cares of a clergyman, should be found insufficient to his maintenance. But this would have violated the fundamental principles of the excellent Church; it would have insinuated a connexion between money expended and duty performed; it would have seemed like an adaption of means to an end; it would have made some inquiry and consideration necessary.

The Governors of the Bounty proceeded bountifully; they distributed a part of their money in sums of 2001. on any poor livings to which any private person would give an equal sum. The rest, and far greater part of their money, showing them no respecters of persons nor of circumstances. these representatives of the ecclesiastical wisdom of the nation distributed by lot, letting each poor living take an equal chance for a 2007. prize, without any regard to the degree of urgency of its claim. After this, the story of Bridoye deciding suits at law by dice, after making up a fair pile of papers on each side, seems no longer an extravaganza, Up to January 1, 1815, the Governors had made, in this way, 7323 augmentations of 2004.; but, with benefices as with men, fortune is not proportioned to desert or to necessity. Some of the least populous parishes had a wonderful run of luck. We are not sure that, in taking a few of them which meet our eyes in running over the returns, we have selected the most remarkable. In the diocese of Chichester, the rectory of Hardham, which in 1811 contained 89 people, has received six augmentations by lot, or 12007. The vicarage of Sollington, with 48 people, has had six augmentations, 12007. In the diocese of Salisbury, Brewilham drew a prize; it contained 14 people. Rotwood drew another; it had but 12 people. Calloes had 10007., including a benefaction of 2007.; its population was, in 1811, nineteen. In the diocese of Winchester, St. Swithin, with 24 people, has received 8007., including a benefaction of 2007.; and 2007. has been expended upon Ewhurst, which has seven people. In the diocese of York, Ruthewick, with 62 people, has had five prizes, 10007.; while Armby, with 2941 people, and Allendale, with 3884, have only gained one each. In the diocese of Rochester, two livings, with 28 and 29 people, received separate augmentations. In the diocese of Oxford, the rectory of Elford or Yelford, with 16 inhabitants, drew a prize. In Lincoln, Stowe, with the same number, and Haugh, received 8007. from the Bounty Fund; the number of all its inhabitants is eight. When it is considered, too, that Haugh pays vicarial tithes, which amounted, in the reign of Henry VIII., to 67. 138. Ad. of yearly value, it must be admitted that this important district has been guarded against the danger of schism with a liberality worthy of a Prolestant government. If the rest of the people of England were fortified in sound doctrine at the same rate of expense, the proper establishment of religious teachers in England and Wales would cost about 1200 millions sterling, and 1,500,000 parochial clergy, who, as Dr. Cove allows each of them a family of nine, would form a considerable portion of our population. In the diocese of Landaff, we find two places, following one another in the returns, which illustrate the equity of le sort des dez. Usk, with 1339 people, has had an augmentation (though its value remains low). Wilkock, a rectory with 28 people, has had three. In Hereford, Hopton Cangeford has received 10001. for 35 people. Monmouth 2007. for 3503.

Even in cities, where the scattered condition of the population could afford no pretext against the union of parishes, the same plan of augmentations has been pursued. In Winchester, separate augmentations have been given to seven parishes, the population of all which united would have

VOL. V.

20

amounted only to 2376, and would consequently have formed a very manageable and rather small town parish. In short, the whole of the returns (printed by the House of Commons in 1815, No. 115) teem with instances of the most foolish extravagance-just such a result as the original conception of this clerical little-go would have led any rational being to anticipate. The conviction is irresistibly forced upon us, that nothing could have been further from the minds of those who superintended this plan, than to secure a competent provision for all the members of the Church, and to remove the poverty of some of its members,—which is, by a strange manner of reasoning, made a defence for the needless profusion with which the public wealth is lavished upon others. Indeed, we are led to suspect that the Church, in her corporate capacity," looks upon the poverty of some of her members as sturdy beggars look upon their sores,-she is not seriously displeased with the naked and excoriated condition of her lower extremities, so long as it excites an ill-judged compassion for the whole body, and secures her impunity in idleness and over-feeding.

