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

faction."--Convocation
Craft, p. 34.
"We may see how closely our present Highflyers pursue the steps of
their Popish predecessors, in reckoning those who dispute the usurped
power of the Church to be hereticks, schismaticks, or what else they
please."--Ib. p. 30.
"All the blood that has been spilt 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