Disruption of the State Church of Scotland—Its Causes—The Veto Act of the Assembly of 1834—Mr. Young Presented to the Church of Auchterarder—Is Vetoed by the Communicants and Rejected by the Presbytery—Resort to the Civil Courts—The Decision—Intrusionists and Non-Intrusionists—The Final Secession of 1843—The Free Church—Dr. Chalmers—Dr. Hill.
Disruption of the State Church of Scotland—Its Causes—The Veto Act of the Assembly of 1834—Mr. Young Presented to the Church of Auchterarder—Is Vetoed by the Communicants and Rejected by the Presbytery—Resort to the Civil Courts—The Decision—Intrusionists and Non-Intrusionists—The Final Secession of 1843—The Free Church—Dr. Chalmers—Dr. Hill.
One of the most important ecclesiastical occurrences of our times is the disruption of the State Church of Scotland. We see a venerable establishment, founded in the religious affections of a great people, sustained by the arm of secular power, rent in twain, and five hundred of its ministers, possessing a moiety of its talents and piety, and drawing in their train a proportional share of their congregations, secede in obedience to the dictates of conscience, and, under the leadership of one of the most learned, eloquent, and celebrated divines of the age, assume the position of Voluntaries. The difficulties which caused this result arose somewhat in this wise:
In consequence of some controversy as to the right of "patrons" to "present" pastors to churches, a majority of whose members were unwilling to receive them, Lord Moncrieff, in the General Assembly of the Church, in May, 1834, moved a resolution declaring that the disapproval of a majority of the male heads of families, being communicants, should be deemed sufficient ground for a Presbytery rejecting any person presented as a clergyman to a parish in Scotland. After a warm debate, it was carried, 184 to 138. It was sent down to thePresbyteries, and, being sanctioned by a large majority of them, was confirmed by the General Assembly of 1835. This was known as theVeto Act. It was intended to declare the existing law. Whether legal or not, (for on this point, when the trouble arose, lawyers and judges of course differed, and the books, as usual, furnished precedents on both sides,) the veto had generally been acquiesced in for a long period.
In October, 1834, Lord Kinnoul presented Mr. Young, a licensed probationer, to the Church of Auchterarder. Of the heads of families, being communicants, 287 out of 330 protested against the admission of Mr. Young to be their pastor. The Presbytery of Auchterarder, in obedience to the resolution of the Assembly of 1834, rejected him. A suit was commenced in the civil courts, by Lord Kinnoul and Mr. Young, against the Presbytery. After great displays of learning and acrimony, the Court of Session, in 1838, by a majority of 8 judges to 5, decided that the rejection of the presentee was illegal, and that the Presbytery was bound to take Mr. Young "on trials."
Presbyterian Scotland, from John O'Groat's to Gretna Green, was violently agitated with the question. It divided into parties known as Intrusionists and Non-Intrusionists—Doctors Macfarlane, Cook, and Hill, being conspicuous among the former, and Doctors Chalmers, Welsh, and Candlish, among the latter. Every Presbytery was rent with discussion, while the debates in the venerable General Assembly were hardly less violent than in the East India Company Court of Proprietors, when Mammon strives with Mercy for the rule of Hindostan, or when political chiefs in the House of Commons struggle for mastery in the councils of Europe.
The majority of the Assembly having sustained the Presbytery of Auchterarder, the Presbytery appealed from the decision of the Court of Session to the House of Lords. In 1841, I believe, the Lords dismissed the appeal—thus, in effect, affirming the judgment of the Court below, and pronouncingthe Veto Act illegal. Upon this, the Court of Session made a further order, directing the Presbytery to take Mr. Young on trials. Whereupon, the Assembly, after a violent debate, in which the Veto was sustained by a power of Caledonian eloquence that John Knox would have gloried to hear, resolved, by a majority of 49, that the principle of Non-Intrusion could not be abandoned, and that no presentee should be forced upon a parish contrary to the will of the congregation. Acting under this vote of the Assembly, the Presbytery still refused to receive Mr. Young; and, thereupon, the Court of Session gave damages to Lord Kinnoul and Mr. Young in the sum of £10,000, and prohibited the Presbytery from settling any minister over the Church of Auchterarder, though he were to be maintained by the Non-Intrusion portion of the congregation.
Matters had now reached a point from which there seemed to be no retreat for either party. The Non-Intrusionists, though they had prevailed in the assembly of the saints, had altogether failed in the court of the unbelievers. In the mean time, other similar cases had arisen, especially those of Strathbogie, Culsalmond, and Glass, where obnoxious pastors, who had been obtruded upon churches, were marched into the pulpits on the Sabbath, guarded by police and soldiery, and the people compelled to receive the gospel with batons over their heads and bayonets at their hearts. These spectacles aroused the spirit that fired the same people a century before, when, in the piquant language of Sydney Smith, the persecuted Scotchman, "with a little oatmeal for food, and a little sulphur for friction, allaying cutaneous irritation with the one hand, and holding his Calvinistic creed in the other, ran away to his flinty hills, sung his psalm out of tune his own way, and listened to his sermon of two hours long, amid the rough and imposing melancholy of the tallest thistles." The same spirit, in 1842-3, refined by a higher civilization, and tempered by a more liberal learning, made the same people prompt in deciding, that when the decrees of the Lord Jesus Christ and the LordChancellor of England came in conflict, the latter must be repudiated and the former obeyed. The interdicts of the Courts were not merely disobeyed—they were literally torn in pieces and trampled under foot by incensed assemblies, amidst the applause of multitudes.
But, though other instances of intrusion had arisen, that of Auchterarder was the case on which the question turned. That question, stated in its simple form, was, whether the will of the patron or the will of the communicants should prevail, in making the presentee the pastor of the parish; and whether the members of a Presbytery were liable to damages to the patron for rejecting his presentee on the veto of the people. But the points involved penetrated far deeper. They touched not only the right of the Church of Scotland to be supreme in her ecclesiastical affairs, but they involved the whole subject of a union of the Church with the State. They reached beyond this. They raised the question of the right of the people to be supreme in religious affairs. They stopped not here. They leaped the boundary that divides spiritual and civil authority, and mooted the question of the supremacy of the popular will—the question, whether the people are the legitimate source of all power—an inquiry which stops not in its researches till it has explored the foundations of human government in their broadest aspect. Not only, then, were the rights of the communicants of Auchterarder, of the Presbytery of Auchterarder, of the Church of Scotland at issue, but the decision of this case involved principles which might shake the minarets of the Metropolitan Cathedral, the towers of Parliament House, the walls of the Throne Room of St. James.
