Atterbury

“ You gave me the points, and I used them; any man would.”
“You miserable—sneaking—liar!” said Atterbury very slowly. He rose, and brought both hands down on the table with a gesture that did not lose in power because it made no sound. “No man that lives shall cheat me with impunity. I’ll brand you for what you are!”
“You can’t,” said Harrington insolently.
Atterbury smiled with the scorn which disdained reply, and turned on his heel. He did not see the startled glance of Nichols and Callender as he went over to a place beside them. ”

“ ATTERBURY TO POPE.
On July 30th, Atterbury, not long before his arrest, was indulging in disquisitions on death, in railing at human greatness, in sneers at the Duke of Marlborough, lately deceased—a man whose loyalty, like that of the bishop who was about to bury him—had been paid to two antagonistic masters. ‘I go to-morrow,’ the prelate tells Pope, ‘to the Deanery; and I believe I shall stay there till I have said Dust to dust, and shut up that last scene of pompous vanity.... I shall often say to myself while expecting the funeral—
O Rus, quando ego te aspiciam! ”

“ This he could not do in France, and he began to meditate flight. At this moment Bishop Atterbury, then living in exile in Paris, strongly encouraged him to fly to England, and gave him valuable assistance in arranging for his journey. Atterbury had long been Courayer's warm admirer. His picture ornamented Atterbury's rooms, and the bishop had been able to procure for him from Oxford the honour of a D.D. honoris causâ (1727) . The timid scholar and recluse would probably never have found his way to our shores had not the bishop furnished him with a capable English attendant. ”

“ In a dull and anxious season indeed for a young architect with a wife and two little boys to support, Mr. Sterling had lately been working both at the office and at home, at the behest of a heaven-sent Mr. Atterbury, long resident abroad, on the plans for a Moorish villa, dreamed of by Mr. Atterbury's wife, that should be Moorish-American, rather, with plenty of windows, bath-rooms, and closets, and steam heat even for the Oriental, glassed-in sleeping roof. ”

“ Atterbury came to him, on the part of some of the Treasurer’s ‘particular friends,’ to acquaint him how uneasy they were that he had neither dissolved the Parliament, nor removed from office nearly so many Whigs as those particular friends wished to see removed. ‘I know very well,’ replied the Earl, ‘the men from whom that message comes, and I am also very sensible of the difficulties I have to struggle with. ”

“ Francis Atterbury, 112a man who holds a conspicuous place in the political, ecclesiastical, and literary history of England, was born in the year 1662, at Middleton in Buckinghamshire, a parish of which his father was rector. Francis was educated at Westminster School, and carried thence to Christ Church a stock of learning which, though really scanty, he through life exhibited with such judicious ostentation that superficial observers believed his attainments to be immense. ”

“ Quietly-minded people now looked for quiet times, and hoped that plots and projects of war and invasion had come to an end. But the Stuart papers show that Atterbury hoped yet to bring his king to London. In Brussels, by aid of the Papal Nuncio and one of the Ladies Howard, then at the head of an English nunnery in Belgium, the Jacobite ex-prelate secretly kept up a correspondence with James. ”

“ After the Revolution, Atterbury, though bred in the doctrines of non-resistance and passive obedience, readily swore fealty to the new government. He had taken holy orders in 1687, preached occasionally in London with an eloquence which raised his reputation, and was soon appointed one of the royal chaplains. But he ordinarily resided at Oxford, where he was the chief adviser and assistant of Dean Aldrich, under whom Christ Church was a stronghold of Toryism. ”

“ Dr. Atterbury resided facing the river, near the Old Church, in 1695, as appears by the parish books, and afterwards in Church Street, for several years; one of his letters is dated from hence in 1698. There he became acquainted with Swift, in 1711, to whom he was before unknown.
Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, was born in 1662, and was educated in Westminster School, and afterwards was elected a Student of Christ Church, Oxford, where he soon distinguished himself by his wit and learning, and gave early proofs of his poetical talents. ”

