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The Project Gutenberg eBook of She hath done
what she could
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
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under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
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you are located before using this eBook.

Title: She hath done what she could

Author: Matthew Feilde

Release date: January 4, 2017 [eBook #53889]

Language: English

Credits: Transcribed from the 1860 J. Bumpus edition by David Price

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHE HATH DONE

WHAT SHE COULD ***
Transcribed from the 1860 J. Bumpus edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org

She hath done what she

could.

A DISCOURSE
ADDRESSED TO THE
RATEPAYERS OF ST. MARYLEBONE,
URGING THE ADOPTION OF
THE PUBLIC LIBRARIES ACT, 1855.

BY MATTHEW FEILDE,
ST. DAVID’S COLLEGE.

Late Member of the Committee of the Newspaper Press Association, for obtaining
the Repeal of the Paper Duty.

But it is to Free Libraries and News Rooms, and NOT to high-

priced Institutes, that you must look for the spread of
knowledge and intellectual culture. It may be argued that 1s.
6d. a quarter, or 6s. a year, is not much to pay to a Working
Man’s Association. I contend it is exactly 4s. 4d. too much, as a
halfpenny rate in the pound on a £40 house would amount to
only 1s. 8d. a year.
 LONDON:
J. BUMPUS, 158, OXFORD STREET.
1860.
Price Sixpence.

“She hath done what she could.”

 TO THE RATEPAYERS OF ST.
MARYLEBONE.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Field of Battle is in sight at last! The St. Marylebone Mental
Light Columns, escorted by Troops of Progress in bright armour, with
Advancement in Knowledge Rifle Corps, fair women, and brave men,
are in marching order, and eager for the fray with the Mental
Darkness Brigade, the cruel and relentless enemies of
Improvement. The Obstructive Forces for the defence of Ignorance,
with a great flourish of trumpets, proclaiming themselves friends of
the poor par excellence, are marching in defile, and scenting the
battle afar off.
These bitter and unscrupulous foes, who care as much for the Poor,
as their pretended and hollow friend, Judas Iscariot, who when he
cried aloud for the public, meant only himself, of whom it was said,
“not that he cared for the poor, but because he carried the bag,”
who murmured at the waste of costly ointment of spikenard with
which Mary had anointed the feet of Jesus, and treacherously asked
“why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence and given
to the poor?”
These determined opponents of Progress—Parish Magnates—who
dread the light of intelligence, and whose excessive desire to guard
the ratepayers’ pockets is suspicious, and reminds me of Judas’
anxiety to trade on the distress of the poor. This Ignorant Phalanx,
officered by pompous little great men, or loud little foolish men,—
small vanities and pomposities, whose cry is “more taxation,” and
who seem to say, “I am the Parish,” and “when I speak let no dog
bark;” all these small politicians and miserable DO-NOTHINGS are
making ready for the field.
A motley group are these specious Antagonists! Frantic about the
Ballot, clinging to some Utopian impracticable reform, these sciolists
and pedagogues presume to snarl at the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and denounce him as a financial jobber, wishing to float
every stranding newspaper with public money, and who speak of our
foremost Statesman and his Bill for the repeal of the Paper Duty, “as
a sop to that Cerberus, the Press, to get the support of the
newspapers of the country.” What skimbleskamble stuff! Consistent
only in its inconsistency, true to its base, diabolical instincts, the
Times with the malice of Disraeli, and the hypocrisy of the Tempter,
so far from supporting, positively revels in slandering this
CONSCIENTIOUS Minister. Yes, the veering, versatile, infamous Times
faithful to one principle only—unprincipled wickedness exerts every
nerve to retain this obnoxious tax. It has assailed the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, and vilified his policy with a vindictiveness which
Shylock might have envied, and which even cheap journalism
disdained. Parish officials who ought to know better, prose about
the danger of innovation. Not too fast. Slow and sure. No
complaints; no mischief has yet taken place; stay till it has taken
place! Wait a little this is not the time! With pretended friends of
Progress the right time will never arrive;—to-day is the plea,
exclusion the object. I admit your “Poor rate is enormous,” but I
rest my case on this fact, as a strong argument for adopting this
humanizing Act of Parliament.
All these insidious foes either ignore or misrepresent the objects and
purposes of the Public Libraries’ Act. Miserable economists in the
guise of friends of poor-rate defaulters, (whose talk about the Lisson
Grove Sunday nuisance is vain and hypocritical, while opposing Lord
Chelmsford’s Bill, who have not the courage to say, “We don’t
believe in the education of those who have to work,”) make use of
the ratepayers to pare down necessary Parochial expenditure, and to
cry down the wisest outlay of the Public money, in order to place
themselves in office, and who on the utterly fallacious plea that a
half-penny Library Rate is a compulsory and oppressive tax, would
artfully dissuade you from supporting the News Rooms Act on its
own merits. Know Nothings, and Dreamers, whose emblem is,

“Man never IS, but always TO BE, blest.”

“candid friends,” coarse but not witty, seeking in every possible way
to disparage this beneficent project, in short, PRETENDED AND HOLLOW
friends of the poor, who, like the arch traitor in the text care not one
straw for the good of the People, are going on to meet the armed
men, the soldiers of victory, thrice armed as having their cause, or
casus belli just.
But unlike other encounters, in this Engagement there will be no
gathering tears and tremblings of distress. The heroic women of St.
Marylebone especially, will take comfort in the thought that fortune
favours the brave, and that although the race is not always to the
swift, nor the battle to the strong, they have, come what may,
deserved success, for they have done what they could to win the
battle.
Clad in the armour of Righteousness you will know no fear; you will
mock at fear and not be affrighted; you will meet the treacherous
foe with self-approving smiles; Conscience will whisper in your ears
the memorable words of the Saviour to Mary, “She hath done what she
could” to secure the victory.

I have said this Public Library movement—this precious boon of

Reading for All is especially a Woman’s Question, and I hope the
Meeting will be graced by many Ladies to attest its truth and do
honour to this great occasion. With such powerful allies I for one
have no fear of the result.
 “From woman’s eyes this doctrine I derive,
They sparkle still the true Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academies
That show, contain and nourish all the world.”

