Established Clergy. income of about £250; and that in fact, unless it be the curates, there are really no poor clergy in England. Having now treated of the respective incomes of the Episcopal, Dignified, and Parochial Clergy, let us collect the results under one head. The Dissenters, it is supposed, form about one-fifth of the population; and of course, besides supporting their own Clergy, pay more than a million annually to support a religion they do not profess. From the preceding account, it appears, that the Bishops, Dignitaries, and non-resident Incumbents, amounting to 4726 individuals, do not discharge any essential duties in the Church; that their enormous revenue of £4,609,400 might be applied to alleviate the pressure of poor rates or taxes, or applied to some other public object; and that they must, from obvious reasons, on all occasions, be opposed to reform, the liberties and happiness of the people, and devoted to the support of a system of corruption and injustice, by which alone they can hope to be protected in the enjoyment of incomes, to which, from real services, they have no well-founded claim. It also appears, that 2000 resident Incumbents and 4000 Curates discharge nearly the whole duties of the Established Religion; that their average in Established Clergy. come is about £150, which is equal to the income of the Scotch Clergy, more than the income of the Dissenting Clergy in England, and the Catholic Clergy in Ireland; that therefore £900,000, the total revenue of these classes, is all the Established Religion requires for its maintenance, and the discharge of its duties. The tithes possessed by the Lay Impropriators, not being in the hands of the Clergy, are not included in the above estimate of their revenues. The tithes in the hands of Laymen, principally the Aristocracy, are calculated by Mr. Cove to amount to £1,025,440. The patronage of the Church is in the King, the Bishops, the two Universities, the Cathedrals, and the Aristocracy and Gentry. The King's patronage is the bishoprics, all the deaneries in England, 39 prebends, eight canonries, and about 1000 livings. The Lord Chancellor presents to all the livings under the value of £20 in the King's Book, which are about 780; the Ministers present to all the rest. Upwards of 1600 pieces of church preferment are in the gift of the Bishops; more than 600 in the presentation of the two Universities; 55 in the Colleges of Eton and Winchester; about 1000 in the gift of the Cathedrals and other clerical institutions; and the remaining 5700 in the nomination of the Aristocracy and Country Gentlemen. Having given an account of the revenues and patronage of the English Church, let us now just look into the Irish Established Church, which is more oppressive and intolerable than the Established Church in England, There four millions, out of the five millions of which her population consists, are of the Roman catholic persuasion, and compelled, against their faith and conscience, to maintain a Protestant establishment. The Clergy of the Established Church in Ireland consists of four ArchBishops, 18 Bishops, 300 Dignitaries, and about 1200 Parochial Incumbents. * Their revenues, from the prodigious extension of tillage within the last thirty years, have augmented enormously. In 1799 the tithe and church revenues were said to amount to £450,000. At this time they are supposed to amount to £676,000 per annum. The following statement of the incomes of the Irish Bishops and their conhexions is taken from Mr. Wakefield's valuable work on the Statistics of that country, vol. ii. p. 469 and 475: * Carlisle's Topographical Dict. of Ireland. Established Clergy. IRISH BISHOPRICS. Armagh, (the Primacy) Marquis of Bute's brother.... Dublin Per Ann. £12,000 12,000 Tuam, Marquis of Waterford's uncle * 7,700 Cashel, Lord Middleton's brother, (the Anti-Reformer) 7,000 These enormous incomes arise partly from tithe, but generally from land. The present value of the estates belonging to the bishoprics, if they were now out of lease, would be immense. Mr. Wakefield, from the estimate of well-informed persons, has given the value of a few as follows: The Marquis is the head of the Beresford family, which has three mitres. The Beresfords and their connexions are supposed to fill one-fourth of all the places in Ireland. In our List of Places they are down as wine-tasters, purse-bearers, &c. for con siderable sums. + Mr. Wakefield makes it only £125,000, but the sums opposite to each See amount to £146,000, The livings in the gift of the Archbishop of Cashel are worth £35,000 per annum; those in the gift of the Bishop of Cloyne, £50,000; of Cork, £30,000; and of Fern, £30,000. Killaloe has 109 benefices, many worth £ 1500 per annum. In the Bishopric of Cloyne one living is worth £3000, one worth £2000, and three worth £1500 each. The Deanery of Down, in the year 1790, was worth only £2000 per annum; it now lets for £3700. The Rectory of Middleton, in the county of Cork, in 1785, yielded scarcely £800 per annum; at present it produces upwards of “A living of £500," says Mr. Wakefield, “is but a middling one in Ireland, and any thing beneath it is considered very low."