for so old a fellow as myself you will allow somewhat to be deserving
the praise of brightness, has just struck my mind, and I proceed to act
upon it. Are you Yorkshireman enough to know the article (an excellent
one it is) entitled a Christmas, or sometimes a goose or a turkey pie?
Its composition is this. Take first the smallest of eatable birds,
as a snipe, for instance, then put it within its next neighbour of
the feathered race, I mean in point of size, the woodcock, insert the
two into a teal, the teal into a duck, the duck and Co. into a fowl,
the fowl into a goose, the goose and Co. into a turkey. In imitation
of this laudable precedent, I propose, though with a variation, as
our Speaker would say, in the order of our proceeding, that this
large sheet which I have selected for the purpose should contain the
united epistles of all the family circle, from the fullest grown if
not largest in dimensions, myself, to the most diminutive, little
William.[61] As the thought is my own, I will begin the execution of
it, and if any vacant space should remain, I will fill it, just as any
orifices left vacant in said pie are supplied by the pouring in of the
jelly. But I begin to be ashamed of this jocoseness when I call to mind
on what day I am writing--the day which, combined with the succeeding
one, the 1st of January, I consider, except perhaps my birthday, as
the most important of the whole year. For a long period (as long as
I lived in the neighbourhood of the Lock, or rather not far from it)
I used to receive the Sacrament, which was always administered there
on New Year's Day. And the heart must be hard and cold, which that
sacred ordinance in such a relation, would not soften and warm into
religious sensibility and tenderness. I was naturally led into looking
backwards to the past days of my life, and forward to the future; led
to consider in what pleasant places my lines were fallen, how goodly
was my heritage, that the bounds of my life should be fixed in that
little spot, in which, of the whole earth, there has been the greatest
measure of temporal comforts, and of spiritual privileges. That it
should be also in the eighteenth century, for where should I have
been, a small, weakly man, had I been born either among our painted or
skin-clothed ancestors, or in almost any other before or after it? As
they would have begun by exposing me, there need be no more inquiry as
to the sequel of the piece. Next take my station in life, neither so
high as naturally to intoxicate me, nor so low as to excite to envy
or degradation. Take then the other particulars of my condition, both
personal and circumstantial. But I need go no farther, but leave it to
you to supply the rest. And you will likewise, I doubt not, pursue the
same mental process in your own instance also, and find, as may well be
the case, that the retrospect and prospect afford abundant matter for
gratitude and humiliation, (I am sure I find the latter most powerfully
called forth in my heart by my own survey). Many thanks for your last
kind letter. You have precisely anticipated what was said by the
several _dramatis personæ_. It is a real sacrifice for Emily and you
to be absent from my family circle. But the sacrifice is to duty, and
that is enough. And you have no small ground for comfort, from your not
having to go through the 'experiment solitary,' as Lord Bacon terms
it, but to have one, to whom you may say that solitude is sweet. But I
must surrender the pen to your dear mother."
The country was at that time extremely disturbed by what were known
as the "Swing Riots."[62] Bands of rioters went about, burning ricks
and threshing machines, then newly introduced, and considered by the
labourers as depriving them of the winter threshing work. Wilberforce
seems to have shared this feeling.
"HIGHWOOD HILL,
"_November 25, 1830._
"Your mother suggests that a threshing machine used to be kept in one
of your barns. If so I really think it should be removed. I should be
very sorry to have it stated that a threshing machine had been burnt
on the premises of the Rev. Samuel Wilberforce; they take away one of
the surest sources of occupation for farmers in frost and snow times.
In what a dreadful state the country now is! Gisborne, I find, has
stated his opinion, that the present is the period of pouring out the
7th Vial, when there was to be general confusion, insubordination,
and misery. It really appears in the political world, like what the
abolition of some of the great elements in the physical world would
be; the extinction, for instance, of the principle of gravity."
