BISHOP WILBERFORCE.*
WE confess to a certain feeling of disappointment in taking up the Life of Bishop Wilberforce, which follows those of Newman and John Wesley in the series of English Leaders of Religion," published by Messrs. Methuen and Co. The author has chosen a phrase of Dean Burgon's in which the Bishop of Oxford is justly termed the "remodeller of the English Episcopate," as the point of view from which to present the
work, life, character, and influence" of this unique per- sonality. But granting that Mr. Daniel, in his treatment of that character and that influence, so limited and so under- stood, has done justice to a great and lasting work which has not only lived, but grown in vitality and vigour, since the guiding hand was removed, and granting that he has done well to insist on results sometimes overlooked by eyes dazzled by the brilliant wit which sparkled on the surface of a life of deep and devoted energy, there must, we think, be something in- complete in any attempt to present a part only of such a character, even within the limits of the work under review. Though the materials of which this is composed are largely drawn from the Life compilel by Canon Ashwell and Mr. R. G. Wilberforee, the existence of the larger book is perhaps not wholly favourable to the apprecia- tion of the later work. The impression left by the more com- plete work is that of a fascinating personality with a rare union of practical and intellectual genius, suffused and com- bined by the electric spark of wit,—potential forces which were dominated and directed for good by a strong feeling of per- sonal religion, and the peculiar responsibility of the Bishop's office. Perhaps it was not among the least fortunate facts of his life that such practical sagacity and keen prevision were devoted, with a constancy for which he did not always obtain credit, to the service of the Church, and that an adroit use of
• Bishop Wilberforce. By G. W. Daniel, M.L. London : Methuen and Co. circumstances which a layman might have envied WEIS employed, not in the service of a party, but of his clergy and people. The dangerous fires of his wit shone and sparkled,. but did not burn. It was his unique power to disarm an enemy, and point a moral in a jest. "Can you tell me the way to Heaven, my Lord ?" " Yes ; turn to the right, and keep straight on," was the ready answer. His reputation will never suffer by the remembrance that he was a sayer of good things and a fighter of good fights. Even in combat with Lord West- bury, an Erastian opponent against whom an ecclesiastic might have been forgiven for employing all the heavy artillery of spiritual denunciation, he was able to use with effect the lighter weapons which his wit supplied. But he knew the value of his office and position too well to abandon any of the advan- tages so conferred. When the Lord Chancellor, in terms of decorous scurrility, denounced the Bishop's judgment on Essays and Reviews as "simply a series of well-lubricated terms—a sentence so oily and saponaccous that no one could grasp it— like an eel it slips through your fingers and is simply nothing," the Bishop's reply was ex cathedra couched in terms of solemn and surprised rebuke. It was the most effective because the least expected. But though mindful of the good advice of Prince Albert, repeated later in a letter from the Prince Consort's private secretary, Mr. Anson, in which he warned him that "the subtle man on the Bench would wait for his revenge," the Bishop was more generous and not less politic- After Lord Westbury, in consequence of a vote of censure passed in the House of Commons, attributing to him laxity and want of caution in filling up public appointments, and granting retiring pensions to public servants over whose heads grave charges were impending, had resigned the Chancellor- ship, he met the Bishop face to face in the lobby of the House of Lords, and begged to be reconciled. The Bishop at once responded, and Lord Westbury then said:—" Do you remember, my Lord, of what day this is the anniversary ? It is the anni- versary of my humiliation. When I was leaving the Queen's Closet, having given up the Great Seal, I met you on the stairs as I was coming out, and I felt inclined to say : Haat thou found me, 0 mine enemy ? ' " The Bishop only asked : "Does your Lordship remember the end of the quotation ? "—but did not continue : "Yea, I have found thee, becauEe thou bast sold thyself to work iniquity." "I was never so tempted in my life," added the Bishop afterwards, "to finish the quotation; but by a great effort I kept it down." His power of humour was closely connected with a quickness of observation so rapid, that persons less gifted often set down as insincere conclusions which to them were simply un- intelligible. The act of memory by which he recalled an old acquaintance's grey horse, and asked after it, was suggested by what he alone saw,—the grey hairs on the good man's coat- There is no need to go further, and suggest that, after seeing the hairs, he " guessed " the existence of the horse. Wilberforce was a lover of horses, and probably knew most of the animals, good and bad, owned by his acquaintances in the diocese. His powers of observation were not limited to the ways of mankind. He took a keen interest in country life and country sport, was an excellent shot, a good rider, and a naturalist. After soothing the last illness of Lord Zouche, he walked through Parham Park and wrote thus :—" The beauty of the place yesterday and to-day, the perfection to which he has brought every- thing, makes the contrast of his sudden striking down all the more touching; the great oaks, the limes, and elms in their first and brightest green ; the dark old Scotch firs, with their red stems and branches and bright forming cones." "I crept up under them yesterday, to watch the herons ; a most charming sight. Some flying with food to the hatched young, and as they came over the nest dropping their outstretched legs and feeling for a safe footing ; whilst they beat their wings vehemently to keep their poise; some sitting upon the top of the nest, the sharp beak turning every way as they keep their look-out." His last literary work was a review of Knox's charming book, Autumns on the Spey. Such are the pictures with which the larger work completed the presentation of the Bishop's character ; and so far as we recall the impression left by it upon contemporaries, it was accepted and endorsed as an adequate representation of the man. Naturally, we should wish for a concise embodiment of some of these leading attributes in the work before us, just as we should prefer some mention of the full and graphic de- scription by Lord Granville of the last fatal ride, in which,
after passing safely through miles of difficult country, the tired horse stumbled in a gutter on a smooth turf road, and flung the Bishop dead upon the short grass of the lane. Such an ending to such a life should hardly be dismissed as "an accident, while riding on the Surrey Downs, which took away from organising his still new Diocese of Winchester the man who had laboured at Oxford to show what a Bishop really meant."
