their turn came, and the bishops were paid; and among them a canon, of large composition, urging them on not to give way too much to the bench. Perhaps I should add the president of the board of trade, recommending the truck principle to the bishops, and offering to pay them in hassocks, cassocks, aprons, shovel-hats, sermon-cases, and such like ecry to do so much for archdeacons, why might not one clesiastical gear. But the madness and folly of such a measure are in the revolutionary feeling which it excites. A government taking into its hands such an immense value of property! What a lesson of violence and change to the mass of mankind! Do you want to accustom Englishmen to lose all confidence in the permanence of their institutions-to inure them to great acts of plunder-and to draw forth all the latent villanies of human nature? The whig leaders are honest men, and cannot mean this, but these foolish and inconsistent measures are the horn-book and infantile lessons of revolution; and remember, it requires no great time to teach mankind to rob and murder on a great scale. places, utterly useless and uncalled for, take 30007. from the charity fund to pay them, and they give the patronage of these places to themselves. Is there a single epithet in the language of invective which would not have been levelled at lay commissioners who had attempted the same thing? If it is necessaof the residentiaries be archdeacon in virtue of his prebend? If government make bishops, they may surely be trusted to make archdeacons. I am very willing to ascribe good motives to these commission. ers, who are really worthy and very sensible men, but I am perfectly astonished that they were not deterred from such a measure by appearances, and by the motives which, whether rightly or wrongly, would be imputed to them. In not acting so as to be suspected, the Bishop of London should resemble Cæsar's wife. In other respects, this excellent prelate would not have exactly suited for the partner of that great and self-willed man; and an idea strikes me, that it is not impossible he might have been in the senate-house instead of Cæsar. I am astonished that these ministers neglect the Lord John Russell gives himself great credit for not coinmon precaution of a foolometer, with which no having confiscated church property, but merely remo public man should be unprovided: I mean, the ac- delled and redivided it. I accuse him not of plunder, quaintance and society of three or four regular British but I accuse him of taking the Church of England, fools as a test of public opinion. Every cabinet miu- rolling it about as a cook does a piece of dough, with ister should judge of all his measures by his foolome- a rolling pin, cutting a hundred different shapes with ter, as a navigator crowds or shortens sail by the ba- all the plastic fertility of a confectioner, and without rometer in his cabin. I have a very valuable instru- the most distant suspicion that he can ever be wrong, ment of that kind myself which I have used for many or ever be mistaken: with a certainty that he can years; and I would be bound to predict, with the ut-anticipate the consequences of every possible change most nicety, by the help of this machine, the precise in human affairs. There is not a better man in Eng. effect which any measure would produce upon public land than Lord John Russell; but his worst failure is, opinion. Certainly, I never saw any thing so decided that he is utterly ignorant of all moral fear; there is as the effects produced upon my machine by the rate nothing he would not undertake. I believe he would bill. No man who had been accustomed in the small-perform the operation for the stone-build St. Peter's est degree to handle philosophical instruments could or assume (with or without ten minutes notice) the have doubted of the storm which was coming on, or command of the channel fleet; and no one would disof the thoroughly un-English scheme in which the cover by his manner that the patient had died-the ministry had so rashly engaged themselves. church tumbled down-and the channel fleet been I think, also, that it is a very sound argument knocked to atoms. I believe his motives are always against this measure of church rates, that estates pure, and his measures often able; but they are endhave been brought liable to these payments, and that less, and never done with that pedetenous pace and they have been deducted from the purchase-money. pedetenous mind in which it behoves the wise and And, what also, if a dissenter were a republican as virtuous improver to walk. He alarms the wise liberwell as a dissenter-a case which has sometimes hap-als; and it is impossible to sleep soundly while he pened; and what if our anti-monarchial dissenter has the command of the watch. were to object to the expenses of the kingly govern- Do not say, my dear Lord John, that I am too se. ment? Are his scruples to be respected, and his tax-vere upon you. A thousand years have scarce suffices diminished, and the queen's privy purse to be sub-ed to make our blessed England what it is; an hour jected and exposed to