and in Spain. Holland, prudent and happy, escaped with a slight scorch; and the fire rolled on to England. The moral plague assumed, at first, a palpable shape, and the misguided peasantry were led to fire the property of their masters, to destroy the produce of their own labour and the means of their own existence: their blindness brought on them the severity of punishment; directly, from the sword of justice, and indirectly, from the scarcity of the means of life, caused by the separation of interests between men and masters, and the dread entertained by the former class of the ingratitude and animosity of the latter. Many were the secret instruments of agitation then at work. One party laboured with determinate energy for a reform in Parliament and a transfer of power; their trusted agents, however, struggled rather for that section which sought the overthrow of the constitution, and the practical adoption of the principle practised in France. They desired, first, a republic by means of a revolution, and failing that, a change of dynasty, fixing their eyes on a Royal Duke, who, however 'liberal in his politics, was too good a brother, uncle, and subject, to have endured their suggestions, had they assumed such consistency as to reach his ears. Other factions, still more desperate, talked loudly of division of property, and hesitated not to avow infidelity in religion, while advocating anarchy in politics. Then not only the deliberately wicked, but the indifferent, and even the good, were tainted with these principles, and entertained hopes which they would now start from contemplating. When the extreme of liberality was so outrageous; that which assumed the name of moderation, possessed little of the quality: it was moderate not to vote the kingly office useless; it was moderate not to outrage decency in assailing and vilifying the Queen; it was moderate not to advocate the entire destruction of the Church; it was moderate to permit the existence of the House of Lords.

It was in such a period that the subject of our memoir was consecrated to the Episcopal office. It was in such a period that the firmness, the integrity, the enlarged mind, and the splendid talents of such a man were most needed. He had been an exemplary pastor, he had been an eloquent defender of the Church, and he had filled the sphere in which Providence had placed him, with the exertions he had made, and the fair fame they merited. But his abilities were worthy of a more extended sphere-his eloquence deserved a higher auditory, and that Power which guides the councils of the good, called him, in His own time, to a place in the noblest assembly of the world, and which he was destined to adorn. It was in 1830, and in the 53rd year of his age, that HENRY PHILPOTTS was consecrated BISHOP OF EXETER.

He was born in 1777, and educated at Gloucester, at the celebrated College School, up to his thirteenth year; but in 1791, before he was fourteen, he was elected a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The competitors for the scholarship were five, and we need hardly say that Henry Philpotts was the youngest of the number. Most men who have really deserved and gained distinction, have been early at college, and in this instance we find the first four years so spent, that in 1795, Mr. Philpotts took his Bachelor of Arts degree, and gained the Chancellor's prize for an English Essay, "On the influence of Religious Principles." This was in June, and in the same year, a Latin panegyric on the learned, devoted, and excellent Sir William Jones appeared from

the pen of Henry Philpotts, Fellow of Magdalen College, to which position he had been raised in July. The Latin essay obtained a prize from the Asiatic Society, of which the celebrated Orientalist, Sir William Jones, had been a distinguished member.

At school he had been associated with Dr. Mansell, the late Bishop of Bristol; at the University he was, with Dr. Copleston, the present Bishop of Llandaff, and other distinguished persons, appointed of the body of Examiners to carry into execution the new and reformed plan of examination for degrees. Dr. Mansell was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Dr. Copleston, Fellow and Tutor of Oriel College, Oxford; and in 1804, Mr. Philpotts was recommended by Dr. Cyril Jackson, Dean of Christ Church, to the Chancellor of the University, the Duke of Portland, and by him appointed to the Headship of Hertford College. Mr. Philpotts was now a married man, (he married in 1834 a niece of Lady Eldon,) and his Fellowship was of course abandoned. It was not, therefore, without great interest that he saw himself ready to sit down in the University to which he was strongly attached, in the honourable situation of Head of a house, but we feel very happy in recording the fact-on looking into the statutes, he found that he could not conscientiously take the oath required to govern the College on the unreasonable system prescribed—rather than bring himself to obey the vexatious and frivolous provisions of the statute, he declined the office; and by his example prevented its being accepted by any other man of honour and conscience; so this short-lived foundation soon became extinct, and its endowment reverted to the heir at law. There are men, no doubt, among the revilers of the Bishop of Exeter, who would not have scrupled to take the oaths, and then reform the statutes to their purpose; but this conscientious horror of an oath, founded on the conviction of its sacredness, having marked the early period of the Bishop's career, gives a dignity and solemnity to his charges against the systematic oath-breakers, which cannot be otherwise than overwhelming to them.

