown to be needful ; but when any dqmand for revision 
 was sustained by sound argument, he never met it with 
 an unreasoning and obstinate " non possumus " opposi- 
 tion. 
 
 With reference to the question that we have to deal 
 with, no one has expressed himself more clearly, as may 
 be seen in his opinion recorded in the Appendix to the 
 4th Report of the Ritual Commissioners. It is in these 
 words : — " I protest against the compulsory use of the 
 Athanasian Creed as not only an evil on account of the 
 effect it produces on many of the most intelligent and 
 attached members of our Church, but a wrong in itself It 
 may be impossible to ascertain the extent of the evil, or 
 the proportion of those who are offended by the Creed to 
 those who acquiesce in it, or even find themselves edified 
 by it. But this appears to me a point of comparatively 
 little moment. The important question is, whether those 
 who are offended by the Creed have just and reasonable 
 grounds of objection to it. I think they have. It appears 
 to me that in adopting such a document, the Church both 
 overstept the bounds of its rightful authority, and exercised 
 the usurped authority in an uncharitable and mischievous 
 way. Nothing (as it seems to me) could have warranted 
 such a step but a special revelation, placing the Creed on a 
 level with Holy Writ. It may be possible for theologians 
 to show by technical arguments, that it is a legitimate 
 development of doctrine implicitly contained in Scripture ; 
 but this, however fully admitted, would not justify the 
 Church in exacting assent to their conclusions under the 
 penalty of eternal perdition. This was, in fact, creating a 
 
THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 445 
 
 new offence against the Divine law, and introducing a 
 new term of salvation, on merely human authority. Look- 
 ing to the period when this innovation was first imposed 
 on Christians, we may find much excuse for its authors. 
 But viewed in the light of the fundamental principles of a 
 Reformed Church, it appears to me, as forming part of our 
 public Services, utterly indefensible. I strongly disapprove 
 of the explanatory note which has been appended to the 
 Athanasian Creed. I believe not only that it must fail to 
 serve the purpose for tvhich it was adopted, but that it will 
 aggravate the evil which it was designed to remedy. If 
 the ' Condemnations ' have hitherto been generally mis- 
 Understood (which I do not believe to be the case), it is too 
 late for any Commission, even if it could speak with autho- 
 rity, to correct the error of public opinion on this head ; 
 and if this was possible, it could not be effected by an ex- 
 planation which is vitiated by the ambiguity of the term 
 ' wilfully,' on which the whole meaning depends. The un- 
 successful attempt will be generally regarded as the admis- 
 sion of an evil, which ought to have been treated in a 
 different manner or left untouched." 
 
 His general indisposition to unnecessary revision made 
 him very scrupulous in requiring to be satisfied that a par- 
 ticular case pressed on him was urgent and well sustained 
 in reason and justice. 
 
 A Bishop (it is said by the Bishop of Derry) cannot be 
 a free enquirer as to a Creed of the Church. But the 
 claims of truth may imperatively require of him to make 
 diligent, full, and impartial inquiry into incidental matters, 
 that become material. Doubtless, the Bishop of a Diocese 
 is especially (because officially) bound to guard the deposit 
 of the Christian faith; to preserve and help to perpetuate 
 it in its integrity for the Church. The Bishop of Derry, 
 by lawful enquiry, might have easily found in one of the 
 volumes of Ecclesiastical Documents published A.D. 1871, 
 by two eminently learned Scholars of the University of 
 Oxford, a venerable precedent of the form of an Episcopal 
 
446 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 confession of faith presented to the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury by the Bishop-elect of Worcester, at the close of the 
 eighth century. In this document a portion of the Psalm 
 Quicunque is used (consisting of eleven verses), and from 
 this coni&ssion, four of the five admonitory clauses {a\\ ex- 
 cept the first) have been omitted. There is not any intima- 
 tion from any quarter that this omission was improper — 
 much less that it was a mutilation of a Creed of the Church. 
 The clauses of this Episcopal formula are set forth as con- 
 tinuous in the document ; and they are introduced in the 
 following terms : — - 
 
 " Insuperet orthodoxam, catholicam apostolicam fidem, 
 sicut didici, paucis exponam verbis, quia scriptum est qui- 
 cunque vult salvus esse," followed by eleven verses. 
 
 The Bishop-elect superadds his acceptance of the decrees 
 of the first six General Councils. (Haddan and Stubbs's 
 "Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents," Vol. III., p. 526.) 
 
 Here, then, is an early Episcopal compendium of the 
 " Creed " which he had learned {sicut didici), and which it 
 was his sacred duty to preserve and perpetuate as " an 
 orthodox Catholic and Apostolic profession of faith." 
 And with the Quicunque Vult before him, as it existed in 
 the year 798, he omits all the admonitory clauses after the 
 first, and this was used and accepted as an "orthodox, 
 Catholic, and Apostolic " confession.* 
 
 The whole of the Synod's treatment of the document 
 {i.e., the Quicunque Vult) rests, says the Bishop of Derry, 
 " upon the theory of separable clauses " — but he adds, " if 
 the clauses are ideally separable, they are practically inse- 
 parable." What is really meant by this figurative language ? 
 When dealing with a document that has more than one 
 operative character, and may be used in any one of these 
 at election, this is practically effected in law by passing 
 over for the occasion, and omitting to use, any clause that 
 is not appropriate to the instrument in the character 
 
 * If the Quicunque was not then completed, it cannot claim to be treated 
 SIS an inseparable whole. 
 
THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 447 
 
 selected. Cases under the Stamp Laws frequently occur, 
 in which an additional stamp is required on account of 
 each of the several distinctive characters in which the 
 document is capable of being used. It often happens 
 (says Mr. Preston, in his learned work on Abstracts of 
 Title, 3 Prest. Abstr., p. 58), that a deed contains not only 
 a simple conveyance from one person to another, but also 
 contains releases from persons who have charges or col- 
 lateral interests, &c., and of course each part of the Deed 
 must be considered and analyzed, and the same effect allowed 
 to it, as if these distinct Acts were contained in distinct 
 Deeds. The ideal part of the process involves a careful 
 analysis in order to distinguish ; the practical part is simply 
 to omit (as occasion may warrant) such clause as is not 
 appropriate for use on the occasion. To call this " muti- 
 lation" can only mislead. It is but a figurative and 
 " ideal " phraseology. The Bishop-elect of Worcester 
 must have taken some of the clauses of the Quicunque to 
 be separable, not only ideally but practically separable, 
 when he left them out of his formula, and thus practically 
 separated them from the portion that he retained for use. 
 That the " admonitory clauses " can be (and have frequently 
 been thus) distinguished as a class is beyond question. 
 
 As to the principle of separability, the Bishop of Derry 
 admits that it is lawful, but he contends that it is not 
 expedient in the present instance to resort to it. This, how- 
 ever, is a different question, and must be answered upon a 
 due consideration of the alternative proposed — that is, the 
 synodical declaration. What does the Bishop of Salisbury 
 say to this — commended so highly and deservedly as he is 
 by the Bishop of Derry? The Archbishop of Canterbury 
 (as we are informed by the Bishop of Salisbury) suggested 
 to the Bishops of his Province, that the qualification which 
 each of them had in his mind, of the meaning of the ad- 
 monitory clauses, should be embodied and expressed in 
 the form of a note, so as to indicate the sense in which 
 they were willing to understand the words of these clauses. 
 
448 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 His Grace thought that there were certain classes of per- 
 sons who might thus have their consciences reheved, and 
 gradually the difficulty would diminish. But he admitted 
 this would not go beyond a remedy for clerical use, and 
 would not be applicable to the common use of people 
 ■assembled for public worship. The people who usually 
 meet for public worship in mixed congregations, have not 
 been trained to this artificial use of words. The laity 
 have been for the most part familiar with the ordinary 
 meaning of words taken in their plain and popular sense ; 
 with them the very power of ordinary language lies in 
 the fact that it is the spontaneous expression of thought. 
 Hence, the established judicial rule is, that whatever is 
 appropriated to public use must be taken to have been 
 published in the sense in which men of average intelli- 
 gence would naturally understand the words according 
 to the ordinary sense of mankind. And if any one 
 occasion could be noted as of greater importance than 
 another, to which this rule applies, it would seem to be 
 where people meet together at the time of Common 
 Prayer, for the public worship of the Almighty, professing 
 to join in a common tribute of loving adoration and praise, 
 with one mind and one mouth to glorify God, even the 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, " in a tongue under- 
 standed of the people." 
 
 The Bishop of Salisbury, in the very able Appendix to 
 which the Bishop of Derry has so emphatically directed 
 our attention, says, in page 27, that he at first thought the 
 proposal of the Archbishop of Canterbury to be wise and 
 healing, and that he felt ready to lend his aid to it. But 
 (he adds) " further thought has entirely changed my mind 
 respecting it. I, like others, accept these verses of the 
 Creed, with a gloss. I freely acknowledge it. But when 
 I attempt to put my own gloss into words, I find myself 
 wholly at a loss to do so. The attempt breaks down 
 under nie. I cannot word my own gloss without practi- 
 cally annihilating or taking well-nigh the entire force and 
 
THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 449 
 
 power from the words." He then proceeds to examine 
 the several proposals that have been made, and shows their 
 insufficiency. Of one, that he says is the most innocent, 
 he asks, " Would it not have the effect of simply annulling 
 the clauses altogether ? Would it not kill the clauses 
 in the process of extracting their sting?" He condemns 
 it as " feeble and unsatisfactory." " Better by far," he adds, 
 " expunge the clauses altogether than, while you let them 
 stand in all their terrible apparent strength, evacuate them 
 of all their force by so weak and unsatisfactory a device." 
 Again : — " If, then, none of these methods approve them- 
 selves, is there any other by which the objections sup- 
 posed to be reasonable, and the distresses certainly real, 
 which are felt by niany may be obviated, short of disusing 
 this venerable and, in its affirmative statements, most valu- 
 able exposition of the Catholic Faith? Those who may 
 ■ think proper to read the Sermon here printed will have no 
 doubt what my answer to this question will be — ' I would 
 omit the damnatory clauses altogether.'" He proceeds on 
 the principle that " God has reserved to Himself the 
 ultimate appeal in matters in which man's agency (and 
 therefore man's fallibility) is intermingled." He holds that 
 this is so in the making of Creeds, and that the Church of 
 England, however convinced of the truth of the doctrines 
 set forth in the Creeds, has not the power nor the authority 
 to go beyond a sentence of excommunication ; pronouncing 
 the damnatory clauses (he affirms) is ultra vires. The use, 
 in the public services of the Church, of damnatory clauses 
 (he contends) cannot give them any authoritative sanction 
 —for, as he affirms, " it is notorious that not only now, but 
 for centuries past, these unhappy clauses so interpreted 
 have been a sorrow and a stumbling-block to many faithful 
 people."* 
 
 The effect of such manipulations for clerical use, when 
 
 • See also the Speech of the late Bishop of St. David's (Conv. Cant.) 
 
 (U. H. oFeb., 1872). 
 
 G G 
 
4SO LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 they succeed, are perilous. They lead those who receive 
 them to be satisfied with a loose interpretation of exact 
 and express statements ; and, in fact, that they need not 
 look for the meaning of a writer in his own mode of ex- 
 pressing it, however precise, but to take up contentedly 
 with inadequate, forced, and vague explanations of his 
 language, however ill they agree with what he says, pro- 
 vided they make him contradict something which it is 
 supposed he designed to contradict. It cannot be neces- 
 sary to dwell on how hazardous a mode this is in general, 
 of seeking for an author's sense, and how calculated it is to 
 favour evasions or misrepresentations of his meaning. (See 
 O'Brien's Sermons on Justification, p. 498, Note S, 2nd 
 edit.) 
 
