as before the departure of the carver,-or if | omissions, there is something pleasant in the this semisanguineous partiality had given way narrative of this arch-divider of fowls. He is to a taste for cinereous and torrefied meats. an honest, brave, liberal man; and tells his All these things the first esquire-carver might singular story with great brevity and plainness. have said,-none of them he does say,-nor We are obliged to Mr. Johnes for the amusedoes Mr. Johnes of Hafod supply, by any ment he has afforded us; and we hope he will antiquarian conjectures of his own, the dis- persevere in his gentlemanlike, honourable, tressing silence of the original. Saving such and useful occupations. LETTER* ON THE CURATE'S [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1808.] THE poverty of curates has long been a favourite theme with novelists, sentimental tourists, and elegiac poets. But notwithstanding the known accuracy of this class of philosophers, we cannot help suspecting that there is a good deal of misconception in the popular estimate of the amount of the evil. A very great proportion of all the curacies in England are filled with men to whom the emolument is a matter of subordinate import ance. They are filled by young gentlemen who have recently left college, who of course are able to subsist as they had subsisted for seven years before, and who are glad to have an opportunity, on any terms, of acquiring a practical familiarity with the duties of their profession. They move away from them to higher situations as vacancies occur; and make way for a new race of ecclesiastical apprentices. To those men, the smallness of the appointment is a grievance of no very great magnitude; nor is it fair with relation to them, to represent the ecclesiastical order as degraded by the indigence to which some of its members are condemned. With regard, again, to those who take curacies merely as a means of subsistence, and with the prospect of remaining permanently in that situation, it is certain that by far the greater part of them are persons born in a very humble rank in society, and accustomed to no greater opulence than that of an ordinary curate. There are scarcely any of those persons who have taken a degree in an university, and not very many who have resided there at all. Now the son of a small Welsh farmer, who works hard every day for less than 401. a year, has no great reason to complain of degradation or disappointment, if he get from 50l. to 1001. for a moderate portion of labour one day in seven. The situation, accordingly, is looked upon by these people as extremely eligible; and there is a great competition for curacies, even as they are now provided. The amount * A Letter to the Right Honourable Spencer Perceval, on Subject connected with his Bill, now under Discussion in Parliament, for improving the Situation of Stipendiary Curates. 8vo. Hatchard, London. 1808. Now we are all dead, it may be amusing to state that I was excited to this article by Sir William Scott, who brought me the book in his pocket; and begged I would attend to it, carefully concealing his name; my own opinions happened entirely to agree with his. of the evil, then, as to the curates themselves, cannot be considered as very enormous, when there are so few who either actually feel, or are entitled to feel, much discontent on the subject. The late regulations about residence, too, by diminishing the total number of curates, will obviously throw that office chiefly into the hands of the well educated and comparatively independent young men, who seek for the situation rather for practice than profit, and do not complain of the want of emolu ment. Still we admit it to be an evil, that the resident clergyman of a parish should not be enabled to hold a respectable rank in society from the regular emoluments of his office. But it is an evil which does not exist exclusively among curates; and which, wherever it exists, we are afraid is irremediable, without the destruction of the Episcopal church, or the augmentation of its patrimony. More than onehalf of the livings in England are under 801. a year; and the whole income of the church, including that of the bishops, if thrown into a common fund, would not afford above 1801. for each living. Unless Mr. Perceval, therefore, will raise an additional million or two for the church, there must be poor curates, and poor rectors also; and unless he is to reduce the Episcopal hierarchy to the republican equality of our Presbyterian model, he must submit to very considerable inequalities in the distribu tion of this inadequate provision. Instead of applying any of these remedies, however, instead of proposing to increase the income of the church, or to raise a fund for its lowest servants by a general assessment upon those who are more opulent,-instead of even trying indirectly to raise the pay of curates, by raising their qualifications in respect of regular education, Mr. Perceval has been able, after long and profound study, to find no better cure for the endemic poverty of curates, than to ordain all rectors of a certain income to pay them one-fifth part of their emoluments, and to vest certain alarming powers in the bishops for the purpose of controlling their appointment. Now this scheme, it appears to us, has all the faults which it is possible for such a scheme to have. It is unjust and partial in its principle,-it is evidently altogether and utterly inefficient for the correction of the evil in question,-and it in- | naturally fall to their lot; and that the comtroduces other evils infinitely greater than that which it vainly proposes to abolish. To this project, however, for increasing the salary of curates, Mr. Perceval has been so long and so obstinately partial, that