During this first Session of the new Parliament Ministers had carried

matters with a high hand, imagining that they had a majority which

would enable them to resist popular opinion, as they had done since the

conclusion of the war. But the progress of the Session did not warrant

this conclusion. They were defeated in several very important contests,

and before the Session came to an end were made to feel that they had

greatly declined in public confidence. In the severe debate of the

18th of May, on the motion of Mr. Tierney for a Committee of Inquiry

into the state of the nation, they had a majority of more than two to

one. But this was very different on the 3rd of June, when they only

carried their Foreign Enlistment Bill by a majority of thirteen. On the

question of the resumption of cash payments, the conversion of Mr. Peel

to the principles of Horner was a rude shock to the Cabinet, and shrewd

men prognosticated that, the entire system of Mr. Vansittart being thus

overturned, he must retire. Then came not merely partial conversions,

or near approaches to defeat, but actual defeats. Such were those on

Sir James Mackintosh's motion for inquiry into the criminal laws, and

on Lord Archibald Hamilton's for Scottish burgh Reform. The question

of Catholic Emancipation had approached to a crisis, and a majority

of only two against it was, in truth, a real defeat. The consequence

was that the conviction of the insecurity of Ministers was not only

shared by men of impartial judgment, but by themselves. Towards the

end of the Session Lord Liverpool himself was found writing to a

friend, that unless the measure for the return to cash payments raised

the confidence of the public in them, they must soon go out:--"I am

quite satisfied that, if we cannot carry what has been proposed, it is

far better for the country that we should cease to be a government.

After the defeats we have already experienced during this Session,

our remaining in office is a positive evil. It confounds all ideas of

government in the minds of men. It disgraces us personally, and renders

us less capable every day of being of any real service to the country,

either now or hereafter. If, therefore, things are to remain as they

are, I am quite sure that there is no advantage, in any way, in our

being the persons to carry on the public service. A strong and decisive

effort can alone redeem our character and credit, and is as necessary

for the country as it is for ourselves."

This appeal did something to strengthen them, but not permanently. The

fact that Parliament might terminate any day from the death of the

king did much to keep members in remembrance of their constituents;

but the great cause of Ministerial decay of popularity was that the

circumstance and spirit of the times demanded more liberal legislation

than such men as Liverpool, Sidmouth, and Eldon could comprehend,

much less originate. The manufacturing districts were especially in

a depressed condition. The efforts which had been made to force a

trade had failed. The excessive exportation of manufactured goods had

resulted exactly as Brougham had prognosticated: the foreign markets

had been glutted before the people were capable of buying, and the

fall in prices had been ruinous. The equally great importation of

raw material to continue the supply of fabrics for which the demand

was inadequate, had made matters worse. The bankruptcies during the

first half of this year were double the average number, credit was

severely shaken, and numbers of workmen were thrown out of employment

or reduced to very low wages. Wheat, though not so high as a year

or two ago, averaged eighty shillings per quarter. The consequence

was a renewed political action, and meetings were called by the

workmen in various parts of the manufacturing districts to consider

both their unsatisfactory position and the governmental as well as

commercial causes of it. The Corn Laws were justly denounced as one

potent cause of their sufferings, and the popular leaders of Reform

were called upon to assist them in getting rid of it. So early as the

18th of January a meeting of this character was held at Manchester.

Application had been made to the borough-reeve to summon a meeting to

petition Parliament for this object, but he declined, the Manchester

authorities of that day standing strangely aloof from the people in

their endeavours for relief from this enactment, which was as inimical

to their own interests as manufacturers, as it was to the comfort of

their work-people.

Refused in this quarter, the people proceeded to hold a meeting without

such sanction, and invited Mr. "Orator" Hunt to go down and take the

chair. Perhaps they could not have selected a more unsafe guide on the

occasion, for personal vanity was Hunt's besetting sin. Hunt, instead

of encouraging the very constitutional object of the meeting--to

petition Parliament for the repeal of the obnoxious law--treated

the petitioning that House as ridiculous, and persuaded the excited

people to put their sentiments into the form of a remonstrance to the

Prince Regent. The meeting then dispersed quietly; but Hunt found

occasion to keep himself in the public eye there a little longer. Some

officers of the 7th Hussars, who were posted at Manchester, treated

him rudely as he appeared at the theatre, asserting that when "God

Save the King" was called for, he hissed. Whether he did so or not,

the conduct of the officers answered his purpose of making political

capital; he wrote to the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of York, and

then sent his letter to the newspapers. Still more, he wrote to Samuel

Bamford to support him in a scheme which was particularly calculated to

produce riot and bloodshed, and in this case Bamford did not exercise

his usual good sense. At Hunt's suggestion--to select a dozen stout

fellows, and appear on the evening of the following Monday in the

pit of the theatre, armed with stout cudgels, to inflict a summary

chastisement on the officers in case of a second demonstration of

their feelings--Bamford appeared at the time appointed with ten stout,

picked fellows, with knotty cudgels, marching along the streets to

the theatre. The object was immediately perceived by the people, who

crowded to the door of the theatre, completely filling the space in

front. But the manager was too prudent to open his theatre in such

circumstances. He announced that there would be no performance that

evening. Hunt was, therefore, disappointed of a catastrophe in the

theatre; but he drove up in a carriage, mounted the box, and addressed

the crowd in very exciting tones, declaring that the magistrates

desired nothing so much as an opportunity of letting loose the bloody

butchers of Waterloo upon them--meaning the 7th Hussars. It was not his

fault that all went off quietly.

In May the gingham-weavers of Carlisle and that neighbourhood held a

similar gathering, and in June meetings were held on Hunslet Common,

near Leeds, at Glasgow, Ashton-under-Lyne, and other places. The

meeting at Glasgow, on the 16th of June, was held on the Green, and

amounted to thirty or forty thousand people. They complained of the

low wages for cotton-weaving, and proposed a petition to the Prince

Regent, praying that he would enable them to get over to Canada,

promising that all such as received that favour should repay the

outlay by yearly instalments. But the bulk of the assembly protested

against emigration, asserting that the remedy for their distresses

lay in annual parliaments, universal suffrage, and the consequent

reduction of taxation; and they proposed that they should march up to

London in a body, and present their petition to the Prince Regent in

person. At Ashton the chair was taken by the Rev. Joseph Harrison,

and the strange creature called Dr. Healey, of whom Bamford gives an

extraordinary account in his "Life of a Radical," made a most wild and

seditious harangue. At a great meeting at Stockport, on the 28th of the

same month, a very different personage presided. This was Sir Charles

Wolseley, of Wolseley Park, in Staffordshire. Sir Charles said that

he had been engaged in the outbreak of the French Revolution, and had

assisted in the taking of the Bastille, and that he would spend his

last drop of blood, if it were necessary, in destroying the Bastilles

of his own country. The acquisition of such an advocate of Reform was

not likely to be received with apathy. Sir Charles was invited to

preside at a similar meeting at New Hall, near Birmingham, on the 12th

of July. At this meeting he was elected "legislatorial attorney and

representative" for that town. This was a circumstance that excited

the alarm of Government. They immediately issued warrants for the

apprehension both of Sir Charles and of Dr. Harrison for seditious

expressions used at the Stockport meeting. Sir Charles was arrested at

his own house, at Wolseley Park; and Harrison was taken on the platform

of a public meeting, at Smithfield, in London, on the 21st of July,

at which Hunt was presiding. On conveying Harrison to Stockport, the

constable who arrested him was attacked by the mob, and a pistol was

fired at him, the ball of which lodged in his body.

Circumstances appeared now to be growing serious. Meetings were

held in defiance of the strict measures of Government throughout

the manufacturing districts; and at Blackburn it was announced at

such a gathering, on the 5th of July, that the women had also formed

themselves into "Sister Reform Associations," and these called on their

own sex everywhere to imitate their example, so as to co-operate with

the men, and to instil into the minds of their children a hatred of

tyrannical rulers. The men, at the same time, made another advance in

the Reform agitation; this was drilling-a movement which gave great

alarm to the magistrates of Lancashire, who wrote from various quarters

to apprise Government of it. It was a circumstance that might well

excite suspicion that something more than Reform was intended. But

when it came to be explained by the parties themselves, it turned out

to mean nothing more than that the Reformers in the neighbourhood of

Manchester were intending to hold a great meeting in order to elect a

representative, as the people of Birmingham had done, and that they

wished to assemble in the utmost order and quiet. But the very means

employed by them to avoid confusion, and enable them to meet and

disperse with decorum, were just those most calculated to excite the

fears of a magistracy and Ministry already suspicious.

The great meeting had been intended to take place on the 9th of August;

and on the 31st of July an advertisement appeared in the _Manchester

Observer_ calling on the inhabitants to meet on the 9th in the area

near St. Peter's Church for the purpose of electing a representative

to Parliament, as well as for adopting Major Cartwright's plan of

Parliamentary Reform. This immediately drew from the magistrates

a notice that such a meeting would be illegal, and that those who

attended it would do so at their peril. The working men on this

announced that the meeting would not take place, and a requisition was

presented to the borough-reeve and constables, requesting leave to hold

such a meeting. It was refused; and on its refusal the people proceeded

with their original design, only appointing the 16th as the day of

meeting, with Hunt in the chair.

[Illustration: THE PETERLOO MASSACRE: HUSSARS CHARGING THE PEOPLE.

(_See p._ 151.)]

This was taking a bold step in defiance of the authorities, and orderly

and peaceable conduct was, more than ever, necessary. On the morning

of the day proposed there was little appearance of any stir amongst the

artisans of the town, and it does not seem that they took any or much

part in the assembly, but that it was made up of the parties marching

in from the country and towns around. During the forenoon of this day,

Monday, the 16th of August, large bodies came marching in from every

quarter, so that by twelve o'clock it was calculated that eighty or a

hundred thousand such people were congregated in and around the open

space designated. Some of them had disregarded the injunctions of the

general committee, and had gone extensively armed with sticks. Bamford

soon heard that his eccentric friend, called "the quacking" Dr. Healey,

of whom his narrative gives some ludicrous recitals, had headed the

band from Lees and Saddleworth, with a black flag borne behind him,

on which stared out in great white letters, "Equal Representation or

Death" on the one side, and on the other, "Love," with a heart and

two clasped hands--but all white on their black ground, looking most

sepulchral and hideous. Presently loud shouts indicated that Hunt was

approaching, who came, preceded by a band of music, seated in an open

barouche, with a number of gentlemen, and on the box a woman, who,

it appeared, had been hoisted up there by the crowd, as the carriage

passed through it.

The platform for the chairman and speakers consisted of a couple of

waggons boarded over, and Hunt and his friends had some difficulty in

reaching it through the dense crowd, the attendant bands continuing to

play "God Save the King," and "Rule Britannia," till they were safely

placed on the platform, when the music ceased, and Hunt, having been

called to the chair, took off his white hat, and was commencing his

address, when there was a strange movement in the throng, and a cry,

"The soldiers are upon us!" and this was the fact. The magistrates

had met in great numbers on the previous Saturday, and had determined

to seize the ringleaders; but instead of doing this as they might

have done, at their several localities when drilling, or on their

way to the town, they left this to be done after these vast numbers

were assembled, and by the aid of the soldiers, which was certain

to produce serious consequences. We have the statements of these

magistrates themselves, as laid before Parliament, and of Sir William

Jolliffe, M.P., lieutenant of the 15th Hussars, and personally engaged

on the occasion. The reason assigned by them was, that they waited

to see "what the complexion of the meeting might be;" but, if this

was the case, they might as well have waited till some disorder took

place, which they did not, but sent the soldiers into the crowd,

whilst peacefully and in an orderly manner standing to listen to the

chairman. Had they waited to the end, they would undoubtedly have

seen the immense crowd disappear as quietly as it had come. But the

magistrates were clearly excited by their fears. They had assembled a

great constabulary and military force. Two hundred special constables

had been sworn in; six troops of the 15th Hussars lying in the barracks

were held in readiness; a troop of Horse Artillery with two guns; the

greater part of the 31st Regiment of Infantry; several companies of

the 88th Regiment; the Cheshire Yeomanry, nearly four hundred men, who

had ridden in that very morning; and about forty Manchester Yeomanry,

chiefly master manufacturers. These were troops enough to storm a town,

much more to defend it from an unarmed multitude. The whole of this

force, except the Manchester Yeomanry, was put under the command of

Colonel L'Estrange, of the 31st Regiment, in the absence of Sir John

Byng, the general of the district, but who had his headquarters at

Pontefract, and who, it appeared, had received no information of these

military preparations, or of the imagined need of them.