Looking to the possibility of such consequences, it is no wonder that the "Moderates" attempted to soothe the irritation by that dernier panacea of conservatives and cowards—a compromise. The Scotch Church question had already found its way into Parliament. In 1840, Lord Aberdeen had introduced a bill to settle the difficulties. It slept in the archivesof the Peers till the Tories came into power. Dr. Chalmers was now consulted by the Government. He gave his opinion as to what would satisfy the Non-Intrusionists. He was promised a bill that would justify a Presbytery in rejecting a presentee on even the most frivolous objection—as red hair or a black skin, for instance. But, instead of this, a bill was introduced which did not allow the Church judicatories to reject unless on grounds satisfactory to the civil court. The tergiversation of the Government wrung from Dr. Chalmers the exclamation, that "the morality of politicians was the morality of horse-jockies."
The General Assembly of May, 1842, met. It was opened by the Lord High Commissioner of Her Majesty, with unusual pomp, blandness, and hypocrisy. All hope of reconciliation had not fled. The friends of the Veto cherished the delusion that purity and peace, that non-intrusion and non-resistance might yet walk hand in hand; and, not being prepared to break with the Government, they suffered the Assembly to adjourn without taking any decisive action. During the ensuing summer and autumn, Sir James Graham, the Home Secretary, endeavored to cajole the Non-Intrusionists, and succeeded in inducing 40 or 50 conservative clergymen of that party to express their approval of a settlement of the question on the basis of a compromise, which should give a great deal of power to the people and the Kirk, and a little more to the Court of Session. The battle was fought, on popular grounds, in the House of Commons, in the winter and spring of 1843. A deputation of Non-Intrusion clergymen was present. Remaining in London till hope had abandoned them, they returned to Scotland, and prepared for the final disruption of the Church. An act was subsequently passed—such an one as would have been gladly accepted in 1840—but it came too late.
The General Assembly of 1843 met on the eighteenth of May. An immense throng crowded the floor, the galleries, the aisles of the edifice, eager with expectation. The LordHigh Commissioner went through the ceremony of opening the Assembly, in a style of chilling pomp. Dr. Welsh, the Moderator of the last Assembly, rose, read the solemn protest of his brethren, and the disciples of John Knox quietly left their seats, and shook the dust from their feet on the threshold of the church of their fathers. When the crowd outside saw the venerable forms of Chalmers, Welsh, and their followers, emerging from the ancient edifice, they lifted their hats and bowed their heads, with bosoms too full for the utterance of a cheer. But, as the ejected presbyters wended their way toward the high rock in the vicinity of the Castle where glittered the spires of the New Assembly Hall, thousands of acclamations rent the air, mingled with the waving of hats and handkerchiefs, from streets, windows, roofs, and balconies. They entered the house, followed by a throng, in which emotions of enthusiasm and solemnity struggled for the mastery. The Assembly immediately organized, by placing its great founder, Dr. Chalmers, in the chair. Having uttered a sublime prayer, he gave out the psalm, "God is our refuge in distress," so often sung in the bloody days, in the glens of Scotland, by the hunted Covenanters, when
"Leaning on his spear,The liart veteran heard the word of GodBy Cameron thundered, or by Renwick pouredIn gentle stream."
The Free Kirk was now launched. The crew was zealous, but untried; the pilot, though skillful, was about to explore an unknown and tempestuous sea. But a voice was heard above the raging of the elements, saying, "Peace! be still!" The Assembly vigorously entered on the work of bringing order out of confusion, symmetry out of chaos. The five hundred clergymen who soon rallied round its altars, made noble sacrifices for conscience' sake. They had to leave the greater part of their churches, their glebes, their manses; many, literally,abandoning theirlivings. Their flocks followed them to their cost; for new church edifices were to be erected, and salaries to be raised, not from tithes, stipends, and ecclesiastical funds—for these had been left behind in the Exodus—but out of the pockets of those who, for the first time, found themselves Seceders in fact, and Voluntaries in position. They were prepared for this. Congregations met in groves, in barns, in lofts, in halls, and heard the Word. They raised funds, and built churches. They appealed for aid to their brethren in England and America. They soon amassed a fund of £300,000, for the support of poor pastors and parishes. They encountered great difficulties in obtaining sites for churches. Many of the Intrusion landlords would neither give nor sell them building spots. They would lease or sell lands for cockpits, horse-races, gambling-houses, dram-shops, and even for Methodist or Baptist places of worship; but they would not permit a chapel of the Free Kirk of Scotland to pollute the soil. In process of time, Parliament and public opinion brought these refractory landlords to their senses. Excluded in a great measure from the current public newspapers, they established journals of their own. Denounced by Blackwood, looked coldly upon by the Edinburgh, though the Westminster gave them two or three able and hearty articles, they set up the North British Review, which at once took rank with the first quarterlies in the kingdom. Shut out from the theological schools of the old Kirk, they founded a seminary of their own, placing Dr. Chalmers at its head, as professor of divinity. During the six years of the existence of the Free Church, it has drawn to itself a large share of the numbers and vitality of the Presbyterian body of Scotland. The Old Kirk has a great deal of wealth, a great many churches, and a great deal of pomp. It also enjoys a great deal of languor, a great deal of vacancy, and a great deal of chagrin.
Yet it must be confessed that this secession, so extraordinary in its immediate results, so congenial to the liberal tendenciesof the times, so far-reaching and powerful in its remote and collateral consequences, has never excited that enthusiasm in the mass of ecclesiastical reformers in Great Britain, which might have been anticipated. The reasons given for this apathy are, that a body which had so long wielded ecclesiastical power over others, by virtue of State laws, ought in its turn to yield obedience to those laws—that the Seceders had held on upon their power so long as they could exert it in their own way—that, in the exercise of spiritual authority, they had been far from tolerant of Dissenters—and that, at the very moment of their egress from the Kirk, they repudiated Voluntaryism as a principle, and offered incense to State-church establishments.
There was, no doubt, solid ground for some of these charges. As to the course of the Seceders, while members of the State Kirk, many of their acts were no doubt oppressive. The deeds of May, 1843, are broad enough to cover a multitude of such sins. As to the repudiation of Voluntaryism, while in the very act of Secession, it was a concession to that tempting expediency which, in a crisis when principle and numbers are both important, yields some of the former to gain more of the latter. The Free Church has outgrown this folly of its infancy, and in riper years has repudiated the repudiation. It is now, both in position and profession, a Voluntary body. Learning wisdom from experience, and acting on the maxim, alike pure and profitable, that honesty is the best policy, long may it bless the land of Knox, Renwick, and Chalmers!
To attempt a sketch of the talents, genius, and virtues ofDr. Chalmers, would be a work of supererogation. It is ample eulogy to say, that he was the Moses of the Exodus, the Luther of the Reformation, I have faintly described. The sublimity of that position dims even the splendor of those productions of his pen and tongue which have made his name familiar in two hemispheres. His memory lives on memorialsmore enduring than monumental brass or marble—the hearts of a whole people.