The next testimony to the talents of Mr. Philpotts was his appointment, by Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham, to the office of Chaplain to his Lordship. This was in 1806; and for twenty years the subject of our memoir continued to enjoy the friendship of that exemplary Prelate. The selection of the Bishop of Durham was an honour to the chosen; Dr. Burgess, late Bishop of Salisbury and Chancellor of the Garter, and Dr. Randolf, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, were also his Chaplains, and did equal honour to his judgment. The origin of the appointment on the part of Bishop Barrington was, we believe, the able reply of Mr. Philpotts to a rude assailment, by Dr. Lingard, of a charge delivered by the Bishop, and published at that time. This first step in the anti-Catholic controversy was marked by that zeal, mingled with independent feeling and a liberal spirit of concession, which have marked, throughout, the speeches and the writings of the Bishop of Exeter, and which have received more justice at the hands of his direct antagonists, than has been allowed by statesmen and literates professedly engaged in the same cause. He has, indeed, sustained a persecution from those who would brand him as a persecutor. Mr. Philpotts now filled a space in the public eye; he was made Prebendary of Durham in 1809, and held that preferment in conjunction with the cure of a populous parish in the city itself; a position to which

Up to

those who systematically "speak against dignities" could not object. In 1820 he was removed to the wild district of Weardale, and became Rector of the rich living of Stanhope. Here his zeal was not confined to the instruction of the district miners, but his literary reputation grew with his works, and the political writings of the Rector of Stanhope were regarded by statesmen with reverence, and with a feeling of dread by the enemies of the Church,-a dread which time has converted into hatred. 1825, his opponents were men of no less mark than Charles Butler, Dr. Milner, Dr. Lingard, and Dr. Doyle; he encountered, indeed, the strength of the Roman Catholic literary phalanx. While he exposed the frauds and shuffling of the Romish prelates in their evidence before the House of Commons-while he shewed himself the master of his subject, not only in its theological, but also in its political department, there was no truckling to party, no courting power, in his appeals. He differed, indeed, from the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel as widely as from the Earl of Eldon and Sir C. Wetherel, and only less than from Earl Grey and Mr. Canning. He exposed the injustice of the disqualifying laws, while he showed the inadequacy of the securities offered in case of their repeal. Nay, more, he suggested securities which, if adopted, might have rendered harmless to the Church the terrible, but glorious experiment, of Emancipation; to the neglect of those securities, and to over confidence in the bad faith of one of the contracting parties, are traceable all the evils that have ensued from that unfortunately conducted, but still honourable, just, and necessary concession. One test of the spirit in which the controversy was conducted, is found in the fact that Charles Butler, Esq. (whose " Book of the Catholic Church" was the foundation of the "Strictures" of Mr. Philpotts) sought an introduction to, and gained the friendship of, his antagonist, of whose acquaintance he continued to be proud. It is honourable, also, to Bishop Barrington and Mr. Philpotts, that in 1813, at a meeting of the Clergy of the diocese, when the Bishop proposed a petition against the emancipation of the Catholics, the present Bishop of Exeter, after frankly explaining his views to his diocesan, opposed the petition and moved amendments, which left open the question of securities. In these amendments he induced a majority of the Clergy there assembled to agree, and the Bishop in no way suffered the circumstance to affect his friendship for lis Chaplain. In 1827 Mr. (now Dr.) Philpotts published his celebrated letter to Mr. Canning, exposing, in the most masterly manner, the inefficacy of the securities proposed in his bill of 1835. It was this letter which, after it had attracted great attention, and gone through several editions, was quoted by the Master of the Rolls (Mr. Sergeant Copley, now Lord Lyndhurst), with so much effect as to rouse Mr. Canning to a direct personal attack on his opponent.

In 1829, the Rector of Stanhope was consulted by the Duke of Wellington, then Prime Minister, on the subject of the bill prepared by his Grace for the emancipation of the Catholics, and here sprung up a new source of calumny, which was continued by the anti-Church party with unabated perseverance till 1832, re-echoed by the over zealous friends of the Church who opposed the Duke of Wellington, and borne with exemplary and Christian patience by Dr. Philpott's himself, until the opportunity occurred in the proper place, and his character was set right in the eyes of the world, by no less an authority than the Duke of Wellington, in no less a presence than the Peers of England in Parliament.

We have said that the Duke of Wellington, of whose mind the disinguishing characteristic is a very rare sagacity of discrimination, had ound in the Pastor of a lowly flock among the dales of the North a better qualified adviser than he could discover among the eminent and earned men whose responsible duty it was to inform his mind and lirect his judgment, in one of the most momentous periods of even his extraordinary life.

The unerring judgment of the Duke of Wellington was more than ustified. Dr. Philpotts, as we now know, displayed not only that extent of knowledge which his Grace required, but an inflexibility of principle, on which, perhaps, even that most upright of statesmen had not calcudated. He differed from his Grace's view of the subject; and with that integrity which influenced his opposition to his patron, Bishop Barrington, he now exposed to the Duke of Wellington the futile character of the guarantees afforded by his bill for the safety of the Church of Ireland; and showed on what a reed the Duke was leaning, when he relied on the evidence and suggestions of the Doyles and O'Connells, or on the oaths of the political Roman Catholics, the agitators and adventurers, for whose exclusive advantage, as time has shown, the Act of Catholic Emancipation was demanded-we might say extorted-from a Protestant legislature.