We have the accounts of what took place from both sides--from the

magistrates and the people. Mr Hulton, the chairman of the bench of

magistrates, made the following statements in evidence, on the trial of

Hunt, at York. He said that the warrants for the apprehension of the

leaders of this movement were not given to Nadin, the chief constable,

till after the meeting had assembled, and that he immediately declared

that it was impossible for him to execute them without the protection

of the military; that orders were at once issued to the commander of

the Manchester Yeomanry, and to Colonel L'Estrange, to come to the

house where the magistrates sat. The yeomanry arrived first, coming

at a quick trot, and so soon as the people saw them they set up a

great shout. The yeomanry advanced with drawn swords, and drew up in

line before the inn where the magistrates were. They were ordered

to advance with the chief constable to the hustings, and support

him in executing the warrants. They attempted to do this, but were

soon separated one from another in the dense mob, and brought to a

stand. In this condition, Sir William Jolliffe also giving evidence,

said that he then, for the first time, saw the Manchester troop of

yeomanry. They were scattered, singly or in small groups, all over

the field, literally hemmed in and wedged into the mob, so that they

were powerless either to make an impression, or to escape; and it

required only a glance to discover their helpless condition, and the

necessity of the hussars being brought to their rescue. The hussars

now coming up, were, accordingly, ordered to ride in and disperse the

mob. The word "Forward" was given, and the charge was sounded, and

the troop dashed in amongst the unarmed crowd. Such a crowd never yet

stood a charge of horse. There was a general attempt to fly, but their

own numbers prevented them, and a scene of terrible confusion ensued.

"People, yeomen, constables," says Sir William Jolliffe, one of these

hussars, "in their confused attempts to escape, ran one over another,

so that by the time we had arrived at the midst of the field, the

fugitives were literally piled up to a considerable elevation above the

level of the ground."

Surely, both magistrates and soldiers might now have been satisfied.

A defenceless multitude have no means of resistance, and, doing their

best to get away, might have been left to do so without further

molestation, which would be equally brutal in the magistrates, and

cowardly in the soldiers. But neither of these parties seems to

have thought so on this unhappy occasion. The magistrates issued

no orders to desist, and the soldiers, by the confession of one of

their officers, went on striking with the flats of their swords at

the impeded people, who were thrown down in their vain efforts to get

away, and piled in struggling heaps on the field. Mr. Hulton confessed

that he walked away from the window after he had let loose the

horse-soldiers on the people. "He would rather not see any advance of

the military." He was, in fact, so tender-hearted that he did not mind

the people--men, women, and children, met to exercise their political

rights--being trodden down under the iron hoofs of horses, and cut down

by the sword, so long as he did not see it.

Hunt, and about a dozen of his friends, were seized on the platform.

Bamford and some others, who had escaped, were afterwards taken. The

streets were then cleared by the infantry. Such was the celebrated

Manchester massacre, in which the actual wounds inflicted by the

soldiers do not appear to have been many. About seventy people were

carried to the infirmaries, or went there, to have their wounds

dressed--a considerable number for severe cuts and fractured limbs; and

six lives were lost, including a special constable run over by the

cavalry, and a Manchester Yeoman, who was struck from his horse by a

brickbat, aimed by a man whom he was pursuing.

The Ministers and the Prince Regent, indeed, fully approved of the

conduct of these magistrates, and that was to be expected, for

neither of these parties ever evinced much sympathy for the people,

and consequently received very little regard in return. There was

a disposition to rule by the high hand in both the Prince and the

Cabinet, which eventually brought them into extreme odium, and warned

them that very different times were approaching. On the reassembling

of Parliament Lord Sidmouth made the most candid statement of the

full and entire approbation of himself and his colleagues of this

cruel and dastardly transaction. He said that the news of the event

reached town on the Tuesday night; and that it was followed on the

Wednesday by two gentlemen from Manchester, one of them a magistrate,

to give the Government the most minute particulars regarding it; that a

Cabinet Council was immediately summoned, at which the two Manchester

gentlemen attended, and entered into the fullest details of all that

had taken place; and that the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General,

then present, gave it as their opinion that the proceedings were

perfectly justified by the necessity of the case. The statement of

all particulars was then dispatched to the Prince Regent, who was

yachting off Christchurch, and, on the 19th, the Prince replied, by the

hand of Sir Benjamin Bloomfield, expressing his "high approbation and

commendation of the conduct of the magistrates and civil authorities

at Manchester, as well as of the officers and troops, both regular

and yeoman cavalry, whose firmness and effectual support of the

civil power preserved the peace of the town on that most critical

occasion." To most people this appeared to be giving commendation, not

for preserving, but for disturbing the peace of the town; but Lord

Sidmouth, having received this sanction, addressed letters, on the

21st, to the Lords-Lieutenant of Lancashire and Cheshire, the Earls

of Derby and Stamford, requesting them to convey to the magistrates

of the two counties, who were present at Manchester on the 16th, "the

great satisfaction derived by his Royal Highness from their prompt,

decisive, and efficient measures for the preservation of the public

tranquillity." Hunt and his confederates were charged with high

treason; but, on the circumstances being examined, they were found not

to bear out this charge, and Hunt and his friends were indicted only

for a treasonable conspiracy; and true bills to the extent of this

mitigated charge were proved against Hunt and nine others at the summer

assizes for the county of Lancaster.

Great meetings were held in various towns and counties to condemn

the whole proceedings, and addresses were sent up and presented to

the Prince Regent which were, in fact, censures of his own conduct,

and were not, therefore, received in a becoming manner. To one from

the Common Council of London he replied that he received it with

regret, and that those who drew it up knew little or nothing of the

circumstances which preceded or attended the Manchester meeting.

The fact was, that they knew these a great deal better than he did.

Similar addresses were sent up from Westminster, York, Norwich,

Bristol, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, and many other towns.

A meeting of the county of York was calculated at twenty thousand

persons, and amongst them was the Earl Fitzwilliam, Lord-Lieutenant

of the West Riding, who had also signed the requisition to the

high-sheriff. For this conduct he was summarily dismissed from

his lord-lieutenancy. Scarcely less offence was given by the Duke

of Hamilton, Lord-Lieutenant of the county of Lanark, who sent a

subscription of fifty pounds to the committee for the relief of

the Manchester sufferers, expressing, at the same time, his severe

censure of the outrage committed on the 16th of August. Of course,

the Ministerial party in town and country did all in their power to

counteract this strong and general expression of disapprobation. In

Scotland and the North of England the squirearchy got up associations

for raising troops of yeomanry, as in direct approval of the savage

conduct of the Manchester Yeomanry. In the immediate neighbourhood of

the scene of outrage the conflict of opinion between the two parties

ran high. Numbers of the Manchester Yeomanry were indicted for cutting

and maiming in St. Peter's Field, with intent to kill; but these

bills were thrown out by the grand jury at the Lancaster assizes. An

inquest at Oldham, on the body of one of the men killed, was also the

scene of a fierce and regular conflict for nine days, that was put an

end to by an order from the Court of King's Bench. But even men who

were accustomed to support Ministers generally were startled by their

conduct on this occasion. Mr. Ward, afterwards Lord Dudley and Ward, in

one of his letters written from Paris at the time, but not published

till a later date, says:--"What do reasonable people think of the

Manchester business? I am inclined to suspect that the magistrates

were in too great a hurry, and that their loyal zeal, and the _nova

gloria in armis_ tempted the yeomanry to too liberal a use of the

sabre--in short, that their conduct has given some colour of reason to

the complaints and anger of the Jacobins. The approbation of Government

was probably given as the supposed price of support from the Tories in

that part of the country."

But the Government was, at that juncture, very far from being a wise

Government. Parliament was called together on the 23rd of November, and

opened by the Prince Regent in person. In his Speech he spoke of the

unsettled state of the country, and recommended measures of repression.

The Addresses were in the same tone, and they were commented upon

with great warmth by the Opposition, and amendments moved. Zealous

debates took place in both Houses, especially in the Commons, where

the discussion continued two evenings, and till five o'clock on the

third morning. The Addresses, however, were carried in the Lords by

one hundred and fifty-nine to thirty-four, and in the Commons by three

hundred and eighty-one to one hundred and fifty. The Prince Regent

sent down a mass of papers to both Houses relating to the condition

of the disturbed districts, and a host of Bills, founded on these,

were introduced. In the Lords, on the 29th of November, the Lord

Chancellor Eldon introduced one in keeping with his alarms, namely,

"An Act to prevent delay in the administration of justice in cases of

misdemeanour." This was followed by three others, introduced by Lord

Sidmouth; one to prevent the training of persons to the use of arms,

and to the practice of military evolutions and exercises, another to

prevent and punish blasphemous and pernicious libels. Amongst others,

Hone was again at work, and ridiculing the despotically-spirited

Ministers in his "Political House that Jack Built." The third was to

authorise justices of the peace, in certain disturbed counties, to

seize and detain arms collected and kept for purposes dangerous to the

public peace. These were to continue in force till 1822. Not thinking

he had yet done enough, on the 17th of December Lord Sidmouth brought

into the Peers another Bill more effectually to prevent seditious

meetings and assemblies, which he proposed should continue in force

five years. In the Commons, in addition to all this, on the 3rd,

Lord Castlereagh had introduced a Bill for imposing stamp duties and

other regulations on newspapers, to prevent blasphemous and seditious

libels, as if Sidmouth's Bill on that subject had not fettered the

press sufficiently. All these Bills were passed, notwithstanding the

strongest remonstrances by the Opposition as so many infringements of

the Constitution, and they became known as Sidmouth's and Castlereagh's

Six Acts.

[Illustration: VIEW OF CATO STREET, LONDON, SHOWING THE STABLE AT WHICH

THE CONSPIRATORS WERE CAPTURED. A, LOFT; B, STABLE-DOOR. (_From a print

published in_ 1820.)]

These enactments, unaccompanied by any others the object of which

was to relieve the distress of the people, only tended still more to

exasperate the feelings of the working classes. In fact, nothing had

been so obvious as the effect of the proceedings of Government of late

in disturbing that peace which they professed themselves so desirous to

preserve. They, in truth, were the real agitators. The passing of the

Six Acts only made the popular resentment the deeper, and whilst this

tended to render the more prudent Reformers cautious, it stimulated the

lowest and most unprincipled of them to actual and deadly conspiracy.

The general conspiracy believed in by Ministers never existed, but

a conspiracy was actually on foot in London, which again was found

to have been, if not originally excited, yet actively stimulated, by

the agents of Government. The details of this transaction, and of the

concluding scene of the Manchester outrage, namely, the trial of Hunt

and his associates, necessarily lead us about two months beyond the

death of George III., which took place on the 29th of January, 1820.

In November, 1819, whilst Government were framing their Six Acts, the

more completely to coerce the people, they were again sending amongst

them incendiaries to urge them to an open breach of the laws in order

to furnish justifications for their despotic policy. The leading

miscreant of this class was a man named Edwards, who kept a small shop

at Eton for the sale of plaster casts. Some of the emissaries appeared

at Middleton, the place of Bamford's abode, but he was in prison

awaiting his trial with Hunt and the rest, and the people tempted were

too cautious to listen to these agents of Government. But in London

these agents found more combustible materials, and succeeded in leading

into the snare some who had been long ready for any folly or crime.

Chief amongst these was Thistlewood, who had been a lieutenant in the

army, a man who had, or conceived that he had, suffered injustice at

the hands of Ministers, and who had wrought up his temper to the

perpetration of some desperate deed. Bamford when in London, in 1816,

had found Thistlewood mixed up with the Spenceans, and to be met with

any day at their places of resort--the "Cock," in Grafton Street, the

"Mulberry Tree," in Moorfields, the "Nag's Head," Carnaby Market, No.

8, Lumber Street, Borough, and a public-house in Spa Fields, called

"Merlin's Cave." At these places they might be found, amidst clouds

of tobacco-smoke and the fumes of beer, discussing remedies for the

miserable condition of the people. At the latter place Thistlewood

was often to be found with the Watsons, Preston, and Castles, who was

employed to betray them. From this spot they issued for their mad

attempt on the Tower on the 2nd of December of that year. Thistlewood

was one of those seized on that occasion, but was acquitted on his

trial. Not warned by this, he no sooner got abroad than he sent a

challenge to Lord Sidmouth, for which he was arrested, and sentenced

to a year's imprisonment. He issued from gaol still more embittered

against Sidmouth and his colleagues, and resolved on striking some

mortal blow at them. He did not lack comrades of a like fiery and

abandoned stamp, and they determined on a scheme for cutting off the

whole Cabinet together. The detestable deed was to be perpetrated in

the autumn of 1819, a time when the public mind, especially that of

the working classes, was so embittered against the Government. They

did not, however, succeed in their intentions, and it was at this

crisis of unwilling delay that the man Edwards became privy to their

plans. In November he carried the important, and, as he hoped, to

him profitable secret to Sir Herbert Taylor, who was attached to the

establishment of the king at Windsor, and by him he was introduced to

Lord Sidmouth. This minister and his colleagues, with that fondness for

the employment of spies, and for fomenting sedition instead of nipping

it in the bud, immediately engaged Edwards, on good pay, to lead

forward the conspirators into overt action. It was not enough for them

that, by adding another witness or two to Edwards, they would be able

to produce the most complete proof of the treason of these men--they

rather luxuriated in the nursing of this plot, and thus ripening it

into something bloody and horrible; and in this they succeeded.