I have briefly alluded to the economic aspect of this question, and

shewn how pauperism would be diminished by the advance of the
people in Knowledge. You may depend upon it nothing is so
expensive to this Parish, so burdensome on the rates as Ignorance
and Inebriety. I have designated the Public Libraries Act as a scheme
for reducing the rates by improving the condition of the people. Let
me for one moment turn from the £ s. d. point of view, to the
social. What power in BOOKS! What various knowledge in those
great Public Instructors, NEWSPAPERS! God be thanked for Books!
No matter how poor I am, no matter if the rich will not enter my
obscure dwelling. If the oldest and most precious of all books, the
BIBLE, with its unparalleled wisdom, with its unrivalled English, and its
unequalled and incomparable Poetry is my companion and familiar
friend,—if Shakespeare, the first of uninspired writers, still enchants
me with his presence, and the witty Sydney Smith, (whom bigots, with
their little learning but enormous arrogance, stigmatize “irreligious”)
preaches to me with his practical wisdom; though languid perhaps
with toil I shall not pine for want of intellectual associates, and I
may become lettered, though entirely excluded from other
companionship. What humanizing tendencies in Books, and how
imperceptibly they influence the habits and tastes of the Public! Do
what you can then to satisfy this increasing thirst for intelligence,
and the cultivation of the intellect, and you will enlarge the field of
remunerative employment, you will open up the avenues to
honourable and congenial occupation to young women, whom the
narrow existing labour market fails to find bread, let alone the
means of support. But, remember it will be an uphill fight, for there
must be two to one in favour of this permissive, and not compulsory
Act, and no poll can be demanded.
To the best of my ability I have set it forward; and to you I now
remit this WOMAN’S question, believing as I do that despite
conventional frowns or sneers, you will, like the youthful David,
valorously shoot down this giant ignorance that is desolating our
land, and that with the shield of Bellew, Tout d’en haut (All from on
High, from Above, from the Father of Lights,) you will triumph in a
cause second to none in its economic and social bearings.
I use no unmeaning phrase when I again assure the Ladies of St.
Marylebone that in inviting them to take part in this conflict, on the
issue of which so much depends, in asking them to come out and
separate themselves from the vain, and frivolous, and heartless, I
invite them to no unfeminine or unbecoming action. Believe me the
time has come when you must throw off indecorous reserve and
squeamishness, that is if you really desire to do good and raise
yourselves on the social ladder, if you really desire to be released
from the terrible bondage of GOVERNESSING, or the cruel servitude of
DRESS MAKING. You are NOT called upon to lead Troops, or to Preach,
or to make public speeches about Woman’s rights, but YOU ARE
earnestly entreated to SAVE YOURSELVES, to agitate this subject started
by a distinguished political writer, viz.: “WHAT WILL THE WOMEN DO NEXT?”
Take fast hold then of this Public Library question, agitate it with
nothing but your humanities about you, and the time is not distant
when the field of profitable employment for young women shall be
considerably widened. That civilization must be very imperfect,
extremely smooth and artificial, which selfishly permits and
tyrannically decrees that the kitchen, and the nursery, the workroom
and the factory shall entirely absorb energies which might be much
more usefully directed. Mr. John Bennett, so honourably identified
with the cause of progress and social reform, urges the importance
of National Instruction as a sine quâ non, without which it is vain to
expect English women to compete with the Swiss in watchwork, and
discloses the humiliating fact that the number of uneducated women
in England, as ascertained by the signing of the marriage register
was, one-third greater than that of men, and that out of nearly
80,000 women who were married, 68,175 could not write their
names, but had to sign the register thus, + “her cross.” Surely this
is not a state of things to be proud of, there is no ground here for
boasting and glorification, and the condition of England, as a Nation,
wholly uneducated, is in strong contrast to that of the Swiss
population, where all the means and appliances of education of the
highest character are to be found even in the remotest village.
When doctors disagree I will not presume to decide as to the
necessity of granting medical diplomas to women, but why not
“Women and Watch-work?” Is the Swiss girl more naturally artistic
than the English? Is she more capable? Certainly not. It is
instruction alone which constitutes her superiority. Let a woman be
employed in that branch of industry for which she is adapted. Why
there are parts of a watch which a woman can finish far better than
the best workman. Talk of negro slavery, the tyranny of the
workshop is more odious, more hateful in every respect. But I
rejoice to perceive the dawn of a brighter day when a truer and
higher civilization will threw open the doors of Watch Manufactories
and Printing Offices to English women.
Ladies of St. Marylebone, I invite you to attend the Public Library
Meeting at the Literary Institution, 17, Edwards Street, Portman
Square, at 12 o’clock at noon, on Monday 18th June, 1860.
On this vital question I counsel you to throw off the absurd trammels
and customs of fashion. The law allows you to vote for the Libraries
Act, and I warn you that if you persist in clinging to delusion, if you
permit yourselves to be overcome by indifference and listlessness,—
if you “likes to be despised,” and prefer being tied and bound by the
chains of fashion,—the day will come when you will bitterly repent
such fastidious and disdainful behaviour. Read Anna Jameson’s
“Communion of Labour.” Prisons, Reformatories, Schools, Hospitals,
Workhouses, all engaged the attention of this noble person. Like
Florence Nightingale she was in every sense a model woman. Yet
those eyes, beaming with intelligence, have now lost their lustre,
and are for ever closed, and the hand that wrote that admirable
pamphlet is mouldering in its shroud. But though dead, she still
speaks to you in terms more eloquent than any I can use. Anna
Jameson would say to you, “Be true to yourselves and naught shall
make you rue.” Believe me the custom of confining women to
mean, or trifling pursuits is

“A custom
More honour’d in the breach, than the observance.”

You who may be so powerful in society, why should you remain

powerless? Why not do what you can to slay this Demon Ignorance
in St. Marylebone? Why should Central Africa and other far off
Missions engross your FIRST attention? I exhort you to attend this
Library Meeting, and take your part in this good work.
Yes, vote for an Act which will bring silent, yet most interesting
companions, BOOKS to your Homes! But do not too curiously and
haughtily enquire, as is the wont of some, “Who is the chief
Promoter of this movement?” “NON QUO, SED QUO MODO, Not who, but
how,” must be your battle cry. Be swayed by arguments, rather than
by authority. Consider what is said, not who says it; never mind
whether he has, or has not a bank account.

