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the one referred to, was "directory only and not prohibitory," and that six months was the limit mentioned by canonists within which the examination of the presentee must be concluded, so that the right of patronage might not lapse. Dr. Phillimore furthermore put the Bishop entirely in the wrong in reference to his stopping our entering a caveat, for he added, "I conceive in the event of a caveat having been entered, a Bishop (although the common law takes no notice of it) would not consider himself bound to institute within the twenty-eight days, if the proceedings, consequent on the caveat, commenced during the twenty-eight days, extended beyond that period."* Thus the Bishop, by refusing our request that he would stay institution for one brief fortnight, has brought upon himself, without excuse, all the responsibility of the consequences; for it was alleged in behalf of his Lordship that had he granted the request contained in our memorial and refused institution to Mr. Bennett, he would have been exposed to a quare impedit, and that it was unreasonable to expect him to bear the charges of the suit. Had we, however, been given time to enter a caveat, the pecuniary responsibility would have been removed from the Bishop. We should have been called upon to support our caveat. If we had thereupon shown no ground for our proceeding, the Bishop wonld have been justified in instituting Mr. Bennett and disregarding our protest; but had we adduced weighty objections to Mr. Bennett's orthodoxy, which upon Dr. Twiss's opinion we had good reason to suppose we could, in such case we should have indemnified the Bishop, and each party would have been allowed to join issue on equal terms. I have also ascertained that this consideration for the twenty-eight canonical days has never been regarded nor thought of at Wells, though Mr. Bennett in his Appendix, No. 1, re-asserts, in spite of all the evidence adduced, the contrary; indeed a moment's consideration must show that were such the state of the law, parishioners might be deprived of all power of appeal whatsoever.†

* See Times, June 19th, 1852.

† A reference to the tabular statement furnished by Mr. Bennett, (Ap

The present case will illustrate this pretty aptly. We are indebted to Mr. Bennett's tabular statement for the knowledge of the date of his presentation and of the day when the same was notified to his Diocesan. The first was on the 19th December, the second on the 23rd of the same month: whereas it was not till the evening of the 29th, ten days after the prior of these dates, that the patroness thought fit to announce, through her steward, this important intelligence to an anxious and expectant parish of 12,000 inhabitants! Letters could travel hundreds of miles to meet Mr. Bennett on the continent, and some two hundred more to acquaint the Bishop, at Brighton, with his presentation, whilst a large town, only three miles from her park gates, was kept in ignorance of all that was passing! This secrecy was not without design, and I may add, importantly influenced the result. Well, it was on the 30th of December that the appointment was generally known here, and on the 24th of January following Mr. Bennett was instituted. Press the case a little farther and what security does the law give that the announcement of the appointment and the institution of the presentee should not be simultaneous? If the parishioners were kept in ignorance in this case ten days, what was there to prevent their being kept in ignorance the whole twenty

pendix 1,) will show how entirely this plea of the twenty-eight canonical days, was got up as a stalking horse for the debate of the 8th of June; and we wonder how a lawyer of Sir Page Wood's high character could have advanced a defence of the Bishop's conduct on these grounds, without first ascertaining the truth of the premises with which he was supplied, as he thereby led the house into error. He is stated, by the Times newspaper of the 9th of June, to have spoken thus:-"In the present case he found that the Bishop did not institute the Clerk until the twenty-seventh day after the presentation-just within the time when he was bound to finish his enquiry. What then became of the charge of indecent haste of which they had heard?" &c. What are the facts? The presentation, it appears by Mr. Bennett's own statement, was made known to the Bishop on the 23rd of December, and the Vicar was not instituted till the 24th of January, therefore the institution did not take place on the twenty-seventh day, but on the thirty-second day after the presentation. Granting therefore the validity of the plea adduced by Sir Page Wood, it is evident that the Bishop offended against the canon which he professes to respect.

eight days? Had the 95th Canon so bound the Bishop, surely there would have been another canon requiring that the Churchwardens should be informed of the intended appointment on the first of these twenty-eight days.

ERROR OF DATES.

The error cited in the dates of the case put to Dr. Twiss, as reported in the Times of the 19th June, is not to be fixed on Mr. Horsman. Great as the accuracy now is with which the debates in the Houses of Parliament are reported, no one at all conversant with these reports imagines that they are to be received as literally correct, and mistakes are nowhere so likely to creep in as in reference to dates; and in the present instance it appears that the reporter of the Times newspaper mistook the 26th of December for the 26th of November, and wrote the 29th instead of the 19th of the former month. Mr. Bennett says that as these dates are altogether wrong, "the inferences deduced from them are false !" (p. 22.) But even presuming that Mr. Horsman did make this mistake, it could in no way whatever affect the legal opinions given, for the case put to Drs. Twiss and Phillimore was general,-whether a Bishop was bound to institute so soon as the canonical twenty-eight days had run out, and whether these twenty-eight days commenced on the 26th of November, or December, or January, or February, must be a matter perfectly immaterial. Even Mr. Bennett, who has the advantage of correcting the press himself, does not write without inaccuracy, not only in reference to dates but also to grammar. Thus, in p. 26, 1852 is inserted for 1850, and in page 65 we read 1850 for 1851. And such passages as the following would lead us to suppose that Mr. Bennett had not only utterly changed in doctrine, but also deteriorated in style since his earlier publications. Thus, p. 7, "As no injustice or persecution of men have wrought,' &c. P. 21," each of whom have," and other such instances might be adduced.