I have somewhere seen a portrait ofRev. Dr. Hill, Professor of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow University, and a leader of the Intrusion party, sketched in the General Assembly of 1840, which I transcribe from memory, bearing witness to its faithfulness to the subject. Dr. Chalmers had just resumed his seat, after a powerful speech, when a tall, thin gentleman, on the other side of the house, distinguished for an uncommon length of neck and face, with a complexion inclining to sallow, and an imperturbable gravity of countenance, caught the eye. Never before had there been seen so prodigious an extent of white neckcloth, a figure so immovably rigid, an expression so inveterately grave. He sat so bolt upright, that the spectator was curious to know whether he ever shifted his position or moved a feature. He rose to address the assembly. He opened his mouth, and his words came marching out, dressed in the somber hues and with the melancholy tread of a funeral procession. It was evident that great truths were for the first time to be communicated to mankind. He laid down his premises. They reminded one of the lawyer in the farce, who, when pressed for a definition, thundered out, "Law is—law!" "Judgment," exclaimed Rev. Dr. Hill, "judgment is an act of the mind." There was a suppressed laugh from the Non-Intrusion side of the house. The Doctor drew himself up more stiffly, and looked across the house in dignified astonishment, as if desirous to single out the men who disputed first principles. "I am in the right," he solemnly reiterated—"judgment, Moderator, is an act of the mind!" He went on with his speech. It was a dead skeleton of logical phraseology, divested of the muscle, flesh, and blood of living argument; the speech of a man whose father, perhaps, could argue, and who, without a particle of causality, tried to argue too, sheerly through the exercise of filial imitation. As he spoke, a nervous torpor crept over the Assembly—the spectatorsbegan to nod—the reporters dropped their pens—the older divines, sinking under the weight of their dinners, rested their heads on the front boards—the very gas seemed to burn with a rounder and a dimmer flame—and when, after a long infliction, the last sentence of the peroration died away in the far galleries, and the spell was broken, there was a stretching of limbs and jaws, and a raising of hands over the benches, and a straining to collect and concentrate scattered thoughts, till by and by the members seemed to realize that they were actually sitting in a General Assembly; whereupon, a gentleman moved an adjournment, and all retired with the conviction, that whoever might doubt whether Dr. Hill was a profound philosopher and ecclesiastical historian, he possessed most astonishingmesmericqualities and powers.
The Established Church of England—Its Revenues—Its Ecclesiastical Abuses—Its Sway over Political Parties—Rev. Dr. Phillpotts—Rev. Dr. Pusey—Rev. Mr. Noel—Anti-State Church Movement.
The Established Church of England—Its Revenues—Its Ecclesiastical Abuses—Its Sway over Political Parties—Rev. Dr. Phillpotts—Rev. Dr. Pusey—Rev. Mr. Noel—Anti-State Church Movement.
The Established Church of England is one of the foulest sores on the body politic of the kingdom. I shall examine it mainly in its political bearings.
The King is the "Supreme Head of the Church," and appoints, through the chapters, the bishops, besides a great number of lesser dignitaries. The bishops license and ordain the inferior clergy. The owners of estates charged with the payment of the salaries of pastors, have the right to nominate or "present" them to the parishes. There are some 12,000 parochial churches under the control of the Establishment. Of these the crown presents to 952; the bishops to 1248; the deans and chapters to 787; other ecclesiastical dignitaries to 1851; the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge to 721; the nobility and gentry to 5096; and the residue are disposed of by others.
The annual revenue of the whole body of the clergy is more than $42,000,000; a sum greater than is received by the Established Clergy of all the world besides. The income of the twenty-eight bishops amounts to about $800,000. The Archbishop of Canterbury receives $75,000, and of York $50,000. The Bishop of London $50,000, of Durham $40,000, of Winchester $35,000, and so on. Previous to the act of 1837, the income of the sees mentioned was much larger.Said the late Rowland Hill, himself a clergyman of the Establishment, at a missionary meeting in Exeter Hall, a few years ago: "Would, my lord, that I had the bishops of this realm tied up by the heels to that chandelier, and could direct the stewards to hold the plates under their pockets and catch the falling guineas; what a collection we should raise!" One of the worst features of this institution is the gross inequality in the distribution of its favors. Of its clergy, fifteen hundred receive an average annual income of about $5000 each; while another fifteen hundred (and they are the working and valuable portion) receive only an average of about $400; and many of these last do not get $200. Sydney Smith has aptly asked, "Why is the Church of England nothing but a collection of beggars and bishops? the right reverend Dives in the palace, and Lazarus in orders at the gate, doctored by dogs and comforted by crumbs?"
The revenues of the Establishment are mostly drawn from tithes. But large sums are realized from other sources. And in addition to these, the clergy (whose numbers far exceed those of the parochial churches) hold all the professorships, tutorships, masterships, and fellowships, of the universities and public state schools; all the chaplainships in the embassies, army and navy, and corporate and commercial companies; worm their way into nearly all the profitable offices in educational and charitable institutions, as librarians, secretaries, treasurers, and trustees; are constant waiters upon Divine Providence and the Public Treasury; standing candidates for all places of light work and heavy pay; and show their zeal for the Crown and the Miter by promptly furnishing recruits for the great army of sinecurists in the realm.[9]
It is not my purpose to speak particularly of the religious character and influence of the Establishment. But, a few facts in this department may be given to show that Paul the tent-maker, and Peter the fisherman, are not very closely copied by some of their English successors. It is a notorious fact that a large body of the clergy do not compose their own sermons, but purchase them in manuscript at depots in London, and other large towns, as they do their stationery and wines. There is no very serious objection to this, provided the sermons are better than they could write themselves. A good purchased sermon is preferable to a bad home-made one. But, it is equally notorious that they are often written as marketable commodities by grossly irreligious men. Here is an advertisement from a newspaper, which will serve as a specimen of its class. "Manuscript Sermons. To clergymen who, from ill health, or other causes, are prevented from composing their own sermons, the advertiser offers his services on moderate terms. Original sermons composed on any given texts or subjects. N. B. A specimen sent if required. Address L. S. W., Post-Office, Winchester."
The Church "livings" being property, they are, of course, marketable articles. English newspapers frequently contain advertisements offering them for sale. In describing their desirable qualities it is often stated that "the income is large and the duties light," or, that "the present incumbent is very aged," or, "in very feeble health;" and I have seen them represented as being in the midst of a fine sporting country, surrounded by a most agreeable society of nobility and gentry, &c. I select an advertisement from a number lying before me. "Advowson. Perpetual Patronage and Right of Presentation to be disposed of, subject to the life of an incumbent, now sixty-eight years old. The benefice consists of an excellent rectory-house, lately built at a considerable expense; abounding with conveniencies, and capitally fitted, good out-offices, pleasure-grounds, garden, &c., farm-yard, and fortyacres of glebe. The tithes are commuted. Annual value upward of 600l.per annum, independent of surplice fees, and is well situated in a pleasant and luxuriant country, four miles from a large town, to which there is railway conveyance."