The Christmas holidays necessarily postponed the plans of the

conspirators by the Ministers going out of town, and the deaths of

the king and of the Duke of Kent produced further impediments by

preventing the regular Cabinet meetings. At one moment the plan

appeared to be in jeopardy from the Ministers being in danger of

dismissal for their refusal to procure the new king a divorce; but

all these hindrances only the more enabled Edwards to ply his arts,

and stimulate his victims to their destruction. So thoroughly had he

brought them to this point, that, on the 19th of February, they came

to the resolution to assassinate the Ministers each at his own house,

as they could not get them all together; but at this moment Edwards

brought them word that the Ministers were going to have a Cabinet

dinner the next day. To make sure, they sent out for a newspaper, and

finding that it was so, Thistlewood remarked that as there had not been

a Cabinet dinner for a long time, there would be fourteen or sixteen

there, and it would be a fine haul to murder them all together. The

dinner was to be at the house of Lord Harrowby, and it was planned that

one of the conspirators should call with a note, and then the rest

should rush in and put the Ministers all to death, and bring away the

heads of Sidmouth and Castlereagh in bags provided for that purpose.

They were then to fire the cavalry barracks by throwing fire-balls into

the straw-sheds, and the people rising, as they hoped, on the spread of

the news, they were to take the Bank and the Tower.

The Ministers being duly informed of all, the preparations for the

dinner were carried on ostensibly as though nothing was suspected. On

the 23rd of February, when the evening had arrived, carriages began

to collect about the house of Lord Harrowby, and the scouts who were

sent out to see that there were no soldiers or police stationed there,

reported all right. But the carriages were driving to the house of

the Archbishop of York, which adjoined Lord Harrowby's, and this had

deceived the conspirators. The Ministers had remained at home to dine,

and then had assembled at Lord Liverpool's to await the news of the

result. The police, conducted by the spies, meanwhile reached the

rendezvous of the conspirators, which was a stable in Cato Street,

near the Edgware Road. The soldiers had orders to be in readiness, and

surround the place immediately, and assist in securing the desperadoes.

But it seems that the soldiers were not ready at the moment, and on the

police entering the stable they found that the conspirators were in the

hayloft over it. They were proceeding up the ladder to the loft, and

Smithers, one of the police, had just entered it, when Thistlewood,

seeing that they were betrayed, stabbed the man to the heart, blew out

the light, and made his escape. There was a confused firing of pistols

in the dark, and the soldiers coming up, nine of the conspirators were

secured, with a quantity of arms and ammunition; but fourteen were said

to have succeeded in escaping.

The next morning London was thrown into consternation by the

announcement of this conspiracy, and by a reward of one thousand pounds

being offered in the _Gazette_ for the apprehension of Thistlewood.

He was captured before eight o'clock that morning, whilst in bed, at

the house of a comrade, in Moorfields. But his arrest did not diminish

the wild alarms which not only seized the capital but the country.

This was immediately believed to be only the centre of that universal

conspiracy of which Government had taken so much pains to propagate

an impression. People everywhere were arming for the defence of their

own neighbourhoods, and magistrates and yeomanry were turning out by

night to keep watch against a surprise, whilst people in town took

great care to lock and barricade their houses against the invisible

foe. Thistlewood and nine others were put upon their trial on the 13th

of April, and, after a trial of three days, he and eight of them were

pronounced guilty, and himself and four of the most desperate were

condemned to death; the others were sentenced to transportation for

life; but one man, who was proved to have been amongst them without

being aware of their object, was pardoned. Thistlewood and the four

others were executed on the 1st of May. The next day Alderman Wood

moved in the House of Commons for an inquiry into the conduct of

Edwards, but it was rejected by a large majority. On the 19th he

again returned to the subject, and supported his motion by producing

depositions from many persons brought before him as a magistrate,

demonstrating, in the plainest manner, that Edwards had recommended

to them the murder of Ministers and the destruction of Parliament,

had furnished plans for these objects, and had done all in his power

to seduce needy men into these measures. He proved, also, from the

same depositions, that Edwards himself had been living for six weeks

in great affluence in the house of a schoolmaster in St. George's

Street, Hanover Square, who was not aware of the occupation of Edwards

till the wretch himself informed him of it. Alderman Wood called on

Parliament to act on this unquestionable evidence, and purge itself of

any sanction of such disgraceful transactions. But Ministers again

resisted all inquiry, and their friends openly defended them in the use

of such means, even ridiculing Alderman Wood, and those who supported

his motion, for supposing that Lord Sidmouth would proceed against

Edwards through any depositions furnished by magistrates. The motion

was, of course, thrown out.

Before these discussions took place, an attempt had been made by

similar means to lead the people of Scotland into insurrection.

Emissaries appeared in the towns and villages informing the people

that there were preparations made for a general rising, and they were

ordered to cease all work and betake themselves to certain places of

rendezvous. On the morning of Sunday, the 2nd of April, the walls of

Glasgow were found placarded everywhere by a proclamation, ordering all

persons to cease labour and turn out for a general revolution. The next

morning the magistrates called out the military, and they were drawn up

in the streets in readiness for the appearance of an insurrection, but

none took place. The people were all in wonder, and assembled to see

what would happen; but there appeared not the slightest disposition to

make any disorder, and some of the cotton mills were at work as though

nothing was expected to take place. But still, the mischief had not

altogether failed. Some fifty poor ignorant men had been decoyed out of

Glasgow to near Kilsyth, on the assurance that four or five thousand

men would there join them, and proceed to take the Carron Ironworks and

thus supply themselves with artillery. These poor dupes were met on the

road, on some high ground on Bonnymuir, by a detachment of armed men

sent out against them, and, after some resistance, during which some

of them were wounded, nineteen were made prisoners and the rest fled.

Other arrests were made in different parts of Scotland, and they were

tried in the following July and August; but so little interest was felt

in this attempt, or in the details of what was called "the Battle of

Bonnymuir," that three only were punished and the rest discharged.

There remain only the trials of Hunt and his associates in the meeting

at Manchester to close the events which arose out of circumstances

originating under the reign of George III. These took place at York

spring assizes, whither they had been prudently removed out of the

district where both parties were too much inflamed for a fair verdict

to be expected. During the time that they lay in prison the conduct of

Hunt had greatly disgusted his humble associates. He showed so much

love of himself that Bamford says he began to think that he could never

have really loved his country. The Government had found it necessary

a second time to lower its charge against the Manchester prisoners.

At first it was high treason, then it subsided to treasonable

conspiracy, and now, at last, it was merely "for unlawful assembling

for the purpose of moving and inciting to hatred and contempt of the

Government." Of this they were all convicted, and were confined in

different gaols for various periods, and were called upon to give

substantial security for good behaviour in future before being set at

liberty. Hunt was imprisoned for three years in Ilchester gaol. It is

only justice to him to state that though, during this imprisonment, he

was continually sending to the newspapers complaints of ill treatment,

he was instrumental in making known to the public some flagrant

malpractices going on in the gaol, and which, through these exposures,

were afterwards corrected.

[Illustration: SURPRISE OF THE CATO STREET CONSPIRATORS. (_See p._

155.)]

The trial of Sir Charles Wolseley and Dr. Harrison for their speeches

at the meeting for Reform at Stockport in June, 1819, terminated also

in their conviction and imprisonment for eighteen months, as well as

the giving of security for their future good behaviour on liberation.

With these inglorious events closed the long reign of George

III. Indeed, he had passed away before they were brought to

their conclusion. He died on the 29th of January, 1820, in the

eighty-second year of his age, and the sixtieth of his reign. Only

six days previously had died his fourth son, the Duke of Kent, in his

fifty-third year. But the duke had not departed without leaving an

heir to the Throne in the Princess Victoria, who was born on the 24th

of May, 1819. Could the old king have been made sensible of these

events, there were others which showed that his line, which of late

had appeared likely to die out in one generation, notwithstanding his

numerous family, was again giving signs of perpetuation. On the 26th of

March, 1819, a son had also been born to the Duke of Cambridge, and a

son to the Duke of Cumberland on May 27th of the same year, afterwards

King of Hanover.

[Illustration: A VILLAGE HOLIDAY OF THE OLDEN TIME.

(FROM THE PAINTING BY F. GOODALL, R.A., IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF

BRITISH ART.)]

CHAPTER IV.

PROGRESS OF THE NATION DURING THE REIGN OF GEORGE III.

Growth of Material Wealth--Condition of the Working Classes--The

Charity Schools--Lethargy of the Church--Proposal to abolish

Subscription to the Articles--A Bill for the further Relief of

Dissenters--The Test and Corporation Acts--The Efforts of Beaufoy

and Lord Stanhope--Attempts to relieve the Quakers--Further Effort

of Lord Stanhope--The Claims of the Roman Catholics--Failure

of the Efforts to obtain Catholic Emancipation--Lay Patronage

in Scotland--The Scottish Episcopalians--Illustrious

Dissenters--Religion in Wales and Ireland--Literature--The

Novelists: Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne--Minor

and later Novelists--Scott--Historians: Hume, Robertson, and

Gibbon--Minor Historians--Miscellaneous Literature--Criticism,

Theology, Biography, and Science--Periodical Literature--The Drama

and the Dramatists--Poetry: Collins, Shenstone, and Gray--Goldsmith

and Churchill--Minor Poets--Percy's "Reliques," and Scott's "Border

Minstrelsy"--Chatterton and Ossian--Johnson and Darwin--Crabbe and

Cowper--Poetasters and Gifford--The Shakespeare Forgeries--Minor

Satires--Burns--The Lake School: Wordsworth, Coleridge, and

Southey--Scott, Campbell, Byron, Shelley, and Keats--Poets

at the close of the Period--Improvement of Agricultural

Science--Arthur Young--Drainage and Roots--Improvements in

Road-making: Telford and Macadam--Brindley's and Telford's

Canals--Bridges and Harbours--Iron Railways--Application

of the Steam-Engine to Railways and Boats--Improvements in

Machinery--Wedgwood--Manufacture of Glass--Collieries--Use of Coal

in Iron-works--Improvements in various Manufactures--Scientific

Discoveries--Music--Architecture--Painting--Sculpture--Engraving--Coins

and Coinage--Manners and Customs.

The progress of Great Britain in commerce during the reign of George

III. had been extraordinary. At the beginning of the reign the

number of British vessels of all kinds amounted to only 7,075, with

a tonnage of 457,316 tons; but at the end of the reign the vessels

amounted to 30,000, with a tonnage of upwards of 3,000,000 tons. At

the commencement of the reign the exports were £14,500,000, and the

imports £9,579,159. At the end of the reign the exports had risen to

£43,438,989; and the imports to £30,776,810.

A great proportion of these results had been produced by the rapid

growth of manufactures. The introduction of steam, and the inventions

of the spinning-jenny and other kinds of machinery, had given such a

development to manufactures, that the value of these at the end of the

reign made three-fourths of the whole exports. Agriculture had made

considerable progress, and of this art the king was a zealous patron,

especially of the improvements in the breed of sheep, importing himself

merinos from Spain at great cost. There were also great promoters of

improvements in stock, such as Bakewell, Culley, and others, and the

high price of corn and of all kinds of agricultural produce during

the war acted as stimulants to farming. The value of land also caused

the enclosure of vast tracts, and much planting of trees was done,

especially in Scotland, which had previously been very neglectful in

that respect.

The growth of material wealth during this reign had in no degree

improved the condition of the working class in any proportion to

that of other classes. Landlords had greatly raised their rents,

and farmers, by the high price of corn and other provisions, had

grown comparatively rich, many very rich. The merchants and master

manufacturers had shared liberally in the benefits of a vastly

increased commerce, and the wonderful spread of manufactures; but

the working manufacturers, between the high price of corn and meat,

and the lowness of their wages, were in a miserable condition, and

frequently, as we have seen, were driven to riot and insurrection.

The handloom weavers were swamped by machinery, and those working the

machinery were living in wretched houses, and in a most neglected and

insanitary condition. Before the first Sir Robert Peel introduced his

Bill for reforming the hours and other regulations of cotton mills,

many of these worked night and day, one gang, as it was called,

succeeding another at the spinning-jenny, in hot, ill-ventilated rooms.

Apprentices were purchased of parishes, either children of paupers, or

orphans of such, and these were kept by mill-owners, and worked long

hours, one gang having to quit their beds in the morning for another

gang of these poor unfortunates to turn into them. The agricultural

labourers were little better off. Their habitations were of the worst

description, though squires' kennels on the same estates were equal, in

all sanitary conditions, to tolerable mansions. Their wages remained

only some eight or ten shillings a week--when the wheat which they had

raised was one hundred and thirty shillings per quarter, and a stone

of flour of fourteen pounds cost a gold seven-shilling piece. This

drove them in shoals to the workhouse, and produced a state of things

that is hardly credible. Their mental and moral condition was equally

deplorable. Education, either in town or country, was scarcely known.

