He walks about the country a good deal, and finds it pleasant, "as the common people here are much more conversable than ours." This striking difference between a Catholic and a Protestant peasantry is patent to the most superficial observer. The poor Irish, French, or Italian labourer, who can neither read nor write, is quite at his ease with the merchant or the noble. He will have his joke and his laugh, very often at the expense of his superior, and never outstep the bounds of due respect. He is light-hearted and gay everywhere, and the exact opposite of the English navvy.
The real cause of the difference is the want of religion in the poor Briton. The Catholic religion inculcates humility on the great. It brings the Lord of the Manor and his servant to the same confessional and the same altar: they may be as far asunder as pole from pole outside the church, but inside it they are both on a level. The works of mercy are insisted on, and high-born ladies are most frequently the ministering angels of the poor man's sick-bed, and the instructors of his children, and nurses of his orphans. "Blessed are the poor" is not a dead letter in Catholic theology, and until it be, and that poverty becomes felony, the same ease and happiness will pervade the peasantry of Catholic countries, which now gives them such grace and beauty. The doctrine of self-worship and money-adoration can never fuse races; there is a wide wide chasm between the upper and the lower orders in Protestant countries, which no amount of mechanics' lectures, and patronizing condescension, can bridge over, as long as the germs of the worldly system remain rooted in the education and manners of the people. Of course, these remarks do not apply to the general state of things, for there is oppression in Catholic countries as well as elsewhere; they simply concern the working of a Christian principle, if it get fair play.
He visits Pisa, Lucca, Carrara, Sestri, and stops at Genoa. A bit of the Protestant breaks out here. "We went to see that foolish sacro catino at the Cathedral, which I have no doubt is glass instead of emerald." He says again: "It makes me rather onked to be alone now, though sometimes I wish to be so. But the only solitude that is disagreeable is among numbers in a large town. The solitude of the Apennines, and such places as last night's habitation, is a pleasure to me." Now one vetturino hands him over "to another more blackguard than himself" on his way to Bologna, where he has a very satisfactory meeting with Mezzofanti once more. Off he starts through Ferrara, Rovigo, and Padua, for Venice; he visits the Piazza S. Marco, and is told complacently by a French doctor, who proved to be a terrible bore by-and-by, that it is nothing to the Palais Royal. He visits Mantua on a pilgrimage to Virgil's birthplace, and says of a sight he saw by accident: "I was amused by a figure of S. Zeno, just like a smiling Otaheitan idol of the largest dimensions, which is the great protector of the town." It is not hard to tell which way his devotion lay. Spencer and a Mr. Lefevre, who was now his travelling companion, go to a villegiatura here, and are splendidly entertained for a couple of days. They travel on for Germany through the Tyrol; from Verona to Riva they chiefly travel by the Lago di Garda, and the only incidents he chooses to record, until they come to "dem goldenen Adler" (the golden Eagle) at Brixen, are the cicerone's opinions of Catullus, whom that well-informed individual thought to have been a brigand chief. They had to bring the bill of fare before the police in Riva, but were not successful in getting a single charge diminished; he enjoyed a good deal of idyllic life along here, and did not seem to think much pro or con of the little town of Trent, though one should fancy he would say something, if it were only a few angry words about the Great Council.
He considers the Germans more honest than the Italians, and was inclined to admire their solidity and steadiness; but his driver fell asleep on their way to Innspruck, and let the reins fall on the horse's neck when descending a steep, and he veers round to the opinion that if they were a little livelier, it would be much better. On his way through Bavaria to Munich he thinks the country very like England—well cultivated and flourishing. "The costumes extraordinary, but not so pretty as the Tyrolese. The people themselves, both men and women, are the ugliest race I ever saw." They had letters of introduction to Prince Loewenstein and Count Peppenheim, two aides-de-camp of the King of Bavaria; they were invited to a royal chasse. Perhaps it is as well to give the whole account from the Journal, as it conveys an idea of German sports too fine to be overlooked.
"Monday, Aug. 21.— At 4½ this morning we started for the chasse in the mountains about three leagues off. At the end of two leagues we were stopped and obliged to walk, as the road became too narrow for the King to pass us, in case we had been in the way when he came up. So we walked the rest till we came to the toils where Loewenstein received us. The chasse was in a deep valley, shut in on the sides by precipitous rocks: into this they had tracked about 80 or 90 head of deer, and shut them in by toils at both ends; then little green enclosures were made for the guns to be posted in. We had one of these guns given us in conjunction with other spectators, the shooter who was to have been there not having arrived. Before the line was a broad course of a torrent, and beyond that was a wood into which they had forced the game, and from which they drove it again with dogs, and even into the way of the guns. This went on for 4 or 5 hours, during which they cannonaded very quick, but with little effect, for I never saw a much greater proportion of misses. The result was about 70 head of deer. We were much surprised in the middle of the time at seeing Devon walk up. He came from Salzburg for the purpose of this chasse, and stayed with us through it. After it we were standing near the place where the King was counting out the game, when Peppenheim presented us to him, and he asked us to dine at Berchtesgaden. As our carriage was so far off, we were obliged to be carried as we could, and I was taken in by Loewenstein, who is, by the bye, about the fattest man in Bavaria. We dressed directly, both ourselves and Devon, who had nothing here; and even so we were late for dinner. However, the King was so gracious and good-humoured that it all went off capitally. It was an interesting dinner for the faces that we saw. Eugene Beauharnais, Prince Schwartzenberg, Reichenbach, engineer, Maréehal Wrede, and about 16 more, were there. We stayed till about 6, and then came home.