the intervening and economical squeeze of government commissioners? But these lucubrations upon church rates are an episode; I must go back to John, Bishop of Lincoln. All other cathedrals are fixed at four prebendaries; St. Paul's and Lincoln having only three, are increased to the regulation pattern of four. I call this useless and childish. The Bishop of Lincoln says, there were more residentiaries before the reformation; but if for three hundred years three residentiaries have been found to be sufficient, what a strangely feeble excuse it is for adding another, and diverting 3000l. per annum from the small living fund, to say, that there were more residentiaries three hundred years ago. may lay it in the dust; and can you, with all your talents, renovate its shattered splendour-can you recall back its virtues-can you vanquish time and fate? But, alas! you want to shake the world, and to be the thunderer of the scene! Now what is the end of what I have written? Why every body was in a great fright; and a number of bishops, huddled together, and talking of their great sacrifices, began to destroy other people's property, and to take other people's patronage: and all the fright is over now; and all the bishops are very sorry for what they have done, and regret extremely the destruction of the cathedral dignitaries, but don't know how to get out of the foolish scrape. The whig Must every thing be good and right that is done by ministry persevere to please Joseph and his brethren, bishops? Is there one rule of right for them and ano-and the destroyers; and the good sense of the matter ther for the rest of the world. Now here are two commissioners, whose express object is to constitute, out of the large emoluments of the dignitaries, a fund for the poorer parochial clergy; and in the very heat and fervour of confiscation, they build up two new *Mr. Fox very often used to say, 'I wonder what Lord B. will think of this.' Lord B. happened to be a very stupid person, and the curiosity of Mr. Fox's friends was naturally excited to know why he attached such importance to the opinion of such an ordinary commonplace person. "His opinion,' said Mr. Fox, is of much more importance than you are aware of. He is an exact representative of all common-place English prejudices, and what Lord B. thinks of any measure, the great majority of English people will think of it.' It would be a good thing if every cabinet of philosophers had a Lord B. among them, is to fiing out the dean and chapter bill, as it now stands, and to bring in another next year-making a fund out of all the non-resident prebends, annexing some of the others, and adopting many of the enact ments contained in the present bill. * Another peculiarity of the Russells is, that they never alter their opinions; they are an excellent race, but they must be trepanned before they can be convinced. THIRD LETTER TO ARCHDEACON SINGLE- MY DEAR SIR, I HOPE this is the last letter you will receive from me on church matters. I am tired of the subject; so is every body. In spite of many bishops' charges, I am unbroken; and reinain entirely of the same opinion as I was two or three years since that the mutilation of deans and chapters is a rash, foolish, and imprudent measure. I do not think the charge of the Bishop of London successful, in combating those arguments which have been used against the impending dean and chapter bill; but it is quiet, gentlemanlike, temperate, and written in a manner which entirely becomes the high office and character which he bears. I agree with him in saying that the plurality and residence bill is, upon the whole, a very good bill;nobody, however, knows better than the Bishop of London the various changes it has undergone, and the improvements it has received. I could point out fourteen or fifteen material alterations for the better, since it came out of the hands of the commission, and all bearing materially upon the happiness and comfort of the parochial clergy. I will mention only a few :-the bill, as originally introduced, gave the bishop a power, when he considered the duties of the parish to be improperly performed, to suspend the clergyman and appoint a curate with a salary. Some impious persons thought it not impossible that occasionally such a power might be maliciously and vindictively exercised, and that some check to it should be admitted into the bill; accordingly, under the existing act, an ecclesiastical jury is to be summoned, and into that jury the defendant clergymau may introduce a friend of his own. There is in this new bill a very humane clause, (though not introduced by the commission), enabling the widow of the deceased clergyman to retain pos session of the parsonage-house for two months after the death of the incumbent. It ought, in fairness, to be extended to the heirs, executors, and administra tors of the incumbent. It is a great hardship that a family settled in a parish for fifty years, perhaps, should be torn up by the roots in eight or ten days; and the interval of two months, allowing time for repairs, might put to rest many questions of