"_December 9, 1830._
"I have been delaying the books that all might go together. Mather's
'Magnalia'[63] shall be one of them. There is a very curious passage in
it early in the volume, in which in Charles I's time, he says, expenses
have been increasing so much of late years that men can no longer
maintain their rank in society. Assuredly this Government is greatly to
be preferred before the last. Brougham better than Copley, and several
highly respectable besides, the Grants (Charles is in the Cabinet),
Lord Althorp, Sir James Graham, Lord Grey himself, highly respectable
as family men; Denman a very honest fellow. The worst appointment is
Holland, Duchy of Lancaster; he has much church patronage which, though
I love the man, I cannot think decorous. Lord Lansdowne, very decent,
Lord Goderich ditto. But your mother is worrying me all this time to
force me out, and Joseph declares the letters will be too late. So
farewell."
"_December 17, 1830._
"I have always thought that your having a strong virtuous attachment
when you first went to the University was a great security to you. The
blessed effects of this safeguard we shall one day know. It will be a
mutual augmentation of attachment and happiness to find that those whom
we loved best had been rendered the instruments more or less of our
salvation....
"That religious feelings are contagious (if I may use the word so), is
undeniable, and there may be temporary accesses of religious feeling,
which may produce a temporary effervescence, with little or none of the
real work of God on the heart. But you and I, who are not Calvinists,
believe that even where the influence of the Holy Spirit was in the
heart, that Spirit may be grieved and quenched. The good seed in the
hearts of the stony-ground hearers is just an instance in point. When
my friend Terrot was chaplain, of the _Defence_ I think, great numbers
of the rough sailors were deeply affected by his conversation and
sermons, of whom, I think he said, thirty only appeared in the sequel
to be permanently changed."
"_January 4, 1831._
"You are now a man possessed of as much leisure as you are ever likely
to possess. What think you of laying in materials for a Doctrinal and
practical History of Religion in England, in different classes of
society, and of males and females, from the time of the Reformation to
the present time or perhaps to 1760. It was once my wish to write such
a work, but the state of my eyes long ago rendered it impracticable.
The sources from whence the particulars for the work must be derived
are chiefly Lives and Memoirs. Numbers of these have been published
of late years, and the object is one which would give opportunities
for exercising sagacity, as well as candour. There is this also of
good in it that, _nullus dies sine lineâ_, you might be continually
finding some fresh fact or hint, which would afterwards be capable of
being turned to good account. The Annual Registers and the different
magazines and reviews would be rich mines of raw material. Do meditate
on these suggestions. How very strong has dear Henry become both in
his opinions and his language! Really if he were to go into the law,
which Robert seems to think not improbable, there would be considerable
danger of his getting into quarrels which might draw on him challenges,
the more probably because people might suppose from his parentage,
&c., that he most likely would not answer a call to the field. I must
say that the becoming exempt, even in the world's estimate, from the
obligation to challenge or being challenged may be no unfair principle
of preference of an ecclesiastical profession to any other. The subject
of duelling is one which I never saw well treated; a very worthy and
sensible man, a Scotchman who was shipwrecked in Madagascar, I forget
his name (was it Duncan?) sent me one, his own writing, but I thought
it _naught_. And now my very dear boy farewell."
Wilberforce writes to Mrs. Samuel Wilberforce the day after his
daughter Elizabeth's marriage.