“ The council then sought audience with the dying Queen. She was sinking fast, but she retained enough consciousness to give the white wand into the hands of Shrewsbury, and bade him, with the sweet voice which was her greatest charm, to “use it for the good of my people”. Then indeed the Jacobites knew that all was over, for Shrewsbury was a firm adherent of the House of Hanover. Bolingbroke and Ormonde withdrew in confusion, and the “best cause in the world,” as Atterbury said, “was lost for want of spirit”. ”

“ On 7 Dec. 1698, as he was returning home after one of his visits to London, he was drowned near Middleton-Keynes, and there buried. Atterbury married and left two sons—Lewis Atterbury the younger, and the famous Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester. ”

“ Atterbury indeed showed signs of considerable Bishop Atterbury's plot. wisdom, the reintroduction of Walpole and Townshend to the ministry seemed to him a great blow to the cause. "The reconciliation," he writes, "is not yet hearty and sincere, but I apprehend it will by degrees become so. The Tories have no good foundation on which to stand. Disaffection and uneasiness will continue everywhere, and probably increase. The bulk of the nation will be ever in the true interest and on the side of justice. ”

“ In 1784 Atterbury sang in the chorus of the Handel commemoration, and in 1787, on the establishment of the glee club at the Newcastle Coffee House, Castle Street, Strand, his name occurs as one of the original members. In September 1790 he married Miss Ancell, of Downing Street. ”

“ From the benches of Parliament to the council-room of the Charity Commissioners, rogues abounded; the country was sold by the Senate, and the poor were plundered by their trustees. Yet, these things caused less emotion in the London coffee-houses than the report which came of the death of Bishop Atterbury at Paris, in February. ”

“ BISHOP ATTERBURY, THE CHEVALIER’S AGENT.
At the very time Lord Nairn, by effect of the Act of Grace, left the Tower, Atterbury, as his published correspondence now reveals, was conspiring in the interest of James III. To this prince, the bishop282 addressed a letter from London, in which is the following passage:—‘My actions, I hope, have spoken for me better than any letters could do.... I have for many years past neglected no opportunity (and particularly no advantage my station afforded me) towards promoting the service.... ”

“ The most contradictory opinions have been expressed as to the side on which the victory lay ; but the general mass of the clergy gratefully recognised Atterbury as an able champion of their order against Erastianism in high places both in church and state : and it really is difficult to controvert the assertion of Warburton, who was no friend to convocation, but whose lawyer-like mind at once grasped the real gist of the dispute. ”

“ After Atterbury's rupture with James he left Paris for the south of France, in the hope of restoring his failing health, and settled at Montpelier. His daughter in England, whose health was also failing, felt a longing desire to see her father once more; and as he could not go to her she determined at all hazards to go to him. Unfortunately, the weather proved most unfavourable for a sea voyage; and when Bordeaux was at length reached, Mrs. Morice was all but a dying woman. ”

“ Look as economical and rich and rugged as you can.”
I followed out Atterbury’s instructions. I played the Rocky Mountain capitalist without ruching or frills. The way I deposited apple peelings to my credit in a drawer when any customers came in made Hetty Green look like a spendthrift. I could hear Atterbury saying to victims, as he smiled at me, indulgent and venerating, “That’s our vice-president, Colonel Pickens ... fortune in Western investments ... delightfully, plain manners, but
“‘That’s our vice-president, Colonel Pickens.’”
... ”

“ Atterbury was delighted with the new plan of the villa, and showed his delight.
"I don't know what you've done to the thing, Sterling—I can tell you now that I was disappointed at first, but you seem to have caught just the idea; even I, with my limited understanding, can see that it is beautiful. You'll be the rage before you know it, and I tell you this recreation is doing you good. You look like a new man. ”

“ Before the conclusion of it Hoadly was engaged in another contest with the leader of the high church party, Francis Atterbury [q. v.] , upon the interpretation of the text 1 Cor. xv. 19. This had been explained in a funeral sermon by Atterbury as implying that Christians, while losing happiness in this world, were to be compensated in the future. Hoadly, taking much higher ground, demonstrated that the greatest happiness in this life was attained by those who rightly used the highest parts of their nature (1706) . ”

