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windows extending from wall to wall and from floor to ceiling, the prisoner could look on nothing but sea and sky, and, in Nature's brighter moods, the far-off coast of France. And the prospect might well make him pine for liberty with moistened eyes, instead of with clenched teeth and knitted brow.

Just as the leaders of the Reformation in Germany and England were unconsciously under the spell of the very superstitions they condemned, and against which they revolted, so the minds of the enlightened men who built our modern prisons were warped by the traditions of other days. It behoves us to shake ourselves free from those traditions, and to prepare the way for wise and liberal reforms in prison construction and in the treatment of our prisoners. Such reforms will certainly come. Let us anticipate them by just and generous changes in our treatment of those who have such special claims for consideration. They are comparatively few in number, and yet numerous enough to demand attention. It would be easy to promote an agitation on their behalf by sensational appeals to sentiment. But the appeal I wish to make is addressed not to the sympathies of philanthropists of the hysterical order, but to the judgment of thoughtful sober-minded men. And to them I submit my theses: first, that prisoners of the special class I have indicated ought not to be subjected to any avoidable element of suffering or indignity or even discomfort; and, secondly, that if this principle be accepted our present treatment of them is indefensible.

ROBERT ANDERSON.

THE APOSTLE OF MEDIOCRITY

THE great name of William Makepeace Thackeray recalls a whole literature. His place is assured, if not defined, and the ready mental classification which passes with us for criticism has at least decided that Mr. Thackeray's works must be placed in the same room, if not on the same shelf, as the works of Shakespeare. The two men have much in common. Both matured late, and both died early-at the age of fifty-two. Both men took all mankind for their study. It is as fair to speak of the 'pell-mell of the men and women of Thackeray' as it is to speak, as Matthew Arnold did, of the 'pellmell of the men and women of Shakespeare.'

We are permitted to criticise Shakespeare and other giants, but we are not permitted to criticise Mr. Thackeray. We may say that Milton had no sense of humour, or that Michael Angelo was no colourist; we may limit the empire of Tennyson's genius by saying that his dramas will not move; we may say that Guido Reni was an uninspired expert; and that Turner could not draw the figure; but we may not criticise Mr. Thackeray. In all provinces of his art he must be admitted to be as perfect as the strolling players of Hamlet. Yet one hesitates to accept the judgment which two generations of Mr. Thackeray's adorers have imposed on mankind. Milton and Turner and Michael Angelo were as great men in their way as Mr. Thackeray, and we have found some limitation to the genius of each one of them. Let us, then, find some point of view from which we can regard Mr. Thackeray with complete mental detachment, and see if there be any bounds to the empire of his genius; not that we may admire the less, but that we may admire the more; that we may renounce gaping and inarticulate astonishment, and exchange it for intelligent admiration and intelligent delight.

It being already postulated that Mr. Thackeray is perfect, it will naturally be denied that such a point of view exists. So we cannot even take up our point of view without a struggle. But if Mr. Thackeray is perfect, his artistic perfection will be apparent from any point of view. Let us, then, place ourselves in the twenty-second century, and, looking back, inquire, 'How far did Mr. Thackeray represent the social life of his century?' This question is highly

contentious, for, if Thackeray was nothing else, he was a keen social observer, and, insomuch as his narrative style was as near perfection as possible, all the conditions would appear to be fulfilled. Let it be so; we will, then, contemplate perfection from the distance of two hundred years, and see how it looks.

The social life of any century is made up of men and women and institutions. In any century of English history an early question, if not the first question, must be, What was the position of the Church? We can hardly do better, to begin with, than inquire how far Mr. Thackeray's presentation of the Church is trustworthy. There are many clergymen in his six novels. These are some of them: the Rev. Mr. Crisp (fresh from Oxford), the Rev. Otto Rose, the Rev. Mr. Shamble, 'an erratic Anglican divine, hired for the season at places of English resort, and addicted to debts, drinking, and even roulette'; the Rev. Tufton Hunt, of whom we read, 'the tipsy parson reeled from bar to bar'; the Rev. Mr. Muffin, the Rev. Mr. Flowerdew, the Rev. Bute Crawley, the Rev. Silas Hornblower, the Rev. Mr. Tuffin, the Rev. Mr. Trail (Bishop of Ealing-note the suggestion of crawling and wriggling), the Venerable Archdeacon Trumper (a great whist player), the Rev. Laurence Veal, the Rev. Felix Rabbits, the Rev. Mr. Muff (travelling on the Continent with Milor Noodle). Nonconforming creeds have their representatives : the Rev. Giles Jowls, the illuminated cobbler, and the Rev. Luke Waters, a mild Wesleyan. One might extend the list considerably, but it is safe to affirm that there are no clerical names (except that of Laura Bell's father) in Mr. Thackeray's novels that do not carry a meaning either ludicrous or discreditable. We have incidents producing the same effect, such as 'turtle and champagne fit for an Archbishop,' or the delight which Fred Bayham's uncle the Bishop took in hearing his nephew imitate people being sick at sea; but we have no incident reflecting anything but dishonour on the Church, except perhaps in the 'Haunt' there was a 'fellow of very kind feeling who has gone into the Church since.' It will be rejoined that these are trifles-straws; granted, although there are a good many straws, and they all blow in the same direction. But we have, in addition, six full-length portraits of clergymen. The Church of the nineteenth century is represented by the Rev. Charles Honeyman and the Rev. Tufton Hunt. Charles Honeyman was the perfect type of the clerical humbug. He was untruthful, shifty, luxurious, and half-educated. To associate the idea of sacred functions with such a man, or with any of the other five men whose portraits Mr. Thackeray has given in full, is mere profanation. The Rev. Tufton Hunt was a criminal, a blackmailer, and a drunkard. The Rev. Bute Crawley, an underbred, ignorant man, noisily vaunted his birth and position, drank too much, backed his foolish opinions on horseflesh and lost heavily. He could not have been anything but a

