LORD WESTBURY'S " SAPONACEOUS" SIDE.
IN their different ways,—and no doubt theg are different ways, - Lord Westbury and the Bishop of Oxford are both of them remarkable for something that may be called unctuousness. By unctuousness we mean the capacity some men have for exuding at pleasure a certain tone and temper of feeling at all pores, "lubricating," as the Lord Chancellor called it, their whole dis- course with it, secreting it from minute glands all over the surface of their conversation, and so steeping their discourse in it that the form and manner of every sentence seem to convey almost more of its real drift and meaning than even the precise propositions conveyed in it. When this faculty is possessed by a clergyman, of coursethe " unctuousness" is clerical, and his discourse is saturated, like a full sponge, with all that class of sentiments and illustrations which are in keeping with his holy vocation. But there is a difference even then between what we should call unctuousness and that fullness of purpose which overflows with natural eager- ness and conviction. There is a world of difference between the characteristic which we call unctuousness and that exuberance of intellectual energy and earnestness which made the late Dr. Arnold say, for instarce, on certain occasions, "If I did not write a pamphlet I should burst." The last may perhaps in the Old Scripture sense of the word be called " unction," but it is almost the opposite of unctuousness. True unctuousness is never the simple and direct expression of the higher part of the character, but is a sort of subsi,liary agency, like the product of the oil glands with which certain water-fowls are said to prune their feathers and render them almost waterproof. Exuberance of moral feeling like Dr. Arnold's, or philosophical and critical feeling like Coleridge's, or of simple piety like Oberlin's, or of religious fervour like Luther's, stands in no sort of relation to what we mean by unctuousness, which is a characteristic whose essence it is to rise, or at least impress us as rising, in the intellectual surface of the character, rather than in its d.Tpest springs. It distinguishes especially the saccharine clerical orators like Mr. Bellew, and when dissolved in a very considerable measure of intellectual and practi- cal ability gives, perhaps erroneouly, to most men's apprehen- lion, a very defined flavour to the eloquence of S. Oxon. How, then, can we in any sense attribute unctuousness to the right reverend prelate's bitter ant igonist and foe in the [louse of Lords, who, if he distinguished himself by the secretion of any sort of oil in the recent debate on the condemnation of " Essays and Re-
views," must be said to have exuded oil of vitriol ? No doubt a certain contemptuousness, a certain cynical insolentia, has always been of the very essence of Lord Westbury's nature, so that the exuberant overflow of it in his thoughts and speech can, in one sense, scarcely be said to be of that secondary and merely auxiliary character which we have ascribed to all true unctuous- ness. It may be said, however, not only of his recent out- break against the clerical bench, but of his raillery in general, in the words of the •Psalm, " The words of his mouth were softer than butter, having war in his heart ; his words were smoother than oil, yet be they very swords," and it is this power of summoning a milky manner to his aid in order to second the effect of his thrusts, this redundancy of soft phrase in which he sheathes the sting of his remarks,—this " saponaceous " slipperi- ness of sentiment through which he lets his real drift glide like an electric eel,—that justly entitles him to the epithet " unctuous." No doubt the Lord Chancellor has in him all the qualifications for an unctuous preacher, if he needed to use them in that direction. We remember his address to the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion at Wolverhampton which showed very high capacity of that kind. and many of his official congratulatoryspeeches to Lord Mayors and others have disguised almost completely the scornful and cynical superiority which just gleams for a moment and is gone. It is but fair, then, to conclude that if he now uses his great com- mand of gentle phrase only to silver a dangerous weapon, he has all the capacity to use it for its own sake, if once he could feel that it would be of more use for its own sake than by way of contrast. Ile has been too successful to find any suppression of his own over- bearing intellectual personality needful or desirable,—but not the less he shines pre-eminent in the capacity to tincture his speech with a rich fatty substance not properly either intellectual or moral, but expressing a sort of voluptuous desire to indulge unduly, and even riot, in the mood of the moment. Instead of going straight to his object he contrives for himself, as all unctuous speakers do, op- portunities of wallowing in the sentiment he is expressing ; he whips up his thoughts upon it into a rich, creamy, " saponaceous " lather, and this none the less that his thoughts are now not at all the kind of Bishop-of-Oxford-thoughts he expr, seed to the Young Men's Christian Association at Wolverhampton, but rather of a directly .opposite and even scoffing tendency.
