The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) π
Excerpt from the book:
Read free book Β«The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) πΒ» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
Download in Format:
- Author: Thomas Babington Macaulay
Read book online Β«The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) πΒ». Author - Thomas Babington Macaulay
few; and
even the highest were mean, when compared with the glory which
had once surrounded the princes of the hierarchy. The state kept
by Parker and Grindal seemed beggarly to those who remembered the
imperial pomp of Wolsey, his palaces, which had become the
favorite abodes of royalty, Whitehall and Hampton Court, the
three sumptuous tables daily spread in his refectory, the
forty-four gorgeous copes in his chapel, his running footmen in
rich liveries, and his body guards with gilded poleaxes. Thus the
sacerdotal office lost its attraction for the higher classes.
During the century which followed the accession of Elizabeth,
scarce a single person of noble descent took orders. At the close
of the reign of Charles the Second, two sons of peers were
Bishops; four or five sons of peers were priests, and held
valuable preferment: but these rare exceptions did not take away
the reproach which lay on the body. The clergy were regarded as,
on the whole, a plebeian class.77 And, indeed, for one who made
the figure of a gentleman, ten were mere menial servants. A large
proportion of those divines who had no benefices, or whose
benefices were too small to afford a comfortable revenue, lived
in the houses of laymen. It had long been evident that this
practice tended to degrade the priestly character. Laud had
exerted himself to effect a change; and Charles the First had
repeatedly issued positive orders that none but men of high rank
should presume to keep domestic chaplains.78 But these
injunctions had become obsolete. Indeed during the domination of
the Puritan, many of the ejected ministers of the Church of
England could obtain bread and shelter only by attaching
themselves to the households of royalist gentlemen; and the
habits which had been formed in those times of trouble continued
long after the reestablishment of monarchy and episcopacy. In the
mansions of men of liberal sentiments and cultivated
understandings, the chaplain was doubtless treated with urbanity
and kindness. His conversation, his literary assistance, his
spiritual advice, were considered as an ample return for his
food, his lodging, and his stipend. But this was not the general
feeling of the country gentlemen. The coarse and ignorant squire,
who thought that it belonged to his dignity to have grace said
every day at his table by an ecclesiastic in full canonicals,
found means to reconcile dignity with economy. A young Levite-
such was the phrase then in use-might be had for his board, a
small garret, and ten pounds a year, and might not only perform
his own professional functions, might not only be the most
patient of butts and of listeners, might not only be always ready
in fine weather for bowls, and in rainy weather for shovelboard,
but might also save the expense of a gardener, or of a groom.
Sometimes the reverend man nailed up the apricots; and sometimes
he curried the coach horses. He cast up the farrier's bills. He
walked ten miles with a message or a parcel. He was permitted to
dine with the family; but he was expected to content himself with
the plainest fare. He might fill himself with the corned beef and
the carrots: but, as soon as the tarts and cheesecakes made their
appearance, he quitted his seat, and stood aloof till he was
summoned to return thanks for the repast, from a great part of
which he had been excluded.79
Perhaps, after some years of service, he was presented to a
living sufficient to support him; but he often found it necessary
to purchase his preferment by a species of Simony, which
furnished an inexhaustible subject of pleasantry to three or four
generations of scoffers. With his cure he was expected to take a
wife. The wife had ordinarily been in the patron's service; and
it was well if she was not suspected of standing too high in the
patron's favor. Indeed the nature of the matrimonial connections
which the clergymen of that age were in the habit of forming is
the most certain indication of the place which the order held in
the social system. An Oxonian, writing a few months after the
death of Charles the Second, complained bitterly, not only that
the country attorney and the country apothecary looked down with
disdain on the country clergyman but that one of the lessons most
earnestly inculcated on every girl of honourable family was to
give no encouragement to a lover in orders, and that, if any
young lady forgot this precept, she was almost as much disgraced
as by an illicit amour.80 Clarendon, who assuredly bore no ill
will to the priesthood, mentions it as a sign of the confusion of
ranks which the great rebellion had produced, that some damsels
of noble families had bestowed themselves on divines.81 A waiting
woman was generally considered as the most suitable helpmate for
a parson. Queen Elizabeth, as head of the Church, had given what
seemed to be a formal sanction to this prejudice, by issuing
special orders that no clergyman should presume to espouse a
servant girl, without the consent of the master or mistress.82
During several generations accordingly the relation between
divines and handmaidens was a theme for endless jest; nor would
it be easy to find, in the comedy of the seventeenth century, a
single instance of a clergyman who wins a spouse above the rank
of cook.83 Even so late as the time of George the Second, the
keenest of all observers of life and manners, himself a priest,
remarked that, in a great household, the chaplain was the
resource of a lady's maid whose character had been blown upon,
and who was therefore forced to give up hopes of catching the
steward.84
In general the divine who quitted his chaplainship for a benefice
and a wife found that he had only exchanged one class of
vexations for another. Hardly one living in fifty enabled the
incumbent to bring up a family comfortably. As children
multiplied end grew, the household of the priest became more and
more beggarly. Holes appeared more and more plainly in the thatch
of his parsonage and in his single cassock. Often it was only by
toiling on his glebe, by feeding swine, and by loading dungcarts,
that he could obtain daily bread; nor did his utmost exertions
always prevent the bailiffs from taking his concordance and his
inkstand in execution. It was a white day on which he was
admitted into the kitchen of a great house, and regaled by the
servants with cold meat and ale. His children were brought up
like the children of the neighbouring peasantry. His boys
followed the plough; and his girls went out to service.85 Study
he found impossible: for the advowson of his living would hardly
have sold for a sum sufficient to purchase a good theological
library; and he might be considered as unusually lucky if he had
ten or twelve dogeared volumes among the pots and pans on his
shelves. Even a keen and strong intellect might be expected to
rust in so unfavourable a situation.