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burden to his family and his parish, and a discredit to his calling. The Church of the nineteenth century sprang from that of the eighteenth century, which is represented by Parson Sampson, domestic chaplain to the Castlewood family. Parson Sampson was everything that a priest ought not to be. He was a gossip, a gambler (not a very honest gambler), a sycophant, not without good nature, but wholly a worldling-a clumsy English version of the pre-Revolutionary Abbé.

The Church of the seventeenth century is represented by the Reverend Robert Tusher, an even more unworthy priest than Parson Sampson. Dr. Tusher was a boorish creature, clumsily and unsuccessfully amorous, pompous, ignorant, and underbred. His son (who was at Cambridge with Henry Esmond) had a long and successful career owing to his undignified complacency in consenting to marry a lady of high birth but damaged reputation. His character is given in one matchless touch: 'he accepted the ThirtyNine Articles with all his heart, and would have signed and sworn to other nine and thirty with entire obedience.'

If, then, we are to imagine (say) a candidate for examination replying (some time in the twenty-second century) to the question : 'What was the status of the English Church in the nineteenth century as seen in Mr. Thackeray's works?' his answer may be not unreasonably foretold in the following words: The English Church in the nineteenth century was officered by incompetent and underbred men. The prelates were men destitute of taste, of gross habits and worldly ideals (examples-the Bishop of Ealing, the Bishop of Bullocksmithy, Fred Bayham's uncle), and the rank and file were either foolish drudges or men of second-rate capacity who entered the Church with the view of advancing themselves in life (examples in plenty). The Church of the nineteenth century is further represented as springing by natural development from the disorderly institutions of the eighteenth and seventeenth centuries. Charles Honeyman is the feeble descendant of the Sampsons and Tushers, who were themselves the last expression of sturdy vulgarity.'

Now let us imagine that the candidate is being examined orally upon his own paper. I perceive, sir,' the examiner may be presumed to say, 'that you have studied Mr. Thackeray's novels with some attention. I infer from your answer that the Church in the nineteenth century was in the last stage of decadence. probably maintained a sort of position by expending the revenues laid up for it in pious times, but was wholly without influence on the life of the nation?'

'By no means. It was probably never more flourishing, Countless new and beautiful churches, with at least one beautiful cathedral, were built.'

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That may be, but from what resources?' scriptions of the faithful.' 'Do you mean that the English people supported the English Church ?' Enthusiastically.' 'They must have been a pitiful set of hounds?' 'Not at all; whatever else was lacking to the Englishman of the nineteenth century, he was not lacking in vigour and in courage.' 'Explain yourself, sir, pray.'

'I merely state the facts. There were two great centres of spiritual life in England in the nineteenth century-Oxford and Clapham. The devotees of the Clapham school of thought had a burning sense of the intimate relationship of man and his Creator. They held firmly to the responsibility of man, for every action of his life, to the Almighty. This perfectly genuine conviction produced a strenuous attitude in the affairs of daily life, which gave rise to the sneer that piety and profit went hand in hand. (Mr. Thackeray is careful to point out that Mr. Newcome refused a baronetcy because the Quaker connection would not like it.) They were ardent supporters of missionary effort. Perhaps those efforts were not always very successful, but they represented much honest Christian endeavour. Mr. Thackeray was aware of all this, and has given, as usual, all that was ludicrous or discreditable in missionary effort in his allusions to the mission to the Cocoanut Indians and to the Quashyboos, to the society for providing the Fiji Islanders with warming-pans, and in the parodied hymn :

Lead us to some sunny isle

Yonder in the western deep,
Where the skies for ever smile
And the blacks for ever weep.

The Clapham devotees were little sensible to external beauty; they worshipped in ugly buildings, and derided the Apostolical Succession. The tendency of the age gradually told against them, and in favour of the Oxford school, which was of a different type, though not possessed of greater fervour.

'The Oxford school maintained the tradition of divinely descended gifts through the episcopate from the Redeemer Himself. Consesequently it had a proud and vivid consciousness of the bygone glories of the Church, and gladly studied the record of deceased and almost forgotten saints. (Mr. Thackeray chooses as illustrations the funny names of Botibol and Willibald, and alludes sarcastically to the "Feast of Saint So-and-so or the Vigil of Saint What-d'ye-call'im.") It believed, even more fervently than the Clapham school, in the efficacy of prayer. (We are informed that Lord Rosherville's daughter turned her cupboard into an oratory.) It pressed into the service of God every art and every talent of man; calling for the best from all men. The consequence was a revival of many arts. Working in stone, marble, and wood, and in the base and precious metals, stained glass, architecture itself, received from the Church an

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