It remains to be shown that, with these important omissions, Mr. Daniel has treated his subject, in the limited sense in which be has chosen to do so, with great care and evident earnestness. He shows how fitted Samuel Wilberforce was by his early training in the Church, in which he had served with energy and success as curate, rector, rural dean, arch- deacon, and dean, to organise a great diocese. Add to this experience, a practical sagacity, power of work, great kindli- ness, and a personal charm of manner which has been rarely equalled, and the success of his work may be partly under- stood. He even clearly distinguished between what was desirable and what was possible ; and as in the consideration of the Cathedral Act, and the Government grants in aid of education, he prevailed on the extreme party to take and use all they could get rather than to throw away the half because they could not have the whole, so in his dealings with his clergy he was by choice conciliatory, persuasive, and helpful. He did not shrink from the "annexation" of Buckingham- shire, though the laconic description of its incumbents by the Bishop of Lincoln as either "top-boots or Exeter Hall," had de- terred his predecessor from the task. Coming on the top of the High Church wave, he so mastered and controlled the new move- ment as to make it his servant in the diocese, not his master. The work lasts. Even in the remoter country districts, the orga- nised clericalism which he tamed, directed, and brought into line with his purpose, flourishes and extends. Country towns like Wa.ntage, and country villages whose names are scarcely known beyond the limits of the parish, still exhibit a loyal and disciplined obedience to the precepts and practices of Cuddesdon ; and Bishop Wilberforce's machinery, worked by "rather reverend" rural deans and very reverend archdeacons as the mediums of communication between the palace and the parish, has extended to every diocese in England. But it was to his personal influence at ordination, even more than to the exercise of his control in the maturer days of Church ministry, that the Bishop owed his power over the hearts of his clergy. This side of his character is admirably depicted in Mr. Daniel's pages. He considered Cuddesdon Palace "not as his private house, but the common property of all his diocese, for council, thought, deliberation, and united action ;" and if he took a strong view of the binding character of the personal ties between the ordainer and the ordained, and exacted an almost feudal loyalty from his young clergy, he showed a clear sense of personal obligation for such loyalty, which did him infinite credit. No better illustration of the practical sagacity and personal rectitude of this large-minded man could be given than the immense increase of the patronage secured by the Bishop during his lifetime, and the use which he made of the power so gained. At the Bishop's death, the total number of livings in his gift was one hundred and three, as against seventeen when he was appointed, and this patronage he maintained largely to pro- vide for the curates of his diocese who had served faithfully and well. "Many are those," he wrote," to whom preferment never does, and never can come. That to which the poor hard-working curate may most hopefully look, the prefer- ment administered by the Bishop, is utterly insufficient to supply such claims." That Bishop Wilberforce did so much to meet this want, is one of his claims to our admiration to which Mr. Daniels has most justly drawn attention. But kindness and consideration were part of his nature. The story of the overworked curate whose duty he took himself, under cover of a general promise to "see that it was all right" while the poor man took the needed holiday which the Bishop had insisted on. is only an indication of his natural tender- ness and geniality. In closer ties, his affection and need for sympathy was urgent and pathetic, and his lasting grief for his dead wife a sorrow never laid till death. Read in the light of such a rare union of qualities, the labour of his life takes a brighter, more sympathetic, and more living interest. It would be difficult, and it would be wrong, to picture such a life with all the work put in and the wit left out.
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