This clause declares that "after the 1st October, 1838, commissioners may ascertain," &c.; and the reason for this compulsory award is, according to Mr. White's note, "to enable these commissioners to act as the land and tithe-owners might have done by their voluntary agreement." Certainly they might have done this themselves, but the clerical part of them were not, perhaps, over fond of an act of selfimmolation. They had rather suffer by whig ministerial hands than by their own. They can perceive no cause for any peculiar haste in travelling on this road to ruin." The misery will come soon enough; there is no occasion to go out and meet it.

The patience, however, of these commissioners is not made of very tiring stuff; for they still hold "The ont mercy and hopes of reconcilement. commissioners will refrain from acting if a voluntary agreement be preferred, even after they have commenced compulsory proceedings."

Now here have we, it might be sworn, the very "milk of human kindness." But let us enquire. May not the great whig movers thus delay proceedings, being well aware that, if the land-owner can make his own terms with the clergyman, it will be far more advantageous than any terms the commissioners, with their restrained powers, can make for him? May they not reasonably conclude thus from their knowledge that no clergyman, in the way of composition, has ever had a fair remuneration. for his tithe, and that in some, nay in a majority of cases, these compositions have fallen shamefully below even their most moderate value? This may possibly be one cause for their delay in adventuring upon the "compulsory award."

Another reason, perhaps, for this wonderful forbearance may arise frem something not altogether unlike twitchings of the conscience, a disease, y the bye, to which these whigs are not very frequently

exposed. Our Church has been already most wo fully pillaged, as the Bedford family know pretty well. It was not necessary to make fresh depredations upon her, but as this act is an act of depredation throughout, it must create some portion of uneasiness, some gleams, it may be, of remorse, even in the breasts of those who have engendered it. They seem, therefore, as it were, ashamed of this unnatural spoliation-they tremble at the work of their own sacrilegious hands, and, in the true spirit of their cast, ever ready reckoners where stupidity would be a glory, they had rather it should seem the voluntary act and deed of the poor, duped, dishonoured church herself, than the harsh and compulsory pandect of government.

"Thou canst not say I did it."-O there is a cruel policy in this. Indeed, we cannot say thou didst it, but we can say thou didst contrive it—we can say thou didst murder the gracious monarch, and then smeared the grooms with his blood-thou didst prevail upon us to fix the noose, and then orderedst thy commissioners to tuck us up. Under the affectation of consulting our interests, thou didst undermine our securities; and now, in the midst of pity for our fate and contempt of our credulity, half desponding, half despairing, half rejoicing, thou wilt be glad at thine heart that so scandalous a business is in train for being so quietly got over.

The Archbishop of Canterbury's commissioner, indeed, ventures to tell us, and to bid us remember, that this Commutation Act "is pressed upon the government by the voice of a large portion of the people, and by considerations of great public interest, and the character of arbitrator is thus forced upon But I will ask Mr. Jones, who it is that has

it."*

* Remarks on the Government Bill for the Commutation of Tithe. By the Rev. R. Jones, M. A., one of the Tithe Commissioners for England and Wales.

pressed this measure upon government?—who it is that has forced upon it the character of arbitrator? Is it not the very men whom the leading members of that government excited to press it? the very men addressed by Mr. Lambton, (now Lord Durham) and by his father-in-law, Earl Grey, and spirited up against the church and her clergy by fulminations as gross as they were unfounded, and as injurious as they were gross? Is it not the very men recommended by Lord Fitzwilliam to withhold their taxes, and by other noble lords and gentlemen of the whig turbulent and popish cast, to "agitate agitateagitate," till the whole empire became a scene of rebellion and confusion? Is it not, finally, the very men traitorously excited by the Roman Catholics and Dissenters to ask for nothing short of the "voluntary system," and to be content with nothing less than the utter extinction of the establishment? Is it not thus, Mr. Jones, that "the character of arbitrator" has devolved upon that government which exerted every nerve to bring things into such a state as to render this deplorable measure no longer, with safety, to be either resisted or delayed?

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Why balk the honest fact?-Our whig adversaries have placed us between two fires. Either we must make our "voluntary agreement" with the landowner, on the old terms of getting half the value of our tithes, or we must await the ordeal of a compulsory award." Perhaps it would seem, on the whole, advisable for those clergymen who have made their compositions approaching, in some decent measure, to the value of an equivalent for their tithe, to embrace the proposal of a voluntary agreement, if they can overcome the feeling that a "divine right" has something, has much, has everything to do in the business, which I confess I cannot; but for those among them (the great and overwhelming majority) who have been prevailed

upon, or seduced, or compelled to compound far below the real value of their tithe, to await the arrival of the commissioners and to take their chance of a compulsory award.

I say not that in these gentlemen they will find any friends to either church rates or church revenues, yet is it, alas! their miserable comfort that they cannot well be worse off. Philoctetes, alluding to the departure of the barbarians who left him on his desert island, exclaims,

All ruffians as they were, I never heard

A sound so dismal as their parting oars;

And our clergy, who have long been starving on their beggarly compositions, may with equal sorrow deplore the being left to settle their future rentcharge by a "voluntary agreement" with the usual parties. Through the intervention of these commissioners they may, peradventure, increase their pittance as much as this lean and flinty law allows it to be increased; but even such a poor addition is not to be slighted by those whom an agreement, after their old fashion, may still more deeply injure. We are indeed in a sad dilemma, where the tenderest mercies, on either side, are most undisguised cruelties.

CLAUSE XXXVII.

Value of Tithes to be calculated upon an average of Seven

Years, preceding Christmas, 1835.—If compounded or demised, Composition or Rent to be taken as value of Tithes. Proviso for Reduction where Abatement has been made on account of Composition being above real value.-Tithes to be valued without deduction on account of Parochial and County Rates.

This is by far, I think, the most important, and, I must add, the most unjust clause in the Act. So far as her temporalities are concerned, it will exceedingly jeopardy the Established Church. You

will not, my Reverend Brethren, perhaps much like my rambling mode of proceeding, but every man takes his own way of doing a thing, and his readers must endeavour to winnow the corn from the chaff and turn it to the best account they can. Dispensing with their regular order, I will take the several branches of this clause as I find most convenient.

Before the commissioners, says the clause, "proceed to ascertain the clear annual value of the tithe" of any parish, they are "to make all just deductions on account of the expences of collecting, preparing for sale, and marketing, where such tithes have been taken in kind." Fortunately I think the tithe will not often be found to have been so taken, or the clergy would have been exposed to a fresh injustice, the deductions on account of the expences of collecting, selling, marketing," &c. would probably have been put down far beyond their amount. These expences to a farmer are trifling, and should not be rated as incurred by the clergyman, who generally has to pay extortionately and to encounter in these matters impositions without end.

as

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In casting tithe, the farmer must severely feel the loss of his straw, turnips, and of his manure in general; and, I should say, that, in compounding the preservation of these takes off most materially from the expence of paying the rates upon them, collecting, selling, &c. The fairer proceeding, therefore, would be to take the average of both expences, of the smaller incurred by the farmer, and of the larger by the incumbent. If this be not done in some way or other, a deed of equity will be omitted.

Mr. White, who has well explained the leading points of this clause, remarks, "the advantage of the voluntary agreement consists in its allowing the land and tithe-owners to settle the amount to be paid and apportioned in any way they please,