dilapida. tion. To the bishop's power of intruding a curate, without any complaint on the part of the parish that the duty has been inadequately performed, I retain the same objections as before. It is a power which, without this condition, will be unfairly and partially exercised. The first object I admit is not the provision of the clergyman, but the cure of the parish; but one way of taking care of parishes is to take care that clergymen are not treated with tyranny, partiality, and injustice; and the best way of effecting this is to remember that their superiors have the same human passions as other people, and not to trust them with a power which may be so grossly abused, and which (incredible as the Bishop of London may deem it), has been, in some instances, grossly abused. I cannot imagine what the bishop means by saying, that the members of cathedrals do not, in virtue of their office, bear any part in the parochial instruction of the people. This is a fine deceitful word, the word parochial, and eminently calculated to coax the public. If he means simply that cathedrals do not belong to parishes, that St. Paul's is not the parish church of Upper Puddicomb, and that the vicar of St. Fiddlefrid does not officiate in Westminster Abbey: all this is true enough, but do they not in the most material If a clergyman, from illness or any other overwhelm- points instruct the people precisely in the same maning necessity, was prevented from having two ser- ner as the parochial clergy? Are not prayers and vices, he was exposed to an information and penalty. sermons the most important means of spiritual instrucIn answering the bishop, he was subjected to two op- tion? And are there not eighteen or twenty services posite sets of penalties-the one for saying yes; the in every cathedral for one which is heard in parish other for saying no: he was amenable to the needless churches? I have very often counted in the afterand impertinent scrutiny of a rural dean before he was noon of week days in St. Paul's 150 people, and on exposed to the scrutiny of the bishop. Curates might Sundays it is full to suffocation. Is all this to go for be forced upon him by subscribing parishioners, and nothing? and what right has the Bishop of London to the certainty of a schism established in the parish; a suppose that there is not as much real piety in cathecurate might have been forced upon present incum-drals, as in the most roadless, postless, melancholy, bents by the bishop without any complaint made; sequestered hamlet preached to by the most provin upon men who took, or, perhaps, bought their livings cial, sequestered bucolic clergyman in the queen's under very different laws; all these acts of injustice dominions? are done away with, but it is not to the credit of the framers of the bill that they were ever admitted, and they completely justify the opposition with which the bill was received by me and by others. I add, however, with great pleasure, that when these and other objections were made, they were heard with candour, and promised to be remedied by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London and Lord John Russell. A number of little children, it is true, do not repeat a catechism of which they do not comprehend a word; but it is rather rapid and wholesale to say, that the parochial clergy are spiritual instructors of the people, and that the cathedral clergy are only so in a very restricted sense. I say that in the most material points and acts of instruction, they are much more laborious and incessant than any parochial clergy. It might really be supposed, from the Bishop of London's reaI have spoken of the power to issue a commission soning, that some other methods of instruction took to inquire into the well-being of any parish: a vindic- place in cathedrals than prayers and sermons can tive and malicious bishop might, it is true, convert afford; that lectures were read on chemistry, or les this, which was intended for the protection, to the sons given on dancing; or that it was a Mechanics' oppression of the clergy-afraid to dispossess a clergy. Institute, or a vast receptacle for hexameter and penman of his own authority, he might attempt to do the tameter boys. His own most respectable chaplain, same thing under the cover of a jury of his ecclesiasti- who is often there as a member of the body, will tell cal creatures. But I can hardly conceive such base-him that the prayers are strictly adhered to, accordness in the prelate, or such infamous subserviency in ing to the rubric, with the difference only that the the agents. An honest and respectable bishop will service is beautifully chanted instead of being badly remember that the very issue of such a commission read; that instead of the atrocious bawling of parish is a serious slur upon the character of a clergyman; churches, the anthems are sung with great taste and he will do all he can to prevent it by private monition feeling; and if the preaching is not good, it is the fault and remonstrance; and if driven to such an act of of the Bishop of London, who has the whole range of power, he will, of