Assuredly there was at that time no lack in the English Church of
ministers distinguished by abilities and learning But it is to be
observed that these ministers were not scattered among the rural
population. They were brought together at a few places where the
means of acquiring knowledge were abundant, and where the
opportunities of vigorous intellectual exercise were frequent.86
At such places were to be found divines qualified by parts, by
eloquence, by wide knowledge of literature, of science, and of
life, to defend their Church victoriously against heretics and
sceptics, to command the attention of frivolous and worldly
congregations, to guide the deliberations of senates, and to make
religion respectable, even in the most dissolute of courts. Some
laboured to fathom the abysses of metaphysical theology: some
were deeply versed in biblical criticism; and some threw light on
the darkest parts of ecclesiastical history. Some proved
themselves consummate masters of logic. Some cultivated rhetoric
with such assiduity and success that their discourses are still
justly valued as models of style. These eminent men were to be
found, with scarcely a single exception, at the Universities, at
the great Cathedrals, or in the capital. Barrow had lately died
at Cambridge; and Pearson had gone thence to the episcopal bench.
Cudworth and Henry More were still living there. South and
Pococke, Jane and Aldrich, were at Oxford, Prideaux was in the
close of Norwich, and Whitby in the close of Salisbury. But it
was chiefly by the London clergy, who were always spoken of as a
class apart, that the fame of their profession for learning and
eloquence was upheld. The principal pulpits of the metropolis
were occupied about this time by a crowd of distinguished men,
from among whom was selected a large proportion of the rulers of
the Church. Sherlock preached at the Temple, Tillotson at
Lincoln's Inn, Wake and Jeremy Collier at Gray's Inn, Burnet at
the Rolls, Stillingfleet at Saint Paul's Cathedral, Patrick at
Saint Paul's in Covent Garden, Fowler at Saint Giles's,
Cripplegate, Sharp at Saint Giles's in the Fields, Tenison at
Saint Martin's, Sprat at Saint Margaret's, Beveridge at Saint
Peter's in Cornhill. Of these twelve men, all of high note in
ecclesiastical history, ten became Bishops, and four Archbishops.
Meanwhile almost the only important theological works which came
forth from a rural parsonage were those of George Bull,
afterwards Bishop of Saint David's; and Bull never would have
produced those works, had he not inherited an estate, by the sale
of which he was enabled to collect a library, such as probably no
other country clergyman in England possessed.87
Thus the Anglican priesthood was divided into two sections,
which, in acquirements, in manners, and in social position,
differed widely from each other. One section, trained for cities
and courts, comprised men familiar with all ancient and modern
learning; men able to encounter Hobbes or Bossuet at all the
weapons of controversy; men who could, in their sermons, set
forth the majesty and beauty of Christianity with such justness
of thought, and such energy of language, that the indolent
Charles roused himself to listen and the fastidious Buckingham
forgot to sneer; men whose address, politeness, and knowledge of
the world qualified them to manage the consciences of the wealthy
and noble; men with whom Halifax loved to discuss the interests
of empires, and from whom Dryden was not ashamed to own that he
had learned to write.88 The other section was destined to ruder
and humbler service. It was dispersed over the country, and
consisted chiefly of persons not at all wealthier, and not much
more refined, than small farmers or upper servants. Yet it was in
these rustic priests, who derived but a scanty subsistence from
their tithe sheaves and tithe pigs, and who had not the smallest
even the highest were mean, when compared with the glory which
had once surrounded the princes of the hierarchy. The state kept
by Parker and Grindal seemed beggarly to those who remembered the
imperial pomp of Wolsey, his palaces, which had become the
favorite abodes of royalty, Whitehall and Hampton Court, the
three sumptuous tables daily spread in his refectory, the
forty-four gorgeous copes in his chapel, his running footmen in
rich liveries, and his body guards with gilded poleaxes. Thus the
sacerdotal office lost its attraction for the higher classes.
