volution, and read pretty largely about it, I was somewhat in a condition to appreciate the richness of your knowledge, and the wisdom of your judgments. I do not mean that I agree with you in all these; in some instances I should differ very decidedly; but still the wisdom of the book, as well as its singular eloquence and poetry, was such a treasure to me as I have rarely met with, and am not at all likely to meet with again.

CXCVII. TO JAMES MARSHALL, ESQ.

Fox How, January 23, 1840.

I thank you much for your last letter, and I assure you that I attach a great value to such communications from you. The scheme of a newspaper I actually tried myself nine years ago, and spent above two hundred pounds upon it. I was not so foolish as to think that I could keep up a newspaper; but I was willing to bell the cat, hoping that some who were able might take up what I had begun. But no one did, and the thing died a natural death at the end of two months. I feel, however, so strongly the desirableness of such an attempt, that I am ready again to contribute money or writing, or both, to the same cause; and I should be doubly glad if we could effect both the objects you speak of, a daily paper and a weekly one. It seems to me, however, desirable that at this point I should make somewhat of a confession of my political faith to you, that you may know how far my views would coincide with yours.

My differences with the Liberal party would turn, I think, chiefly on two points. First, I agree with Carlyle, in thinking that they greatly over-estimate Bentham, and also that they overrate the Political Economists generally; not that I doubt the ability of those writers, or the truth of their conclusions, as far as regards their own science, but I think that the summum bonum of their science, and of human life, are not identical; and, therefore, many ques

tions in which free trade is involved, and the advantages of large capital, &c., although perfectly simple in an economical point of view, become, when considered politically, very complex; and the economical good is very often from a neglect of other points made in practice a direct social evil.

But my second difference is greater by much than this: I look to the full development of the Christian Church in its perfect form, as the Kingdom of God, for the most effective removal of all evil, and promotion of all good: and I can understand no perfect Church, or perfect State, without their blending into one in this ultimate form. I believe, farther, that our fathers, at the Reformation, stumbled accidentally, or rather were unconsciously led by God's Providence, to the declaration of the great principle of this system, the doctrine of the King's Supremacy;— which is, in fact, no other than an assertion of the supremacy of the Church or Christian society over the clergy, and a denial of that which I hold to be one of the most mischievous falsehoods ever broached,-that the government of the Christian Church is vested by divine right in the clergy, and that the close corporation of bishops and presbyters, whether one or more, makes no difference,-is and ever ought to be the representative of the Christian Church. Holding this doctrine as the very corner stone of all my political belief, I am equally opposed to Popery, High Churchism, and the claims of the Scotch Presbyteries, on the one hand; and to all the Independents, and advocates of the separation, as they call it, of Church and State, on the other; the first setting up a Priesthood in the place of the Church, and the other lowering necessarily the objects of Law and Government, and reducing them to a mere system of police, while they profess to wish to make the Church purer. And my fondness for Greek and German literature has made me very keenly alive to the mental defects of the Dissenters as a body; the characteristic faults of the English mind, narrowness of view, and

a want of learning and a sound critical spirit,-being exhibited to my mind in the Dissenters almost in caricature. It is nothing but painful to me to feel this; because no man appreciates more than I do the many great services which the Dissenters have rendered, both to the general cause of Christianity, and especially to the cause of justice and good government in our own country: and my sense of the far less excusable errors, and almost uniformly mischievous conduct of the High Church party, is as strong as it can be of any one thing in the world.

Again, the principle of Conservatism has always appeared to me to be not only foolish, but to be actually felo de se it destroys what it loves, because it will not mend it. But I cordially agree with Niebuhr,- who in all such questions is to me the greatest of all authorities; because, together with an ability equal to the highest, he had an universal knowledge of political history, far more profound than was ever possessed by any other man,—that every new institution should be but a fuller development of, or an addition to, what already exists; and that if things have come to such a pass in a country, that all its past history and associations are cast away as merely bad, Reform in such a country is impossible. I believe it to be necessary, and quite desirable, that the popular power in a State should, in the perfection of things, be paramount to every other; but this supremacy need not, and ought not, I think, to be absolute; and monarchy, and an aristocracy of birth,-as distinguished from one of wealth or of office,-appear to me to be two precious elements which still exist in most parts of Europe, and to lose which, as has been done unavoidably in America, would be rather our insanity than our misfortune. But the insolencies of our aristocracy no one feels more keenly than I do : the scandalous exemption of the peers from all ignominious punishments short of death, so that for a most aggravated manslaughter a peer must escape altogether, as the old Lord Byron did,

a

a

This, so far it is here correctly stated, was abolished by 4 & 5 Vict. cap. 22.

or as the Duchess of Kingston did, for bigamy :-the insolent practice of allowing peers to vote in criminal trials on their honour, while other men vote on their oath; the absurdity of proxy voting, and some other things of the same nature. All theory, and all experience show, that if a system goes on long unreformed, it is not then reformed, but destroyed. And so, I believe, it will be with our Aristocracy and our Church; because I fear that neither will be wise in time. But still, looking upon both as positive blessings, and capable-the latter especially—of doing good that can be done by no other means, I love and would maintain both, not as a concession or a compromise, but precisely with the same zeal that I would reform both, and enlarge the privileges and elevate the condition of the mass of the community. As to your difference of opinion with Carlyle about the craving for political rights, I agree with you fully. But I think that, before distress has once got in, a people whose physical wants are well supplied may be kept for centuries by a government without a desire for political power: but, when the ranks immediately above them have been long contending earnestly for this very power, and physical distress makes them impatient of their actual condition, then men are apt, I think, to attach even an over-value to the political remedy; and it is then quite too late to try to fatten them into obedience: other parts of their nature have learnt to desire, and will have their desire gratified.

Fox How, January 25, 1840. On the difficulties of Scripture I met as to the matter of fact, maintaining that the differences of interpretation are very few in number; and that many of the greatest points at issue are altogether foreign to the interpretation of Scripture, and are argued upon other grounds; and that where the Scripture is really difficult, there the boasted authority of the Church gives no help,

ones.

the early Christian writers having been quite as much puzzled as ourselves, when they did not attempt to clear themselves by mere guesses, and those generally very bad I have been working hard every morning at my History, and have wanted the evenings for my letters; so that we really declined dining out after the first half of our stay. The second volume is now finished, and I have written besides four Sermons, three Letters to the Herts Reformer, and letters of other sorts, of course, without number. I have had a considerable correspondence with Mr. James Marshall, about our plan of a Society for obtaining and disseminating information about the poorer classes he is deeply interested in the question. Indeed, it is only a wonder to me that every one is not energetic on this matter; but the security of those who were "buying, selling, planting, and building, and knew not till the flood came, and swept them all away," is to be repeated, I suppose, or rather will be repeated, before each of our Lord's comings, be they as many as they may. I have often thought of New Zealand, and if they would make you Governor, and me Bishop, I would go out, I think, to-morrow,—not to return after so many years, but to live and die there, if there was any prospect of rearing any hopeful form of society. I have actually got 200 acres in New Zealand, and I confess that my thoughts often turn thitherward; but that vile population of runaway convicts and others, who infest the country, deter me more than any thing else, as the days of Roman Proconsuls are over, who knew so well how to clear a country of such nuisances. Now, I suppose they will, as they find it convenient, come in and settle down quietly amongst the colonists, as Morgan did at Kingston; and the ruffian and outlaw of yesterday, becomes to-day, according to our Jacobin notions of citizenship, a citizen, and perhaps a magistrate and a legislator. I imagine that the Jamaica society has never recovered the mixture of Buccaneer blood, and it is in that way that colonial societies become so early corrupted,