 The attempt in this matter has failed to complete a 
 Synodical Declaration ; and there is nothing left that can 
 properly interfere with the natural sense and ordinary 
 meaning of the plain words of the admonitory clauses. It 
 would be most undesirable to establish so vicious a pre- 
 cedent in the use of words in our Liturgy, as that of 
 imposing or accrediting a meaning that might be for the 
 clerical mind sufficient, but to the laity in general would 
 seem, at the best, both forced and evasive. Language for 
 popular use, not required to be special, from the nature of 
 the subject, ought not to be such as in its natural sense to 
 suggest a meaning that is not really intended. 
 
 The Bishop of Derry has had the conscientious courage 
 to call these two as his leading witnesses — the late Bishop 
 of St. David's and the Bishop of Salisbury. After this, it 
 would seem no longer open to him to contend that the 
 admonitory clauses should be regarded as an integral and 
 essential part of " the Confession of our Christian faith." 
 After the publication of this remarkable Sermon, which 
 was preached in July, 1872, at Salisbury, another (to which 
 the Bishop of Derry has not alluded) was preached before 
 the University of Oxford by the Rev. Dr. Pusey on Advent 
 Sunday in the same year (1872). In an elaborate Appendiji 
 
THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 451 
 
 to this, there is put forward what professes to be an 
 answer to the Appendix of the Bishop of Sahsbury. 
 
 With those who regard the definite faith that is put 
 forward in the Quicunque Vult as on a level with the 
 Holy Scriptures, or as not less infallible and obligatory, 
 Dr. Pusey's arguments may find favour ; but with those 
 who hold that a document that has been completed by 
 human agency is not on a level with God's holy and 
 inspired Word (the only rule of faith adopted by our 
 Reformed Church), the case is different. 
 
 The Sermon of Dr. Pusey to which this Appendix is 
 added is in itself a very able and valuable exposition of 
 Holy Scripture on the subject of the responsibility of the 
 intellect in matters of faith ; but as to the Quicunque, the 
 wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. 
 
 In the second Charge of Bishop Moberly, delivered 
 subsequently in his diocese in the year 1873, he explains 
 with gjreat deliberation his settled view on the question of 
 dealing with the damnatory clauses; and also with the 
 doctrinal clauses of this Creed. In p. 53 he says : " Let 
 me then say first, that I accept with all my heart the whole 
 of the doctrinal statements of that Creed. I am most 
 thankful for them, and entirely desire that they should be 
 retained for occasional use in the public service as a 
 defence against errors which have endangered the faith in 
 old times, and to the revival of which the Church would 
 be dangerously liable if these doctrinal statements should 
 be disused or forgotten. But I am distressed at what are 
 called, and (I will venture to say) not unjustly called, the 
 damnatory clauses. In what appears to me to be the 
 plain and the historical sense of the words, they seem to 
 say what I consider it to be beyond the powers of the 
 Church to say, and in that sense I hope and believe that 
 they exceed the truth." 
 
 " The Synodical Declaration does not heal the sore. 
 In some degree it tries to hide it. I accept it so far thank- 
 fully as the expression of the sense in which the members 
 
452 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 of the Convocation of Canterbury are able to understand 
 the clauses. To my own mind those clauses sound 
 stronger, harder, sadder than the declaration allows. 
 They seem to be, what I have no doubt they were histori- 
 cally intended to be, the sentence of absolute, final, irre- 
 versible loss and ruin to all except those who keep whole 
 and undefiled the Catholic Faith as contained in the Creed. 
 Historically speaking, men, both within and without the 
 Catholic Church, have often not shrunk from pronounc- 
 ing terrible sentences of reprobation." He winds up 
 this part of the Charge by saying, that it is the " anxious 
 expression of an opinion which in candour and honesty 
 ought not to be suppressed." * 
 
 The Bishop of Derry commends the statement of the 
 Bishop of Salisbury, in the Appendix to his Sermon, as 
 putting forward " with unrivalled clearness and power" 
 the grounds of rejecting the damnatory clauses. He thus 
 sanctions the premises which lead to the conclusion that in 
 the Charge of 1873 has been in effect stated. It clearly 
 shows that the only remedy available, to which, in some 
 form at least, sooner or later, resort must be had, is the 
 omission of the damnatory, without prejudice to the re- 
 tention of the doctrinal, clauses. Neither of the Convo- 
 cations in England, nor both together, have the power 
 which we have in our Synod, and therefore it may be quite 
 natural for them to seek and wait upon the largest help 
 that may be afforded, whether in a Pan-Anglican Synod 
 or elsewhere ; but would it be in like manner proper for us 
 to wait upon the intervention of any other body (and 
 especially of a body without a lay element in it) to super- 
 sede or otherwise control our own decision, advisedly and 
 responsibly to be made in accordance with the funda- 
 mental laws of our own independent Legislative Body, 
 that regulates the Liturgy of the Church of Ireland ? I 
 may admit that we ought not to decide finally without "the 
 
 * See Swainson's " Plea for Time," p. 6 (1873). 
 
THE ATHAN ASIAN CREED. 453 
 
 fullest consideration, the most acknowledged need, and the 
 highest authority" that it is within our power and according 
 to our duty to resort to ; and I will be thankful for any 
 help given to inform our judgment on whatever is material 
 and relevant. The Bishop of Salisbury has not been able 
 to point out any authority in England to wait for, that 
 would be complete, to warrant such a change which he re- 
 gards as ultimately necessary, and therefore he proposes a 
 temporary expedient for preparing the way " for the only 
 real remedy which he believes the case to admit ;" but as 
 a remedy for the difficulty, he admits the expedient to be 
 " valueless." 
 
 The Bishop of Salisbury advises "that they should 
 wait for the assembling of a Pan-Anglican Synod ; an 
 authority not so complete as we fain would have it, but 
 not inadequate to warrant such a change, which," says he, 
 " ultimately, I regard as necessary. That in the meantime 
 they might use the third suggestion, i.e., some such note as 
 should declare that " these clauses are no otherwise to be 
 understood than as the general sentences of the necessity 
 of belief and the danger of unbelief are set forth to us in 
 Holy Scripture. As a remedy for the difficulty before us, 
 such a note " (he says) " is in my judgment valueless ; but 
 as a temporary expedient, and as preparing the way for 
 the only real remedy which I believe the case to admit, it 
 would be useful." 
 
 Dr. Pusey in his Appendix has protested against a 
 majority of a Pan-Anglican Synod being allowed to pre- 
 vail over the Convocations of the Church of England ; 
 much less then should we not allow it to prevail over the 
 Synod of the Church of Ireland, where our laity are 
 represented. 
 
 It could not be affirmed that our Synod has not full 
 and exclusive power to regulate the ritual of public worship 
 in the Church of Ireland. In the case of the Archdeacon 
 of Dublin as to the Lectionary of our Church, and in the 
 Report of the Committee (of which several of the leading 
 
454 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 legal members of the Synod were members) it is said 
 " that an exemption from the obligation of the law as it 
 •was altered would be especially injurious in cases such as 
 that then in question, because control over the arrange- 
 ments of Divine Service seems essential to a religious 
 body which regulates its ritual by a settled law."* The 
 ministry of the Church is for the people, and not the people 
 for the ministry, and therefore the public services of the 
 Church are to be regulated by its supreme Legislative 
 Body, with a view to the edification of the people. Every 
 particular national Church "hath authority to ordain, 
 change, and abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church 
 ordained only by man's authority, so that, all things be 
 done to edifying." We used our liberty in establishing a 
 Lectionary that we deemed to be most meet for the peace 
 and greater edifying of our own people, and I do not see 
 why in the present matter we might not exercise a like 
 liberty. 
 
 If any change in any of the Articles of Religion (which 
 we have received and approved as the basis of our com- 
 munion with the sister Church of England and other sister 
 Churches) should be in question, I freely admit that this 
 should not be dealt with by us until after conference and 
 (if possible) agreement with our brethren of the sister 
 Church of England, and the other sister Churches through- 
 out the world with which we have solemnly pledged 
 ourselves to maintain cgmmunion. 
 
 But we must bear in mind that neither of the statutes 
 which have been passed in the last Session of the Synod, 
 and which await completion in the next, can interfere, nor 
 do they in any respect purport to interfere, with the reten- 
 tion of the Psalm Quicunque Vult as it stands in the 
 Book of Common Prayer in its appointed place, after the 
 end of the Order for Morning and Evening Prayer through- 
 out the year, and before the Litany. These statutes relate 
 to the Liturgical use of a certain specified portion, and the 
 
 * See Report of Revision Committee, new note at top of p. 47. 
 
THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 
 
 4S5 
 
 Liturgical disuse of another specified portion, of this Psalm 
 in Divine Service at the time of Common Prayer on three 
 annual occasions in the Church of Ireland. This is exclu- 
 sively a Liturgical question. We cannot delegate to any 
 other body than the General Synod the duty of regulating 
 this Liturgical use for our own people. There is a sound 
 and material distinction between the retaining of this 
 Psalm as an accredited document of the Church, to be 
 used as the law of the Church shall permit, and our using 
 it Liturgically in our public Service, as part of the Service 
 to be used compulsorily by the people, instead of the 
 Apostles' Creed. 
 
 There is a fitness which we all feel in the rubrical direc- 
 tion that both people and minister should join in saying the 
 Creed which we designate the Apostles' Creed, in the public 
 Service. It is the Creed of our baptism and of our Cate- 
 chism, and it may well be supposed that all worshippers in 
 our Church should be in a condition to join in saying this 
 Creed in the public Services of the Church. 
 
 We have also what is commonly called the Nicene 
 Creed. The Rubric before it, after having directed the 
 Priest to read the Gospel (the people all standing up), 
 goes on to say : " And the Gospel ended, shall be sung or 
 said the Creed following, the people still standing as before." 
 
 Here there is no rubrical direction imposed on the 
 people, that they should join with the minister in the public 
 recital of this Creed. This is left to their own option as 
 each may think fit. 
 
 But in the case of the Quicunque Vult (commonly 
 called the Creed of Athanasius) we are put under compul- 
 sion. Its antiquity is matter of doubtful disputation, and 
 also the compulsory use by the laity in any other branch 
 of the Catholic Church except the Anglican has not been 
 shown. Whether it is properly to be called a Creed or 
 not, Waterland, in his Introduction, says that—" In compli- 
 ance with custom, and to save myself the trouble of cir- 
 cumlocution, I commonly speak of it under the name of 
 
4S6 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 the Athanasian Creed, not designing thereby to intimate 
 either that it is a Creed strictly and properly so called, or 
 that it is of Athanasius' composing." As to the Creeds 
 received in England (A.D. 1230), he says that the Athana- 
 sian has the name of a Creed, " which yet," he adds, " was 
 not its most usual or common title in those times, only the 
 schoolmen, for order and method sake, chose to throw it 
 under the head of Creeds." 
 
 1240. In this age (he says) Walter de Cantilupe, 
 Bishop of Worcester, in his Synodical Constitutions, ex- 
 horts his clergy to make themselves competent masters of 
 the Psalm called Quicunque Vult, and of the greater and 
 smaller Creed (that is, Nicene and Apostolical), that they 
 might be able to instruct their people ; from whence we 
 may observe (he adds) that at this time the Athanasian 
 Formulary was distinguished here among us from the 
 Creeds properly so called, being named a Psalm, and some- 
 times a Hymn, suitably to the place it held in the Psalters 
 among the other Hymns, Psalms, and Canticles of the 
 Church, being also sung alternately in churches like the 
 others. 
 