Now, all this simply means, that Lord John Broadacres, being hard pushed by his gambling debts, will sell to anybody, Turk or Mormon, and his heirs forever, the right to quarter a dapper young student from Oxford on this parish, to occupy this comfortable and elegant house and grounds, and collect £600 per annum out of Episcopalians, Baptists, Methodists, Independents, and Quakers, in return for reading to a handful of people fifty or sixty sermons a year, purchased at a book-stall in London.
It needs no "Black Book" to tell us, that $40,000,000, extorted annually from the people by such an institution, and to a large extent from those who dissent from its ritual, and never listen to its clergy, is a prolific source of vexation and oppression, and tends powerfully to debauch the morals and corrupt the politics of the kingdom. The Established Church exercises unbounded sway over the politics of the country, holding in vassalage great masses of the Tory and Whig parties. The nobility and gentry find the Establishment a profitable and dignified retreat for such younger branches of their families, as are too dull for the learned secular professions, and too cowardly and puny for cutting their way to promotion in the army and navy. They send to this snug asylum their indolent and imbecile offspring, where they may receive emoluments and pensions without burning the barrister's midnight lamp, or treading the thorny road of politics, or encountering malignant fevers while filling civic stations in tropical colonies, or braving death on the deck of a line-of-battle ship in the Mediterranean, or in the spouting breach of a fortress in Hindostan. The owners of advowsons and livings, wielding a capital whose yearly income is $40,000,000, keep constantly under pay, all over the kingdom, 16 000 clergy, who, withmany noble exceptions, are the ordained and licensed enemies of political progress and ecclesiastical reform.
I by no means intend to say, that there are not a large number of most worthy, pious, and faithful ministers, in the English Establishment, and especially among the poorer clergy. Nor, that its doctrines are not Biblical, and its service beautifully impressive. But, in its political tendencies, the institution stands arrayed against progress and reform.
Among the most conspicuous champions of the Established Church, and who has recently distinguished himself as the persecutor of Rev. Mr. Shore, isDr. Phillpotts, the Bishop of Exeter. Entering the House of Lords, the eye of a stranger is instantly arrested by the bench of bishops, whose white robes and flowing wigs give them such an old-womanish appearance, that he conjectures they must be "peeresses in their own right," and by some one of the convenient fictions of the common law are entitled to seats with the male barons. Sitting gravely among them, with rigid muscle, compressed lip, and knit brow, is Dr. Phillpotts, who conceals under his ample lawn an amount of intellectual acumen and power which are able and ready to grapple with the pamphlet of any schismatic in the diocese of Exeter, or the speech of any lord in the House of Peers. A spectator can hardly believe that those pale, icy features, cover a mental volcano. The tones of his voice give point to words that pierce to the marrow of the subject under discussion, while his cool, crafty, and dexterous style of argument shows that a trained master of debate is on the floor. Delighting equally in exposing the fallacies of his opponent, and placing him in a false position, his assaults are to be shunned rather than provoked. One of the most adroit and keen logicians in the House, he is skillful in making nice distinctions, and in setting the arguments of his adversary to devouring each other. The cold suavity with which he flays his victim, and the sweet malignity with which he sugars over his bitterest denunciations, and the apparent candor and sinceritywhich sit serenely on his visage when uttering the most repulsive opinions, only make him the more provokingly intolerable. This crafty prelate countenanced the Oxford Tractarians, till their open advocacy of Popish doctrines and rites alarmed his more timid brethren, when he veered off in a graceful curve, and has since made haste to divert suspicion as to his orthodoxy, by persecuting the evangelical clergymen of his diocese.
Spite the efforts of the bench of bishops, a violent intestine war has been waged within the walls of the venerable Establishment for many years. Two parties have sprung up, one of which would make the Church essentially Roman Catholic, while the other would make it more thoroughly Protestant and Evangelical.Dr. Puseymay be regarded as the head of the Catholic,Mr. Noelof the Evangelical party. Both are the immediate descendants of noble families, both possess superior attainments, are accomplished preachers, and able controversialists. The style of each in the pulpit is calm, logical, persuasive, and one cannot listen to either without imbibing the conviction that he is uttering the honest impulses of his understanding and heart. Dr. Pusey is one of the founders of the association at Oxford which issued the celebrated "Tracts for the Times." Mr. Noel has recently published a volume on "the Union of Church and State," remarkable for its research, meditative tone, and Christian spirit. It must exert a powerful influence upon the ultimate overthrow of this institution. Dr. Pusey's writings have driven several of his disciples over to Romanism; among the most distinguished of whom was Mr. Newman; and he himself came very near accompanying his associate. He still remains in the Establishment. Mr. Noel, having thrown his able testimonial into the bosom of the Church, has withdrawn from it, and united with the Baptist denomination.
The nature of the union of the Church with the State, and its influence upon the religious and political interests of the country, have been frequent topics of discussion ever sincethe Commonwealth of Cromwell. The repeal of the corporation and test acts, the emancipation of the Catholics, and the disruption of the Church of Scotland, have given increased intensity to these discussions in our own times. The persecution of the amiable and heroic Mr. Shore, by the Bishop of Exeter, the publication of Mr. Noel's work, his rigorous treatment by the Bishop of London, the acknowledged purity of his motives, and the dignity and excellence of his character, have kindled into a flame the agitation for the separation of the Church from the State. At no period within a century has the anti-state-church party been as strong in England as now. It counts in its ranks some of the ablest debaters, and keenest controversialists in the kingdom. Mr. Burnet leads the Independents, Dr. Cox the Baptists, Mr. Sturge the Quakers, Dr. Wardlaw the Scotch Congregationalists, Dr. Ritchie the Secession Church of Scotland, and Dr. Candlish the Free Church of Scotland. Behind them rally the whole body of the Dissenters, the great majority of the Irish Catholics, the main strength of the radical reformers, while no inconsiderable portion of the liberal laity of the Establishment sympathizes with them. These elements will continue to increase in volume and power, till they sever a union offensive to God and oppressive to man.
The Corn Laws—Their Character and Policy—Origin of the Anti-Corn-Law Movement—Adam Smith—Mr. Cobden—"Anti-Corn-Law Parliament"—Mr. Villier's Motion in the House of Commons in 1839—Formation of the League—Power of the Landlords—Lord John Russell's Motion in 1841—General Election of that Year—Mr. Cobden Returned to Parliament—Peel in Power—His Modification of the Corn Laws—Great Activity and Steady Progress of the League during the Years 1842, '3, '4, and '5—Session of 1846—Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington—Repeal of the Corn Laws.
The Corn Laws—Their Character and Policy—Origin of the Anti-Corn-Law Movement—Adam Smith—Mr. Cobden—"Anti-Corn-Law Parliament"—Mr. Villier's Motion in the House of Commons in 1839—Formation of the League—Power of the Landlords—Lord John Russell's Motion in 1841—General Election of that Year—Mr. Cobden Returned to Parliament—Peel in Power—His Modification of the Corn Laws—Great Activity and Steady Progress of the League during the Years 1842, '3, '4, and '5—Session of 1846—Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington—Repeal of the Corn Laws.
