tations, and heedless of invidious censure, he should, for the sake ∙of his sovereign, decline the service proposed.1 The Whig Lords were anxious to explain that their disapprobation was grounded on the speeches he had made in that House, which had manifested his dismay and anger at the expulsion of the Bourbons, his rancor against the Poles, and his sympathies with Don Miguel and Don Carlos; which state of opinion seemed to qualify him rather for the post of Russian ambassador in England, than British ambassador in Russia. The ministers were as severely judged by their own party on this occasion as by any other. They had humbled the King, and rendered his prerogative ineffective. If it had before been true that the sovereign could not practically carry out any such appointment without the approbation of Parliament, express or implied, the truth had not been exhibited; and decent appointments had made all easy. In this case, the King had been first misled and then humbled; and the Conservatives had little more mercy on the ministers than anybody else.

In the preceding year, Lord John Russell had brought forward a measure for the relief of Dissenters in regard to the Dissenters' marriage ceremony. It was well meant; but the Dis- marriages. senters could not possibly accept it. All proposed legislation on this subject, thus far, had been kind in its spirit, and earnest in the desire to give relief; but it had unconsciously carried an air of condescension, a supposition of respective superiority and inferiority not admissible in affairs of conscience. No one could be further than Lord John Russell from sympathizing in the sayings of the Eldons and the Wynfords, and others, who could not conceive of a Dissenter as a man whose rights were as precious, and whose conscience was to be as much considered, as their own. Nobody could be further than Lord John Russell from the insolence of asking what harm it could do a Dissenter to be blessed in a form of words offensive to his religious feelings, as long as he was not required himself to repeat those words. Lord John Russell was disposed to relieve the Dissenter from the pain and humiliation of being a party to a religious service which he conscientiously disapproved; and he proposed to open their own chapels freely to the body for the performance of the ceremony of marriage. But he did not see, till the rejection of his measure by the Dissenters pointed out the fact to him, that it was an infringement of religious liberty to render the Dissenters dependent on the Church for the publication of their banns, and the declaration of that procedure by the clergyman. He did not see that it was an encroachment on liberty of conscience to permit marriages to be celebrated only in places of worship; thus

1 Hansard, xxvi. p. 1005.

perpetuating the modern innovation, injurious to many consciences, of absolutely connecting the civil contract with the religious celebration. On these grounds, and also because they objected to the necessity of affixing the license in some conspicuous part of their chapels, the Dissenters had rejected Lord John Russell's measure of the session of 1834. Many whose occasions have not led them to a very close study of the application of the principles of religious liberty, called them, as usual, captious. Others, who, like Lord Holland, knew the Nonconformists, and recognized their function in the State, received their petitions and statements with respect, and considered them with deference. "Take care," said Lord Holland to a brother-peer, a few years later, on another question of Dissenters' rights "take care how you conclude against the Nonconformists on any question of religious liberty. I have seen more of them than most men; and I never differed from them without finding myself in the wrong." In such a temper of honest respect did Sir Robert Peel now look into this case of Dissenters' marriages. He went down to the principle of the matter at once, in which he was as well supported by the lawyers in the House as by the Dissenters out of it. On the principle that the civil contract is the first consideration before the law, and that, even in churches where marriage is regarded as a sacrament, the religious ceremony only arises out of the civil contract, the Minister now proposed to establish at once the broad principle of the validity of marriage by purely civil contract.1 He also offered full liberty to all denominations of Dissenters to marry in their own chapels. It was honorable to the House of Commons that it received this broad measure as it deserved, recognizing the truth of its principle. So did the Dissenters also receive it; but, amidst their satisfaction and gratitude, they did not forget their fidelity to their function. They pointed out that even this bill would not establish equality before the law for men of differing faiths: it still provided one method of marriage for Churchmen and another for Dissenters, and they required liberty of marriage by civil contract to be extended to the whole of society. They also objected, on their own account, to being dependent on the clergy for the registration of their marriages. Lord Eldon's remark on this is: "The Dissenters are pleased; but they seem not to disguise that they are not satisfied. I take it that the true friends of the Church are neither pleased nor satisfied. As to the Dissenters, it is their nature not to be satisfied, as I can judge from very long experience." These haughty gentlemen, who regarded the Nonconformists as a separate breed, and talked of "their nature," seem never to have asked themselves whether they would them1 Polit. Dict. ii. p. 319.

2 Life of Lord Eldon, iii. p. 244.

selves ever be "satisfied" to be compelled to marry nowhere but in a Roman Catholic Church, or to depend on the Catholic priesthood for the celebration and registration of their marriages. The Minister received the representation of the Dissenters with respect and good-will, and saw the force of the objection about the registration by the clergy; or, in case of the civil-contract celebration, by a magistrate who was usually a clergyman. He had it in his mind to bring forward a registration-measure of large scope; but he could not do every thing at once, and at present could only announce it. On going out of office, shortly after, he committed the whole business to Lord John Russell, by whom that ultimate measure was brought forward the next year, which has happily settled the marriage-question. This ultimate measure was brought in together with one for a registration of births, marriages, and deaths. By it, the civil contract becomes all that the state has to do with the celebration of marriage; and it is accomplished through the registration-office, while all persons are left free to conduct the religious celebration of marriage according to their own views.