 As to the supposed difficulty about the 28th and 29th 
 verses of the Quicunque, I am quite willing to have the 
 question further considered as to the 29th clause, and par- 
 ticularly as it assumes a new aspect in the revised transla- 
 tion presented in the Report of the Episcopal Committee. 
 In this the 28th verse is : " He that willeth to be saved, let 
 him thus think of the Trinity. The 29th in this translation 
 is : " Furthermore it is necessary to eternal salvation that he 
 also believe faithfully the incarnation of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ." These (if they shall be adopted) might suggest 
 further modification, if within the power we have of making 
 alterations. In case it should be resolved to leave the 
 Quicunque intact, and to discontinue its compulsory use in 
 the public services of the Church, we might retain it as 
 a historic document in the Prayer Book, for a purpose 
 of instruction — its primary purpose. We are not in a 
 
THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 457 
 
 condition to decide finally on the 29th, until we shall have 
 pronounced finally on the 28th. It may here be noted 
 that the 28th and 29th verses are omitted firom the Epis- 
 copal formula of the Bishop-elect of Worcester. 
 
 The Bishop of Derry has fallen back on Baxter's well- 
 known commendation of the doctrine of the Trinity, of 
 which Baxter speaks as being best explained in the 
 Athanasian Creed. But there is no question at issue or in 
 controversy upon this matter. We all agree with Baxter, 
 as to the fundamental doctrines of the Church set forth in 
 the Creed proper. We are now only concerned with the 
 question as to the Liturgical use of the damnatory clauses, 
 to which Baxter never gave his assent. Although at one 
 time he seemed not indisposed to accept the explanation 
 of Mr. Wallis and others, yet, when at the latter part of his 
 life Baxter subscribed the Articles (including the Eighth), 
 he explains what he meant thereby as to the Eighth 
 Article ; that it was " subject to two declarations, one 
 being that ' God of God,' in the Nicene Creed, does not 
 affirm two Gods ; nor the damnatory clauses taken for part 
 of the A thanasian Creed, though they be part of the Liturgy 
 assented and consented to" — (Baxter's Practical Works, 
 Vol. XV., p. S3 1.) 
 
 In the discussion in the Convocation of Canterbury, 
 1 2th Feb., 1873, the Dean of Westminster said in explana- 
 tion — " I was accused of making two statements without 
 foundation ; one with regard to Chillingworth, and the 
 other with regard to Baxter. Chillingworth condemned 
 the damnatory clauses, and never withdrew his condemna- 
 tion. Baxter, afer the Revolution, signed, as one of the 
 last acts of his life, the Articles before the Court. The 
 instrument delivered by him to the Court before which he 
 signed the Articles is still extant, and contains a passage 
 of peculiar interest. He declared that his approbation of 
 the Athanasian Creed was confined to that part which was 
 properly a Creed, and that he did not mean to express any 
 assent to the damnatory clauses." 
 
458 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 " I trust I shall not be again charged with making 
 statements without foundation." (Chron. Convoc. of Can- 
 terbury, L.H., p. i6i.) 
 
 A point I have here to answer. It is this : The Bishop 
 of Derry remarks " that no man of candid mind would be 
 satisfied by permanently ceasing to repeat publicly certain 
 statements in a Creed of which he is still obliged to declare 
 at the most solemn moment of his life that it is thoroughly 
 to be received and believed. That statement is either true 
 or false. If it is false, away with the assent ; if it is true, 
 repeat it to the people." But the point is as to compulsory 
 use by the people in public worship. Is it suitably ex- 
 pressed, and is its compulsory use for edification ? But 
 further, as to the clergy. At the present time, under the 
 law of our Church, what the clergy have to declare as to 
 their belief is this : " I believe that the doctrine of the 
 Church of Ireland therein set forth \i.e., in the Articles and 
 Formularies] is agreeable to the Word of God." 
 
 It is now ten years and upwards since this matter of 
 clerical subscription was settled in the Clerical Subscrip- 
 tion Commission. The Lord Primate, the Archbishop of 
 Dublin, and I served on that. The present Bishop of 
 Chester (Jacobson), then Regius Professor of Divinity at 
 Oxford, was also on that Commission. We were espe- 
 cially careful not to interfere with (so as in any wise to 
 diminish the effect of) subscription to the Articles ; but we 
 were most anxious to relieve the oppressive rigidity of the 
 subscription required under the Uniformity Act, the pres- 
 sure of which had been met by a loose and untenable 
 laxity of interpretation — a recoil from the oppressive 
 rigidity of the form enacted. The grievance had con- 
 tinued for upwards of 200 years ; a persevering effort was 
 made to have the formula remodelled and adapted to what 
 the truth and justice of the case required, and at last these 
 arguments prevailed. The Commissioners could not agree 
 upon a statement of their reasons ; but we were unanimous 
 in the result, and the Report was signed by every one of 
 
THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 459 
 
 the Commissioners, Clerical and Lay One object we 
 had was to make the assent to Articles and Formularies 
 general and comprehensive ; to omit the rigid assent and 
 consent to " every part thereof," but to include the whole of 
 the doctrine that was set forth tkerem ~tha.t is to say, the 
 doctrine of the Church dogmatically declared, whether in 
 Articles, Rubrics, or Prayer Book, and what Was found in 
 any part of these was to be treated as belonging to a con- 
 sistent whole. The collateral and subsidiary clauses of 
 the Athanasian Creed were not taken to be a dogmatic 
 statement of the Church's doctrine, and were not held to 
 be set forth in the formula, as a part of the Church's 
 doctrine ; they were dicta introduced diverso intuitu — in 
 terrorem, to constrain assent to the doctrines that were 
 distinctly and dogmaticallj' stated. Indeed, I may observe 
 that in the Convocation of Canterbury and of York, it was 
 never suggested that the admonitory clauses were included 
 as articles of faith, or as part of the Church's doctrine set 
 forth in the Creed. I cannot therefore agree that there is 
 any of our clergy to whom the reference of the Bishop of 
 Derry is applicable ; they are at least as free as Baxter was, 
 and as Arnold, Barrow, and others have been with reference 
 to the Eighth Article, and for the same reason, i.e., that 
 the damnatory clauses were not taken to be part of the 
 Creed of St. Athanasius, either expressly or constructively 
 referred to in the Eighth Article as belonging to the 
 doctrine of the Church. I have already drawn attention 
 to what appears in Waterland, as to the title of Psalmus, 
 Hymnus, Sermo, &c., being used to distinguish the "Athan- 
 asian Formula" from the two Creeds proper which were 
 Creeds in the strict ecclesiastical sense. But this was 
 composed not as a Creed proper, non per modum symboli, 
 ut ex ipso modo loquendi apparet, sed magis per modum 
 cujusdam doctrine; sed quia integram Fidei veritatera 
 ejus doctrina breviter continebat, auctoritate summi Ponti- 
 ficis est recepta, ut quasi regula Fidei habeatur. Thus then, 
 when kept distinct from the two Creeds proper, it was 
 
46o LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 called a Psalm, Hymn, Sermon, &c., of which titles Water- 
 land gives numerous instances, before the Reformation ; 
 but as containing (in the judgment of the Roman See) a 
 complete system of the Christian Faith, it was received by 
 Papal authority. The three Creeds were then considered 
 as a complete collective embodiment — " the tria compendia" 
 of the Christian Faith. The Fides Apostolica for simple 
 instruction ; the Nicene for definitive explanation ; the 
 Athanasian for defensive completion. See Ref LL. c. 5. 
 
 The two first finally contained only statements of the 
 fundamental articles, which were accepted in the Church 
 from the beginning, and afterwards were embodied in 
 Creeds; the third had (in addition) statements in terrorem, 
 to constrain assent to the doctrinal credenda — the Catho- 
 lica Fides. The second had had anathemas, like in cha- 
 racter to the in terrorem statements in the third, but they 
 had been dropped with the sanction of General Councils, 
 thus signifying the prevailing opinion of the primitive 
 Church against the method of commending God's truth 
 by human threatenings ; and the third had never been 
 submitted to any General Council. In their plain and 
 ordinary sense these minatory clauses convey that the 
 Catholic Faith is what is set forth definitely in the Qui- 
 cunque Vult, and that whosoever shall not have believed 
 and kept whole and undefiled this definite Faith, without 
 doubt he shall perish everlastingly. 
 
 We have not any reliable account of the historical 
 occasion on which this document was completed in its pre- 
 sent form, and we cannot therefore qualify the sense of its 
 words ; and in any event we must always bear in mind, 
 that where the people assemble for common prayer in an 
 ordinary congregation, they will naturally understand the 
 words of these clauses as they find them in the authorized 
 Prayer Book, in their natural and ordinary sense, without 
 gloss or annotation, or any qualification plainly and dis- 
 tinctly expressed in the same authorized service, as part of 
 it. There is no ground for saying that the words used in 
 
THE ATIIAN ASIAN CREED. 46 1 
 
 the damnatory clauses are not plain and unambiguous; 
 and in the absence of any express qualification, or of any 
 surrounding or historical circumstances from which a 
 qualification could fairly be implied, the popular meaning 
 is not only natural but (I may say) inevitable. 
 
 I cannot think, therefore, that the Bishop of Derry has 
 supplied any argument or authority to lead us to suppose 
 that we have not been soundly and correctly advised by 
 the majority of our learned and respected Prelates ; but on 
 the contrary, the Charge under consideration confirms in a 
 satisfactory manner not only the correctness but the mode- 
 ration of the course that has been taken by the Synod. 
 
 Having gone through this elaborate answer and expo- 
 sition of the Bishop of Derry, I proceed to the Charge of 
 the Lord Primate, of which I am compelled in conscience 
 to say that I read it with regret and surprise. 
 
 The injustice and wrong that I feel has been done to 
 the Synod and the Church of Ireland, by the manner in 
 which their proceedings have been described and dispar^ 
 aged, may in some degree perhaps be repaired by following 
 the precedent that we have in the case of the Ritual Com- 
 missioners, after His Grace, in a Charge of a former year, 
 called forth a vindication that was put forward in the spirit 
 of meekness by the late Rev. H. Venn (one of his col- 
 leagues), who simply set forth and explained the several 
 proceedings of the Commissioners, so as to enable the 
 pubHc to judge not only of their diligence and moderation, 
 but also of the good that was accomplished for the 
 National Church, by this seasonable and laborious effort 
 to make the Prayer Book more expansive in its use, more 
 free to be profitably used for public worship by the people. 
 
 The Report of this Commission was published after 
 the Church of Ireland had been disestablished and dis- 
 endowed. We had been left to shift for ourselves as best 
 we could after spoliation ; but we were enabled, by a Con- 
 vention held under an Imperial statute, to constitute our 
 General Synod as the supreme Legislative Body of our 
 
462 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Church ; and with His Grace as our president, we in- 
 augurated in solemn form our new ecclesiastical consti- 
 tution. We solemnly declared our purpose of maintaining 
 the Articles of Religion, and the Formularies that we had 
 in use when we were part of the United Church of England 
 and Ireland, and we pledged ourselves to continue to use 
 the same, subject to such alterations only as should be made 
 therein from time to time by the lawful authority of the 
 Church of Ireland. ■ Articles of Declaration were then 
 solemnly made in the name of the Blessed Trinity, and 
 inaugurated by solemn Declaration of Agreement on the 
 part of the Archbishops and Bishops of the Ancient Catho- 
 lic and Apostolic Church of Ireland, together with the 
 Representatives of the Clergy and Laity of the same — all 
 were bound. After pledging our adherence to the faith of 
 Christ as professed by the Primitive Church ; the mainten- 
 ance of the three orders of the Christian Ministry, Bishops, 
 Priests, or Presbyters, and Deacons ; the receiving and 
 approving of the Thirty-nine Articles, and the use of the 
 Prayer Book and Ordinal of 1662, subject to alterations 
 made by legislative authority; the maintenance of com- 
 munion with the SISTER Church of England and with all 
 other Christian Churches agreeing in the principles of this 
 Declaration, and that we would set forward, so far as in us 
 lieth, quietness, peace, and love among all Christian 
 people ; the Declaration concludes : — " The Church of 
 Ireland, deriving its authority from Christ, who is the 
 Head over all things to the Church of Ireland, consisting 
 of the Archbishops and Bishops, and of Representatives of 
 the Clergy and Laity, shall have chief legislative power 
 therein, and such administrative power as may be neces- 
 sary for the Church, and consistent with its Episcopal 
 constitution." 
 
