The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-28 00:00:00

1. titian 2v-1111

LONDON, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1844

qhq Archdeacon of Surrey, the Venerable S
WILDERMRCE, held his Visitation on Monday last, IC
'St. Saviour's Church, Southwark. The Charge whirl
lie delivered on this occasion was remarkable for tla
firmness of its tone, and the sound and rational re'i
gious spirit that pervaded it. There were no needles
periphrases—no beatings about the bush—no jesuiticai
;haltings between two sets of opinions. Unlike the
Bishop of LONDON—who has been appropriately
called the Sir Ronmer PEE/ of the Church —in
notorious Charge of 1841, the Archdeacon did n,.,t
deem it expedient to oscillate like a pendulum be.
tween High Church and Low Church; to cum.
favour with the f;.)rmer in one passage, and with the
latter in another; to discuss essentials as if they wer(
mere ;rifles, and to raise trifles to the dignity o
essentials. No such timid or evasive spirit wcs
visible in Archdeacon WILBERFORCE'S Charge
lie seemed to fed that his subject did not admit of it.
and that it would only be degraded by such a shut-
.fling mode of treating it. Accordingly, nothing cold(
the more perspicuous than his language, or mon
decided and straightforward than his views. W.
allude, more particularly, to his remarks on fla
.suhject of tile Tractarian heresy, on which 11,
c' pressed himself with a distinctness and cogency 0
reaa.oning that must have carried conviction to th,
understandings of all who heard him. The Arch
deacon is clearly no Tractarian. The specious falla-
cies of these Divinity sophists—whose name, we are
sorry to say,
is Legion—have no attraction for him—
have made no impression on his acute intellect.
He pierces at once through the shallow dis-
guise in which they clothe their Romanism ; track
them through all their doublings; and shows them, a.,
they really are, insidious enemies of the Church unclez
the pretext of being its best friends. " The causes whirl.
first separated our Church from Rome," observed the
Venerable Archdeacon, " remain altogether unre-
moved ; those perilous corruptions of the highest
truths, wh:,‘4l forced our Reformers to come out of
her, as for ther lives, continue still within her, are]
disfigure her comn:vnion ; what, then, can we think
of those, who being placed by PROVIDENCE within
this branch of His holy Church, go over willingly to
the blindness of those self-chosen errors ? Surely
whatever may be their attainments or their zeal, we
must think and speak of them as of men given over
to a great delusion !" The ,venerable speaker the
went on to trace the course of these Tractarian
zealots. At first., no doubt, they had a distinct
perception of the evils of Romanism, but other
features of the system possessed attra,:tion for them ; • and by constantly dwelling on these with a sort of
w
morbid feeling of admiration, they a
to lose their clear apprehension of ctllerne by degreese
i
err
on a first view had so startled them ; then they which
i
b
to-think that after all they were not quite sobadgaonr
at any rate so important, a.s they originally ap-
reared ; next they persuaded themselves—for who are
easily persuaded as those whose fancy predisposes i

them to delusion ?—that they were not errors at all ;
and, finally, they hugged them to their hearts as so
many distinguishing excellences. How happily do
the following lines of POPE, which we quote from
memory, and therefore with diffidence, apply to the
course of a Tractarian convert !
" Vice is a monster of such fearful mein
As to be hated needs but to be seen,
But seen too oft, familiar with her face,
TVe first endure, then pity, then embrace

The Archdeacon wound up his Charge by observ-
ing :—" That which above all we should each one
dread, is a cold, worldly, trifling Ministry—a Minis-
try which is busy in circumstantials, which is idle as
to materials, which is formal or frivolous, or charit-
able, or busy, provided it be not spiritual—a Ministry
which does not indeed lay hold of the souls of our
people, because our own souls are not given up to
Him whose name we fear." These remarks apply
with peculiar force to the recent conduct of
those ghostly Prelates, LONDON and EXETER,
who have notoriously distinguished themselves by
being " busy in circumstantials," as, for instance,
when the former in his famous Charge of 1841—of
which we have already made honourable mention
elaborately discussed the question of wax candles on
the Communion-table, and whether the minister
should bow to the east or west on leaving the church
and when the latter, in his judgment on the Helston
case, expatiated with equal emphasis on the still
more momentous theme of black and white surplices !

A Morning Contemporary, in a recent article, has
somewhat enlightened the public mind with regard
to the judicial economies of one of the most mys-
terious localities in London. But although he gave
the I:enealogical synopsis of the "family relations"
establisheul there, in high places, with perfect fidelity,
he might have g'2ne yet further. He might have de-
monstrated after whit manner the existence of the
most extraordinary " fanijly compact " which ever
negotiated for, and contrived to retain, through a
long succession of years, a snug monopoly of lucra-
tive or influential offices, in one kindred and lineage,
must have been calculated to operate upon one out of
every two parties to any cause or proceeding tried or
authenticated before them. We propose to supply
this omission for the amusement of our readers in
particular, and for the general information of the
public, who are really interested in the question
which the Morning Chronicle has so properly
brought under its notice—namely, " Who will be
nominated the successor to the office of her Majesty's
Proctor in the Courts Spiritual and Maritime ?"
vacant by the death of the late ILTID NIcuoLL,
Esq., who had filled that appointment (certainly in
a most upright and able manner) for a very lone.