he returned to the charge in the last session of Parliament, for the third time; and experienced, in spite of his present high situation, the same defeat which had baffled him in his previous attempts. Though the subject is gone by once more for the present, we cannot abstain from bestowing a little gentle violence to aid its merited descent into the gulf of oblivion, and to extinguish, if possible, that resurgent principle which has so often disturbed the serious business of the country, and averted the attention of the public from the great scenes that are acting in the world-to search for some golden medium between the selfishness of the sacred principal, and the rapacity of the sacred deputy. If church property is to be preserved, that precedent is not without danger which disposes at once of a fifth of all the valuable livings in England. We do not advance this as an argument of any great importance against the bill, but only as an additional reason why its utility should be placed in the clearest point of view, before it can attain the assent of well-wishers to the English establish ment. plete subjugation of such a body of men cannot, in any point of view, be a matter of indifference to a free country. It is in vain to talk of the good character of bishops. Bishops are men; not always the wisest of men; not always preferred for eminent virtues and talents, or for any good reason whatever known to the public. They are almost always devoid of striking and indecorous vices; but a man may be very shallow, very arrogant, and very vindictive, though a bishop; and pursue with unrelenting hatred a subordinate clergyman, whose principles he dislikes, and whose genius he fears. Bishops, besides, are subject to the infirmities of old age, like other men; and in the decay of strength and understanding, will be governed as other men are, by daughters and wives, and whoever ministers to their daily comforts. We have no doubt that such cases sometimes occur; and produce, whenever they do occur, a very capricious administration of ecclesiastical affairs. As the power of enforcing residence must be lodged somewhere, why not give the bishop a council, consisting of twothirds ecclesiastics, and one-third laymen: and meeting at the same time as the sessions and deputy sessions;-the bishop's license for nonresidence to issue, of course, upon their recommendation. Considering the vexatious bustle of a new, and the laxity of an aged bishop, we cannot but think that a diocese would be much more steadily administered under this system than by the present means. Examine the constitutional effects of the power now granted to the bench. What hinders a bishop from becoming in the hands of the court a very important agent in all county elections? what clergyman would dare to refuse him his vote? But it will be said that no bishop will ever condescend to such sort of intrigues:-a most miserable answer to a most serious objection. The temptation is admitted, the absence of all restraint; the dangerous consequences are equally admitted; and the only preservative is the personal character of the individual. If this style of reasoning were general, what would become of law, constitution, and every wholesome restraint which we have been accumulating for so many centuries? We have no intention to speak disrespectfully of constituted authorities; but when men can abuse power with impunity, and recommend themselves to their superiors by abusing it, it is but common sense to suppose that power will be abused; if it is, the country will hereafter be convulsed to its very entrails, in tearing away that power from the prelacy which has been so inprovidently conferred upon them. It is useless to talk of the power they anciently possessed. They have never possessed it since England has been what it now is. Since we have enjoyed practically a free constitution, the bishops have, in point of fact, possessed little or no power of oppression over their clergy. Our first and greatest objection to such a measure, is the increase of power which it gives to the bench of bishops,-an evil which may produce the most serious effects, by placing the whole body of the clergy under the absolute control of men who are themselves so much under the influence of the crown. This, indeed, has been pretty effectually accomplished, by the late residence bill of Sir William Scott; and our objection to the present bill is, that it tends to augment that excessive power before conferred on the prelacy. If a clergyman lives in a situation which is destroying his constitution, he cannot exchange with a brother clergyman without the consent of the bishop; in whose hands, under such circumstances, his life and death are actually placed. If he wishes to cultivate a little land for his amusement or better support, he cannot do it without the license of the bishop. If he wishes to spend the last three or four months with a declining wife or child at some spot where better medical assistance can be procured-he cannot do so without permission of the bishop. If he is struck with palsy, or racked with stone-the bishop can confine him in the most remote village in England. In short, the power which the bishops at present possess over their clergy is so enormous, that none but a fool or a madman would think of compromising his future happiness, by giving the most remote cause of offence to his diocesan. We ought to recollect, however, that the clergy constitute a body of 12 or 15,000 educated persons; that the whole concern of education devolves upon them; that some share of the talents and in+ I have seen in the course of my life, as the mind of the prelate decayed, wife bishops, daughter bishops, but. formation which exist in the country mustler bishops, and even cook and