twelve or fourteen marks, being so great a cure; so that of his pension he is not able to buy books, nor give his neighbour drink, all the great gain goeth another way-A redress God grant!" The same collectors record similar complaints made in a popular publication of that day, called "The Supplication of the Beggars."

den; and by that of another person of still more elevated character, the ornament of his age and country! whose voice when not perverted by passions or interests of his own, was the voice of reason and philosophy itself! the great lord Bacon. The former expresses himself thus: "I doubt not but that every good man wishes that, at our dissolution, their land" Your pretence to put down the abbeys, and tithes, and churches, had been bestowed rather for the advancement of the church to a better maintenance of a labouring, deserving ministry, relief of the poor, and other such good uses (as have in them a character of the good wishes of those who first dedicated them to God), than conferred, with such a prodigal dispensation, on those who stood ready to devour what was sanctified." The latter thus: "It were to be wished, that impropriations were returned to the church as the most natural and proper endowments. In mine own opinion and sense, I must confess, (I speak it with all reverence), all the parliaments since the the 27th and 31st of Henry 8th, which gave away the impropriations, seem to me to stand, in a sort, obnoxious to God, in conscience to do somewhat for the church, and to bring the patrimony thereof back to a due competency." May I presume, with all humility, to impress these memorable words upon the recollection of the House! Till that is done, which, lord Bacon says, "ought in the conscience of parliament to be done," all legislative provisions, I fear, can be mere temporary palliatives, and no better.

The truth is, that king Henry 8th put the matter of the church establishment into such a state, that without some for cible interposition of parliament, it is become remediless in all time coming. The poverty-struck condition of the clergy, at that period, is recorded in a hundred striking instances, by Strype, by Kennet, by Wharton, and other collectors. The venerable Latimer, in a sermon preached before king Edward, says, "We of the clergy had too much, but that is taken away, and now we have too little; for my own part I have sufficient, God is my judge, I crave nothing of any man, but I know them that have too little; there lieth a great matter by these appropriations, great reformation is to be had in them; I know where there is a great market town with divers hamlets and inhabitants, where do rise yearly of their labour to the value of 501. and the vicar that serveth hath but

was to put away what was amiss: it was amiss, that a great part of their land was spent on a few superstitious monks, who gave not 40l. alms, when they should have given 2007.: it was amiss, that monks should have benefices, and preach once a year to them that paid their tithes of the parsonage: it was amiss, that scarcely among twenty they set one sufficient vicar to preach. But see now how that was amiss, is amended-marry as the devil amended his dame's leg; when he should have set it right, he broke it in pieces. The monks gave little alims, and set unable men in their benefices; but now where 20l. was given to the poor, in more than a hundred places, not one meal's meat is given; that's a fair amendment. Where they had always one or other vicar to preach, now no vicar at all, but the farmer is vicar and parson altogether, and only a castaway monk or friar, which can hardly say matins, is hired for twenty of thirty shillings, and meat and drink, yea, in some places, for meat and drink only. I know, and twenty thousand more men know, more than five thousand benefices thus well and gospelly served." The fact of the reduced condition of the clergy is admitted by the legislature itself, not only by the acts of shortly afterwards passing the statutes of Union of Benefices, and of Dilapidation (which for the first time found their way into our municipal code, from a necessity then first emerging in any pressing degree), but it is expressly recorded in the preamble of these statutes, lamenting "the decay of parsonage houses, and the insufficiency of single benefices for the maintenance of a minister."

have aided the operation of this charity; the two lowest classes have all received an actual augmentation from it; and a third class is now receiving the same be

I take it most thankfully; for the saying of St. Paul, that they who would grow rich fall into temptation-I fear it is not half so much as stark beggary: and if I knew any bishop that were covetous, Inefit; but by a paper from the secretary would surely admonish him; but I know none but all very beggars, except it be one, and yet I dare well say, he is not over rich!" The general condition of churchmen at that time affords a solution natural enough of that otherwise extraordinary fact, of their general and hasty relapse into the ancient superstition.

of that board, which I hold in my hand, it appears, that " if we compute the number of livings under 50l. per annum to be as above about 6,000, a moiety of which were actually under 30l. per annum; and if we reckon that they have been since improved by the governors, and by other means, upon an average two-thirds, which is a very liberal allowance indeed, it follows that there are now 6,000 livings in England and Wales, that do not exceed upon an average 85l. per annum, and that a very great proportion of them are, at this time, not 30l. per annum, and so progressively from 30l. to 40%. and from 401. and 50l." In a document with which I am favoured by Mr. Archdeacon Plymley of Salop, I am informed, "that of 186 churches in that archdeaconry, (which, as he justly observes, comprehends a part of five different counties, and has within it specimens of almost every natural and artificial situation), 109 only have any parson