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DENIAL OF THE CONSECRATED STONE.

As I was not disposed to pass by Mr. Horsman's assertion that Mr. Bennett carried about with him a portable altaralias consecrated stone, so easily as the latter gentleman does himself, who cuts it short by saying "I never was possessed of a consecrated stone," I wrote to Mr. Horsman for information on the subject, and I now subjoin his answer. It will be for your Lordship and the public to decide on the amount of confidence to be given for the future to Mr. Bennett's disclaimers; and I apprehend when the two following letters have been read, the Romish doctrine of reserve will occur to the minds of some.

"Oxenford Castle, Dalkeith, November 21, 1852. "My dear Sir,-Mr. Bennett's allusion to my speech (at page 22 of his pamphlet,) is extremely disingenuous and evasive. He avails himself of a mis-report of the Morning Chronicle's, and attributing to me words which I never used, appears to deny a statement which he does not meet.

"To show what I did say of Mr. Bennett, I enclose you a copy of the letter which I thought it my duty to address to Lord Derby, when I believed the government were really about to institute an enquiry. And had that enquiry proceeded, I should have proved that Mr. Bennett did carry about on his travels a portable altar, which fitted on to his carriage, and was used as I have stated.

"For 'portable altar,' he in his pamplet substitutes 'consecrated stone,' and denies that he possessed one. But if the question be put home to him, I feel satisfied that he will not deny that an altar was carried about-not 'at Kissingen,' as he says the Morning Chronicle has it, but on the road when he travelled. I stated nothing in this respect but what I am able to prove and Mr. Bennett has not yet ventured to deny.

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"Believe me to be, faithfully yours,

"The Rev. H. D. Wickham, &c., Frome."

"E. HORSMAN."

Copy of Letter from Mr. Horsman to the Earl of Derby.

"1, Richmond Terrace, April 22nd, 1852.

"My Lord,-As the Government is about to enquire into the case of Mr. Bennett, (which I brought before the House of Commons on Tuesday evening,) I take the liberty of submitting for your Lordship's attention an additional circumstance which has been communicated to me.

"I am informed that when Mr. Bennett was travelling abroad he carried about with him a small stone altar in a wooden box, and that, wherever his party rested, the box was unpacked and the altar set up, and a ceremony performed before it by Mr. Bennett, in presence of his friends.

"As your Lordship is no doubt aware of its being the practice of Roman Catholic Priests and Bishops to carry about with them a consecrated stone or altar, without which the Sacrifice of the Mass cannot be offered up, and as there is nothing analogous to this practice, that I am aware of, either enjoined or sanctioned by the Church of England, I submit it as a point for additional enquiry in Mr. Bennett's case.

"It is well known, I believe, that Sir John and Lady Harrington were Mr. Bennett's travelling companions, and your Lordship will have little difficulty, I presume, in satisfying yourself of the truth or falsehood of the statement now submitted to you through me.

"I did not refer to it in my speech on Tuesday, because I was not then prepared to support it by documentary evidence, such as was produced in the other cases.

"But I have no doubt about the truth of what I have been told, and that it will be established on enquiry.

66

"I have the honor to be, my Lord,

"Your Lordship's obedient Servant,
"E. HORSMAN."

"To the Rt. Honble. the Earl of Derby, &c., &c."

Such, my Lord, are the different counts which Mr. Bennett at the outset says he shall pass by, simply denying their truth, and which, when he has gone through them, he is pleased to term a "kind of deliberate helter skelter assertion of any matter as a fact, that seemed to bubble on the surface of the imagination of the late member for Cockermouth." The rising bubbles which sparkle on the surface of the chalybeate waters at Kissingen and other German spas, cause many a wry face, and I suspect these bubbles from the House of Commons gave Mr. Bennett still less satisfaction than those at the "brunnen."

Mr. Bennett now passes to what he is pleased to call the main subjects of the debate, those to which we have already alluded being apparently regarded by him as mere trifles by the way. Under the first head he places that which regards the Bishop and his institution to the Vicarage of Frome, and he appears to satisfy himself that all was "en règle." en règle." Un

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