A pleasant little story is told of Queen Victoria and the corn laws. During the second year of her sovereignty, and while yet a maiden, she was one day skipping the rope as a relaxation from the pressure of official duties. Lord Melbourne, the Premier, was superintending the royal amusement. She suddenly stopped, and, turning to him with a thoughtful look, (the cares of State no doubt clouding her brow,) said, "My Lord, what are these corn laws, which my people are making so much noise about?" Said the courtly Premier, in reply, "Please your Majesty, they are the laws that regulate the consumption of the staff of life in your Majesty's dominions." "Indeed," rejoined the Queen, "have any of the staff officers of my Life Guards got the consumption? Poor fellows!" Her Majesty then resumed the skipping of the rope.
Perhaps some American maidens are as ignorant of what the British corn laws were as Queen Victoria.
Lord Stanley came within a few hundred years of the truth, when he said that the principle of landlord protection had existed in England for eight centuries. In 1774, the corn laws received the impress which they retained till their repeal in 1846. They were revised in 1791, in 1804, in 1815, and in 1828. The revisions of 1815 and 1828 produced the system more generally known asthecorn laws. The object of the system was to afford as complete a monopoly in breadstuffs to the home agriculturists as possible, and yet allow the introduction of foreign grain whenever a bad harvest, or other causes, produced a scarcity of food. At every revision, down to that of 1828, the duties were made more and more protective. The price to which wheat (for instance) must rise ere it could come in from abroad, at a nominal duty, was fixed in 1774 at 48s.per quarter; in 1791, at 54s.; in 1804, at 66s.; and in 1815, at 80s.—the quarter being 8 bushels. The liberal policy of Mr. Huskisson slightly prevailed in 1828, and the maximum price was fixed at 73s.
The system was a compromise between protection and starvation, the umpire being a "sliding scale" of duties. By this scale, the duties fell as the prices rose, and rose as the prices fell. The act of 1828 had 20 or 30 degrees in its scale, three or four of which are given as illustrations. When the average price of wheat in the kingdom was 52s.per quarter, the duty on foreign wheat was 34s.8d.When the price reached 60s., the duty fell to 26s.8d.When the price rose to 70s., the duty sunk to 10s.8d.When the price attained 73s.and upward, the duty went down to 1s.The price which regulated the duty was ascertained as follows: The prices of grain (wheat, for instance) on Saturday of each week, at 150 of the principal markets in the kingdom, were ascertained by returns to the Exchequer, and these were averaged. To this average were added the averages of the five preceding weeks, and then "the general average" of the whole six was struck, and this, on each Thursday, was proclaimed by the Government as theprice for the regulation of the duty for one week. Wheat, flour, &c., from abroad, might be stored or "bonded," without paying duties, to await a favorable turn of the market, then to be entered or reëxported at pleasure.
The act of 1828, after being modified in 1842, was totally repealed in 1846—the totality to take effect in February, 1849. During the seven years immediately preceding the repeal, matter sufficient to fill a thousand quarto volumes was printed in Great Britain on the Corn Laws. I shall not touch this mass, but confine myself to a notice of the movement typified by the name of Richard Cobden.
The history of Voluntary Associations does not furnish a triumph so signal as that achieved by the Anti-Corn-Law League. In seven years it revolutionized the mind of the most intelligent nation of Europe, bent to its will the proudest legislative assembly in the world, prostrated an aristocracy more powerful than the oligarchies of antiquity, and overthrew a system rooted to the earth by the steady growth and fostering culture of centuries. It may not be uninteresting to trace the rise and progress of such an Association.
From the days of Adam Smith downward, a school of political economists have contended that free trade is the high commercial road to national wealth. This was a favorite doctrine with the brilliantcoterie, whose opinions were reflected by the Edinburgh Review, and it mingled in the discussions upon "national distress," with which Parliament so frequently resounded from the breaking out of the French revolution to the passage of the Reform bill. But the landlords proved too strong for the schoolmen. The beginning of 1837 saw a fearful commercial collapse in England, which was aggravated by a deficient harvest in the ensuing summer. The summer of 1838 brought in its train another deficient harvest, which plunged the country deeper into suffering and gloom. Many sagacious minds regarded the corn laws as a fruitful source of these disasters. In September, Dr. Bowring and ColonelThompson, two distinguished Benthamites, started the Anti-Corn-Law crusade, by forming, in a small meeting at Manchester, an Anti-Corn-Law Association. Shortly after, a large assembly of the merchants and manufacturers of that town, in which Mr. Cobden bore a leading part, resolved to aid the Association with £3,000. In December, the Manchester Chamber of Commerce adopted a petition to Parliament, praying for an immediate and total repeal of the laws. Thus encouraged, the Association convened a meeting of delegates from all parts of the kingdom, at Manchester, in January, 1839. This body empowered the Association to assemble a meeting of deputies in London at the opening of the approaching session of Parliament. They met in February, and petitioned the House of Commons for leave to present evidence at its bar in regard to the injurious effects of the corn laws, and selected Mr. Villiers to bring forward a motion to that end. It was negatived with contempt, and the delegates separated. A month elapsed, and they again met at Brown's Hotel, in Palace Yard—the Protectionists, in derision, giving them the name of "The Anti-Corn-Law Parliament"—a name which they at once adopted, and which they ultimately taught the landlords to fear, if not respect. Their organ, Mr. Villiers, moved that the Commons take into consideration the act regulating the importation of foreign corn. He spoke in defense of his motion amidst coughings and hootings, when a large majority of members, shouting, "Divide! divide!" rushed into the lobbies, silencing for the moment the demand for cheap bread. They had yet to learn the character of the men they were dealing with.
On motion of Mr. Cobden, the Palace-Yard Convention now organized "The National Anti-Corn-Law League," with a Central Council, to be located at Manchester. In that hour, the landlords of Great Britain insolently boasted of their ability to cope with all the other property-holders of the kingdom combined. There was cause for their boasting. Their possessions were vast, their union was perfect, their powerhitherto irresistible. During a period of fifty-five years, the number of land-owners in the realm had fearfully diminished. In 1774, when Mr. Burke's corn law was enacted, the estimated number was 240,000 in England proper. In 1839, 40,000[10]persons, acting together, with the unity and efficiency of a close corporation, owned the agricultural soil of England. With this monopoly, the League joined issue. Richard Cobden, in the name of Free Trade, threw his gauntlet in the face of Protection, and challenged the feudalists to trial by battle before the people of the three kingdoms. The struggle was one of the severest, the victory one of the completest, of the present century.
