gy of England, has been the continual complaint of all men who wish well to the church, and many schemes have been thought on to redress it; yet an English vicar of 401. a year, lives much more comfortably than one of double the value in Ireland. His farmers, generally speaking, are able and willing to pay him his full dues : he has a decent church of ancient standing, filled every Lord's day with a large congregation of plain people, well clad, and behaving themselves as if they believed in God and Christ. He has a house and barn in repair, a field or two to graze his cows, with a garden and orchard. No guest expects more from him than a pot of ale; he lives like an honest plain farmer, as his wife is dressed but little better than goody. He is sometimes graciously invited by the squire, where he sits at an humble distance: if he gets the love of his people, they often make him little useful presents: he is happy by being born to no higher expectation; for he is usually the son of some ordinary tradesman, or middling farmer. His learning is much of a size with his birth and education; no more of either, than what a poor hungry servitor can be expected to bring with him from his college. It would be tedious to show the reverse of all this, in our distant poorer parishes through most parts of Ireland, wherein every reader may make the comparison.

Lastly, the honourable house of commons may consider, whether the scheme of multiplying beggarly clergymen through the whole kingdom, who must all have votes for choosing parliament men (provided they can prove their freeholds to be worth 40s. per annum, ultra reprisas) may not, by their numbers, have great influence upon elections; being entirely under the dependence of their bishops. For, by a moderate computation, after all the divi

sions and subdivisions of parishes, that my lords the bishops have power to make by their new laws,' there will, as soon as the present set of clergy goes off, be raised an army of ecclesiastical militants, able enough for any kind of service, except that of the altar.

I am indeed in some concern about a fund for building a thousand or two churches, wherein these probationers may read their wall lectures; and begin to doubt they must be contented with barns; which barns will be one great advancing step toward an accommodation with our true protestant brethren, the dissenters.

The scheme of encouraging clergymen to build houses, by dividing a living of 500l. a-year into ten parts, is a contrivance, the meaning whereof has got on the wrong side of my comprehension; unless it may be argued, that bishops build no houses because they are so rich; and therefore the inferior clergy will certainly build, if you reduce them to beggary. But I knew a very rich man of quality in England, who could never be persuaded to keep a servant out of livery; because such servants would be expensive, and apt, in time, to look like gentlemen: whereas the others were ready to submit to the basest offices, and at a cheaper pennyworth might increase his retinue.

I hear, it is the opinion of many wise men, that before these bills pass both houses, they should be sent back to England, with the following clauses inserted:

First, that whereas there may be about a dozen double bishoprics in Ireland, those bishoprics should be split, and given to different persons: and those of a single denomination be also divided into two, three, or four parts, as occasion shall require; otherwise there may be a question started, whether

twenty-two prelates can effectually extend their paternal care, and unlimited power, for the protection and correction of so great a number of spiritual subjects. But this proposal will meet with such furious objections, that I shall not insist upon it for I well remember to have read, what a terrible fright the frogs were in, upon a report that the sun was going to marry.

Another clause should be, that none of these twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty pounders may be suffered to marry, under the penalty of immediate deprivation; their marriages declared null, and their children bastards: for some desponding people take the kingdom to be in no condition of encouraging so numerous a breed of beggars.

A third clause will be necessary, that these humble gentry should be absolutely disqualified from giving votes in elections for parliament men.

Others add a fourth; which is, a clause of indulgence, that these reduced divines may be permitted to follow any lawful ways of living, which will not call them too often or too far from thei spiritual offices; for, unless I misapprehend, they are supposed to have episcopal ordination. For example; they may be lappers of linen, bailiffs of the manor; they may let blood, or apply plasters for three miles round; they may get a dispensation to hold the clerkship and sextonship of their own parish in commendam. Their wives and daughters may make shirts for the neighbourhood; or, if a barrack be near, for the soldiers: in linen countries they may card and spin, and keep a few looms in the house: they may let lodgings, and sell a pot of ale without doors, but not at home, unless to sober company, and at regular hours. It is by some thought a little hard, that in an affair of the last consequence to the very being of the

clergy in the points of liberty and property, as well as in their abilities to perform their duty, this whole reverend body, who are the established instructors of the nation in Christianity and moral virtues, and are the only persons concerned, should be the sole persons not consulted. Let any scholar show the like precedent in Christendom, for twelve hundred years past. An act of parliament for settling or selling an estate in a private family, is never passed, until all parties give consent. But in the present case the whole body of the clergy is, as themselves apprehend, determined to utter ruin, without once expecting or asking their opinion; and this by a scheme contrived only by one part of the convocation, while the other part, which has been chosen in the usual forms, wants only the regal permission to assemble, and consult about the affairs of the church, as their predecessors have always done in former ages where it is presumed, the lower house has a power of proposing canons, and a negative voice, as well as the upper. And God forbid (say these objectors) that there should be a real separate interest between the bishops and clergy, any more than there is between a man and his wife, a king and his people, or Christ and his church.

It seems there is a provision in the bill, that no parish shall be cut into scraps without the consent of several persons, who can be no sufferers in the matter; but I cannot find that the clergy lay much weight on this caution; because they argue, that the very persons from whom these bills took their rise, will have the greatest share in the decision.

I do not by any means conceive the crying sin of the clergy in this kingdom to be that of nonresidence. I am sure, it is many degrees less so here than in England, unless the possession of plu

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.