housekeeper bishops. * Bold language for the year 1808. It must be remembered, however, that we are speaking only of probabilities: the fact may turn out to be quite the reverse; the power vested in the bench may be exercised for spiritual purposes only, and with the greatest moderation. We shall be extremely happy to find that this is the case; and it will reflect great honour upon those who have corrected the improvidence of the legislature by their own sense of propriety. this pious contribution, or for refusing to make a similar one for the benefit of all rectors who have less than 1001. per annum. The true reason, however, for exempting my lords the bishops from this imposition is, that they have the privilege of voting upon all bills brought in by Mr. Perceval, and of materially affecting his comfort and security by their parliamentary control and influence. This, however, is to cure what you believe to be unjust, by means which you must know to be unjust; to fly out against abuses which may be remedied without peril, and to connive at them when the attempt at a remedy is attended with political danger; to be mute and obsequious towards men who enjoy church property to the amount of 8 or 19,000l. per annum; and to be so scandalized at those who possess as many hundreds, that you must melt their revenues down into curacies, and save to the eye of political economy the spectacle of such flagrant inequality! It is contended by the friends of this law, that the respectability of the clergy depends in some measure on their wealth; and that, as the rich bishop reflects a sort of worldly consequence upon the poor bishop, and the rich rector upon the poor rector;-so, a rich class of curates could not fail to confer a greater degree of importance upon that class of men in general. This is all very well, if you intend to raise up some new fund in order to enrich curates but you say that the riches of some constitute the dignity of the whole; and then you immediately take away from the In the same style of reasoning, it may be rector the superfluous wealth which, according asked why the lay improprietors are not comto your own method of reasoning, is to deco-pelled to advance the salary of their perpetual rate and dignify the order of men to whom he belongs! The bishops constitute the first class in the church; the beneficed clergy the second; the curates the last. Why are you to take from the second to give to the last? Why not as well from the first to give to the second-if you really mean to contend that the first and second are already too rich? curacies, up to a fifth of their estates? The answer, too, is equally obvious-Many lay improprietors have votes in both houses of Parliament; and the only class of men this cowardly reformation attacks, is that which has no means of saying any thing in its own defence. Even if the enrichment of curates were the most imperious of all duties, it might very well be questioned, whether a more unequal and pernicious mode of fulfilling it could be devised than that enjoined by this bill. Curacies are not granted for the life of the curate; but for the life or incumbency or good-liking of the rector. It is only rectors worth 500l. a-year who are compelled by Mr. Perceval to come down with a fifth to their deputy; and these form but a very small proportion of the whole non-resident rectors; so that the great multi It is not true, however, that the class of rectors is generally either too rich, or even rich enough. There are 6000 livings below 801. per annum, which is not very much above the average allowance of a curate. If every rector, however, who has more than 500l. is obliged to give a fifth part to a curate, there seems to be no reason why every bishop who has more than 10007. should not give a fifth part among the poor rectors in his diocese. It is in vain to say this assessment upon rectors is reasonable and right, because they may re-tude of curates must remain as poor as forside and do duty themselves, and then they will not need a curate;-that their non-residence, in short, is a kind of delinquency for which they compound by this fine to the parish. If more than half of the rectories in England are under 801. a year, and some thousands of them under 401., pluralities are absolutely necessary; and clergymen, who have not the gift of ubiquity, must be non-resident at some of them. Curates, therefore, are not the deputies of negligent rectors; they are an order of priests absolutely necessary in the present form of the Church of England: and a rector incurs no shadow of delinquency by employing one, more than the king does by appointing a lord-lieutenant of Ireland, or a commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, instead of doing the duty of these offices in person. If the legislature, therefore, is to interfere to raise the natural, i. e. the actual wages of this order of men, at the expense of the more opulent ministers of the Gospel, there seems to be no sort of reason for exempting the bishops from their share in * The first unfortunately make the laws. merly, and probably a little more discontented. Suppose, however, that one has actually entered on the enjoyment of 250l. per annum. His wants, and his habits of expense, are enlarged by this increase of income. In a year or two his rector dies, or exchanges his living; and the poor man is reduced, by the effects of comparison, to a much worse state than before the operation of the bill. Can any person say that this is a wise and effectual mode of ameliorating the condition of the lower clergy? To us it almost appears to be invented for the express purpose of destroying those habits of economy and caution, which are so indispensably neces sary to their situation. If it is urged that the