 If the members of the Synod have bond fide conformed 
 to the Constitution that we thus settled for our own 
 government, they cannot be arraigned for the lawful 
 exercise of their lawful liberty ; the authority of the Synod 
 
THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 463 
 
 ought not to be treated with contempt and set at defiance, 
 and our Church threatened with schism, and the secession 
 of some who are to follow " a mother Church of England " 
 unknown to us here. We know of no other there than 
 our sister Church of England, with which we are, and 
 desire to remain, pledged in faithful communion. But at 
 present I am chiefly concerned with the grave question 
 properly brought under consideration, to which the Bishop 
 of Derry (as was his right) confined his attention in his 
 Charge, and endeavoured to show that his view of the 
 issue before us was better sustained in argument than that 
 adopted on the side of the Synod. But what positions has 
 the Primate now propounded that are relevant, or sustained 
 by authority to which the Synod ought to defer, rather 
 than to the reasons which the great majority of our 
 Bishops, with the much-respected Provost of Trinity Col- 
 lege, and the Regius Professor of Divinity, have furnished 
 for our guidance ? I have gone carefully over this con- 
 demnatory and minatory document, in which I looked for 
 a learned and exhaustive statement of the case of the 
 episcopal minority. I fully knew that whatever was avail- 
 able was at His Grace's command. I was struck by the 
 significant omission of all reference to the patient, un- 
 fettered, and deliberate conferences that we had in the 
 Revision Committee, beginning in 1871; I cannot, more- 
 over, forget the help we had from the discussions in the 
 two Convocations of England, in 1872 and 1873 especially, 
 fully reported at the time in the Guardian ; the discussions 
 in our own Synod after the resolutions were reported, 
 sifted, and revised there in 1872, 1873, 1874, 1875, very 
 different indeed from a synodical debate under a limitation 
 of ten minutes' speeches. No notice has been taken by 
 His Grace of the labours of the Ritual Commission, the 
 Report of which had been published in 1870, and on which 
 His Grace was a Commissioner, and a subsequent com- 
 mentator, and had exact knowledge of what had really 
 taken place— that there had been on six several occasions 
 
464 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 a very searching discussion of the question of the compul- 
 sory use of the Psalm Quicunque Vult, commonly called 
 the Creed of St. Athanasius ; and that upwards of two- 
 thirds of the Commissioners (with the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury at their head) had signified opinions to the 
 effect that the compulsory recitation of this document, as 
 it stands in the Book of Common Prayer, should be alto- 
 gether withdrawn from public worship. I saw that further 
 explanation was necessary, and I think it ought to be put 
 forward with authority by the Synod. 
 
 The full explanation and account of the Ritual Com- 
 mission as to this is in pp. 8, 9, and 34 of Mr. Venn's 
 pamphlet, and in p. yt, et seq. of the publication of the 
 Dean of Westminster. Both of these were members of 
 that Commission. The question that we had to deal with 
 came to be disposed of by our Synod in 1875 ; it had been 
 under intermittent discussion since October, 1871. I can 
 bear witness that there was the opportunity for a most 
 exhaustive discussion before the decision took place in 
 1875 ; and I do not believe that a more searching and 
 able discussion (having regard to the relevant and material 
 points) could have been reasonably secured. 
 
 It is so far satisfactory to find that His Grace admits 
 that "the time that has elapsed since the close of the 
 Synod has afforded ample opportunity for a calm and 
 considerate review of the questions that were there de- 
 cided, and their probable effect on the future of our 
 Church." Now I am not going to be diverted from the 
 grave question that is properly brought under our con- 
 sideration, by stepping aside into a discussion of the 
 general question of Revision, or the merits of the " great 
 men of the Reformation." I know not which set of men 
 are referred to, or which was the Primate's " Covenant of 
 Peace." Was it made in 1549, 1552, 1559, 1603, or 1662 ? 
 
 Having carefully considered the Episcopal and other 
 expositions bearing on this grave and important subject, 
 and not forgetful of the information that I acquired when 
 
THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 465 
 
 actively engaged more than ten years ago, on an occasion 
 when a very important branch of this question was inci- 
 dentally dealt with by the able and learned men on the 
 Clerical Subscription Commission ; and having had re- 
 cently to deal directly with it when, in another form, it was 
 before the Ritual Commission, I have felt it to be my duty 
 to keep clear of what appears to me in the main to be 
 irrelevant and confusing. My duty in now reconsidering 
 the whole case, is to regard it on its material issue, to ' 
 weigh and estimate the comparative value of the rele- 
 vant authorities and arguments on both sides — in effect, 
 whether the admonitory clauses of the Psalm Quicunque 
 Vult ought to be continued to be the subject of compul- 
 sory and open use by the people, assembled for public 
 worship with the minister on the appointed occasions in 
 our churches in Ireland. I hold that this ought not to 
 be continued — because first, I think that they are not dis- 
 tinctly declared to be part of the Articles, or any part of 
 the Formularies that dogmatically declares her doctrine. 
 I do not believe these collateral clauses to be articles of 
 faith. I believe the compulsory public recitation of them 
 as part of a public confession of their Christian faith, by 
 the people who join in public worship, to be not only not 
 edifying, but an offence and occasion of stumbling to many 
 of them, and I repudiate the charge of mutilating any 
 Creed of the Church. I am fully prepared to go with the 
 Primate whenever he can set before me sound argument, 
 or refer to competent authority, to sustain the contrary of 
 the position to which I have referred, which compels me 
 in reason and conscience to agree with the view of the 
 General Synod, guided by the authority of the majority 
 of our Bishops. I have gone over with the greatest care 
 and diligence every speech that was made on the subject 
 in the English Convocations ; I have considered them as 
 dehberately as I could : but as at present advised, I am 
 J not able to come to any other conclusion than what the' 
 Synod has adopted. 
 
 H H 
 
466 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 We must bear in mind that before we took any step in 
 our Revision Committee on the subject of the Athanasian 
 Creed, it had been brought by the Bishop of Gloucester 
 before the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury 
 on the 14th June, 1871. His Lordship moved for "the 
 appointment of a joint Committee to consider and report 
 upon the desirableness of revising the existing translation 
 of the Athanasian Creed, and of introducing any changes 
 in or additions to the Rubric prefixed to the Creed in the 
 Book of Common Prayer, provided that they be only such 
 changes or additions as shall not in any way affect the 
 authority of the Creed, as a standard of doctrine in the 
 Church of England." 
 
 After referring to the unsatisfactory state in which the 
 question had been left by the Ritual Commissioners, and 
 to the urgency for the Bishops of England coming to some 
 distinct conclusion on the subject, and having also referred 
 to the defects of the existing translation that had been 
 adverted to " by one whom all here present will respect, 
 both for his learning and for his known moderation (the 
 Bishop of Chester), who made such comments on the 
 defects of the existing translation, as led many of the 
 members to regret that their powers did not enable them 
 to deal with this view, he suggested that a great deal 
 would be done by this act of duty on the part of the 
 Convocations, by helping to provide that no words should 
 find a place in the English version which are more stern 
 than those in the original." 
 
 " We are now" (said his Lordship) "by the providence 
 of God in days when good men weigh earnestly the weight 
 of words that they repeat solemnly ; and it is well for us to 
 remember that although the faults of our age are many, 
 there is a deeper love of reality in us all, and that the 
 words that might have been used forty or fifty years ago 
 with a sort of conventional ease are now very often 
 thoughtfully weighed before they are solemnly uttered in 
 the form of a public confession of faith. Therefore if by 
 
THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 467 
 
 retranslations we can in any degree moderate or remove 
 these difficulties, I venture humbly to say that it is our 
 duty, in the name of the Triune God whom the Creed 
 brings before us, to put our hands at once to this easy and 
 necessary work." 
 
 The then Bishop of Winchester (Wilberforce) agreed 
 that the Bishop of Chester was for many reasons well able 
 to give one of the best opinions upon the question — and' 
 he would be excluded, if the consideration of the question 
 should be confined to the Province of Canterbury. It was 
 then arranged that the question should be considered by 
 both Archbishops and the Bishops of both Provinces. 
 Accordingly a meeting of the United Episcopate was con- 
 voked at Lambeth at the beginning of July, attended by 
 the two Archbishops and by nearly every Bishop of both 
 Provinces. The following was unanimously carried : — 
 
 " That the undernamed Bishops be requested by this 
 Meeting to undertake a revision of the text and a re- 
 translation of the Quicunque Vult; and that the Professors 
 of Divinity in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge 
 be requested to act with them in the work. The Bishops 
 named were London, Winchester, Gloucester and Bristol, 
 Ely, Chester, and Salisbury. We have the Report that 
 was drawn up by the Bishop of Gloucester, and, by the 
 desire of the Archbishops and Bishops present, was pub- 
 lished and presented to the clergy and laity of the 
 English Church." But there it has been left. No relief 
 has followed. The laity are better assured of the wrong 
 imposed on them. 
 
 We cannot fail to observe how a slip-shod laxity, 
 which is very common, was corrected in this instance by 
 the Episcopate assembled at Lambeth ; i.e., the slip-shod 
 habit of using " the Athanasian Creed " instead of " the 
 Quicunque Vult," i.e., the Psalm in which the so-called 
 Creed of Athanasius is contained (as was carefully noted by 
 the Bishop of Meath in our Revision Committee and 
 Synod). It is specified in the Articles of 1536, in which it . 
 