course, state to the accused clergy- London preachers from whom to make his selection. man the subjects of accusation, the names of his ac- The real fact is, that, instead of being something macusers, and give him ample time for his defence. If, terially different from the parochial clergy, as the comupon anonymous accusation, he subjects a clergyman missioners wish to make them, the cathedral clergy are to such an investigation, or refuses to him any advan. fellow-labourers with the parochial clergy, outworking tage which the law gives to every accused person, he them ten to one; but the commission having provided is an infamous, degraded, and scandalous tyrant: but snugly for the bishops, have, by the merest accident in I cannot believe there is such a man to be found upon the world, entangled themselves in this quarrel with the bench. cathedrals. 284 WORKS OF THE REV. SIDNEY SMITH. ness that we are innocent of this great ruin ;'-does 'Had the question,' says the bishop, 'been proposed, washed their hands, and said, We call you all to witto the religious part of the community, whether, if no other means were to be found, the effective cure of souls should be provided for by the total suppression of those ecclesiastical corporations which have no cure of souls, nor bear any part in the parochial labours of the clergy; that question, I verily believe, would have been carried in the affirmative by an immense majority of suffrages.' But suppose no other means could be found for the effective cure of souls than the suppression of bishops, does the Bishop of London imagine that the majority of suffrages would have been less immense? How idle to put such cases. A pious man leaves a large sum of money in Catholic times for some purposes which are superstitious, and for others, such as preaching and reading prayers, which are applicable to all times; the superstitious usages are abolished, the pious usages remain: now the bishop must admit, if you take half or any part of this money from clergymen to whom it was given, and divide it for similar purposes among clergy to whom it was not given, you deviate materially from the intentions of the founder. These foundations are made in loco; in many of them the locus was, perhaps, the original cause of the gift. A man who founds an almshouse at Edmonton does not mean that the poor of Tottenham should avail themselves of it; and if he could have anticipated such a consequence, he would not have endowed any almshouse at all. Such is the respect for property that the Court of Chancery, when it becomes impracticable to carry the will of the donor into execution, always attend to the cy pres, and apply the charitable fund to a purpose as germane as possible to the intention of the founder; but here, when men of Lincoln have left to Lincoln cathedral, and men of Hereford to Hereford, the commissioners seize it all, melt it into a common mass, and disperse it over the kingdom. Surely the Bishop of London cannot contend that this is not a greater deviation from the will of the founder than if the same people, remaining in the same place, receiving all the founder gave them, and doing all things not forbidden by the law, which the founder ordered, were to do something more than the founder ordered, were to become the guardians of education, the counsel to the bishop, and the curators of the diocese in his old age and decay. Trojaque nunc stares, Priamique arx alta maneres. 'But,' says the Lord Bishop of London, you admit the principle of confiscation by proposing the confiscation and partition of prebends in the possession of nonresidents. I am thinking of something else, and I see all of a sudden a great blaze of light; I behold a great number of gentlemen in short aprons, neat purple coats, and gold buckles, rushing about with torches in their hands, calling each other my lord,' and setting fire to all the rooms in the house, and the people below delighted with the combustion; finding it impossible to turn them from their purpose, and finding that they are all what they are by divine permission; I endeavour to direct their holy innovations into another channel; and I say unto them, my lords, had not you Yonder are several cow-houses of better set fire to the out of door offices, to the barus, and stables, and spare this fine library, and this noble drawing-room? which no use is made; pray direct your fury against them, and leave this beautiful and venerable mansion as you found it.' If I address the divinely permitted in this manner, has the Bishop of London any right to call me a brother incendiary 6 Our holy innovator, the Bishop of London, has drawn a very affecting picture of sheep having no shepherd, and of millions who have no spiritual food; our wants, he says, are most imperious: even if we were to tax large livings, we must still have the money of the cathedrals: no plea will exempt you, nothing can stop of new ones. We want (and he prints it in italics) us, for the formation of benefices, and the endowment The public are greater robbers and plunderers than for these purposes all that we can obtain