curate, knowing his wealth only to be temporary, will make use of it as a means of laying up a fund for some future day, we admire the good sense of the man: but what becomes of all the provisions of the bill? what becomes of that opulence which is to confer respectability upon all around it, and to radiate even upon the curates of Wales? The money was expressly given to blacken his coat,—to render him convex and rosy,-to give him a sort of pseudo-rectorial appearance, and to dazzle th parishioners at the rate of 250l. per annum. minister to disclose the full value of his The poor man, actuated by those principles of living. common sense which are so contrary to all the provisions of the bill, chooses to make a good thing of it, because he knows it will not last; wears his old coat, rides his lean horse, and defrauds the class of curates of all the advantages which they were to derive from the sleekness and splendour of his appearance. It is of some importance to the welfare of a parish, and the credit of the church, that the curate and his rector should live upon good terms together. Such a bill, however, throws between them elements of mistrust and hatred, which must render their agreement highly improbable. The curate would be perpetually prying into every little advance which the rector made upon his tithes, and claiming his proportionate increase. No respectable man could brook such inquisition; some, we fear, would endeavour to prevent its effects by clandestine means.. The church would be a perpetual scene of disgraceful animosities; and the ears of the bishop never free from the clamours of rapacity and irritation. It is some slight defect in such a bill, that it does not proportion reward to the labour done, but to the wealth of him for whom it is done. The curate of a parish containing 400 persons, may be paid as much as another person who has the care of 10,000; for, in England, there is very little proportion between the value of a living, and the quantity of duty to be performed by its clergyman. The bill does not attain its object in the best way. Let the bishop refuse to allow of any curate upon a living above 500l. per annum, who is not a Master of Arts of one of the universities. Such curates will then be obtained at a price which will render it worth the while of such men to take curacies; and such a degree and situation in society will secure good curates much more effectually than the complicated provisions of this bill: for, primâ facie, it appears to us much more probable, that a curate should be respectable, who is a Master of Arts in some English university, than if all that we knew about him was, that he had a fifth of the profits of the living. The object is, to fix a good clergyman in a parish. The law will not trust the non-resident rector to fix both the price and the person; but fixes the price, and then leaves him the choice of the person. Our plan is, to fix upon the description of person, and then to leave the price to find its level; for the good price by no means implies a good person, but the good person will be sure to get a good price. After all, however, the main and conclusive objection to the bill is, that its provisions are drawn from such erroneous principles, and betray such gross ignorance of human nature, that though it would infallibly produce a thousand mischiefs foreseen and not foreseen, it would evidently have no effect whatsoever in raising the salaries of curates. We do not put this as a case of common buyer and seller; we allow that the parish is a third party, having an interest; we fully admit the right of the legislature to interfere for their relief. We only contend, that such interference would be necessarily altogether ineffectual, so long as men can be found capable of doing the duty of curates, and willing to do it for less than the statutory minimum. If there is a competition of rectors for curates, it is quite unnecessary and absurd to make laws in favour of curates. The demand for them will do their business more effectually than the law. If, on the contrary (as the fact plainly is), there is a competition of curates for employment, is it possible to prevent this order of men from labouring under the regulation price? Is it possible to prevent a curate from pledging himself to his rector, that he will accept only half the legal salary, if he is so fortunate as to be preferred among an host of rivals, who are willing to engage on the same terms? You may make these contracts illegal: What then? Men laugh at such prohibitions; and they always become a dead letter. In nine instances out of ten, the contract would be honourably adhered to; and then what is the use of Mr. Perceval's law? Where the contract was not adhered to, whom would the law benefit?-A man utterly devoid of every par ticle of honour and good faith. And this is the new species of curate, who is to reflect dignity and importance upon his poorer brethren! The law encourages breach of faith between gambler and gambler; it arms broker against broker:-but it cannot arm clergyman against clergyman. Did any human being before, ever think of disseminating such a principle among the teachers of Christianity? Did any ecclesiastic law, before this, ever depend for its success upon the mutual treachery of men who ought to be examples to their fellow-creatures of every thing that is just and upright. We have said enough already upon the absurdity of punishing all rich rectors for nonresidence, as for a presumptive delinquency. A law is already passed, fixing what shall be legal and sufficient causes for non-residence. Nothing can be more unjust, then, than to punish that absence which you admit to be legal. If the causes of absence are too nume Where the living will admit of it, we