ralities may pass under that name; and if this be a fault, it is well known to whom it must be imputed: I believe, upon a fair inquiry (and I hear an inquiry is to be made) they will appear to be most pardonably few; especially, considering how many parishes have not an inch of glebe, and how difficult it is upon any reasonable terms to find a place of habitation. And therefore, God knows whether my lords the bishops will be soon able to convince the clergy, or those who have any regard for that venerable body, that the chief motive in their lordships' minds, by procuring these bills, was to prevent the sin of non-residence; while the universal opinion of almost every clergyman in the kingdom, without distinction of party, taking in even those who are not likely to be sufferers, stands directly against them.

If some livings in the north may be justly thought too large a compass of land, which makes it inconvenient for the remotest inhabitants to attend the service of the church, which, in some instances, may be true, no reasonable clergyman would oppose a proper remedy by particular acts of parliament.

Thus, for instance, the deanery of Down, a country deanery I think without a cathedral, depending wholly upon a union of parishes joined together in a time when the land lay waste and thinly inhabited, since those circumstances are so prodigiously changed for the better, may properly be lessened, leaving a decent competency to the dean, and placing rectories in the remaining churches, which are now served only by stipendiary curates.

The case may be probably the same in other parts and such a proceeding, discreetly managed, would be truly for the good of the church.

For it is to be observed, that the dean and chap ter lands, which, in England, were all seized under the fanatic usurpation, are things unknown in Ireland, having been long ravished from the church by a succession of confusions, and tithes applied in their stead to support that ecclesiastical dignity.

The late archbishop of Dublin * had a very different way of encouraging the clergy of his diocese to residence: when a lease had run out seven years or more, he stipulated with the tenant to resign up twenty or thirty acres to the minister of the parish where it lay convenient, without lessening his former rent, and with no great abatement of the fine; and this he did in the parts near Dublin, where land is at the highest rates, leaving a small chiefry for the minister to pay, hardly a sixth part of the value. I doubt not, that almost every bishop in the kingdom may do the same generous act, with less damage to their sees than his late grace of Dublin; much of whose lands were out in fee farms, or leases for lives: and I am sorry that the good example of such a prelate has not been followed.

But a great majority of the clergy's friends cannot hitherto reconcile themselves to this project; which they call a levelling principle, that must inevitably root out the seeds of all honest emulation, the legal parent of the greatest virtue and most generous actions among men; but which, in the general opinion (for I do not pretend to offer my own) will never more have room to exert itself in the breast of any clergyman whom this kingdom shall produce.

*The Right Rev. Dr. William King.

But, whether the consequences of these bills may, by the virtues and frailties of future bishops, sent over hither to rule the church, terminate in good or evil, I shall not presume to determine, since God can work the former out of the latter. However, one thing I can venture to assert, that from the earliest ages of Christianity, to the minute I am now writing, there never was a precedent of such a proceeding; much less was it to be feared, hoped, or apprehended, from such hands in any Christian country; and so it may pass for more than a phoenix; because it has risen without any assistance from the ashes of its sire.

The appearance of so many dissenters at the hearing of this cause, is what, I am told, has not been charged to the account of their prudence or moderation; because that action has been censured as a mark of triumph and insult before the victory is complete: since neither of these bills has yet passed the house of commons, and some are pleased to think it not impossible that they may be rejected. Neither do I hear, that there is an enacting clause in either of the bills, to apply any part of the divided or subdivided tithes toward increasing the stipends of the sectaries.--So that these gentlemen seem to be gratified like him, who, after having been kicked down stairs, took comfort when he saw his friend kicked down after him.

I have heard many more objections against several particulars of both these bills; but they are of a high nature, and carry such dreadful inuendoes, that I dare not mention them; resolving to give no offence, because I well know how obnoxious I have long been (although I conceive without any fault of my own) to the zeal and princi

ples of those, who place all difference in opinion concerning public matters, to the score of disaffection; whereof I am at least as innocent as the loudest of my detractors.

Dublin, Feb. 24. 1731-2.

SOME

REASONS

AGAINST

THE BILL FOR SETTLING THE TITHE

OF

HEMP, FLAX, &c. BY A MODUS.*

THE clergy did little expect to have any cause of complaint against the present house of com

* In 1733, a bill was presented in the Irish House of Commons for encouraging the growth of flax, by which (in imitation of a similar regulation in England) it was provided, that the tithe upon that production should be commuted for a certain modus, or composition in money. As flax is the staple commodity of Ireland, the loss which the clergy of that kingdom must have sustained, by the proposed commutation, especially in the course of years, must have been very great. Accordingly, a petition was presented, subscribed by our author, Dr John Stewart, Daniel Jackson, John Grattan, and others, on behalf of the clergy of Ireland, praying to be heard by counsel against the bill. Not satisfied with this interference, the dean arranged his arguments against the proposed plan of a modus, in the shape of the following pamphlet; nor did his usual weapon, satire, remain sheathed upon the occasion. For this bill, with the resistance made to the tithe of pasturage, called agistment, occasioned his bitterest and last poetical diatribe, entitled The Legion Club.

The opposition to the bill proved so effectual, that it was dropped.