sons, the bishop can compel him to keep a family. With great difficulty, some slight mocurate, to whom he can allot any salary which dification of this enormous power was obtained, he may allot to any other curate; in other and it was a little improved in the amended words, he may take away half the income of bill. In the same way an attempt was made the clergyman, and instantly ruin him-and to try delinquent clergymen, by a jury of clerthis without any complaint from the vestry; gymen, nominated by the bishop, but this was with every testimonial of the most perfect satis- too bad, and was not endured for an instant; faction of the parish in the labours of a minis- still it showed the same love of power and the ter, who may, perhaps, be dedicating his whole same principle of impeccability, for the bill is life to their improvement. I think I remember expressly confined to all suits and complaints that the Bishop of London once attempted this against persons below the dignity and degree of before he was a commissioner, and was de- bishops. The truth is, that there are very few feated. I had no manner of doubt that it would men in either House of Parliament (ministers, speedily become the law, after the commission or any one else), who ever think of the happihad begun to operate. The Bishop of London ness and comfort of the working clergy, or beis said to have declared, after this trial, that if stow one thought upon guarding them from it was not law it should soon be law; and law, the increased and increasing power of their you will see, it will become. In fact he can encroaching masters. What is called taking slip into any ecclesiastical act of Parliament care of the church is taking care of the bishany thing he pleases. There is nobody to ops; and all bills for the management of the heed or contradict him; provided the power of clergy are left to the concoction of men who bishops is extended by it; no bishop is so un- very naturally believe they are improving the genteel as to oppose the act of his right re- church when they are increasing their own verend brother; and there are not many men power. There are many bishops too generous, who have knowledge, eloquence, or force of cha- too humane, and too Christian, to oppress a racter to stand up against the Bishop of Lon- poor clergyman; but I have seen (I am sorry don, and, above all, of industry to watch him. to say) many grievous instances of partiality, The ministry, and the lay lords, and the House rudeness, and oppression.† I have seen clergyof Commons, care nothing about the matter; men treated by them with a violence and conand the clergy themselves, in a state of the tempt which the lowest servant in the bishop's greatest ignorance as to what is passing in establishment would not have endured for a the world, find their chains heavier and heavier, single moment; and if there is a helpless, without knowing who or what has produced friendless, wretched being in the community, the additional incumbrance. A good honest it is a poor clergyman in the country with a whig minister should have two or three stout-large family. If there is an object of compashearted parish priests in his train to watch the sion, he is one. If there is any occasion in bishop's bills, and to see that they were constructed on other principles than that bishops can do no wrong, and cannot have too much power. The whigs do nothing of this, and yet they complain that they are hated by the clergy, and that in all elections the clergy are their bitterest enemies. Suppose they were to try a little justice, a little notice, and a little protection. It would take more time than quizzing, and contempt, but it might do some good. The bishop puts a great number of questions to his clergy, which they are to be compelled, by this new law of the commission, to answer, under a penalty; and if they do answer them, they incur, perhaps, a still heavier penalty. "Have you had two services in your church all the year?"" I decline to answer."-"Then I fine you 201."-"I have only had one service."" Then I fine you 250." In what other profession are men placed between this double fire of penalties, and compelled to criminate themselves? It has been disused in England, I believe, ever since the time of Laud and the Star Chamber.t

By the same bill, as it first emanated from the commission, a bishop could compel a clergyman to expend three years' income upon a house in which he had resided, perhaps, fifty years, and in which he had brought up a large

*The Bishop of London denies that he ever said this; but the Bishop of London affects short sharp sayings, seasoned, I am afraid, sometimes with a little indiscretion; and these sayings are not necessarily forgotten because he forgets them.

This attempt upon the happiness and independence of the clergy has been abandoned.

life where a great man should lay aside his office, and put on those kind looks, and use those kind words which raise the humble from the dust, these are the occasions when those best parts of the Christian character ought to be displayed.

I would instance the unlimited power which a bishop possesses over a curate, as a very unfair degree of power for any man to possess. Take the following dialogue which represents a real event.

Bishop.-Sir, I understand you frequent the meetings of the Bible Society.

Curate. Yes, my lord, I do.

Bishop.-Sir, I tell you plainly, if you continue to do so, I shall silence you from preaching in my diocese.

