PRACTICE AND PROFESSIONS; LORD BROUGHAM AND PLURALITIES.
IT is not long since we called attention to the appointment of the Honourable and Reverend Jour; FORTESCUE, a brother of Lord EBRINGTON, to a Prebendal Stall in Worcester Cathedral, not- withstanding Mr. FORTESCUE has a living in Lincolnshire, and notwithstanding Lord BROUGHAM bad introduced a bill to put a stop to the injurious practice of " spiritual persons holding more .preferments than one." Lord BROUGHAM himself talks magnilo- quently about Church Reform ; but his practice and his preach- ment are at variance,—at least if the following as yet uncontra- dicted statement of a correspondent of the Standard is well founded.
" The living of Steeple Bumpstead, in the county of Essex and diocese of London, fell vacant not very long since. It is in the gift of the Lord Chancellor. The parishioners drew up a petition to his Lordship, requesting him to give the living to the gentleman who performed the duties after the death of the late in- cumbent. This was the general desire ball of the Church party and the Dis- senters in the parish ; so much were they pleased with his attention to the parish during his temporary appointment to the curacy. The Lord Chancellor refused, by replying that there were so many valuable men on his list for pre- ferment, that he could not comply with the request of the petitioners. Just at this time, the election of Mr. Spring Rice took place ; and the living was given away—to which do you suppose of those " valuable men" who were in want of preferment ? To Mr. Townley, uncle of the Whig Member for Cambridge- shire; who has already one living in Lancashire, and—would you believe it— another in Norfolk !"
Thus we see the Lord Chancellor of England bartering Church preferment for political support, and giving the lie to his flaming professions in Parliament of a desire to purge our Ecclesiastical system of its abuses, by sanctioning some of the worst of them.
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