During this extraordinary session, the Minister seemed to be inexhaustible, in purposes, in resources, in energy, and, it may be added, in temper. By this time, his political antagonists had begun to admire; and the country was awake. Success and permanence in office were evidently out of the question still; but all that man could do, the Minister did to lessen the rancor of parties by uniting them in good objects. His speech upon the malt-tax had manifested great care, knowledge, and industrious research; and now his introduction of a measure for the commutation of tithes impressed his hearers yet more with a sense of these qualities. He hoped to induce a pretty general commutation of tithes, by offering facilities and inducements to such a settlement. His antagonists believed that none but a compulsory commutation would take full effect; and many pronounced any settlement at all of that question an achievement not to be expected of any statesman whatever. This was no occasion of party strife, while it evidently improved the Minister's position. He had caused the re-appointment of all the committees of the preceding session which had for their object the investigation into needs and abuses; and it was clear to all by this time that he had no intention of meddling with any questions on which the mind of Parliament had been declared, and its legislation settled. With regard to other matters, as well as education in Ireland, and the incipient plan for England and Wales, he declared his principle to be to acquiesce in what had been deliberately decided on, and to endeavor faithfully to carry out the purposes of the Legislature.

One of the first acts of the ministry had been to issue a comEcclesiastical mission to inquire into the evils which had arisen from commission. the old ecclesiastical arrangements, now outgrown, about the territorial divisions, income, and patronage of the Church. Already the commission were in waiting with their report, which was presented on the 19th of March. A new arrangement of dioceses was proposed, and the erection of two new bishoprics, those of Manchester and Ripon; while, on the other hand, the sees of Bangor and St. Asaph might be united, and also those of Llandaff and Bristol. An equalization of great church incomes, and a fairer distribution of work and salaries, were also proposed. About the same time, the Attorney-General gave notice of a Bill to Amend the Discipline of the Church of England; and he also renewed a measure for the improvement of the administration of ecclesiastical law, which had been originated under the Duke of Wellington's former ministry, and adopted by the Whigs in their act of issuing a commission. There was much disputation as to which party ought to enjoy the credit of these proceedings; for it was not yet clear to all who were in high places that a time was come, when, by a law of necessity, men must make a common stock of statesmanship, must unite their wisdom for the general good, -and be satisfied with the honor and blessing of having originated, or of having carried through, good measures, with all procurable assistance from every quarter, without insisting on that glory of a more ancient statesmanship, in which the people had little or no part, of being responsible for the whole conception, preparation, and execution of a new act of policy. Our successive ministers and their parties were, for a series of years, incessantly complaining of each other for taking up and carrying good measures which they did not originate; but what would they deserve as ministers if they avoided taking up and carrying good measures because they did not originate them? Ours are not times when men can say: "That is my bit of truth, and you shall not have it," "That is my bit of usefulness, and you shall not touch it." The truth and the usefulness become, under a faithful representative system, as free as the light and the air. The real glory is in effectually dispensing them, a work in which every political benefactor we have is more or less concerned with some predecessor; and if, in the midst of such work, any man's heart is really set upon his due of praise for his precise share in the suggestion and management, it might be easy to ascertain that precise share. The difficulty would be to make anybody care to know what it was. Amidst the prevalence of the charges all round of borrowing or stealing political measures, the people are quietly drawing their inferences; surely distin

guishing the make-shift politician who catches at a popular cry, takes up in a slovenly way what is suggested to him, and offers it without improvement or adaptation, from the true statesman, who, amidst many mistakes of his opponents, sees here and there a good embryo measure, reflects upon and expands it, collects all needful knowledge about it, imbues it with originality and life, clothes it with a proper organization, and produces it in his day of power, acknowledging whence he derived it, but secretly conscious that but for him it would never have been thus matured. Such has been the process, so repeatedly and so conspicuously, of late years, on our platform of government, that men in high places have begun to understand it like the crowd below; and we hear less complaint, with every change of government, of a borrowing or stealing of the thoughts of rivals; but, during the short Peel Administration of 1835, such complaints were abundant, and very bitter.

not

defeats.

charter.

This short Administration was now approaching its close. On the 24th of March, the Minister was outvoted about Ministers' the functions of a committee to inquire into a charge of intimidation at the late Chatham election, by an officer in command there. On the 26th, another defeat was sustained on the question of the London University charter. The grounds of proceeding about this charter had been examined by the Privy Council; and, during the period of Whig government, nothing had been done about it; while Oxford and Cambridge had petitioned against any permission to the Lon- London don University to grant degrees of the same denomi- University nations as those of the ancient universities; objecting, as they declared, to the grant of a charter, or the power of conferring academical honors, but desiring to keep appropriate to themselves the titles of honor which should prove that those who bore them belonged to the Established Church, and had graduated at Oxford or Cambridge.2 The motion on the present occasion was for an address to the King, beseeching him to grant such a charter to the London University as was approved by the law-officers of the Crown in 1831, and containing no other restriction than against conferring degrees in divinity and in medicine. The proposers declared, on being questioned, that the reason why they brought forward this motion now was, that they had no longer the hope which existed in the days of a Liberal government of the admission of Dissenters to the old universities; and, if such admission could not be obtained, they must seek for justice in the social career by acquiring such privileges as could be had for the one university which was open to them. The government amendment was one which did no 1 Hansard, xxvii. p. 212. 2 Hansard, xxvii. p. 283.