"Tuesday, Aug. 22.— To-day we again followed the motions of the Court. Devon came over with horses from Hallein, where he had returned last night; and so we went about comfortably. Schwartzenberg took us to a famous machine of Mr. Reichenbach's, without the King. This machine is employed to raise the salt water, which is brought from the mines here, and convey it over the mountains to Reichenhall, about 3 leagues distant, where is a manufactory for extracting the salt. The reason of this is, that there is not enough wood for consumption here. It is a vast forcing-pump, which is worked by fresh water from a height of 400 feet, and raises the salt water 1,200. This water is in the proportion of 53 to 44 heavier than fresh water. I did not understand the whole explanation, being in German, but I admired the machine, which works in a room so quietly as actually not to be perceptible from the noise, except a little splashing. After this we came to a miserable dinner at the inn, which was too full to attend to us. At 1½, about, we started again to a romantic lake, König See, where another scene of this royal drama was to be enacted. The King came, with his whole party, an hour after us, and we were invited by Loewenstein into his royal boat, which was rowed by 11 men and one pretty damsel. "We went all down the lake, with several other boats full following, one of which had 4 small cannons, which they constantly discharged for the echo. The thing we came though for was, two artificial cascades from the top of the mountains, one in the course of a small torrent, which had been stopped above and made into a lake, full of large pieces of timber, which were precipitated all at once with surprising effect. The other was a dry cascade, down which two heaps of timber were discharged, like the launching of a ship from an inclined plane, the smallest of which, as I could judge from below, was twice the height of a man, and four times the length at least. The finest part of this was the prodigious splashing at the bottom, which resembled, in appearance and sound, a line of cannonading. By way of sport, this is the most superb child-amusement one could conceive. We rowed back in the same boat, and disembarked about sunset. We proceeded directly to a salt-mine, without the King, where was to be an illumination. We all were decked out in miners' habits, and embarked, in little carts drawn by two men, down a shaft 1,800 feet long, lighted by candles all the way, ourselves having one each, like white penitents. At the end of this we were surprised by entering a large chamber, perhaps 200 yards round, with a gallery at the top; the whole was surrounded by festoons of lamps, and below it was a rich star of fire, which showed the depth of the mine off to great advantage. A band of music was playing, and mines were exploded at the bottom with really tremendous noise. Altogether, this scene pleased me more than any I have seen here, or perhaps anywhere.
"Wednesday, August 23.— At 5 we started in the carriage, with Devon's servant, for the second chasse (of chamois); we found ourselves among a long train of other carriages also going there. We passed through the chasse of Monday, and went about 3 miles further on foot. We found that of 60 chamois which had been collected in the toils, 40 had escaped; so the chasse was but of about an hour's duration before they were all killed. The stands of shooters were confined, so we were made to climb up a little mountain, or rather a large rock, from which we had an excellent view of everything. The scenery was superb and wild. Before, behind, and everywhere, were immense mountains of solid and shagged rock, 9,000 feet high above the sea, with nothing like vegetation but patches of stunted firs, which did not, even so, reach halfway up their height, and looked like moss. It made a contrast with the tameness of the chasse, where about 16 chamois were driven about and killed out of little boxes, in an enclosure of a few acres. It was not so fine in that respect as the deer chasse. The King asked us again to dinner, near a small house in the valley of the deer chasse (Wimbach). The table was put on a platform under a sycamore-tree in a glorious situation. I was unexpectedly called upon to sit next to Prince Schwartzenberg, and always called milord, which probably was the original mistake. The whole business went off very satisfactorily. The King's manners are most affable, and made everything comfortable about him."
After this grand performance, our tourists took a ride through a salt-mine, astride of a plank, with a man before and behind running as fast as could be; they come finally to daylight, and shortly afterwards to Salzburg. They travelled the country to Lintz, and sailed down the Danube to Vienna, where they found the police "ridiculously strict about passports." A few days after their arrival in Vienna they took a drive through the Prater, and "during the drive we conversed on the subject of family calamities, and on one's means of bearing them. Soon after we came home, Lord Stewart's attaché, Mr. Aston, called with a letter for me from Mr. Allen, which told me of the horrible news of my brother Bob's death in America, killed in an affray with his first lieutenant! How strangely fulfilled were our yesterday's prognostics. This is a sort of thing that is too great and deep an accident to feel in the common way. I hardly understand it at this distance: I shall though before long. I went with Lefevre after dinner to Lord Stewart's, where I found a German courier was to start soon for England. I shall accompany him." This is from the Journal; we shall now give an extract from the Autobiography:—
"My first tour abroad was suddenly terminated at Vienna by a letter which I received to recall me home, from the Rev. J. Allen, now Bishop of Ely. This letter gave me notice of the supposed death of my brother Robert, in South America, who, it was reported, had been killed in an affray with his first lieutenant. This most strange story, for which there was not the slightest foundation in truth, was conveyed to our family in England in such a way as gained it entire belief, and all had been for two or three weeks in deep mourning and under the greatest affliction, when the falsehood of the report was discovered. This affliction was considered a sufficient cause for gathering together all the members of the family who were at liberty to come home; and so I was desired to return immediately. I bought a carriage at Vienna, and, travelled for some nights and days without ceasing, during which I thought to try an experiment on how little nourishment I could subsist; and from a sort of curiosity to amuse myself, for I can hardly attribute it to a better motive, I accomplished a fast which it would appear a dreadful hardship to be reduced to by necessity, and a very small approach to which, in these times, would be by most persons looked on as a most unreasonable austerity. I passed those successive intervals of 38, 50, and 53 hours, as I find in my journal, without touching the least particle of food to eat or drink; and what I took between the intervals was only a little tea and bread and butter. This matter is not worth noticing, except to show that, as I went through this, while travelling, which is rather an exhausting employment, without the least detriment to my health, and without a feeling of hunger almost all the time, it is a sad delusion for people in good health to fancy they need so many indulgences and relaxations to go through the fasts appointed by the Church.