“O what a world of vile ill-favour’d faults

Looks handsome in six hundred pounds a year!”

Yes, hold up your hands for the adoption of the Libraries Act, and in
the hour of death, when the world and its allurements are receding
from your view, when alone and deserted by your so-called friends,
how it will console you in that solemn moment to be sensible that
you have obeyed the voice of HIM who spake as never man spoke,
that you gladly took the advice of your ASCENDED LORD to “make to
yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.” Ah! think of
eyes so young, obscured, and darkened by tears, that you will thus
make clear and glad! On your vote the question may be
determined, and the hour has struck when you should be leaders,
and not the slaves, of opinion.
It is meet and right that you should LEAD in a cause which promotes
EARLY CLOSING, and which would confer in other ways a real and
enduring benefit on your Parish. Hear the fine thoughts of Festus
and treasure them in your memories.
“Grant this we pray Thee, and that all who read,
Or utter noble thoughts may make them theirs,
And thank God for them, to the betterment
Of their succeeding life;—that all who lead
The general sense and taste, too apt, perchance,
To be led, keep in mind the mighty good
They may achieve, and are in conscience, bound,
And duty, to attempt unceasingly,
To compass. Grant us, all-maintaining Sire!
That all the great mechanic aids to toil
Man’s skill hath formed, found, rendered,—whether used
In multiplying works of mind, or aught
To obviate the thousand wants of life,
May much avail the human welfare now,
And in all ages henceforth, and for ever.
Let their effect be, Lord! to LIGHTEN LABOUR,
And give more room to mind, and leave the Poor
Some time for SELF-IMPROVEMENT. Let them not
Be forced to grind the bones out of their arms
For bread, but have some space to think and feel
Like moral and immortal creatures.
Look Thou with pity on all lesser crimes,
Thrust on men almost when devoured by want,
Wretchedness, ignorance and outcast life!
Have mercy on the rich, too, who pass by
The means they have at hand to fill their minds
With serviceable knowledge for themselves,
And fellows, and support not the good cause
Of the world’s better future!
May Peace, and Industry, and Commerce weld
Into one Land all Nations of the World,
 Rewedding those the Deluge once divorced.
Oh! may all help each other in good things,
Mentally, morally, and bodily.
Vouchsafe, kind God! Thy blessing to this Isle,
Specially. May England ever lead
The World, for She is worthiest; and may all
Profit by her example, and adopt
Her course, wherever great, or free, or just.”
My Lords and Gentlemen, I contend that it is a discredit, that, in the
largest and richest Parish in the Metropolis, and in the United
Kingdom, there is not only not a vestige of a free public News Room,
but that St. Marylebone lags behind the poor Parish of St. John’s
Westminster, where for upwards of three years, the News Room has
been a source of great attraction. Should you visit this News Room,
in Great Smith Street, the silence, order, and evident interest of
some two hundred readers, must strike you. The conduct of the
frequenters of this Reading Room is very praiseworthy. I was told of
one who came from Highgate, and open as it is to all comers, in all
grades of life, it is pleasant to notice the influence of the judicious
instruction to the librarian, which Mr. Stuart Dalton first introduced at
Liverpool, viz., “That all persons, however ill-dressed or poor, who
are cleanly, shall be treated as gentlemen.” Yet the good ship
“Westminster,” is in danger of being cast away, of splitting on the
dangerous rock, parsimony; she is on a lea-shore with breakers
ahead; signals of distress are flying, and St. Marylebone will come to
the rescue. Yes! this great and important parish will make an effort
to preserve so admirable a vessel. Let her not founder, when you
could save, let her not go down when you could prevent. I drop the
figure and tell you plainly, that the force of your example in adopting
Mr. Ewart’s Act, is much needed by the Smith Street Institution,
which looks to you for encouragement and sympathy. And not only
St. Margaret, but other Metropolitan Parishes will follow the lead of
St. Marylebone. London, too, will wake from its long lethargic
slumber, and, undismayed by the defeat of 1855, will anxiously
watch how you deal with this question. Lord Mayor Carter will not
imitate his predecessors in frustrating the intentions of the
Legislature; [11] and although an enthusiast in Rifle Brigades will find
time to summon a meeting as to the policy of firing a shot at
Ignorance, directly St. Marylebone carries the Act, and affirms that
Knowledge should be the Portion of All!
The working of the Libraries Act in Manchester, has given great
satisfaction. Artists, authors, surgeons, chemists, lawyers, clerks in,
and out of orders, and artizans frequent the Reading Room. So in
Marylebone the Public Library would benefit not one alone, but ALL
classes. Such an Institution would do something to diminish that
ISOLATION of class, which the dying Talfourd rightly said was the bane
of England.
Gentlemen, it is miserable policy in this free country to allow a
dangerous class, utterly uninformed, to grow up in your very midst:

“A savage Horde, among the civilized,

A SERVILE BAND among the LORDLY FREE.”

is a perilous experiment. If you do not look after them, rely on it

they will look after you, and when it is “too late,” you will deeply
regret your ruinous economy, and short-sightedness, in not doing
what you could to soften their manners, and make them less brutal,
and also to qualify them for the Suffrage by wisely proffering these
young Mohawks and Ojibbeways of Lisson Grove especially,
INTELLECTUAL IMPLEMENTS AND TOOLS.

