sense of thankfulness for the tranquillity of his college reign. He writes:

"There GOD so blessed me with patience and moderation in the choice of all offices, that I made all quiet in the college. And I governed that college in peace, without so much as the show of a faction all my time, which was eleven years."

His diary has been often ridiculed for the trifling character of many facts related in it; but this again exemplifies how he was observant of things great and small; and this minute observation is one of the chief characteristics of a really great mind. He was not above attending to and noticing little things. His diary was not written for the public. It evidently contains notices rather quaintly put down as hints for his own memory, than statements of the current of events. Modern enmity still goes on dilating upon the superstitious way in which he notes down his dreams, and so forth; but he himself answered before his death the slander of Prynne, who originally began this attack upon his private note-book. "I noted them carefully, perhaps," he says, "yet no way superstitiously." When we consider the effect which a dream or a coincidence has upon the mind, it seems quite probable that such a circumstance would be to many the most lively memoria technica for the day; and it is very likely that he often jotted down such a trifle as a hook on which his mind might append something of importance which he might not wish committed to paper. This diligent minuteness enabled him to accomplish great reforms. We have seen how he looked into the details of the university, let us hear Mr. Baines' account of his administration of the treasury (p. 192):

During the period he presided there, he was most conscientious in the discharge of its official duties. He looked into every corner, detected secret frauds, reformed various abuses, and busied himself in devising means whereby the collection of the king's dues might be rendered less onerous to the subject. There was a class of persons who jobbed the revenue for their own gain, who were Laud's especial abhorrence; and as these gentry had swarmed under his predecessor, who made bargains with them, we can easily understand the outcry they raised against him. Clarendon tells us the principles which guided him, and gives us some idea of his practical common sense, in cultivating the society of the merchants and great traders."

His theory of statesmanship taught him to exercise that diligent investigation of facts which Bacon had pointed out as the foundation of advancement in science, and his religious principle and heaven-sprung philanthropy sustained his practice with invigorating ardour, so that it was not dwarfed or shrivelled as Bacon's was by peculation and love of money. We wonder not at Pitt or Peel recognizing the importance of practical information before at

tempting reform; but we doubt not many readers of modern writers would think it impossible for an ecclesiastic of Charles's court to set about such a work with any other data than the logic of the schools. Yet so it was. "The ridiculous old bigot," as the Edinburgh Reviewer calls him, this same Laud, represented as giving "no indications of a sense of duty towards GOD or man," he whom we would rather call the magnificent Archbishop, for the attribute of Lorenzo may well be given to him who was the selfspending spiritual pater patriæ,

"Laud," says M. Guizot, "welcomed the complaints of the merchants, occupied his leisure in communications with them, obtained information upon the general interests of commerce, and freed it from such burdens as were not beneficial to the public revenue. The office of Lord High Treasurer was afterwards given by his advice to Juxon, Bishop of London, a man at once laborious and moderate, who put an end to disorders from which the crown and the subject alike were forced to suffer. To serve as he conceived the king and the Church, Laud could oppress the people and give the most unjust [that is to say, unconstitutional] counsels; but when the king and Church were not in question, he was anxious for good, sought for the truth, and sustained them both without fear for himself or allowing any other interest to turn him aside."

The praise thus incidentally given to Bishop Juxon may serve in a great degree to exculpate Laud from the mistake, as it is generally believed to have been, of appointing an ecclesiastic to that office. We must remember, that although the reign of ecclesiastics in those bureaux had indeed gone by in the time of Charles, yet the idea was by no means so strange as it is to us, who have seen the separation between "the white robe and the white staff," perpetuated so much longer. Laud felt, doubtless, that in appointing an able and conscientious man he was benefiting the State, and in appointing an ecclesiastic he was giving honour and strength to the Church. His note upon the appointment is this:

"1635. Mar. 6. Sunday. William Juxon, Lord Bishop of London, made Lord High Treasurer of England. No Churchman had it since Henry VIIth's time. I pray God bless him to carry it so that the Church may have honour and the king and the State service and contentment by it. And now if the Church will not hold up themselves under GOD, I can do no more."

