mer, would have been exacted for it, be left wholly without notice.

Flaming indeed on this occasion was his zeal for Excellent Church: icy his sympathy, if he had any, for the sufferings of individuals. An Incumbent, whose Curate had been in use to be content with 351.,† would,—if his living produced him more-though it were but a farthing more— than 4001., have, all of a sudden,-in lieu of the less than ten per cent. income-tax, which on this score he had been in use to pay, leaving him 3651. a year-(to which income his expectations of him and his family had been allowed to attach themselves from two to fifty years or more together), would have found this tax raised upon him to 50l. per cent. :-would, in a word, have found himself stripped of half his income. By some persons of more feeling, or more consideration than zeal,-this part of the project was, it seems, defeated: of the imaginary benefit, the commencement was,-in the instance of each benefice,-postponed to the death or removal of the Incumbent : and thus, though the intended benefit to the reputation of Excellent Church was thus cut down, so much of the burthen as had been intended for the shoulders of Incumbents was taken off. Still, however, as above noticed, a Patron,-who, upon the death or removal of the existing Incumbent, had a son in readiness to receive the

* Speaking of objections made by persons in the main friendly to the measure, "those objections" (says he, p. 18) "were chiefly the application 66 as to Incumbents actually in possession; and, &c. ... limited as that "Bill was to livings of above 4001. per annum, I did not feel the weight of "this."

† According to his own statement (p. 9), among those livings alone that are under 150l. a year, he found no fewer than 600 in which the salary was, upon an average, no more than 351. a year: consequently, in about half the number of instances, more or less below that mark,

living, with a neat income of 3657.,-will upon that event have found it reduced, as above, to 2007. Insensible to the idea of the thunderstroke above-mentioned, no wonder the Noble Lord's sympathy should be in the same state, with regard to this loss, for which the Patron and his son may have had more or less time to prepare themselves.

...

But the Noble Reformer has found a theory for all this: and by this theory his breast has found a coat of mail provided for it. It lies (this theory) in the word property. "But" (says he, p. 6) "this, it is said, is a violent transfer "of property. My answer" (continues he)" is, that it ❝is no violation or transfer of property at all; . . . our "property in our freehold estates is absolute; that of the "Church is conditional." Thus far the Noble Reformer. Violation of Property ?-Is that then the heart and substance of the objection?-Not it indeed. The objection is-that, without equivalent good in any shape, here is so much human suffering produced. In that, and that alone lies the evil; and if this be not an evil, does his Lordship know of any other that is ?-This evil, is it removed, or so much as lessened, by the employing of this word, or that other, in designating the operation by which it is produced?—All the property in the world, what is it worth, but for the sensible good produced by it, or the sensible evil produced by the want of it?

Now, if, to take effect during the lives of the occupants, or even though it were not till after their respective deaths, any man had (some Lord Stanhope, for example) stood up with a proposal to abolish in the lump the great State Sinecures, or the great Church Sinecures,-what would the Noble Reformer have said to it?-would it have been any thing less than Jacobinism?-Yet, by an abolition of these nuisances, not to take place till after the

death of the occupant,-not an atom of individual suffering -unless the cessation of indeterminate longing be to be placed to the account of suffering-would be produced.

But the treasury of corruptive influence-this, in the

eyes of the ruling few-sacred and profane together-is the ark of the covenant: this is not to be touched :-on this depends the constitution for its existence. Why?— because by the one will ought all other wills to be determined to one interest ought all other interests to be sacrificed :-before that one will, accompanied or not by understanding, ought all other wills and all understandings to be laid and to be kept "prostrate."

So intimate is the connexion between sinister interest and interest-begotten prejudice-of the sincerity of the Noble Reformer there seems no particular ground for entertaining any doubt:-and the same may be said of the Right Honourable Reformer, whose executor it is his boast to have been; as well as of an indeterminate proportion of those who in this, and other parts of the field of government, have been acting with them, and brought the affairs of the country to their present pass. Of their sincerity there seems little reason to doubt:-but on that account have they been the less mischievous, or are they-such of them as we are still burthened with the less dangerous? -Alas! no but by so much the more so. The more sincere, the more ardent and pertinacious. If (what seems not altogether improbable) it should seem to them that the salvation of their own souls depends upon their pursuing to the uttermost the principles thus acted upon as above, what are we-what are we, the subject-many-the better for their religion and their sincerity?-Alas! we are all the worse for it.

:

$ 3.-IV. For Increasing the Value of English Livings, exacting from the Population of the Three Kingdoms the Annual Sum of 100,000l.

The history of the fund, to which this comes as an addition, presents some curious enough particulars.

Ever since the year 1703, being the third year of Queen Anne, that same original fund has been in existence. It is composed of the produce of a part of taxes first imposed on ecclesiastical benefices in general, originally by the Popes; and, by King Henry the Eighth and his Protestant successors, continued in quality of successors to these same Catholic rulers. The hold taken by the Popes had been unsteady and incomplete. Henry included within his grasp (26 H. VIII. c. 3.) all ecclesiastical benefices without distinction: First Fruits were the whole income of the first year; tenths, were a ten per cent. income-tax upon the income of each succeeding year. The amounts being of course, from the first, as low as individual self-defence on the spot, struggling against distant tyranny, could contrive to make them, and for the decrease in the value of money no correspondent increase being ever made,thus it is, that, upon an average of twelve years, ending with the year 1814, the sum total annually received from the whole number of benefices in England,—with the exception of those which, by the Act of Queen Anne, were exempted, in consideration of their not yielding more than 50l. a year,-money of that time, amounted to no more than about 14,000l.: (14,0377. 17s. 101d.)

Various topics of observation here suggest themselves : --1. Worthlessness of the original object;-2. Insufficiency of the means originally provided ;-3. Amplitude

of the means more properly applicable to the same object; -4. Wastefulness of the new addition, anno 1809.

1. First, as to the worthlessness of the original object. -What was that object?-salvation of souls?-increase in the value (quality and quantity taken together) of the official service?-No such thing: for, from that time down to the present,-now upwards of a century,—not of, so much as a single step, taken towards the production of any such increase, are any traces to be found. 1. Appropriate qualification, on the part of the Incumbent. 2. Increase or security given to the number of times in the year on which service shall be performed; 3. Residence of a Minister within or near the Parish:-in relation to no one of these points, by authority of government, has any condition been ever established, or sought to be established.― Statutes at Large-Burn's Ecclesiastical Law-no trace of any such thing any where.

Among the papers printed by order and for the use of the House of Commons,-in and for six successive years, from 1810 to 1815 inclusive, may be seen papers, having each of them for its title, "An Account of "the Steps taken by the Governors of Queen Anne's Boun"ty, towards the sum of 100,000l. granted by Parliament for the Relief of the Poor Clergy:"-in no one of them is any such trace to be found.

Among these same House of Commons documents for the year 1815, may be seen a folio of 139 pages, with this title:"Papers relating to Queen Anne's Bounty, and to "Parliamentary Grants for the Augmentation of the main"tenance of the Poor Clergy:" 1703-1815. Date of the order for printing, 27th February, 1815: No. 115.— Throughout this whole volume, the same sacred silence. Of the host of saints, by which that Honourable House is