from whatmore alarmed in my life than by this passage. I said any one in the public; look at the whole transaction; ever source derived.' I never remember to have been it is a mixture of meanness and violence. The country choose to have an established religion, and a resi- to myself, the necessities of the church have got such dent parochial clergy, but they do not choose to build complete hold of the imagination of this energetic houses for their parochial clergy, or pay them in ma- prelate, who is so captivated by the holiness of his inny instances more than a butler or a coachman re-novations, that all grades and orders of the church ceives. How is this deficiency to be supplied? The and all present and future interests will be sacrificed heads of the church propose to this public to seize upon to it. I immediately rushed to the acts of Parliament, estates which have never belonged to the public, and which I always have under my pillow, to see at once venues of the bishops all safe; that is some comfort, I which were left for another purpose; and by the the worst of what had happened. I found present resaid to myself; Canterbury, 24,000l. or 25,0001. per seizure of these estates to save that which ought to come out of the public purse. Suppose Parliament were to seize upon all the alms- annum; London, 18,000l. or 20,0001. I began to feel houses in England, and apply them to the diminution some comfort: things are not so bad; the bishops do of the poor-rate, what a number of ingenious argu- not mean to sacrifice to sheep and shepherds' money ments might be pressed into the service of this robbe- their present revenues; the Bishop of London is less ry: Can any thing be more revolting than that the violent and headstrong than I thought he would be.' poor of Northumberland should be starving while the I looked a little further, and found that 15,000l. per poor of the suburban hamlets are dividing the bene- annum is alloted to the future Archbishop of Canter "We want for these bury, 10,000l. to the Bishop of London, 8,000l. to Dur factions of the pious dead? purposes all we can obtain from whatever sources ham, and 8,000l. each to Winchester and Ely. No. derived." I do not deny the right of Parliament thing of sheep and shepherd in all this,' I exclaimed, to do this, or anything else; but I deny that it and felt still more comforted. It was not till after the would be expedient, because I think it better to make bishops were taken care of, and the revenues of the any sacrifices, and to endure any evil, than to gratify cathedrals came into full view, that I saw the perfect italics, of this rapacious spirit of plunder and confiscation. Sup-development of the sheep and shepherd principle, the pose these commissioner prelates firm and unmoved, deep and heartfelt compassion for spiritual labourers, when we were all alarmed, had told the public that and that inward groaning for the destitute state of the the parochial clergy were badly provided for, and that church, and that firm purpose, printed it was the duty of that public to provide a proper sup- taking for these purposes all that could be obtained from port for their ministers-suppose the commissioners, whatever source derived; and even in this delicious instead of leading them on to confiscaticu, had warned rummage of cathedral property, where all the fine their fellow subjects against the base economy and the church feelings of the bishop's heart could be indulged perilous injustice of seizing on that which was not without costing the poor sufferer a penny, stalls for their own-suppose they had called for water and archdeacons in Lincoln and St. Paul's are, to the amount of 2,000l. per annum, taken from the sheep and shepherd fund, and the patronage of them divided between two commissioners, the Bishop of London, and the Bishop of Lincoln, instead of being paid to additional labourers in the vineyard. Has there been any difficulty, I would ask, in procuring archdeacons upon the very moderate pay they now receive? Can any clergyman be more thoroughly respectable than the present archdeacons in the see of London? but men bearing such an office in the church, it may be said, should be highly paid, and archbishops, who could very well keep up their dignity upon 70007. per annum, are to be allowed 15,000l. I make no objection to all this; but then what becomes of all these heart-rending phrases of sheep and shepherd, and drooping vineyards, and flocks without spiritual consolation? The bishop's argument is, that the superfluous must give way to the necessary; but in fighting, the bishop should take great care that his cannons are not seized, and turned against himself. He has awarded to the bishops of England a superfluity as great as that which he intends to take from the cathedrals; and then, when he legislates for an order to which he does not belong, begins to remember the distresses of the lower clergy, paints them with all the colours of impassioned eloquence, and informs the cathedral institutions that he must have every farthing he can lay his hand upon. Is not this as if one affected powerfully