t treating
the bantling as a foster child, but praising it and pushing it so
that men should regard it as the undoubted offspring of their own
brains. Now just at this time there had been a plan much thought
of for increasing the number of the bishops. Good active bishops
were very desirable, and there was a strong feeling among certain
excellent Churchmen that there could hardly be too many of them.
Lord Brock had his measure cut and dry. There should be a Bishop of
Westminster to share the Herculean toils of the metropolitan prelate,
and another up in the North to Christianize the mining interests and
wash white the blackamoors of Newcastle: Bishop of Beverley he should
be called. But, in opposition to this, the giants, it was known, had
intended to put forth the whole measure of their brute force. More
curates, they said, were wanting, and district incumbents; not more
bishops rolling in carriages. That bishops should roll in carriages
was very good; but of such blessings the English world for the
present had enough. And therefore Lord Brock and the gods had had
much fear as to their little project. But now, immediately on the
accession of the giants, it was known that the bishop bill was to be
gone on with immediately. Some small changes would be effected so
that the bill should be gigantic rather than divine; but the result
would be altogether the same. It must, however, be admitted that
bishops appointed by ourselves may be very good things, whereas those
appointed by our adversaries will be anything but good. And, no
doubt, this feeling went a long way with the giants. Be that as it
may, the new bishop bill was to be their first work of government,
and it was to be brought forward and carried, and the new prelates
selected and put into their chairs all at once,--before the grouse
should begin to crow and put an end to the doings of gods as well as
giants. Among other minor effects arising from this decision was the
following, that Archdeacon and Mrs. Grantly returned to London, and
again took the lodgings in which they had before been staying. On
various occasions also during the first week of this second sojourn,
Dr. Grantly might be seen entering the official chambers of the First
Lord of the Treasury. Much counsel was necessary among High-Churchmen
of great repute before any fixed resolution could wisely be made in
such a matter as this; and few Churchmen stood in higher repute than
the Archdeacon of Barcheste