The Clergy have got up; with Cahiers for abolishing pluralities, enforcing residence of bishops, better payment of tithes. (Hist.  Parl. i. 322-27.) The Dignitaries, we can observe, walk stately, apart from the numerous Undignified,—­who indeed are properly little other than Commons disguised in Curate-frocks.  Here, however, though by strange ways, shall the Precept be fulfilled, and they that are greatest (much to their astonishment) become least.  For one example, out of many, mark that plausible Gregoire:  one day Cure Gregoire shall be a Bishop, when the now stately are wandering distracted, as Bishops in partibus.  With other thought, mark also the Abbe Maury:  his broad bold face; mouth accurately primmed; full eyes, that ray out intelligence, falsehood,—­the sort of sophistry which is astonished you should find it sophistical.  Skilfulest vamper-up of old rotten leather, to make it look like new; always a rising man; he used to tell Mercier, “You will see; I shall be in the Academy before you.” (Mercier, Nouveau Paris.) Likely indeed, thou skilfullest Maury; nay thou shalt have a Cardinal’s Hat, and plush and glory; but alas, also, in the longrun—­mere oblivion, like the rest of us; and six feet of earth!  What boots it, vamping rotten leather on these terms?  Glorious in comparison is the livelihood thy good old Father earns, by making shoes,—­one may hope, in a sufficient manner.  Maury does not want for audacity.  He shall wear pistols, by and by; and at death-cries of “The Lamp-iron;” answer coolly, “Friends, will you see better there?”

But yonder, halting lamely along, thou noticest next Bishop Talleyrand-Perigord, his Reverence of Autun.  A sardonic grimness lies in that irreverent Reverence of Autun.  He will do and suffer strange things; and will become surely one of the strangest things ever seen, or like to be seen.  A man living in falsehood, and on falsehood; yet not what you can call a false man:  there is the specialty!  It will be an enigma for future ages, one may hope:  hitherto such a product of Nature and Art was possible only for this age of ours,—­Age of Paper, and of the Burning of Paper.  Consider Bishop Talleyrand and Marquis Lafayette as the topmost of their two kinds; and say once more, looking at what they did and what they were, O Tempus ferax rerum!

On the whole, however, has not this unfortunate Clergy also drifted in the Time-stream, far from its native latitude?  An anomalous mass of men; of whom the whole world has already a dim understanding that it can understand nothing.  They were once a Priesthood, interpreters of Wisdom, revealers of the Holy that is in Man:  a true Clerus (or Inheritance of God on Earth):  but now?—­They pass silently, with such Cahiers as they have been able to redact; and none cries, God bless them.