We are sometimes told that the poverty of a large body of the parochial clergy is such, that it is out of the power of the higher clergy, even by the surrender of their whole revenues, to remedy it. The statement we have given shows most clearly, that this poverty is to be attributed, in the first place, to the fraudulent subtraction of the higher clergy from the burthen of contributing to the relief of their poor brethren; and, in the second place, to the absurdity of the ecclesiastical division of the kingdom, which, on the slightest effort of the Clergy, would have been remedied by the Legislature. If the first fruits and tenths had been paid subsequently to the gift of Queen Anne, according to the rate which the law provided for, and as they had been paid "without grief and contradiction," i. e. according to the real value of the benefices, instead of a million and half, at least 30 millions would have been received from those taxes;-a sum not only quite sufficient to have removed the poverty of all the poor livings in the kingdom, but to have established schools in every parish of England, and to have left a large surplus for any other useful purposes.

In the course of these augmentations, no security has beeen taken against non-residence or plurality. The Governors go on, therefore, increasing the incomes of two small livings, in order to make each of them capable of supporting a resident clergyman, while after, as well as before, the augmentation, one incumbent may hold them together-reside on neither-and allow only a small part of the accumulated income to a curate, who performs the duties of both! Those who complain of the poverty of the Clergy pretend to suppose that no security for residence is necessary; and that, as soon as the small livings are raised high enough, non-residence will disappear as a matter of course. For instance, Dr. Cove says, "All her sons (the Church of England's sons)" employed in her offices, are, with few exceptions, ever intent upon their appropriate duties, and would be still more diligent in the discharge of those duties, were each of them possessed of a more enlarged and comfortable independence, and furnished with more suitable places of abode." This, unfortunately for the Doctor, is an assertion more capable of being brought to the test than the "unrecorded revelation" to Adam in favour of tithes. We have returns of small livings, and we have returns of non-residence. In the diocese of Rochester,

* In 1809.

there are only six livings under 15, a year; and of those six, not one is returned under 1107. Of the 107 benefices returned in that diocese, there were in 1809 but 50 with resident incumbents-less that half the livings. In the diocese of Chester, where the livings under 1507. a year are numerous, 377 out of 592 being of that description, a considerable larger proportion of the benefices have resident incumbents than in Rochester: there are 327 residents. In the other dioceses, the number of poor livings bears no regular proportion to that of non-residents. The fact is, that under the discipline of the Church of England, where there are so many grounds of exemption or of licence for non-residence, the only persons who may be expected to reside are those whose narrow incomes make their residence in their own parsonages a matter of necessity or convenience. But as two or three small livings may be held by the same person, the incumbents of them may, on the face of the returns, appear as negligent as their richer brethren.

The history of the evasion of the payment of first fruits by the clergy in Ireland is striking in point of audacity, on account of the peculiar state of the Church in that part of the kingdom. The enormous incomes of the Irish bishopricks are pretty well known, and have been brought into general notice of late years; but it is not so distinctly known what duties these functionaries have to perform. Mr. Campbell says, "the power, the influence, and the wealth of some of the bishops may be great; but from my heart, I believe, that these are dearly bought, not only by the anxiety, but the actual labours both of body and mind, which arises from their official duties." Nolo Episcopari, is a phrase casily to be accounted for by this appalling picture; but we suspect, from a few notorious facts, that Mr. Campbell's imagination has exaggerated the horrors of a bishoprick, and that a bishop even in England is not so broken down with hard work as the rector of Wallasey supposes. The bishop of St. David's, for instance, in addition to the actual labours of body and mind attached to his bishoprick, is able to undertake the arduous duties of a prebendary of Durham. The present bishop of Landaff adds to his episcopal duties those of Dean of St. Paul's. The late bishop of Lincoln (Tomline) did the same, and Lincoln is the largest diocese in England. The late bishop of Bristol (Mansell), besides holding a living or two, was master of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he generally resided. In fact, whatever offices can be held with bishopricks are held with them; and as it would not be polite, nor, we believe, just, to suppose these Right Reverend Pluralists neglect the duties of any of their offices, we must conclude, that a bishoprick alone must be a very supportable burden. We mean a bishoprick in England. Now, the duties of a bishop, who is the general superintendant of the clergy and church-people in his diocese, must have some reference to the number of these two classes. In England, the number of benefices within the different dioceses are various, from 1319 in Lincoln, to 107 in Rochester, averaging about 420 parishes to a bishoprick. The fabric of the Church of Ireland is very different in the proportions of the higher and lower parts, and resembles, more than any thing else, a regiment of volunteers raised in the same country, which contained sixteen lieutenant-colonels, two drummers, and a private. The following is a Table of Bishops, Parishes, and Clergy.