-P. 469. £2800. Notwithstanding these enormous revenues, a large proportion of the Bishops, Dignitaries, and Incumbents, are absentees, expending the immense incomes wrung from the soil and labour of Ireland, in the dissipated and fashionable circles of Bath and London. The families of many of the prelates reside constantly in England, and the only duty performed by the absentee Bishop is to cross the water during the summer months, just take a look at the metropolitan palace, and then return to spend the remainder of the year in this country. Mr. Ensor, in his work on Ecclesiastical Establishments, says, "The Primate of all Ireland, though in the summer of 1807 he enforced the duty of residence to his clergy, almost immediately after his charge quitted the island." The late Earl of Bristol, Bishop of Derry, resided twenty years abroad; and during that time received the revenue of his rich diocese, amounting to £240,000. The great primate, Rokeby, resided several years at Bath, and never visited Ireland. Many of the prelates, it appears, are young men, indebted for their valuable dignities solely to family connexion. But what is more extraordinary, some have been in the army and navy, and apparently not intended for the Church: "One archbishop," says Mr. Wakefield, " was, I believe, before his appointment, a lieutenant in the navy; the Dean of Clogher was a member of the Imperial Parliament; and the rector of a valuable benefice was lately an aid-de-camp at the Castle."—Vol. ii. p. 476. The tithes by which this spiritual sinecurism is supported, are are levied almost entirely on the cattle, pigs, poultry, and potatoes of the Irish cotters. Established Clergy. Since the abolition of tithes of agistment, tillage lands alone pay this odious impost. While tithes of agistment were paid, the burden, in part, fell upon the opulent grazier-the landed aristocracy of Ireland; but now the burden lies almost entirely upon the cotter tenants, the poor cultivators of the soil. Owing to the increase in the numbers, skill, and industry of this class, the agricultural produce of the kingdom has been augmented an hundred fold, and in the same proportion has augmented the revenue of the Church. While the Irish cultivator has been adding to his income by industry, by the sacrifice of health, strength, and ease, by the abridgement of the innocent comforts and enjoyments of his family, he has been constrained also to add proportionately to the income of the protestant priest, whose religion he does not profess, and whose intolerant dogmas withhold from him his civil immunities. In England, where, in many parts, a man cannot cut a cabbage, pull a carrot, or gather a bunch of grapes, without giving notice to the spiritual locust, the system is sufficiently intolerable; but in Ireland, from the mode of collecting tithes, those evils are aggravated tenfold. The Irish Clergy generally employ an agent, called a Proctor, who, immediately before harvest, estimates the barrels of corn, tons of hay, or hundred weight of potatoes, he supposes are on the ground, and charging the market price, ascertains the amount to be paid by the owner. The Parson sometimes leases the tithes out to the Proctor, at a fixed rent, like a farm; while the latter, who, in that case, is called the middle Proctor, not unfrequently relets them to another. In the south, Mr. Wakefield says, the tithe is set out and sold by public auction on the premises. And in Connaught, the same writer found it was customary to call a sale before the harvest, at which the tithe is sold to any person who chooses to collect it. Under such a system, it is easy to conceive what the Irish must endure. From the Proctors and middle Proctors, they cannot expect either lenity or indulgence. These men, probably strangers in the parish, have no motives for cultivating the friendship of the people; and having farmed the tithe for a stipulated sum, it is to be expected they will collect it with the utinost rigour, in order to realize the greatest profit from their bargain. The most distressing scenes are sometimes witnessed from their relentless proceedings. The half-famished cotter, surrounded by a wretched family, clamorous for food, frequently beholds his favourite cow, or the tenth part of the produce of his potatoe garden, carried off to fill the insatiable maw of clerical rapacity. "I have seen (says Mr. Wakefield) the cow, the favourite cow, driven away, accompanied by the sighs, the tears, and the imprecations of a whole family, who were paddling after, through wet and dirt, to take their last |