There was not a school in all the swarming region of Whitechapel, and

many another equally poor and populous region of London, much less in

country towns and agricultural parishes. It was a settled maxim amongst

the landed gentry, that education, even of the most elementary kind,

would totally destroy the supply of servants; and it was gravely stated

in Parliament that the plot of Thistlewood was owing to the working

classes being able to read.

The charity schools throughout the country were discovered, by the

operation of Henry Brougham's Commission, to be monopolised by the

landlords of the different parishes and the clergy, and the ample

revenues for education embezzled by them. In some such schools there

was not a single scholar; in others, as at Pocklington, in Yorkshire,

the free grammar school, with an endowment of one thousand pounds

a year, had only one scholar. This state of physical and moral

destitution was made the more dreary by the equally low state of

religion. The Dissenters were on the increase, and, chiefly in towns,

were exerting themselves to disperse the Egyptian darkness of this

Georgian era, and Methodism was now making rapid progress amongst

the working classes, both in town and country. But the preachers of

Methodism met with a reception from the country squirearchy and clergy

which has no parallel since the days of Popish persecution. They were

dragged out of the houses where they preached, kicked and buffeted,

hauled through horse-ponds, pelted with mud and stones; and the

clergy and magistracy, so far from restraining, hounded on the mob in

these outrages. The lives of these preachers, and the volumes of the

_Wesleyan Magazine_, abound in recitals of such brutalities, which,

if they had not been recorded there, would not now be credited. What

John Wesley and his brother Charles, and George Whitefield suffered,

especially in Devonshire and Cornwall, reads like a wild romance.

The state of the Church of England was one of the most surprising

deadness and corruption. Vast numbers of the churches had no minister

resident, except a poor curate at a salary of some twenty pounds

per annum, who, therefore, was compelled to do duty in two or three

neighbouring parishes at once, in a manner more like the flying tailor

of Brentford than a Christian minister; and the resident incumbents

were for the most part given up to habits of intoxication, inherited

from the last reign. Some of these ruling pastors held three or four

livings, for the licence as to the plurality of livings was then almost

unbounded.

According to returns made by the bishops in 1807, the number of

incumbents in the eleven thousand one hundred and sixty-four parishes

of England and Wales was only four thousand four hundred and twelve,

or little more than one in every third parish. In 1810 the matter had

a little improved, for the whole number of residents was found to be

five thousand nine hundred and twenty-five. The duty of the kingdom

was chiefly done by curates, and how were these curates paid? Lord

Harrowby stated in the House of Peers, in 1810, that the highest scale

of salary paid by non-residents to their curates, who did all the work,

was fifty, sixty, or at the most seventy pounds a year; but that a far

more usual scale of payment was twenty pounds, or even ten pounds,

per annum; that this was much less than the wages of day labourers,

and that the worst feature of the case was that the non-residents and

pluralists were amongst those who had the richest livings, so that men

drawing eight hundred or even two thousand pounds a year from their

livings were often totally unknown to their parishioners, and that

often "all that they knew of the curate was the sound of his voice in

the reading-desk, or pulpit, once a week, a fortnight, or a month."

The consequence was that the condition of the agricultural population

was as debased morally as it was destitute physically--in the almost

total absence of education, the very funds granted by pious testators

for this end being embezzled by the clergy or squirearchy. Everything

which could brutalise the people was encouraged by the aristocracy

on the plea that it made them good soldiers. When the horrors and

brutalities of almost universal dog-fightings, cock-fightings, bull and

bear-baitings began to attract the attention of philanthropists, and

it was sought by Parliamentary enactment to suppress them, they were

defended by Windham, and others, on the ground that they accustomed

the people to the sight of blood, and made them of the "true British

bull-dog character."

The great struggles going on through the reign of George III. were not

so much for the advancement of religion, as to obtain release from

the impositions and restrictions on both liberty of conscience and

political liberty by the Church of England, and its ally, the State.

With the exception of the reign of Queen Anne, no reign since the

Revolution has taken so high a tone of Toryism as that of George III.

We have had to detail the evidences of that fact; and it is equally

true that, with Toryism in the State, Toryism--or what is called

High Churchism--prevailed coincidently in the Establishment. True,

the Indemnity Acts, the suppression of Convocation, the spread of

Dissent, and especially of Methodism, had in some degree clipped the

talons of the hierarchy, but these very things made it more tenacious

of its still existing powers. At the very opening of the reign the

Church was alarmed by a proposal by one of its own members to abolish

subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles. This question had been a

matter of controversy from the time of Bishop Burnet's "Exposition" of

these Articles; but in 1766 a very able work appeared, entitled "The

Confessional; or, a Full and Free Inquiry into the Right, Utility,

Edification, and Success of Establishing Systematic Confessions of

Faith and Doctrine in Protestant Churches." This was traced to the hand

of Archdeacon Blackburne, of Richmond in Yorkshire. It produced much

excitement and discussion amongst the clergy of the Establishment, as

well as amongst Dissenters, who were entirely shut out of one of the

national universities by these subscriptions, and their education at

the other hampered and impeded. An association was formed amongst the

established clergy, favourable to Blackburne's views, and in 1771, at

its request, he drew up "Proposals for Application to Parliament for

Relief in the Matter of Subscription." The association, from its place

of meeting called the "The 'Feathers' Tavern Association," determined

to address Parliament on the subject, and drew up a petition, which was

presented to the House of Commons, in February, 1772, by Sir William

Meredith. It was signed by two hundred clergymen, and fifty other

individuals, chiefly lawyers and physicians. A keen debate ensued, but

the motion for taking the subject into consideration was negatived by

two hundred and seventeen against seventy-one. Sir William Meredith,

notwithstanding, again introduced the subject in February of the

following year, only to be defeated by a majority of one hundred and

fifty-nine against sixty-seven; and a third attempt, the year after,

was met by such an overwhelming number of "Noes" that he declined

to divide the House. In all these debates, Burke, who now was grown

excessively Conservative, supported subscription with all his power.

The discussion of the question, though it was so summarily dismissed

as it regarded the Church, did not prevent a certain number of the

Dissenters from coming forward to endeavour to relieve themselves

of the yoke of these Articles. In the Toleration Act, passed after

the Revolution, it had been stated that this toleration was conceded

to those only who were willing to subscribe these Articles, with

the exception of the first clause of the 20th, which asserts that

the Church has power to decree rites and ceremonies, and to settle

controversies of faith; the 34th, which relates to the traditions of

the Church; the 35th, relating to the homilies; and the 36th, relating

to the consecration of bishops and ministers. With these exceptions,

the Articles had been little objected to by the Dissenters till the

Presbyterians of England had, for the most part, embraced Unitarianism.

It was chiefly from this class that the movement against these Articles

now took its rise; but not altogether, for the subscription to the

Articles included in the Toleration Act having for some time been

little insisted on, some Dissenters, who had not subscribed them, were

menaced with trouble on that account by officious clergymen. Amongst

these Dr. Doddridge was mentioned as one who had been so disturbed.

It was now thought fit to press the question on Parliament, and in

April, 1772, Sir Henry Houghton moved for leave to bring in a Bill

for that object, under the title of "A Bill for the further Relief of

Dissenters." Sir Roger Newdigate, destined for so many years to be the

champion of Church Toryism, led the way in opposition, as one of the

members of the University of Oxford; and he was supported by two or

three men of the same stamp. In this case, however, Burke voted for the

Bill as only reasonable, and it passed by a majority of seventy against

nine. But in the Lords, the Bishops came forward in full strength

against it, and Barrington, Bishop of Llandaff, pointed it out as a

Socinian movement, and quoted, with telling effect, some of the most

objectionable passages from the writings of Dr. Priestley. There were

cries of "Monstrous! Horrible! Shocking!" and, amongst the utterers of

these, the loudest was Lord Chatham. The Bishop of London said that, so

far from the Dissenters generally advocating this measure, he had been

waited on by some of their ministers to inform him that they regarded

it, not as a measure to relieve Dissenters from the Articles of the

Church, but certain persons from the obligations of Christianity. It

was thrown out by a hundred and two against twenty-nine.

In the following Session Sir Henry Houghton brought it forward again,

on the 17th of February. On this occasion a great many Methodist

congregations petitioned against the Bill; for the Methodists, though

separating themselves from the Church, still insisted that they

belonged to it, and held all its tenets, at least of that section of

it which is Arminian. It again passed the Commons, but was rejected

by the Lords. Finding the Lords so determined against the measure, it

was allowed to rest for six years, when circumstances appeared more

favourable, and it was again brought forward, in 1779, by Sir Henry

Houghton, and carried through both Houses, with the introduction of a

clause to this effect, that all who desired to be relieved by the Act

should make the affirmation--"I, A. B., do solemnly declare that I am a

Christian and a Protestant Dissenter, and that I take the Old and New

Testaments, as they are generally received in Protestant countries, for

the rule of my faith and practice."

In this same year, 1779, the Protestant Dissenters of Ireland were

relieved by their Parliament from the operation of the Test and

Corporation Acts, and it was not, therefore, very likely that the

Dissenters of England would rest quietly under them much longer. These

Acts were passed in the 13th of Charles II., and the 25th of the same

monarch, and required that no person should be elected to any civil

or military office under the Crown, including seats in Parliament or

corporations, unless he had taken the sacrament according to the rites

of the Church of England. On the 28th of March, 1787, Mr. Beaufoy,

member for Yarmouth, moved that the House of Commons should resolve

itself into a committee to consider the Test and Corporation Acts.

Mr. Beaufoy represented that these Acts were a heavy grievance, not

only to the Dissenters and to the members of the Established Church

of Scotland, but to many members of the English Church itself, who

regarded the prostitution of the most solemn ordinance of their faith

to a civil test as little less than sacrilegious. In reply, it was

contended that the Indemnity Acts had been passed to protect such as

had omitted to take the sacrament within the time specified; but Mr.

Beaufoy and his seconder, Sir Henry Houghton, who had carried the Bill

relieving Dissenters from subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles,

showed that these measures were not always sufficient, and were but a

clumsy substitution for the abolition of the obnoxious Acts.

The question was argued at great length. It was opposed by Lord North

and Pitt, and supported by Fox, and was rejected by one hundred and

seventy-six against ninety-eight. The question was raised again in

1789 and 1790, and in both cases was defeated. On the latter occasion

Fox introduced the motion, and Mr. Beaufoy, who usually took the lead

in it, seconded it. Fox alluded to the very Dissenters on whom Bishop

Barrington had thrown so much odium. He acknowledged the hostility of

such men as Drs. Priestley and Price to the Church, and to what had

taken place across the Channel against the national Church there; but

he treated these as warnings to the English hierarchy not to keep too

tight a grasp on the obstructions which they had thrown in the way of

Dissenters, and contended that the Church's safety depended in allowing

a just participation in civil rights, and thus disarming popular

resentment. The motion was opposed by Pitt, Burke, Wilberforce, Sir

William Dolben, and others. Burke also referred to the destruction of

the French Church, and contended that it was not a time to give way to

demands for surrender of what he called the safeguards of the English

Church. Mr. William Smith, of Norwich, who continued for many years the

staunch advocate of the Dissenters, strongly supported the motion; but,

on the other hand, a considerable number of members who had voted for

the repeal of these Acts had since been warned by their Church-going

constituents to tack about, and did so. The motion, therefore, was

rejected by two hundred and ninety-four against one hundred and five,

and the Dissenters were so convinced of the uselessness of attempting

to procure the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts under George

III., that the question was never again agitated during this reign.

They remained in force till 1828.

But a brave and liberal member of the peerage, Earl Stanhope, did not

flinch from endeavouring to get repealed a number of these disgraceful

evidences of Church bigotry, which still cumbered the Statute book from

long past periods. In May, 1789, a few days after Mr. Beaufoy's second

defeat on the question of the Test and Corporation Acts, Lord Stanhope

proposed "a Bill for relieving members of the Church of England from

sundry penalties and disabilities to which, by the laws now in force,

they may be liable, and for extending freedom in matters of religion

to all persons--Papists only excepted--and for other purposes therein

mentioned." His Lordship had given notice of his intention to introduce

such a Bill in the previous February, as Mr. William Smith had done in

the Commons, when what was called the Uniformity Clause in the Regency

Bill was discussed, contending that this clause, which prohibited

the Regent from giving the Royal Assent to the repeal of the Act for

Uniformity passed in the reign of Charles II., might prevent the repeal

of a preceding Act, of a very bigoted character, of a previous date.