In the whole Church of Ireland, there are thus 1238 parochial benefices," with 860 resident incumbents. There are, in all, 1131 churches;-45h in Ulster; 264 in Leinster; 321 in Munster; and 92 in Connaught.

We should excite a horrid outcry, if we applied the rule of three, or any process of reasoning which leads to a definite result to such a matter as a bishoprick; but we should really suppose that the Bishop of Lincoln, who, as we have shown, is not over-worked, must do more (not taking into account the works of supererogation, which must not be reckoned on in every bishop) than all the bishops in Ireland taken together. We speak this as Scotchmen, and in perfect ignorance of the delicacies of the Episcopal functions. "A hen with one chick" is a familiar image of bustle; and a bishop's anxiety, and "his actual labour of body and mind," may increase as the number of his subordinate clergy diminishes. Speaking under this caution, it strikes us as monstrous to preserve this vast and appalling appa

A number of parishes are sometimes united in Ireland, to form one living. According to the original division, there were 2259 parishes.

ratus of Episcopacy to superintend eight hundred and sixty resident parochial clergy, the whole of whose flocks do not amount to more than 400,000 or 500,000, in a country with near seven millions of people. Two bishops would be quite sufficient for all the duties of ecclesiastical superintendence. The average of the incomes of the 22 archbishops and bishops of Ireland are much larger, on the average, than those of the prelates of England; and ten parts out of eleven, at the least, are bestowed purely in waste. But it is not to the bishopricks alone that this useles expenditure of wealth on the clergy is confined. The tithe of the produce of a country which feeds seven millions of people, is, for the most part, bestowed upon the teachers of a fourteenth part of the population. But in some parts of Ireland, generally throughout the province, in addition to the whole of the tithe, the parochial clergy are in possession of large estates, under the name of glebe lands; while in some parishes, on the other hand, with the characteristic inequality of the Establishment, there is not even a house for the clergyman to reside in. In the diocese of Derry, according to the returns of 1807, corroborated by those of 1819, there are 16,747 acres of glebe (besides some portions the extent of which is not stated),* which would give as the average an estate of 320 or 330 acres for each parson, besides all the tithes. A tenth part of the produce of a district containing, we believe, 200,000 inhabitants, is thus divided among 54 clergymen; and they have each, over and above, on the average, an estate of 320 or 330 acres of land. In the diocese of Kilmore, the incumbents have returned 11,450 acres of glebe, though three of them do not mention the amount of their estates. The average in Kilmore, excluding these defects, is 350 acres of glebe for cach benefice. In the diocese of Armagh, there are eight parishes, having each of them more than 500 acres of glebe. One of them has 946, another 1802, another 4000.

With so large a portion of the national wealth placed at the disposal of the clergy, the very least that we might have expected the Legislature to do, was to enforce the payment of all the taxes to which the Church was by law liable. It is almost incredible, however, that money raised in taxes, not from the clergy, but from the most miserably poor people in Europe, the people of Ireland, has been expended in the purchase of glebe lands, aye, even in those two dioceses of Kilmore and Derry,† the glebes in which, if divided into equal parts, would give a glebe of 20 acres for each parish in Ireland. By a law of Henry VIII., the whole of the ecclesiastical preferments of Ireland were subjected to the payment of first fruits; and the same provision was made as in England for ascertaining from time to time their value. Instead of a tenth, they were charged with a twentieth of their yearly value. The Tory administration of Queen Anne absolutely remitted this twentieth to the clergy, rich and poor, without distinction. The first fruits alone were given to a fund for the increase of small livings and the purchase of glebes. On account, however, of the unsettled state of Ireland, long after the time of Henry VIII., the valuation of the livings was never completed. Only 900 out of 2259 parishes have been valued. The clergy, as ready to erect a prescription in their own favour, as reluctant to all wit against themselves, have insisted on this want of a valuation as a lega ex

Ex. gr. Maghera, is returned thus-"Glebe House; 320 acres near the church; another (¿. e. glebe land) a mile; a third, four miles."

+ Accounts from the Trustees of the First Fruits in Ireland, &c. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 25th April, 1811. No. 129.