THE BISHOP OF LICHFIELD.*
Osrm of the most curious features of this book is that it reads like Mr. Denison's reply on the whole case. The sneers in which it a- bounds are evidently based on points extorted in cross-examina- tion. The leading counsel for the Bishop of Lichfield has had all other Bishops in the box, and has found out from them in what respects they differed from his father-in-law. One bishop was an orator. The Bishop of Lichfield's " modesty and aversion to everything of the nature of either controversy or display con- curred in preventing him from speaking in public except when he felt it was his duty ;" and "he had consequently not acquired, and * The Life of John Lonsdale, Bishop of Lichfield. Edited by his Son-in-Law, Edmund Beckett Denison, Q.Q. London: Murray. certainly did not wish for, the character of an orator." Another bishop had been requested to sit for his portrait. The Bishop of Lichfield "never wasted his time and money in sitting for a portrait in oil, for no human fingers can draw a likeness equal to the sun." Another bishop was a sayer of good things. The Bishop of Lichfield repeated them. Other bishops resorted to legal mea- sures against their clergy. The Bishop of Lichfield acted under the advice of his sou-in-law. And in all these things, as Mr. Denison does not fail to argue, the Bishop of Lichfield was right. There are graver matters on which the same judgment is passed, and which we must reserve for fuller consideration. But these are fair specimens of the tone of the memoir. 'We learn indeed as much of Bishop Lousdale from Mr. Denison's sneers at other men as from his direct statements about the Bishop's character. Read- ing between the lines, we know that when any gift imparted to another man is depreciated, it is because Bishop Lonsdale did not possess it. How far so kind and charitable a man would have approved of such a method of illustrating both his merits and his defects must be left for Mr. Denison to determine. It is certain that in this respect also the biographer has been consistent. He has brought out the Bishop's gentleness most strongly by showing that it is alien to the nature of the Bishop's son-in-law.
Our regard for the Bishop's character gives us the more right to speak thus severely of Mr. Denison's memoir. There is something which jars upon us in almost every page. The natural tendency of constant and misplaced praise is to give us a prejudice against its object. We can admire a man, though we know that he is not perfect, and we can look upon his faults as being either insigni- ficant in themselves, or the necessary concomitauts of those virtues which make him admirable. But when we hear these veryf auks held up as virtues, we ask ourselves if our own view was not too lenient. We had thought the virtues most conspicuous, but if the faults are equal to them, what becomes of the character ? Still more, if the faults are virtues, how are the former virtues to keep possession of their name ? In the case of Bishop Lonsdale we are prepared to make every allowance for the weakness which was a part of his kindly nature. But when Mr. Denison says that he was not weak, we are deprived of the only possible excuse for acts which we would gladly have left unnoticed. It is true that the admirable stand made for Mr. Maurice at King's College did not seem like weakness. But the especial merit of such conduct was that it proceeded from one who was generally yielding. We do not see how the story of the drunken clergyman can be explained on any other hypothesis.
"He once had a curious dispute with the most litigious of his brethren. A clergyman who happened to have preferment both in the diocese of Lichfield and another was accused of drunkenness in Lichfield. Our bishop always said it was next to impossible to convict a clergyman of drunkenness, however clear the charges might appear beforehand, unless he happened to have some very strong personal enemies. And he used to mention cases where bishops had spent thousands of pounds in pro- secutions of that sort which had broken down, though the offences were notorious. So he promised this clergyman that he would not issue a commission under the Clergy Discipline Act, if he would go away. He did go away—into his other diocese. Tho bishop thereof soon found out why he had come, and called on the Bishop of Lichfield to proceed against him, saying (rightly enough so far) that he had nothing to do with th& bargain which had been made and he insisted that the Bishop was bound to proceed, on a demand for a commission being made. He answered, by my advice, that no demand had been made by any parishioner. Still the other bishop did not give in—as he never did; but the clergyman saved further trouble by dying."
No doubt this was obliging on the part of the clergyman. But if his offence was sufficiently grave to justify his removal from the diocese of Lichfield, it is hard to see why another bishop should be expected to put up with him quietly. Nor was this the only occasion on which the Bishop of Lichfield relieved himself of obnoxious clergymen by sending them across the frontier. Even "Lichfield's greatest man," as Mr. Denison happily calls Dr. Johnson, objected to his friend throwing slugs into a neighbour's garden till he was told that the neighbour was a Dissenter.
