operation for the stone--build St. Peter's--or assume (with or without
ten minutes' notice) the command of the Channel Fleet; and no one
would discover by his manner that the patient had died--the Church
tumbled down--and the Channel Fleet been knocked to atoms. I believe
his motives are always pure, and his measures often able; but they are
endless, and never done with that pedetentous pace and pedetentous
mind in which it behoves the wise and virtuous improver to walk. He
alarms the wise Liberals; and it is impossible to sleep soundly while
he has the command of the watch."

Once again, in 1839, Sydney Smith returned to the same subject through the
same medium. He rejoiced in great improvements which had been introduced
into the measures of the Commissioners, claimed some credit for these
improvements, and pointed out that they materially affected the well-being
of the parochial clergy. But, as regards the dealings of the Commission
with Chapters and Cathedrals, he remains convinced that they were rash,
foolish, and dangerous to the Church, "Milton asked where the nymphs were
when Lycidas perished? I ask where the Bishops are when the remorseless
deep is closing over the head of their beloved Establishment."

One of the Bishops had emerged from silence and security to rebuke the
correspondent of Archdeacon Singleton, and now he had his reward.--

"You must have read an attack upon me by the Bishop of
Gloucester,[128] in the course of which he says that I have not been
appointed to my situation as Canon of St. Paul's for my piety and
learning but because I am a scoffer and a jester. Is not this rather
strong for a Bishop, and does it not appear to you, Mr. Archdeacon, as
rather too close an imitation of that language which is used in the
apostolic occupation of trafficking in fish? Whether I have been
appointed for my piety or not, must depend upon what this poor man
means by piety. He means by that word, of course, a defence of all the
tyrannical and oppressive abuses of the Church which have been swept
away within the last fifteen or twenty years of my life; the
Corporation and Test Acts; the Penal Laws against the Catholics; the
Compulsory Marriages of Dissenters, and all those disabling and
disqualifying laws which were the disgrace of our Church, and which he
has always looked up to as the consummation of human wisdom