Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 | Page 3

in the late unnatural rebellion, may be very justly laid at the doors of the High Church clergy."--Christianity no Creature of the State, p. 16.
"We see what the Tory Priesthood were made of in Queen Elizabeth's time, that they were ignorant, lewd, and seditious: and it must be said of 'em that they are true to the stuff still."--Toryism the Worst of the Two, p. 21.
"The Tories and High Church, notwithstanding their pretences to loyalty, will be found by their actions to be the greatest rebels in nature."--Reasons for an Union, p. 20.
Sir W. Scott, in his Life of Dryden, Lond. 1808, observes that--
"Towards the end of Charles the Second's reign, the High-Church-men and the Catholics regarded themselves as on the same side in political questions, and not greatly divided in their temporal interests. Both were sufferers in the plot, both were enemies of the sectaries, both were adherents of the Stuarts. Alternate conversion had been common between them, so early as since Milton made a reproach to the English Universities of the converts to the Roman faith daily made within their colleges: of those sheep--
'Whom the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said.'" Life, 3rd edit. 1834, p. 272.
I quote this passage partly because it gives Sir Walter's interpretation of that obscure passage in Lycidas, respecting which I made a Query (Vol. ii., p. 246.), but chiefly as a preface to the remark that in James II.'s reign, and at the time these party names originated, the Roman Catholics were in league with the Puritans or Low Church party against the High Churchmen, which increased the acrimony of both parties.
In those days religion was politics, and politics religion, with most of the belligerents. Swift, however, as if he wished to be thought an exception to the general rule, chose one party for its politics and the other for its religion.
"Swift carried into the ranks of the Whigs the opinions and scruples of a High Church clergyman... Such a distinction between opinions in Church and State has not frequently existed: the High Churchmen being usually Tories, and the Low Church divines universally Whigs."--Scott's Life, 2nd edit.: Edin. 1824, p. 76.
See Swift's Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions between the Nobles and Commons of Athens and Rome: Lond. 1701.
In his quaint Argument against abolishing Christianity, Lond. 1708, the following passage occurs:
"There is one advantage, greater than any of the foregoing, proposed by the abolishing of Christianity: that it will utterly extinguish parties among us by removing those factious distinctions of High and Low Church, of Whig and Tory, Presbyterian and Church of England."
Scott says of the Tale of a Tub:
"The main purpose is to trace the gradual corruptions of the Church of Rome, and to exalt the English Reformed Church at the expense both of the Roman Catholic and Presbyterian establishments. It was written with a view to the interests of the High Church party."--Life, p. 84.
Most men will concur with Jeffrey, who observes:
"It is plain, indeed, that Swift's High Church principles were all along but a part of his selfishness and ambition; and meant nothing else, than a desire to raise the consequence of the order to which he happened to belong. If he had been a layman, we have no doubt he would have treated the pretensions of the priesthood as he treated the persons of all priests who were opposed to him, with the most bitter and irreverent disdain."--Ed. Rev., Sept. 1846.
The following lines are from a squib of eight stanzas which occurs in the works of Jonathan Smedley, and are said to have been fixed on the door of St. Patrick's Cathedral on the day of Swift's instalment (see Scott, p. 174.):
"For High Churchmen and policy, He swears he prays most hearty; But would pray back again to be A Dean of any party."
This reminds us of the Vicar of Bray, of famous memory, who, if I recollect aright, commenced his career thus:
"In good King Charles's golden days, When loyalty no harm meant, A zealous High Churchman I was, And so I got preferment."
How widely different are the men we see classed under the title High Churchmen! Evelyn and Walton[4], the gentle, the Christian; the arrogant Swift, and the restless Atterbury.
It is difficult to prevent my note running beyond the limits of "N. & Q.," with the ample {120} materials I have to select from; but I cannot wind up without a definition; so here are two:
"Mr. Thelwall says that he told a pious old lady, who asked him the difference between High Church and Low Church, 'The High Church place the Church alcove Christ, the Low Church place Christ above the Church.' About a hundred years ago, that very same question was asked of the famous South:--'Why,' said he, 'the High Church