How were those prizes
generally obtained? When the reformers published the _Black Book_ in
1820, they gave a list of the bishops holding sees in the last year of
George III.; and, as most of these gentlemen were on their promotion at
the end of the previous century. I give the list in a note.[19]

There were twenty-seven bishoprics including Sodor and Man. Of these
eleven were held by members of noble families; fourteen were held by men
who had been tutors in, or in other ways personally connected with the
royal family or the families of ministers and great men; and of the
remaining two, one rested his claim upon political writing in defence of
Pitt, while the other seems to have had the support of a great city
company. The system of translation enabled the government to keep a hand
upon the bishops. Their elevation to the more valuable places or leave
to hold subsidiary preferments depended upon their votes in the House of
Lords. So far, then, as secular motives operated, the tendency of the
system was clear. If Providence had assigned to you a duke for a father
or an uncle, preferment would fall to you as of right. A man of rank who
takes orders should be rewarded for his condescension. If that
qualification be not secured, you should aim at being tutor in a great
family, accompany a lad on the grand tour, or write some pamphlet on a
great man's behalf. Paley gained credit for independence at Cambridge,
and spoke with contempt of the practice of 'rooting,' the cant phrase
for patronage hunting. The text which he facetiously suggested for a
sermon when Pitt visited Cambridge, 'There is a young man here who has
six loaves and two fishes, but what are they among so many?' hit off the
spirit in which a minister was regarded at the universities. The memoirs
of Bishop Watson illustrate the same sentiment. He lived in his pleasant
country house at Windermere, never visiting his diocese, and according
to De Quincey, talking Socinianism at his table. He felt himself to be a
deeply injured man, because ministers had never found an opportunity
for translating him to a richer diocese, although he had written
against Paine and Gibbon. If they would not reward their friends, he
argued, why should he take up their cause by defending Christianity?

The bishops were eminently respectable. They did not lead immoral lives,
and if they gave a large share of preferment to their families, that at
least was a domestic virtue. Some of them,