The leading principles maintained by the League were, that the corn laws were not beneficial to the whole body of agriculturists, but only to a privileged few; that they depressed other branches of industry; caused frequent and ruinous fluctuations in the market value of breadstuffs, greatly enhanced the price at all times, and, therefore, were injurious to the community generally, and especially to the laboring poor. The promulgation of these principles excited a discussion of the broader question of the relative merits of Protection and Free Trade in their widest aspects.
The League entered so vigorously into the contest, that, by the close of the year 1839, upward of one hundred important towns had formed kindred associations. In 1840, Manchester, which bore so conspicuous a part in originating the movement, commenced the series of large Free-Trade meetings, which made that town so famous in the corn-law struggle. In January, a public dinner was spread for the friends of the League, under a huge pavilion, at which 4,000 persons sat down.The next day, 5,000 operatives were feasted. In February, at the opening of the Royal Parliament, the "Anti-Corn Law Parliament" met in London. Mr. Villiers renewed the motion of the previous year, and was defeated. In March, the Palace-Yard Parliament again assembled; Mr. Villiers again brought forward his motion, and was again defeated. The delegates returned home to arouse their constituents. The cry for "cheap bread" reverberated through the summer from Pentland Frith to Eddystone Light—from the Giant's Causeway to the Cove of Cork. Palace Yard again swarmed with delegates in November, and the persevering Villiers again moved, spoke, and was defeated. But the warm agitations of the League were gradually ripening public opinion. Whigism was tottering to its fall. It cast about for a crutch. Early in the session of 1841, Lord John Russell, foreseeing the necessity of a dissolution of Parliament or a dissolution of the Ministry, resolved on the former; and, wishing for "a cry" with which to rally the country, gave notice of his motion for the abandonment of the sliding scale, and for a fixed duty of 8s.per quarter on imported wheat. He made an able speech, closed the doors of St. Stephen's, and opened the campaign for a new House of Commons.
The Tories swept the kingdom, the Whigs falling between the "totality" of the Leaguers and the "finality" of the Protectionists. Lord John faced the New Parliament, his motion was defeated, and Sir Robert Peel, after an exclusion of eleven years, returned to power. But, though the landlords gave the Queen a sliding-scale House of Commons, the operatives of Stockport gave the People "a fixed fact" in the person of Richard Cobden. And now, said the feudalists, Cobden will find his level. He may sway a turbulent mob of unwashed Manchester artisans, but he will not dare to brave the starred and gartered aristocracy of England. Little did they dream, in this hour of their exultation, that in four years and a half the Manchester calico-printer would convert the Premier to hisviews, who, carrying over half the Tories to the League, would give victory to its standard, generously saying, as he retired with grace and dignity from the field, "Not to the Tory party nor to the Whig party, not to myself nor to the noble Lord at the head of the Opposition, is this change to be attributed; but the People of this country are indebted for this great measure of relief to the rare combination of elements which center in the mind and heart of Richard Cobden."
To return from this digression. The session of 1842 was opened at a period of unexampled distress in the manufacturing districts. Sir Robert Peel proposed a modification of the corn laws, which considerably reduced the duties. Mr. Villiers met the Government with a motion that the laws ought immediately to cease and determine. During the debate, Sir Robert announced that he would not pledge himself to a permanent maintenance of the sliding scale, and he distinctly abandoned the principle of protection as mere protection. This foreshadowed the events of 1846. Cobden's lucid speeches in defense of the motion won him a high place in the House. Villiers was defeated by a large majority, and the Government measure adopted.
Near the close of the year, the League proposed to raise £50,000, and deputed Messrs. Cobden, Bright, Col. Thompson, and others, to traverse the country and address the people. The great Free-Trade Hall was built at Manchester, and at its consecration, in January, 1843, it was announced that £44,000 had been raised. An attack was next made on London. After filling first the Crown and Anchor, and then Freemasons' Hall, the League was invited by Mr. Macready to occupy Drury-Lane Theater. Night after night, that spacious building was more densely packed, and rung with louder cheers, than in the days when Edmund Kean burst upon the metropolis, and carried it with a whirlwind of excitement, Thus far, the meetings of the League had been held in towns and cities. Mr. Cobden now challenged the Monopolists tomeet the Free Traders on their chosen ground. He attended open meetings of agriculturists in thirty-two counties, encountered the advocates of protection, and with the aid of his associates, defeated them on a show of hands in every case but one.
The year 1844 was opened with a proposal to raise £100,000, and to distribute ten millions of anti-corn-law tracts. Free Trade Hall gave a lead to the country, by subscribing £20,000 at a single meeting. In March, Mr. Cobden attacked the landlords in their farmyards. He moved the Commons for a committee to inquire into the effects of protective duties upon tenant farmers and agricultural laborers. His speech on that occasion, one of the ablest he ever delivered, gave a new aspect to the controversy, and a fresh impulse to the national intellect. And more than all, as was afterward acknowledged, that speech sunk into the soul of Sir Robert Peel, and prepared thefinaleof the corn laws. During the session, Sir Robert carried through a bill reducing the duties on several important articles; but he did not touch corn. The "pressure from without" was becoming, month by month, more difficult to be resisted. As fast as vacancies in Parliament occurred, they were filled by the candidates of the League. Early in 1845, Sir Robert proposed sweeping financial reforms, repealing the duties on four hundred and fifty articles, reducing the duty on the important article of sugar, and otherwise modifying the tariff. The corn laws still remained inviolate, but the landlords began to be alarmed. The panic was not diminished when the League placed its choicest orators on the stage of Covent Garden. For weeks, that theater was crowded from pit to dome, with audiences more earnest and enthusiastic than the muse of Shakspeare or the wit of Sheridan could command. Distinguished Parliamentarians, and even Earls and Barons, were swept into the throng, and mingled their voices in the chorus for "cheap bread," with Cobden, Bright, Fox, and Thompson. The ladies crowned thefeteby openinga splendid Free-Trade bazaar in the theater, crowding its doors for three weeks with wealth and beauty, and adding £15,000 to the treasury of the League. Ere the autumnal months had passed away, it became evident that Sir Robert Peel's Government must soon grant repeal or yield the ghost. A new election was anticipated. "Registration" almost silenced the shout for "Repeal." Effective measures were taken to place the name of every Free-Trade voter on the lists. The close of the year 1845 saw the League busy in raising a fund of £250,000, and marshalling one hundred thousand new electors for the contest.
The session of 1846 opened. The result is known. Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington—the same men who, seventeen years before, emancipated the Catholics—repealed the corn laws. There could be no higher evidence of the ability and tact of Sir Robert, than that on both these memorable occasions he won the support of the most inflexible of men, without whose aid neither of those measures could have passed the House of Peers. Such acts pour a flood of redeeming sunshine upon the characters of both these men.