"It was when I got to Calais that I went to the English news-room to see further accounts in the newspapers of my brother's death, the report of which, though at first I had some suspicions it might be false, I afterwards had made up my mind entirely to believe. My joy was exceeding great at finding an explicit contradiction to it in one of the latest papers. I remember going on my knees to thank God, in the news-room, when I found myself alone, which I believe was the first occasion for a long, long time I had made a prayer of any sort, or gone on my knees, except in church-service time. This I never gave up entirely, and during this time I never gave up receiving the Sacrament explicitly, though I do not find that I received it all the time I was abroad. I did not intend to commit acts of hypocrisy, but must have gone on from custom and a certain sense of propriety, without considering that I was mocking God."
On his arrival at Althorp he found the family all in the most joyous mood possible. A little passage of his Journal gives an idea of the character of the noble family in their relations with the tenantry:—
"Friday, Sept. 22. Bread and meat given to the poor of Brington, Brampton, and Harleston, as a rejoicing for Bob's recovery. Three oxen were killed, and the effect seemed very good. They gave some lively cheers as they departed."
He goes to London, and hears Henry Brougham's speech on Queen Caroline's trial; and immediately after, he starts for Switzerland to see his sister, Lady Georgiana Quin. We shall relate this in his own words in the Autobiography:—
"I became so fond of the business of travelling that, as I was returning homewards, my mind was occupied constantly with plans for further excursions. I intended to have gone with Lefevre from Vienna to Dresden and Berlin on our way home, but I could not think of regarding this as my last journey. I was longing to see Greece. I had had thoughts of Spain, Russia, Egypt, and various indeed have been the fancies and inclinations which have passed through my mind. The regular travelling mania had its turn about this time, and I wonder not, by my feelings then, at so many of our countrymen, whom I have known myself, who have left England for a short excursion, and not having professional engagements, nor wise parents and relations, as I had, to control them, have become regular wanderers, and have spent, in travelling about, the years on the good employment of which, at home, depended mainly their success in after-life. It may be judged how truly I was possessed with this spirit of wandering, at the time of which I speak, by my remaining but one fortnight at Althorp with my family before I was again on wing. My sister, Lady Georgiana Quin—whose society had made to me one of the chief charms of the winter at Naples, and whose being at Naples with Lord George, her husband, and her children, had been the main inducement for my father and mother to make an undertaking, at their age, and with their habits, so extraordinary as this long journey—had left Naples during my tour in Sicily, and was settled at a country-house called the Château de Bethusy, near Lausanne. I proposed going to see her, and to give her the full account of all that concerned the strange report about my brother Robert. I wonder at my having had my parents' consent to make another departure so soon, and with apparently so insufficient an object. I suppose they thought it reasonable to give me this liberty, by way of compensation for the sudden cutting-off of my first grand tour. This time I passed by Dieppe to Paris, thence by Lyons to Bethusy, where, having stayed a fortnight—the pleasantest, and, alas! almost the last days I had in my sister's company—I returned by Nancy to Paris, and thence through Calais to England. I reached Althorp on the 19th of November, 1820. And so the fancy for travelling soon died away, as my prospects for fresh journeys met with no encouragement at home; and here is an end of all my travellings for mere travelling's sake. When next I left England, it was, thank God, with thoughts and views far other than before."
An extract from the Journal of this time may not be without interest:—
"October 17, 1820.— With this day's journal ends the third year that I have kept it. This year has been the most interesting and varied I have ever passed, and probably ever shall, for my travelling will not last long. I certainly have reaped advantages in some respects, and great ones. I have had experience in the world, and have learnt to shift for myself better than I could have done by any other means. I have, I hope, increased the confidence of my family in me; and, above all, I have nearly expelled that melancholy disposition I gained at college; but most active I feel I must be to prevent its return when I again remain quiet in England. I have still a damper to my prospects that occasionally overwhelms me, but I must, I trust, get over that too; as I have now persuaded myself on sober reflection, though I am sadly slow in beginning to act on the principle, that one quality alone is within all our reach, and that one object alone is worth trying for. God grant this thought may often occur to me. I have this year enjoyed the pleasures and diversions most enlivening, and which I always most desired; but even they are insufficient to make one happy alone, though nearer to it than any others. Let us then look to what certainly can."
This train of thought seemed to have occupied his mind between his leaving Paris, and returning to it again during the last visit to his sister. There is one paragraph in the Autobiography which refers to both; here it is, and it is the last morsel of that interesting document that remains unwritten in his life:—
"The most remarkable impression of religion which I remember in all this period, was in a place where it might have been least expected. No other than the Italian Opera at Paris. I passed through that city, as I have said before, in my last journey to Lausanne, and on my return a month later. Both times I went to see the opera of Don Giovanni, which was the piece then in course of representation. I conceived that after this journey I should give up all thoughts of worldly vices. I was likely to be fixed at home till the time of my ordination, and should assume something of the character of a candidate for holy orders. In short, I felt as if it was almost my last occasion, and I was entertaining, alas! some wicked devices in my mind when I went to this most dangerous and fascinating opera, which is in itself, by the subjects it represents, one of the most calculated to beguile a weak soul to its destruction. But the last scene of it represents Don Giovanni, the hero of the piece, seized in the midst of his licentious career by a troop of devils, and hurried down to hell. As I saw this scene, I was terrified at my own state. I knew that God, who knew what was within me, must look on me as one in the same class with such as Don Giovanni, and for once this holy fear of God's judgment saved me: and this holy warning I was to find in an opera-house at Paris."