4.68 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 is declared as to this Creed, then supposed to be the Creed 
 of St. Athanasius, that it is " comprehended in the Psalm 
 Quicunque Vult." In fact, the Psalm had got the name of 
 a Creed in a secondary and improper sense, because it con- 
 tained what constituted the subject-matter of a Creed, in a 
 proper sense. The Psalm comprehended a Creed, and 
 more than a Creed ; but this did not alter or extend its 
 " Credenda," or in any wise augment the " Catholica fides," 
 the authorized credenda of which constituted the Creed 
 proper. It would not have been open to interfere with this 
 doctrinal Creed {i.e., the Creed proper), for this had been 
 put under the protection of the Eighth Article, which had 
 guaranteed the three Creeds as the embodiment and ex- 
 pression of the fundamental doctrine of the Church ; but 
 as, under the Sixth Article, whatever is not read in the 
 Canonical Scriptures, nor may be proved thereby, is not to 
 be required of any man, that it should be believed as an 
 article of t lie faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to 
 salvation, it was necessary to have the doctrine of the 
 Creeds confirmed by the Eighth Article as part of the 
 Church's doctrine. Accordingly the Eighth Article con- 
 firmed the doctrine of the three Creeds in their cognate 
 sense and collective import, forming together a triple com- 
 bination and embodiment of doctrine. Waterland there- 
 fore says in relation to this Athanasian formula, that " our 
 Church receives it because the truth of the doctrines con- 
 tained in it may be proved by most certain warrants of 
 Holy Scripture, as is expressly said in our Eighth Article." 
 The doctrines fundamental that had been preserved and 
 perpetuated under the three Creeds were tested by the 
 Canonical Scriptures, and by them only ; but this did not 
 extend to any part of the Athanasian document beyond 
 that in which the doctrines of the Creed proper were com- 
 prehended ; any other part, however appropriate to it as a 
 Psalm or Sermon, or Exposition, &c., was not an integral 
 or essential Article of the Catholica Fides. Indeed, it is 
 manifest that the Commissioners of 1689 attended to this 
 
THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 469 
 
 distinction, for otherwise the difference of their treatment 
 of " the Articles " and the " Condemning Clauses " could 
 not have been either requisite or admissible. And all who 
 have since acted on this distinction, and have founded upon 
 it a different treatment of the two classes of clauses, are 
 precluded from ignoring this distinction and difference at 
 their will and pleasure, and also from confounding the 
 import of the proper with that of the improper designation ; 
 the general secondary designation and the limited and 
 primary title of the Creed proper. Deviations from strict 
 accuracy may often be of little or no practical importance ; 
 but without such accuracy it is plain that the closest 
 reasoning may sometimes be involved in perplexity. Had 
 the exact distinction between the proper Creed of the 
 doctrine and the nominal Creed of the document been 
 attended to, the fallacy so often misused as to the Eighth 
 Article could not have been made current. 
 
 The Bishop of Chester, in his speech at York, Feb. 21, 
 1872, has fully appreciated the distinction. He refers to 
 the language of Bishop Jewel in speaking of the Creed con- 
 tained in the Hymn Te Deum, to show that the word has 
 " a large secondary sense." Afterwards he says : " I am not 
 unwilling to part with what are called the admonitory, the 
 cautionary, or, less correctly, the damnatory clauses. It has 
 been said by several authorities (by Waterland himself 
 among them*) that these are not essential portions of the 
 Creed. I am ready to part with two verses of the Formu- 
 lary, the second and the forty-second, if it is found im- 
 possible (as I fear it will be) to provide by an amendment 
 of the translation a remedy for the feeling (a morbid feeling 
 it may be) with which many regard them." Notwith- 
 standing, he opposed the motion for discontinuing the 
 usual recitation of the Formula as it exists. But if they 
 are not essential portions, why should the use of them be 
 compulsory on the laity, whom they offend ? That they 
 
 * He also quoted passages to the same effect from Dr. Arnold. 
 
470 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 are not Credenda is forcibly put forward by the Bishop of 
 London, in the Upper House of Convocation of Canterbury, 
 on May 3rd, debate in 1873. "We do not beHeve" (he 
 says) " in a monition or a condemnation, but in a doctrine ; 
 and it is not one of the doctrines that the Church requires 
 us to beHeve, that everyone who does not beheve every 
 statement in a Creed, without doubt shall, perish ever- 
 lastingly. There is a manifest distinction between the 
 solemn admonitions appended to the Creed, warning 
 against unbelief, and the doctrines themselves contained 
 in the Creed, and of which it requires us to express our 
 belief .... I am not objecting to a solemn warning 
 against unbelief, but I am endeavouring to argue that these 
 clauses are not part of the Credenda which the Church 
 proposes for our belief I believe that every proposition 
 of the Creed may be proved by Holy Scripture, while the 
 damnatory clauses cannot, unless modified by explanations 
 and restrictions, and I cannot then consider them part of 
 the Creed. Therefore it appears to me that those clauses, 
 like the anathemas of the Nicene and Constantinopolitan 
 Creeds, may be removed without touching — I will not say 
 in any vital part, but in any part at all — the great funda- 
 mental doctrines of the faith." He also was opposed to 
 change at present in the use. 
 
 Although it may have been considered perilous to go 
 forward, and with consistent courage to act upon what can- 
 not be (or at least has not been) displaced or denied, it 
 reduces the practical question to one of the highest discre- 
 tion — whether the occasion has arrived at which we ought 
 to incur the risk of discontinuing the compulsory use of 
 these clauses. I would prefer avoiding compulsion on 
 either side, and rather encourage and seek for (if it may be 
 had) a voluntary and amicable adjustment. Where reli- 
 gious feeling is high and earnest, it may be raised to a 
 white heat by overbearing opposition or imposition. I see 
 no insuperable difficulty in arranging terms and conditions 
 by which we shall have a settling season and cooling timej 
 
THE ATHAN ASIAN CREED. 47 1 
 
 the strong learning charitably to bear the infirmities of the 
 weak, and, like our blessed Master, not pleasing ourselves, 
 but each seeking to please his neighbour for his good to 
 edification — for even Christ pleased not Himself 
 
 More especially, let us pray for the good estate of the 
 Catholic Church, that it may be so guided and governed 
 by God's good Spirit, that all who profess and call them- 
 selves Christians may be led into the way of truth, and 
 hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and 
 in righteousness of life. 
 
CLERICAL SUBSCRIPTION COMMISSION. 
 
 IN Eraser's Magazine for the present month (March) the 
 first article purports to be " The Speech of the Dean 
 of St. Paul's, Friday, April 22nd, 1864," at the Clerical 
 Subscription Commission. At the close it is stated in 
 italics : — 
 
 " Much doubt was entertained whether this motion 
 came within the terms of the Commission ; it was not 
 pressed by the Dean." 
 
 The speech was read by the Dean to his colleagues, 
 from a manuscript, which he afterwards handed in, at their 
 request, in order that it might be printed as a confidential 
 document, for their mature consideration. 
 
 As a member of the Commission I was furnished with 
 two copies, and, after much deliberation, I prepared and 
 sent in the answer which is published in the following 
 pages. It was printed (as the Dean's paper had been) as 
 a confidential document, and copies were supplied to each 
 of the Commissioners. After an anxious and exhaustive 
 consideration of the whole subject of Subscription, the 
 Commissioners unanimously agreed upon the Form that 
 is given in the Report which they recently made to Her 
 Majesty the Queen. To that Report the Dean is a party ; 
 and no other member of the Commission is more ex- 
 pressly pledged than the Dean is, to an unqualified 
 
CLERICAL SUBSCRIPTION COMMISSION. 473 
 
 approval of that Form, in the foreground of which stands 
 prominent — Subscription to the Articles of Religion.* 
 
 The publication in Fraser seems to suggest that the 
 proposal of the Dean for confining subscription to the 
 Book of Common Prayer had been met by a prehminary 
 objection of form, and that afterwards it had not been 
 considered on its merits by the Commissioners. Such an 
 inference would be unfair to me as the author of a delibe- 
 rate answer to the Dean's paper ; and it would be unjust 
 to my colleagues, who had both papers printed for the use 
 of the Commissioners, and who gave to the subject of 
 Subscription, in all its bearings, a searching and candid 
 consideration. 
 
 Having offered to the editor of Fraser the option of 
 publishing the answer, which he has declined, I submitted 
 the whole matter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, as the 
 Chairman and head of the Commission. I have the 
 sanction of His Grace for the present publication, which 
 has been made necessary by the publication in Fraser. 
 
 Merrion Square, Dublin, 
 March, 1865. 
 
 * Keble's Hooker, Vol. II., p. 525 ; III., p. 401. 
 
MR. NAPIER'S ANSWER TO THE 
 DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S. 
 
 The Dean of St. Paul's has communicated to us a Paper 
 elaborately and elegantly composed. I have felt it to be 
 a duty to consider it with care and deliberation. He con- 
 tends " that confornlity to the Liturgy is the best and 
 surest attainable security for the declared agreement of 
 the clergy with thfe doctrines of the Church," and that 
 subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles is not only unne- 
 cessary, but in a high degree objectionable. This he 
 would abolish, retaining the subscription to the Book of 
 Common Prayer. On the other hand, the Dean of West- 
 minster, at the close of " the concluding note " appended to 
 his well-known letter to the Bishop of London, affirms that 
 " there would be a manifest unfairness to one or other of 
 the two great sections of the Church of England, if, on the 
 one hand, subscription to the Book of Common Prayer 
 were abolished, retaining the subscription to the Articles, 
 or if, on the other hand, the subscription to the Articles 
 were abolished, retaining the subscription to the Prayer 
 Book." 
 
 In this " concluding note " he proceeds to lay down 
 what seems the legitimate result of the foregoing argument, 
 i.e., the argument in his letter. Thus we have his own 
 summary, in which he proposes to retain " the declaration 
 of conformity to the Liturgy established by law," and 
 to superadd a form of approval or submission to " the 
 
ANSWER TO DEAN MILMAN. 475 
 
 doctrine of the Church estabhshed by law." But what is 
 "the Liturgy established by law" ? It is the doctrine de- 
 clared in the Articles and in the dogmatical parts of the 
 Book of Common Prayer. Happily, therefore, the Dean of 
 Westminster has set aside the logical, in favour of what he 
 designates " the legitimate result," in which the principle 
 of subscription is conceded, and the substance of it 
 secured. Looking at the question as one of principle, it 
 is scarcely open to contend that the Church ought not 
 to require of those who are to ' be her commissioned 
 ministers, that they should in some form sufficiently- 
 express their assent to the doctrine which they are to 
 teach and preach. This must of necessity involve a refer- 
 ence to the documents in which this doctrine is declared. 
 These are the Articles and the Formularies drawn up by 
 the Church, adopted by the Legislature, and established 
 by the law of Church and State. 
 
 The Articles were framed by the Church avowedly 
 "for the avoiding of diversities of opinion, and for the 
 establishing of consent touching true religion." Accor- 
 ding to the royal declaration prefixed, they " contain the 
 true doctrine of the Church of England agreeable to God's 
 Word." They do not profess to furnish a Complete body 
 of dogmatic theology ; but they define what was received, 
 they clear what was obscured, and they condemn what is 
 repugnant to the Holy Scriptures. They embody and 
 express the Church's authoritative decisions on the matters 
 therein determined, and, in a peculiar though not exclusive 
 sense, they constitute the Church's code of doctrine. 
 " They were framed " (says Lord Stowell) " by the chief 
 luminaries of the Reformed Church with great care in 
 Convocation, as containing ' fundamental truths deducible 
 in their judgment from Scripture,' and the Legislature has 
 adopted and established them as the doctrines of our 
 Church down to the present time." " But," says the Dean 
 of St. Paul's, " the doctrines of the English Church are 
 not only more simply but more fully, assuredly more 
 
476 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 winningly, taught in our Liturgy than in our Articles." 
 Now, although the Dean has insisted on the great import- 
 ance of " the utmost nicety and precision of language " 
 in the discussion of this (as he calls it) " momentous 
 question," I cannot suppose that he meant to convey by 
 what he has here said, that all the doctrines declared by 
 the Church are to be found in the Liturgy. That there 
 are declarations of doctrine therein is true, but to a limited 
 extent. 
 
 The Book of Common Prayer was compiled, not for 
 the determining of controversies of faith, but for the 
 establishing a uniform order of Common Prayer and the 
 administration of the Sacraments. The Preface thereto 
 speaks of "particular forms of Divine worship, and the 
 rites and ceremonies appointed to be used therein, being 
 things in their own nature indifferent and alterable, and so 
 acknowledged." These (it, is observed) "upon just cause 
 may be altered and changed, and therefore are not to be 
 esteemed equal to God's law." 
 
