ley] recommends? Then the Bishops must be excluded from the House of Lords, and all their incomes be cut down to 5,000l. apiece, and all the revenues of Deans and Chapters be taken to augment the poorer livings, and raise the working clergy above want.

"But it is possible that while all Lord Henley's concessions are freely accepted, the limitations he would impose on reform would not be so willingly received. He may be thought judicious in arguing that bishops should have no more than 5,000l. a year; but his doctrine that they ought to retain as much may be reckoned a merc gratuitous assumption. Great alacrity may be shown in taking the revenues of Deans and Chapters, without the same eagerness to apply them so as to give every one of the numerous poorer clergy so much as 400l. a year. Nor can he expect universal concurrence in the opinion that the most valuable livings should retain all their present emoluments undiminished. All may agree that ecclesiastical sinecures ought not to go beyond the lives of their present possessors; but will all consent to their lasting quite so long: particularly such as may be persuaded by his lordship's scriptural doctrine that these sinecures are the accursed thing,' and that the accursed thing' must be put away'? On the contrary, it is possible that every surplus may be voted a sinecure, and every sinecure adjudged to be 'put away' on the instant, not preserved to move the divine vengeance during the continuance of some of the best lives in the world.

"Much may be said against Church robbery, and the hateful inroads of infidelity; but I much doubt whether all the religious public (no doubt a very large proportion of the community) are faithful devotees of the Church of England and Ireland. Will the Presbyterian offer up prayers for Prelacy; or the Quaker fight for it; or the Independent and old Puritan of whatever creed make largesses to support what Lord Henley calls its representation? If any of these numerous bodies (to whom may be added the Catholics, now despairing of restitution) think that our National Church has long enough enjoyed its temporal advantages, the device of a Corporation of Commissioners provides them with the most apt and ingenious machinery for their purpose.

"Now remember (as Cobbett would say) these matters cannot be staved off. They must undergo discussion. The Archbishop has tabled the Church of England, and that of Ireland has taken care to challenge full investigation.

66

Hodgson and others have called and interrupted my pamphlet, luckily for you. I finish and despatch it, because you could not otherwise receive it till your return to London, if I reckon your time correctly." The third and concluding letter of the series followed after a week's interval:

"Stony Middleton: September 11, 1832.

"My dear Merivale,-We seem equally agreed in our general principles, and in the difficulty of making a practical application of them.

"The Church is inevitably first thought of when we look to the results of reform. The Times' the other day had a curious collection of Conservative electioneering addresses-all broaching the same idea of the necessity of changes in the Church. Only spare vested interests! say you and Lord Henley. To establish a vested interest in the accursed thing' which the Church must 'put away' is his lordship's affair.

"But is not commutation of tithes to be immediate ? If nay-nothing is done to satisfy the public mind. If yea, behold' vested interests' set aside. And, speaking in good earnest, ought they in all cases to be spared? Supposing it true that the Bishop of London's income. will be raised in ten years to 100,000l. by leases falling in-ought this to be allowed? Why not? Surely for no other reason than that the interest, vested as it is, is in fact and principle a compensation for public services, and ought to bear some proportion to it. Perhaps I can draw no satisfactory line of distinction between the improvement of this property and that of a great landed proprietor. I may, indeed, argue that the latter holds. his land without any such implied condition annexed; that such is the nature of property that you can lay hands on no accumulation, however exorbitant, without endangering the smallest interests of the meanest subject, introducing an agrarian law at the end of every year,

month, and day-in a word, without annihilating the rights of property altogether. These distinctions may be just and reasonable in the abstract, yet they would be no barrier against the inroads of excited passions in the form of political unions, public meetings, unanimous resolves, etc.

"My coarse and shadeless etching may perhaps sufficiently set forth my view of the inherent difficulties of the case. Changes must be made; you say the very principle of change, once adopted, may lead to total subversion. It makes me melancholy to think how great a card for the public was thrown away when the Tories set their faces against all reform of Parliament, preposterously confounding abuse with establishment, and clothing infamous corruption in the robes of venerable prescription. I lament still more that these insufferable nuisances were not permitted to be abated by the lawful authority of King, Lords and Commons, without a popular demonstration that amounted almost to mob control and dictation.

