The Press.
London, England, 1856-07-05 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

made his way to the highest offices, without
the aid of party, without the patronage of
aristocratic rank. He was one of the numerous
intellectual offspring of Trinity College. Cam-
bridge; and from first to last he was distin
guished by that mingled vigour and variety
of fitculties which are so characteristic of
" the crack men "of our universities. He
was third in the mathematical tripos (1808),
and in two previous years he had successively
taken the first medals for the Greek and Latin
Ode. He was also Chancellor's Medallist,
and in strength and subtlety of mind, and
untiring application, he was second to none
of his college contemporaries. Applying him-
self to scholastic literature, he produced
those educational works, which exhibit pro
found learning without affectation, and which
for neatness of annotation, and terse closeness
of apt remarks, supply models for classical
editors.

But his academical attainments, though
copious and exact, were the least of this
eminent personage's resources. He had an
uncommon capacity for affairs ; he could be
profound with the few, and practical with the
many, and he was pre-eminently endowed with
the powers which conduct a man in our free
country ad summit fastigia rerum. His firm-
ness was deeply rooted ; and in conflict with
adversaries he was at once coolly persistent
and adroit. Though there was nothing af-
fected in his deportment, his Lordship pos7
sessed a peculiar versatility in suiting him-
self to opposite audiences. Preaching to a
congregation of shoopkeepers, no one in the
pulpit could show more judicious sense in
lucidly enforcing the duties of life : and in
the Temple Church, he was capable of dazzling
legal intellects, while uncoiling the web of
infidel sophistry with a sustained subtlety
that might throw Mr. GLADSTONE into despair.
In the House of Peers, on the other hand, he
spoke like an. English senator, often power-
fully, always persuasively, and was equally
ready and guarded in debate. In the variety
of his professional range we obtain the cue
to his ideas on our Church Establishment.
It was evidently his Lordship's deep convic-
tion that great learning, great talent, and
great activity, were emphatically required in
the Episcopate, if the Church was to be suc-
cessfully defended He appeared to think
that England should make it her policy to
attract into the Church those natures of the
Copley and Brougham species capable of
gaining Lord Chancellorships. A bishop,
iu his opinion, should be a statesman, and be
distinguished by a ruling mind, which should
convert some, and conquer others.
Men will differ, according to their pre-
judices, upon the results of his episcopal
career Let it, however, be remembered that
he held his high post in times of social dis-
cord. " The Church " bad a powerful cry
against it, at the time of the Reform Bill ;
the Dissenters were fiercely active, and lati-
tudinarians swarmed. The Bishop of LONDON
assumed a determined tone. He looked to
the internal defences of the Establishment,
and he insisted that the clergy should exhibit
more professional aptitude. His efforts in
raising the theological standard in his diocese
made him unpopular with many; but the pre-
sent generation has largely benefited by his
policy. So, also, upon " Church Extension,"
his Lordship was a great benefactor. He saw
plainly how vast was the evil which resulted
from the bygone inactivity of the Church in
having allowed the manufacturing districts to
fall to the Dissenters and " philosophers."
The suburban world of London, and all the
new centres of population, were, mainly by his
exertions, supplied with churches ; and it is
certain that dissent receded rather than ad-
vanced in the mighty diocese over which lie
presided
His tone as a practical theologian in his
charges was obviously taken from his percep
lion of the fact that his clergy were divided
into two parties, and he desired the ascen-
dancy of neither, believing that the Church of
England should never press too heavily on the
followers of ARMINIIIS or CALVIN. In his
earlier years he was ranked with the Evan-
gelicals, and, in the infidel spirit of those days,
it was necessary to dwell much and forcibly
upon the Atonement. But in subsequent

627

times his Lordship seemed to fear lest the
pulpits of an exaggerated Evangelicisin would
leave no praetical distinction between the
Church and Dissent, and he dreaded the in-
consistency and fluctuating caprices of an
influence " Liberal " in its politics and Biblical
in its theology ; loud in assailing " Popery " in
the conventicle—equally lax in opening the
doors to " Roman Catholicism " in Parliament.
An organisation of Protestantism, such as the
English Church alone can supply, with the
learning, the eloquence, and personal inde-
pendence of its Ministry, his Lordship
deemed absolutely necessary to the conserva-
tion of our Constitution. Hence, for the sake
of toleration of differences, his Lordship dealt
mildly with many innovations of which he dis-
approved in writing.
Other reasons, also, influenced him in the
comparative leniency of his treatment of high
Tractarians. He was repeatedly appealed to
in a coarse and offensive manner, and the
Marylebone Radicalism (which brays against
" Aristocracy " in a vestry, and obsequiously
follows it " in private ") raised its hoofs against
the Bishop of LONDON. Its lion's hide did not
blind his quick eye to the true character of his
long-eared and long-winded assailant, which
he treated with appropriate contempt. Then
Dissenters bitterly remembered how vigorously
he had counteracted their influence ; then
Radicals counted up his salary to a fabulous
figure ; then a cant cry was raised, and his
Lordship was " Ben-Hailed " as coarsely, as
grossly, and as mendaciously, as if he had
been an Irish landlord, or a man of fashion
turning a contemptuous stare upon the vulgar
pretensions of a brawling upstart.
On the whole, the Bishop of LONDON was
one of the most brilliant public characters of
his time. He was a deep scholar, and " the
City " could scarcely produce a better man of
business. His style was subtle, clear, and
finished ; his personal demeanour was magis-
terial (as became his station), but he had
neither the narrowness of a pedant, nor the
super-sanctified tone of some political high
priests. He was a most English kind of man ;
and in the Commons, or at the Bar, his energy
Hof character would have been signally conspi-
cuous. Official men, indeed, found him too
keen, too firm, too practically successful; and
statesmen dreaded lest he should have been
enthroned in Lambeth, where a serene and
graceful mediocrity is more politically safe
than the vigour which annoys opponents,
while it triumphs over them. In the use of
books, and the knowledge of their contents,
few iu the Universities, or at the Bar, could
excel him ; but he was not book ridden. His
will, his nerve, his coolness, his tact, his
practised temper, marked him as one of those
strong men that cleave their way through
difficulties; and as a representative man of
our modern English Prelacy, it would not be
easy to name his superior in the great art of
powerfully influencing the most opposite
orders of society.