_Mr. Wilberforce to Mrs. Samuel Wilberforce._
"HIGHWOOD HILL,
"_January 12, 1831._
"MY DEAR EMILY,--We had a delightful day yesterday for our ceremony,
and after the indissoluble knot had been tied in due form, the parties
drove off about 12 o'clock to spend a few days at Mr. Stephen's
favourite residence of Healthy Hill, as he terms it, Missenden. I
really augur well of this connection, having strong reasons for
believing Mr. James to be a truly amiable as well as pious man, and my
dear Lizzy is really well fitted for the office of a parson's aider
and comforter. It has given me no little pleasure to have been assured
by Mr. Dupré, the curate of the parish, that she has been truly useful
to the poor cottagers around us. His expression was, 'She has done
more good than she knows of.' This event, combined with the close of
another year and the anniversary of my own dear wife's birthday, has
called forth in me a lively sense of the goodness of that gracious
Being who has dealt so bountifully with me during a long succession
of years. Dr. Warren, in 1788, as I was reminded when at Brighstone,
declared that for want of stamina there would be an end of my feeble
frame in two or three weeks, and then I was a bachelor. After this,
near ten years after, I became a husband, and now I have assured me
full grown descendants, and an offset in my Elizabeth. I have been
receiving many congratulations from being perhaps the only living
father of three first-class men, one of them a double first and the
two others in the second also. Above all their literary acquirements
I value their having, as I verily believe, passed through the fiery
trial of an university, for such I honestly account it, without injury.
And it gives me no little pleasure (as I think I have before assured
you), to add that I ascribe this in part to the instrumentality of a
certain young lady, who was a sort of guardian angel hovering around
him in fancy and exerting a benign influence over the sensibility and
tenderness of his lively spirit. Farewell, my dear Emily.
"Believe me, begging a kiss to baby,
"Ever affectionately yours,
"W. WILBERFORCE."
_Mr. Wilberforce to the Rev. Samuel Wilberforce._
"_February 8, 1831._
"MY DEAR SAMUEL,--Pray both for your mother and for poor William
that they may be delivered from μἑριμνα. The former, alas! lies
awake for hours in the morning, and cannot banish from her mind the
carking cares that haunt and worry her. We profess to believe in the
efficacy of prayer. Let us prove the truth of our profession by at
least not acquiescing, without resistance, in such assailments. It is
more from natural temperament than from any higher attainment that
I am not the prey of these corrosions. Something may be ascribed to
the habit of controlling my thoughts which I acquired when in public
life.... You might, I believe, have shone in political life; but you
have chosen the better part. And if you can think so now when in your
younger blood, much more will you become sensible of it by and by when
you look back, if God should so permit, on a long retrospect, studded
with records of the Divine blessing on your ministerial exertions.
Kindest remembrances to dear Emily, and a kiss to little Emily, and the
blessing of your affectionate father,
"W. WILBERFORCE."
"HIGHWOOD HILL,
"_March 4, 1831._
"I will frankly confess to you that I almost tremble for the
consequences of Lord Russell's plan of Reform if it should be carried.
I wish the qualification had been higher. The addition to the County
Representation lessens the danger. Much in the judgments we form on
such practical questions depends on our period of life. I find myself
now at seventy-one and a half far more timid and more indisposed to
great changes, and less inclined to promise myself great benefit from
political plans. I own I scarcely can expect the plan to succeed,
especially in the House of Lords. We understand your invitation to be
for July and August. But I foretell you plainly you shall not regularly
walk with me, or break off any habits which can in any degree interfere
with duty. We have not yet settled our plans. Indeed, they may greatly
depend on the convenience of our friends. I well remember the Dean of
Carlisle used to say when invitations multiplied, 'Do you think that
if you wanted a dinner there would be so many disposed to give you
one?' We are now about to put this to the proof. I own now that it
comes to the point I am a little disposed to exclaim, 'O happy hills! O
pleasing shades!' &c. But I should be ashamed were I to have any other
prevailing feeling than thankfulness. I feel most the separation from
my books. However, _sursum corda_."
Wilberforce writes to his friend Babington on Lord Russell's
propositions:--
_Mr. Wilberforce to Mr. Babington._
"HIGHWOOD HILL,
"_March 14, 1831._
"MY DEAR TOM,--I fear you will be again disposed to accuse me of
treating you with neglect (not, I hope, with unkindness) in suffering
week after week to pass away without returning answers to your kind
letters. I have really had as much necessary writing on my hands,
as even when I was member for Yorkshire. But I cannot bear to think
that you are, day after day, looking out for my handwriting (as you
are opening your daily packets), and looking out in vain. There have
been many topics, I assure you, on which I should have been glad to
communicate with you had I been able. I know not how you have felt,
but I must say I felt glad by the consciousness that I was not now in
a situation to be compelled to approach, and act upon, the important
question of Lord John Russell's proposition. On the whole, I think I
should have been favourable to it; chiefly, or rather most confidently,
from trusting that we shall do away with much vice and much bribery
which now prevail. I am persuaded also that the change will be for the
benefit, and greatly so, of our poor West India clients. I should like
to know your sentiments on the plan."