by a charity sermon were to put his hands in another man's pocket, and cast, from what he had extracted, a liberal contribution into the plate? former. Now here is a capital of 72.0007. carried into the church, which the confiscations of the commissioners would force out of it, by taking away the good things which were the temptation to its introduction. So that, by the old plan of paying by lottery, instead of giving a proper competence to each, not only do you obtain a parochial clergy upon much cheaper terms; but, from the gambling propensities of human nature, and the irresistible tendency to hope that they shall gain the great prizes, you tempt men into your service who keep up their credit and yours, not by your allowance, but by their own capital; and to destroy this wise and well-working arrangement, a great number of bishops, marquises, and John Russells, are huddled into a chamber, and, after proposing a scheme which will turn the English church into a collection of consecrated beggars, we are informed by the Bishop of London that it is an holy innovation. I have no manner of doubt, that the immediate effect of passing the dean and chapter bill will be, that a great number of fathers and uncles, judging, and properly judging, that the church is a very altered and deteriorated profession, will turn the industry and capital of their élèves into another channel. My friend, Robert Eden, says this is of the earth earthy' be it so; I cannot help it, I paint mankind as I find them, and am not answerable for their defects. When an argument, taken from real life, and the actual condition of the world, is brought among the shadowy discussions of ecclesiastics, it always occasions terror and dismay; it is like Eneas stepping into Charon's boat, which carried only ghosts and spirits. Gemuit sub pondere cymba Sutilis. I beg not to be mistaken; I am very far from considering the Bishop of London as a sordid and interested person; but this is a complete instance of how the best of men deceive themselves, where their interests are concerned. I have no doubt the bishop firm- The whole plan of the Bishop of London is a ptochly imagined he was doing his duty; but there should ogony-a generation of beggars. He purposes, out of have been men of all grades in the commission, some the spoils of the cathedral, to create a thousand livings, one to say a word for cathedrals and against bishops. and to give to the thousand clergymen 1307. per an The bishop says, 'his antagonists have allowed num each: a Christian bishop proposing, in cold blood, three canons to be sufficient for St. Paul's, and, there- to create a thousand livings of 1301. per annum each; fore, four must be sufficient for other cathedrals.'-to call into existence a thousand of the most unhap Sufficient to read the prayers and preach the sermons, py men on the face of the earth,-the sons of the certainly, and so would one be; but not sufficient to poor, without hope, without the assistance of private excite, by the hope of increased rank and wealth, ele- fortune, chained to the soil, ashamed to live with their ven thousand parochial clergy. inferiors, unfit for the society of the better classes, The most important and cogent arguments against and dragging about the English curse of poverty, the dean and chapter confiscations are past over in si- without the smallest hope that they can ever shake it lence in the bishop's charge. This, in reasoning, is off. At present, such livings are filled by young men always the wisest and most convenient plan, and which who have better hopes-who have reason to expect all young bishops should imitate after the manner of good property-who look forward to a college or a this wary polemic. I object to the confiscation be- family living-who are the sons of men of some subcause it will throw a great deal more of capital out of the stance, and hope so to pass on to something betterparochial church than it will bring into it. I am very -who exist under the delusion of being hereafter sorry to come forward with so homely an argument, deans and prebendaries-who are paid once by mon which shocks so many clergymen, and particularly ey, and three times by hope. Will the Bishop of those with the largest incomes, and the best bishop. London promise to the progeny of any of these thou rics; but the truth is, the greater number of clergy- sand victims of the holy innovation that, if they behave men go into the church in order that they may derive well, one of them shall have his butler's place; anoa comfortable income from the church. Such men in- ther take care of the cedars and hyssops of his garden? tend to do their duty, and they do it; but the duty is, Will he take their daughters for his nursery-maids? however, not the motive, but the adjunct. If I was and may some of the sons of these labourers of the writing in gala and parade, I would not hold this lan- vineyard' hope one day to ride the leaders from St. guage; but we are in earnest, and on business; and as James's to Fulham? Here is hope-here is room for very rash and hasty changes are founded upon contra- ambition-a