Page:The Poems and Prose remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, volume 1 (1869).djvu/47

Rh Oxford, called the Decade. Mr. Conington was himself the secretary of the society at the time of which he speaks. 'The first occasion of my meeting Mr. Clough at the Decade,' he says, 'was on February 14, 1846, when I myself brought forward the subject for discussion. The subject was "That means ought to be adopted by the Legislature for recognising formally the social and political importance of the manufacturing interest." Sir Robert Peel's change of policy about the corn laws had just been announced, and those of us who were on the movement side were naturally more or less enthusiastic in favour of the manufacturers, who appeared to us as the winners of a great social victory. My proposal, if I remember rightly, was to the effect that they ought to be made peers, just as great landowners were. In this the bulk of the members present at that meeting do not seem to have concurred with me; but I had Mr. Clough's support. I do not recollect thoroughly a single sentence of his speech, but I can recall his commanding manner, and the stately serene tones in which he delivered a kind of prophecy of the new era which in a few days was to be inaugurated, and told us that "these men" (the manufacturers) "were the real rulers of England." The next occasion was some months afterwards, on June 9, 1846, when the question for debate was, "That any system of moral science, distinct from a consideration of Christianity, is essentially imperfect." Mr. Clough is reported as having spoken for this motion in part. He eventually moved a rider, which, with the motion, was unanimously accepted—"But the existence of moral science is recognised and presupposed by the idea of a revelation." The only point which remains on my mind is an application by him of the text "comparing spiritual things with spiritual;" "that is," said he, "comparing the spiritual things in a revelation with the spiritual things in one's own mind."

'I see there were five other occasions, in 1847 and the early part of 1848, on which Mr. Clough appeared at the Decade