have commonly observed that the English clergy are desirous of putting in a proper substitute. If this is so, the bill is unnecessary; for it pro-rous, lessen them; but do not punish him whe ceeds on the very contrary supposition, that the great mass of opulent clergy consult nothing but economy in the choice of their curates. has availed himself of their existence. We deny, however, that they are too numerous. There are 6000 livings out of 11,000 in the English church under 80l. per annum; many It is very galling and irksome to any class of men to be compelled to disclose their private circumstances; a provision contained in, a parish where there is no resident clergyman. and absolutely necessary to this bill, under which the diocesan can always compel the We remember Horace's description of the misery of "Illacrymabiles Urgentur, ignotique longâ Nocte, carent quia vate sacro." have seldom witnessed more of ignorance and error stuffed and crammed into so very narrow a compass. Its origin, we are confident, is from the Tabernacle; and its consequences would have been, to have sown the seeds of discord and treachery in an ecclesiastical constitution, which, under the care of prudent and honest men, may always be rendered a source of public happiness. of these 201, many 30l. per annum. The whole | fortunate to follow such a leader. We are task of education at the university, public extremely happy the bill was rejected. We schools, private families, and in foreign travel, devolves upon the clergy. A great part of the literature of their country is in their hands. Residence is a very proper and necessary measure; but, considering all these circumstances, it requires a great deal of moderation and temper to carry it into effect, without doing more mischief than good. At present, however, the torrent sets the other way. Every lay plunderer, and every fanatical coxcomb, is One glaring omission in this bill we had forging fresh chains for the English clergy; almost forgotten to mention. The chancellor and we should not be surprised, in a very little of the exchequer has entirely neglected to time, to see them absenting themselves from make any provision for that very meritorious their benefices by a kind of day-rule, like class of men, the lay curates, who do all the prisoners in the king's bench. The first bill, business of those offices, of which lazy and which was brought in by Sir William Scott, non-resident placemen receive the emoluments. always saving and excepting the power granted So much delicacy and conscience, however, to the bishops, is full of useful provisions, and are here displayed on the subject of pocketing characterized throughout by great practical unearned emoluments, that we have no doubt wisdom. We have no doubt but that it has, the moral irritability of this servant of the upon the whole, improved the condition of the crown will speedily urge him to a species of English church. Without caution, mildness, reform, of which he may be the object as well or information, however, it was peculiarly un- | as the mover. PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1809.] A SOCIETY that holds out as its object the | weekly pay for prying into the transgressions suppression of vice, must at first sight conciliate the favour of every respectable person; and he who objects to an institution calculated apparently to do so much good, is bound to give very clear and satisfactory reasons for his dissent from so popular an opinion. We certainly have, for a long time, had doubts of its utility; and now think ourselves called upon to state the grounds of our distrust. Though it were clear that individual informers are useful auxiliaries to the administration of the laws, it would by no means follow that these informers should be allowed to combine, to form themselves into a body,-to make a public purse, and to prosecute under a common name. An informer, whether he is paid by the week, like the agents of this society or by the crime, as in common casesis, in general, a man of a very indifferent character. So much fraud and deception are necessary for carrying on his trade-it is so odious to his fellow subjects,-that no man of respectability will ever undertake it. It is evidently impossible to make such a character therwise than odious. A man who receives of mankind, and bringing them to consequent punishment, will always be hated by mankind; and the office must fall to the lot of some men of desperate fortunes and ambigu ous character. The multiplication, therefore, of such officers, and the extensive patronage of such characters, may, by the management of large and opulent societies, become an evil nearly as great as the evils they would suppress. The alarm which a private and disguised accuser occasions in a neighbourhood, is known to be prodigious, not only to the guilty, but to those who may be at once innocent, and ignorant, and timid. The destruction of social confidence is another evil, the consequence of information. An informer gets access to my house or family,-worms my secret out of me,-and then betrays me to the magistrate. Now, all these evils may be tolerated in a small degree, while, in a greater degree, they would be perfectly intolerable. Thirty or forty informers roaming about the metropolis, may frighten the mass of offenders a little, and do some good: ten thousand in formers would either create an insurrection, or totally destroy the confidence and cheerfulness of private life. Whatever may be said, therefore, of the single and insulated informer, it is quite a new question when we come to a corporation of informers supported by large contributions. The one may be a good, the other a very serious evil; the one legal, the other wholly out of the contemplation of law, |