In 1858 the rental of the Parish of St. Marylebone, assessed to the

poor rate, was valued at £911,570; this sum at one halfpenny in the
pound, produces £1,899 2s. 1d. To speak of an education-rate like
this as an infliction, to describe such an impost as a heavy tax, is
mere rant, and to talk about the thin end of the wedge, or the “last
feather,” &c., is a mischievous abuse of language. The inestimable
good of Public News Rooms and Lending Libraries, will, despite heavy
platitudes and dreary sophistries, win their way. Take honest pride
in being able to say: I helped by my vote to secure to St.
Marylebone this incalculable benefit, which would be confined to no
one class exclusively, but which would be every man’s possession
and every man’s right. That will be a Waterloo day in the social
annals of St. Marylebone, when guided by this magnificent idea, you
wisely determine to establish so excellent an Institution. To such
societies as the Workman’s Institute, 209, Euston Road, and the All
Souls’ Mutual Improvement, Great Portland Street, and to the
“Patrons” of Sir Benjamin Hall’s Pet, rickety bantling, in Gloucester
Place, now happily defunct, to which I refer, on account of the
confusion it caused as a sham of the first class, To friends of
Progress, like Lord Shaftesbury, [13a] Lord Overstone, Mr. Robert
Hanbury, and Mr. J. Payne, it is fit a few words of remonstrance
should be addressed. Why, year after year repudiate,—why
perversely ignore the Public Libraries Act? Why disquiet yourselves
in vain? Why set up your puny wisdom against that of Parliament?
Why seek to bolster up ill managed, cliquish, moribund Institutes?
Why this morbid, excessive anxiety to Patronize? That Patron system
so fatal to self-respect, produces sycophants, not men.
The Rector of All Souls candidly admitted his Institution was in
articulo mortis, and that the higher classes took no interest in this
weak, sickly infant. No doubt the object is good, but how far wiser
for the District Rectors to take up the amended Act, which applies
“to Parishes.” Take it up NOT in a carping, criticising, fault finding
spirit, but rather SUPPLEMENT it, by Concerts, Readings, and Lectures.
G. Montague Davis, Esq., whose recitations exhibit so much
cleverness, informs me, London Lecturers, of no mean talent, would
gladly deliver a course at the St. Marylebone Public Library. [13b]
Supplement it with Recreation and Refreshment Rooms. Never forget
the scope and design of the Act is to ATTRACT, NOT to repel, to AMUSE,
as well as to instruct, the people. I will assume that you have
carried the Act:—that is a good work, but I warn you it is not
sufficient. The Legislature tells you to do the best you can with this
enabling Act. Supplement it then by all means, and make the avenues
and approaches to your News Rooms pleasant and entertaining. You
will never attract the men of fustian jackets, and horny hands,
unless you can combine amusement with instruction. I grant that
newspaper reading, as the most effective instrument of public
instruction, should be encouraged as much as possible, but it is no
easy matter to go from ten and twelve hours work in search of
useful knowledge. You must provide good and cheap Recreation. I
entertain serious misgivings that additional Church Accommodation
is NOT the most pressing question of the day. There is a taste to be
formed, and a mind to be humanized by enjoyment, before Church
or Chapel services can be relished. No doubt books and papers are
attractive, but I am pleading for the man wearied and exhausted by
a day of toil. In a café, in the Rue de la Roquette, near the Place de
la Bastille, Paris, I observed fifty ouvriers in blouses playing at
billiards. All appeared to be innocently enjoying themselves; why
not? There is no necessary connexion between billiards and
gambling, and the question arises if the Club, or Billiard room is
beneficial or allowable to the Gentleman, why not also to the
Working Man?
To successfully combat the allurements of cabarets and gin palaces,
you must “compel” men to visit your News Rooms by the force of
superior attraction.
There is “REST” enough, too much, already. Nothing breaks the low
and grovelling monotony of “the Pious Public House.” No healthier
pursuit interferes with the recreation supplied by the tap-room, or
the sanded parlour. You must tempt people into churches—the
arguments of fear have not succeeded in making them frequented.
The excitements you employ are not sufficient to attract the poor to
your benches—try the effect of supplementing the Act, as I have
briefly indicated—take it up in this wise temper, and you will have no
dismal failures to lament.
Gentlemen, it is related of the Emperor Augustus—it was the glory of
his reign—that he found Rome brick, and that he left it marble. Let
it be your higher aim, your nobler distinction, that you found the
people ignorant, and that you left them INSTRUCTED—that you found
them wholly untaught in political and social science, [15] and that you
left them INTELLIGENT—that you found the gates of the temple of
knowledge closed to the toiling classes, and that you OPENED THEM TO
ALL!

