Mechanics' Institutes, and Statistical Societies found in him a friend and patron, at a time when clerical patronage was as rare as it is now common, and a lecture on Geology, which he delivered at an institution of this nature in the neighbouring town of Macclesfield, was, it is believed, one of the first contributions of the kind from any minister of the Church of England.

In like manner the statistical, scientific, and antiquarian observations which he had carefully made in his own parish, and of which the results were preserved in a complete manuscript history of Alderley, suggested the publication of a set of queries on similar subjects for the general use of parochial clergy, under the title of Heads of Local Information.' From time to time he contributed to various periodicals the results of his studies, or more frequently of the rapid six weeks' excursions which he used to make in the summer months: of these perhaps the most remarkable is an account, afterwards reprinted from Blackwood's Magazine, of an adventure in the Alps on the "Mauvais Pas "-interesting both as illustrative of his own character, and also as having in all probability suggested to Sir Walter Scott the opening scene in the romance of Anne of Geierstein.' He was also one of the earliest and most regular attendants of the meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at one of which he was in 1836 appointed Vice-President.

It has been already implied that on his first entrance on his post he stood almost alone amongst his clerical neighbours in the strict discharge of his parochial duties,

and his abstinence from the amusements which were with them so universal,

"There are some cases" (again to quote the words of his early friend) "where singularity is tolerated when it does not offend. But this is not so when the singularity of one leads to a comparison with others, and when that comparison is unfavourable to the many. They then are apt to regard peculiarity as a censure, not less keen because it is silent, and think that they themselves are blamed, when the truth is that they are only conscious of being wrong. Something of this feeling no doubt prevailed in the neighbourhood of Alderley. The Rector did not do what other Rectors did; and though he neither censured in public, nor reproved in private, his conduct testified to a differrence of views, and some were dissatisfied with him because they became dissatisfied with themselves whilst seeing how he lived. Some allowance might have been made for difference of tastes. Few of them possessed the resources which he carried about within him; fewer still possessed the happy power of giving the whole mind to a pursuit, and of feeling delight in any species of investigation. Men who had been accustomed to look to the sports of the field as the only recreation, were unable to understand the interest which might be taken in natural history and in the arts, and forfeited the influence which their situation included, from not knowing how to employ their leisure judiciously."

This hostility, if such it might be called, gradually wore away, partly from a change in the feelings of the time, and partly from a juster appreciation of his motives, and from the friendly intercourse which he considered it a duty to cultivate with them. Of this intercourse one of the most permanent results was a Clerical Society, formed from the neighbouring clergy, which he was chiefly instrumental in founding.

"There, when Turner, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, was rector of the adjoining parish of Wilmslow, many schemes of parochial improvement were formed, which doubtless exercised no inconsiderable influence on the dioceses to which they were respectively called in after years."

It has been necessary to state thus much in order to understand the somewhat prominent part he took in the more general subjects of national and ecclesiastical interest under discussion during the time of his life at Alderley. He inherited from his family strong Whig principles, which he always retained; and he never shrank from advocating those general principles of toleration and reform to which he was inclined by natural character as well as by these hereditary ties. The more solitary he found himself in his position as a liberal clergyman, the more incumbent upon him seemed to be the duty of avowing his principles and availing himself of his station amongst his brethren, both for the sake of the cause itself and of the higher interests of the Church and of Religion, which appeared to him to suffer from the hostility in which they were often placed to the movement and requirements of the

age.

The first occasion on which his name thus appeared was in 1829, when, in the excitement and panic which immediately preceded the passing of the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, he wrote A Few Words in behalf of our Roman Catholic Brethren,' in the form of a short address to his parishioners, with the view of allaying the alarm which, under the influence of the opponents of the measure, had penetrated even to the lowest

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classes and the most rustic populations. public question which called him forth was that of Church Reform, during the crisis of 1831, in which he was the chief promoter of a meeting of the clergy of the county, to consider the expediency of taking into consideration such timely remedies for ecclesiastical abuses as might avert the danger of too extensive changes. This movement issued in a petition, signed by about forty clergyman, and praying for the reform of pluralities, non-residence, &c.-points which, though they have been since carried into effect with the concurrence of the Episcopal body, were at that time considered to be matters of hazardous experiment. The petition was eventually presented to the King, though not through the Bishop of the diocese, who courteously but decidedly declined the office. In 1836 another opportunity was offered for an endeavour to conciliate the animosities between Protestants and Roman Catholics. He had made a short tour during the summer of the previous year in the west of Ireland, of which the results were embodied in a pamphlet entitled 'A Few Observations on Religion and Education in Ireland.' It passed through two editions, and attracted considerable attention; and the information. which he then acquired gave him ever afterwards great interest in Irish affairs.

Whilst entertaining thus strongly his opinion of the necessity of reform, and by nature a reformer of the most zealous kind, he always, as well from inclination as on principle, abstained scrupulously from implicating himself in the personal and local details of party

politics, which then were more vehement, and absorbed within their vortex more members of his profession, than would be the case at present. The only occasion on which he ever publicly appeared at an election was during a contest by one of his nephews for the county of Anglesey, where, as owner of a small estate, he had a vote; and where, in the unavoidable absence of the rest of the family, he felt himself bound, both as a clergyman and a near relative, to repel some calumnious insinuations of irreligion and infidelity brought by the opposite party against the Whig candidate.

Nor did he confine his exertions merely to the reform, without regard to the defence, of existing institutions. His answer to the attack on the University of Cambridge by Mr. Beverley has been already mentioned an answer the more timely, because (to use his own words, in justifying his coming forward on such an occasion) it was

"the spontaneous evidence, not of a high churchman, neither of one who had in the eleventh hour for the first time proclaimed himself a reformer, but of one who through life had been a persevering advocate of reformation in every department, civil and religious; of one who had, in fact, looked with as keen an eye upon abuses as Mr. Beverley himself, and who had by so doing borne his full share of obloquy and reproach from those with whom it had been his misfortune to differ."

It is a curious fact, too, that he was one of the original contributors to the 'British Magazine,' then edited by the late Hugh James Rose, his articles being chiefly intended to refute the exaggerated reports then