_Mr. Wilberforce to the Rev. Samuel Wilberforce._
"_April 8, 1831._
"And now, my dear Samuel, we have commenced our wanderings. I write
from Daniel Wilson's, who treats us with the utmost kindness."
From this time Wilberforce had no house of his own, but spent the
remaining years of his life with his sons and with his friends. In his
own language, he "became a wanderer without any certain dwelling-place."
"KENSINGTON GORE,
"_April 20th._
"It must be three weeks or more since Lord Brougham, when on the
woolsack, called Stephen,[64] then attending the House of Lords, quasi
master (two of their description you perhaps know are required to be
always present; they take down their Lordships' Bills to the House of
Commons), and after expressing in very strong language his concern at
having heard such an account as had reached him of the state of my
finances, and more particularly of its being necessary for me to quit
my own house, and become a wanderer without any certain dwelling-place,
he stated that he had lately heard of my having sons and a son-in-law
in the Church, and that he should be most happy to do what he could
for them. Lord Milton afterwards, as I understand from Dan Sykes,
expressed to Lord Brougham some kind intentions towards me, and more
especially that he waived a claim or an application he had been making
for the living of Rawmarsh, as soon as he learned that Lord Brougham
had destined it to me. Robert would not accept any living which would
not afford me a suitable residence."
"_April 23, 1831._
"You cannot conceive how little time I appear to have at my own command
while passing our lives in this vagarious mode, which, however, calls
forth emotions of gratitude to the Giver of all good, who has raised
up for me so many and so kind friends. I ought not to forget, while a
Gracious Providence has granted me a good name which is better than
great riches, that many public men as upright as myself have been the
victims of calumny. I myself indeed have had its envenomed shafts at
times directed against me. But on the whole few men have suffered from
them so little as myself."
"BATH, _October 19, 1831._
"I am but poorly, and I am bothered (a vulgar phrase, but having been
used in the House of Lords I may condescend to adopt it) with incessant
visitors. There is a person come over to this country from the United
States, of the Society of Quakers, for the excellent purpose of
obtaining popularity and support for a society which has been in being
for nine or ten years--the American Colonisation Society. I could not
but assent to his proposal to pay me a visit at this place. The time
was when such a visitor would have been no encumbrance to me. But now
that he takes me in hand when I am already tired by others, (though
it is only justice to him to say no one can be less intrusive or more
obliging than he is), I do sink under it. My dear Samuel, it is one of
the bad consequences of the plan you prescribed that I exhibit myself
to you in the state of mind in which I am at the moment, though I
should not otherwise have selected it for that purpose.
"_Friday, 12 o'clock, October 21st._
"Our American friend has left us this morning But, alas! he has
requested me to write in his album. What a vile system is the album
system! No, I do not, I cannot think so, though I am somewhat ruffled
by being called on for my contingent, when I have little or no supplies
left to furnish it."
Wilberforce goes on to express his gratitude for the safety of his
daughter Elizabeth (Mrs. James), who had been confined of a daughter.
"The mere circumstance that a new immortal being is produced and
committed to our keeping is a consideration of extreme moment. Though I
own it sometimes tends to produce emotions of a saddening character,
to consider into what a world our new grandchild has entered, what
stormy seas she will have to navigate. I will enclose an interesting
passage I have received from Tom Babington, giving an account of Dr.
Chalmer's speculations.