Gentlemen, I belong to no Party, but I will yield to none in my

earnest desire to thoroughly RESTORE and REPAIR the venerable Fabric
of the Constitution, and to put the Representation of the People on a
firm basis, and to have a House of Commons for the common
people. I am for a more comprehensive franchise than the
symbolical one of lath and plaster. I would give a vote to every man
certified as competent to READ and WRITE. I prefer a representation
of INTELLIGENT MEN to any Franchise that can be devised. What claim
has an illiterate hind to the Elective franchise? Not the slightest.
You put a dangerous weapon into his hand of the use of which he is
ignorant. The Suffrage is a TRUST, and a man wholly uninstructed is
unqualified to exercise it. Philosophers laugh at manhood suffrage
de se, and ask why should not such a franchise include women?
I am of opinion that a Reading and Writing qualification is fairer and
more equitable, and affords as good a security for an honest vote,
as any £ s. d. franchise whatever. With an untaxed Press, with
Knowledge set free, with cheap and good Literature, such a suffrage
could not fail to stimulate the popular education. I have no faith in a
£6 or a £5 franchise, unless it is annexed with a reading certificate,
and to make no provision for a £10 or £12 Lodger Franchise, as Mr.
James proposes, seems mean popularity-hunting, and like a
determination on the part of Lord John Russell to ignore the claims
of a very large and respectable class in St. Marylebone, and other
Metropolitan Parishes, because they are quiet and not
demonstrative. But such palpable injustice cannot be endured for
ever. That “ugly rush,” predicted by Mr. Henley, may yet come; for
there is always danger of convulsion when large bodies of men are
insulted, and deprived of their just political rights, in order to please
the rampant, degenerate Earl Grey, the rank Tory Dictator, alias
Renegade Whig, Earl Derby, or such a loud, noisy Declaimer, as Sir E.
Bully Lytton, M.P.
This Hertfordshire Baronet has taken so prominent a part in the play
of Reform, in the character of “THE RENEGADE—an English Liberal,” that
it becomes a duty to briefly criticize the performance. If there is one
spectacle more humiliating, or one sight sadder than another, it is
that of beholding a man of letters, and of unquestionable ability,
laboriously using his talents as a cloak of maliciousness, and
ungratefully reviling that democracy which gave him bread, and
raised him to power. “Et tu, Brute!” Why, a more grossly insulting,
unpatriotic speech never issued from the lips of the most rabid Tory!
Can it be possible that “England and the English” was written by the
“Poverty and Passion” Orator? Quantum mutatus! “How is the gold
become dim! How is the most fine gold changed!” How unlike that
Bulwer who discoursed so eloquently of the rights of man—of man
as a greater name than President, or King!
From my youth up, Bulwer was my beau ideal; he is now my
realization of perfidy and tergiversation, and before such an
elaborate sham, even the star of Disraeli must pale.
Like your confrère novelist, Disraeli, you have turned your back upon
yourself, and brought a slur on the literary calling. You, who began
your political career by associating your name with the freedom of
the newspaper from all fiscal restrictions, end it by doing what you
can to hamper and enchain it. On the night of the third reading of
the Paper Duty Repeal Bill, May 8, you absent yourself from the
Division, when EVERY VOTE was of the utmost importance to the
Finance Minister, though I am bound to add you were not alone in
turning your back upon yourself, and your speeches about giving the
people education and intelligence. Lord Stanley, with an
inconsistency equally glaring, votes for £300,000 for the Promotion
of Education, and then evades the Repeal Bill Division by flight! I
prefer Disraeli’s, and Adderley’s, and Pakington’s adverse vote to such
mean, pusillanimous Absentees, and Patrons of Educational
Institutes, as Lord Stanley, the Member for King’s Lynn, Sir Robert
Peel, the Member for Geneva, and the immaculate John Arthur
Roebuck, [17] the stern guardian of Political Purity. Stroud will rid itself
of Horsman, and the Metropolitan constituencies of Finsbury, St.
Marylebone, Southwark, and Westminster, will have something not very
complimentary to whisper to Mr. Duncombe, Mr. James, and Sir De Lacy
Evans, who absented themselves from the Division, and to Sir Charles
Napier, who voted with the Noes. If Liskeard favours the absence of
Mr. Osborne from a Reform Bill, compared with which a £6 franchise
is as nothing in the scale of moral value, it is time this Cornish
borough was disfranchised. The honourable member for Oldham, I
regret to notice, has a legitimate excuse for his absence, but what
can be said of his colleague, the son of Cobbett, voting against Free
Trade in Intelligence and Ingenuity, voting for imposing an
oppressive and restrictive tax of upwards of a million, on an article
which is just as essential to the circulation of knowledge, as iron rails
are to the progress of a locomotive.
In glancing over the Division list, Ayes, 219, Noes, 210, I was glad to
notice Birmingham’s indefatigable and respected Representative,
William Scholefield, Esq., among the Ayes; but where was the staid
and “eminent” member, John Bright, on this particular night? What!
The Tribune of the People to slope away on a field night like this! Not
even to pair! Why ASSUME there would be no fight on the third
reading? Had the vote been as decisive as on the second reading,
Lord Derby, with all his ill-concealed jealousy of the rising influence
of Mr. Gladstone, and his antipathy to a cheap Press, would not have
ventured on so desperate a game as the backer of the Limerick
game cock. The Rupert of Debate was far too wily a tactician to
overlook this narrow Party victory, this dwindling of the Ayes from 53
(245 against 192) to 9, this narrow squeak, this, in effect, desertion
to the enemy. There is not the shadow of a doubt the wretched NINE
encouraged the wily strategist in his dangerous game of USURPING the
privileges of the Commons, and reviving the ominous cry of 1832,
“What use is the House of Lords?”
Observe, far be it from me to comment with severity on the sayings
and doings of the brilliant Quaker. Far be it from me to notice
affronts which I set down to exuberance of arrogance, often seen in
men who have raised themselves from an obscure position to a front
rank. I would much rather dwell on Mr. Bright’s eminent services in
the People’s cause. Who was the chief Orator at the great League
Meetings, 1843–45? Who so captivated by his earnest style?
Fifteen years have elapsed, and again I have listened to Mr. Bright’s
persuasive words. His speech at St. Martin’s Hall, May 15th, 1860,
was a master-piece, and, despite a cold, a most animated, yet
almost solemn appeal. I will quote a sentence, which, who that
loves his country will gainsay?

“You boast of your love of freedom, your newspapers fill

columns every day with the details of what men are doing in
other parts of the world—some in overthrowing, some in
building up noble fabrics of human liberty. Let me beseech you
that, whilst you are observing what is being done ABROAD with
an intense and increasing interest, never for a single moment
forget what is being done, and what it is your duty to do, AT
HOME.”

Mr. Bright’s reception by the great meeting of some three thousand

persons was indeed an ovation, not “a roomfull of London mob,” (as
the Times insolently says), but of an indignant people. As in the
days of Kean, “the pit rose at him,” at the close of an inciting yet
moderate speech, of one hour’s duration.

