478 History of the English Landed Interest. 



personality than his would have found an only too-willing 

 audience. 



He was a churchman, but he never spared the parson on 

 that account. He showered blows indiscriminately wherever 

 he imagined he beheld a sham or an oppressor. One day he is 

 lampooning some dissenting minister whom he overhears in a 

 hovel, discussing with its occupant the superior housing ac- 

 commodation of a future life ; the next he is painting the 

 legalised pastor of the flock in the blackest colours. At times 

 no one, however disposed to impartiality, can keep patience at 

 his reckless abuse. Such an occasion occurs when we recall 

 his language at the Winchester Market dinner on September 

 28th, 1822, He gets up and proposes the toast of '' a large 

 reduction in tithes." He tells the rustics that all that mass of 

 wealth, termed " tithe, is not Chm'ch property, but public pro- 

 perty, and may, of course, be disposed of as the Parliament 

 shall please." So far, though we may disagree, there is no- 

 thing reprehensible in his speech. Lord John Russell, we 

 have seen, in the sobering position of a Minister of the Crown, 

 used identical language when introducing the Commutation 

 Act some years later. But he goes on to impute to a class, 

 which is the acknowledged exemplar of parochial morality, every 

 sordid and unworthy motive imaginable. " There appears," 

 he says, " at this moment an uncommon degree of anxiety on 

 the part of the parsons to see the farmers enabled to pay rents. 

 The business of the parsons being only with tithes, one natur- 

 ally, at first sight, wonders why they should care so much 

 about renU. The fact is this, they see clearly enough that the 

 landlords will never go long without rents, and suffer them to 

 enjoy the tithes. They see, too, that there must be a struggle 

 between the land and the funds — they see that there is such a 

 struggle. They see that it is the taxes that are taking away 

 the rent of the landlord and the capital of the farmer. Yet 

 the parsons are afraid to see the taxes reduced. Why ? Be- 

 cause if the taxes be reduced in any great degree (and nothing 

 short of a great degree will give relief), they see that the 

 interest of the debt cannot be paid, and they know well, that 

 the interest of the debt can never be reduced until their tithes 



