Dorothea appoints Farebrother to the Lowick living

Dorothea’s appointment of Camden Farebrother to the Lowick living turns her newly inherited authority into a test of judgment and responsibility. Rather than letting her uncle decide the matter or treating patronage as a power best avoided, she seeks fuller knowledge and chooses a clergyman whose practical worth matters more to her than claims to apostolic distinction.

Authority and the question of duty

In the weeks after Edward Casaubon’s death, Dorothea is staying at Freshitt Hall. Though she is a widow among relatives who have made decisions about what she should know, she is not content to remain passive. As owner of Lowick Manor, she knows that the patronage of its living belongs to her, and begins considering what she ought to do with that responsibility.

She tells Mr. Brooke that she should have the keys and go to Lowick to examine her husband’s papers. Since Casaubon had not named a successor to Mr. Tucker, she wants to know whether there are instructions that might clarify his wishes. Her inquiry is practical, but it is also an effort to exercise the authority attached to ownership rather than surrender it by default.

Mr. Brooke urges her not to hurry. He says that he has already looked through the desks and drawers, finding nothing relevant beyond the will, and that Mr. Tyke has been strongly recommended for the living. His endorsement draws on his own part in securing Tyke an earlier appointment and on the description of him as an apostolic man. Dorothea declines to treat that recommendation as sufficient: she wants fuller knowledge and intends to judge for herself.

Choosing between clerical ideals

Tertius Lydgate brings Dorothea another candidate. Hoping to make amends for the casting vote he had once given against Camden Farebrother, he describes the Vicar of St. Botolph’s as an unusually able preacher and conversationalist. Farebrother’s living is poor, and his mother, aunt, and sister depend on him; Lydgate believes those family obligations have constrained his opportunities. His case combines intellectual merit with an account of the people who would benefit if he received a better living.

Dorothea has read sermons by Tyke and doubts that their emphasis on imputed righteousness and Apocalypse prophecy would serve the farmers and laborers of Lowick. Her religious standard is not simply a clergyman’s zeal or reputation. She is drawn to a form of Christianity that welcomes the widest range of people and kinds of good, and considers excessive condemnation a worse error than excessive pardon. She wants to see Farebrother and hear him preach before deciding.

Lydgate does not present Farebrother as flawless. He acknowledges the damaging money-winning business associated with the vicar, even as he praises his ability and the affection he inspires. He contrasts Farebrother’s parish work with a narrower version of apostolic authority, which, in his view, can make the parson’s own prominence the point of religious teaching. Dorothea’s choice therefore does not rest on a simple contest between a virtuous man and a villainous one; she must weigh a candidate’s gifts and failings against what the living should enable him to do.

Appointment and its consequences

The decision gives Farebrother the Lowick living. On the June evening he learns that he is to have it, his family share an unmistakable joy. His mother leaves her tea and toast untouched and tells him that the greatest comfort is that he has deserved the appointment. Farebrother answers that when a man gets a good berth, half the deserving must come afterward: gratitude does not end the matter, but makes the future use of the opportunity part of its moral meaning.

The appointment also raises the question of whether Farebrother should give up St. Botolph’s. He tells Dorothea that he need not relinquish it merely to protest against pluralism; he can instead give most of its income to someone else. In his view, the stronger course is not necessarily to abandon power, but to use it well. Dorothea recognizes the contrary pull: for her, surrendering money and power might be easier than keeping them, yet she had felt that her patronage should not simply be used by someone else in her place.

Farebrother accepts that the responsibility for making the appointment worthwhile now rests with him. He tells Dorothea that he is bound to act so that she will not regret her power. His reflection is self-critical rather than self-congratulatory: he feels ashamed that his conduct has shown lapses which those who never received benefices did not have the same opportunity to display. The living is material security, but also a sharper measure of what he will do with it.

Significance of the choice

The appointment brings together Dorothea’s practical independence and her concern for religious good. She does not merely execute an instruction from Casaubon, accept Mr. Brooke’s preference for Tyke, or renounce patronage because it makes her uncomfortable. She gathers evidence, listens to Lydgate, and takes seriously both Farebrother’s capacities and his circumstances. The act makes ownership answerable to judgment rather than allowing inherited authority to operate unseen.

Farebrother’s response completes that ethical exchange. Dorothea has the power to appoint; he must turn the appointment into work. His decision to use the influence and income of his positions responsibly echoes her reluctance to let another person exercise her patronage in her stead. The living thus becomes more than a reward for merit: it is a charge whose value depends on what its recipient makes of it.