Nothing could be more remarkable than the excessive indulgence of Lord Westbury in this sort of voluptuous enjoyment in his speech yesterday week in the House of Lords, which, by a sort of poetical justice, was directed against a master in the art, though on the other side of the art, the Bishop of Oxford. After describing in his peculiar lisp the " three modes" of dealing with Convocation, " first, when they are harmlessly busy to take no notice of their proceedings ; next, when they seem likely to get into mischief, to prorogue and put an end to their proceedings ; thirdly, when they have done something clearly beyond their powers to bring them before a Court of Justice, and punish them," and thus laid a good basis for the vitriolic lather, which he was about to mix, and apply with a leisurely but cruel hand,—Lord Westbury entered fairly on the intemperate and almost sensual enjoyment of his speech. The mode in which he dilated upon applying the penalties of a przmunire to the episcopal bench,— the gloating language in which he discussed the advantages to the Exchequer of sequestrating the incomes of all the Bishops, Deans, Archdeacons, and other dignitaries, who voted for the condem- nation of " Essays and Reviews," reminded one almost painfully of another somewhat cruel person who had all Lord Westbury's unctuous pleasure in giving pain, Mr. Wackford Squeers. " 'Here's flesh,' cried Squeers, turning the boy about and indicating the plumpest parts of his figure with divers pokr.s and punches to the great discomposure of his son and heir. ' Here's firmness, hdre's solidness ; why you can hardly get up enough of him between your
finger and thumb to pinch him anywhere You couldn't shut a bit of him in a door when he's had his dinner. Look at them tears, Sir,' said Squeers, with a triumphant air, as Master Wackford wiped his eyes with the cuff of his jacket, 'there's oili- ness.' " Lord Westbury's proceedings with the bench of Bishops, but more especially the Bishop of Oxford, are painfully similar. He "pokes them and punches them in the plumpest parts of their figure," he makes the Bishop of Oxford cry with the pain, and then he says virtually in his reply, with a triumphant air, " Look at those tears, my Lords, there's oiliness." First he does his best to hurt all the Bishops, and observes in effect " Here's firmness, here's solidness," or, in Lord Westbury's own words, "Imagine, my Lords, what an opportunity it would be for my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to spread his net, and in one haul take in 30,0001. from the highest dignitary, not to speak of the of croXXot, the Bishops, Deans, Archdeacons, Canons, Vicars" [and observe the artistic incidental poke of calling such dignitaries the of ToXXoi "the mob "], " all included in one common crime, all subject to one common penaluy,"—and then after these more distributed and general tweaks and twinges, he applies himself more especially to his own chosen adversary, Bishop Wilber- force. " I am extremely anxious to know what the thing is, callel a synodical judgment. . . . Assuming that the report of the judg- ment I have read is a correct one, I am happy to tell your Lord: ships that what is called a synodical judgment is simply a series of well.lubricated terms, a sentence so oily and so saponaceous that no one could grasp it. Like an eel it slips through your fingers,—it is simply nothing, and I am happy to tell my noble friend (Lord Houghton) that it is literally no judgment at all." This is what we call positively rioting in the indulgence of pinch- ing, like Mr. Squeers, rich and high-fed natures, the more so that we do not know that there was any particular reason for referring the wording of the sentence of condemnation to the Bishop of Oxford, beyond the Lord Chancellor's quick perception of the opportunity he should thus gain of giving a little additional pain by these playful allusions to that prelate's well-known soubri- quet. Towards the end of his speech, Lord Westbury even ventured so far as to affect the solemnity of clerical warning and illustration, in a way that assures us, no less than his more serious efforts in the same line, that had he entered the Church he might easily have become a " most reverend" ',relate, if he could but so far have subdued his native arrogance of mind as to persuade himself to act through life a part that he can easily assume- to perfection either for a light or serious purpose. When he earnestly advised the Bishops and other members of Convocation that "if there be any attempt to carry Convocation beyond its proper limits, their best plan will be, after protesting, to gather up their garments and leave the place,—remembering, the pillar of salt, and resolving not to cast a look behind," he carried the mock-solemnity of his allusions beyond the verge of decorum, and almost lost some of his cruel advantage, by this open display of his feelings towards the Bible. It must have been a triumphant moment for Lord Westbury when the Bishop of Ox- ford gave vent to the cry of pain which Lord Westbury's torture extracted. The Bishop directly admitted that Lord Westbury's words "had blistered those on whom they fell," and consoled himself by explaining to the House of Lords what he should have felt "on his death-bed" if he had not laid himself open to this persecution. Lord Westbury's delight was evidently unbounded. " The right reverend prelate," he says, " has in that excited manner which characterized the greater portion of his speech—and at which, I beg to say, that I was not at all surprised,— with much licence of language, charged me with misrepresenting a passage in an Act of Parliament. His apology, I think, must be that he himself does not quite understand it." Squeers's triumphant exclamation when Master Wackford wiped his eyes with the cuff of his jacket, " Look at them tears, Sir,—there's oiliness t" was humanity itself compared with the exultation of Lord Westbury. As a mere literary effect no doubt the unctuous style has much more to re- commend it when it just gilds the intellectual cruelty of such cold vivisection as Lord Westbury's ; but we wish it were wholly left to those whose words, though "softer than butter," speak the " war in their beast," and strike like swords though they be " smoother than oil." The Psalmist who wrote those words was a very different man, we take it, from the Bishop of Oxford ;—but we feel sure he had had some adversary who was the antitype of Lord Westbury.
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