"I own I am sadly alarmed for the Church. There is such a combination
of noxious elements fermenting together, that I am ready to exclaim,
'There is death in the pot,' and there will be, I fear, no Elisha
granted to us to render the mess harmless. But yet I am encouraged to
hope that the same gracious and longsuffering Being who would have
spared Sodom for ten, and Jerusalem even for one righteous man's sake,
may spare us to the prayers of the many who do, I trust, sincerely
sigh and cry in behalf of our proud, ungrateful land. Yet, again, when
I consider what light we have enjoyed, what mercies we have received,
and how self-sufficient and ungrateful we have been, I am again tempted
to despond. I wish I could be a less unprofitable servant. Yet I must
remember Milton's sonnet, 'They also serve who only stand and wait.'
Let us all be found in our several stations doing therein the Lord's
work diligently and zealously. What do you think of Shuttleworth's new
translation of St. Paul's Epistles? I have borrowed but not yet read
them. Affectionate remembrances to dear Emily, and a kiss to sweet
baby."
"BLAIZE CASTLE,[65]
"_October 31, 1831._
"You will hear what dreadful work has been going on at Bristol for the
last eight and forty hours. Sir Charles Wetherell[66] escaped from
the fury of the mob by first hiding himself in some upper room in the
Mansion House and then passing, disguised in a sack jacket, from the
roof of the Mansion House to that of another house, whence he got to
a distant part of the town, and in a chaise and four returned in all
haste, (they say) to London. He was, as Recorder, to have opened the
Commission and tried all the prisoners to-day. However, the latter
are now all at work again in their accustomed callings. Not a single
gaol, I am assured, is left undestroyed. The Bishop's Palace, (and
Deanery too I am told), burnt to the ground. The Custom House ditto,
Mansion House ditto. Poor Pinney, the Mayor, I was assured, behaved on
Saturday with great presence of mind. The populace, however, got into
the Mansion House before the corporation went to dinner; so all
the good things regaled the ὁι πολλοι. Strange to say, (just as
in the London riots), people were allowed to walk the streets in peace,
and last night half the people in the square were looking on at the
depredations committing by the other half. Well-dressed ladies walked
about great part of the night staring as at a raree show. The redness
of the sky from the conflagration was quite a dreadful sight to us in
the distance. It is said they are endeavouring to organise a force for
the defence of the city. It is very strange that this has been so long
delayed. I'm assured pillage has latterly been the grand object. The
deputation, I am told, were followed by a cart, in which, as they went
along, they stowed the plunder. I have not said it to your mother, for
fear of her becoming still more nervous,[67] (which need not be), by
her finding me entertaining such cogitations, but if I perceive any
grumblings of the volcano at Bath, before the lava bursts forth I shall
hurry your mother to a certain quiet parsonage--though, alas! I cannot
but fear for the Church in these days."
"BLAIZE CASTLE, _November 2._
"The Bristol riots, though in some particulars the accounts were
as usual exaggerated, were quite horrible, and the _great_ events
as reported. But a striking instance was afforded how easily
perpetrations, if I may use the word, the most horrible may be at
once arrested by determined opposition. On Monday morning early the
mobs were parading about without resistance. But on that morning the
troops, a small body of dragoons, charged them repeatedly at full
speed, and not sparing either the momentum or the sharpness of their
swords, no attempt at making a head afterwards appeared. Afterwards
the day was properly employed in appointing a great number of special
constables and other civil force, and every night, as well as day,
since has passed in perfect quiet. A great part of the plunder has been
recovered, and numbers of criminals have been seized--some of them sent
to a gaol about seven miles off; and happily the condemned cells have
escaped the fury of the mob, and have afforded a stronghold for keeping
the prisoners. I need not tell you in what a ferment the mind of our
host was thrown, indeed with great reason. He had been threatened with
a visit at this place, and the best pictures were stowed away in safe
custody. I am persuaded it has become indispensably necessary to form
in all our great cities and neighbourhoods a civil police, properly
armed and drilled. And thus, as usual, out of evil good may arise."
"BATH, _November 13, 1831._