LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

THE "QUARTERLY REVIEW" AND MR. MACCOLL.

(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR, —In your impartial review of my book you expressed your opinion that I had made out "a crushing case against the law of the Purchas judgment," — an opinion which you share in common with the Saturday Review and the Guardian, and with the leading organs of the various shades of Nonconformity. This is a verdict which, of course, is very unpalatable to the ad- vocates of the Purchas judgment, who have accordingly attacked me in their daily, weekly, and monthly organs. And now they have dragged the Quarterly Review into the field and discharged its heavy guns at me, but so unskilfully withal, that I am alive to tell the tale not only of my own escape, but at the same time of the discomfiture of my enemies by the recoil of their own weapons. I am sure you will allow me to do this in your columns, and that for two reasons : the first, because the Quarterly reviewer thinks I have misled you, and I should like to show that I have not done so ; the second, because he boasts of having performed "vivisection" on me, and the Spectator has

honourably distinguished itself in opposition to that cruel practice.

And now let me examine the indictment which my accuser has elaborated against me. It would, of course, be impossible in the space which you can afford me to rebut all his charges in detail. So I shall solect what he considers his strongest points ; and if I can expose his ignorance and unfairness as to these, your readers will perhaps believe that I should find it very easy, if space permitted, to meet and overthrow him, point by point, along the whole line of his attack.

In my argument against the Purchas judgment I have made considerable use of the Zurich Letters, and one of the most

serious charges made against me in the Quarterly Review is that I have misquoted my authorities and suppressed evidence which

would have annihilated my case. Have I? Let us see.

In September, 1571, Jerome Zanchius, a German Protestant of some note, who was in constant correspondence with the English Bishop Grindal, wrote a long letter to Queen Elizabeth, in which he says :—" We have been informed, most serene and most Christian Queen, to our exceeding grief, that the flame of dis- cord respecting certain vestments, which we thought had been extinguished long since, has been stirred up afresh, as though from hell." Further on he says :—

" Your most gracious Majesty may believe me that the me. toration of such Popish vestments will be a far greater evil than may appear at the first glance. For I seem to see and hear the monks calling out front their pulpits, and confirming their people in this ungodly religion by your Majesty's example, and saying= What ! why the Queen of England herself, most learned and prudent as she is, is beginning by degrees to return to the religion of the holy Roman Church, for the most holy and consecrated vestments of the clergy are now resumed.'" I did not quote the whole of this passage, for the sake of brevity. But I quoted Zanchius as complaining that " the most holy and consecrated vestments," i.e., the Eucharistic vestments, —had been "resumed" in 1571. In the opinion of the Quarterly reviewer this is a case of gross misquotation, because, forsooth ! " Zanchius does not give these words as his own at all !" That a writer capable of such a bathos of reasoning as this should have been allowed to expose himself in the Quarterly Review is some- what strange.

The reviewer, having, in his own opinion, made a great hit by this notable proof of my dishonesty, marshals a troop of quotations against me, which be thinks are fatal to my whole argument, but which, according to him, I have wickedly suppressed. But if the reviewer had not written in such a fit of blind fury, he would have known that I had not ignored those quotations at all. On the contrary, I have quoted several of them, and 1 have discussed the evidence which all of them supply, and have actually founded an argument upon it against the Pur- ehas judgment. But then I have quoted the passages where they were really to the point, and I have quoted them quite accurately, while the Quarterly reviewer has quoted several of them inaccu- rately, and all of them in a connection which simply knocks the brain out of his whole argument. I think I can make this clear even to those who have not studied these questions.

The Purchas judgment admits that the Act of Uniformity, which gave statutable force to the Ornaments Rubric of 1559, "provisionally restored" the vestments,—restored them, that is, till the publication of the Advertisements. But when were the Advertisements published? Certainly not before the beginning of 1565. Mr. Droop, one of the counsel of the Church Associa- tion, has lately written a pamphlet, in which he contends that the Advertisements were not published before May 21, 1566. Mr. Droop's pamphlet has been favourably noticed by the defenders of the Purchas judgment—the Quarterly reviewer among the rest—and therefore I presume that they accept his date for the publication of the Advertisements. It is obvious, therefore, that no letters of a date previous to the publication of the Advertise- ments can prove that the eucharistic vestments had been abolished at the date of such letters, for the Purchas judgment admits that they were in legal use up to the publication of the Advertisements. Now of the eleven quotations which the Quarterly reviewer ac- cuses me of having suppressed, the majority—and they are those upon which be chiefly relies—belong to dates prior to the earliest date that has been assigned to the publication of the Advertise- ments; and all but two at the most—and they are not in point— are prior to the date to which Mr. Droop assigns the Advertise- ments. And will it be believed that one of the quotations which I am charged with suppressing, and to which the reviewer draws particular attention, actually belongs to the latter part of Edward VI.'s reign ? That is to say, I am convicted of gross inaccuracy suffered, and are still suffering injury,—those, viz., who are already and dishonesty because 1 have not quoted a letter written in the about half-way up the gradation-list. -Even the selection from reign of Edward VI. to prove that chasubles were illegal in the these last of one or two favourites for special promotion would seventh year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth ! only embitter the hopeless condition of the remainder. The real So much for what the Quarterly reviewer is pleased to call my question with the men from 61 to 64 is what pecuniary effort is " astonishing ignorance." But it seems that I am flagrantly dis- Government prepared to make for their relief ?