The description of Bishop Lonsdale's character as combining that of "a bishop who acquiesces in a great deal that lie does not like, and of an old Yorkshiremau who is never taken in," gives us a key to many of his apparent inconsistencies. His biographer admits that his one infirmity was a dread of any violent public opposition, especially from the clergy. It was because his epis- copal capacity was the public side of his life that his chief actions seem to savour of weakness. At the same time, there was a vast. deal of work done by him in his diocese to which no such term could be applied. The Yorkshire formation cropped out every now and then, and forced back the bold climbers who counted on carrying the highest peak of the Episcopal mountain. This is most visible in the Bishop's perseverance when the plan of a. Theological College gave rise to much agitation. He regretted that the scheme had been started, but he did not withdraw his support. He wrote discouraging letters to the promoters, but he defended them publicly. He was glad of an opportunity for post- poning the scheme, but he did not abandon it. We must say that such conduct at once illustrates his character and does him honour. A truly strong man would not have regretted that he had done what he thought right, and would not have discouraged secretly those whom he was backing up before the public. The one would be a confession that what was right in itself ought to yield to the tumult of opinion. The other might lead to the scheme being privately abandoned, and to the same man having the credit of judicious advice and unflinching courage. But a man who was merely weak would have given way altogether, and this was not the course pursued by Bishop Lonsdale. In party -questions he showed the same dislike of publicity, the same ad- herence to his own opinion. Thus he supported an association for providing trained nurses in the diocese, while he disapproved of the fantastical order 'of Sisterhoods. Thus he was opposed to the 4' two damnatory clauses" in the Athanasian Creed, and never said them—in the responses. Thus he drew up and signed the -report in favour of legalizing marriage with a deceased wife's sister, and twelve years later "authorized Lord Granville to tell the House of Lords that his opinion of the lawfulness of such marriages was unchanged." But he did not make this statement himself in the House of Lords, and neither spoke nor voted in favour of repealing the Act of 1835. We are curious to know how he would have extricated himself from the difficult position in which the anembers of the Wolverhampton Congress were about to place him by their offer of a Pastoral Staff. He would much rather, Mr. Denison tells us, have had an umbrella. A Derbyshire clergyman wrote to dissuade him from accepting the staff, assuring him that it would be a marked and significant emblem of the domination of Iligh-Churchistu in his mind. The Bishop replied that "the con- templated present has never had any expression of approval or -consent from me," and added, with what Mr. Denison thinks was not meant for irony, "I am very sensible of your kindness in writing to me as you have done, and giving me the advice which you have given me as to the course I ought to take in the matter."
The purely private side of the Bishop's life presents to us attrac- tions without a drawback. Mr. Denison is probably justified in speaking thus of his father-in-law :—
" There have been, and there are, greater men than he was in some of his many excellent gifts. But where have we seen one man at once so wise, loving, patient, contented, laborious, kind, and charitable to all men, in the widest sense of that word: so just, sincere, humble, courteous, hospitable ; such a cheerful, genial, and pleasant companion : with his learning, accuracy, and judgment ; his force, persuasiveness, and elegance of speech and writing : combining so much simplicity with so much dignity : so accessible at all times to all men, and attentive to their wants : with such recollection of their character, circumstances, and business, and such punctuality in dealing with it ; and that not 'evasively, so as to shake off further trouble, but thoroughly and .anxiously, as if it were his own : so forgetful of himself and thoughtful for others : immovable when he had made a prom;se to do anything, or had made up his mind what he ought to do, but yielding almost too 'easily where only his own convenience was involved : such a lover of all good men and so ready to see the good in every man : such a promoter of good works : so free from all the forms of vanity, the love of public applause and the love of displaying his own cleverness : such a truly right reverend father in God, as this John Lonsdale, Bishop of Lichfield?"
An instance of his geniality appears in his conversation with a Dissenting preacher, who had come to hear one of the Bishop's .sermons. The two men met at the station next day, and the Dissenter said, "My Lord, I should not have treated that text as you did last night." "Well," replied the Bishop, "and how would you have treated it'?" The discussion lasted till the arrival .of the train put an end to it, and one of its results was that the Dissenter was charmed with the prelate. We cannot find room for the many similar instances of the Bishop's kindliness which his .son-in-law gives us, and there is another part of his character which we must not pass over. An account of him would be in- complete if it did not allude to his scholarship, which was shown when he was a schoolboy in the too correct copies of verses he used to write for others, and which led to his being entrusted just before his death with the translation of the Pan-Anglican Ency- clical into Latin. It was, no doubt, his excellence as a classical scholar that to some extent restrained both his pen and his tongue. He left, as Mr. Denison observes, no literary correspondence. He never preached extempore. He published scarcely any, if any, of his sermons. We can hardly wonder if there was a slight exag- geration of purism in his judgment of style and language. He called such words as " utility " odious, says Mr. Denison, although that word is used by Bacon, Sir William Temple, Hume, and Sir James Mackintosh. So, too, he blamed Mr. Norris, who was Inspector of Schools in his diocese, for speaking of " revising " the children's answers after an examination, adding, "a man may revise his own work, not another's." But though Mr. Norris pro- bably meant looking over the children's answers, the Bishop's objection goes too far. When Pope says,—
" Not, sir, if you revise it, and retouch,"
he alludes to the revision of another man's work, and the retouches are also to be given by another hand. In most other respects the Bishop's criticisms are well founded, and would correct much of the slipshod speaking and writing which are the product of too much speaking and writing. Is Mr. Denison himself free from that reproach?
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