Durham E-Theses
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Durham E-Theses The portrayal of the Anglican clergyman in some nineteenth-century ction Packer, P. A. How to cite: Packer, P. A. (1979) The portrayal of the Anglican clergyman in some nineteenth-century ction, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/7910/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk THE PORTRAYAL OF THE ANGLICAN CLERGYMAN IN SOME NINETEENTH-CENTURY FICTION VOLUME II CHAPTER FIVE ANTHONY TROLLOPE (1815-1882) (CONTINUED FROM VOLUME ONE) On the other hand, with a character like Bishop Grantly, in The Warden, Trollope has no need of veiled insults and cleverly calculated barbs to achieve his caricature. Because of his age, perhaps, this bishop is allowed to appear both ineffectual and congenial, inefficient and inoffensive, weak but kind. He could hardly have been memorable as a bishop, Trollope suggests, but he would be remembered with affection. The bishop was somewhat inclined to an idle life ... though he had never been an active man [he) was one whose qualities had rendered him dear to all who knew him ... he was a bland and a kind old man, opposed by every feeling to authoritative demon• strations and episcopal ostentation. 236 These latter qualities particularly appealed to Trollope. So, too, did his kindness to Mr Harding, in whom the bishop found an ally against the ebullience of the archdeacon. I will not say that they managed the diocese be• tween them, but they spent much time in discussing the man who did, and in forming little plans to mitigate his wrath against church delinquents, and soften his aspirations for church dominion. 237 This atmosphere of cosy, domestic intrigue is just the kind which Trollope thought most typical of clerical ineffectiveness. That the bishop is utterly without real power is not for a moment doubted by the reader who watches Bishop Grantly's un• worldly kindness being easily outmanoeuvred by his son. This is all part of Trollope's paradoxical attitude to the church 396 and its bishops. For although he likes the gentlemanly old regime, he realizes that it is no use for a world of reforms, newspaper slanders and political strategies. The bishop could feel for [Mr Harding] and sym• pathise with him, but he could not advise him, he could only say, 'No, no, you shall be asked to do nothing that is painful; you shall do just what your heart tells you to be right; you shall do whatever you think best yourself. Theophilus, don't advise him, pray don't advise the warden to do anything which is painful.' 238 We do feel great sympathy for old Bishop Grantly, and the warden, but this is because of their age and inoffensiveness. It has nothing to do with Christianity for, as ministers of religion, they are so passive as to be practically useless. Trollope is clever, therefore, in winning the reader's sym• pathy for representatives of an old-fashioned humanism while, at the same time, depicting the new zeal of younger men, which clearly is necessary to revive a dying institution, as more callous and insensitive. This is not the same strategy as George Eliot adopts. She reveals her clergy, in an age before doctrinal debate and religious doubt, as personally and socially valuable. It is not that Irwine, in Adam Bede, has no religion but that he does not thrust it upon his flock, relying rather on moral precept and his good example. Thus, she highlights the essentials of a humanistic religion. In Trollope, men like Bishop Grantly, and the warden, not only appear to have little in their outlook 397 that is strictly Christian but possess little influence of any sort. I do not think, however, that this effect is a conscious one in Trollope, as it may be in George Eliot. It is rather that his notion of a good clergyman, or a good bishop, is so vague or limited as to be hardly Christian at all. Passivity and the preservation of the status quo are therefore admired by him simply because of the old-fashioned qualities they sug• gest. Yet, at the same time, Trollope acknowledges regretfully the need for reform and change. He cannot deny their necessity but often resorts to an emotive response to them which questions the quality and character of such reforms, and the 'new1 men who undertake them. In Peacock's novels we quickly discover that any opinion, if taken to extremes, can appear ridiculous. In Trollope there is clear indication that only those with which Trollope disagrees are so pilloried. New ideas are assessed by his own standards of good sense and good conduct. These may coincide with the standards of Christian conduct but are not identical to it. Unfortunately, Trollope frequently does assume that his standard of comparison is clear and universally accepted. Trollope's description of Mrs Proudie is an example 239 of this. She is, indeed, a tyrant and cannot be considered amiable, but because of her religious opinions, which Trollope so much disliked, she is also made to be a hypocrite. 398 Whether or not we now agree with her views, concerning the proper use of Sunday, the avoidance of drunkenness and low dresses, there is no reason why people should not sincerely hold such opinions. When Trollope, therefore, says 'though not averse to the society and manners of the world, she is in her own way a religious woman', all this slur means is that her way is not his. On other occasions, also, Trollope's prejudices con• fuse his criticisms. In his description of Bishop Proudie, for example, he pounces on Sydney Smith as one of the few earlier examples of a liberal divine because it suits him to suggest that before place-seekers like Proudie, all clergymen were Tory gentlemen. In fact, eighteenth-century divines, like Paley, could not have been more 'liberal' in their inter• pretation of Christianity. Some few years since ... a Liberal clergyman was a person not frequently to be met. Sydney Smith was such, and was looked on as little better than an infidel ... No man was so surely a Tory as a country rector - nowhere were the powers that be so cherished as at Oxford. [Later, however^] many wise divines saw that a change was taking place in men's minds, and that more liberal ideas would henceforward be suitable to the priest as well as to the laity. 240 Mrs Proudie's religion he dislikes because it is too dogmatic; her husband's because it is not dogmatic enough. Quixotic, too, is the reference to Sydney Smith who, of all Anglican clergymen, held views nearest to Trollope's own. Witty, and 399 serious; a lifelong opponent of cant, a ridiculer of preten• sions whether personal or institutional, of enthusiasms either Protestant or Catholic, addicted to good food and company, Smith is ideally fitted to meet Trollope's clerical requirements. Indeed, if we compare Sydney Smith's comments on bishops to Trollope's characterization of Dr Proudie and his behaviour, in Barchester Towers and The Last Chronicle of Barset, we see many remarkable points of similarity. Smith died ten years before The Warden (1855) was published, but there is no doubt that Trollope's clergy belong more to his generation than to that of J.Ho Newman or Bishop Samuel Wilberforce. It is in vain to talk of the good character of bishops Bishops are men; not always the wisest of men; not always preferred for eminent virtues and talents or for any good reason whatever known to the public. They are almost always devoid of striking and inde• corous vices; but a man may be very shallow, very arrogant, and very vindictive though a bishop; and pursue with unrelenting hatred a subordinate clergyman whose principles he dislikes and whose genius he fears. Bishops besides, are subject to the infirmities of old age, like other men; and in the decay of strength and understanding, will be governed as other men are, by daughters and wives, and whoever ministers to their daily comforts. We have no doubt that such cases sometimes occur, and produce ... a very capricious administration of ecclesiastical affairs. 241 Dr Proudie, of course, is ruled by his wife long before the arrival of senility, and it is this aspect of Proudie character that Trollope concentrates upon, and which gives his characterization a more complex dimension that that of Bishop 400 Grantly. The portrayal of an inefficient or bustling bishop could never hold us in the way that this henpecked husband does - or such is Trollope's reasoning. Trollope, in his clerical characters, always seizes upon some human foible on which to build his portraiture so that the reader can identify with him or feel his dilemma is not too remote from every-day life0 Trollope is also adept at suggesting that there is something rather ridiculous about a clergyman struggling with commonplace cares.