“I exhort the people of England—you who are here present to-

night—all who shall read my words to-morrow, I exhort them to
make this a great question. Your fathers would have made it a
great question: they would have maintained, and did maintain
their rights; and you are recreant and unworthy children of
theirs if you surrender them in your generation.”
What cares Earl Derby, with his fifty proxies, whether he throws the
country into inextricable confusion? [19] What cares a haughty
aristocrat for Mr. Gladstone? His great superiority of intellect—his
undaunted courage—his noble conscientiousness, are so many
thorns in his side, and it is clear that certain members of both
Houses, and envious EX-Chancellors, (as Disraeli, or that renegade
sinecurist, Spring Rice, Lord Monteagle—a servant of the Crown, yet
working against the Crown—with an office of £2,000 as Comptroller
of the Exchequer, money wrung from a heavily taxed Public) dislike
our honest Finance Minister. Need I remind you the genius Mr.
Gladstone has displayed as a Financier is a crime in their eyes. To
drive the State Coach at all hazards, what cares Lord Derby if the
wheels of his chariot knock down the great Commoner? What does
such a titled usurper care for offering gross insults to the Chancellor
of the Exchequer? To OBSTRUCT, to offer every impediment to the
spread of knowledge by means of the Penny Newspaper—that great
political Intelligence—is the delight of this chieftain and his
retainers. You then turn round and most insolently taunt the Poor
with their want of knowledge and improvidence, with their hazy and
uncertain political ideas. You tempt the poor man with bribes, and
complain of his dependence in his exercise of the Franchise, and
contemptuously enquire “what will he do with it?”
I know of no dishonour, no meanness to be compared with this. You
are astute enough in diverting attention from the Reform Bill by
unfriendly criticisms on Napoleon, and by the distraction of Foreign
Affairs.
You are not Members for Nice or Savoy. To annoy our ALLY and
impede his policy, the rights and liberties of ENGLISHMEN are to be
shelved. Why this excessive anxiety about our Foreign neighbours
to the neglect of HOME? I can only glance at the curious tone of this
cynical speech. No doubt the delivery of this harangue was striking
enough, but a roar is certainly not a melodious sound. The effect of
the oration though clothed in glittering phraseology was entirely lost
by the jerking mode of its delivery. Such a dogmatical outcry I
never heard. It resembled the noise of some furious mastiff, and no
wonder the loud barking drove despairing Members into the lobby.
And this wretched declamation Lord B. Manners calls a brilliant and
magnificent oration. There was a time when Mr. Bulwer could see
no evil in a large increase of the constituency, nor any danger in the
ignorance, credulity, and excitableness of the working classes.
There was a time when he wished to conciliate the “English” with
fulsome adulation in order to elevate himself, now he labours to
damage and damnify; and who are his associates in adopting the
not very elegant or polite terms of “scum,” “boor.” &c. A Mr. Adam
Black, M.P. for Edinburgh, the son of a journeyman mason, Sidney
Smith, a briefless Edinburgh barrister, Robert Longfield, an Irish
barrister, a Q.C. and Member for Mallow, and next a brace of Lords,
Robert Cecil, and Robert Montagu. In coarse and vulgar slanders of
the Poor who is such an adept as the man who is a traitor to his
order—the man who has himself worked for his bread? None are so
bitter and malignant as those who have risen from the ranks. Let
me tell this scion of the House of Rutland that the presence of Lords
in the House of Commons is not desirable, and that the days of a
rapacious OLIGARCHY as the real ruling Power in England are
numbered. Why add Insult to Injury? It is a defence full of peril, to
say in effect that your order requires the people to be deprived of
their just Rights.
Let me tell that political incendiary Lord Derby that if his Order can
only be upheld by depriving us of the Elective Franchise, that if his
Order really requires this great sacrifice, this keeping the people year
after year in dense ignorance, that if his Order can only be preserved
by USURPING the privileges of the House of Commons, in order to
perpetuate an odious and miserable Tax on Intelligence, I for one
exclaim, Perish this Order.
And here let me contrast the coarse, censorious, anti-Reform
Speeches of Lord R. Cecil, Lord B. Manners, Mr. Bentinck, and
another Aristocrat whose “House” is quite as potential for evil,
though not so ancient as some noble Lords. I allude to John Walter
of Bear Wood, and Printing House Square, Member for Berkshire,
and the chief Proprietor of the “Times.”
Reading their libellous and defamatory speeches, I thought of the
dreaded advent of that day when plough boys should read and
write, I mused on the countryman’s cry, “WAIT TILL US CHAPS HAS VOTES.”
Compare the “Oration” of Sir E. Lytton, with the well reasoned,
logical speech of Mr. Gladstone.

“But when he speaks, what elocution flows,

Soft as the fleeces of descending snows.”

First of orators, and master of the arts of Rhetoric, Mr. Gladstone

condescends to dress his arguments in no robe of tinsel finery, no
specious, no glittering phrases are to be found, but a plain, common
sense English speech that could not fail to make a deep impression
on the House. How the Phantoms alarmists had conjured up were
routed! How he scattered to the winds the hobgoblins the Terrorists
had raised!
Sprung from the People, with them and of them, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer is too noble minded and just to satirize the Poor
because they are poor. I will quote his words:

“Sir.—I don’t admit that the working man, regarded as an

individual, is less worthy of the suffrage than any other class. I
don’t admit the charges of corruption from the Report of a
Committee of the House of Lords. I don’t believe that the
working men of this country are possessed of a disposition to
tax their neighbours and exempt themselves, nor do I
acknowledge for a moment that schemes of socialism, of
communism, of republicanism, or any other ideas at variance
with the laws and constitution of the Realm are prevalent and
popular among them.” (Hear, hear.)
But I forget. The Field day is drawing near, and you will soon be in
the thick of the Battle! [22]

“Yet once more let me look upon the scene;”

Let me call to mind my first to the Field of Waterloo, wrapt in a

crimson flood of light, on a beautiful summer’s evening in 1859.
Standing upon this celebrated Plain,

“this place of skulls,

The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo!”