This chapter begins with his twenty-first birthday. He comes before us, a fine young man nearly six feet high, graceful and handsome, of independent mien, winning manners, and all the other attributes of gentlemanly perfection that are calculated to make him an object of attraction. His journal, even then, tends to show his worst side; we find self-accusations in every page, and the round of enjoyments broken in upon by serious correctives. For the great problem which moralists solve so easily, and those whom the solution concerns keep away from consideration, we will find in his life a golden key. It is too soon yet to speak about the special workings of Divine Grace in his soul; but, even so far off, we can find glimmerings of the glorious sun of his after-life. Let us look into the world, we find thousands that really enjoy and luxuriate in gay parties, balls, pastimes, and pleasures, without a pang of remorse, and others with sensibilities as keen, if not keener, for the relish of these luxuries, plunging into them with a kind of intoxicating gusto, and coming out fagged and disgusted, when they were perhaps thought the very soul and life of the company. We are told of a patient dying of melancholy who called in a doctor to prescribe for him; the prescription of the medical man was, that he should go and hear Mr. N., a celebrated comic actor, for a number of nights successively, and the remedy was guaranteed to prove infallible, for no one could listen to him and not laugh himself to hysterics. "Ah, my dear friend," answered the patient, "I am the veritable Mr. N. myself." It is sometimes argued that small minds of a feminine caste, composed of the ingredients which the "Spectator" wittily discovers in the dissection of a beau's head, can be content with frivolities, whilst a grand intellect is only made indignant by them. We could quote examples to bear us out in a conclusion the direct contrary of this. How, then, can we solve the problem? Why can some live and die in a whirl of dissipation with apparent relish, whilst others get clogged by a few balls, and fling worldly enjoyment to the winds on account of the very nausea it creates? It may be considered as "going into the sacristy" to say that those whom God chooses for great things, He weans from pleasure by a salutary dissatisfaction? so the point will not be insisted on. The only ordinary way in which it can be accounted for is, that the lovers of pleasure deafen the voice of conscience, whereas the others give this good monitor room to speak, and occasionally lend an ear. Whichever way we please to look upon F. Ignatius at this period of his life, we shall find ample material for theorizing on the unreality of worldly joys. He concludes the first volume of his Journal with the following considerations:—
"Dec. 31.— I have ended this year, as the last, with a very pleasant evening, as far as noise and fun can make it. But a more reasonable way would be (as I am now in my room, with my watch in my hand, nearly on the stroke of twelve) to end it in making good resolutions for the year to come,—which may, I hope, pass as prosperously, and more usefully, than the last. The new year is now commenced, and I recommend myself to the protection and guidance of Almighty Providence to bring me safely and well to the end of it. I now bid farewell to this journal-book, which is but a record of my follies, and absurdities, and weaknesses, to myself, who know the motive of the actions which are here commemorated, and of many more which I have done well to omit. There is no fear of my forgetting them, nor do I wish it. The less other men know about my inward thoughts, the better for me in their estimation."
Many of the readers of this book will feel disposed to disagree with the last sentence. We have had his interior before us, as clearly perhaps as any other man's we can possibly call to mind, and yet there is scarcely one that must not admire and love him as well, for the sacrifice he made for their benefit in exposing his interior, as for the beautiful sight that very disclosure gives them of his noble heart. It is not very easy to write an interesting chapter about this portion of his life; the Autobiography is run out, and the Journal gives no incident of any great importance till we come to the subject-matter of the next volume. Let us string together a few of the leading events, especially such as may be calculated to give us some idea of his mind and occupations.
He begins the volume by writing down that he got up rather earlier than usual, played at battledore and shuttle-cock with Lady Georgiana Bingham, and kept up to 2,120 hits. He is disappointed then in a day's sport, and gives this account of his evening: "I was rather bilious and nervous to-night, and consequently would have preferred being out of the way, but from a wrong principle, I fear, viz., because I thought I should seem rather dull and ill-humoured. But what if I did, to the gay people that do not, nor wish to, know? And what if I did, to those who do know how far it is real, my ill-humour?" It was customary, as he told us some chapters back, for the Spencer family to spend Christmas at Althorp, and collect many of their immediate relatives about them during the time. The place is beautifully disposed for every kind of enjoyment; there are landscapes and pictures for the ladies to draw from, fine grounds for the gentlemen to shoot over, everything that generosity and princely goodness could procure to make the evenings as lively and entertaining as possible. Balls and dances were, of course, a sine qua non. Let us not, however, imagine it was all dissipation at Althorp. Lords Althorp and Lyttelton used, every Sunday and often on week days, to read a sermon to the assembled guests from some of the Anglican divines, and sometimes, too, from the French, as we may see in a remark in the first chapter. The party at Althorp this Christmas did not go beyond three-and-twenty. George, notwithstanding the sour extract quoted above, went into the sports with heartfelt glee occasionally, and, as a proof of this, it is enough to say that he danced, in one night, in seven country dances and eight sets of quadrilles. He says in one place: "Lyttelton, Sarah (Lady Lyttelton), and I, breakfasted together, talking of a wise resolve of Nannette's, to pull down a house she had just finished at Richmond, because it was not pretty enough for the inhabitants to look at."