 It is also stated that " for the resolution of all doubts 
 concerning the manner how to understand, do, and execute 
 the things contained in this Book," recourse is to be had 
 to the Bishop of the Diocese, and if he be in doubt, he 
 may send to the Archbishop. All this shows the char- 
 acter and purpose of the Book. The Articles were drawn 
 up in pursuance of the authority of the Church to deter- 
 mine controversies of faith in accordance with Scripture; 
 the Prayer Book was compiled in execution of the power 
 of the Church, so far limited that nothing should be or- 
 dained that is repugnant to Scripture (Twentieth and 
 Thirty-fourth Articles). The provisional element in the 
 Prayer Book is as distinctive as the permanent element in 
 the Articles. 
 
 It was a provident arrangement to have a code of 
 doctrines by which controversies then intended to be 
 closed might thereafter be decided according to the plain 
 meaning and the natural construction of the Church's 
 
ANSWER TO DEAN MILMAN. 477 
 
 authoritative determinations. Great might be the per- 
 plexity if such inquiries should be transferred from direct 
 and express declarations of the Church, to deductions and 
 inferences (not made by the Church) from words in which 
 doctrine is blended with devotional feeling. It is a prin- 
 ciple of our law that no man should be reasoned into a 
 penalty. The parts of the Prayer Book which are in their 
 nature dogmatical are declaratory of doctrine ; but the 
 devotional services have been adjudged not to be evidence 
 of doctrine without reference to distinct declarations 
 thereof in the Articles, as well as to the faith, hope, and 
 charity by which the Formularies profess to be inspired or 
 accompanied.* Devotional expressions intended for the 
 use of all members of our Church must, from their very 
 nature, be understood, not in an absolute or unconditional, 
 but in a qualified or charitable sense, and therefore are 
 not declaratory of doctrine. The very excellence of the 
 Liturgy as a code of devotion renders it unfit to be the 
 peculiar test of doctrine. It tends to profane devotional 
 feeling, if we associate the harmony of prayer and praise 
 the incense and homage of the heart, with doubtful dispu- 
 tations. Although a deficiency in the Articles may be 
 supplied, or a doubt may be removed by a distinct declar- 
 ation of doctrine in the Prayer Book, yet the occasion for 
 this is found to be exceptional. The fact of the Creeds 
 having been incorporated into the Articles shows the 
 anxiety of the Church to have a distinct code of doctrine, 
 and to keep the Book of Common Prayer for the pure and 
 peaceful purpose of undisturbed devotion. 
 
 The Dean of St. Paul's is disposed to look upon the 
 Articles as somewhat obsolete, referable to what he calls 
 "controversies of the day." All the Articles, with the 
 exception of the Twenty-second, were subsequent to the 
 doctrines enacted in the decrees of Trent. These, at least^ 
 are not obsolete. It had become necessary for the Church, 
 as a witness for revealed truth, to restate explicitly such of 
 
 * Moore's Report of the Gorham Cnse, p. 467. 
 
478 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 the positive doctrines as had been corrupted or obscured, 
 and to renounce and condemn errors which are repugnant 
 to the Holy Scriptures. This was the real work of the 
 Reformation. Its noblest vindication is to be found in the 
 Articles of Religion. " They are negative," says the Dean 
 of St. Paul's. The Law given from Sinai is negative. 
 " They are controversial," he adds.' So are some of the 
 Catholic Epistles, and two at least of the Creeds contained 
 in the Book of Common Prayer, to which the Dean would 
 retain subscription. " They contain things hard to be 
 understood." So do all the Epistles of St. Paul. 
 
 The errors and excesses against which the Articles 
 were directed are as lasting as the fanaticism, the ignorance, 
 and the folly of man. It is not the barren study of obso- 
 lete controversy that is imposed on the theological student 
 by requiring an intelligent subscription to these Articles 
 of Religion on taking Holy Orders. He is reasonably 
 expected to have studied the great movement of the 
 Reformation ; for surely it is fit and proper that he who 
 is to minister the doctrine of the Reformed Church should 
 not only be acquainted with primitive truth, but with the 
 principal heresies by which that truth has been and may 
 be again assailed. He may thus be enabled to detect 
 subtle forms of unbelief, and furnished with the means of 
 exposing and refuting them. Who can say truly of any 
 controversy that has been, that it may not be, at any tims, 
 revived, or that the authoritative condemnation of any 
 error may be safely cast aside ? The recent example of 
 the Forty-second Article of 1552 is instructive. Had it 
 not been withdrawn afterwards, on the assumption that 
 the error to which it referred was exploded and obsolete, 
 the Church would not now be subjected to the misrepre- 
 sentation of having impliedly sanctioned what she had 
 expressly condemned. 
 
 What amount of knowledge is sufficient to qualify a 
 philosophic historian of the Church, or to secure an ex- 
 haustive exposition of the Articles, I need not stop to 
 
ANSWER TO DEAN MILMAN. 479 
 
 discuss. It is enough to say, that he who seeks to obtain 
 the Church's commission, should be prepared to attest by- 
 subscription, as an unequivocal act, his agreement with the 
 doctrine that he is to be appointed to teach. But let me 
 ask the venerable Dean, whether the Book of Common 
 Prayer can be thoroughly understood and fully appre- 
 ciated without references to controversies which have been 
 encountered by the Church ? What has he to say as to 
 the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds? Every sentence, 
 almost every word, in the former is associated with con- 
 troversial conflict. It is an ancient banner, emblazoned 
 with the record of victories achieved over the impugners of 
 the Catholic Faith. The latter tries to express in terms of 
 the pure intellect the sublime mystery of the Godhead. 
 What part of the great charter of the Church demands 
 from the theological student a higher exercise of faith and 
 reason, a more exact acquaintance with the history of 
 heresy in its subtle and shifting forms ? But " the Articles 
 are fenced about with inhibitions," says the Dean. From 
 their very nature, they must be in a great degree negative 
 and restrictive in fencing truth against the encroachments 
 of error. It might as well be objected to a chart that it 
 laid down for the mariner the shoals, the quicksands, and 
 the sunken rocks, and recorded the soundings. These 
 are its " inhibitions." The course of the voyage, the coast 
 and harbour scenery, might perhaps be exhibited or 
 described " more winningly" in a way not only suitable 
 but quite sufficient for popular use. With this the pas- 
 senger might be satisfied ; but for the master of the ship, 
 however agreeable or useful as a supplement, this would 
 be obviously unsafe as a substitute. To him the authentic 
 chart, with its cautionary and instructive inhibitions, is 
 indispensable. 
 
 Whether, therefore, the doctrines of the Church (so far 
 as they are to be found in the Prayer Book) are there set 
 forth " more winningly " than in the Articles, I need not 
 now dispute ; but that the doctrinal teaching of the Prayer 
 
480 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 Book is as full or as complete as that of the Articles, I 
 emphatically deny. Where in the Prayer Book are Pela- 
 gian perversions met as in the Ninth Article, and where is 
 the great doctrine of justification stated as in the Eleventh? 
 Where is the Scriptural position of works in the Christian 
 scheme declared, as in the Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth 
 Articles ? Where is the sinlessness of Christ, and of Him 
 alone, so explicitly declared as in the Fifteenth, a special 
 bulwark against heresies, not only not obsolete, but rife in 
 our own times ? One of the most dangerous doctrines of 
 modern rationalists is denounced with Apostolical severity 
 in the Eighteenth Article.* Where have we in the Prayer 
 Book an equivalent for the great foundation Article (the 
 Sixth)? I might easily extend the contrast. It is not 
 necessary for me to do more than to establish that the 
 Prayer Book is not of itself sufficient for the acknowledged 
 purpose of subscription. It is consistent and concurrent, 
 but it is not co-extensive, with the Articles. 
 
 It is satisfactory to find the Dean of St. Paul's explicitly 
 avowing that he has never found any difficulty in recon- 
 ciling with his own conscience his subscription to the 
 Articles. Such a testimony from one so learned, so 
 liberal, so exact, and so accomplished, ought of itself to 
 silence cavil. He commends " the wonderful wisdom," 
 " the signal moderation," and " the comprehensive spirit in 
 which the Articles have been framed." The Dean of 
 Westminster, in a like strain, says that " they may be 
 taken as an excellent framework of theological instruction ;" 
 that there is " a balance of statement which renders them 
 singularly well adapted for the purpose of a national con- 
 fession." It is not unworthy of notice that where one 
 Dean would seem to waver between general praise and 
 particular objection, the other is distinct in his special 
 approval. This is exemplified in their comments on the 
 Seventeenth Article, and the Article on the Sacraments. 
 
 * As to the "virtuous heathen," see Butlers Analogy, 203 d., 220 (Oxfor n 
 edition). ) 
 
ANSWER TO DEAN MILMAN. 48 1 
 
 When the accuser becomes the apologist, his eulogy 
 should be accepted with caution. In this very matter of 
 the Articles, I cannot forget the elaborate admissions of 
 Mr. Newman, in his celebrated letter to Dr. Jelf, when he 
 was anxious to cover his retreat in a damaged cause. I 
 do not, however, mean to suggest that the praise bestowed 
 on the Articles by either Dean is not as genuine as it is 
 deserved, and I claim the right to retain it altogether on 
 the credit side. There is not one of the special objections 
 of the Dean of Westminster which has been adopted by 
 the Dean of St. Paul's. They are generally inapplicable 
 to the authentic and established code of the Thirty-nine 
 Articles, authoritatively construed. It is said by the Dean 
 of St. Paul's that the Articles are not a sufficient safeguard 
 against new assaults, and that there is in theology a pro- 
 gressive as well as a permanent element. The latter he 
 would confine to what is elementary. But who is to 
 decide what is elementary? and is there to be no stability 
 in what has been established b)'- the Church in accordance 
 with the standard of the Holy Scriptures ? In this — in- 
 deed, throughout his entire argument — the Dean has for- 
 gotten that he was bound to show that the Prayer Book, 
 taken by itself, was not open to a like objection of insuffi- 
 ciency. The Articles, like the successive Creeds, had to 
 meet specific heresies, and to guard against the continu- 
 ance or revival of these heresies in the Church. The 
 objection to them as incomplete would affect every safe- 
 guard which the Church has from time to time provided in 
 her dogmatic defences. It is not reason (I must say) to 
 maintain that a test is worthless and should be abandoned, 
 if it is not absolutely perfect for every occasion. A 
 chemical test is not abandoned if it does not detect every 
 species oi poison ; it may, notwithstanding, be of great 
 practical utility in detecting the most common. New 
 assaults may be multiplied, but " the foundation of God 
 .=*-andeth sure." Should further protection against fresh 
 assaults be needed, this does not prove that the. old 
 established defences should be altogether abandoned. 
 
 I I 
 
482 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 The Dean has conveniently divided the Articles into 
 distinct groups. The first set, which are conversant with 
 what he calls " primary and fundamental truths," he 
 describes as " exquisitely subtle," and adds, that " as far as 
 such subjects may be made intelligible, nothing can be 
 more clear and distinct than their definitions." If it is 
 proper for the purpose of subscription that the doctrine 
 should be definite, we have it in this group suitably 
 defined in the most exact and intelligible form. Now, 
 whether the subscription is to be regarded as a personal 
 test or a moral security, or both, it is reasonable, if not 
 self-evident, that the doctrine to be professed by the sub- 
 scriber should have been explicitly declared by the Church. 
 If the Church should not have so declared what she 
 requires to be professed by her commissioned minister, it 
 would open a door to the inconvenience and injustice 
 which may arise out of " inferential interpretation." In 
 this event, some tribunal would have to disentangle the 
 doctrine. If, indeed, the Dean could show that this could 
 be done with a greater reverence for truth, or a greater 
 respect and security for Christian liberty, than has been 
 exhibited by the framers of the Articles, his argument 
 would have force ; but I cannot understand how the very 
 excellence of this group of Articles, as part of a code of 
 doctrine, can be urged as a reason for superseding the 
 group altogether. 
 
