n a
British public; as a canon of St. Paul's, the rector of a well-filled
church, still greater. Bloomsbury Square is not exactly high life, but
it is respectable. The better sort of professional men and merchants
abound in it. Its neighbourhood is a step in a genteel direction. It is
not part and parcel of that vulgar place, the City. It is on the way to
the West-end. One might live in a worse place. Its natives are
civilised, eschew steel forks, and affect silver spoons. Most of them
speak English, and a few have carriages of their own. The place has seen
better days; but it is not altogether of the past. It abounds with the
latest fashions. It can talk of the last new novel. Even its religion
smacks of the genteel--carries a morocco prayer-book, with silver clasps,
is followed by a page with buttons of shining hue, and has its services
performed by men of honourable and exalted name. Many in the Church have
been born in low stations--have risen up to high rank, nevertheless.
Still it is a merit to be of aristocratic descent, and even in the Church
that fact is as patent as in the world. It is only in Turkey that birth
carries no weight--but then the Turk is but little better than one of the
wicked.

Independently, however, of these considerations, Mr. Villiers must have
been a popular preacher. He is a fine, well-made man; his figure is
prepossessing--a great thing in a public speaker. Weak, stunted,
deformed, wretched-looking men have no business in the pulpit. A man
should have a portly presence there. He should also have a fine voice,
and Mr. Villiers is singularly happy in this respect. In the Church
there is not a man who can read its stately service with more effect.
And that service, well read to the hearer in a fitting mood, is a sermon
itself. Nor does Mr. Villiers' merit end here. He is no dull drone when
the service is over and the sermon has begun. With downcast eye he reads
no moral essay that touches no conscience and fires no heart. On the
contrary, he is exceedingly active and energetic in the pulpit. He looks
his congregation in the face--he directs his discourse to them. He takes
care that not a single word shall lose its aim. His musical voice is
heard distinctly in every part of his crowded and enormous church. Mr.
Villiers is not an intellectual preacher; nor is he a man of original
mind; nor does he revivify old themes, so as to make them seem fresh and
new. The commo