Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol. 1 (of 4).—1841-1857Graves, Charles L. (Charles Larcom)
History
Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol. 1 (of 4).—1841-1857
Graves, Charles L. (Charles Larcom)
Great Britain -- History -- Victoria, 1837-1901 -- Humor
The annual income of Dr. Blomfield is £10,000 a year, and he has
enjoyed it for twenty-eight years, having previously had four years
at Chester with £1,000 a year; total receipt, £284,000. And the
annual income of Dr. Maltby is £24,000, and he has enjoyed it for
twenty years, having previously had five years at Chichester with
£4,000 a year; total receipt, £500,000.
The "Prince Bishops," with their princely revenues, have long since
departed: nowadays no one charges bishops with indolent opulence. The
scandal of the poor curates and underpaid country clergymen still
remains, but the disparity is not so great. The best paid prelates find
it hard to make both ends meet or to make provision for their families.
Some of them even publish balance-sheets of their receipts and
expenditure.
[Sidenote: _Punch and "No Popery"_]
In the domain of doctrine and religious controversy _Punch's_ record is
somewhat chequered. He was equally antipathetic to High Church and Low
Church. We have seen what he thought of Exeter Hall. But Pusey and his
followers stirred him to even greater wrath. He called the Puseyites
"Brummagem Papists." He saw no beauty or dignity in an advanced ritual,
but only an absurd and wicked "playing at religion." So when the famous
Papal Brief was published in the autumn of 1850, constituting a Roman
Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales in place of the Vicars
Apostolic, followed up by the pastoral from the newly appointed Cardinal
Wiseman welcoming the restoration of England to the communion of the
Roman Church, _Punch's_ indignation knew no bounds; he became the most
violent champion of English Protestantism. In earlier days he had
welcomed the Liberal political views which Pius IX had expressed in the
opening stages of the _Risorgimento_ movement in Italy, and had printed
a laudatory set of verses, headed "A Health to the Pope," in the issue
of February 20, 1847, in which he had congratulated Pio Nono on his
masculine wisdom, courage, and reforming zeal. His severest censures
were reserved for the sectarian zealots at home. "Everybody knows that
the great obstacle to popular education is the agreement of sects, on
the one hand, that it is necessary to teach orthodoxy, together with
secular knowledge, and their inability, on the other, to agree what doxy
is ortho-."
Early in 1850, when the friends of Church Education met at Willis's
Rooms to discuss and protest against the Government's Education Bill, he
declared himself a decided opponent of "National Education upon strictly
Church principles," which, as interpreted by some of the speakers, were
"indistinguishable from those of the heretic-burners of the
Inquisition." The cleavage between the various schools, and the narrow
bigotry of all, moved him to an impassioned appeal in which the Gorham
case, and the secession of Newman, are brought in to reinforce his plea
for toleration:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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