To carry on two controversies at the same time was certainly favourable to neither; except that abuse, or something very like it, being the key common to both, the subjects were so far in unison. Politics afforded me strong temptations, but theology was still predominant. The thirty-nine articles consequently were not neglected. Memory was taxed, my own manuscripts were examined, and authorities were consulted. His lordship's library abounded in political information, but not in theological, and I had recourse to that of the British Museum.
I did not indeed compose with all the rapidity with which I wrote my first political effusion; for I had not only been rendered more cautious, but, exclusive of the conversations and employment which the peer afforded me, a regular attention was to be paid to the levees of the bishop.
To these the sedulous Enoch carefully accompanied me; for no man pursued his own interest, as far as he understood it, with greater avidity. Circumstances were unfavourable, or he would certainly have been a bishop himself. Learning, talents, and virtue might have been dispensed with, but not these and the total want of patronage.
The bishop, finding us thus continually paired, one day gave me a hint that he should be glad to see me the next time alone. Without suspecting the motive, I was careful to comply with the request; and the ensuing morning, the right reverend dignitary, no other person being present, gave me to understand that he had read my sermon with satisfaction.
After this and various other circumlocutory efforts and hints, he at last spoke more plainly. The subject was a good one, and he had an inclination to deliver it himself, at one of the cathedrals where he intended to preach. But then it must be in consequence of a positive assurance, from me, that I should act with discretion. He did not want sermons; he had enough: but this pleased him: though, if it were known it were a borrowed discourse, especially borrowed from so young a man not yet in orders, it might derogate from episcopal dignity.
Enraptured at the fund of self approbation which I collected from all this, I ardently replied, 'I knew not how to express my sense of the honour his lordship did me; that I could neither be so absurd as to offend his lordship nor so unjust as to be insensible of his favours; that I held the sacerdotal character to be too sacred to suffer any man to trifle with it, much less to be guilty of the crime myself; and that, if his lordship would oblige me by fulfilling his kind intention, my lips should be irrevocably and for ever closed. The honour would be an ample reward, and, whatever my wishes might be, it was more than I could have hoped and greater perhaps than I deserved.'