During the century which followed the accession of Elizabeth,
scarce a single person of noble descent took orders. At the close
of the reign of Charles the Second, two sons of peers were
Bishops; four or five sons of peers were priests, and held
valuable preferment: but these rare exceptions did not take away
the reproach which lay on the body. The clergy were regarded as,
on the whole, a plebeian class.77 And, indeed, for one who made
the figure of a gentleman, ten were mere menial servants. A large
proportion of those divines who had no benefices, or whose
benefices were too small to afford a comfortable revenue, lived
in the houses of laymen. It had long been evident that this
practice tended to degrade the priestly character. Laud had
exerted himself to effect a change; and Charles the First had
repeatedly issued positive orders that none but men of high rank
should presume to keep domestic chaplains.78 But these
injunctions had become obsolete. Indeed during the domination of
the Puritan, many of the ejected ministers of the Church of
England could obtain bread and shelter only by attaching
themselves to the households of royalist gentlemen; and the
habits which had been formed in those times of trouble continued
long after the reestablishment of monarchy and episcopacy. In the
mansions of men of liberal sentiments and cultivated
understandings, the chaplain was doubtless treated with urbanity
and kindness. His conversation, his literary assistance, his
spiritual advice, were considered as an ample return for his
food, his lodging, and his stipend. But this was not the general
feeling of the country gentlemen. The coarse and ignorant squire,
who thought that it belonged to his dignity to have grace said
every day at his table by an ecclesiastic in full canonicals,
found means to reconcile dignity with economy. A young Levite-
such was the phrase then in use-might be had for his board, a
small garret, and ten pounds a year, and might not only perform
his own professional functions, might not only be the most
patient of butts and of listeners, might not only be always ready
in fine weather for bowls, and in rainy weather for shovelboard,
but might also save the expense of a gardener, or of a groom.
Sometimes the reverend man nailed up the apricots; and sometimes
he curried the coach horses. He cast up the farrier's bills. He
walked ten miles with a message or a parcel. He was permitted to
dine with the family; but he was expected to content himself with
the plainest fare. He might fill himself with the corned beef and
the carrots: but, as soon as the tarts and cheesecakes made their
appearance, he quitted his seat, and stood aloof till he was
summoned to return thanks for the repast, from a great part of
which he had been excluded.79
Perhaps, after some years of service, he was presented to a
living sufficient to support him; but he often found it necessary
to purchase his preferment by a species of Simony, which
furnished an inexhaustible subject of pleasantry to three or four
generations of scoffers. With his cure he was expected to take a
wife. The wife had ordinarily been in the patron's service; and
it was well if she was not suspected of standing too high in the
patron's favor. Indeed the nature of the matrimonial connections
which the clergymen of that age were in the habit of forming is
the most certain indication of the place which the order held in
the social system. An Oxonian, writing a few months after the
death of Charles the Second, complained bitterly, not only that
the country attorney and the country apothecary looked down with
disdain on the country clergyman but that one of the lessons most
earnestly inculcated on every girl of honourable family was to
give no encouragement to a lover in orders, and that, if any
young lady forgot this precept, she was almost as much disgraced
as by an illicit amour.80 Clarendon, who assuredly bore no ill
will to the priesthood, mentions it as a sign of the confusion of
ranks which the great rebellion had produced, that some damsels
of noble families had bestowed themselves on divines.81 A waiting
woman was generally considered as the most suitable helpmate for
a parson. Queen Elizabeth, as head of the Church, had given what
seemed to be a formal sanction to this prejudice, by issuing
special orders that no clergyman should presume to espouse a
servant girl, without the consent of the master or mistress.82
During several generations accordingly the relation between
divines and handmaidens was a theme for endless jest; nor would
it be easy to find, in the comedy of the seventeenth century, a
single instance of a clergyman who wins a spouse above the rank
of cook.83 Even so late as the time of George the Second, the
keenest of all observers of life and manners, himself a priest,
remarked that, in a great household, the chaplain was the
resource of a lady's maid whose character had been blown upon,
and who was therefore forced to give up hopes of catching the
steward.84
In general the divine who quitted his chaplainship for a benefice
and a wife found that he had only exchanged one class of
vexations for another. Hardly one living in fifty enabled the
incumbent to bring up a family comfortably. As children
multiplied end grew, the household of the priest became more and
more beggarly. Holes appeared more and more plainly in the thatch
of his parsonage and in his single cassock. Often it was only by
toiling on his glebe, by feeding swine, and by loading dungcarts,
that he could obtain daily bread; nor did his utmost exertions
always prevent the bailiffs from taking his concordance and his
inkstand in execution. It was a white day on which he was
admitted into the kitchen of a great house, and regaled by the
servants with cold meat and ale. His children were brought up
like the children of the neighbouring peasantry. His boys
followed the plough; and his girls went out to service.85 Study
he found impossible: for the advowson of his living would hardly
have sold for a sum sufficient to purchase a good theological
library; and he might be considered as unusually lucky if he had
ten or twelve dogeared volumes among the pots and pans on his
shelves. Even a keen and strong intellect might be expected to
rust in so unfavourable a situation.
