Aug. 6. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



119 



" Our common people of the High Church are as 

 ignorant in matters of religion as the bigotted Papists, 

 which gives great advantage to our Jacobite and Tory 

 priests to lead them where they please, or to mould 

 them into what shapes they please." — Reasons for an 

 Union, p, 39. 



" The minds of the populace are too much debauched 

 already from their loyalty by seditious arts of the High 

 Church faction.'" — Convocation Craft, p. 34. 



" We may see how closely our present Highflyers 

 pursue the steps of their Popish predecessors, in reck- 

 oning those who dispute the usurped power of the 

 Church to be hereticks, schismaticks, or what else they 

 please. " — lb. p. 30. 



" All the blood that has been spilt in the late un- 

 natural rebellion, may be very justly laid at the doors 

 of the High Church clergy." — Christianity no Creature 

 of the State, p. 16. 



" We see what the Tory Priesthood were made of in 

 Queen Elizabeth's time, that they were ignorant, lewd, 

 and seditious : and it must be said of 'em that they are 

 true to the stuff still." — Toryism the Worst of the Two, 

 p. 21. 



" The Tories and High Church, notwithstanding their 

 pretences to loyalty, will be found by their actions to 

 be the greatest rebels in nature." — Reasons for an 

 Union, p. 20. 



Sir W. Scott, in his Life of Dryden, Lond. 1808, 

 observes that — 



" Towards the end of Charles the Second's reign, 

 the High- Church-men and tlie Catholics regarded them- 

 selves as on the same side in political questions, and not 

 greatly divided in their temporal interests. Both were 

 sufferers in the plot, both were enemies of the sectaries, 

 both were adherents of the Stuarts. Alternate con- 

 version had been common between them, so early as 

 since Milton made a reproach to the English Univer- 

 sities of the converts to the Roman faith daily made 

 within their colleges : of those sheep — 



' Whom the grim woZ^with privy paw 

 Daily devours apace, and nothing said.' " 



Life, .3rd edit. 1834, p. 272. 



I quote this passage partly because it gives Sir 

 Walter's interpretation of that obscure passage in 

 Lycidas, respecting which I made a Query (Vol. ii., 

 p. 246.), but chiefly as a preface to the remark 

 that in James II.'s reign, and at the time these 

 party names originated, the Roman Catholics were 

 in league with the Puritans or Low Chwch party 

 against the High Churchmen, which increased the 

 acrimony of both parties. 



In those days religion was politics, and politics 

 religion, with most of the belligerents. Swift, 

 however, as if he wished to be thought an excep- 

 tioii to the general rule, chose one party for its 

 politics and the other for its religion. 



" Swift carried into the ranks of the Whigs the 

 opinions and scruples of a High Church clergyman . . . 

 Such a distinction between opinions in Cliurch and 

 State has not frequently existed : the High Churchmen 



being usually Tories, and the Low Church divines uni- 

 versally Whigs." — Scott's Life, 2nd edit.: Edin. 1824, 

 p. 76. 



See Swift's Discourse of the Contests and Dissen- 

 sions between the Nobles and Commons of Athens 

 and Rome : Lond. 1701. 



In his ({ua\ni Argument against abolishing Chris- 

 tianity, Lond. 1708, the follov/ing passage occurs : 



" There is one advantage, greater than any of the 

 foregoing, proposed by the abolishing of Christianity : 

 that it will utterly extinguish parties among us by 

 removing those factious distinctions of High and Low 

 Church, of Whig and Tory, Presbyterian and Church 

 of England." 



Scott says of the Tale of a Tub : 



" The main purpose is to trace the gradual corrup- 

 tions of the Church of Rome, and to exalt the English 

 Reformed Church at the expense both of the Roman 

 Catholic and Presbyterian establishments. It was 

 written with a view to the interests of the High Church 

 party." — Life, p, 84. 



Most men vyill concur with JeflTrey, who ob- 

 serves : 



" It is plain, indeed, that Swift's High Church prin- 

 ciples were all along but a part of his selfishness and 

 ambition ; and meant nothing else, than a desire to 

 raise the consequence of the order to which he happened 

 to belong. If he had been a layman, we have no 

 doubt he would have treated the pretensions of the 

 priesthood as he treated the persons of all priests who 

 were opposed to him, with the most bitter and irre- 

 verent disdain." — Ed. Rev., Sept. 1816. 



The following lines are from a squib of eight 

 stanzas which occurs in tlie works of Jonathan 

 Smedley, and are said to have been fixed on the 

 door of St. Patrick's Cathedral on the day of 

 Swift's instalment (see Scott, p. 174.) : 



" For High Churchmen and polic)', 

 He swears he prays most hearty ; 

 But would pray back again to be 

 A Dean of any party." 



This reminds us of the Vicar of Bray, of famous 

 memory, who, if I recollect aright, commenced his^ 

 career thus : 



" In good King Charles's golden days, 

 When loyalty no harm meant, 

 A zealous High Churchman I was, 

 And so I got preferment." 



How widely different are the men we see chissed 

 under the title High Churchmen! Evelyn and 

 Walton*, the gentle, the Christian; the arrogant 

 Swift, and the restless Atterbury. 



It is difficult to prevent my note running 

 beyond the limits of " N. & Q.," with the ample 



* Of Izaak Walton his biographer. Sir John Hawr 

 kins, writing in 1760, says, "he was a friend to a 

 hierarchy, or, as we should now call such a one, a High 

 Churchman," 