who can forget the heroic deeds of that never to be forgotten Field?
Traversing that Plain where united Nations drew the sword, and
where our Countrymen especially triumphed, who cannot
sympathize with the dying English King, who on being told that it
was the 18th of June, exclaimed “That was a glorious day for
England!” But PEACE has her victories not less renowned than War.
And I hasten to review some specialities in a Home contest on which
so much is at stake; in my notes on St. Marylebone nothing has
struck me more than the high degree of speciality which attaches to
this Crown Living. Lancing in Sussex, my native village, of which my
Father was for many years Vicar, in Ecclesiastical language is termed
a “Peculiar,” and certainly St. Marylebone might take the same title.
The CLERGY in this, as in every other Parish, stand on a vantage
ground, and, if I might venture to speak a few words, I would
counsel them to vote for this Act, and advocate such NURSERIES of
Intelligence and virtue as Public News and Recreation Rooms, and to
recommend the rate paying part of their congregations to do the
same.
It would be very unwise to separate yourselves from the only
feasible plan for the innocent recreation and instruction of the
People, and what have the working clergy to fear from Books or
Newspapers?
Is it wise in the 19th century of the Christian era to proclaim openly
that you dare not encounter the rivalship of places set apart for
intellectual gratification and amusement? Is it not well occasionally
to ask yourselves whether the common people hear you gladly? and
if your words contain the food, or the medicine which meets the
great necessities of toiling hearts. You have vainly preached
prohibitions and restrictions,—you have hurled spiritual thunderbolts
with little or no effect. Stand upon the steps of the Churches, and
see who comes out. Is the working man there? There are clearly
faults on both sides. He loves not the Church. The Church has not
done its duty. You must constrain, tempt, “compel” him to enter.
You must manage to attract and draw him, and above all you must
learn to preach Freedom of Thought, UNITY and Christian Equality.
Believe me it would be politic on your part to review the past, and
do what you can, to ameliorate the condition of the masses by gladly
availing yourselves of this Act. That is a sad day for the Gospel and
the Church when a Plan for the Improvement of the People is called
“secular,” and not sufficiently religious to be urged from the Pulpit:
the Bishop of Sierra Leone in his Sermon at St. Marylebone Church
drew an appalling picture of “1,300 millions of Idolaters,” and spoke
of the duty of teaching the Nations, by spreading abroad the light of
the Gospel. That obligation cannot be questioned, but who can say
there are not IDOLS of SECTARIANISM and CASTE in our own country?
Who can say there are not unhappy DIVISIONS, and a want of
CHRISTIAN UNIFORMITY? And who can deny the Idol worship of Lisson
Grove?
Talk of the dark places of the earth, where can more devoted
worshippers of Bacchus or of Mammon be found than in this
collection of Towns, called London? Here are Idols as real, sacrifices
as hideous and mischievous as any in a heathen land.
I can understand the opposition of the Romanists to this gracious
Act. The Romish system cannot bear the light of intelligence: Priests
of that faith don’t want their people to know too much, or to get as
high as the generalities of history, or the speculations of philosophy,
but YOU, the Clergy of the Church of England, that Church which will
stand or fall, as it meets the requirements of this progressive age,
have no interest whatever in keeping the Key of Knowledge to
yourselves. Recollect St. Marylebone has a disgrace to retrieve, a
character to redeem. Believe me it is a discredit to your large Parish
to be without a Public Library. Vote for the adoption of this Act, and
you reduce the Poor rate, you reduce crime, and simplify the
policeman’s duty, and above all you bridge over the gulf that
separates classes. Your cordial sympathy cannot be withheld from a
Proposal of this description.
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth
glad tidings, that publisheth Peace!” You who promulgate “Peace on
earth, GOOD WILL TOWARDS MEN,” cannot carelessly regard this
beneficent project. You cannot be more usefully engaged than in
promoting a scheme that enlarges the means of instruction, and
widens the field of economical and sanitary science. Your senses
cannot be quite dazzled by the pomps and vanities of exclusive Rifle
Corps, trained to fire at imaginary foes. You cannot allow this fair
land to be invaded by an enemy so real and fatal as Ignorance. You
will not forget what it is that makes one man wiser, or more virtuous
than another, and what it is that constitutes the difference between
one man and another? You well know what it is that makes them
what they are, good or evil, useful or not. You well know that it is
Education which makes the great difference in mankind. [24] You are
too sagacious to slight, or separate yourselves from the only
feasible, enduring plan for the innocent RECREATION and instruction of
the people. You are aware that all work and no innocent AMUSEMENT,
has been productive of the worst results. You are aware that Music
is a powerful agent in the promotion of refinement and civilization,
and that after a long day of toil, a man has need of relaxations other
than books. Knowing this, you will, I hope, gladly respond to the
appeal, and strengthen the hands of St. Margaret and St. John.

“The bells of time are ringing changes fast!

Grant, Lord! that each fresh peal may usher in
 An Era of advancement!”

I have said St. Marylebone is a peculiar Crown living; with a Baronet

for a Crown Churchwarden. May I ask the reason why the Rector
never takes the chair at Vestry Meetings? And if not in me too
curious, does the Bishop of London approve of a Clerk in Orders
being Preacher, Parish Clerk, and Sexton? And whether the Rev.
official pockets the Surplice fees as parson, clerk, and sexton? This
triple conjunction of offices is peculiar, and no doubt economic, but it
wants reforming altogether. Such an industrious clerk as Mr.
Braithwaite, might be supposed to have some influence. But he
roughly tells me that he has not any, has never heard, nor wishes to
know, anything of Mr. Ewart’s Act. I am surprised the District Rector
of St. Mary, Mr. Gurney, and also the Incumbent of All Saints,
Margaret Street, should have received a volunteer with so little
courtesy. Had I been engaged in devising some evil, instead of an
enduring benefit to their Parish, I could not have been more
cavalierly treated.
I do not say arrogance is confined to Priests. I have met with Popes
out of Rome, who in the garb of Friends, or Free Traders, have much
Pride, but little Humility, and whose utter want of common courtesy
is in strong contrast to our Old Nobility. Perhaps the most offensive
display of intolerance was that of a Rt. Rev. Ratepayer, residing in
Queen Ann St., whose Episcopal ire was roused on being asked to
aid in setting forward the Libraries Act. [26a] Not a very unreasonable
request. A Bishop who daily, I suppose, reads in his Prayer Book the
Collect for Peace, “Trusting in Thy Defence, we may not fear the
Power of ANY adversaries,” is so alarmed, or attaches so little
meaning to the words of the Prayer, that he subscribes handsomely
to the Chichester Rifle Corps, and yet betrays no fear of the invasion
of an enemy, more dangerous and to be dreaded than the French, is
certainly not an agreeable study:

“tantæne animis cælestibus iræ?”

Dwells such rancour in heavenly minds?
Long years ago when:

“My thoughts were happier oft than I,”

Lord Grey warned the Bishops “to set their House in order.” If the
Church is not reformed from WITHIN, she will be reformed from
WITHOUT, with a vengeance. It cannot be denied the sentiments of
Festus are held by attached members of the Church of England.