Assuredly there was at that time no lack in the English Church of
ministers distinguished by abilities and learning But it is to be
observed that these ministers were not scattered among the rural
population. They were brought together at a few places where the
means of acquiring knowledge were abundant, and where the
opportunities of vigorous intellectual exercise were frequent.86
At such places were to be found divines qualified by parts, by
eloquence, by wide knowledge of literature, of science, and of
life, to defend their Church victoriously against heretics and
sceptics, to command the attention of frivolous and worldly
congregations, to guide the deliberations of senates, and to make
religion respectable, even in the most dissolute of courts. Some
laboured to fathom the abysses of metaphysical theology: some
were deeply versed in biblical criticism; and some threw light on
the darkest parts of ecclesiastical history. Some proved
themselves consummate masters of logic. Some cultivated rhetoric
with such assiduity and success that their discourses are still
justly valued as models of style. These eminent men were to be
found, with scarcely a single exception, at the Universities, at
the great Cathedrals, or in the capital. Barrow had lately died
at Cambridge; and Pearson had gone thence to the episcopal bench.
Cudworth and Henry More were still living there. South and
Pococke, Jane and Aldrich, were at Oxford, Prideaux was in the
close of Norwich, and Whitby in the close of Salisbury. But it
was chiefly by the London clergy, who were always spoken of as a
class apart, that the fame of their profession for learning and
eloquence was upheld. The principal pulpits of the metropolis
were occupied about this time by a crowd of distinguished men,
from among whom was selected a large proportion of the rulers of
the Church. Sherlock preached at the Temple, Tillotson at
Lincoln's Inn, Wake and Jeremy Collier at Gray's Inn, Burnet at
the Rolls, Stillingfleet at Saint Paul's Cathedral, Patrick at
Saint Paul's in Covent Garden, Fowler at Saint Giles's,
Cripplegate, Sharp at Saint Giles's in the Fields, Tenison at
Saint Martin's, Sprat at Saint Margaret's, Beveridge at Saint
Peter's in Cornhill. Of these twelve men, all of high note in
ecclesiastical history, ten became Bishops, and four Archbishops.
Meanwhile almost the only important theological works which came
forth from a rural parsonage were those of George Bull,
afterwards Bishop of Saint David's; and Bull never would have
produced those works, had he not inherited an estate, by the sale
of which he was enabled to collect a library, such as probably no
other country clergyman in England possessed.87
Thus the Anglican priesthood was divided into two sections,
which, in acquirements, in manners, and in social position,
differed widely from each other. One section, trained for cities
and courts, comprised men familiar with all ancient and modern
learning; men able to encounter Hobbes or Bossuet at all the
weapons of controversy; men who could, in their sermons, set
forth the majesty and beauty of Christianity with such justness
of thought, and such energy of language, that the indolent
Charles roused himself to listen and the fastidious Buckingham
forgot to sneer; men whose address, politeness, and knowledge of
the world qualified them to manage the consciences of the wealthy
and noble; men with whom Halifax loved to discuss the interests
of empires, and from whom Dryden was not ashamed to own that he
had learned to write.88 The other section was destined to ruder
and humbler service. It was dispersed over the country, and
consisted chiefly of persons not at all wealthier, and not much
more refined, than small farmers or upper servants. Yet it was in
these rustic priests, who derived but a scanty subsistence from
their tithe sheaves and tithe pigs, and who had not the smallest
Free e-book: Β«The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) πΒ» - read online now on website american library books (americanlibrarybooks.com)
Similar e-books:
Comments (0)