the couch of her dying child, he delights to take his stand, and exults at the spectacle of the lonely mourner, upon whose heart he sits with leaden weight. To the several wretches that struggle fruitlessly against his spells, he cries with laughing mockery and triumphant scoffsI am Despair! it gladdens me to see The world prolific-but in misery.-P. 206. The moral of this elaborately finished poem is deserving of unqualified approbation. "Sola (una) salus victis nullam sperare salutem" is its motto; and our fair writer has applied it with truthfulness to the sinner whom Despair brings to the cross of his Redeemer, as his only harbour of peace. Hope-pleasure-vanity-ambition-pride Before his unveiled eyes like spectres glide! And his sunk heart, oppressed with grief and care, Bid him by prayer offended mercy tame! Pardon for crimes with deep contrition crave, And humbled feel he has a soul to save!-P. 213. The lines, "To a Portrait," are very good, though the prying eye of criticism detect a false concord at verse 17, which nothing but extreme carelessness could have permitted to blot these talented pages. A sense of professional duty extorts from us the unwilling confession, that the task of correcting the press has in the case before us been entrusted to very inefficient hands; and we would, with friendly admonition, tell our fair authoress, that if she hopes for enduring fame, she must write with more attention to metre and to rhythm, and to the general mechanism of versification. She has genius, quickness, sensibility, imagination, and good sense. Let her cultivate her powers sedulously, and we can promise her a sure reward in the sympathy and approbation of her readers. Let her not forget that the greatest art of all is "the art to blot." With these admonitory hints we bid her heartily farewell; entreating her to believe that nothing but an honest conviction of her talent, and an assured anticipation of the popularity awaiting her poetic effusions, have prompted us to indulge in these lengthened criticisms; remembering the advice of our master, and making special application of the eulogistic portion of his lines to the sweet songstress under review : "Be niggards of advice on no pretence, For the worst avarice is that of sense. With mean complacence ne'er betray your trust, Fear not the anger of the wise to raise ; Those best can bear reproof who merit praise." Pope's Essay on Criticism, Part 3, line 20, &c. ART. III.-1. A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of London, at the Visitation in October 1838. By CHARLES JAMES, LORD BISHOP OF LONDON. London: Fellowes. 1838. Pp. 50. 2. A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Chichester, in June, 1838. By WILLIAM OTTER, D.D., Lord Bishop of Chichester, at his Primary Visitation. London: Fellowes. 1838. Pp. 60. In better, or, at least, in more tranquil times, we should rarely have made an episcopal charge the subject of formal criticism; such documents contained, indeed, much that was valuable, nay, much that had value of the very highest kind; exhortations to duties the most solemn and important that man can exercise, and suggestions of the most genuine and practical wisdom for carrying those exhortations into effect. Still, episcopal charges bore too much mutual resemblance to afford any very prominent matter for public discussion, and were occupied too much with topics of local interest to have any very general attractions. Of late, however, as we have had cause occasionally to observe, an episcopal charge is almost always matter of general interest; a circumstance much to be regretted, but necessary from the altered position of the Church.* For this transition from quiet pastoral admonition to the discussion of the secularities, so to speak, of the Church, we are indebted to those eminently spiritual persons, the dissenters; who, with their holy allies, the Romanists and Infidels, have so embroiled the question of a Church Establishment with the spiritual efficiency of the Church, that it becomes a duty in every Bishop to instruct his clergy on the consequent state of church externals, and every clergyman to acquaint himself with the machinations of the active children of Belial. Accordingly, both the Charges before us contain much of what is called matter of present interest; very improperly, however, so called, inasmuch as the subjects discussed affect the whole frame of the established church, and the welfare of immortal souls to latest generations. The Bishop of London thus feelingly touches the matter: "I conclude with expressing once more the concern which I feel, at having found myself under the necessity of dwelling almost exclusively upon subjects, which relate to the secular interests of the Church. Those interests, however, are intimately connected with its efficiency, as the spiritual guardian and instructress of the Lord's people. Let us accustom ourselves, my brethren, to contemplate the Church in this point of view; and to regard the whole question of its endowments and immunities as important, only so far as it effects the Church's capacity of fulfilling the great ends for which it has been instituted by its Divine Head. Thankful to Him for all the various means of usefulness which He has been pleased to entrust to us as his stewards, let us be careful not to waste nor misuse any portion of them; but to employ them all, regardless of personal interest and credit, with a single and straightforward view to the promotion of his honour, the extension of his Church, and the building up of his household on the true foundation.”—Pp. 49, 50. We shall select from both these pamphlets some of these points, and endeavour to set them before our readers as concisely and clearly as possible. On the subject of pluralities and non-residence we shall say nothing; our diocesan has stated nothing on this head but what may be gleaned by our readers themselves from the Act of Parliament, or any tolerable abstract. But on some other matters of interest we shall offer a few remarks. The Bishop of London has undertaken the defence of the Ecclesiastical Commission. There are three ways in which this body has been popularly regarded, one of which is certainly erroneous. This is, confounding it with the commission of inquiry, appointed in 1832, from which it is wholly distinct. The object of that commission was safe and laudable, being simply to ascertain the state of ecclesiastical statistics and operations, and it had no power beyond. The other two views which have been taken of this body are these; the one, that such a commission is highly unconstitutional and dangerous; the other, that its acts have been as objectionable as its powers, and its constituent members are arbitrary tyrants of the Church. Now these two latter regards ought to be kept essentially distinct. The constituent members of the Ecclesiastical Commission must by no means be included under one category. Many of them are so far from despotic or arbitrary, that they accepted and retain the office for the benefit of the Church, and to exclude those who would act in a very different spirit. Of this description we certainly consider the excellent prelates who adorn the commission. Others, again, are