strong light the correctness of these observations. The landowner, who is also the impropriator of the tithes, is non-resident, and the benefice being, as we have said, merely a perpetual curacy worth 201. per annum, there is no resident incumbent who might counteract the effects resulting from this cause. The state of the population corresponds exactly with the anticipations which we should have formed on entering a district thus circumstanced. As poachers and pilfering thieves, the greater number of the labouring poor are the pests of the neighbourhood: in appearance, habits, and manners they are visibly inferior to the inhabitants of parishes which do not labour under similar disadvantages. In passing through this neglected district, on a Sunday, the traveller will look in vain for the industrious and contented labourer proceeding with his wife and children, in trim and well preserved suits, to his parish church; on the contrary, he will here discover most of the cottagers dozing away the fumes of Saturday night's intemperance, or he will find them covered with filth and in their working dresses digging their gardens. As there is nothing peculiar in the local situation of the parish in question, all these enormous evils must be ascribed to the absence of any individual for whom its inhabitants might be disposed to feel respect, and who, through the medium of religious and moral instruction, aided by the influence of his professional character, might impress upon them the comforts and advantages of regular habits. We are convinced that even in this parish, demoralized as it is at present, the constant superintendence of an active and intelligent incumbent would, in a very short space of time, effect a thorough reformation in the manners and pursuits of its inhabitants.

It is, indeed, generally acknowledged, that nothing has more effect in forming and sustaining the character of an English yeoman, than the intercourse which takes place between a country gentleman and the peasantry by whom he is surrounded. This is a species of influence for which the public is, in an eminent degree, indebted to ecclesiastics. The established provision for the clergy secures, in most parishes, the constant residence of one well educated and intelligent individual. Looking, therefore, at our ecclesiastical establishment in this light alone, we regard it, in the highest degree, beneficial to the community. It is the means of spreading over the whole surface of England, an intelligent body of country gentlemen, possessing moderate incomes, who must, in almost every instance, reside in the district from which their revenues are derived, and who are impelled, by duty as well as policy, to attend to the moral and social habits of the population by which they are surrounded. Our parish churches,

:

with their attendant parsonages, may be represented as so many reservoirs of religious, moral and literary information, which diffuses itself gradually over the districts in which they stand as pebbles, thrown into stagnant water at regular distances, form circles which, gradually extending themselves till they meet, produce at length a gentle undulation of the whole surface, and preserve from corruption the element on which they act.

As an incidental, and at the same time most important advantage, which society derives from the present constitution of the English church, we may also mention the increased respectability it confers on that industrious and valuable class of men, which is engaged in instructing the youth of the nation. A very large portion of the English clergy, before they acquire benefices, are employed in the actual detail and drudgery of tuition. As teachers in private families, as the masters of endowed grammar schools in various districts of the country, or as public tutors in the universities, the earlier portion of their lives is devoted to an irksome pursuit, where the labour is always great and the remuneration generally scanty. It is a rare occurrence that any of them should by these means realize a provision which, at the approach of age, may enable him to withdraw from his occupation, and make room for the appointment of a younger and more efficient successor; but in the bosom of the church, the declining years of these guides of our youth find a shelter against the pressure of pecuniary distress. The greater number of them, supported by the intercession and recommendation of friends, rarely fail to acquire some small benefice which, although it seldom raises them to affluence, satisfies their wishes, and releasing them from more laborious employments, presents them with an opportunity of continuing useful to the public in a manner perfectly congenial with their acquirements and previous habits. There are few objects which more justly claim the attention of an enlightened statesman, than securing to the public the services of a learned and respectable body of school masters. If the patronage of the church presented no resource for placing most of these individuals, when the progress of time may have rendered them unequal to the duties of a laborious occupation, in a state of easy independence, the task of tuition would become degraded from the estimation in which it is at present held, and would, in consequence, devolve upon men inferior, both in literary attainments and respectability of character, to those who are now engaged in it. The high refinement and substantial literary attainments for which English gentlemen are distinguished, must be, in a great measure, ascribed to the character and acquirements of the instructors under whom their youth