 Whatever may be the legitimate influence of the 
 Liturgy, from the Scriptural spirit which it breathes, in its 
 solemn melody, its holy fervour, its spiritual suggestions, 
 and all its tender associations, I would leave in full and 
 undisturbed operation. I would, therefore, retain the 
 dogmatic declarations of doctrine, as such, in the code of 
 Articles — clear, definite, intelligible (so far as may be), and, 
 above all, " agreeable to God's Word." Heresies have been 
 suffered in the Church, that they which are approved might 
 be made manifest ; and in the providence of God they 
 have called for dogmatic determinations, which can only 
 
ANSWER TO DEAN MILMAN. 483 
 
 stand if made in accordance with the sure warrant of Holy 
 Scripture. Can it be reasonably contended that if the 
 established doctrine is to be honestly professed, it should 
 not be thus explicitly declared ? Does any part of it re- 
 quire to be so wrapped up for the purpose of subscription 
 as to conceal its Scriptural exactness ? 
 
 The second group to which the Dean refers relates to 
 the Holy Scriptures ; these he reserves for a separate and 
 subsequent consideration, and I will follow the order of 
 his argument. On the third I need not dwell further 
 than to say that the Dean of Westminster has supplied 
 whatever may be needed to complete and correct the com- 
 ment of the Dean of St. Paul's, who closes his criticism on 
 this group by a " testimony of profound respect for the 
 quiet caution with which the framers' of our Articles 
 laboured to give a practical turn to these inevitable ques- 
 tions, to guard against perilous abuses, rather than insist 
 on precise definitions." This is not faint praise. 
 
 The next group relates to the sacraments. As to these 
 he contends that the Sacramental Offices in the Prayer 
 Book are more instructive than the Articles. I do not 
 purpose to weigh or measure their respective contributions 
 to a right apprehension of this important subject. Juncta 
 juvant. The Offices may supplement, though they do 
 not supersede, the teaching of the Articles. The Dean of 
 St. Paul's objects that these Articles are directed especially 
 against Romanist errors ; but the Dean of Westminster, 
 more in accordance with the spirit of the Reformation, 
 fastens upon this as an especial mark of their excellence. 
 Idolatry of the symbol is a formidable error, and required 
 a special safeguard against it. 
 
 I have already observed that the Dean of St. Paul's 
 has overlooked that his argument fails unless he proves 
 that the Prayer Book of itself suffices where the Articles 
 are insufficient. In no part of his argument is this over- 
 sight more palpable than where he attempts to show that 
 the Articles have not been found adequate to protect the 
 
484 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTER-S. 
 
 Church in the three instances to which he successively 
 refers. How strange that he should forget that in each 
 instance the Church had the double protection of the 
 Articles and the Prayer Book ; and if both have failed, how 
 could the Prayer Book be of itself sufficient ? His sword 
 is two-edged, and cuts away his own proposal as to the 
 Prayer Book, when it cuts at all. 
 
 He first alludes to what I may call a prefatory case — 
 the case of Archdeacon Denison — which, he says, went off 
 on a technical informality. But before the final result, the 
 Archdeacon mainly relied on a well-known objection to 
 the authenticity of the Twenty-ninth Article ; and the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop Carr, with Dr. 
 Lushington as their assessor, decided that the Twenty- 
 ninth Article was authentic, and that the sacramental 
 doctrine propounded by the venerable Archdeacon was 
 repugnant to this Article. The propriety of this decision 
 on the merits has not (I believe) been impugned by 
 authority.- The very fact that in the first instance it was 
 attempted to impeach the authenticity of the Twenty-ninth 
 Article, and at the last to fall back on a technicality un- 
 connected with the question of doctrine, shows that, in the 
 opinion of those who advocated the cause of the Arch- 
 deacon, there was not a well-founded hope of escaping on 
 the merits from the grasp of the Article. So far, therefore, 
 the Articles were protective ; it was never suggested at 
 any stage of the argument that the Prayer Book could 
 of itself have met this case. 
 
 But he comes next to the instance of the great 
 Tractarian movement of " so-called Romanisers." And 
 here the argument of the Dean is sui generis. Is it that 
 the Articles had failed to protect the Church against the 
 apostacy of men who sought to enjoy her endowments 
 and hold the doctrines of Rome, which our Church had 
 renounced and condemned ? Or that she was, or could 
 have been, sufficiently protected by her " ambiguous For- 
 mularies"? This is not the case made by the Dean. He 
 
ANSWER TO DEAN MILMAN. 485 
 
 suggests a way of dealing with the Articles by which he 
 seems to think that " the Romanisers " might have found 
 shelter within the Church, and secession might have been 
 avoided. True it is, the natural interpretation of the 
 Articles seemed, to some at least of the leaders of this 
 party, as irreconcilable with the tenets which they con- 
 sciously held. " Ambiguous Formularies " were not so 
 inflexible. These men were learned and subtle ; every 
 liberty that could be taken with language was to them 
 familiar. They proposed to empty the decrees of Trent 
 and the Articles of our Church respectively of their known 
 historical meaning, and by a process which no form of 
 words could withstand, they tried to make the Articles 
 seem to comprehend the very errors which they were 
 mainly designed to condemn. This was what Mr. New- 
 man describes in his letter to Dr. Jelf, as " interpreting the 
 Articles in the most Catholic sense they will admit." But 
 after all, we had a sure protection in the Articles, first from 
 what the Dean of St. Paul's has himself, in another part of 
 his able paper, suggested to be " the real key and the true 
 rule for the interpretation — -the design and aim of the 
 lawgiver, the animus imponentis ;" next, from the wise 
 rules of judicial construction lucidly applied to the 
 Articles by Lord Stowell, and since established by the 
 judgment in the Gorham case. This very controversy 
 with the Romanisers has given us the valuable and in- 
 structive judgment of Sir Herbert Jenner Fust in Mr. 
 Oakeley's case (i Robertson, Eccl. Rep. 353), in which he 
 shows the contrast and the contrariety of the enactments 
 of Trent and the declarations made in our Articles. We 
 have also the instinctive honesty and directness of the 
 English mind, which could not, and never will, endure the 
 duplicity and deceit of any form of non-natural interpre- 
 tation. I care not what name it may assume, whether 
 " the Catholic sense," or " the comprehensive construction," 
 if the result is to end in complicity with condemned doc- 
 trine. 
 
486 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 The Dean has come to the rescue with all the chivalry 
 of a " Dean errant." He is not so much the defender of the 
 movement as the apologist of the men. The great moralist, 
 Bishop Butler, has taught us, in his memorable sermon 
 on Balaam, the significance of the moral law, by which 
 a man may become the greatest dupe of his own dupli- 
 city ; and therefore I am not surprised that the secession 
 was but partial, and that some could reconcile it with con- 
 science to abide in our Church. There is in the movement 
 much that may be explained, little that can be excused, 
 and nothing that can be commended, except the secession 
 at the end. Our Scriptural Articles, speaking throughout 
 with the idiom of truth, that falsehood cannot imitate — not 
 " with the stammering lips of ambiguous Formularies," but 
 with the plainness and honesty of their truth-loving framers 
 (men who never could have stooped to explain or compli- 
 ment away the truths which they held to be vital) — were 
 found to be incapable of any natural interpretation, by 
 which those who seceded could reconcile their inward con- 
 victions with the declared doctrine of our Church. They 
 were constrained to secede, and, in so doing, they proved 
 that the Articles were protective. I say, then, the Dean's 
 argument breaks down ; his select instances put him out 
 of court. His next instance is the Gorham case. But 
 here the Sacramental Office in the Book of Common 
 Prayer, though said by the Dean to be more instructive 
 than the Articles, was not more protective. If he is not 
 prepared to question the sufficiency of the Prayer Book in 
 reference to Baptismal Regeneration, it is in vain to object 
 to the insufficiency of the Articles. It may be that, from 
 insufficient attention to the Scriptural use and exact 
 meaning of words, confusion of thought and verbal con- 
 troversy have arisen, that might have been avoided. This 
 is not owing to any deficiency either in the Articles or in 
 the Prayer Book, which agree in substance. Be this as it 
 may, the Dean commends the decision, and rejoices to find 
 that there was nothing either in the Articles or Formularies 
 
ANSWER TO DEAN MILMAN. 487 
 
 which made it necessary legally to condemn Mr. Gorham. 
 Let me then ask, how does he here show that the Articles 
 should be cast aside as lumber, and that it is for the 
 interest of the Church to retain subscription only to the 
 Prayer Book, as of itself a sufficient protection ? How 
 does this prove that subscription to the Articles is " a very 
 immoral trial of the conscience"? 
 
 But he comes next- and last to the recent case, which 
 has stirred up so much controversy about " the inspiration 
 of the Scriptures." He here deals with the second group 
 of Articles ; he gives a lucid analysis of them, and points 
 out what he considers to be the questions which the Church 
 has left open. This is not the occasion to enter upon a 
 criticism of the list which he has drawn up. The positive 
 value of this group of Articles depends on the importance 
 of the questions which they' have authoritatively closed. 
 I will take the two leading points, as given by the Dean. 
 The Scripture, and the Scripture alone, is the rule of faith, 
 and the Canonital Books alone are " the Scripture." These 
 (to use the Dean's exact and expressive words) are " the 
 two great truths on which rested the Reformation." Tra- 
 dition -and the Apocrypha are excluded as of inferior, 
 because of human, authority. The Canonical Scriptures 
 are "God's Word written"— that "Holy Writ" of which 
 the Church is " a witness and a keeper " — and they are . 
 declared to be of supreme authority because Divine. To 
 this standard the Church refers as the ultimate test of all 
 her teaching and of all her ministrations. If, then, we 
 have in the Articles the very basis of the Reformation, if 
 here is the centre of all the Church's operations in defence 
 of truth and in denunciation of error, and if no substitute 
 can be shown in the Prayer Book for these great funda- 
 mental declarations, the argument of the Dean against the 
 subscription to the Articles is illusory, as it is plainly 
 inconclusive. Doubtless, other and important questions 
 have been left open ; but there may be enough to show 
 that in the abstinence of the Church there is exhibited a 
 
488 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 wise moderation. " There are," says the Bishop of St. 
 David's, in his masterly and luminous Charge to his clergy 
 in 1863 — "there are many things in which our highest 
 wisdom is to resign ourselves to the consciousness of our 
 ignorance, and to the certainty, that on this side the grave 
 we shall never know more of them than we do." The 
 work of the Holy Spirit may well be considered as one of 
 these things. Whether in the regeneration of the baptized 
 infant, or in the inspiration of the prophet or apostle, we 
 can neither define His operation, nor fix the limit of His 
 influence. 
 
