archbishops; while England, with 12,000 parishes, was contented with
twenty-four bishops and two archbishops. It was proposed to consolidate
these bishoprics into ten, the archbishoprics into two, a reduction
which could hardly fail to commend itself to all. But with this
reduction was combined a variety of other details relating to the
Episcopal revenues, to the right of the bishops to grant leases, and
other matters of finance, which the ministers proposed so to remodel as
to create a very large fund to be at the disposal of the state. On this
point the greater part of the ministerial scheme was wrecked for the
time. They succeeded in carrying that part of it which consolidated the
bishoprics, and in inducing the House of Commons to grant, first as a
loan, which was originally turned into a gift, a million of money to be
divided among the incumbents of the different parishes, who were reduced
to the greatest distress by the inability to procure payment of their
tithes, the arrears of which amounted to a far larger sum.

But the assertion that any surplus fund arising from redistribution of
the Episcopal revenues ought to belong to the state, not only called
forth a vigorous resistance from the whole of the Tory party at its
first promulgation, but, when the subject was revived the next year, and
one of the supporters of the ministry, Mr. Ward, proposed a resolution
that any such surplus might be legitimately applied to secular purposes,
it produced a schism in the ministry itself. The resolution was
cordially accepted by Lord John Russell, but was so offensive to four of
his colleagues, Mr. Stanley and Sir James Graham being among the number,
that they at once resigned their offices. The breach thus made was not
easily healed; and before the end of the session other dissensions of a
more vexatious and mortifying character led to the retirement of the
Prime-minister himself. All attempts to deal with the tithe question
failed for the time, four more years elapsing before it was finally
settled. But, curtailed as it was, the bill of 1833 still deserves to be
remembered as a landmark in constitutional legislation, since it
afforded the first instance of Parliament affirming a right to deal with
ecclesiastical dignities and endowments, thus setting a precedent which,
in the next reign, was followed with regard to the Church of England.

Lord Melbourne succeeded Lord Grey at the Treasury; but every one saw
that the minist