men committed as enemies to the church they are appointed to govern; men who have levelled "heavy blows" at her altars, and threatened great discouragement" to her progress. But whatever individuals may compose the board, we entertain not the shadow of a doubt that the Ecclesiastical Commission, as an institution, is unconstitutional, arbitrary, and dangerous. That the commission was appointed by Sir Robert Peel is not, to our mind, whatever it may be to our diocesan's, satisfactory proof of its harmlessness. We look at the matter in the abstract, and altogether independently of those who originated or opposed the scheme. It has been compared to the High Commission Courts of former times. The justice of this comparison is denied by the Bishop, who draws an elaborate contrast between the two. But, in truth, the comparison was never made in the sense which is here supposed. It was never said that the powers of the new Commission were as extensive or as injurious as those of the old; but that they were equally unconstitutional, too extensive, and decidedly pernicious. That the new Commission is unconstitutional, no person, we suppose, who holds the Convocation to be as much part of our ecclesiastical constitution, as Parliament is of the civil, will deny or dispute. Sir Robert Peel announced, together with his intention of proposing extensive church reforms, his wish that the opinions of the prelates, and of the practical inferior clergy, should be taken on the subject; and no means could have been so effectual for this purpose as those which the constitution of the Church suggested ;the assembling of Convocation. The King, however, was not advised to summon his Convocation; but an anomalous body, whose fiat should become law as soon as sanctioned by the Privy Council, was empowered to make changes and arrangements in the Church, which, if made even by Act of Parliament, in any other part of the social fabric, would be regarded with extreme jealousy and alarm. The dangerous principle advocated by Lord Henley, the fusion of church revenues, and their re-coinage into clerical salaries, has been carried into effect by this irresponsible power. The Bishop tells us, Had the question been proposed to the religious part of the community, whether, if no other means were to be found, the effective cure of souls throughout the country should be provided for by the total suppression of those ecclesiastical corporations which have no cure of souls, nor bear any part in the parochial labours of the Clergy, that question, I verily believe, would have been carried in the affirmative by an immense majority of suffrages.-P. 33. ̧ But the religious part of the community would not, in our idea, have been the honest part. That the property of Cathedrals would be more usefully employed in finding clergymen for deserted districts than in maintaining them to assist in cathedral service, may be true; although we would not lose sight of the great benefits which Cathedrals confer on the church at large, and the still greater which they might be made capable of conferring; but if Cathedral property might be thus better applied, how many are the public institutions whose property would also be thus improved in its uses! and why should not an absolute and irresponsible commission devote the funds of such institutions to parochial uses? Once disregard the plain principle of property, and there is no limiting results. We know some rich men who miserably misspend their incomes, or do not spend them at all, while we know some poor men of merit to whom a little dole out of those treasures would be a comfort and a blessing: but what should we think of a commission enabled to transfer the property of the Queen's subjects according to transient prevailing opinions? The principle of the Ecclesiastical Commission is the total unsettlement of Church property; and we will venture to say that the Church will never gain, in the sums that have been wrung from her venerable Cathedrals, any compensation for the introduction of such a principle, and for the debilitation of her outworks and safeguards. Grant, however, that such changes were needed. The erection of this Commission was still inexcusable, because there was a constitutional channel open, through which they might have been made without establishing any dangerous precedent. All that the Commission has done, the CONVOCATION might have done. And if it be said, the Convocation would not have done it (which we do not say), perhaps no stronger presumption could be alleged against the new arrangement. Certain it is that there is little encouragement to endow a Church, when a board of Ecclesiastical Commissioners may, with the consent of a Privy Council, forth with transfer its revenues to the most distant part of the kingdom. We do not desire to canvass the acts of the Church Commissioners at all. The subject would lead us into too wide a field; and we distinctly avow our total disagreement with those who would represent the episcopal members of the Commission as actuated by sordid and personal motives. We believe, on the contrary, that the utmost disinterestedness, and the strictest conscientiousness, have marked their proceedings throughout: the names of Howley, Blomfield, Monck, never were, never could be, associated with aught that was not pure, and honourable, and holy. To the guidance of these, and men like these, we would willingly entrust the affairs of the Church; it is not to themselves, but to the constitution of the body to which they belong, that our objections apply. An unlimited monarchy, where the monarch is wise and virtuous, is the best possible form of government; but an unlimited monarchy will always be dangerous, as long as there are in the world men neither wise nor virtuous, who may succeed to the throne. The unconstitutional character of the Church Commission might be an unimportant objection as long as it was administered by unexceptionable hands; but its liability to fall under an administration of a very different kind is what constitutes its danger. Nor has the danger been theoretical. By the accession to power of an anti-church faction, the Church Commission numbers a majority of the pledged adversaries of the Church; and the Bishop himself "frankly confesses" that "there is some reason for looking at it with jealousy!"* Indeed there is! and would be, if only the signatures of Melbourne and John Russell were appended to its acts! The Church is now virtually under the direction of the tools of the Irish papists! But on this point let us hear the Bishop himself: Upon Sir Robert Peel's retirement from office, the proceedings of the Commission were for a time suspended: but as soon as Lord Melbourne had settled the new Administration, he made known to the Archbishop the wish of the Government that the Commission should be renewed, with the change of those Commissioners only, who had been members of the late Administration. Before the other Commissioners acceded to this proposal, they required A PLEDGE from the Prime Minister, that they should be suffered to proceed on the same principles, and with the same views, which had been originally contemplated; and THAT * Page 25. |