is spent. The education of their children is the object nearest and dearest to the heart of most English gentlemen; and the ecclesiastical patronage of our noble and wealthy families enables them to obtain for this purpose the assistance of men whose talents and learning have raised them to distinction, and open to them a fair prospect of being advanced to some of the highest dignities which the church can confer on professional merit. It has been frequently observed, that many of those learned and eminent individuals, who have filled the highest dignities of the church, commenced their career as private tutors in some of our noble and wealthy families and it has been hence inferred, that they owed their professional success to the influence of patrons, secured by these services, rather than to the force of their own individual merit. This is an illiberal and incorrect representation. It assumes, that in the selection of tutors for their sons, noblemen are inattentive to the qualifications and abilities of those who are appointed to the charge, and that, having once retained them in that capacity, they blindly put them forward without regard to their claims or merit. It is, however, much more consistent with truth to assert, that the prospect opened through this avenue, to honourable and virtuous ambition, enables wealthy families to engage the services of individuals of superior abilities, who are subsequently promoted-not through the blind recommendation of friends, but because they have distinguished themselves as scholars, and, on account of this distinction, have been selected by their patrons to fulfil the most important duty which a parent can devolve upon another; and because they acquitted themselves in the trust reposed in them with fidelity and success.

We

There are, indeed, but few opinions on any subject, too absurd to meet with some advocates. We remember to have seen it somewhere mentioned, that university livings are injurious to the public, inasmuch as they give college tutors an opportunity of retiring before they have become absolutely incapacitated by age. wonder that it should not occur to those liberal economists, that if such a prospect of withdrawing did not present itself, few individuals of any talents and acquirements would be willing to engage in a laborious and responsible occupation: their abilities might be taken to a better market elsewhere, and the instruction of young men sent to the universities would, on this account, fall into the hands of teachers, infinitely less able and respectable than those who are at present engaged in the details of tuition. The certain, though somewhat distant prospect of preferment, with other incidental advantages connected with the situation, holds out an inducement which frequently prevails upon men of first rate abilities to become, for a time, college tutors: abolish

this prospect, and academical instructors would necessarily degrade into mere drudges, labouring for bread; and it would be idle to expect that any man of respectable connexions and competent attainments would, under such circumstances, turn his attention to this pursuit. Individuals with the feelings and acquirements which the instructors of the sons of English gentlemen ought to possess, who have devoted fifteen or twenty of the best years of their life to public tuition, have an irresistible claim to a competent provision when withdrawing from a laborious function, the duties of which they have faithfully and successfully discharged.

As strenuous and persevering efforts, however, are daily made to misrepresent and exaggerate the amount of church property, and as some of our readers may still be disposed to consider the clergy as a body of public functionaries paid by the state; we shall produce a few statistical details, which will show that, viewing ecclesiastics even in this incorrect light, the aggregate amount of their stipends by no means exceeds the scantiest remuneration which the most penurious financier would appropriate for their services. ';

England and Wales contain (see Population Return in 1821)

Total Number of Benefices in England and Wales. 11,342

We have every reason to believe that the above summary contams a correct representation of church patronage, as we have ourselves made an actual enumeration of all the rectories through

out

out the kingdom; and we have also counted all the vicarages, except those which are in the gift of private individuals.

The area of England and Wales, as measured upon Arrowsmith's large map, published in 1816, contains 57,960 square statute miles; and this measurement being founded upon a trigonometrical survey can, it must be evident, be liable to little (if to any) future alteration.

1

England and Wales therefore contain

57,960 × 640 (acres in a square mile)

Deduct for waste land, one-seventh,

Statute Acres.

37,094,400

5,299,200

31,795,200

Deduct as exempt from tithes, as Abbey lands, or by modus, one-tenth 3,179,520

Number of acres actually subject to tithes

28,615,680.

This number, being divided by 10,693, gives an average of 2,676 titheable acres to each parish. Having thus ascertained, on a basis to which we are satisfied no fair objection can be made, the number of acres in England and Wales subject to tithes, we shall subjoin what we consider a fair estimate of the annual value of the ecclesiastical payment, which, after the expiration of subsisting agreements, may be levied upon them.

In the patronage of the Crown, Bishops, Deans and Chapters, Colleges and other Public Establishments, there are

Acres.

1733 Rectories × 2676 (average No. of acres 4,637,508 at 3s. 6d. per acre=

in each parish)

}

2341 Vicarages, containing

Annual value of Public Livings

£. 811,563 6,264,516 at 15d. per do. - 391,532

1,203,095

Now, if we subtract the value of 5,516 vicarages and perpetual curacies from the whole amount of tithes levied in so many

VOL. XXIX. NO. LVIII.

parishes,

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