The Duke could appreciate, perhaps, better than any other man, this opposition of high principle to his views of the expediency, or rather, necessity, of the proposed measure; he proceeded in the path on which he had entered, and the act of 1829 was passed, but his upright and inflexible adviser was not forgotten; for soon after this period the Duke intimated his intention of recommending him to a vacant Bishopric. The moment that this offer was made known, the host of recriminators swarmed round Dr. Philpotts. He had been, as we have already stated, strictly consistent in his course of opposition to Romish ascendancy; he had never justified the severity of those enactments by which the Roman Catholics were disqualified: on the contrary, he had expressed his wish for their emancipation, and had even suggested securities by which their accession to public offices of trust and honour would have been rendered perfectly compatible with the safety of the Church. His advice

to the Duke of Wellington was to the same effect; yet charges of inconsistency, of apostacy, of corrupt motive, were brought unblushingly against, him and urged, we regret to say it, by men who ought to have known better; but the envenomed gall of party spirit infuses itself unseen into hearts otherwise "full of the milk of human kindness." A good man persecuted by the good, is sport for demons, of whose especial agency such persecution comes. This course of calumny was suffered with unflinching endurance by its subject, to whom the "mens sibi conscia recti" was a shield against every dart. Integer vitae," and satisfied the weapons of malignity;

with the calm it secures, he could afford to spurn

As the chased lion from his hurtless side
Shakes his pursuers' darts, he threw them off;

until, in the House of Lords, he found the opportunity of appealing to the Duke of Wellington, who, in his own direct and manly way, refuted the calumny, adding, that it was not only ill-founded, but utterly without foundation! He had consulted with the Right Rev, Prelate, when

Rector of Stanhope, but of the matter of that consultation he had never spoken to mortal man; and it was not likely that Dr. Philpotts, in speaking of it, should misrepresent himself. Thus were blown away, with an honest breath, all the meshes of a tissue of calumny, too elaborately netted to suffer us to doubt that it proceeded from the hands of an artist. Ignorance, malignity, and party spirit, took up the woof, and warped away with it, until the web enmeshed themselves.

He had not "assented to the securities proposed by the Duke of Wellington, or assisted in concocting the bill of his Grace, that differed little from that of Mr. Canning, which he had arraigned with great severity.” But Dr. Philpotts would not take the easy course of vindicating his conduct by publishing a simple denial of the charge. His own conviction was, and his friends, Lords Sidmouth and Colchester, confirmed it with their judgment, that, having been consulted by the Prime Minister, he was bound to consider as entirely confidential whatever communication had passed between them. Strong in this conviction, he sustained with an unblanched chicek the obloquy to which for years he had been exposed.

The distinguished Scholar of Gloucester, the honoured Examiner at Oxford, the indefatigable Clergyman in the City and dignified Prebendary in the Cathedral of Durham, the Rector of Stanhope, the able as well as zealous Defender of the Church of England-although he had earned every honour his University could bestow, although he held an exalted as well as useful position in the Church, and filled in Literature a rank second to no writer of the day, in his chosen department-had not yet received of the world's wealth that portion which was necessary to the due maintenance of his dignity and the support of his family, much less that which his talents and exertions in the best of causes had so well deserved. A city cure is always an expensive one; and more especially when the heart prompts the hand at the price of the purse. The "lordly living of Stanhope," though in itself a rich preferment, was rendered poor to Dr. Philpotts by the injunction of his patron, to build a house on a scale suited to the living. The actual income of the rectory was reduced also very considerably by an alarming depression in the price of lead, the tithes of which formed a principal portion of the endowment. The house being reared, and the income of the living gradually returning to its actual value, it is not surprising that Dr. Philpotts should have hesitated to accept the offered dignity which must remove him thence. The office of a Bishop brings new and grave claims, and every father must feel the anxiety with which the subject of our memoir saw himself likely to be drawn into a sphere of greater eminence and usefulness indeed, but involving the necessity of a large expenditure. He, therefore, declined the honour of a Bishopric, until it was suggested that the living of Stanhope might be held in commendam with that office. On this condition alone could Dr. Philpotts, consistently with his duty to a very numerous family, consent to fill the This was a case from which the Duke of Wellington could not withhold his assent, and the pleasure of the King having been signified to the Prime Minister, the subject of our memoir consented to his elevation, and on the faith of this agreement was consecrated in 1830. But before the instruments for granting the commendam had passed the office of the Secretary of State, the Administration of the Duke of Wellington retired before the assaults of the Reform mania; and his successors (how

see.