preach before the royal family at St. James's, whereupon the queen named another clergyman to perform the service. The queen's man began to read prayers, and Mason immediately began doing the same, not recognising the queen's nominee. How the matter ended in the chapel is not stated; but tradition affirms that Mason resigned his chaplaincy in consequence of the affront. I think, however, that the poet's ultra-liberal sentiments and expressions when the English colony in America rebelled against the mother country led to his resigning an office of which he would certainly have been deprived.

Men who were not poets like Mason became Royal Chaplains after his time. One of the most celebrated of the Prince of Wales's chaplains was the Rev. William Peters. He was an artist as well as a clergyman, and was remarkable because of the combination of the two vocations. Mr. Peters preached

to and also painted the prince. We have all seen the portrait in the Freemasons' Hall. In his clerical capacity Mr. Peters painted an infant soul borne by angels to heaven; but in his purely artistic capacity he painted Venuses, and gained thereby the name of the English Titian. His recumbent Lydia was covered with a gauze, which the "wits" called episcopal lawn. Then he designed arabesques for the opera, and painted some of the ceilings of Carlton House. The critics thought he would fail in the sky, it was so long, they said, since he had looked towards heaven.

Chaplains at Carlton House.

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When he married, the newspaper wags indulged in a licence of remark that cannot here be illustrated; and then, when he also obtained preferment, the gossip of the day ran, in type, to the effect that the reverend gentleman was collecting all the "luxurious wanderings" of his pencil, and was destroying them as fast as they came into his possession. "Such virtuous conduct," says a writer in one of the papers, "is highly meritorious, and furnishes an admirable example for the many young dissipated sprigs of divinity of the present day." Whether for setting such an example, or because of merits less patent to the world in general, is not known; but the Duke of Rutland nominated the reverend painter of Venuses to a living, and the Bishop of Lincoln conferred a prebendal stall on the artist who had executed so audacious a "Lydia in bed" that it had to be covered "with a transparent material which is generally appropriated to the sleeves of episcopal dignitaries." Such is contemporary testimony; but there is a strong element of exaggeration in every newspaper deposition of the day, when the deponent had to speak of Carlton House and its inmates. Some of the latter needed a little religious training certainly. certainly. I have been told by an earwitness that the Duke of Clarence once, in a fit of impatience at some delay at the dinner-table, exclaimed-"Come, E, damn it, do say grace and let us begin!"

One of the Prince Regent's chaplains was the Rev.

Mr. Cannon, whom Theodore Hook has described, from a least favourable point of view, as Godfrey Moss, in "Maxwell." Mr. Cannon was sometimes called the "silver-tongued;" but the sentiment of what he uttered was coarser than the member by which it was flung to the ear. Cannon won his preferment simply because he had a good knowledge of music, and a chaplain who could play the fiddle was just the formal ghostly adviser that the Regent loved. But the musical chaplain lost his preferment-not that he was of lax habits, but because he was rude of speech. It was not the rudeness of a wit, but of a coarse, ill-bred, presuming fellow, whose Hippocrene was "ginnums and water." He spared neither the prince nor the prince's wife, Mrs. Fitzherbert, nor his friend, nor his friend's friend. After his disappearance from Carlton House, Mr. Cannon fell into "straitened circumstances.” As the regent's chaplain he was patronized; but great people saw all his faults as soon as the glare of fortune faded from about him. He was of so much delicacy, that though he went into loose company, he would not allow them to make jokes out of the Bible; but Cannon was one of those men whom no bishop would think of "preferring.”

There are old cathedral and Chapel-Royal privileges that have not died out. If a person enter either of those edifices spurred, he is liable to be mulcted of spur-money by the choristers, if they have their wits about them and the intruder is ignorant of his possible

right of exemption. The late Duke of Cumberland was very indignant on having a claim for spur-money made against him by the choristers of St. Paul's, as he once entered the cathedral with spurs on. He would neither pay nor listen to reason. It was otherwise with the wary Duke of Wellington, who was similarly accosted at the Chapel Royal. To the boy who made the demand the duke said, with goodhumoured sharpness-" Very well; go through your gamut !" The boy blushed, and in his confusion tripped and failed. The duke laughed, and bade him remember what he had not forgotten-that a chorister demanding spur-money puts himself altogether out of court, if, on being challenged to repeat the gamut, he is unable to accomplish that small achievement.

sons.

Chapels Royal are not like most places of worship, open to all the world. Only exclusively right worshipful people can assemble therein. A silver key will, however, be a sesame for one of the profane if he be right worshipfully attired. Peers' sons have access, by right of birth; but then they must be the eldest Primogeniture has proper respect rendered to it in the sacred palatial chapels, where all men are not equal before the Lord! The heirs-apparent may pray without being questioned; but the younger sons of a peer have no right to enter the chapel till after the second lesson-unless, indeed, they have a ticket, or can disburse a florin for the privilege of joining with their betters in the confession of sins.

VOL. II.

I

MILITARY CHAPLAINS.

whatever denomination of Christianity the Military Chaplain may belong, he is fully recognised and amply protected by the laws of war. There was a time when he was as happy to slay men as to save their souls, and to act as surgeon as well as priest. Sir James Turner has laid down the military chaplain's duty very definitely. "His duty is to have cura animarum, the care of souls; and it is well if he meddle with no other business, but makes that only his care.'

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Church laws expressly forbade priests from acting also as soldiers; but the fighting propensity was strong in many clerical gentlemen. When prelates used to address armies, bless them on the bloody errand on which they were going, promise them success, and give assurance that the Lord of Hosts was with them, no wonder that the battalions answered Amen! and rushed to slaughter as if it were the work of angels.

The chaplains and their dignified brethren looked on and envied. They could not presume to smite with the sword; but if swords were prohibited, clubs