 In making the standard of Canonical Scripture as of 
 supreme, because of Divine, authority, the Church has 
 acknowledged that the whole has been given by inspiration 
 of God. Let us be content with the moral certainty that 
 the framers of the Articles and Formularies unreservedly 
 believed in the special operation of the Holy Spirit, as 
 having sufficiently qualified and guided those who wrote 
 the Scriptures. It is not for man speculatively to deter- 
 mine how or in what measure the Divine element has been 
 blended with the human. There may be sufficiency with- 
 out perfection ; and we should collect the gracious purpose 
 of God from what He has done and given, not from any 
 preconceived notion of what we think He must have de- 
 signed. There is, then, a class of controverted questions 
 on which we have no dogmatic decision, and we have to 
 collect what we can by way of inference and deduction ; 
 but this is not dogmatic. We should be satisfied with the 
 sunshine in which we may live and walk, without curiously 
 seeking to measure the passing shadows. But, after all, 
 consider the result of what the Dean has here suggested. 
 Does it show that the Prayer Book is of itself sufficient, or 
 that there is no positive value in the Articles ? Far from 
 it. The Church has, indeed, left a large liberty to her 
 members, which they are bound to use responsibly, and as 
 the servants of God. Even in the controversies which 
 she has professed to close, she has amply provided for 
 
ANSWER TO DEAN MILMAN. 489 
 
 differences of subjective apprehension and different aspects 
 of Scriptural truth as viewed from several stand-points. A 
 sect or a party may be founded on a narrow and partial 
 interpretation ; but it is the privilege and the mission of the 
 Church of Christ to vindicate revealed truth in its fulness, 
 as it is set forth in the pure Word of God. When the 
 Dean, therefore, refers to distinguished names in the 
 Church, of those who have been of her household, and 
 points to their differences as incompatible with the unity 
 which the Articles professed to encourage, he overlooks 
 the directing and moral influence which the Articles may 
 have exercised over the hearts and consciences of many 
 who have joined " the cloud of witnesses." Many have 
 been led in the same direction without having been com- 
 pelled to move in the same track. " For the love of God " 
 (says the illustrious Bishop of Worcester, John Hooper, in 
 a letter to Sir William Cecil) "cause the Articles that the 
 King's Majesty spoke of, when we took our oaths, to be 
 set forth by his authority. I doubt not but they shall do 
 much good. For I will cause every minister to confess 
 them openly before their parishioners." He could appre- 
 ciate the moral effect of such a declaration. It may be 
 that the liberty conceded by the Church has been abused, 
 and that no complete remedy has been provided by the 
 Articles to meet the occasional excess. But, on the other 
 hand, the nature and extent of this liberty is often mis- 
 understood. It is not the partial view of a section or mere 
 private opinion that is the true measure of it. It is secured 
 by comprehension without compromise. The members of 
 a sect may insist on an adherence to some narrow or frag- 
 mentary creed ; they are thus compressed and packed 
 together. But the doctrine of the Church is not the less 
 definite because it has a Scriptural latitude adapted to 
 differences of subjective apprehension. Men are prone to 
 substitute their sect or their section for the Church itself, 
 and their partial opinion for the whole truth, and to regard 
 
490 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 some of the very differences for which the Church has 
 provided, as a mark of schism or an abuse of liberty. The 
 solar beam is composed of distinct colours, but in their 
 intimate coalescence they give the light of heaven to the 
 earth. It has been the object of the Church to provide for 
 Christian liberty and for Christian unity. Her Articles 
 were obviously intended to encourage unity, and to be 
 articles of peace. This peace, however, was not to be 
 obtained by unauthorized interpretation, nor by a slavish 
 ■ or an unreasoning submission to the mere letter, but by an 
 intelligent and honest assent to the substance and spirit, 
 to the main principles and distinct statements. 
 
 The argument of the Dean is not helped by the 
 epithets "hard and inflexible." Truth may be severely 
 exact without forfeiting its sacred character. Had the 
 Church authority to determine controversies of faith? 
 Has she exercised this authority in accordance with God's 
 Word ? Has she an established doctrine, and has it been 
 explicitly declared? Is she to commit this doctrine to 
 faithful men, able to teach others, and is she to give this 
 commission without having tested the faithfulness or the 
 competence of those who are to minister her doctrine ? 
 These are the questions to be answered, and they are not 
 to be evaded, nor are they answered by any form of hard 
 words. The Church has a higher office than to satisfy the 
 demands of contending parties. She has to provide for 
 the vindication and transmission of revealed truth, which 
 she is bound to keep pure and undefiled, and to commit to 
 faithful men. Her commission must not be compared 
 with admission to a learned secular profession. The one 
 is of Divine institution, the other merely human. The one 
 confers a public and official authority, the other personal 
 privilege. The commission to minister the doctrine of the 
 Church is the decisive distinction. The substance of the 
 Articles and the spirit of the Prayer Book should always 
 be combined. The rules for the true construction of both 
 are now judicially settled, and it is in vain to huddle up 
 
ANSWER TO DEAN MILMAN. 49 1 
 
 blind charges of uncertainty and perplexity, which the 
 Dean has assumed to be well founded. They are at once 
 met by a reference to the authoritative decisions on the 
 subject. 
 
 As to the Articles, they are to be construed in the 
 ■ plain, usual, and grammatical meaning of the words, so 
 far modified as to avoid absurdity, contradiction, or repug- 
 nance throughout the whole. In the Prayer Book, we are 
 not to confound what is devotional with what is dog- 
 matical. We are to distinguish. We are to apply the well- 
 known rule — secundum subjectam materiem. What is dog- 
 matical is to be dealt with as if in the Articles. But the 
 devotional services are not to be treated as declaratory, 
 nor to be construed by the hard rules of a rigid logic. 
 These are the Church's prayers, inspired by faith and 
 hope and charity. They must be interpreted as the 
 language of devotion, by the rule of piety, and according 
 to the analogy of Scripture and apostolic example. The 
 sense is not here to be taken as of course absolute 
 and unconditional. It may be relative and qualified, and 
 is to be ascertained by a careful consideration of the 
 nature of the subject and the true doctrine applicable to it. 
 A reference to Simeon's Works (Vol. II., p. 259) reminds 
 me that some of the current difficulties both in the 
 Articles and the Prayer Book are Bible difficulties, which 
 we may expect to give way before a more exact and 
 intelligent study of the Holy Scriptures. Other difficul- 
 ties arise out of a strict and literal construction of par- 
 ticular passages taken by themselves ; but this may be 
 generally met by the rule of interpretation which directs 
 us so to modify the letter in one place as not to raise 
 a palpable contradiction to what is clear and accepted in 
 another, and that we are bound to prefer the meaning 
 by which we neither disappoint nor defeat the intention 
 with 'which, after a careful perusal of the whole, we are 
 morally convinced it has been framed. 
 
 This is a summary (though I fear it is an imperfect 
 
492 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 one) of what I take to be the fair result of the recent 
 decisions. They introduce no novelty. It is but the appli- 
 cation of established rules of construction to the docu- 
 ments which constitute a part of the law of Church and 
 State. Adopted as these documents have been by both, 
 it must have been intended by both that the Articles and 
 the Prayer Book should be so understood and so inter- 
 preted as to be reconcilable and consistent. The Church 
 does not exact subscription to them separately, but as one 
 transaction. It gives an undue advantage to the objector 
 to allow him to deal with them separately. "There is 
 hardly a statement" (says the Dean of Westminster) "to 
 which any objection can be raised in the Articles which is 
 not neutralized by some countervailing expression in the 
 Prayer Book." How often do we find that there is a 
 larger truth that grows out of and reconciles seerning con- 
 tradictions ! This should never be forgotten by the thought- 
 ful and candid reader of the Bible, nor in the use of the 
 Articles and Prayer Book. 
 
 In requiring subscription to the Articles and the Prayer 
 Book thus taken together, there is (according to the Dean 
 of St. Paul's) " a very dangerous, a very objectionable, a 
 very immoral trial of the conscience." These are hard 
 words ; but hard words are not a substitute for strong or 
 sufficient reasons. There are (as the Dean himself admits) 
 " primary and fundamental truths " in one group of the 
 Articles set forth not only with the utmost nicety and 
 precision of language, but as intelligibly as the subject 
 admits. There is another group, in which the two great 
 truths on which (as he also admits) the Reformation 
 rests, are set forth with unexceptionable ' clearness and 
 moderation. Is it an "immoral trial of the conscience" 
 to require these to be subscribed by the commissioned 
 minister of the Church reformed ? Does it cease to be 
 " a temptation to gulp down all without thought or with- 
 out inquiry " (these are the Dean's words) if the doctrines 
 
ANSWER TO DEAN MILMAN. 493 
 
 are no longer declared in distinct, intelligible, and definite 
 statement, specially and naturally adapted for a test and a 
 profession of belief ; and if they are presented only in " the 
 more winning " forms of the Liturgy, as if they were a 
 nauseous medicine deceptively administered in syrup to a 
 wayward child ? Concealment in any form must more or 
 less defeat the moral purpose and effect of the subscription. 
 " It is," says Lord Bacon, " in the nature of a confession, 
 and therefore more proper to bind in the unity of faith, 
 and to be urged rather for articles of doctrine than for rites 
 and ceremonies and points of outward government." 
 
 That there are expressions and passages in the Articles 
 which might be the subject of revision and amendment, I 
 freely concede. But this is not peculiar to the Articles; 
 I would say as much of the Book of Common Prayer, and 
 not less of the Authorized Version of the Bible. Whether 
 as to these I may be disposed to " offer the sacrifice of a 
 willing silence to the public peace of the Church," or to 
 join with those who desire to see such amendments pru- 
 dently and responsibly made, is relevant to the present 
 discussion. The Dean of St. Paul's does not propose to 
 discriminate, but to destroy ; he does not suggest amend- 
 ment, but abolition. If the Articles are not fit to be sub- 
 scribed, they ought to be superseded and suppressed. 
 They ought not in such case to remain as a part, as the 
 main part, of that doctrine which " this Church and 
 Realm has received," and the ministration of which in its 
 fulness is made the subject of a deliberate pledge solemnly 
 given on receiving Priest's Orders. Should any presume 
 to minister if he could not morally subscribe the doctrine ? 
 Has the Dean of St. Paul's considered this consequence 
 of his proposal ? He cannot escape from it. Subscription 
 or non-subscription has no effect on the doctrine as de- 
 clared and established. It does not create nor abridge the 
 obligation which the law of the Church and the law of 
 the State imposes on him who takes Holy Orders — an 
 
494 LECTURES, ESSAYS, AND LETTERS. 
 
 obligation altogether irrespective of subscription. The sub- 
 scription is to attest his moral and believing assent to this 
 doctrine, and so far as it is not fit to be subscribed, it is 
 not fit to constitute a part of the Church's code. The 
 Eiean does not seek to prune ; he lays the axe to the root 
 of the tree : " cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground ?" 
 His argument is directed against all the Articles as a code 
 of definite and dogmatic doctrine; the language of some, 
 and the seeming inutility of others, is only brought for- 
 ward in aid of the general attack which he makes upon 
 the whole. An ancient mansion may not be the less 
 convenient for a modern household because it has some 
 old-fashioned apartments seldom (if ever) occupied. 
 
 Whatever may be said of obsolete expressions or 
 questionable passages in the Articles or the Prayer Book, 
 it has not been shown that there exists any real impedi- 
 ment to giving a general honest assent to both as the 
 Church's repository of doctrine and devotion — 
 
 " Truth's consecrated residence, the seat 
 Impregnable of liberty and peace." 
 
ANSWER TO DEAN MILMAN. 495 
 
 Letter from Archbishop Longley, on Clerical 
 Subscription. 
 
 Lambeth Palace, S., 
 
 March 14th, 1865. 
 
 Mv DEAR Mr. Napier, 
 
 I felt quite sure that Dean Milman would give to the world, 
 in some shape or other, his views on the subject of Subscription, 
 as expressed to us in his memorandum, read at the Commission. 
 
 I have talked over the subject with Lord Harrowby; and he 
 agrees with me in thinking that you would be quite justified in 
 publishing the answer which you put in, mentioning no more of 
 the incidents at the Commission respecting the Dean's Paper and 
 yours, than may be necessary for correcting any erroneous state- 
 ment of the Dean's. 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 My dear Mr. Napier, 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 C. T. Cantuar. 
 
PRINTED BY 
 
 CHARLES W. GIBBS, 
 i8 WicKLOw Street, 
 
 DUBLIN. 
 
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