honest, as well as " astonishingly ignorant." On p. 256 he ac- I think the great point which we have to insist upon before the cuses me of having misquoted the language of the Court in the Home Government is that highly-paid appointments must now be Purchas case. And how does he sustain his accusation ? Partly left out of sight altogether in contemplating the average career of by putting marks of quotation where there are none in my book, a N.-W. civilian. A 21-years' residence will not bring him to a and partly by interpolating words of his own into a passage which judgeship, nor to a "permanent" (or 1st-class) collectorship. It he pretends to quote from me. Any one may see this who will will carry those in the middle ranks of the service into an " officiat- take the trouble to compare p. '256 of the Quarterly Review with ing " (or 2nd-class) collectorship ; but as for those in the lowest

pp. 84, 89 of my book. quarter of the list, they will never, in their 21-years' residence, With one more specimen of my accuser's method of controversy reach a higher place than that of first-grade joint magistrate. I will conclude. On p. 252 he writes as follows :—" Com- Now, I presume it as beyond dispute that it was the intention menting on the dictum that ' in the performance of the services, of the Indian Government, when it fixed twenty-one years as the rites, and ceremonies ordained by the Prayer-book, the directions term of residence required for pension, that an officer should, contained in it must be strictly observed,' Mr. MacColl observes within that period, rise successfully through all the ordinary that this would be absurd if applied to the missals of Hereford grades of the service,—all those, that is, which are open by sent- and York. Very possibly it might also be inapplicable to the ority to all competent men. The ordinary civilian, therefore, hymns of the Rig-Veda." It seems almost incredible, but it is a should at least finish his career as a judge, and that within a resi- fact, that the reviewer has here quietly substituted quite another deuce of twenty-one years. Again, I assume that less than two dictum for the one on which I have really commented ; and years' incumbency could hardly be allowed for each of the higher then, on the strength of his own falsification, he turns my posts, and four years for each of those which hold the middle rank.

argument into ridicule. Thus the civilians' term would be divided something on this scale : I think I have said enough to show your readers the sort of —Judge 2 years, 1st-class collector 2 years, 2nd-class collector 2 reasoning by which the Quarterly reviewer has endeavoured toyears, 1st-joint magistrate 4 years, 2nd-joint magistrate 4 years, undermine my argument. Of his personal abuse of myself I will assistant-magistrate 7 years. only say that it is worthy of the logic and learning which it Surely it would not be asking too much to ask Government adorns. But I cannot help expressing my regret that such an that such a career at least should be guaranteed to every man article has been admitted into the Quarterly Review. men of not pronounced incompetent by his superiors. This, then, is, in genius, of learning, and—let me add—of good manners, have my opinion, the great' point we have to bring before the eyes of written and still write in its pages, and its conductors ought not our supporters, that highly-paid appointments have virtually to forget that noblesse oblige. The Quarterly Reviewhas too illus-

disappeared from the eyes of the latest recruits to the service, trious a history to be able, with impunity, to hire itself out as a and have become an exceedingly distant prospect, even to those literary hack in the livery of the Church Association. who are only, so to speak, in the sixth or seventh generation.

May I add that in arguing against the Purchas judgment, I have explicitly and pointedly declined to discuss the truth or falsehood, the expediency or inexpediency, of Ritualism ? I have far as the present sufferers are concerned. The pay of these confined myself strictly to the historical and legal aspects of the provinces is less, taken as a whole, than that of the regulation ones, so that only the highest appointments would afford relief to question. If Ritualism were even as bad as the Church Association thinks it, that would afford no justification at all for perverting under-paid officers here. But these highly-paid appointments the law and falsifying history in order to put it down. This is a are few, and are rightly regarded by those who have worked in distinction which, it seems to me, the opponents of Ritualism are the Commissions for many years as their just heritage. Only a

slow to see. They do not see that however bad Ritualism may be,

the corruption of English justice is very much worse. Let me give an example. Some years ago an unprincipled person discovered an old statute which forbad tailors to make the buttons of a suit delusive prospect also, and for this reason, that it would cost too of clothes of the same material as the suit itself, on pain of forfeit- ing the price of the suit. Thereupon this unprincipled person went Judge, staying out his 35 years in this country, in order to save to a tailor and ordered a suit of clothes, giving particular direc- money, would give up his remaining four or five years' tenure of Lions that the buttons were to be of the same material as the suit. office under a bonus of 20,000 rs. ; and there are at present on When the clothes were delivered, the sharper availed himself of the the list some 20 seniors in this position. The Government, how- ever, should consent to a moderate outlay, and at any rate, restore obsolete statute, and refused to pay. The tailor prosecuted, and lost his suit, the judge very properly denouncing the conduct of the defendant, but also very properly declaring that the law was on his side. Next Session the law was repealed. If one of the Parches Judges had tried the case, be would not only have de- nounced the defendant, but would also have decided, by a gross perversion of historical facts, that law as well as equity was on the side of the tailor. Now I object to perversions of law and history quite irrespectively of my feelings for or against the victims of the injustice, and if my argument against the Purchas judgment is to

be upset, it must be by something more cogent than the scurrilous rhetoric and crapulous reasoning of the Quarterly Review.—I am, Judge, and two years short of the utmost term, that of a collector ;

Sir, &c., MALCOLM MACCOLL.