The Bishops, with the Archbishop of Canterbury at their head, opposed

his intention, contending that this was not a proper time for such a

discussion. Lord Stanhope now detailed the names, dates, and characters

of the Acts which he had in view. They were these:--The Act of 1

Elizabeth, ordering every person to go to church, and imposing a fine

of twenty pounds--a very large sum then--on any one above the age of

sixteen absenting himself or herself from church for a month; and in

case of non-payment, ordering the imprisonment of the offender till the

fine were paid, or the offender conformed. In case of twelve months'

absence, the offender was to be bound in a bond of two hundred pounds,

with two sureties, for his compliance in future. By the 23 Elizabeth

these penalties were made still more rigorous, and by the 35th of her

reign, all persons who absented themselves for a month were liable not

only to the twenty pounds a month, but that money might be refused,

if tendered, and the offender be deprived of two-thirds of his lands,

tenements, and hereditaments, instead of the twenty pounds. By the 3

James I. these abominable powers were extended, and every person was

made amenable for every visitor, servant, and servant of visitors to

his or her house, and should be compelled to pay £10 per month for the

non-attendance at church of each of them; and over and above all these

penalties, the ecclesiastical courts might as fully exercise their

jurisdiction over these offenders as if no such special Acts existed.

[Illustration: CHARLES, THIRD EARL STANHOPE.]

Nor did these terms contain anything like the extent of tyranny imposed

on the conscience of the nation by these monarchs. By the 29 Elizabeth

it was provided that what right or property any person might dispose

of, or settle on any of his family, should still be liable to these

penalties if the proprietor and disposer of them neglected to go to

church. So that a son might be deprived of lands or other property

settled upon him at his marriage, or at any other time, if his father

ceased to attend church, though he himself went punctually; and by

the 21 James I. the informers were stimulated by great rewards to

lay complaints against all whom they could discover offending. And,

moreover, any person was to be considered an absentee from church, and

liable to all the penalties, who did not remain in church during the

whole time of the service; and, also, not only on Sundays, "but upon

all the other days ordained and used to be kept as holidays." All these

odious enactments were left in force by the Toleration Act, except that

they did not compel every one to go to church, but to some licensed

place of worship.

Next came the enactments regarding fasting. By 5 Elizabeth every

person who ate flesh on a fish day was liable to a penalty of three

pounds; and, in case of non-payment, to three months' imprisonment.

It was added that this eating of fish was not from any superstitious

notion, but to encourage the fisheries; but by the 2 and 3 Edward VI.

the power of inflicting these fish and flesh penalties was invested

in the two Archbishops, as though the offence of eating flesh on fish

days was an ecclesiastical offence. Lord Stanhope showed that the

powers and penalties of excommunication were still in full force; that

whoever was excommunicated had no legal power of recovering any debt,

or payment for anything that he might sell; that excommunication and

its penalties were made valid by the 5 Elizabeth and the 29 Charles

II.; that by the 30 Charles II. every peer, or member of the House of

Peers, peer of Scotland, or Ireland, or member of the House of Commons,

who should go to Court without having made the declaration against

transubstantiation, and the invocation of saints therein contained,

should be disabled from holding any office, civil or military, from

making a proxy in the House of Lords, or from sueing or using any

action in law or equity; from being guardian, trustee, or administrator

of any will; and should be deemed "a Popish recusant convict." His

Lordship observed that probably the whole Protestant bench of bishops

were at that moment in this predicament, and that he had a right to

clear the House of them, and proceed with his Bill in their absence.

He next quoted the 1st of James I., which decreed that any woman, or

any person whatever under twenty-one years of age, except sailors,

ship-boys, or apprentices, or factors of merchants, who should go over

sea without a licence from the king, or six of his Privy Council,

should forfeit all his or her goods, lands, and moneys whatever; and

whoever should send such person without such licence should forfeit

one hundred pounds; and every officer of a port, and every shipowner,

master of a ship, and all his mariners who should allow such person

to go, or should take him or her, should forfeit everything they

possessed, one half to the king, and the other half to the person

sueing.

To all this his Lordship had to add various specimens of the Canons.

By the 3rd, every one asserting that the Church of England was not

a true apostolical church should be excommunicated. The 4th and 5th

excommunicated all who declared that there was anything contrary to

sound Scripture in the form of worship of the Church of England, or

anything superstitious or erroneous in the Thirty-Nine Articles.

The 65th enjoined all ordinaries to see that all offenders, under

the different Acts here enumerated, should be cited and punished

according to statute, or excommunicated. The 72nd forbade, under pain

of excommunication, all ministers, without licence of the bishop, to

attempt, upon any pretence whatever, to cast out any devil or devils,

under pain of deposition from the ministry. The 73rd made it a subject

of excommunication that any priest or minister should meet with other

persons in any private house or elsewhere to consult upon any canon,

etc., which may tend to impeach or deprave the doctrine, the Book of

Common Prayer, or any part of the discipline and government of the

Church of England; and by the 115th, all churchwardens are enjoined

to make presentments of offenders in any of these particulars; and

all judges, magistrates, etc., are bound to encourage, and not to

discourage, all such presentments. Lord Stanhope observed that the

Court of King's Bench, in 1737, had decided that these Canons, not

having ever received the sanction of Parliament, were not binding on

the laity; and he contended that the ratification of them by James I.,

not being authorised by the original statute, the 25th of Henry VIII.,

made them as little binding on the clergy. He had not, therefore,

included the Canons in his Bill. He took care, too, to except Catholics

from the benefit of the Bill; neither was the Bill to repeal any part

of the Test and Corporation Acts, nor the 12th and 13th of William

III., "for the better securing the rights and liberties of the

subject." He finally showed that these fierce and persecuting Acts

were not become utterly obsolete; they were ever and anon revived, and

might, any of them, be acted upon at any moment. It might reasonably

have been supposed that the bishops would have supported the Bill

unanimously; that they would have been glad to have all such evidences

of the odious means by which their Church had been forced on the

people, swept out of the Statute-book and forgotten. No such thing. The

Archbishop of Canterbury declared, if Dissenters were allowed to defend

their principles, the atheist and the theist might be allowed to defend

theirs. But Bishop Horsley, then of St. David's, was the chief speaker

against the repeal of these precious laws. He declared that this repeal

would level every bulwark of the Church; that "the Christian religion

would not remain in any shape, nor, indeed, natural religion!" It is

needless to say that the Bill was rejected; it could not attain even to

a second reading.

Undaunted by this display of prelatical bigotry, Lord Stanhope

immediately gave notice of a Bill to prevent a tyrannical exercise of

severity towards Quakers, whose principles did not permit them to pay

tithes, church-rates, or Easter offerings; this he did on the 3rd of

July of the same year. By the 7 and 8 William III. two justices of

peace could order a distress on a Quaker for tithes under the value

of ten pounds; and by 1 George I. this power was extended to the

non-payment of Easter and other dues; but his Lordship showed that of

late the clergy had preferred to resort to an Act of Henry VIII., a

time when Quakers did not exist, which empowered the clergy, by warrant

from two justices of peace, to seize the persons of the defaulters and

throw them into prison, where, unless they paid the uttermost farthing,

they might remain for life. Thus the clergy of the eighteenth century

in England were not satisfied with the humane enactments of William

III. or George I., by which they could easily and fully obtain their

demands, but they thirsted for a little vengeance, a little of the old

enjoyment of imprisoning and tormenting their neighbours, and therefore

went back to the days of the brutal Henry VIII. for the means. They

had, two months before, thrown a Quaker of Worcester into gaol for

the non-payment of dues, so called, amounting to five shillings,

and there was every prospect that he might lie there for life. At

Coventry six Quakers had lately been prosecuted by the clergyman for

Easter offerings of the amount of fourpence each; and this sum of

two shillings amongst them had, in the ecclesiastical court, been

swelled to three hundred pounds. For this three hundred pounds they

were cast into prison, and might have lain there for life, but being

highly respected by their townsmen, these had subscribed the money and

let them out. But this, his Lordship observed, would prove a ruinous

kindness to the Quakers, for it would whet the avarice of the clergy

and proctors to such a degree that the people of that persuasion would

everywhere be hunted down without mercy for small sums, which might be

recovered at once by the simple process of distraint. He declared that

he would have all clerical demands satisfied to the utmost, but not by

such means, worthy only of the dark ages; and he therefore, in this

Bill, proposed the repeal of the obnoxious Act of 27 Henry VIII. But

the glutting of their vengeance was too precious to the clergy of this

period, and the Bill was rejected without a division.

The benevolent exertions of Lord Stanhope on behalf of the Society of

Friends were, in 1796--that is, six years later--revived in the House

of Commons by Mr. Serjeant Adair. He stated that seven of the people

called Quakers were prisoners in the gaol at York for not paying

tithes, and unless some alteration in the laws on that subject took

place, they might lie there till they died. In fact, one of these

Friends, named Joseph Brown, did die in the prison, and his death is

the subject of a poem by James Montgomery. Mr. Serjeant Adair moved,

on the 26th of April, for leave to bring in a Bill to extend the

provisions of the Act 7 and 8 William III., by which tithes could be

recovered by distraint when amounting to ten pounds, to tithes of

any amount. Wilberforce, Pitt, Dolben, and others, usually opposed

to concessions, spoke in favour of the Bill. Sir Philip Francis

only opposed it on the ground that the petitioners probably did not

entertain any serious objection to paying tithes, but only wanted to

look like martyrs. The Bill went on swimmingly till it was about going

into committee, on the 10th of May, when Francis rose again. A new

light had burst upon him. He said that he had learnt that the Bill did

not proceed from the suffering individuals, but from the yearly meeting

of the Society itself--as if that were any solid objection, and as if

a measure ought not to come with more weight from a whole suffering

community than from a few individuals! The Bill readily passed the

Commons, but no sooner did it appear in the Lords than the Bishops

fell foul of it. The Archbishop of Canterbury saw danger to the Church

in it, and moved that it be read that day three months, and this was

carried. Thus the Bill was lost for that Session. Adair brought in a

fresh Bill for the same object, into the new Parliament, in October,

but this was thrown out.

[Illustration:

_Man and woman of middle class Parson

Lady and gentleman Labourer and wife_

COSTUMES AT THE BEGINNING OF GEORGE III.'S REIGN.]

But the question of the restrictions upon Dissenters was again taken

up by Lord Stanhope, in 1811. On the 21st of March he presented to the

House of Lords a short Bill "For the better securing the liberty of

conscience." It had the same fate as his former ones. Ministers seemed

rather inclined to abridge the liberty of conscience, for immediately

afterwards, namely, on the 9th of May, Lord Sidmouth brought in a

Bill to limit the granting of licences to preach, asserting that this

licence was made use of by ignorant and unfit persons, because having

such a licence exempted them from serving in the militia, on juries,

etc. The Bill excited great alarm amongst the Dissenters, and Lord

Stanhope and Lord Grey, on the 17th of the month, when Lord Sidmouth

moved for the second reading of the Bill, prayed for some time to

be allowed for the expression of public opinion. The second reading

was, accordingly, deferred till the 21st, by which time a flock of

petitions came up against it, one of which was signed by four thousand

persons. Lord Erskine said that these petitions were not a tenth part

of what would be presented, if time were afforded for the purpose;

and he ridiculed the idea of persons obtaining exemption from serving

in the militia by merely taking out licences to preach. Lord Grey

confirmed this, saying that it was impossible for persons to obtain

such licences, except they were ministers of separate congregations.

This was secured by an Act passed in 1802, and still more, the party

applying for such licence was restricted from following any trade,

except that of keeping a school. These regulations, he stated, were

most minutely adhered to, both in the general and local militia, and he

challenged Lord Sidmouth to show him a single instance, since the Act

of 1802, where exemption had been improperly obtained by a Dissenter.

Lord Grey proved from actual returns that the whole number of persons

who had been licensed during the last forty-eight years had only been

three thousand six hundred and seventy-eight, or about seventy-seven

annually on an average, and that the highest number reached in any one

year had been only about one hundred and sixty. He contended that these

facts demonstrated the non-necessity of the Bill. It was lost.