"The party of the movement condemns itself by its very title. A firm government is the great aim of all political exertions; establishment the only honest end of revolution. But we must not be wafted about by mere words; there may be a great movement of parties, while the law is still supreme; there must be a perpetual readiness to improve the laws in every one of their details, while their authority and leading principles are left unimpaired.

"You think we should make a defensive stand somewhere, prepared to sacrifice office, life, everything, if we cannot mantain the position. Show me a clear case of right and wrong at any period, and I hope I should not hesitate. But if I lay down an arbitrary rule of right, for purposes of conservation, what shall it profit the country? Ten to one, if the case arises, the Tories will join the Radicals to turn us out. They will have another ten days' trial, find they cannot form a government, and retire amid general derision. Into what hands will the government then pass? Will there be one?

"But if the Tories, contrary to their conduct on timber and sugar, give us manful support, the hypothesis

being always that the people desire the change we resist, then the basis of public opinion is removed, and the edifice must rest on bayonets. What would be the consequence, what the duration of that dread repose?

"Why, then it is the duty of the present ministry to propose a still lower scale of expenditure, and a Reform in the Church as well as in the Law-each changing as little as possible. They must incorporate with the Constitution all such real improvements as may be sure to continue when once adopted, and may, by promoting the welfare, secure the confidence of the great body of the people. They must carefully watch events as they pass, and give to each measure of reform the most wholesome and permanent character of which it can be made susceptible.

"I totally deny the numerous blunders you ascribe to the present ministry, and set them down to the account of Candor and Philosophy.' Considerable awkwardness may have arisen in the parliamentary management of questions; the budget was a clumsy business-but in the conduct of the government nothing, I contend, with such exceptions as these, can fairly be called erroneous. Every day's experience, every day's continuance in power (especially now that the King's heart is entirely with his ministers) will furnish new securities against the sort of faults that have given the enemy on some occasions this advantage. Still more strenuously do I deprecate the charge of deserting the cause of the public peace. Prosecutions or dragoonings must have ended. in defeat and bloodshed, perhaps civil war. Nor will I submit to be told that the inflammation which made the public mind intractable grew out of Reform. The state of England in November, 1830, proves that it existed before. Nothing could allay it. Obstinate opposition to our measures on principles adverse to all reform could only exasperate the discontent. Oh, wretched blindness! not to see that the stale arguments by which Canning warded off the discussion had become ten times worse than nothing the moment that discussion had begun!

"The difficulty of preserving a juste milieu must always be great-of maintaining peace at home amidst strongly roused antagonistic feelings, and peace abroad among

nations eager for violence and conquest, with a domestic cry for war raised by the very men who know in their hearts that the present ministers are the only ones who possess the power of being really conservative, but not without a generous confidence accorded by that still higher power-Public Opinion."

On October 7, still from Stony Middleton, Denman wrote as follows to his venerable mother, who had then for some years been an inmate of her daughter Mrs. Ballie's house in Cavendish Square:

"My dearest Mother,-Though I have been rather an indifferent correspondent during the present vacation, I assure you some of my most agreeable moments have been owing to you. Tom's' letters have never failed to give me an account of you, and I am as happy to receive such good tidings of you as grateful for your acts of kindness to him. He has been a most active supervisor of my affairs in town, and a full reporter of all that has passed in the family.

"We have amazingly little to say for ourselves, one day having been exactly like another; for five weeks all fair, except Friday last, which was very wet, and prevented-not us, indeed, from taking our ride, but-Mrs. Holland and her daughters from leaving the inn at Bakewell to look about this beautiful country. They had better fortune yesterday-saw Chatsworth and our own magnificent dale; and will, I hope, be lighted to-morrow by a bright sun to the threshold of the great Peak cavern. Some of us ride daily, and we have visited more of the beautiful scenes of this varied country than I ever saw before; always with increasing pleasure. We have very nearly done with workmen about the house, which has been made very convenient; but some small improvements are projected in the garden, etc., for another year. We have excellent neighbors, and almost more going out than I could desire.

"You will be glad to hear that a cautious examination

1 The present Lord Denman, who spent this Long Vacation in town, watching the routine of administrative business that passed in vacation through the Attorney-General's chambers, greatly to the relief and accomo. dation of his father.