He goes to London as soon as the Christmas party is broken up, where he dines chiefly at home, but is about occasionally, seeing his old friends, and different things that pleased his whim or his taste. One of these was "seeing the King going in state, and the nobility as contented as if they never said a word against him on the Queen's trial;" another was hearing Bishop Van Mildert preach. He has the good fortune of meeting Sir Walter Scott at his father's, and says "We all stayed the evening listening to him telling Scotch stories." His next evening would be, perhaps, in the House of Lords or Commons, and all the family seemed in a great stir to be present at the debates on the "Catholic Question." What opinions they held about it do not appear from the Journal; but there is nothing said there against Catholics since he left Italy.
He begins to clear away the mist that lay between him and the parsonage. He puts himself a little in the way of learning something of what a clergyman could not be respectable without. His first essays in this direction were, to hire a "dirty Jew master" to teach him Hebrew, and to go occasionally to Mr. Blomfield's, who was rector of Whitechapel, to dine and talk with clerical company. The first time he tried this is told as follows:—
"I took up Fremantle, and we went together to Blomfield's to dine. We met Dr. Lloyd, Mr. Rennel, Mr. and Mrs. Lyall, Mr. Watkinson, Mr. Mawman, Mr. Tavel, and one more clergyman—a proper High Church set, with language of intolerance. I was much amused though by observing them." So much for his first lesson in church polity. That he was not extravagant at this time is evidenced by a little incident. He found himself the possessor of a good sum, and had been, for some time, putting part of his allowance aside until he finds himself able to pay his brother, Lord Althorp, what he lent him to pay off his debts in Cambridge, as early as the 7th of April. "This was a very busy day. I first went to Althorp to offer him payment of a large debt I owe him, but he refused it very generously, and made me rich in a moment by so doing."
He pays off the Jew on the 25th of April, having had his lectures from the 8th of March previous. This apparent falling away from the spirit of his vocation, was redeemed in a few days, by his falling half in love with some very high lady. He crosses himself immediately for the absurdity, and wishes she were a clergyman's daughter. This fit wears out completely in ten days' time. Lord John Russell and Sydney Smith dine at his father's, and he says of the latter: "Sydney Smith is a new person on my list, and very entertaining he is." The author of "Peter Plimley's Letters" must certainly have been an agreeable guest. On the 15th of June he gives the following note:—"My father and I went to see the marriage of Mr. Neville and Lady Georgiana Bingham, in the Portuguese Catholic Chapel, in South Street, close to Vernon's house. Dr. Poynter, the Catholic bishop of London, performed it, and gave us a long-prosy dissertation on the sacrament of marriage." The scene changes now to Ryde, Isle of Wight, where the family go to spend the summer. George occupies his time there in riding, fishing (with no success), boating, cricketing, and doing the tutor to a young ward of his father. He also learnt perspective from a Mr. Vorley, and his opinion of him is, that "he talks more nonsense than any one I know in a given time." He remained his pupil until he "picked his brains," which did not require much time or application seemingly. He hears of Napoleon's death, and comments thereon thus:—"We heard this morning of Bonaparte being dead in St. Helena. It does not make so much noise as one would have thought his death must eight years ago. For one thing, it will save us £150,000 a year."
St. Swithin's Day, July 15. "It rained all morning, which is ominous. "This kept them indoors, and it was well, for they were all in a bustle preparing for the coronation of William IV. The countess and her maids were busy at the laces and the freshening of faded colours, until the earl's state robes were got ready; when he was called upon to fit them on, that the keen glance of ladies' eyes might see if there was a flaw or a speck to be removed. George was present at the time, and says: "My father put on his robes, and was looked at by a room full of ladies and gentlemen." George himself, by the way, makes some bold efforts at grandeur, and succeeds in getting into the Peers' quarter of Westminster Abbey, at the coronation, "dressed in red coat, with ruffs." After the coronation, they return to the Isle of Wight, and George resumes his sports, with a little variation namely, that he hears a "twaddle preacher," and receives the Sacrament without much preparation, a proceeding he thus defends:—"I never can be satisfied by any motives that occur for refusing on account of short notice, and I think that when the Office is performed with devotion and sincerity, to the best of one's ability, it is always profitable."
It may be objected that we do not give more numerous extracts from the Journal; but we think it would tire the patience of readers to be told, gravely and solemnly, such grand events as, "George Lyttelton, Lord Lyttelton's eldest child, got into breeches to-day." Matters kindred to this, with the hours of dining, and names of the guests, form the bulk of the diary.
Towards the end of this year, 1821, he finds himself alone in Althorp, waiting for the collecting of the Christmas party there, and muses thus:—"I wish I might go on living as I now do, without any company and nonsense. I have daily amusement, and, withal, get through a good deal of reading." This last clause will make many expect that Tillotson or Jeremy Taylor is in his hands for a great part of the day. It may be so, but we are told in the same page:—"In the evening I read 'Guy Mannering;' for a novel, when once begun, enslaves me." He was very fond of the Waverly Novels, and seems to have read them as they came out. He misses a hunt, through mistake, and says; "I was annoyed to-day at the hoy I made in my manoeuvres; but I am ashamed of being so, for it all came from my odious vanity, and sensibility to the opinion of all the fools I met with." On his twenty-second birthday he makes these reflections:—"This anniversary becomes uninteresting after passing 21. But it should be a useful annual admonition to make the best of our short, fleeting life. What are called the best and happiest years of life are already past with me. God grant that I make those that remain more profitable to others, and consequently to myself. As to happiness, I think my temper and dispositions have prevented my having my share to the full of youthful pleasures; so I may look forward to the future for better circumstances: if I can but tutor my mind into contentment at my situation, and an engrossing wish to make my duty the leading guide of my actions. Indolence and irresolution are my stumbling blocks."