Succeeding times have provided nothing like a sufficient remedy. On a complaint made to king Charles 1st by parliament against non-residents, he answered them, "He recommended to this House to make due provision, that every parish should allow a competent maintenance for an able minister;" and it was upon that occasion well observed in the House, "that scandalous livings made scandalous ministers." From that time nothing was done till the splendid benefaction of the first fruits and tenths made by queen Anne; on which occasion her majesty observed, "that she had taken into her princely consideration the mean and in-age house. Independent of this deficiency of sufficient maintenance belonging to the clergy in divers parts of this kingdom;" and the parliament in the preamble to the act, recites, "that a sufficient settled provision for the clergy, in many parts of this kingdom hath never yet been made." This fund has now been in operation for near a century, under the administration of a board composed of persons of high station, both in church and state. The number of livings returned, certified to this board and to the Exchequer, were not exceeding

fifty-nine parsonage houses, many of those in existence are totally unfit for the residepce of any clergyman's family; fortyseven churches have no glebe land. Where there is a house, or land to build one upon, the want of a sufficient residence would be an excuse if the livings could afford money to repair or to build: but twenty-seven churches, exclusive of those that are subordinate churches, and which for the most part have no independent income, have from 21. 5s. a year only to 50l. a year: no living would remain so low as 21. 5s. a year, if the patrons would accept of augmentation from queen Anne's bounty; but this is declined for fear of putting them under the bishop's jurisdiction. Of the livings, twenty-seven are under 50l.; thirty-three above 50%. but under 100.; twenty-three above 100/ but under 150l.; twenty-four above 150l. but under 2001. per annum: there are but nineteeen livings of the whole hundred and sixty-eight that are above 200l. per annum; and this in a country in which the ecclesiastical state is conceived to be much more respectable than in the average state of the kingdom.

In adverting to this subject, I just venture to remark, that in a publication of an hon. baronet, upon the revenues of the [21]

Debate in the Commons on the

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kingdom (whom I do not see in his which belong to the crown, amounting to place), it is stated, "that the revenue of near eleven hundred), either belong to this charity of queen Anne's bounty, at various lay corporations (for even colleges first amounted to about 14,000l. per annum; and on the 1st of January 1735, the possess near 6,000 of the whole number, are such), or to lay individuals, who alone governors of that charity possessed Now, sir, in this state of things, I desire besides from savings and private benefac- to ask, upon what ground I can be called tions, the sum of 152,500l. of old South Sea upon to give up half the living, the annuities, and 4,8577. of cash in the hands advowson of which I have purchased, of their treasurer; the state of that fund upon a price relative to its value, in order has of late years been carefully con- that that moiety may be transferred to cealed, but it probably yields at present improve another living, belonging to anofrom 40 to 50,000l. per annum. hon. baronet will, I am sure, thank me for moiety, and who has no other title to it, The ther patron, who has paid nothing for that using the present opportunity of correct but that he happens to possess the ading such a misapprehension. It is per- vowson of a smaller living? I see no fectly true, that such a sum existed in the ground, except such an one as would jusfunds in the year 1735; but it is equally tify the legislature, in taking away half of true, that this was a sum fully appropriated any other estate I had purchased, in order to a great number of livings, to which it to give it to my neighbour, because he was paying a money interest till proper pur- happened to have less. Let gentlemen chases of land could be found; and where- consider the effect of such speculations! ever there is a surplus of such interest, it In the next place, suppose that this was is made principal, and is applied in a accomplished in a way consistent with the similar manner. Its present income is, rights of property, what would follow? with very slight accidental variations, the Equalize all the clergy, and you in effect same as its original income, between degrade them all; for it is the grossest of 14,000l. and 15,000l. per annum. would be difficult, indeed to conceive any England is amply endowed. It is demoniIt all mistakes, that the parochial church of reason for an idle unproductive accumu-strated by a very exact inquirer upon lation of the money of this charity, to the these subjects, Mr. Cove, that if even all prejudice of its present numerous objects; the preferments, of every species, bethough, if any such practice could exist, longing to the church of England, were I certainly should not be much surprised moulded into one common mass, and at the careful concealment of it. of the hierarchy was dissolved (a matter thence distributed, if the venerable fabric not to be effected without a convulsion and laceration of the civil state of the country, of which no man can foretell the consequences), and its funds parcelled out amongst the parochial clergy, the maximum of an English benefice would be not more than 1677, a-year, an income by no means adequate, in the present state of the world, to the demands which society makes upon that profession in point of education, of attainments, of manners, of general appearance in life. As the revenues at present are distributed, the clergy, as a profession, find an easy and independent access to every gradation of society, and maintain a fair equality, as they ought to do, with the other liberal professions; and the elevation of the highest ranks give something of a dignity to the lowest : alter the mode of distribution, and you run the risk of producing a body of clergy, resembling only the lower orders of society, in their conversation, in their manners, and their habits; and it is

To the mischiefs arising from the extreme poverty of many parochial benefices, I have heard it suggested in this House as a cure, that there should be an equalization. Equality is in these days the grand panacea for all disorders. Unfortunately, besides twenty other objections, arising from the general interests of the civil and religious policy of the country, there are two objections that seem to dispose of it completely: one is, that it could not be effected without a most enormous plunder of the laity; and the other, that if done, it would not answer the purpose for which it is intended. In the first place advowsons, though originally perhaps mere trusts, are now become lay-fees. They are bought and sold, and are lay property, just as much as any other tenements or hereditaments. And they are not merely lay property in law, but a very large proportion of them is so in fact; for of the 11,600 livings in this kingdom, 2,500 may be in ecclesiastical patronage, the rest (exclusive of those