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Likewise, there were special-pleading practitioners, for whom barges 'drifted away of their own selves' they having no hand in it, except first cutting them loose, and afterwards plundering them innocents, meaning no harm, who had the misfortune to observe those foundlings wandering about the Thames.
If, then, Tracts for the Million seem a necessity, they also seem an impossibility; for what self-respecting man will sit down to weave that tissue of sophistry, special-pleading, violence, and vulgarity, which alone will serve the practical purpose with those to whom trenchency is everything and subtlety nothing?
The fact has priority over the dogmas, and is altogether too strong to need the patronizing special-pleading they suggest. Instead of going into the metaphysics of the question about the lawfulness and blamelessness of humor shown or humor relished, suppose we cut the knot by a delightful illustration of the compatibility of humor with the highest type of character.
It was then quite right of them to dismiss from their minds with a shrug of their shoulders the omnium gatherum of fantastic and language-maiming philosophies, and of rabid special-pleading historical studies, the carnival of all gods and myths, and the poetical affectations and fooleries which a drunken spirit may be responsible for.
He believed the Tractarian doctrines of 'reserve' and 'economy' to be essentially disingenuous; he considered that there was good reason to conclude that leading members of the Oxford school had remained in the Church of England for a considerable time after they had adopted the Roman theology, had used language deliberately intended to mask their position, and had employed their influence as English clergymen to sap the English Church; and he especially denounced as the grossest dishonesty the attempt that was made in Tract XC. to show that a man was justified in subscribing to the Articles of the Church of England and at the same time holding everything laid down by the Council of Trent, 'though the Articles were expressly drawn up to condemn the authoritative teaching of the Roman Church, and after the Council of Trent had held 22 out of its whole number of 25 sessions. The quibbling, special-pleading, equivocating mind which is consciously or half-consciously endeavouring by subtle distinctions to maintain an untenable position, was of all things the most abhorrent to him, and while the Evangelicals denounced the Tractarians as leading men to Rome, Whately, perhaps alone among his contemporaries, steadily predicted that their teachings would be followed by a great period of religious scepticism.
Are they not the same by which Melancthon de-Calvinized, at least de-Augustinized, the heroic Luther; those which constitute one of the only two essential differences between the Augsburg Confession and the Calvinistic Articles of Faith? And can anything be more flittery and special-pleading than Skelton's objections? There is one inconvenience, not to say danger, in this argument of Mr.
If it could be so, then how should the seeming apostle's affected rhapsody of hope be to us other than a mere puff-ball of falsest rhetoric, a special-pleading for nothing, as degrading to art as objectless in nature? Much would I like to know clearly what animals the apostle saw on his travels, or around his home when he had one their conditions, and their relations to their superiors.
In political questions it relies too little on the broad basis of liberty and humanity, enters too much into mere dry formalities, deals too often in moot-points, and descends too readily to a sort of special-pleading in defence of home truths and natural feelings: in matters of taste and criticism, its tone is sometimes apt to be supercilious and cavalier from its habitual faculty of analysing defects and beauties according to given principles, from its quickness in deciding, from its facility in illustrating its views.
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