“ Oxford was not less proud of a youth, whose great powers, first essayed in this conflict, afterwards troubled the Church and the State during forty eventful years, Francis Atterbury. By such men as these every question in issue between the Papists and the Protestants was debated, sometimes in a popular style which boys and women could comprehend, sometimes with the utmost subtlety of logic, and sometimes with an immense display of learning. ”

“ With respect to the treachery towards Atterbury, the justification of Lord Mar rests upon the testimony of Colonel Dillon, and other persons who saw the Earl's letter to Carteret. It is also certain that James accorded his approval to Mar's conduct in that affair. No positive intention of mischief can be made out against Mar ”

“ His speech was subsequently printed, together with two speeches in the Sheldonian and a poem on the death of Queen Anne, in Latin and English, as ‘Miscellanies by Dr. Smalridge’ (2nd ed. London, 1714) . In September 1711 he was made a canon of Christ Church at the same time that Atterbury was made dean. ‘The House,’ wrote Swift, ‘would have rather had it the other way about.’ When, however, Atterbury became a bishop, Smalridge obtained the deanery, 11 July 1713, and thereupon resigned the deanery of Carlisle, to which he had been admitted (likewise in succession to Atterbury) on 3 Nov. ”

“ His real design in making the proposal was supposed to have been to render the cause of the Jacobites odious to the people of Britain by connecting them with an unpatriotic scheme. Atterbury, after his arrival in France, obtained evidence sufficient to convince him that Mar had been guilty of ‘such base practices’ ‘that the like had scarce been heard of; and seemed to be what no man endued with common sense or the least drop of noble blood could perpetrate’ (Lockhart Papers, ii. 142) . ”

“ He emerged from his retirement in the same year to give active support to the movement led by Atterbury, whose friend and patron he was, for the revival of convocation and the execution of the Præmunientes clause. ”

“ High Church and Low Church divided the nation. The great majority of the clergy were on the High Church side; the majority of King William’s bishops were inclined to latitudinarianism. In 1700 Convocation, of which the lower house was overwhelmingly Tory, had not been suffered to meet for ten years. This produced a lively controversy, into which Atterbury threw himself with characteristic energy, publishing a series of treatises written with much wit, audacity and acrimony. ”

“ His father, Lewis Atterbury, was rector of the parish, and educated both Francis and his elder brother Lewis until they were old enough to go to Westminster, then in the zenith of its fame under Dr. Busby. From Westminster Francis proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford, being at the head of the four Westminster students elected in 1680. After he had graduated, he continued to reside at Oxford, taking part in the tutorial work at Christ Church, and acting as a sort of right-hand man to Dean Aldrich. ”

“ Atterbury was regarded as indisputably the best preacher of his day. To this reputation no doubt his manner and person contributed greatly. The 'Tatler' (No. 66, by Steele) , in a well-known passage, contrasts the apathy of the greater part of the clergy in the pulpit with 'the dean we heard the other day,' who 'is an orator. He has so much regard to his congregation that he commits to his memory what he has to say to them, and has so soft and graceful a behaviour that it must attract your attention. His person, it is to be confessed, is no small recommendation ”

“ The tergiversations of Trelawny, successively Bishop of Bristol and Exeter, modify the traditionary laudation of his courage and alacrity, magnanimity and address, in defence of the just rights and privileges of the Church; yet I am not aware of anything which contradicts the statement, that “he was friendly and open, generous and charitable, a good companion, and a good man.” [388] Atterbury seems to have greatly admired him, and in the dedication of his own sermons to the Prelate, he delicately praises him for manifold virtues. ”

“ Besides attending closely to the affairs of the Abbey, he has been constantly occupied, during his period there, with theological and literary publications of various kinds. He has written a life of Atterbury, and has given courses in the Abbey on the Creed, the Atonement, and the Bible Doctrine of the Sacraments. ”

“ But on a night in January, with the thermometer five degrees above zero, and a fierce wind blowing out of illimitable blackness, life in the suburbs demanded strenuous will-power. Men put their heads down and ran in silence, with overcoats tightly buttoned, and hands beating together, their footsteps sounding heavily on the frozen earth.
The wind cut John Atterbury’s strong lungs like a knife, and his feet seemed to stumble against the cold as if it had been a visible barrier. ”