These expressions do indeed point to what was the great failure of his ecclesiastical government. He attributed too much value to the possession of secular authority. We have seen, however, that he had a very solemn view of all authority in common with Charles. It was not wonderful if he was a little apt to exaggerate its importance. He never would sacrifice any spiritual requirement to secular advantage, but he was always on the watch to forward the

cause of the Church by the use of his temporal influence. We never find him to have used his temporal influence for himself or his family. The cause of religion was that to which he devoted everything. His own private means were lavished in munificent endowments and buildings, and collections. It is sometimes harder to ask a favour than to distribute donations: but when Laud could thus confer a kindness on the poorer clergy he was always ready to do it. Abbot was a man of a totally different kind. Having plenty himself, he thought it lowering to seek for pecuniary convenience even for his humbler brethren throughout the land. Perhaps, however, he caught a glimpse of what was really the danger of Laud's tendency, for the Church is stronger the fewer favours it gets. At any rate, however, the character of the two men peeps out in the satisfaction with which Laud mentions his plan, assented to by Buckingham, for easing the Clergy in the collection of the subsidy, and the conduct of the sour Archbishop, who was

very angry; asked what I had to do to make any suit for the Church? told me never any Bishop attempted the like at any time, nor would any but myself have done it; that I had given the Church such a wound in speaking to any lord of the laity about it, as I could never make whole again; that if my lord duke did fully understand what I had done, he would never induce me to come near him again. I answered, I thought I had done a very good office for the Church, and so did my betters think. If his Grace thought otherwise, I was sorry I had offended him, and I hoped (being done out of a good mind, for the support of many poor vicars in the country, who must needs sink under three subsidies a year,) my error, if it were one, were pardonable. So we parted. . . . . May God bless me," he adds, "His servant, labouring under the pressure of them who always wished ill to me."

Abbott and Laud were opposed upon one very important point of Church discipline, the chaplain lecturers. These were a class of men not very unlike the mendicant orders which had done so much damage to the parochial system in England before the Reformation. Then, as now, they were on the extreme of their side; only the side was changed. These lecturers were a class of men doing exactly the mischief which would have been soon prevalent in our own day if the late conventicle bill had been passed.

"The fashion of those days was that not only persons entitled by law, but any country gentleman or other who pleased, retained a chaplain as part of their establishment. They treated him, it is true, little better than a menial, (perhaps his manners and breeding were not much superior,) but he was a very useful instrument wherewith to worry the parochial clergy."-Baines, p. 71.

The king determined to put a stop to so great a mischief; and

the canon requiring a proper title for ordination, and the limitation of chaplains to the households of those who were qualified to keep them, were both enforced.

We proceed in Mr. Baines' words

"As far as Laud's own diocese was concerned the royal injunctions were fairly carried out. He called the lecturers together and informed them of his determination to be obeyed, at the same time instructing his archdeacons to enforce conformity. Had his brother prelates seconded him, sound doctrine would probably have superseded the imperfect teaching of the Puritan ministers. But they were not all in earnest or gifted with wisdom.

Bishop Wren indeed seems to have seen the necessity of meeting the public craving for preaching, and to have filled up with sound men the vacancies caused by his suppression of the combination lecturers. Others were more injudicious, putting down and not building up, as Bishop Pearce of Bath and Wells, who wrote that he had not a lecturer left in his diocese. Other prelates, again, did not interfere at all; and Abbott dozed at Canterbury, and let things take their course.