In the following June Lord Stanhope again came forward with a Bill

to remove some of these enactments, and he showed that the literal

fulfilment of several of them was now impossible; that as to compelling

every man to go to church, by returns lately made to that House it was

shown that there were four millions more people in England than all

the churches of the Establishment could contain. With respect to the

Church enforcing uniformity, he said that the variations between the

Book of Common Prayer printed at Oxford and that printed at Cambridge

amounted to above four thousand. His Bill was again thrown out by

thirty-one against ten; but his end was gained. He had brought the

injustice towards the Dissenters so frequently forward, and it was

now so glaring, and the Dissenters themselves were become so numerous

and influential, that the question could be no longer blinked. On the

majority being pronounced against the Bill, Lord Holland rose and asked

whether, then, there was to be nothing done to remove the disabilities

under which Dissenters laboured? If that were the case, he should be

under the necessity of bringing forward a measure on that subject

himself. This compelled Ministers to promise that something should be

done; and, on the 10th of the same month, Lord Castlereagh proposed to

bring in a Bill to repeal certain Acts, and to amend others respecting

persons teaching or preaching in certain religious assemblies. This

Act, when explained, went to repeal the 13 and 14 Charles II., which

imposed penalties on Quakers and others who should refuse to take

oaths; the 16 of Charles II., known as the Five Mile Act, which

prohibited any preacher who refused to take the non-resistance oath

coming within five miles of any corporation where he had preached

since the Act of Oblivion, under a penalty of fifty pounds; and the

17, which also imposed fine and imprisonment on them for attempting to

teach a school unless they went to church and subscribed a declaration

of conformity. It also repealed the 22 Charles II., commonly called

the Conventicle Act. Instead of those old restraints, his Act simply

required the registration of all places of worship in the bishop's or

archdeacon's court; that they must not be locked, bolted, or barred

during divine service, and that the preachers must be licensed

according to the 19 George III. These conditions being complied with,

all persons officiating in, or resorting to such places of worship,

became entitled to all the benefits of the Toleration Act, and the

disturbance of their assemblies became a punishable offence. This Bill

passed both Houses, and became known as the Statute of 52 George III.

It was a great step in the progress of religious freedom; and Mr.

William Smith, the leader of the Dissenting interests in the House of

Commons, expressed his heartfelt gratification at this proof of the

increasing liberality of the times.

But whilst some little freedom from restrictions for Dissenters was

thus forced from the Church, a stout battle was going on, and continued

to go on through the whole reign, for giving to the Roman Catholics

the common privileges of citizens. On account of their faith they

were excluded from all civil offices, including seats in Parliament.

We shall see that some slight concessions of both civil and military

privilege were, in the course of this contest, made to them; but to

the end of this reign, and, indeed, until 1829, the full claims of the

Catholics continued to be resisted. We can only cursorily note the main

facts of this long-protracted struggle. In the early part of the reign

a degree of relief was afforded which promised well for the cause of

the Catholics; but these promises were not fulfilled. In May, 1778,

Sir George Savile brought in a Bill to relieve the Catholics from the

provisions of the Act of 1699 for preventing the growth of Popery.

By this Act Catholic priests were not allowed to enter England, and,

if found there, were at the mercy of informers; Roman Catholics were

forbidden to educate their own children, or to have them educated

by Papists, under penalty of perpetual imprisonment; and they were

not allowed to purchase land, or hold it by descent or bequest; but

the next of kin who was a Protestant might take it. Sir George's Act

passed both Houses, and by it all Roman Catholics were restored to the

privileges of performing divine service, if priests, and of holding

land, and educating children, on taking an oath of allegiance, of

abjuration of the Pretender, and rejection of the doctrine that it

was lawful to murder heretics, was right to keep no faith with them,

and that the Pope or any foreign prince had any temporal or civil

jurisdiction within these realms. The consequence of this degree of

indulgence to the Catholics was the famous Gordon Riots in London

and similar ones in Edinburgh, which had the effect of frightening

the Government out of further concessions. A similar Bill was passed

in Ireland in 1782. The Bill of 1778, however, was confirmed and

considerably extended by a Bill brought in by Mr. Mitford, afterwards

Lord Redesdale, in 1791, and, after a long discussion, was passed by

both Houses in June of that year. This Bill legalised Roman Catholic

places of worship, provided they were registered and the doors were

not locked during service; it recognised the right of Catholics to

keep schools, except in Oxford and Cambridge, and provided that no

Protestant children were admitted. It permitted Catholic barristers

and attorneys to practise on taking the new oath; and it removed

the penalties on peers for coming into the presence of the king; in

fact, it left little disability upon Catholics except that of not

being eligible for places in Parliament, or any other places under

Government, unless they took the old oaths.

In the following Session Fox introduced a Bill to grant some further

privileges to the Catholics, but it was rejected; but in 1793 the

Catholics of Scotland were admitted, by an Act introduced by Mr. Robert

Dundas, the Lord Advocate, to the same privileges as the Irish and

English Catholics. The question appeared to rest till 1799, when there

seems to have been a proposition on the part of the English Government

to make an independent provision for the Catholic clergy of Ireland,

on condition that they, on their part, should enter into certain

engagements. There was a meeting of Roman Catholic prelates in Dublin

at the commencement of that year on the subject, at which they agreed

to accept the proposal. Pitt was favourable to the Catholic claims,

though the Irish Parliament previous to the Union would not hear of

them. He had caused promises of Catholic Emancipation to be circulated

in Ireland in order to induce the Irish to accept the Union; and when

he found that the king's immovable resistance to this measure would

not allow him to make good his word, he resigned office. Nothing was

done in it during the time that he continued out, chiefly, it is said,

through his influence; and when he returned to office in May, 1804, he

did so without any mention of the Catholics. In truth, he appears to

have given them up for the sake of enjoying power again; for, when,

on the 9th of March, 1805, the question was raised by Lord Grenville

in the House of Peers, and, on the 13th, by Fox in the Commons, Pitt

opposed the motion on the ground that the reasons which had occasioned

him to quit office still operated against this measure, and that it

was impossible for him to support it. It was negatived by three hundred

and thirty-six against one hundred and twenty-four.

Both Pitt and Fox died in 1806, and a circumstance occurred in the

following year which showed the inveterate obstinacy of the king

regarding the Catholics. Lord Howick, Secretary for Foreign Affairs,

obtained leave to bring in a Bill to enable Catholics to hold the

higher offices in the army and navy; but the king soon let him know

that he should not ratify any such Bill, and he agreed to withdraw

it. But this did not satisfy George; he demanded from the Ministers a

written engagement to propose no further concessions to the Catholics,

and as they declined to do this, he dismissed them, and placed the Duke

of Portland at the head of a new Cabinet.

This was sufficient warning to Cabinets not to meddle with this tabooed

subject; but Grattan continued, year after year, to bring the question

forward, though often defeated by great majorities. In his speech in

1808 Grattan introduced the idea of giving his Majesty a veto on the

appointment of Catholic bishops. It appears that this proposition had

the approval of the Irish Catholic bishops, but the Irish priests made

a determined stand against it. In 1810 and 1811 the motion was thrown

out by strong majorities.

The continued resistance of the English Government meanwhile was

rousing the quick blood of Ireland. The old Catholic Convention of

1793 was revived, and from year to year met and passed increasingly

strong resolutions in Dublin. In 1810 its meetings, and the agitation

it occasioned throughout the kingdom, became very conspicuous. A

private letter was circulated all over the country, recommending the

appointment of committees everywhere in order to the preparation of

a monster petition. It was resolved that as soon as the Convention

met, it should sit in permanence, so as to keep up an incessant action

throughout the country. The Government took alarm, and Mr. Wellesley

Pole, Secretary of State for Ireland, issued a letter to the sheriffs

and chief magistrates throughout Ireland, ordering them to arrest

all persons concerned in sending up delegates to this Convention. No

sooner was this known in England than Lord Moira in the Lords, and Mr.

Ponsonby in the Commons, adverted to the subject, and called for a copy

of all correspondence by Government upon it. The demand was resisted in

both Houses. On the 4th of April Lord Stanhope moved a resolution that

the letter of Mr. Wellesley Pole was a violation of the law, being,

in fact, a prohibition of his Majesty's subjects to assemble for the

purpose of petitioning Parliament. This was negatived by twenty-one

votes against six.

In Ireland the magistrates acted on the circular, and on the 23rd of

February, 1811, two magistrates proceeded to disperse the Catholic

committee in Dublin. They were told by the committee that they were

sitting simply for the purpose of petitioning Parliament, and they did

not venture to interrupt it. The movement went on all over Ireland,

the committees were numerously attended, and, notwithstanding a

proclamation from Dublin Castle commanding the magistrates everywhere

to disperse all such gatherings, in Dublin the general committee,

numbering nearly three hundred persons, met in Fishamble Street on the

19th of October. Police were sent to disperse them, but on arriving

they had already signed the petition, and were coming away amid a vast

concourse of spectators. Several persons were arrested and tried, but

the juries returned verdicts of "Not Guilty."

On the 23rd of December the committee met again in Fishamble Street,

and resolved to address the Prince Regent on the invasion of their

right to petition, appointing a general committee to meet again

in Dublin on the 28th of February, 1812. In January, and at the

commencement of February, Earl Fitzwilliam introduced the consideration

of the state of Ireland, and Lord Morpeth proposed the same subject to

the Commons, but both motions were rejected.

In January, 1812, Government made another attempt to punish the

Catholic delegates, and they obtained a verdict against one of them,

Thomas Kirwan; but such was the public feeling, that they did no more

than fine him one mark, and discharge him. They also abandoned other

contemplated prosecutions. The Catholic committee met, according to

appointment, on the 28th of February, addressed the Prince Regent,

and then separated. The usual motions for Catholic Emancipation were

introduced into both Houses of Parliament, and by both were rejected.

It was the settled policy of this Ministry not to listen to the

subject, though the Marquis Wellesley, Canning, and others now admitted

that the matter must be conceded. The assassination of Mr. Perceval,

on the 11th of May, it was hoped, would break up that Ministry, but it

was continued, with Lord Liverpool at its head. Though Lord Wellesley

this year brought forward the motion in the Lords, and Canning in the

Commons, both Houses rejected it, but the Lords by a majority of only

one. The question continued to be annually agitated in Parliament

during this reign, from the year 1814, with less apparent success than

before, Ireland was in a very dislocated state with the Orangemen and

Ribbonmen, and other illegal associations and contentions between

Catholics and Protestants, and this acted very detrimentally on the

question in England. Only one little victory was obtained in favour of

the Catholics. This was, in 1813, the granting to Catholics in England

of the benefit of the Act passed in Ireland, the 33 George III.,

repealing the 21 Charles II. And thus the Catholics were left, after

all their exertions, at the death of the old king.

The movement going forward in the Established Church of Scotland during

this reign related almost exclusively to the subject of patronage.

This church, though drawing its origin from Switzerland, a thoroughly

Republican country, and rejecting bishops, took good care to vest the

right of presenting ministers to parishes in the clergy. The Government

insisted on this right continuing in lay patrons; but for some time

after the Revolution the people asserted their right to choose their

own pastors, and continued to carry it. But in 1698 the General

Assembly took the opportunity, when it had been accused by the English

Church of throwing the office of choosing ministers amongst the people,

to repudiate all such notion on their part. They declared unanimously

that "they allowed no power in the people, but only in the pastors of

the Church, to appoint and ordain to such offices."

The Act of 1712 restored lay patronage, and then the strife began, but

not between the people and the lay pastors, but between the clergy and

the lay patrons. There grew up two parties in the General Assembly,

styled the moderates, and the more advanced, or popular party. The

moderates were those who were ready to concede to the demands of

Government and lay patronage under a gentle protest; the more popular

party, as it was called, was for transferring the right of presentation

to the presbytery. The Act of William III., in 1690, gave the original

and exclusive nomination to the heritors, land-owners, and elders.

The person nominated was to be proposed to the congregation, who

might approve or disapprove. But to what did this right amount? The

congregation could not absolutely reject; and if they disapproved, the

right passed on to the presbytery, whose decision was final. By this

arrangement, either the landowners and elders remained the presenters,

or, after a vain show of conferring the choice upon the people, the

appointment fell to the clergy, or presbytery. From 1690 to 1712, Sir

Henry Moncrieff says, "there does not appear the least vestige of a

doctrine, so much contended for at a later period, of a divine right in

the people individually or collectively, to elect the parish minister."

This opinion was fully maintained by the law of William III., in

1690, and confirmed by that of Anne, in 1712. Sir Henry Moncrieff, in

confirmation of this doctrine that the people never had a right to

elect their ministers in the Scottish Church, quotes the "First Book

of Discipline," of 1567, which placed the election of pastors in the

people at large; but this error, he says, was rectified by the "Second

Book of Discipline," in 1581. By this book the congregation could only

consent--the presbyters must finally determine. This contains the law

of the Church of Scotland, and the great schism which took place in the

Scottish Church, in 1843--known as the Disruption--arose merely from

the resistance to lay patronage, but with the intention of transferring

that patronage to the clergy, not the people.

[Illustration: ST. JOHN'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH, PRINCES STREET, EDINBURGH.

(_From a Photograph by A. A. Inglis._)]

In 1792 a measure of relief was passed for the Episcopalians of

Scotland. These had fallen into disgrace for their refusal to swear

allegiance to the House of Hanover. The conduct of many of them during

the rebellion of 1745 had increased the rigour of Government against

them, and an Act was passed, the 19 George II., ordering the shutting

up of all Episcopalian chapels where the minister had not taken the

oath of allegiance, and where he did not pray for the king and royal

family. Any clergyman of that church violating these regulations

was liable to six months' imprisonment for the first offence, and

transportation to one of the American plantations for the second, with

perpetual imprisonment did he dare to return thence. No minister was

to be held qualified to officiate except he had received letters of

orders from an English or Irish bishop of the Protestant Episcopalian

Church. All persons frequenting the chapels of such unqualified persons

were liable to a penalty of five pounds for the first offence, and two

years' imprisonment for the second. But now, the Pretender being dead,

and his brother, Cardinal York, being held on account of his clerical

character to have forfeited his claim to the Crown, the Scottish

Episcopalians came and took the necessary oaths; this Bill was passed

removing their disabilities, and the aristocracy of Scotland soon, for

the most part, became members of the church when it ceased to be in

disgrace.