period.
It appears, from our Contemporary's statemenf,
that the Right Hon. JOHN NICHOLL, M.P., has
given in, at the request of Government, a sort of list
of qualified candidates for this important post, in
order to guide the selection to be made by her Ma.
jesty's Ministers. It further appears, that by a "re-
markable coincidence"—as the police reports have it
—all these qualified candidates are cousins, sons,
sons-in-law, nephews, or other near relations of the
presiding authority in the Spiritual Courts—the
Right llon. and Learned certifies of their merits—
her Majesty's Judge Advocate-General, Dr. JOHN
NlCHOLL—being, himself, the son of the late, and
the nephew of the present Judge of the Arches, and
Official Principal to the Archbishop of CANTERBURY.
Dr. NlcHoer. himself, moreover, though standing on
a College of twenty-six Doctors of Law—including
the Judge of the Admiralty, Arches, Prerogative,
and Consistory Courts—only twelfth in point of
seniority, reckoned by dates of respective admission,
is Vicar-General of the Archbishop, and in virtue of
chat office the great dispenser of marriage licenses,
and the immediate authority under whose instru-
ments the inductions to benefices, &c., within the
diocese of Canterbury are made out. Dr. NICHOLL
is one of those truly marvellous men, of whom it is
significantly said " that their fathers were born
before them," for he succeeded to the immense money
fortune, the family patronage, and even the Tory in-
fluence, it should seem, of the late Right Hon. Sir
JOHN NicnoLL, Knt., Judge of the Arches, Pre-
rogative, and (for some time) of the High Court of
Admiralty, too ! The late Sir JoHN was reckoned a
tolerably sound civilian ; but he was a man who, as
the contemporary—and the colleague, it may be
almost said--of the great Sir WILLIAM SCOTT, after-
wards Lord STOWELL, would have been overshadowed
and obscured had he possessed ten times the talent or
ability which he ever manifested in sustainieg the
proximity of so overwhelming a rival in the same
career of judicial eminence. The late Lord ELLEN-
BOROUGH was once asked his opinion of Sir Jowe's
capacity and " means" for discharging the responsible
duties of the tribune, to which he had then been
lately appointed. " I dare say," replied the petulant
but sagacious Chief Justice, " the man has assets."
We may have formed the same estimate of the prac-
tical scope of the Right Hon. Judge Advocate's
powers ; but he is Judge Advocate, and he is Vicar
General, and he is M.P. for Cardiff. Before con-
sidering the list of names to which we are referring,
it is necessary to premise, for their information who
may not be aware of the fact, that from the various
Diocesan Courts of the kingdom an appeal lies to the
Arches' Court of Canterbury, as the highest spiritual
or ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Till within these few
years, from the Arches' Court a suitor might appeal
to the High Court of Delegates, now happily de-
funct, and thence to the Privy Council, or (as in
divorce cases prosecuted ' beyond the ecclesiastical
sentence of separation a menu et Moro, to the abso-
lute Parliamentary decree of divorce vinculo matri-
monii) to the House of Lords. 'Within the jurisdic-
tion of' the Arches' Court, however, are appeals from
judgments in the Consistory Court of London, and
in certain special cases corning within the official
cognisance of the Dean of the Arches (as, for ex-
ample, complaints against practitioners) from the.
Prerogative Court. Now, the names on Dr. Nl-
cnoee's list are stated to be, ILTID NICHOLL, Esq.
(son of the late Queen's Proctor, who was himself a
nephew of the late Judge), F. 11. DYKE, Esq.
CHARLES DYNELEY, Esq., W. Fox, jun., Esq., and
E. JENNER, Esq. These are, all of them, ProeLrs
practising in the several Courts of Doctors'-commons

and standing in those degrees of affinity or consan

4uinity to the present Judge of the Arches and Judge
the Prerogative Courts, which we have already
described. On principles of delicacy and propriety,
this last fact should go far to make them ineligible
tbr the appointment. The Queen's Proctor necessa-

rily commands, especially in war time, a large
amount of official business. Private professional con-
nexion, to a great extent, follows in the wake of

official business ; but great influence inevitably at-
taches to it in connexion with either or both. It is

not very seemly that the Judge's kinsman should re

present the Crown before the Judge ; but when other
kinsmen of the same Judge swarm both at the
bar over which be presides and beneath it—among
the Doctors and the Proctors—it is not very likely,
whilst human nature is constituted as it is, that suitors
whose interests are not conducted or defended by
them, should stand on quite an equal footing in the
Court's regard with antagonists who shall have re-
tained and employed both the one and the other. Sir
EIERBERT JENNER FUST, Dean and Judge of the
Arches, and Judge of the Prerogative Court, is be-
yond all question a most upright and excellent man,
of the highest private character, great experience,
distinguished reputation as a Civil Lawyer and an

Advocate, a Jurist and a Judge. But we cannot

exem2t him from the application of any hypothesis
which assumes the possibility of bias or affection
interposing to influence the stern discharge of his
judicial duties—unsuspected by himself, indeed, but

at some moment or other of inadvertency, or excite

ment, or weakness—on a principle of fallibility corn

mon to human nature.

Well, how stands the

case of this family bar ? It is true that the Right
Honourable JOHN NICHOLL, M.P., having a

•
sinecure of delicate but compact proportions in
his office of Vicar General, and a post of
high distinction and emolument in his charge of
Judge Advocate-General to her Majesty's Forces,
does no longer practise in these Courts. But it is

surely possible that the mantle of his patronage and
connexion may have fallen to Dr. HERBERT JENNER,
Treasurer to the College, or even on his still nearer
kinsman, Dr. 11. I. NicnoLL. Imagine a suitor's
surprise who, having retained in a cause in the Con-
sistory Court of London some eminent civilian, say
Dr. Pnii.mmous against Dr. NIcuoLL, and appealed
from the sentence of Sir S. LusnlNGTox to the
Superior Court of Arches, there finds Dr. H. I.