1852.

His Bishopric, how obtained.

73

hearted men were saved, by difference of age, from contact with a nature so uncongenial to their own. From Corpus Mr. Philpotts passed to Magdalene, where he afterwards obtained a fellowship; but he did not remain many years a resident at Oxford. He was first withdrawn from thence to the situation of private tutor in a nobleman's family; but we need not dwell upon the subsequent steps of his advance, till he made himself a public character by the notoriety of his pamphlets against Catholic Emancipation, and his controversial invectives against the Church of Rome. These writings, which were distinguished alike by violence and by ability, were highly acceptable to the 'powers that were' in those days; and they secured for their author a rapid promotion, first to the golden rectory of Stanhope*, and then to the Deanery of Chester. But his bishopric was not obtained without a more arduous service. The Government which carried Catholic Emancipation was a Tory Government; and Tory statesmen naturally desired to avert the loss of that clerical support on which their power had so mainly depended: they knew the prejudices of the clergy, and felt how much they would be shocked by the passing of the measure; and they reasonably wished to secure the support of that one of its most prominent ecclesiastical opponents who had opposed it especially on religious grounds, and had most successfully enlisted clerical passions against it. His conversion and his arguments, it was hoped, might convince, or at least silence many who hitherto had hung so fondly on his words. Accordingly the conversion of Dr. Philpotts was effected at this critical juncture. He wrote in favour of the Bill, and he voted for the author of the Bill, at the memorable Oxford election of 1829. Those who are old enough to remember that exciting contest, will not have forgotten that some of its most amusing incidents were connected with the name of Philpotts; they will remember how the print shops were crowded with caricatures of the future prelate; they will remember the indignant aspect of the rustic pastors who crowded fast and furious to the poll; and how, one after another, when he had registered his vote against the traitor Peel,' rushed off to the engraver's for a picture of the great rat,' to carry home to his parish. Nor can they have forgotten that impudent undergraduate, who deliberately stopped the Dean of

* Some of our readers will remember the struggle which the Bishop made to retain this living, together with his bishopric, and the debate in the House of Commons on the subject. He was obliged, however, to surrender it, which he did very adroitly, by exchanging it for the golden stall which he still holds at Durham,

6

Chester as he was walking down the High Street, accosting him with extended right hand, and the exclamation, Rat it, Philpotts, how are you?'

Such symptoms showed that the Dean's disinterested change of opinion was not as favourably received by his old admirers* as might have been anticipated by the statesmen who had laboured for his conversion; nevertheless, it was duly rewarded by the arbiters of ecclesiastical destiny, and before the close of the following year he quitted the Deanery of Chester for the See of Exeter. But though his crosier was won by inconsistency in politics, it has been wielded with a consistent policy. During an episcopate of more than twenty years he has pursued the same well-considered ends by the same wellchosen means, with consummate ability, untiring energy, and unswerving perseverance. The ends which he has thus steadily sought have been, first, to increase his authority; secondly, to promote his relatives; thirdly, to keep himself prominently before the public. Every act of his administration may be referred to one of these three motives,-to love of power, to love of family, or to love of notoriety. We will first illustrate the operation of these ruling principles of his episcopal government by a few examples, and afterwards proceed to consider the chief means by which these ends have been attained.

First, then, the Bishop has made it his great endeavour so to exercise his office as to gratify his love of power. We have seen that, according to his theory, a bishop is an irresponsible despot, supreme over his diocese, and subject to no superior; and this theory he has carried out in practice, so far as circumstances have permitted, by exercising in the most vexatious manner the powers which the law allowed him, and usurping, where he safely might, the powers which the law denied. The executive power of a bishop is almost confined to the right of enforcing the Rubric and Canons of the Church. But this code is in so many instances

* The disgust excited among them by this exceedingly sudden conversion (his strongest work against Emancipation being published the very year before he assented to the measure) is amusingly illustrated by a letter to Lord Eldon, which the Bishop has caused to be published in the Life of that nobleman. Lord Eldon appears to have shown his disgust at the Bishop's tergiversation by a marked coldness, and an assumption of superior rectitude, which was continued for some years. And the Bishop rebukes him for his self-righteousness, and shows him the danger of relying on his own works, in a strain really quite evangelical. Many excellent persons have been much edified by this letter. See Twiss's Life of Lord Eldon, vol. iii. p. 295.

1852.

His Rubrical Martinetism.

75

practically obsolete, that there is no more ample field for vexatious and inconsistent interference; the weightier matters of the law must be abandoned, but its mint, anise, and cummin may be scrupulously exacted. To enforce it, moreover, in this manner, is particularly gratifying to a man who loves the exercise of arbitrary dominion for its own sake. Thus Bishop Philpotts distinguished himself from the first as a Rubrical martinet. The great violations of the Rubric, which are daily committed by every clergyman in his diocese, he not only connives at, but sanctions by his own example. The positive law which commands the daily celebration of morning and evening service he has never attempted to enforce or to obey. He himself violates the Rubric every time he Confirms, and disobeys the Canons of the Universal Church *, by deserting his episcopal residence in the cathedral city. But the transposition of a lesson, the alteration of a syllable, the omission of a paternoster, the misplacing of a collect, he visits with instant punishment. Thus he proceeded against Mr. Gorham, under the Clergy Discipline Act,' upon a charge of having once omitted the Lord's Prayer in the Service for the Churching of Women. Thus he prosecuted Mr. Smith for placing a few flowers upon his communion table. And so he lately hunted a laborious curate out of his diocese, for the offence of allowing a parent to stand sponsor to his child, contrary to a semi-obsolete canon: and this offence was called by the Bishop (who, as we have seen, habitually violates the Rubric himself, and had just excommunicated the Primate,) ‘the 'most discreditable instance of irregularity which had ever come 'under his notice.' But the most curious and characteristic example of his rubrical martinetism occurred at the church where he was in the habit of attending service at Torquay, while Mr. Edward Elliot (the well-known author) was officiating. It was one of those Sundays on which the Athanasian Creed is appointed to be read; but the clergyman, forgetting this circumstance, was proceeding as usual with the Apostles' Creed, when suddenly he was stopped, and his words overpowered by a voice of thunder, which shouted forth, "Whosoever will be 'saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic 'faith. It was the voice of the Bishop, who would not be defrauded of his favourite damnatory clauses. It might have been supposed that this striking exhibition of authority would