[Illustration: ROWLAND HILL PREACHING TO THE COLLIERS OF KINGSWOOD.

(_See p._ 170.)]

The various triumphs in the direction of liberty of conscience evidence

a sense of civil right in the community, which forced itself on the

Government, rather than a sense of religion. But religion, too, was in

steady growth. The Dissenters had greatly increased during this period,

and amongst them the names of some of their ministers had acquired

a general reputation. Robert Hall, of Leicester, and afterwards of

Bristol, threw a new lustre on the Baptist community. He was the son of

a Baptist minister, was at first educated by Dr. Ryland, the learned

Baptist pastor of Northampton, and afterwards took his degree of M.A.

at King's College, Aberdeen. He commenced his ministerial career in

Bristol, and subsequently resided as minister at Leicester for twenty

years. On the death of his old tutor, Dr. Ryland, he became the

president of the Baptist Academy at Bristol, and pastor of Broadmead

Chapel, in that town. Robert Hall was not inferior to any of the clergy

of the Establishment in learning or eloquence. He was for eleven years

the Baptist minister in Cambridge before removing to Leicester. In

Cambridge he succeeded to a man nearly as remarkable, the celebrated

Robert Robinson. At this university town he attracted the notice of

some of the leading Established clergy and professors, and of the

world at large, by his "Vindication of the Freedom of the Press,"

and his splendid sermon "On Modern Infidelity." Dr. Parr has left a

testimony to the merits of Robert Hall in his will, which does honour

to his liberality:--"Mr. Hall has, like Jeremy Taylor, the eloquence

of an orator, the fancy of a poet, the subtlety of a schoolman, the

profoundness of a philosopher, and the piety of a saint." To the same

body belonged the celebrated author of "Essays on the Formation of

Character," John Foster, also of Bristol.

Amongst the followers of Whitefield became conspicuous Rowland Hill,

Matthew Wilks, and William Huntington. Of the followers of Whitefield,

Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, became the patron, as she had been of

Whitefield himself, whom she made her chaplain. This remarkable woman

founded schools and colleges for the preachers; and so completely

did she identify herself with this sect that it became styled "Lady

Huntingdon's Society." Perhaps the most celebrated of these preachers,

after Whitefield, was Rowland Hill, who was a younger son of Sir

Rowland Hill, of Hawkstone, in Shropshire. He was educated at Cambridge

for the Church of England, but preferred following Whitefield, and

for many years went about preaching in the open air, like Whitefield,

in different parts of the country, and particularly amongst the

colliers of Kingswood. In 1783 his chapel, called the Surrey Chapel,

being built, he settled in London, and continued his ministry in the

metropolis till his death in 1833, at the age of eighty-eight. Rowland

Hill was as much celebrated for his humour and eccentricity, which he

carried into his preachings, as for his talents. He was also an author

of various productions, the most popular of which were his "Village

Dialogues."

Perhaps a still more remarkable man of the same denomination was

William Huntington, originally a coalheaver, struggling with severe

poverty; yet, believing himself called to the ministry, he boldly

followed his conceived duty, through much discouragement and

persecution. He has left an autobiography, in which his perfect faith

in and reliance on God are justified by the most remarkable supply of

all his wants, and support in a widely extended and useful ministry.

After the death of his first wife he married the wealthy widow of Sir

James Sanderson, a London alderman, and passed his latter years in

affluence.

Amongst the Independents the names of John Clayton and William Beugo

Collyer, and amongst the Unitarians Dr. Priestley, Theophilus Lindsey,

and Thomas Belsham are conspicuous.

But the most remarkable growth of religion was through the

instrumentality of the Wesleyan Methodists. These spread over all the

country, through town and village, into places where the ministers

of the Establishment had fallen into a spiritual sleep from want of

rivalry. In Wales they found a great and almost unoccupied field. In

Cornwall, where Wesley had been abused and pelted with stones, they

became universal, and still continue to astonish the visitor to that

county by their extraordinary numbers, almost every Cornish miner

being of that sect. Throughout England the spread of Methodism has been

a most influential cause of the revival of activity and discipline in

the Established Church itself; for it soon became evident that the

Church must exert itself, or the body of the people, especially in

the country and in manufacturing districts, would be absorbed by the

Wesleyan interest.

In Wales, such was the neglect of religion by the Establishment,

that, previous to 1804, there was scarcely a clergyman of the Church

of England in the principality who was a native, or could preach in

Welsh. The capability of a minister to make himself understood by

his parishioners had been totally disregarded by those who had the

presentation to livings; the exercise of patronage had alone been cared

for; the souls of people went for nothing. About that time the Rev. Mr.

Charles was engaged as curate in a Welsh parish. He found not a single

Bible in the parish, and on extending his inquiries he scarcely found

a Bible in Wales. He made this fact known to the public, in an appeal

for Welsh Bibles, and for this appeal and the attendant exposure of

the clerical neglect he was dismissed from his cure, and could find no

bishop who would license him to preach in any other parish. But his

truly Christian act had excited the attention of the religious public,

and had the effect of establishing the British and Foreign Bible

Society in 1804.

In Ireland the bulk of the population had been left to the Catholic

pastors, who were maintained by their flocks, the property of the

Catholic Church having been long transferred by Act of Parliament to

the Church of England, or, as it was called, the sister Church of

Ireland. The number of parishes in Ireland had been originally only

two thousand four hundred and thirty-six, though the population at

that time was half that of England; but in 1807 Mr. Wickham stated

that, in 1803, these had been consolidated, and reduced to one thousand

one hundred and eighty-three. In some of these parishes in the south

of Ireland, Mr. Fitzgerald stated that the incomes amounted to one

thousand pounds, to one thousand five hundred pounds, and even to

three thousand pounds a year; yet that in a considerable number of

these highly endowed parishes there was no church whatever. In others

there were churches but no Protestant pastors, because there were no

Protestants. The provision for religious instruction went wholly, in

these cases, to support non-resident, and often very irreligious,

clergymen. In fact, no truly religious clergyman ever could hold such

a living. The livings were, in fact, looked upon as sinecures to be

conferred by Ministers on their relatives or Parliamentary supporters.

It was stated that out of one thousand one hundred and eighty-three

benefices in Ireland, two hundred and thirty-three were wholly without

churches; and Mr. Fitzgerald said, "that where parishes had been

consolidated, the services rendered to the people by their clergyman

had been diminished in proportion as his income had been augmented;

for no place of religious worship was provided within the reach of

the inhabitants; nor could such parishioners obtain baptism for their

children, or the other rites of the Church; and the consequence was

that the Protestant inhabitants, in such places, had disappeared."

Measures to alter this disgraceful state of things were repeatedly

introduced, but as steadily rejected. The collection of tithes seemed

to occupy the chief attention of the Established clergy of Ireland,

even where they rendered no spiritual services, and eventually led

to a state of irritation and of dire conflict between the Protestant

incumbent and the Catholic population which did not cease till after

the death of George III. The clergyman called in the soldiery to assist

him in the forcible levying of tithes, and the bloodshed and frightful

plunder of the poor huts of the Irish in this _bellum ecclesiasticum_

became the scandal of all Christendom ere it was ended by the Act of a

later reign, which transferred the collection of tithes to the landlord

in the shape of rent.

In literature, and the amount of genius in every branch of it, as well

as in mechanical skill, few ages ever transcended that of George III.

Though he and his Ministers did their best to repress liberty, they

could not restrain the liberty of the mind, and it burst forth on all

sides with almost unexampled power. In fact, throughout Europe, during

this period, a great revolution in taste took place. The old French

influence and French models, which had prevailed in most countries

since the days of Louis XIV., were now abandoned, and there was a

return to nature and originality. "The Reliques of Ancient English

Poetry," collected by Percy, the Bishop of Dromore, and the publication

of the old Scottish ballads by Walter Scott, snapped the spell which

had bound the intellect since the days of Pope, and opened the sealed

eyes of wondering scholars; and they saw, as it were, "a new heaven

and a new earth" before them. They once more felt the fresh breath of

the air and ocean, smelt the rich odour of the heath and the forest,

and the oracles of the heart were reopened, as they listened again to

the whispers of the eternal winds. Once more, as of old to prophets

and prophetic kings, there was "a sound of going in the tops of the

trees." In Great Britain, Scott, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey,

Byron, Shelley--in Germany, Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, Richter--in

Scandinavia, Tegner, Oehlenschläger, Stagnelius--with a world of lesser

lights around them, stood in the glowing beams of a new morning,

casting around them the wondrous wealth of a poetry as fresh as it was

overflowing. As in poetry, so in prose invention. The novel and romance

came forth in totally new forms, and with a life and scope such as they

had never yet attained. From Fielding and Sterne to Godwin and Scott,

the list of great writers in this department shed a new glory on the

English name. In works of all other kinds the same renewal of mind was

conspicuous; history took a prominent place, and science entered on new

fields.

Before the conclusion of the reign of George II. a new school of

fiction had appeared. De Foe had, besides his "Robinson Crusoe,"

opened up the inexhaustible field of incident and character existing

in actual life in his "Colonel Jack," "Moll Flanders," "Roxana," and

other novels, and Fielding and Richardson extended it. Fielding, too,

died six years before the beginning of this reign, and Richardson in

the first year of it. But their works were in full circulation, and

extended their influence far into this period. They have, therefore,

been left to be noticed here in connection with the class of writers

to whom they gave origin, and to whom they properly belong. Richardson

(_b._ 1689; _d._ 1761) seems to have originated the true novel of real

life in his "Pamela," which was the history of a servant, written with

that verisimilitude that belongs to biography. This was commenced in

1740, and brought to a conclusion in 1741. The extra-ordinary sensation

which it created was sufficient proof that the author had struck

into the very heart of nature, and not only knew where the seat of

human passion lay, but had the highest command over it. It was not,

in fact, from books and education, but from native insight and acute

observation, that he drew his power. He was born in Derbyshire, and

received his education at a common day-school. He was then apprenticed

as a printer in London, and established himself as a master in that

business, which he continued to pursue with great success. His "Pamela"

ran through five editions in the first year. In 1748 appeared his

"Clarissa Harlowe," and wonderfully extended his reputation, which

reached its full blaze in his "Sir Charles Grandison," in 1754. In all

these works he showed himself a perfect analyst of the human heart, and

detector of the greatest niceties of character. Though he could have

known little or nothing of aristocratic life, yet, trusting to the sure

guidance of nature, he drew ladies and gentlemen, and made them act

and converse as the first ladies and gentlemen of the age would have

been proud to act and speak. A more finished gentleman than Sir Charles

Grandison, or correcter lady than Miss Byron, was never delineated.

The only thing was, that, not being deeply versed in the debaucheries

and vulgarisms of the so-called high life of the time, he drew it as

much purer and better than it was. It is in the pages of Fielding and

Smollett that we must seek for the darker and more real character of

the age. The fault of Richardson was his prolixity. He develops his

plot, and draws all his characters, and works out his narrative with

the minutest strokes. It is this which prevents him from being read

now. Who could wade through a novel of nine volumes? Yet these were

devoured by the readers of that time with an avidity that not even

the novels of Sir Walter Scott were waited for in the height of his

popularity.

Fielding (_b._ 1707; _d._ 1754) began his career by an attempt,

in "Joseph Andrews," to caricature the "Pamela" of Richardson. He

represented Joseph as Pamela's brother; but he had not proceeded far

when he became too much interested in his own creation to make a

mere parody of him. This novel he produced in 1742, the year after

the completion of "Pamela." The following year he gave to the world

"Jonathan Wild;" in 1749, "Tom Jones;" and in 1751, but three years

before his death, at the age of only forty-seven, "Amelia." But,

besides a novelist, Fielding was a dramatic writer, a political writer,

and the editor of four successive periodicals--_The Champion_, _The

True Patriot_, _The Jacobite Journal_, and _The Covent Garden Journal_.

Fielding, unlike Richardson, was educated at Eton, and afterwards at

Leyden. He had fortune, but he dissipated it; and had the opportunity

of seeing both high and low life, by his rank as a gentleman and his

office as a police-magistrate. His novels are masterly productions.

His squire Western and parson Adams, and his other characters are

genuine originals; and they are made to act and talk with a raciness

of humour and a flow of wit that might even yet render them popular,

if their occasional grossness did not repel the reader of this age.