The new year of 1822 was danced into Althorp by a grand ball. Three days after he had a narrow escape with his life; he went out partridge-shooting with Lord Bingham, and this gentleman's powder-flask took fire, and burst in his hand. George and the attendants were nearly blown up, and Lord Bingham was severely scorched. This he considered the greatest danger he was ever in, and thanks God for his escape. The impression, however, did not last long; for he tells us, as the result of a game of cards, on the same night:—"I did not get to sleep for a long time for thinking over a trick at cards which E—— did. I succeeded in discovering it." When the Christmas party is dissolved, George's comments are: "I am sorry they are all going, though the young damsels have caught nothing of my heart."
There is an event now to be recorded. He becomes a magistrate, and his first essay in court makes him think the business very amusing. He shouts huzza! on hearing that his brother Robert is about to come home. True, however, to his character, of never undertaking anything unless he knew its obligations sufficiently to be able to acquit himself in them to the satisfaction of his conscience, he goes to London, and studies "Blackstone's Commentaries," to qualify him for a proper discharge of his duties as a magistrate. He dines, dances, goes to balls and theatres, pays visits and bills during his stay in London, notwithstanding.
Now he begins to prepare seriously for his future profession. Full nine months before he is to receive Orders, on March the 12th he begins to write a sermon. That is the point; let a man give a sermon, and he may become a minister any day, provided he has an earl or a viscount at his back, and a bishop who sits tête â tête with either in the House of Lords, and has two or three sons whom he wishes to put into posts of honour. The sermon is everything. Any one can read the Service, provided he has a good voice and distinct utterance; but the sermon—that requires brains, views, style, and paper. How these things can be done without we shall see further on. For the present, poor George did not discover the secret. He could bowl to a wicket, play cribbage, read Walter Scott, and shoot partridges, but where was his theology? The twenty-five lectures were buried long ago under some stone between Cambridge and Althorp. Well, the fact of it was, he must do something. He goes to hear the "crack" preachers of London, and even the "twaddle" ditto. He catches up some idea from them, borrows the book Lord Althorp reads from on Sunday afternoons, and gets an idea of what a sermon is like. He sets to, therefore, to write one himself, and in six months that sermon is finished.
One could not expect him to be a bookworm just now. Lord Palmerston is at a stag-hunt, and patronized the young candidate. Washington Irving dines at his father's, and George has to take notes of his "Yankee twang, sallow complexion, and nasal sounds." He used to say to us that one who saw Irving, and heard him speak, could never believe he was the author of "The Traveller" or "Bracebridge Hall," and much less of "Knickerbocker's History of New York." Irving himself alludes to this, when he says, somewhere, that the London people "wondered that he held a quill in his hand, instead of wearing it in his scalp-lock." He gets over all this after the Ryde recreation, and the hunting at Wiseton, when, towards the end of September this year, he bids farewell to his military life as a cornet in the Yeomanry of Northampton. This is as a preparation for his Orders; but they come upon him still unexpectedly when he receives a letter from the Bishop of Peterborough, on the 5th of October, to signify that he would have Ordination on the 22nd of December following. He writes to the Diocesan Examiner to ask what books he is to read, and how he is to prepare, and that gentleman graciously tells him that he need not trouble himself; that he knows, from the respectability of his family, he must be already quite prepared. [Footnote 5] George is contented for the present, but he has an eye to the future; he borrows, therefore, some twelve of the Wimbledon clergyman's best sermons, and says "that will set me up for a start." He then goes on retreat about the 16th of December, and his day is divided into four principal parts, making allowances for dinner and sleep, consisting of shooting, cribbage, whist, and sermon writing or copying, as the case might be. On the 18th, two days before, he adds one more spiritual exercise to his usual ones; he reads a novel. The next day he goes off to Peterborough, and dines with the Dean and his wife, "who are to feed him" whilst he is there. His examination is gone through—one of the Thirty-nine Articles to be translated into Latin, and he has an exposé, with illustrations, on the nature of mesmerism, for the rest of the terrible ordeal. This passed successfully, he comes home to the Dean's house, bids good night to the materfamilias, and collects his spirits for the great occasion. He is wrapt in sublime ecstacy, and bursts forth into the following exclamation in his Journal: "I am 22 years old, and not yet engaged to be married!"
[Footnote 5:
Here is a copy of the letter with which he was favoured from
that dignitary:
"Yarmouth, Norfolk, October 12.
"My Dear Sir,
"I am sorry my absence from Cambridge may have made me
appear neglectful in answering your letter, but I have some
consolation in thinking that you will not have suffered by the delay. As
far as I am concerned, in my character of examiner, it is impossible
that I could ever entertain any idea of subjecting a gentleman with
whose talents and good qualities I am so well acquainted as I am
with yours, to any examination except one as a matter of form, for
which a verse in the Greek Testament, and an Article of the Church
of England returned into Latin will be amply sufficient. With
regard to the doctrinal part of the examination, that is taken by the
Bishop himself, but it is confined entirely to the prepared questions,
which are a test of opinions, not of scholarship. This information,
then, will, I trust, be satisfactorily, and will leave you at liberty to
pursue your theological studies in that course which you yourself
prefer, and which I am confident will be a good one. I really am
unable to say whether the Bishop of Peterbro' requires a certificate
of the Divinity Lectures or not, but I know that he does not in all
cases make it a sine qua non; at any rate, I think you had better
send for it, as it will give the professor but very little trouble to
forward it under cover to your father.
