"Besides," he said, "there are two well-known preservatives against ague. The one is a good deal of care and a little port-wine; the other a little care and a good deal of port-wine." He preferred the former; but, he added, "if any of the clergy prefer the latter, it is at all events a remedy which incumbents can afford better than curates."

SAVING RIGHTEOUSNESS.

While Dr. Blomfield was rector of Chesterford, it was the permanent annoyance of every Easter Day that a stream of carriages was passing through the village, giving it the appearance, and too much of the reality, of a noisy fair, while conveying the racing men of the day to Newmarket. The aristocratic sporting men would drive up to the inn in open carriage, playing at whist, and throwing out their cards would call to the waiter for fresh packs. To remove the scandal, it was only slowly that the Jockey Club was induced to alter the first day of the meeting to Easter Tuesday. The Duke of York, when applied to on the subject by Bishop Howley, declined to alter his practice, but added that, "Though it was true he travelled to the races on Sunday, he always had a Bible and Prayer Book in the carriage!"

THE DUKE OF CLARENCE AND BISHOP BLOMFIELD.

The Bishop's acquaintance with the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William the Fourth, had the following singular commencement. The Bishop addressed a letter to the Countess of Dysart, at Ham House, requesting permission to see that ancient mansion. The Countess, hospitable as she generally was, at first declined, saying, "I never saw any Bishop here in my brother's time." Afterwards, however, she relented, and, as the most agreeable arrangement to all parties, desired Sir George Sinclair, who had married her granddaughter, to fix a day for the Bishop to dine there, adding that he might invite William the Fourth, then Duke of Clarence, and a large party to meet him. Sir George was not aware that the Duke had taken great offence at the Bishop for his recent speech and vote on Catholic emancipation. Observing that they took no notice of each other, he presented the Bishop to the Duke, who immediately addressed him in a voice loud enough to be heard by all the company, "I had lately the pleasure of seeing the Bishop of along with me in the lobby of the House of Lords, but I had not the pleasure of seeing the Bishop of London." The Bishop courteously replied, "It is with regret that I ever vote on a different side from your Royal Highness." The Duke resumed, "I was the more surprised, and I consider you the more in the wrong, because I

thought I had reason to expect the reverse." "Whether I was actually in the wrong or not," replied the Bishop, "my conscience told me that I was in the right." The Duke was about to continue, when dinner was fortunately announced. At table the Bishop drew him into conversation, and so completely conciliated his good opinion, that some days afterwards he said to Sir George Sinclair, "I like the Bishop far better than I expected, and I do not care how soon you invite him to meet me again." He felt that he had gone too far, and asked, "How did the Bishop look when I told him my mind?" "I did not see," replied Sir George, "for my eyes were fixed upon the ground." "Did any one else observe how he looked ?" "This "No; I believe their eyes were turned in the same direction.' anecdote is given on the authority of Sir George Sinclair in the Life of Bishop Blomfield, by his Son.

Dr. Blomfield asked Dr. Carr, Bishop of Chichester, to unite with him in asking the sanction of George the Fourth for a dispensation from wearing wigs. Nothing came of it; but when William the Fourth was told that the Bishop of London, in obeying his commands to dine with the King, would be glad to come without his wig, the monarch replied, "I dislike wigs as much as he does, and shall be glad to see the whole Bench wear their own hair.”

THE BISHOPS' SATURDAY NIGHT.

Sydney Smith, on the bare suggestion that Lord John Russell's Church Commission should collect the Church revenues, and pay the hierarchy out of them, imagined and described the scene of payment in the following irresistible words :

"I should like to see this subject in the hands of H. B. I would entitle the print

'The Bishops' Saturday Night; or, Lord John Russell at the Pay-table.' The Bishops should be standing before the pay-table, and receiving their weekly allowance; Lord John and Spring Rice counting, ringing, and biting the sovereigns, and the Bishop of Exeter insisting that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has given him one which was not weight; Viscount Melbourne, in high chuckle, should be standing, with his hat on, and his back to the fire, delighted with the contest; and the Deans and Canons should be in the background, waiting till their turn came, and the Bishops were paid; and among them a Canon, of large composition, urging them not to give way too much to the Bench; perhaps I should add, the President of the Board of Trade recommending the truck-principle to the Bishops, and offering to pay them in basso cks, casocks, aprons, shovel-hats, sermon-cases, and such-like ecclesiastical gear."

A SMALL CHARGE.

The following version of a charge delivered to his clergy by Bishop Blomfield, the Rev. Sydney Smith solemnly declared he did

not write:

"Hunt not, fish not, shoot not,

Dance not, fiddle not, flute not;

Be sure you have nothing to do with the Whigs,

But stay at home and feed your pigs;

And above all I make it my particular desire,

That at least once a week you dine with the squire."

KEEN YET KINDLY SATIRE.

Many years ago, on the occasion of an attack upon the Church, believed to have been made by Brougham, Archdeacon Blomfield (afterwards Bishop of London) launched the following admirable piece of sarcasm :—

The reviewer asks-" Who can pretend to doubt that religious instruction might be afforded far cheaper to the people than in either England or Ireland?" He seems to consider that religious instruction is a sort of staple commodity of invariable goodness, and that by a judicious application of the principles of political economy, a bargain may be made with the ministers of religion to do the people in theology at so much a head. But you, sir, know perfectly well that if the instructor be meanly paid the instruction will fall proportionably in goodness, although the subjectmatter of instruction may remain the same. I can with ease find a tailor who " can afford me my clothes far cheaper" than I am accustomed to get them; but if my coat hangs loosely upon me, and the seams give way, and the nap wears off in a week or two, I shall not gain by the exchange. I have seen, not long since, an advertisement in one of the papers of a classical tutor professing to teach the Greek language according to the method of the late Professor Porson," in six lessons for one guinea. This is selling Greek at a much cheaper rate than that at which the public schools and universities can afford it; and, upon the reviewer's principles, I suppose we should soon have a "London Commercial Divinity Company," who would favour the public with religious instruction, unadulterated, at the lowest wholesale price.