It is, indeed, the misfortune of Fielding, Sterne, and Smollett, that

they lived in so coarse and debauched an epoch; their very fidelity now

renders them repulsive. Richardson and Fielding were the Dickens and

Thackeray of their day. In Fielding, the colder nature and the more

satiric tone make the resemblance to Thackeray the more striking.

Tobias Smollett (_b._ 1721; _d._ 1771), before he appeared as a

novelist, following in the track of Fielding rather than in that of

Richardson, had figured as poet, dramatist, and satirist. Originally

a surgeon from Dumbartonshire, and afterwards surgeon's mate on board

of a man-of-war, he had then lived as an author in London. Thus he had

seen great variety of life and character, and, having a model given

him, he threw his productions forth in rapid succession. His first

novel was "Roderick Random," which appeared in 1748, the same year as

Richardson's "Clarissa," and a year preceding perhaps the greatest of

Fielding's works, "Tom Jones." Then came, in rapid sequence, "Peregrine

Pickle," "Count Fathom," "Sir Launcelot Greaves," and "Humphrey

Clinker." Whilst writing these he was busy translating "Don Quixote"--a

work after his own heart--travelling and writing travels, editing _The

Briton_, and continuing Hume's "History of England." In his novels

Smollett displayed a deep knowledge of character, and a humour still

broader and coarser than that of Fielding. In Smollett the infusion of

indecency may be said to have reached its height. In fact, there is

no more striking evidence of the vast progress made in England since

the commencement of the reign of George III., in refinement of manners

and delicacy of sentiment, than the contrast between the coarseness

and obscenity of those early writers and the novelists of the present

day. The picture which they offer of the rude vice, the low tastes,

the debauched habits, the general drunkenness, and the ribaldry and

profanity of language in those holding the position of gentlemen and

even of ladies, strikes us now with amazement and almost with loathing.

[Illustration:

JANE AUSTEN. OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

SAMUEL RICHARDSON.

LAURENCE STERNE. TOBIAS SMOLLETT.

]

The next novelist who appeared was of a very different school.

Richardson was an elaborate anatomist of character; Fielding and

Smollett were master painters of life and manners, and threw in strong

dashes of wit and humour; but they had little sentiment. In Laurence

Sterne (_b._ 1713; _d._ 1768) came forth a sentimentalist, who, whilst

he melted his readers by touches of pathos, could scarcely conceal

from them that he was laughing at them in his sleeve. The mixture of

feeling, wit, _double entendre_, and humour of the most subtle and

refined kind, and that in a clergyman, produced the oddest, and yet

the most vivid, impressions on the reader. The effect was surprise,

pleasure, wonder, and no little misgiving; but the novelty and charm

of this original style were so great that they carried all before

them, but not without the most violent censures from the press on his

indecencies, especially considering his position as a clergyman. Sterne

was the grandson of that Richard Sterne, a native of Mansfield, in

Nottinghamshire, who was chaplain to Archbishop Laud, and attended him

on the scaffold. Laurence Sterne was the son of a lieutenant in the

army, and was born at Clonmel, in Ireland, his grandfather having then

become Archbishop of York. Sterne, therefore, on taking orders, was

on the way of preferment, and received the rectory of Stillington and

the perpetual curacy of Coxwold, both in Yorkshire. There he wrote not

only sermons, but satire, particularly his "History of a Watchcoat."

But it was his novel of "Tristram Shandy" which brought him into

sudden popularity. After this, his "Sentimental Journey" completed

his reputation; and his Maria and her lamb, his uncle Toby, Corporal

Trim, Yorick, Doctor Slop, the widow Wadman, and his lesser characters,

usurped for a long period the tears and laughter of the nation.

But it was not till 1766 that the public became possessed of what

may be called the first domestic novel, in the "Vicar of Wakefield"

of Oliver Goldsmith (_b._ 1728; _d._ 1774). The works of Richardson,

Fielding, and Smollett had been rather novels of general life than

of the home life of England, but this work was a narrative of such

every-day kind as might occur in any little nook in the country. It

was a picture of those chequered scenes that the lowliest existence

presents: the simple, pious pastor, in the midst of his family, easily

imposed on and led into difficulties; the heartless rake, bringing

disgrace and sorrow where all had been sunshine before; the struggles

and the triumphs of worth, which had no wealth or high rank to emblazon

it; and all mingled and quickened by a humour so genial and unstudied

that it worked on the heart like the charms of nature herself. No work

ever so deeply influenced the literary mind of England. The productions

which it has originated are legion, and yet it stands _sui generis_

amongst them all. The question may seem to lack sequence, yet we may

ask whether there would have been a "Pickwick" if there had not been a

"Vicar of Wakefield?"

It is said that when Johnson called on Goldsmith to see what could be

done to raise money to pay the latter's landlady, who threatened him

with imprisonment, Goldsmith handed the doctor the MS. of a new novel

that might be worth something! This was the "Vicar of Wakefield."

Johnson recognised its merits instantly, and at once sold it to a

bookseller for £60, with which Goldsmith's rent was paid.

What a totally different species of composition was the "Vicar" to the

tale of "Rasselas," published by his friend Dr. Samuel Johnson (_b._

1709; _d._ 1784), the great lexicographer, seven years before! This was

conceived in the romantic and allegoric spirit of the time--"The Ten

Days of Seged," "The Vision of Mirza," and the like. It was laid in the

south, but amid Eastern manners, and didactic in spirit and ornate in

style. It was measured, and graceful, and dull--too scholastic to seize

on the heart and the imagination. On a nature like Goldsmith's it could

make no impression, and therefore leave no trace. The one was like a

scene amid palm trees, and fountains, and sporting gazelles; the other

like a genuine English common, on which robust children were tumbling

and shouting, amid blooming gorse, near the sunny brook, with the lark

carolling above them. There is no country in Europe, scarcely in the

world, where letters are known, which has not its translation of the

"Vicar of Wakefield." Even in England, "Rasselas" is almost forgotten.

Now followed a period in which many works were produced which were

extremely popular in their day, but of which few now retain public

appreciation. Amongst these none reached the same estimation as "Henry,

Earl of Moreland: or, The Fool of Quality," by Henry Brooke. It was

designed to show the folly and the artificial _morale_ of the age, by

presenting Henry as the model of direct and natural sentiments, for the

indulgence of which he was thought a fool by the fashionable world. The

early part of the work is admirable, and the boyhood of Henry is the

obvious prototype of Day's "History of Sandford and Merton;" but as

it advances it becomes utterly extravagant. Miss Frances Brooke, too,

was the author of "Julia Mandeville" and other novels. Mrs. Charlotte

Smith, long remembered for her harmonious sonnets, was the author of

numerous novels, as "The Old Manor House," "Celestina," "Marchmont,"

etc.; there were also Mrs. Hannah More with her "Cœlebs in Search of a

Wife;" Mrs. Hamilton with her "Agrippina;" Bage with his "Hermstrong:

or, Man as he is Not;" "Monk" Lewis with his "Tales of Wonder" and

his "Monk;" and Horace Walpole with his melodramatic romance of "The

Castle of Otranto." But far beyond Walpole rose Mrs. Ann Radcliffe,

the very queen of horror and wonder, in her strange, exciting tales of

"The Sicilian Romance," "The Romance of the Forest," "The Mysteries

of Udolpho," "The Italian," etc. No writer ever carried the powers of

mystery, wonder, and suspense, to the same height, or so bewitched her

age by them.

Far greater, however, as the wielder of human sympathies by the recital

of wrongs and oppression, was William Godwin in his "Caleb Williams"

and "St. Leon." "Caleb Williams" is a model for narrative: lively,

clear, simple yet strong, moving in a rapid career--in fine contrast to

the slow, wire-drawn progress of the later three-volume novel--till it

winds up in an intensity of sensation. Then came Miss Burney, better

known as Madame D'Arblay, with her "Evelina," "Cecilia," and "Camilla,"

returning again to the details of social life. Afterwards came Dr. John

Moore with "Zeluco," etc.; Mrs. Inchbald with her charming "Simple

Story;" Mrs. Opie with "The Father and Daughter" in 1801, followed by

various other novels; and in the same year Miss Edgeworth commenced her

splendid career with "Belinda," and in the next year "Castle Rackrent."

To this period also belongs Lady Morgan with her "Wild Irish Girl,"

though she continued to live and write long after this reign.

Amongst the novelists of the later period of the reign we may name

Horace Smith, author of "Brambletye House," etc.; Leigh Hunt, the

poet, author of "Sir Ralph Esher;" Peacock, author of "Headlong Hall;"

Beckford, author of the wild Eastern tale of "Vathek;" Hamilton, author

of "Cyril Thornton," etc.; Maturin, author of "Melmoth the Wanderer,"

etc.; Mrs. Brunton, author of "Discipline," "Self-Control," etc.; and

Miss Ferrier, author of "Marriage" and other novels of a high order.

Jane Austen (_b._ 1775; _d._ 1817), author of "Pride and Prejudice,"

"Mansfield Park," "Sense and Sensibility," etc., all distinguished by

the nicest sense of character, was far above any of these, and ranks

with the foremost of our writers of fiction.

But far above all rose, at this period, the already popular romantic

poet, Walter Scott. Before him, in Scotland, Henry Mackenzie had

occupied for a long time the foreground as a writer of fiction,

in "The Man of Feeling," "Julia de Roubigné," etc., but in a very

different class of invention. As Walter Scott (_b._ 1771; _d._ 1832)

had opened up the romance of the Scottish Highlands in his poems, so

he now burst forth, on the same ground, in historic romance, with a

vigour, splendour, and wonderful fertility of imagination and resource

of knowledge which far exceeded everything in the history of literature

since the days of Shakespeare. We need not attempt to characterise the

voluminous series of what are called the "Waverley Novels," which, in

their ample range, occupied almost every country of Europe and every

climate, from the bleak rocks of Orkney to the glowing plains of Syria

and India; they are familiar to all readers, and closed this period

with a splendour from the mingled blaze of invention, poetry, and

science, which no succeeding age is likely to surpass.

In history, as in fiction, a new school of writers arose during this

period, at the head of which stood Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. David

Hume (_b._ 1711; _d._ 1776) had already acquired a great reputation

by his "Philosophical Essays concerning the Human Understanding," his

"Inquiry into the Principles of Morals," and his "Natural History of

Religion." In these metaphysical works he had indulged his extreme

sceptical tendency, and in the "Essay on Miracles" believed that he had

exploded the Christian religion. His works on this subject did not,

at first, gain much attention; but in a while were seized on by the

deistical and atheistical philosophers in Britain and on the Continent,

and have furnished them with their principal weapons. The first

two volumes of history met for a time with the same cold reception

as his metaphysics. He commenced with that favourite period with

historians--the reigns of James I. and Charles I.--because then began

the great struggle for the destruction of the Constitution, followed

by the still more interesting epoch of its battle for and triumph over

its enemies. Hume had all the Tory prejudices of the Scottish Jacobite,

and the reigns of James I. and Charles I. were extremely to his taste,

but as little to that of the English public. Hence the dead silence

with which it was received. But when there had been time to read the

second volume, containing the Commonwealth and the reigns of Charles

II. and James II., the storm broke out. In these he had run counter

to all the received political ideas of the age. But this excitement

raised both volumes into notice, and he then went back, and, in 1759,

published two more volumes, containing the reigns of the Tudors; and,

going back again, in 1762 he completed his history by bringing it down

from the invasion of Julius Cæsar to the accession of Henry VII. It was

afterwards, as has been mentioned, continued by Smollett.

[Illustration: DR. JOHNSON READING THE MANUSCRIPT OF THE "VICAR OF

WAKEFIELD." (_See p._ 174.)]

The history of Hume was much over-estimated in his own time, in spite

of the despotic notions which abound in it. It was held up as a

marvel of eloquence and acuteness. But after times always correct the

enthusiasm of contemporaries, and Hume's history has been found not

in every case trustworthy. When we now, indeed, take up Hume, we are

surprised to find it a very plain, clear narrative of events, with many

oversights and perversions, and nothing more. We wonder where are the

transcendent beauties which threw our readers of the eighteenth century

into raptures for which language scarcely gave expression. Whoever will

read the correspondence of contemporaries with Hume, will find him

eulogised rather as a demi-god than a man, and his works described in

extravagant strains of praise.

The "History of Scotland, during the Reigns of Queen Mary and James

VI.," by Dr. Robertson, was published in 1759, the year of the

appearance of Hume's "History of the House of Tudor." It was at once

popular; and Hume, writing to him, attributed this to the deference

which he had paid to established opinions, the true source of the

popularity of many works. This was followed, in 1769, by his "History

of Charles V.," and, in 1777, by his "History of America." Robertson's

chief characteristic is a sonorous and rather florid style, which

extremely pleased his age, but wearies this. His histories drew great

attention to the subjects of them at that period; but time has shown

that they are extremely superficial, and they have not held their place.

[Illustration: DR. JOHNSON. (_After the Portrait by Sir Joshua

Reynolds._)]