"If I can be of the least service in answering any other queries,
or in any other way whatever, I beg you will, at any time, give me a
line; and believe me, my dear Sir,
"Yours very sincerely,
"T. S. Hughes.
"I shall not be in Camb. till the beginning of next month."]
The Establishment retains in her written formularies a great deal of what looks very like Catholic. She has an attempt at a profession of faith; a kind of a sacramental rite, as a substitute for the Mass; a mode of visiting the sick, a marriage service, baptismal service, burial service, and an ordinal; even something like the Sacrament of Penance can be gleaned from two or three clauses in the Book of Common Prayer. How much of sacramental power there may be in those several ordinances is very easily determined; we admit none whatever in any except baptism—the judicial voice of the Establishment leaves its efficacy an open question—and matrimony. Of late, some amongst them have felt their want of sacramental wealth so keenly, that they would fain persuade themselves the shells of Catholic rites, which the Reformers retained, were filled with sacramental substance. To give this theory some show of plausibility, they claimed valid orders. Pamphlets and books have been written on two sides of this question until there seems scarcely any more to be said upon it, so we just mention what is the Catholic opinion on the validity of Anglican orders.
With what Protestants think of them we have no immediate concern; nor would it be an easy matter to extract anything definite from the multitude and contrariety of opinions on this one point.
We hold them to be simply null; they do not even come up to doubt; for if the Archbishop of Canterbury became a Catholic to-morrow, and wished to exercise any ministry, he would be obliged to receive all the orders from the first tonsure upwards, absolutely, and without even an implied condition. This has always been the practice: and, the Church's acting thus, at the period which is now involved in obscurity, is the best de facto argument that the orders of the Establishment were then, as they are now, a human designation, and nothing more. There is nothing sacramental in Anglican orders, and there never was, since England broke away from the Church, and, consistently enough, orders were expunged from the Protestant catalogue of sacraments in the very infancy of the Reformation. They still keep up a semblance of orders: they have what they call the diaconate, the priesthood, and the consecration of bishops. A deacon is ordained much in the same way as our own deacons, and he can perform all the duties of the parish, with the exception of the Communion Service.
We see a man marked out by an Anglican bishop for ecclesiastical duties, without any sacramental grace, spiritual character, or jurisdiction, for no less a work than the care of immortal souls. Let us see now what instruments he has wherewith to accomplish this.
He had once two Sacraments—the Lord's Supper and Baptism; the former, Catholics know to be an empty ceremony, and perhaps it would nearly be a Protestant heresy to say it was much more. Baptism they had as Turks have, and as every lay man and woman in the world, who performs the rite properly, has. Now their judicial decisions do not consider it worth the having; so, as far as in themselves lies, they have tried to deprive themselves of it. The practical means of sanctification a minister has to use are chiefly four: prayer, preaching, visiting, and reading. The reading part may evidently be performed as well, if not better sometimes, by a layman. The visiting is often better done by the clergyman's wife or daughter than by himself, for, in attention to sickness and sweet words of consolation, the female gifts seem the more effectual. All that remains to him, peculiarly for his own, is the preaching, and the respectability of character his own conduct and regard for his position may give him. His power is altogether personal, and if he be an indifferent preacher or a careless liver, he loses all.
Whether candidates for orders, or even the ordained of the Anglican Establishment, take this view of their position, one cannot be sure; but, from the acts and words of Mr. Spencer, we can form a tolerable conjecture of what he thought and intended when he took deacon's orders from Dr. Marsh, Protestant Bishop of Peterborough, on the 22nd December, 1822. He makes no preparation whatever, nor does he seem to fancy that it is an action that requires any. He gives an account of the ordination, which he was pleased to call, "talking of business," when making his arrangements for it, a few pages back in the Journal, and, as a piece of business, it is gone through by him. We transcribe his own words:—
"Sunday, Dec. 22. I breakfasted with Mr. Gibbs and Mr. Gregory at the inn (Peterborough) at 8. At 9, two others of the candidates, Mr. Pearson and Mr. Witherall, joined us, and we went to the palace, from whence the bishop led us into the church, when we were ordained. The service took an hour, including the Sacrament which he gave us. I commenced my church-reading then by reading the gospel in the service. I went (a clergyman) to the deanery. At 11 we went all together from the palace to church, when Mr. Parsons preached a good long sermon—at us very palpably. We then went to a cold collation at the palace till evening church, which we attended. After that we received our letters of orders and licences, and paid our fees."
It may be said that this is a very nice little account squeezed into a journal, and one could not expect enthusiastic bursts about the gift of the spirit and the power of the Church, in a book allotted to the bare recording of events. So be it. But there are enthusiastic exclamations about less important things in that same little book, and if ordination looked anything to Mr. Spencer than a condition sine qua of his getting fixed in his future position, he would have noted it. The absence of deep religious feeling at this period of his life may account in a great measure for this coolness; but perhaps the not believing there was anything sacramental in the rite itself may give a more satisfactory explanation. To wind up the matter in a few words—he said grace for the family at dinner that evening, and then read his novel quietly in his room, because the day was not favourable for any field sport.