Curate. My lord, I am very sorry to incur your indignation, but I frequent that society

I perceive that the Archbishop of Canterbury borrows money for the improvement of his palace, and pays the principal off in forty years. This is quite as soon as a debt incurred for such public purposes ought to be paid off, and the archbishop has done rightly to take that period. In process of time I think it very likely that this indulgence will be extended to country clergymen, who they are compelled to undertake) in twenty years; and are compelled to pay off the debts for buildings (which by the new bill, not yet passed, this indulgence is extended to thirty years. Why poor clergymen have been brances at the rate of one-twentieth per annum, and are compelled for the last five years to pay off the incumnow compelled to pay them off, or will, when the bill passes, be so compelled, at the rate of one-thirtieth per annum, when the archbishop takes forty years to do the same thing, and has made that bargain in the year 1831, I really cannot tell. A clergyman who does not reside, is forced to pay off his building debt in ten years.

+ What bishops like best in their clergy is a droppingdown deadness of manner.

upon principle, because I think it eminently
serviceable to the cause of the Gospel.
Bishop.-Sir, I do not enter into your reasons,
but tell you plainly, if you continue to go there
you shall be silenced.

the power well know) that they should not come before the public. I have no son nor son-in-law in the church, for whom I want any patronage. If I were young enough to survive any incumbent of St. Paul's, my own prefer

it at all probable I should avail myself of the opportunity. I am a sincere advocate for church reform; but I think it very possible, and even very easy, to have removed all odium from the establishment in a much less violent and revolutionary manner, without committing or attempting such flagrant acts of injustice, and without leaving behind an odious court of inquisition, which will inevitably fall into the hands of a single individual, and will be an eternal source of vexation, jealousy, and change. I give sincere credit to the commissioners for good intentions-how can such men have intended any thing but good? And I firmly believe that they are hardly conscious of the extraordinary predilection they have shown for bishops in all their proceedings; it

The young man did go, and was silenced-ment is too agreeably circumstanced to make and as bishops have always a great deal of clever machinery at work of testimonials and bene-decessits, and always a lawyer at their elbow, under the name of a secretary, a curate excluded from one diocese is excluded from all. His remedy is an appeal to the archbishop from the bishop; his worldly goods, however, amount to ten pounds; he never was in London; he dreads such a tribunal as an archbishop-he thinks, perhaps, in time, the bishop may be softened-if he is compelled to restore him, the enmity will be immortal. It would be just as rational to give to a frog or a rabbit, upon which the physician is about to experiment, an appeal to the Zoological Society, as to give to a country curate an appeal to the archbishop against his purple oppressor. The errors of the bill are a public concern-is like those errors in tradesmen's bills of the injustice of the bill is a private concern. Give us our patronage for life.* Treat the cathedrals all alike, with the same measure of justice. Don't divide livings in the patronage of present incumbents without their consent or do the same with all livings. If these points are attended to in the forthcoming bill, all complaint of unfairness and injustice will be at an end. I shall still think, that the commissioners have been very rash and indiscreet, that they have evinced a contempt for existing institutions, and a spirit of destruction which will be copied to the life hereafter, by commissioners of a very different description. Bishops live in high places with high people, or with little people who depend upon them. They walk delicately, like Agag. They hear only one sort of conversation, and avoid bold, reckless men, as a lady veils herself from rough breezes. I am half inclined to think, sometimes, that the bishop-commissioners really think that they are finally settling the church; that the House of Lords will be open to the bench for ages; and that many archbishops in succession will enjoy their fifteen thousand pounds a year in Lambeth. I wish I could do for the bishop-commissioners what his mother did for Æneas, in the last days of Troy :

"Omnem quæ nunc obducta tuenti Mortales hebetat visus tibi, et humida circum Caligat, nubem eripiam.

Apparent diræ facies," &c. &c.

It is ominous for liberty, when Sydney and Russell cannot agree; but when Lord John Russell, in the House of Commons, said, that we showed no disposition to make any sacrifices for the good of the church, I took the liberty to remind that excellent person that he must first of all prove it to be for the good of the church that our patronage should be taken away by the bishops, and then he might find fault with us for not consenting to the sacrifice. I have little or no personal nor pecuniary interest in these things, and have made all possible exertion (as two or three persons in

This has now been given to us.

which the retail arithmetician is really unconscious, but which, somehow or another, always happen to be in his own favour. Such men as the commissioners do not say this patronage belongs justly to the cathedrals, and we will take it away unjustly for ourselves; but, after the manner of human nature, a thousand weak reasons prevail, which would have no effect, if self-interest were not concerned; they are practising a deception on themselves, and sincerely believe they are doing right. When I talk of spoil and plunder, I do not speak of the intention, but of the effect, and the precedent.