field for genius, and a ray of ameliora ry suppositions of the pure disinterestedness and per- tion! If these beautiful feelings of compassion are fect inattention to temporals in the clergy, we must throbbing under the cassock of the bishop, he ought, get down at once to the solid rock without heeding how in common justice to himself, to make them known. we disturb the turf and flowers above. The parochial | If it were a scheme for giving ease and independence clergy maintain their present decent appearance quite to any large bodies of clergymen, it might be listened as much by their own capital as by the income they to; but the revenues of the English church are such as derive from the church. I will now state the income to render this wholly and entirely out of the question. and capital of seven clergymen, taken promiscuously If you place a man in a village in the country, require in this neighbourhood:-No. 1. Living 2007., capital that he should be of good manners and well educated; 12,000l.; No. 2. Living 800., capital 15,000.; No. 3. Living 500., capital 12,000.; No. 4. Living 1501., capital 10,0001.; No. 5. Living 8007., capital 12,0001.; No. 6. Living 150., capital 10007.; No. 7. Living 6007., capital 16,000l. I have diligently inquired into the circumstances of seven Unitarian and Wesleyan ministers, and I question much if the whole seven could make up 60001. between them; and the zeal and enthusiasm of this last division is certainly not inferior to that of the that his habits and appearance should be above those of the farmers to whom he preaches, if he has nothing else to expect (as would be the case in a church of equal division); and if, upon his village income, he is to support a wife and educate a family, without any power of making himself known in a remote and solitary situation, such a person ought to receive 5001. per annum, and be furnished with a house. There are about 10,700 parishes in England and Wales, whose 286 WORKS OF THE REV. SIDNEY SMITH. Now, to provide will it not force more capital out of the parochial part average income is 2851. per annum. it is surely not to pass out of compliment to the feelthese incumbents with decent houses, to keep them in of the church than it brings into it? If the bill is bad, repair, and to raise the income of the incumbent to 5001. per annum, would require (if all the incomes of ings of the Archbishop of Canterbury. If the prothe bishops, deans, and chapters of separate dignita.ject is hasty, it is not to be adopted to gratify the Biries, of sinecure rectories, were confiscated, and if the shop of London. The mischief to the church is sureexcess of all the livings in England above 5007. per an- ly a greater evil than the stultification of the commisnum were added to them,) a sum of two millions and sioners, &c. If the physician has prescribed hastily, a half in addition to the present income of the whole is the medicine to be taken to the death or disease of church; and no power on earth could persuade the the patient? If the judge has condemned improperly, present Parliament of Great Britain to grant a single is the criminal to be hung, that the wisdom of the But why are the commissioners to be stultified by The measure may shilling for that purpose. Now, is it possible to pay magistrate may not be impugned?* such a church upon any other principle than that of I thought, and many men unequal division? The proposed pillage of the cathe the rejection of the measure? dral and college churches (omitting all consideration have been very good when it was recommended, and of the separate estate of dignitaries) would amount, di- very objectionable now. the affections of the common people were lost to the vided among all the benefices in England, to about 51. thought, that the church was going to pieces-that 12s. 6d. per man: and this, which would not stop an hiatus in a cassock, and would drive out of the paro- establishment; and that large sacrifices must be inchial church ten times as much as it brought into it, stantly made, to avert the effects of this temporary ought to be put aside measures, which might have been is the panacea for pauperism recommended by her ma- madness; but those days are gone by-and with them wise in those days, but are wise no longer. jesty's commissioners. But if this plan were to drive men of capital out of the church, and to pauperize the English clergy, where Could not all the duties of reliwould the harm be? gion be performed as well by poor clergymen as by There men of good substance? My great and serious apprehension is, that such would not be the case. would be the greatest risk that your clergy would be fanatical, and ignorant; that their habits would be low and mean, and that they would be despised. Then a picture is drawn of a clergyman with 1307. per annum, who combines all moral, physical, and intellectual advantages, a learned man, dedicating himself intensely to the care of his parish-of charming manners and dignified deportment-six feet two inches high, beautifully proportioned, with a magnificent countenance, expressive of all the cardinal