*In those very African Canons which the Bishop (so unluckily for himself) declared in his letter to the Archbishop to be of universal obligation, it is expressly ordered that the bishop should live close to his cathedral, ut Episcopus non longè ab Ecclesiâ hospitiolum

'habeat.

have sufficed for a single morning; but more was yet to come. It was a Sacramental Sunday, and the mass of the congregation had quitted the building, leaving the communicants alone. The Communion Service was proceeding, in the midst of the holy calm so peculiar to that hour, and so soothing to every Christian heart. But the stillness was rudely broken by the Bishop's voice, vociferating once more in a tone of startling energy DAMNATION!' The interruption had been caused by Mr. Elliot's altering this word, to which the Bishop is so partial, into condemnation, in a passage of the Exhortation,' where it is manifestly equivalent to the term substituted by Mr. Elliot.* We were much amused by the remark of a county magistrate, who on hearing this anecdote said, 'Had I been present, I should have fined the Bishop five shillings for "profane 6.66 swearing;" and should have desired the churchwardens to 'prosecute him in his own Consistory Court for "brawling in church."

But it would have been well had our prelate's love of power exhausted itself in such petty interference and trivial annoyances as we have described:

Atque utinam his potius nugis tota illa dedisset
Tempora sævitiæ!

might be the exclamation of the spoliated patrons of his diocese, whose livings he has given to his relations or his partisans, 'to be the portion of his servants, and the heritage of his kinsfolk.' The executive power of a bishop, as we have said, is extremely limited; but the power which he may usurp, by abusing the judicial trust wherewith the law invests him, is often very considerable. Our readers are aware that the greater part of ecclesiastical patronage is in the hands of lay patrons, who, upon the vacancy of a benefice, nominate a clergyman to succeed to the incumbency. The clergyman so nominated is instituted by the bishop, whose duty it is to ascertain the legal qualifications of the clerk presented to him, and to administer to him certain oaths by law appointed. The law gives to the bishop no cognisance of the patron's title to present, that being regarded not as an ecclesiastical but as a civil right, cognisable by the Court of Common Pleas, not by the Court of Arches. Hence, if there be but one undisputed claimant to the right of presentation, the bishop's duty is simply to institute the patron's nominee, without questioning

* In 'they eat and drink their own damnation,' Mr. Elliot read 'condemnation.' The original word is кpiμa.

1852.

His Love of Lapses.

77

his title. If there be more than one party claiming to present, the bishop must institute the nominee of that party whose claim seems best founded*; which will leave to the other party his civil action, and transmit the determination of the cause to the temporal courts. Such is the course adopted by all other bishops, we believe, without a single exception. But Bishop Philpotts is not a man to be fettered by precedents, or to suffer common usage to prevent him from seizing any available point of vantage. He appears to act sytematically upon the theory that all the patronage in the diocese rightfully belongs to the bishop, and that all means are justifiable which may defeat the claims of any other patron. Upon the vacancy of a living, it is his practice (wherever he thinks there is a chance of its succeeding) to demand the inspection of the patron's title deeds. If these are surrendered, and if any flaw therein can be detected by the legal acuteness for which he is distinguished, he refuses to institute the patron's presentee. Yet this refusal is not made harshly or abruptly. At first the Bishop merely hints his doubts with a bland politeness, professing the greatest willingness and even anxiety to be convinced of the patron's rights. At this stage, a subtle courtesy is an essential part of his policy; for, were he at once to refuse to institute, the patron would bring a writ of Quare impedit against him immediately, which would anticipate the lapse, and render it impossible to usurp the benefice. And now indeed (since his tactics have become generally understood) this would be the course of every patron not extremely illadvised, upon the Bishop's evincing the slightest hesitation. But in the earlier years of his episcopate, even lawyers fell into the pit; they were in the habit of trusting implicitly to other bishops in cases of this description; and they did not demur even to betray their client's title, at the request of the Bishop of Exeter for further information. They even refrained from recommending legal proceedings in a case where they suspected no ultimate difficulty, but only imagined a little scrupu

There is a legal method provided, whereby the bishop is bound to ascertain this, called a Jus Patronatûs, which is thus described by Blackstone: A jus patronatûs is a commission from the bishop, 'directed usually to his chancellor and others of competent learning; 'who are to summon a jury of six clergymen and six laymen, to 'inquire into and examine who is the rightful patron, and if, upon 'such inquiry made, and certificate thereof returned by the com'missioners, he admits and institutes the clerk of that patron whom 'they return as the true one, the bishop secures himself at all events 'from being a disturber, whatever proceedings may be had after'wards in the temporal courts.' (Blackstone, vol. iii. p. 246.)