But perhaps the secret of this inveterate rancour against the Establishment may be that which is well expressed in the Greek proverb :

When an oak falls, every man scuffles for a faggot.

Some great proprietor of coal-mines may, perhaps, anticipate with conscious delight the auspicious day

When Troy shall fall

And one prodigious ruin bury all—

when of the slices which shall be carved out of the patrimony of the See of Durham no inconsiderable share shall be added to his own territories, while you, perhaps, may carry to your tent an estate or two from some other northern diocese. Such

are ever the disinterested statesmen who exclaim against the Church, "Babylon shall be overthrown," and who look to accomplish in their own persons the remainder of the prophecy, which declares that "her palaces shall be inhabited only by owls and satyrs."-From A Remonstrance addressed to H. Brougham, Esq., by one of the Working Clergy.

WHAT IS AN ARCHDEACON ?

When Lord Althorp was Chancellor of the Exchequer, having to propose to the House of Commons a vote of 4001. a year for the salary of the Archdeacon of Bengal, the Chancellor was puzzled by a question from Mr. Hume, "What are the duties of an Archdeacon?" So he sent one of the subordinate occupants of the Treasury Bench to the other House to obtain an answer to the question from one of the Bishops. The messenger first met with Archbishop Vernon Harcourt, who described an Archdeacon as aide-de-camp to the Bishop;" and then with Bishop Copleston, of Llandaff, who said, "the Archdeacon is oculus Episcopi." Lord Althorp, however, declared that neither of these explanations would satisfy the House. Go," said he, "and ask the Bishop of London; he is a straightforward man, and will give you a plain answer." To the Bishop of London accordingly the messenger went, and repeated the question, "What is an Archdeacon ?" "An Archdeacon?" replied the Bishop, in his quick way; Ian Archdeacon is an ecclesiastical officer, who performs archidiaconal functions." And with this reply Lord Althorp and the House were perfectly satisfied.

66

66

DR. BLOMFIELD'S HUMOUR.

When a friend of the Bishop's was once interceding with him on behalf a clergyman who was constantly in debt, and had more than once been insolvent, but who was a man of talents and eloquence, he concluded his eulogium by saying, "In fact, my lord, he is quite a St. Paul." "Yes," replied the Bishop drily, "In prisons oft." And when, at the consecration of a church, where the choral parts of the service had been a failure, the incumbent had asked him what he had thought of the music, he replied, "Well, at least it was according to Scriptural precedent: The singers went before, the minstrels followed after."

Bishop Maltby, having objected to receive the diminished income which the arrangements of the Ecclesiastical Commission had fixed for the see of Durham on the death of Bishop Van Mildert, Bishop Blomfield, in allusion to Dr. Maltby's former classical labours, remarked that probably he did not wish for an abridgment of his Thesaurus.

"A curate of one of the Bishop's pet Bethnal Green churches, who has since won high rank among the educational benefactors of his age, had preached a sermon which was rather 'strong'on auricular confession, if we remember. The Bishop, who was doubly sensitive about ecclesiastical mistakes in that particular locality,

brought up his man at once, and rated him soundly. The curate was a man of true dignity; he waited till it was all over, and then said- My Lord, you are my Father in God; I venture to ask, have you spoken to me like a father now?' The Bishop paused for a few moments-the better Blomfield reasserted itself at once-he burst into a flood of tears, and they were thorough friends and intimates from that moment. There was none of the grudge that inferior people bear against persons who have for once unveiled them to themselves, and been present at the revelation." (Saturday Review.) The Bishop had been bitten by a dog in the calf of the leg, and, fearing possible hydrophobia in consequence, he went with characteristic promptitude to have the injured piece of flesh cut out by a surgeon before he returned home. Two or three on whom he called were not at home, but at last the operation was effected by the eminent surgeon, Mr. Keate. The same evening the Bishop was to have dined with a party where Sydney Smith was a guest. Before dinner a note arrived saying that he was unable to keep his engagement, a dog having rushed out from the crowd and bitten him in the leg. When this note was read aloud to the company, Sydney Smith's comment was, "I should like to hear the dog's account of the story." When this accident occurred to him, Bishop Blomfield happened to be walking with Dr. D'Oyly, the Rector of Lambeth. A lady of strong Protestant principles, mistaking Dr. D'Oyly for Dr. Doyle, said that she considered it was a judgment upon the Bishop for keeping such company.-Life of the Bishop, by his Son.

Dr. Blomfield used to tell a story of one clergyman whom he had reproved for certain irregularities of conduct which had been brought under his notice by his parishioners, and who had replied, "Your Lordship, as a classical scholar, knows that lying goes by districts; the Cretans were liars, the Cappadocians were liars, and I can assure your Lordship that the inhabitants of are liars also." Intoxi

cation was the most frequent charge against the clergy. One was so drunk, while waiting for a funeral, that he fell into the grave; another was conveyed away from a visitation dinner in a helpless state by the Bishop's own servants. A third, when rebuked for drunkenness, replied-" But, my Lord, I never was drunk on duty." "On duty!" exclaimed the Bishop; "when is a clergyman not on duty?" "True," said the other, "I never thought of that."

We remember waiting at London House for more than a long hour, to take our turn for an interview with the Bishop. In the large dining-room was a long array of dark mahogany, and one solitary book, a volume of the British Critic, containing a review of Bishop Blomfield's classical labours. Our only companion in wait