The Protestant dissenters, with a less rude hand, knocked at the doors of Parliament, demanding the purification of the Established Church, and the opening of its gates to Toleration. The rich clergy were compelled by law to pay higher salaries to their poor curates--Hume's clumsy abuse fell on the heads of the lazy prelates who made godliness gain--and the "pickings and stealings," which the Establishment tolerated in a long train of sanctimonious supernumeraries, were exposed to the gaze of the uninitiated when Brougham carried his bill against ministers, in 1819, for a board of commissioners to investigate the abuses of public charities. The Corporation and Test Acts, which enslaved the consciences of dissenters, were denounced by Fox and Burdett, preparatory to their ultimate repeal (of which more anon) by Lord John Russell's bill in 1828.
Nor was the importance of educating the masses forgotten. Not content with aiding Romilly, Smith, Horner, Mackintosh, and Jeffrey, in instructing the higher circles by frequent contributions to the Edinburgh Review on domestic and European politics, Brougham wrote rudimental tracts for the lower orders--lectured to Mechanics' Institutes--contributed to Penny Magazines--and in 1820, after a speech which exhibited perfect familiarity with the educational condition of the unlettered masses, launched in Parliament his comprehensive scheme for the instruction of the poor in England and Wales; thus proving that _he_ was entitled to the eulogy he bestowed on another, as "the patron of all the arts that humanize and elevate mankind."
Having seen this favorite scheme fairly afloat, this wonderful man turned to far different employments. The misguided but injured Queen Caroline landed in England in 1820, amidst the shoutings of the populace. Ministers immediately brought in their bill of pains and penalties; _i. e._, a bill to degrade and divorce the Queen, without giving her the benefit of those ordinary forms of law which protect even the confessed adulteress. She appointed Brougham her Attorney General. In the midst of such a popular ferment as England has rarely seen, he promptly seized the royal libertine in his harem, and while giving one hand to the regulation of his new educational machine, with the other dragged him into the open field of shame, and concentrated upon him the scorn of Virtue and Humanity.