"It was not to be expected that Puritanism would submit quietly to be thus shackled. . . . . It spoke by the mouth of Leighton (1630) in his Zion's Plea against the Prelates;' by Prynne (1632) in his Histrio-mastix; by the same worthy, Burton and Bastwick (1636) ... Thus, then, Leighton :

"The Articles, Homilies, and public Liturgy are stuffed with blasphemous untruths;' 'the sign of the Cross is the mark of the Beast.' The Church is as full of ceremonies as a dog of fleas,' says Bastwick; 'the prelates are the tail of the Beast,' continues the worthy; they are stepfathers for fathers.' Caterpillars for pillars,' echoes Burton; 'their houses haunted, their episcopal chairs poisoned by the spirit that bears rule in the air; limbs of the Beast, of Antichrist, miscreants, trains and wiles of the dragon's dog-like flattering tail; new Babel builders; blind watchmen, dumb dogs, thieves, false prophets, ravening wolves, Antichristian mushrumps, trampling under foot CHRIST'S kingdom, that they may set up CHRIST's throne; sons of Belial.' . . . .

"The above is a fair specimen of Puritan feeling towards the Church Services. Is it wonderful then that Laud, who really loved the Prayer Book, should so perseveringly have opposed these men? We have been the more anxious to draw attention to their language, because they claimed to be the only religious people of their day; they professed the utmost reverence for Scripture. One thing is clear; they chose to forget all that Holy Scripture says about evil speaking.

"There perhaps never was a more cruel calumny than that which connects the name of Laud with the severe and barbarous punishment which these men received."

As we look back upon the system of punishments which prevailed in those days, it does indeed seem awful that remains of barbarism should linger on so long in the annals of Christian government. We must not, however, be too hasty in censuring those

who acted upon this system, for we all know the force of training in blinding us to the folly, and therefore cruelty, of what may seem to us necessary. We have to look back but a few years to see a system of awful cruelty regarded as necessary in lunatic asylums; nay, more; even now, is there not much brutality in the operation of the Poor Law in certain cases, not arising from illwill to the poor, but from a sense of duty to society? It was doubtless upon very similar grounds of general necessity or expediency, that the men of that date passed their verdicts for torture and mutilation.

But though the government in which he was mixed up was foolish in its ferocity, Lord Campbell removes the blame at least from Laud's shoulders, for he attributes it altogether to Lord Keeper Coventry.

"There cannot be a doubt, that Coventry might have interposed effectively to deprecate the unconstitutional, illegal, cruel, and oppressive measures which were now resorted to; but instead of this, in a cool, quiet, and cunning manner, he suggested them, he executed them, and he defended them. Thinking that the time of retribution might possibly arrive, he studied as far as he could to avoid the appearance of taking a prominent part at the Council-table or in the Star Chamber; but his were the orders, his were the proclamations, his were the prosecutions, and his the sentences which marked the next eleven years of arbitrary rule, and which, if he had succeeded in his enterprise, might have made him [and not Laud] to be celebrated as another Richelieu." -Lives of Chancellors, vol. ii. 526.

"In the case of Leighton," continues Mr. Baines, "the accusation against Laud was never heard of till years after his death, and was not even mentioned on his trial, when everything that could be was raked up against him; while in the trial of Prynne, though he spoke at length, he abstained from voting because he had been personally attacked."

The speech, moreover, which he delivered on the occasion of Prynne's trial is still extant, and is written with a calmness and dignity certainly in advance of the age.

The notice of that speech reminds us of Williams' MS. notes to it in the Bodleian. What a contrast they present! They have no element noticeable but that of satire pointed by vindictiveness yet wanting in wit. We must just allude to the differences which existed between Laud and Williams. The notices in his diary show how much he felt the pain of that prolonged enmity, and that he looked upon himself as the victim of Williams' animosity throughout. He is sometimes accused of ingratitude, inasmuch as the advocacy of Williams appears in connection with his first appointment to a Bishopric. This story goes on being repeated in spite of its having been continually explained. Williams desired the preferment of Laud, not by any means for Laud's sake, but simply to stave off the appointment of Laud to the Deanery of