are especially interesting and
characteristic. They are in general very honourable to Peel; but Mr.
Parker is much too indulgent when he describes the intensely worldly
letters in which Dr. Lloyd urged his own merits and his claims to the
bishopric of Oxford as merely 'frank, and free from affectation of the
traditional _nolo episcopari_.' Both Peel and Lord Liverpool appear to
have had a much stronger sense than most of their predecessors of the
responsibilities attaching to Church patronage and of the duty of
administering it in the public interest, and in this respect they were
broadly distinguished from Lord Eldon.

'It is really a cruel thing,' Lord Liverpool wrote to Peel, 'that the
patronage of the Crown as to Church matters should be divided between
the Minister and the Chancellor, and that all the public claims should
fall upon the former. The Chancellor has nine livings to the
Minister's one. With respect to these he does occasionally attend to
local claims, but he has besides four cathedrals, and to no one of
these cathedrals has any man of distinguished learning or merit been
promoted.'

In the beginning of 1825 the Irish Government, having without
consulting Peel undertaken a foolish prosecution of O'Connell for a
not very dangerous speech, received a heavy rebuff, for the Grand
Jury threw out the Bill, and the prosecution of an Orange leader was
equally unsuccessful. A Bill was about the same time brought in and
carried, suppressing the new association; but it could not suppress
the spirit which it had aroused. O'Connell, however, was thoroughly
alarmed at the state of the country, and as far as possible from
desiring a rebellion, and he was at this time in a very conciliatory
mood. He was perfectly ready to accept an endowment for the
priesthood, which would attach them to the Government, and also a
considerable raising of the Irish franchise. This was the last
occasion on which his party and the Catholic gentry very cordially
concurred, and it was the last occasion on which the Catholic question
could have been settled on a basis that would have given real strength
to the Empire. A Relief Bill passed through all its stages in the
Commons by considerable majorities, and it was followed by a Bill for
raising the qualifications of Irish electors, and by a resolution for
endowing the priesthood. O'Connell fully believed that Catholic
emancipation would definitely pass in this session,[38] and he
appeared