“Let not a hundred humble pastors starve,

In this or any land of Christendom,
While one or two impalaced, mitred, throned,
And banqueted, burlesque if not blaspheme
The holy penury of the Son of God.” [26b]

The Rector of Christchurch, Lisson Grove, lately advocated the

claims of the Diocesan Church Building Society. No doubt it is time
that something should be done for the Poor of this District, but I am
clearly of opinion that it would be wise to postpone any efforts in
this direction, until the cheap experiment of Free Libraries had been
tried in St. Marylebone.
Such an Institution in Lisson Grove would to the Ojibbeways
especially be a Home of Refuge, or what I should term a SCHOOL
CHURCH.—Good Books are the best of Missionaries. Parcels of
hundred volumes each at five pounds per parcel, can be purchased
of C. Mudie, 511, New Oxford Street; but CURATES are not so easily
obtained. No Institutions, no contrivance, no expenditure, can
multiply this sacred crop. As one of the Laity of the Bishop of
London’s Diocese I own I demur to additional “Buildings” unless I
have some voice in reference to the Incumbents, &c. It is time the
Laity “assisted” “Parochial Extension” in other ways besides money
contributions. Why do the Bishops and dignified Clergy persist in
IGNORING Laymen in their Ecclesiastical arrangements? Why regard
them as mere machines for extracting gold or silver? Before I can
reply to the Bishop of London’s Letter to the Laity of the Diocese, I
respectfully request a satisfactory answer to this question. Will your
Lordship aid the Laity in their just claim to a seat in Convocation?
The Laity are not excluded from Convocation in the Protestant
Episcopal Church of the United States, and if the laity of the Church
of England are to be rigidly excluded, Church Building appeals will
command little, or no attention.
The Laymen of 1860 are not the unlettered men of twenty years
since, and to deny them any deliberation as to the qualification of
Curates or Incumbents, reading or preaching capabilities, appears to
me very bad policy on the part of our Ecclesiastical superiors.
It would ill become me to set up as an Episcopus Episcoporum,
believing, however, as I do that this assembling of the Laity and
Clergy would tend to Christian Unity I cannot resist urgently insisting
on this Church Reform. Speaking for my own order the Laity are
hardly dealt with! How many real grievances they must now silently
endure, without the slightest power to remove or abate them! How
much which relates to discipline, and the conducting the services is
diametrically opposed to the wishes of the Laity! How often has the
length of the Morning Service been objected to. Only the other day
Lord Ebury did what he could to shorten the services, but in vain;
there seems a superstitious reverence for repetition, for retaining
certain phrases which must strike high, low, and broad Churchmen
as objectionable. The Prayer for both Houses of Parliament under
our “most religious and gracious Queen” is truly admirable, and how
any Lords Spiritual and Temporal can join in such a comprehensive
petition and yet vote against a great Educational boon like the repeal
of the last tax on Knowledge I for one cannot understand. But in
this Prayer I demur to applying the same term “most gracious” to
the Queen, and to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Who can deny
that damp, ill-ventilated, or icy cold Churches, are not fruitful causes
of disease? I attended the Sons of the Clergy Festival, under the
Dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral on the 23rd May. It was a warm
summer’s day, but owing to the intense cold rushing currents of air, I
with others was obliged to leave. People were shivering with cold—
and this in the 19th century! A boasted scientific age! A few years
ago I was at St. Paul’s Sons of the Clergy Festival, and was then
compelled to leave on account of the bitter cold. I wrote on that
occasion a polite note to Dean Milman, in which I urged that some
means of warming the Cathedral should be adopted. I received no
reply; and this is not surprising, for a more Judaic High Priest—a
very Caiphas cannot be found than Henry Hart Milman. Why there
might have been some excuse for thus trifling with the Public health
at the time my Grand-father was Prebendary of this Cathedral,
because the appliances of science were not in his day known. Let
me tell this supercilious Priest that a curious public are enquiring of
what use are Deans and Canons with their thousands a year, if they do
not even take the trouble to make their Churches comfortable? It is
very discreditable to the Dean and Canons that such beggarly
parsimony should year after year prevail. Why not FREE ACCESS to this
noble Edifice? Why this miserable Clerical impost of 4s 2d? Why it
is an Education of itself to survey

“until thy mind hath got by heart

Its eloquent proportions.”
“The Dome—the vast and wondrous Dome,”

Sir Christopher Wren’s rare masterpiece, of whom it was said,

“Si monumentum requiris,

Circurnspice,”

“if you want his monument, look around.” This glorious Temple,
which stands alone for grandeur, worthiest of God, the Holy and the
True, deserves a better fate than to be starved by its Priests on the
pretext of a false and wretched economy. Every thing that ministers
to comfort is seen in a nobleman’s mansion, shall God’s House alone
be dishonoured by such paltry and mean frugality? Who can deny
the attendance of invalids at Matins, with litany and communion, is
not itself an ordeal, but to combine this length of Service with a
Sermon of an hour’s duration is an infliction of no ordinary
character. I do not say that when Paul has served for a text, that
Plato or Epictetus have preached, but who shall say the Preacher
does not too often exhibit himself and his crude ideas, and NOT the
Bible’s. “It is this text of mine,” that too often proceeds from the lips
of ostentatious Preachers.
It is unreasonable to expect that 20,000 clergymen of the Church of
England, are qualified as preachers, shall be able, one and all, at
least twice a week, to talk or read something that will command
attention for fifty or sixty minutes? Why not some UNIFORMITY in the
Prayer, or no Prayer, before sermon? Why not some authorized
version of psalms and hymns to be sung in all the churches? Why
this diversity? The layman has a right to say to the Bishop, if you
forbid me to take any part in the government and discipline of the
Church, I cannot contribute towards the “extension” of such
injustice. You nominate or appoint a clerk, who ought to know how
to read; yet how few are capable of MERELY READING the Service, I will
not say with propriety alone, but with common decency. Who has
not “suffered some,” to use an American phrase, by the deplorable
deficiencies in pronunciation, and accentuation? Who with any ear
for fit cadence, is not pained to be obliged to listen to the
monotonous whining of the simple and beautiful Ritual of the Church
of England? It is from the reading desk and the pulpit that boys and
girls are told they will hear their mother tongue in all its purity. But
is this true? It is not only not true, but the very reverse of truth.
The forms of Prayer and Thanksgivings, as literary compositions, are
perfect specimens of style. What English prose will venture to
challenge a comparison with the dignity and melody of the Collects?
And yet, remember, the musical and rhetorical excellence of the
Liturgy, consists chiefly of translations from the Latin! Surely such
persuasive, such affecting petitions to Heaven deserve a better fate,
than to be murdered by ruthless and ignorant men who have missed
their vocation. Some mouth and mutter, some rant and roar, others
simper and squeak, and not a few read the Service with the same
apathy as an animal chewing the cud.
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