agree; and am therefore grieved when I find him charging the inconveniencies in the payment of tithes upon the clergy and their proctors. His lordship is above considering a very known and vulgar truth, that the meanest farmer has all manner of advantages against the most powerful clergyman, by whom it is impossible he can be wronged, although the minister were ever so ill disposed; the whole system of teizing, perplexing, and defrauding the proctor, or his master, being as well known to every ploughman, as the reaping or sowing of his corn, and much more artfully practised. Besides, the leading man in the parish must have his tithes at his own rate, which is hardly ever above one quarter of the value. And I have heard it computed by many skilful observers, whose interest was not concerned, that the clergy did not receive, throughout the kingdom, one half of what the laws have made their due.

As to his lordship's discontent against the bishop's court, I shall not interpose farther than in venturing my private opinion, that the clergy would be very glad to recover their just dues, by a more short, decisive, and compulsive method, than such a cramped limited jurisdiction will allow.

His lordship is not the only person disposed to give the clergy the honour of being the sole encouragers of all new improvements. If hops, hemp, flax, and twenty things more, are to be planted, the clergy alone must reward the industrious farmer, by abatement of the tithe. What if the owner of nine parts in ten, would

please to abate proportionably in his rent for every acre thus improved? Would not a man just dropped from the clouds, upon a full hearing, judge the demand to be at least as reasonable?

I believe no man will dispute his lordship's title to his estate; nor will I the jus divinum of tithes, which he mentions with some emotion. I suppose the affirmative would be of little advantage to the clergy, for the same reason, that a maxim in law has more weight in the world than an article of faith. And yet I think there may be such a thing as sacrilege; because it is frequently mentioned by Greek and Roman authors, as well as described in Holy Writ. This I am sure of, that his lordship would at any time excuse a parliament for not concerning itself in his properties, without his own consent.

The observations I have made upon his lordship's discourse, have not, I confess, been altogether proper to my subject: however, since he has been pleased therein to offer some proposals to the house of commons with relation to the clergy, I hope he will excuse me for differing from him; which proceeds from his own principle, the desire of defending liberty and property, that he has so strenuously and constantly maintained.

But the other writer openly declares for a law empowering the bishops to set fee-farms; and says, "Whoever intimates, that they will deny their consent to such a reasonable law, which the whole nation cries for, are enemies to them and the church." Whether this be his real opinion,

or only a strain of mirth and irony, the matter is. not much. However, my sentiments are so directly contrary to his, that I think, whoever impartially reads and considers what I have written upon this argument, has either no regard for the church established under the hierarchy of bishops, or will never consent to any law, that shall repeal or elude the limiting clause relating to the real half value, contained in the act of parliament decimo Caroli, for the preservation of the inheritance, rights and profits of lands belonging to the church and persons ecclesiastical; which was grounded upon reasons that do still and must for ever subsist.

October 21, 1723.

486

THE

BLUNDERS, DEFICIENCIES, DISTRESSES, AND
MISFORTUNES OF QUILCA.

Proposed to contain one-and-twenty volumes in quarto. Begun April 20, 1724; and to be continued weekly, if due en couragement be given.

BUT

one lock and a half in the whole house. The key of the garden door lost.

The empty bottles all uncleanable.
The vessels for drink few and leaky.

The new house all going to ruin before it is finished.

One hinge of the street door broke off, and the people forced to go out and come in at the back door.

The door of the Dean's bedchamber full of large chinks.

The beaufet letting in so much wind that it al most blows out the candles.

The Dean's bed threatening every night to fall under him.

The little table laose and broke in the joints. The passages open over head, by which the cats pass continually into the cellar and eat the victuals, for which one was tried, condemned, and executed by the sword.

The large table in a very tottering condition. But one chair in the house fit for sitting on, and that in a very ill state of health.

The kitchen perpetually crowded with savages. Not a bit of mutton to be had in the country. Want of beds, and a mutiny thereupon among the servants, till supplied from Kells.

An egregious want of all the most common necessary utensils.

Not a bit of turf this cold weather; and Mrs. Johnson and the Dean in person, with all their servants, forced to assist at the bog, in gathering up the wet bottoms of old clamps.

The grate in the ladies' bedchamber broke, and forced to be removed, by which they were compelled to be without fire, the chimney smoking intolerably; and the Dean's great-coat was employed to stop the wind from coming down the chimney, without which expedient they must have been starved to death.

A messenger sent a mile to borrow an old broken tun-dish.

Bottles stopped with bits of wood and tow, instead of corks.

Not one utensil for a fire, except an old pair of tongs, which travels through the house, and is likewise employed to take the meat out of the pot, for want of a flesh-fork.

Every servant an errant thief as to victuals and drink, and every comer and goer as errant a thief of every thing he or she can lay their hands on. The spit blunted with poking into bogs for timber, and tears the meat to pieces.

Bellum atque fæminam: or a kitchen war between nurse and a nasty crew of both sexes; she to preserve order and cleanliness, they to destroy both; and they generally are conquerors.

April 28. This morning the great fore-door quite open, dancing backward and forward with all its weight upon the lower hinge, which must have been broken if the Dean had not accidentally come and relieved it.