These few explanations were deemed necessary for appreciating the tenor of his life from this moment forward. It will run counter to all anticipated results in the direction of excellence, and will even go far beyond what its first evidences would warrant one to expect. He looked his position in the face at the very outset: he saw that he had souls to look after, and he knew that he could not do that without a course of consistent conduct beseeming his character. For the first few days things went on much as of old. The family were still spending the winter in Althorp, and he joined in all the pastimes by which they whiled away the short days and cheered the long nights. It was requisite, however, that the cousins and nearer relations, should see and hear George in his new position, if it were only to have something to talk about when they came to London. Accordingly, he assisted in the Communion Service on Christmas Day by administering "the cup," first to his father, and then to others. He did not "think the thing so formidable," and it wore off the apprehension he had of appearing in public sufficient for him to give his first sermon on Sunday, Dec. 29. It was on the Birth of Christ, and he says, "Althorp and Duncannon were my audience;" whether they were a whole or a part of the audience, it is not easy at this distance to discover.
He might be now considered fairly launched into his new element. The rector of Great Brington, a Mr. Vigoreux, was away on the continent, and the parish was left to the care of the young curate. He had three or four villages, numbering about 800, in his parish, some distance apart, and he lived in Althorp himself. On the 1st of January, 1823, he sets vigorously to work, and, regardless of wind or weather, walks out from breakfast until about six o'clock every day, visiting the people. After the first few days he gets quite interested in the work, and is cheered on by his success in making up differences, consoling the dying, and assisting the poor. Two notes from the Journal will illustrate how he felt with regard to this visiting:—"Feb. 10. Went to Little Brington, where I paid 20 visits among the poor. Feb. 11. Visited 15 or 20 houses; this work is very amusing to me now. I hope I shall never get tired of it, or be disgusted by bad success to my lectures."
The principal work he tries to accomplish by his visits is, the supplying those deficiencies he finds in the people with regard to what he conceived to be sacraments. His very first round through the parish showed him how few were up to the mark of good Christians. Many Dissenters chose to dispute his right to lecture them, and were not slow to produce clauses of protection for themselves; and his having "a discussion with one roaring Methodist," did not lessen the difficulty of making them tractable sheep. Discussions proved to be a means of widening the breach, and simple kindness left things where they stood. Something positive he must mark out as a duty to his flock, and then exhort them to it. Instinct led him to the sacraments. He found great numbers unbaptized, believing in a spiritual regeneration, and scoffing at the idea of heavenly virtue being in a drop of water; he found more still, and these among the baptized, who had as little love for the Lord's Supper as he had himself once. Now these could very easily be managed by exhorting them to read the Bible, lending them a copy if they had not one, recommending family prayers, and kindness and justice towards all men. Mr. Spencer thought otherwise. He began with baptism, and within the first fortnight of his clerical life he baptized the nine children of a blacksmith. This was a good beginning, and encouraged him to persevere, but he did not find many so malleable as the offspring of this son of Tubal Cain.
In the next sacramental duty he did not see his way so clearly as in the first. In the Church of England, the Sacrament, as it is emphatically called, must be administered three times a year, may be once a month, and cannot be unless there be a number of communicants. Giving the Sacrament once a week is considered very High Church, and to give it every morning is going a little too far. Superstitious reverence and indifference keep the majority away from this rite, and few come, except they get a monomonia for manifesting their godliness in that special direction. This fact will account for Mr. Spencer's hesitation, when he took to Christianizing his flock by making them approach the Sacrament. He makes many promise to come, and gets a neighbouring clergyman to administer it in their own houses to some decrepid old people, who could not come to church. He preaches on this, and "hopes he has not been wrong;" he discusses the propriety of his proceedings with his older brethren in the ministry. The result seems to confirm him in his ideas, and he preaches a second time, and gives appendices to his sermon in every visit, about going to the Lord's Supper. He still "hopes he is not wrong." He works very hard at this point, however, and on the first Easter Sunday of his ministry, he gives God thanks and prays against pride, at having 130 communicants. There was another little incident on the same day as a set off to his success in beating up the parish; when he opens the sermon-cover from which he used to read his MS., he finds he had put the wrong sermon there, and had to preach extempore the sermon he intended to have read: of course, it was not to his satisfaction, though the people scarcely knew the difference.
One sad event cast a cloud over the beginning of his clerical life: the sister he loved so much, and whose company and conversation he thought more than an equivalent for the gayest party, Lady Georgiana Quin, died in London. He was very much afflicted by it, and even in after-life he would be deeply moved when speaking of this sister. He did not delay long in London, but came home in a day or two after the funeral.
Excepting this short interval, his time was spent at home in the most ardent fulfilment of the duties his fervour imposed upon him. Not only did he go about from house to house, but he would spare a day or two, in each week, when he went into Northampton for the sessions, and visit the neighbouring clergy. It was his custom to discuss points of duty with them; to invite them to Althorp, and spend evenings in clerical conversation. He accompanied them on their visits to the sick and other parochial employments, to learn, by a comparison of the different ways of each, which would probably be best for himself. He reads such books as the "Clergyman's Instructor," and other books of divinity and sermons; he never fails to write a sermon every week, to catechise the children on a Sunday, visit the schools, and try to make every one as faithful in the discharge of their duties as he was in his own. About Easter some members of his family came to Althorp, and he relaxes a little for their sakes, and freely joins them in all his former amusements; not, however, omitting any of his visits, especially to the sick and dying.