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Forth from his place, with unctuous grace,
A prelate's spirit stepped
(Where in this world of flesh and blood
Have Bishop's spirits crept?
Their functions so restricted are,
Their acts so doubtful seem,
Their revenues their only care,
Some wicked scorners deem).
With look that claimed attention,
A slight pause for effect,
He thus addressed the Infidel
And all his carping sect.

THE SPIRIT OF EPISCOPACY.

“Excuse me, my dear brethren,
I really cannot hear,
Without replying to them,
These strictures on a ‘peer’;
The more so when I recollect
That the race does not boast
Its share of representatives
In Literature's host;
But, granting that in this one field
Their talent does not shine,
Yet wisdom takes another form
In the ennobled line.
True there are bright exceptions
To this exclusion wide;
But they, I fear, are more inclined
To take the other side;
Nor indeed, were it otherwise,
Would they exactly be
Fit champions or fair judges
In this controversy:
Therefore, as a Lord Spiritual,
Permit me to defend
The Peerage from the onslaught
Indulged in by our friend.
Dismiss, I would entreat you all,
Suspicion from your minds,
That undue partiality
My sense of justice blinds.
My latter days were passed, 'tis true,
Amongst the titled race;
But tutor, curate, pamphleteer,
Were steps to my high place;
And I may be presumed to have
The feelings of a man
Who has been poor, and then has soared
As high as Churchman can.
I protest against the doctrine,
That by the nobly born
The feelings of humanity
Are held in utter scorn;
That pride of birth can influence
The nature of the man;
That feel as other mortals do,
No noble ever can.
These false assertions I deny!
Nay, more, I trust to show.
That all the glory of this isle
We to the Peerage owe.
On foreign nations cast an eye,
Or listen to the tales
Of our gay friend ‘the daily press,’
Who, certes, never fails
To show us how affairs go on
Throughout this planet's span:
Most other countries, more or less,
Show man opposed to man.
Take France, which for some evenings past
Has been our nightly theme,
How startling the accounts we hear,
How wild, how like a dream!
Yet our friend piles up proof on proof,
And I am free to own,
That, as a mirror of the age,
The British press alone
Reflects correctly the world's pranks.
In my time it was not
So unassailable as now,
So free from the foul blot
Of truckling to the ‘powers that be.’
Take France, where I maintain
All would be peace and harmony,
But that the social chain
Has lost its strongest, noblest link,
The shackle which connects
All interests in a common bond,
And reconciles all sects.
A throne by peers surrounded,
Shows like some temple fair,
Its nice proportions standing out
Against the ambient air:
Approach it nearer, 'twill be found
That all the weight is borne
By graceful columns, which sustain,
No less than they adorn.
Destroy these pillars, and the dome,
Which lately touched the skies,
Falls headlong from its airy height,
Never again to rise.
If then the peerage, as a race,
Serves to uphold the fane,
'Twere madness to destroy a prop
We ne'er can raise again.
But I, from ancient habit,
To politics have given
More time than I intended;
A touch of the old leaven
Clings to us all! and my design
At present is to show
That peers pass through some trials
Which others never know.
E'en from the cradle are they not
Assailed on every hand
By flattery, whose silver tongue
Few mortals can withstand?
Grown older, their temptations
Are harder to be borne;
Should flattery fail the tempter,
Sly ridicule and scorn
Finish the work, and in the end,
All trace of good destroy,
The victim old in sin's career,
Although in years a boy:
Until, the reign of folly past,
Reason assumes her sway;
Pleasure to sterner duty yields;
Conviction tears away
The veil which hid reality.
The being who but now
Rushed blindly on in pleasure's train,
Impelled by passion's glow,
Assumes the post of duty,
Stops in his wild career,
Emerges from his fallen state
A Patriot and a Peer!
Who, in the realm of England,
Is foremost in the van,
When charity's soft, plaintive voice
Pleads for his fellow man?
Who, but some noble of the land?
Nor do his efforts end
With a mere gift; in other ways
He proves himself a friend,—
Descends from his high station,
Adds voice to heart and hand,
A martyr to his duty's call
At charity's command.
Who aids the worn and struggling man
To run his race anew,
In climes where hope's bright rainbow,
With tints of rosy hue,
Gladdens the exile's prospect,
And shows him, that though here,
He may have quaffed of sorrow's cup
In his long dull career;
That happiness is possible;
That there is yet a goal;
A path wherein to run his race;
A purpose for his soul?
The arts, without their fostering care,
Would languish and decay;
Science stop short in her career,
All taste would melt away;
The poet and the painter,
Lacking a patron's smile,
Would heap their choicest treasures up
To form a funeral pile;
While music, lending her last notes,
To mourn her sisters fair,
Would headlong rush into the flames,
A victim to despair.
And when, for a short space released
From senatorial cares,
He, with his humbler tenants,
His well-earned leisure shares;
Shows agriculture's richest spoils;
His beasts of choicest sort;
The secret of success imparts;
Or, in his turn, is taught;
Proud to be termed the ‘Farmer's Friend’;
In his ancestral hall,
The simple country gentleman,
Beloved, revered by all.
I could say more in their behalf;
I trust that I have shown
Their errors are Society's,
Their virtues all their own.
Excuse this long defence;
My sense of truth and right
Has made me trespass on you
At such a length to-night.”