Still the commissioners are on the eve of entailing an immense evil upon the country, and unfortunately, they have gone so far, that it is necessary they should ruin the cathedrals, to preserve their character for consistency. They themselves have been frightened a great deal too much by the mob; have overlooked the chances in their favour produced by delay; have been afraid of being suspected (as tories) of not doing enough; and have allowed themselves to be hurried on by the constitutional impetuosity of one man, who cannot be brought to believe that wisdom often consists in leaving alone, standing still and doing nothing. From the joint operation of all these causes, all the cathedrals of England will, in a few weeks, be knocked about our ears. You, Mr. Archdeacon Singleton, will sit like Caius Marius on the ruins, and we shall lose for ever the wisest scheme for securing a well-educated clergy upon the most economical terms, and for preventing that low fanaticism which is the greatest curse upon human happiness, and the greatest enemy of true religion. We shall have all the evils of an establishment, and none of its good.

You tell me I shall be laughed at as a rich and overgrown churchman; be it so. I have been laughed at a hundred times in my life, and care little or nothing about it. If I am well provided for now-I have had my full share of the blanks in the lottery as the prizes. Till thirty years of age I never received a farthing from the church; then 50l. per aprum

for two years-then nothing for ten years- and therefore in fashion, when the smallest then 500l. per annum, increased for two or appearance of it seemed to condemn a churchthree years to 800l., till, in my grand climac-man to the grossest of obloquy, and the most teric, I was made canon of St. Paul's; and hopeless poverty. It may suit the purpose of before that period, I had built a parsonage- the ministers to flatter the bench; it does not house with farm offices for a large farm, which suit mine. I do not choose in my old age to cost me 4,000l., and had reclaimed another be tossed as a prey to the bishops; I have not from ruins at the expense of 2,000l. A lawyer, deserved this of my whig friends. I know or a physician in good practice, would smile very well there can be no justice for deans and at this picture of great ecclesiastical wealth, chapters, and that the momentary lords of the and yet I am considered as a perfect monster earth will receive our statement with derision of ecclesiastical prosperity. and persiflage-the great principle which is now called in for the government of mankind. Nobody admires the general conduct of the whig administration more than I do. They have conferred, in their domestic policy, the most striking benefits on the country. To say that there is no risk in what they have done is mere nonsense-there is great risk; and all honest men must balance to counteract it-holding back as firmly down hill as they

I should be very sorry to give offence to the dignified ecclesiastics who are in the commission; I hope they will allow for the provocation, if I have been a little too warm in the defence of St. Paul's, which I have taken a solemn oath to defend. I was at school and college with the Archbishop of Canterbury; fifty-three years ago he knocked me down with the chess-board for check-mating him-and now he is attempting to take away my patron-pulled vigorously up hill. Still, great as the age. I believe these are the only two acts of violence he ever committed in his life: the interval has been one of gentleness, kindness, and the most amiable and high-principled courtesy to his clergy. For the Archbishop of York, I feel an affectionate respect-the result of that invariable kindness I have received from him: and who can see the Bishop of London without admiring his superior talents-being pleased with his society, without admitting that, upon the whole, the public is benefited by his ungovernable passion for business; and without receiving the constant workings of a really good heart, as an atonement for the occasional excesses of an impetuous disposition? I am quite sure if the tables had been turned, and if it had been his lot, as a canon, to fight against the encroachments of bishops, that he would have made as stout a defence as I have done-the only difference is that he would have done it with much greater

talent.

As for my friends the whigs, I neither wish to offend them nor any body else. I consider myself to be as good a whig as any amongst them. I was a whig before many of them were born-and while some of them were tories and waverers. I have always turned out to fight their battles, and when I saw no other clergyman turn out but myself-and this in times before liberality was well recompensed,

* I have heard that the Bishop of London employs eight hours per day in the government of his diocese-in which no part of Asia, Africa, or America is included. The world is, I believe, taking one day with another, governed in about a third of that time.

risk is, it was worth while to incur it in the
poor-law bill, in the tithe bill, in the corpora
tion bill, and in the circumscription of the
Irish Protestant Church. In all these matters,
the whig ministry, after the heat of party is
over, and when Joseph Hume and Wilson
Croker* are powdered into the dust of death,
will gain great and deserved fame. In the
question of the church commission they have
behaved with the grossest injustice; delighted
to see this temporary delirium of archbishops
and bishops, scarcely believing their eyes,
and carefully suppressing their laughter, when
they saw these eminent conservatives laying
about them with the fury of Mr. Tyler or Mr.
Straw; they have taken the greatest care not
to disturb them, and to give them no offence:
"Do as you like, my lords, with the chapters
and the parochial clergy; you will find some
pleasing morsels in the ruins of the cathe-
drals. Keep for yourselves any thing you
like-whatever is agreeable to you cannot be
unpleasant to us." In the mean time, the old
friends of, and the old sufferers for, liberty, do
not understand this new meanness, and are
not a little astonished to find their leaders
prostrate on their knees before the lords of the
church, and to receive no other answer from
them than that, if they are disturbed in their
adulation, they will immediately resign!
I remain, my dear Sir, with sincere good
will and respect, yours,
SYDNEY SMITH.