The corn laws are dead. The principle of protection has received its death-blow in England. By mingling the question of corn-law repeal with that of protection generally, the discussions of seven years carried the mind of Britain forward a quarter of a century in the direction of Free Trade in all its departments. Nobody hopes for a permanent revival of the old order of things, except two or three superannuated ladies in the House of Peers, and half a dozen young Hotspurs in the House of Commons. If the good effected by this great measure has not realized all the promises of its advocates, it has falsified most of the evil predicted by its opponents—being but another proof that public sagacity, warned by the preliminary agitation, foresees changes in existing systems, and gradually prepares to meet them, so that their actual advent heraldsneither all the blessings anticipated by their friends, nor all the disasters prophesied by their enemies.[11]
A more particular notice of Mr. Cobden, and some other anti-corn-law advocates, will be given in the next chapter.
Notice of Corn-Law Repealers—Mr. Cobden—Mr. Bright—Colonel Thompson—Mr. Villiers—Dr. Bowring—William J. Fox—Ebenezer Elliott—James Montgomery—Mr. Paulton—George Wilson—The Last Meeting of the League.
Notice of Corn-Law Repealers—Mr. Cobden—Mr. Bright—Colonel Thompson—Mr. Villiers—Dr. Bowring—William J. Fox—Ebenezer Elliott—James Montgomery—Mr. Paulton—George Wilson—The Last Meeting of the League.
The seasonable organization, steady progress, and signal triumph of The National Anti-Corn-Law League are attributable in a very large degree to the sagacity, ability, and courage ofRichard Cobden. The early career of one who so suddenly acquired a European reputation is not so familiar as to render uninteresting a few incidents of that part of his life.
The leader of the Commercial Revolution of England is the son of a poor yeoman of Sussex. Commencing active life as a clerk in a London counting-house, he afterward removed to Manchester, where he became the traveling agent of a house largely engaged in the cotton trade. His intelligence, industry, and sound judgment won him the confidence of his employers, and the respect of all with whom he had intercourse. His rise was rapid, and we soon find him associated with an elder brother in a manufacturing enterprise of his own. He was highly successful. He studied public taste then as shrewdly as he afterward studied public opinion. An anecdote will illustrate this. In 1837, a gentleman visited Mr. Cobden's warehouse in Manchester, where he was shown some printed muslins of a peculiarly beautiful pattern, which Mr. C. was just sending into the market. A few days afterward,this gentleman was walking in the vicinity of Goodwood, and met some ladies of the family of the Duke of Richmond wearing these identical prints; and shortly after, while strolling through Windsor Park, he saw the young Queen going down the slopes sporting a new dress of the same pattern. Of course, this set all the ladies of the kingdom in a rage after "Cobden's prints," which immediately became as celebrated in the market as did Cobden's speeches a few years afterward.
But Cobden was never a mere calico-printer. In his manufacturing days, his capacious mind embraced large views of finance and trade. In 1835, he published, under the signature of "A Manchester Manufacturer," an able pamphlet on "England, Ireland, and America," and, soon after, another on "Russia," in which he advocated a repeal of the corn laws, free trade, peace, and non-intervention in the politics of other nations; strongly urging that England's true policy was to abolish the agricultural monopoly, open her ports to the world, stick to trade and manufactures, and not meddle with foreign controversies. The information which these pamphlets displayed was rare and valuable; the reasonings cogent; the style forcible; and the sentiments eulogistic of "those free institutions which are favorable to the peace, wealth, education, and happiness of mankind." As an illustration of his thorough mode of sifting a question, it may be stated that, before writing his pamphlet on Russia, he made a tour to the East expressly to gain information on that subject.
Mr. Cobden had now secured a reputation in Manchester and the surrounding district, and became a leading man in all public movements, especially such as related to business and trade. In 1837, he was invited to contest Stockport for a seat in Parliament. He failed of an election by fifty-five votes. In 1840, he was requested to stand for Manchester; but he declined, because he was expected to support, in all things, the Whig Administration; and, being far in advance of it on the subject of Free Trade, he was not the man to puton a chain to win a seat on the Treasury benches of the House of Commons. He was returned for Stockport at the general election the next year, and his biography has since become a part of English history. Of his services in the cause of Free Trade, I have already spoken at some length.
On the second of July, 1846, the act repealing the Corn Laws having received the royal assent, the League held its final meeting at Manchester. All theeliteof that victorious body had assembled from three kingdoms. George Wilson, who had presided as chairman of the council during the entire struggle, called to order. Having given a rapid sketch of the rise, progress, and triumph of the Association, he requested Mr. Cobden to address the Assembly. As he rose, the multitude sprang to its feet as one man, and greeted him with cheer on cheer, cheer on cheer, cheer on cheer. There stood the brave leader, the modest man, the victor in a field more glorious than ever Wellington won, unable to utter a word for several minutes, for the rapturous shouts of his companions in arms. His speech was characteristic. He bestowed warm eulogies upon his co-workers in the League, generously complimented Sir Robert Peel and Lord John Russell for their services in the crisis of the conflict, and delicately alluding to his own labors, insisted, in spite of the thundering "noes" which greeted the statement, that far too large a share of credit had been bestowed on him. He closed by moving that the operations of the League be suspended, and the Executive Council requested to wind up its affairs with as little delay as possible. The next day, a modest letter appeared in the public prints, addressed by him to the electors of Stockport, heartily thanking them for the confidence and kindness with which they had honored him, and announcing that the state of his health induced him to seek a temporary withdrawal from public life. Then followed the European tour; the feastings and toastings at Genoa, Paris, and other Continental cities; the munificent National Testimonial of nearly $100,000; thereëlection to Parliament; the plans for financial reform; the motion and speech on that subject during the late session; the defeat; the girding up of the armor for another struggle.
Those who associate in their fancy great physical endowments with great political achievements, would be disappointed in the person of Mr. Cobden. His name is announced. Forward steps a pale, slender man, with grave features stamped with few of the lineaments usually coupled with greatness and energy, and with rather a weak voice, and a gesticulation no wise striking, begins to unfold his subject. But, lucid arrangement; well selected words; arguments that penetrate to the marrow; facts new and old, clearly presented and felicitously applied; illustrations that shed light without bewildering; an occasional apothegmatic expression, embodying the whole subject in a phrase that enslaves the memory; earnestness and sincerity which first enlist sympathy and soon beget conviction—these are the elements of his power as a public speaker. The League furnished half a score of more brilliant orators than he; it produced not another such advocate. But, effective as were his forensic abilities, these did not place him at the head of the Anti-Corn-Law movement. He was as wise in council as he was resolute in action; and his well-balanced mind, his sturdy common sense, made him proof against the importunities of short-sighted coadjutors, and the snares of long-headed antagonists. A radical without rashness, a leader without arrogance, he carried straight forward to victory a constantly increasing host, never committing a blunder, nor sustaining an unnecessary reverse during a long conflict of peculiar excitement and temptation.
