Note 235 — Chapter X · THE DEATH OF PALMERSTON.

This scandal, which was one of the sensational events of the Session of 1865, was made the most of by the Churchmen, to whom Westbury had been studiously insolent. Some little time after his fall Westbury met his old antagonist, the Bishop of Oxford, in the lobby of the House of Lords. He held out his hand, saying, “My Lord Bishop, as a Christian and a Bishop, you will not refuse to shake hands.” Wilberforce generously shook hands with him, but that did not put an end to the war of wit between them. Westbury said, “Do you remember where we last met?’ “No,” replied Wilberforce. “It was in the hour of my humiliation, when I was leaving the Queen’s Closet, having given up the Great Seal. I met you on the stairs as I was coming out, and I felt inclined to say, ‘Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?’” Wilberforce retorted, “Does your lordship remember the end of the quotation?” to which Westbury answered, “We lawyers, my Lord Bishop, are not in the habit of quoting part of a passage without knowing the whole.” But, as Wilberforce used to say in telling the story, Westbury no doubt looked it out in his family Bible when he went home, and found that the end of the quotation was, “Yea, I have found thee, because thou hast sold thyself to iniquity.”—See Life of Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 144.