I meant no harm by the comparison, but I have made two bitter enemies by it.

SECOND LETTER TO ARCHDEACON SINGLETON.

MY DEAR SIR,

Ir is a long time since you heard from me, and in the mean time the poor Church of England has been trembling, from the bishop who sitteth upon the throne, to the curate who rideth upon the hackney horse. I began writing on the subject to avoid bursting from indignation; and, as it is not my habit to recede, I will go on till the Church of England is either up or down-semianimous on its back, or vigorous on its legs.

Two or three persons have said to me"Why, after writing an entertaining and successful letter to Archdeacon Singleton, do you venture upon another, in which you may probably fail, and be weak or stupid?" All this I utterly despise; I write upon these matters not to be entertaining, but because the subjects are very important, and because I have strong opinions upon them. If what I write is liked, so much the better; but liked or not liked, sold or not sold, Wilson Crockered or not Wilson Crockered, I will write. If you ask me who excites me, I answer you, it is that judge who stirs good thoughts in honest hearts-under whose warrant I impeach the wrong, and by whose help I hope to chastise it.

There are, in most cathedrals, two sorts of prebendaries-the one resident, the other nonresident. It is proposed by the church commission to abolish all the prebendaries of the latter and many of the former class; and it is the prebendaries of the former class, the resident prebendaries, whom I wish to save.

ence is known, their preferment coveted, and to get a stall, and to be preceded by men with silver rods, is the bait which the ambitious squire is perpetually holding out to his second son. What prebendary is next to come into residence, is as important a topic to the cathedral town, and ten miles around it, as what the evening or morning star may be to the astronomer. I will venture to say, there is not a man of good humour, sense, and worth, within ten miles of Worcester, who does not hail the rising of Archdeacon Singleton in the horizon as one of the most agreeable events of the year. If such sort of preferments are extinguished, a very serious evil (as I have often said before) is done to the church-the service becomes unpopular, further spoliation is dreaded, the whole system is considered to be altered and degraded, capital is withdrawn from the church, and no one enters into the profession but the sons of farmers and little tradesmen, who would be footmen if they were not vicars-or figure on the coach-box if they were not lecturing from the pulpit.

But what a practical rebuke to the commissioners, after all their plans and consultations and carvings of cathedral preferment, to leave it integral, and untouched! It is some comfort, however, to me, to think that the persons of all others to whom this preservation of cathedral property would give the greatest pleasure, are the ecclesiastical commissioners themselves. Can any one believe that the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Bishop of The non-resident prebendaries never come London, really wishes for the confiscation of near the cathedral; they are just like so many any cathedral property, or that they were country gentlemen; the difference is, that their driven to it by any thing but fear, mingled, appointments are elective, not hereditary. perhaps, with a little vanity of playing the part They have houses, manors, lands, and every of great reformers? They cannot, of course, appendage of territorial wealth and import- say for themselves what I say for them; but ance. Their value is very different. I have of what is really passing in the ecclesiastical one, Neasdon, near Willesdon, which consists minds of these great personages, I have no of a quarter of an acre of land, worth a few more doubt than I have of what passes in the shillings per annum, but animated by the mind of the prisoner when the prosecutor reburden of repairing a bridge, which some-commends and relents, and the judge says he times costs the unfortunate prebendary fifty or sixty pounds. There are other non-resident prebendaries, however, of great value; and one, I believe, which would be worth, if the years or lives were run out, from 40,000l. to 60,000l. per annum.

Not only do these prebendaries do nothing, and are never seen, but the existence of the preferment is hardly known; and the abolition of the preferment, therefore, would not in any degree lessen the temptation to enter into the church, while the mass of these preferments would make an important fund for the improvement of small livings. The residentiary prebendaries, on the contrary, perform all the services of the cathedral church; their exist

shall attend to the recommendation.

What harm does a prebend do, in a politicoeconomical point of view? The alienation of the property for three lives, or twenty-one years, and the almost certainty that the tenant has of renewing, give him sufficient interest in the soil for all purposes of cultivation,* and a long series of elected clergymen is rather

*The church, it has been urged, do not plant-they do not extend their woods; but almost all cathedrals possess woods, and regularly plant a succession, so as to keep them up. A single evening of dice and hazard does not doom their woods to sudden destruction; a life tenant does not cut down all the timber to make the most of his estate; the woods of ecclesiastical bodies aro managed upon a fixed and settled plan, and considering the sudden prodigalities of laymen, I should not be afraid of a comparison."