virtues and the Ten Commandments,-and it is asked, with an air of triumph, if such a man as this will fall into contempt But substitute for him an on account of his poverty? average, ordinary, uninteresting minister; obese, dumpy, neither ill-natured nor good-natured; neither learned nor ignorant, striding over the stiles to church, with a second-rate wife-dusty and deliquescent-and four parochial children, full of catechism and bread and 'butter; or let him be seen in one of those Shem-Hamand-Japhet buggies-made on Mount Ararat soon after the subsidence of the waters, driving in the High Street of Edmonton among all his pecuniary, saponaceous, oleaginous parishioners. Can any man of common sense say that all these outward circumstances of the ministers of religion have no bearing on religion itself? I ask the Bishop of London, a man of honour and conscience as he is, if he thinks five years will elapse before a second attack is made upon deans and chapters? Does he think, after reformers have tasted the flesh of the church, that they will put up with any other diet? Does he forget that deans and chapters are but mock turtle-that more delicious delicacies remain behind? Five years hence he will attempt to make a stand, and he will be laughed at and eaten up. In this very charge the bishop accuses the lay commissioners of another intended attack upon the property of the church, contrary to the clearest and most explicit stipulations (as he says) with the heads of the establish ment. Much is said of the conduct of the commissioners, but that is of the least possible consequence. They may have acted for the best, according to the then existing circumstances; they may seriously have intended to do their duty to the country; and I am far from saying or thinking they did not; but without the least reference to the commissioners, the question is, Is it wise to pass this bill, and to justify such an open and tremendous sacrifice of church property? Does public opinion now call for any such measure? is it a wise distribution of the funds of an ill-paid church? and A parish which the Bishop of London has the greatest desire to divide into little bits; but which appears quite as fit to preserve its integrity as St. James's, St. George's, or Kensington, all in the patronage of the bishop. After all, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London are good and placable mer; and will ere long forget and forgive the successful efforts of Suppose the commission were now beginning to sit their enemies in defeating this mis-ecclesiastic law. for the first time, will any man living say that they they would seriously propose such a tremendous revowould make such reports as they have made? and that lution in church property? And if they would not, I ask the inference is irresistible, that to consult the feelings of two or three churchmen, we are complimenting away the safety of the church. Milton asked where the nymphs were when Lycidas perished? where the bishops are when the remorseless deep is closing over the head of their beloved establishment? † You must have read an attack upon me by the Bishop of Gloucester, in the course of which he says that I have not been appointed to my situation as canon of St. Paul's for my piety and learning, but because I am a scoffer and a jester. Is not this rather strong for a bishop, and does it not appear to you, Mr. Archdeacon, as rather too close an imitation of that language which is used in the apostolic occupation of trafficking in fish? Whether I have been appointed for my piety or not, must depend upon what this poor man means by piety. He means by that word, of course, a defence of all the tyrannical and oppressive abuses of the church which have been swept away within the last fifteen or twenty years of my life; the corporation and test acts; the penal laws against the Catholics; the compulsory marriages of dissenters, and all those disabling and disqualifying laws which were the disgrace of our church, and which he has always looked up to as the consummation of human wisdom. If piety consisted in the defence of these-if it was impious to struggle for their abrogation, I have, indeed, led an ungodly life. There is nothing pompous gentlemen are so much It is like the objection afraid of as a little humour. of certain cephalic animalcul to the use of smallAfter all, I believe, tooth combs, Finger and thumb, precipitate pow sake no small tooth combs!' der, or any thing else you please; but for Heaven's Bishop Monk has been the cause of much more laugh I never see him enter a room without exciting a smile ter than ever I have been; I cannot account for it, but on every countenance within it. Dr. Monk is furious at my attacking the heads of the church; but how can I help it? If the heads of the church are at the head of the mob; if I find the best of men doing that which has in all times drawn upon the worst enemies of the human race the bitter *After the trouble the commissioners have taken (says Sir Robert), after the obloquy they have incurred,' &c. &c. What is the use of publishing separate charges, as the |