Next to Mr. Cobden, in popular estimation, among the League champions, stood the enthusiastic, eloquent Quaker,John Bright. He entered Parliament in 1843, and, like Cobden, was from the manufacturing class. For some years, he had been distinguished among the anti-rate paying dissenters of Central and Northern England, for his vigorous support ofreligious freedom. He had resisted the extortions of some persecuting dignitaries of the Establishment, and subjected them, on two or three occasions, to most mortifying defeats. He brought into Parliament a high reputation as an advocate of the League before popular assemblies, and an intimate knowledge of the subject of protection and free trade. His ready, bold, inspiring style of oratory partook more of the fervor of the platform than the calmness of the forum. But shrewdness and tact soon enabled him to catch the key-note of the House, where he displayed skill and courage as first lieutenant of the League, and won as much popularity from the aristocratic sections as so radical a democrat could reasonably expect.
ColonelPerronet Thompson, a liberal of the old school, was an efficient member of the League. The incidents of his life would furnish materials for a dozen novels. He had served and commanded, both in the navy and army, in two hemispheres, going through storm and flame in contests with Frenchmen in the Peninsula, South Americans at Buenos Ayres, slave-traders on the coast of Africa, Arabs around the Persian Gulf, and Hindoos among the sources of the Ganges. In the midst of moving accidents by flood and field, he mastered the French, Spanish, and Arabic languages, wrote pamphlets on Law and Morals, read the works of Jeremy Bentham, and negotiated commercial treaties, one of which is remarkable for being the first public act that declared the slave-trade piracy. Retiring on half pay in 1824, he turned his attention exclusively to politics and literature. He gave full scope to his democratic tendencies, and became a leader among the radicals. For ten years he wrote many of the ablest papers on current public questions that appeared in the Westminster Review, of which journal he was for some time the joint editor and proprietor with Dr. Bowring. His style is remarkable for its originality and vigor, combining the pith of Lacon, the raciness of Franklin, and the liberality of Jefferson. His speeches are distinguished for the same sententious and suggestive qualities that mark his writings.I am tempted to quote, though I spoil it by mutilation, his definition of a radical. "What," asks the Colonel, "isa radical? One that has got the root of the matter in him. One that knows his ills, and goes to work the right way to remove them. Every man is a radical that shuts his mouth to keep out flies. Does any man go to a doctor, and ask for a cure that is not radical? All men have been radicals who ever did any good since the world began. Adam was a radical when he cleared the first place from rubbish, for Eve to spin in. Noah was a radical, when, hearing the world was to be drowned, he went about such a common-sense proceeding as making himself a ship to swim in. An antediluvian Whig would have laid half a dozen sticks together for an ark, and called it a virtual representation." Colonel T. had high claims—a preëmption title—to the position he occupied in the corn law-struggle; for, twelve years before that controversy begun, he wrote "The Catechism of the Corn Laws," which contained the substance of all that was subsequently elaborated by Cobden and his coadjutors.
Mr. Villierswas the Free-Trade leader in Parliament till Cobden appeared; and, indeed, on account of his early services, he was called by courtesy the leader until the victory was won. His annual motion for repeal was a thermometer to measure the rise of public opinion; and his annual speech, laden with facts and arguments, converted thousands beyond the walls, if it failed to win majorities within. The multifarious learning and diligent pen ofDr. Bowringwere often in requisition. A disciple of Bentham, an early advocate of Free Trade, acquainted with the commercial systems of foreign countries beyond most men, with a mind ripened by study and enlarged by extensive travel, he rendered important aid throughout the controversy.William J. Fox, a Unitarian minister in London, a refined gentleman, a classic scholar, an original thinker, an enlightened philanthropist, added eclat to the Drury-Laneand Covent-Garden meetings. He now represents Finsbury in Parliament.
In this summary, I must not omit the iron poet of Sheffield. Like the Ayrshire plowman, he sprung from the working class. Like him, his songs are the lays of labor. But, unlike him, his muse did not draw her inspiration from the breath of the open fields, perfumed with daisies and adorned with hawthorn, but from the hot atmosphere of furnaces, ringing with the clang of anvils and the hoarse grating of machinery. Burns was the bard of yeomen.Elliottis the bard of artisans. Both have touched the deepest chords of human feeling, and waked echoes that shall vibrate till human hearts cease to pulsate. Wandering a few years ago in the suburbs of Sheffield, my eye fell upon a building, blackened with the blackest smoke of that most somber town, whose front showed a sign running, I think, thus: "Elliott & Co.'s Iron and Steel Warehouse." I inquired of a young man, dressed in a frock, besmeared with iron and coal, for the head of the establishment. "My father," said he, "is just gone. You will find him at his house yonder." I repaired thither. The "Corn-Law Rhymer" stood on the threshold in his stocking feet, holding a pair of coarse shoes in his hand. His frank "walk in" assured me I was welcome. I had just left the residence ofMontgomery. The transition could hardly be greater than from James Montgomery to Ebenezer Elliott. The former was polished in his manners, exquisitely neat in his personal appearance, and his bland conversation never rose above a calm level except once, when he spoke with an indignation that years had not abated of his repeated imprisonment in York Castle, for the publication, first in verse and then in prose, of liberal and humane sentiments, which offended the Government. And now I was confronted with a burly iron-monger, rapid in speech, glowing with enthusiasm, putting and answering a dozen questions at a breath, eulogizing American republicanism and denouncing British aristocracy, throwing sarcasmsat the Duke of Wellington, and anointing General Jackson with the oil of flattery, pouring out a flood of racy talk about Church Establishments, Biddle and the Bank, poetry, politics, the price of iron and the price of corn, while ever and anon he thrust his damp feet into the embers, and hung his wet shoes on the grate to dry. A much shorter interview than I enjoyed would be sufficient to prove, even if their works were forgotten, that of the two Sheffield poets, Elliott's grasp of intellect was much the stronger, his genius far the more buoyant and elastic. Yet has the milder bard done and suffered much for civil and religious liberty. But the stronger! Not corn-law repealers only, but all Britons who moisten their scanty bread with the sweat of the brow, are largely indebted to his inspiring lays for the mighty bound which the laboring mind of England has taken in our day. Some of his poems are among the rarest and purest gems that shine on the sacred mount. Others are as rugged, aye, and as strong, as the iron bars in his own warehouse. They break out in denunciations of privileged tyrants and titled extortioners, with sounds like the echoes of a Hebrew prophet. The genius that animates and the humanity that warms every line, carry them where more fastidious and frigid productions would never find their way. Elliott has been called harsh and vindictive. He may be pardoned for hating institutions which reduce every fourth man to beggary, while a great heart beats in his bosom. Against meanness and oppression, his muse has rung out battle-songs, charged with indignation, defiance, sarcasm, and contempt; but into the ears of the lowly and wan sons of toil, it has breathed the sweetest murmurs of sympathy, consolation, and hope. The key which unlocks his harmony he has furnished in these angry lines: