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. But 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
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 hath
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, hath not been charged to the account of their prudence
or moderation; because that action hath been censured as a mark of
triumph and insult before the victory is complete; since neither of
these bills hath 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, towards increasing the
stipends of the sectaries. So that these gentlemen seem to be gratified
like him, who, after having been kicked downstairs, 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
innuendos, 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 principles 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.


NOTE.

About the end of 1733 the Irish House of Commons had under consideration
a bill for the encouragement of the growth of flax and the manufacture
of linen. This bill contained a clause by which the tithe upon flax
should be commuted by a _modus_ or money composition. The clergy, to
whom this tithe was an important source of revenue, and, naturally, not
wishing to lose its advantage, took steps to petition Parliament to be
heard by counsel against the bill. Swift signed the petition, which set
forth the injury which would be done to their order if the clause in the
bill, then before the House, were allowed to become law. In addition to
this he committed and arranged his arguments to writing, and issued them
in the following pamphlet. The activity against the bill proved so
efficacious that the House of Commons dropped it. It may be remarked
that Swift's interference was purely disinterested, since no part of the
revenue of St. Patrick's, as Monck Mason points out, comes from the
"district appropriated to the culture of flax;" nor did Swift, "or any
of his predecessors or successors, ever receive one shilling upon
account of that tithe."

This attempt on the part of the House of Commons to regulate the affairs
of the clergy of Ireland seems to have been one of a series which
divided laity and clergy into two strongly opposing parties. On the one
side were the House of Commons and its supporters, on the other the
general body of the Irish clergy, with, for a time, at any rate, Swift
at the head. The tithe of pasturage, or, as it was called, the tithe of
agistment, was being strongly resisted at the time, and many of the
clergy were forced to sue in court before they could obtain it. The
matter of this tithe had been already before an Irish court in 1707, and
had been settled in favour of the suing clergyman, one Archdeacon Neal;
and although the cause was removed to King's Bench in England, the
previous judgment was confirmed. In spite of this decision, however, the
tithe continued to be a subject of litigation, and the landed
proprietors even formed themselves into associations for the purpose of
resisting the clergy's claim. In 1734 the House of Commons aggravated
matters by passing resolutions against the claims, many of which were
then the subject of legal actions, and prevented decisions being come to
while it had the matter under its consideration. From the pamphlets
written at the time it may easily be seen that this interference on the
part of the lower House was both unseemly and unjust. Its conduct so
roused Swift that his indignation found expression in one of his
bitterest and most terrible poetical satires--"The Legion Club"--a
satire so bitter and so scathing that reading it now, after the lapse of
more than a century and a half, one shudders at its invective--"a
blasting flood of filth and vitriol, out of some hellish fountain," Mr.
Churton Collins calls it. We are told that its composition brought on a
violent attack of vertigo, and it remained unfinished.

The text here given is that of the first edition collated with those
given by Faulkner, Hawkesworth, and Scott.

[T.S.]


  SOME
  REASONS
  AGAINST THE
  Bill for settling the Tyth of _Hemp, Flax,_ &c. by a _Modus_.

MDCCXXIV.


The Clergy did little expect to have any cause of complaint against the
present House of Commons; who in the last sessions, were pleased to
throw out a Bill[1] sent them from the Lords, which that reverend body
apprehended would be very injurious to them, if it passed into a law;
and who, in the present sessions, defeated the arts and endeavours of
schismatics to repeal the Sacramental Test.

[Footnote 1: For the bishops to divide livings. See the two preceding
Tracts. [T. S.]]

For, although it hath been allowed on all hands, that the former of
those Bills might, by its necessary consequences, be very displeasing to
the lay gentlemen of the kingdom, for many reasons purely secular; and,
that this last attempt for repealing the Test, did much more affect, at
present, the temporal interest than the spiritual; yet the whole body of
the lower Clergy have, upon both these occasions, expressed equal
gratitude to that honourable House, for their justice and steadiness, as
if the clergy alone were to receive the benefit.

It must needs be, therefore, a great addition to the Clergy's grief,
that such an assembly as the present House of Commons; should now, with
an expedition more than usual, agree to a bill for encouraging the linen
manufacture; with a clause, whereby the Church is to lose two parts in
three, of the legal tithe in flax and hemp.

Some reasons, why the Clergy think such a law will be a great hardship
upon them, are, I conceive, those that follow. I shall venture to
enumerate them with all deference due to that honourable assembly.

_First_; the Clergy suppose that they have not, by any fault or demerit,
incurred the displeasure of the nation's representatives: neither can
the declared loyalty of the present set, from the highest prelate to the
lowest vicar, be in the least disputed: because, there are hardly ten
clergymen, through the whole kingdom, for more than nineteen years past,
who have not been either preferred entirely upon account of their
declared affection to the Hanover line; or higher promoted as the due
reward of the same merit.

There is not a landlord in the whole kingdom, residing some part of the
year at his country-seat, who is not, in his own conscience, fully
convinced, that the tithes of his minister have gradually sunk, for some
years past, one-third, or at least one-fourth of their former value,
exclusive of all non-solvencies.

The payment of tithes in this kingdom, is subject to so many frauds,
brangles, and other difficulties, not only from Papists and Dissenters,
but even from those who profess themselves Protestants; that by the
expense, the trouble, and vexation of collecting, or bargaining for
them, they are, of all other rents, the most precarious, uncertain, and
ill paid.

The landlords in most parishes expect, as a compliment, that they shall
pay little more than half the value of their tithes for the lands they
hold in their own hands; which often consist of large domains: And it is
the minister's interest to make them easy upon that article, when he
considers what influence those gentlemen have upon their tenants.

The Clergy cannot but think it extremely severe, that in a bill for
encouraging the linen manufacture, they alone must be the sufferers, who
can least afford it: If, as I am told, there be a tax of three thousand
pounds a year, paid by the public, for a further encouragement to the
said manufacture; are not the Clergy equal sharers in the charge with
the rest of their fellow subjects? What satisfactory reason can be
therefore given, why they alone should bear the whole additional weight,
unless it will be alleged that their property is not upon an equal foot
with the properties of other men? They acquire their own small pittance,
by at least as honest means, as their neighbours, the landlords, possess
their estates; and have been always supposed, except in rebellious or
fanatical times, to have as good a title: For, no families now in being
can shew a more ancient. Indeed, if it be true, that some persons (I
hope they were not many) were seen to laugh when the rights of the
Clergy were mentioned; in this case, an opinion may possibly be soon
advanced, that they have no rights at all. And this is likely enough to
gain ground, in proportion as the contempt of all religion shall
increase; which is already in a very forward way.

It is said, there will be also added to this Bill a clause for
diminishing the tithe of hops, in order to cultivate that useful plant
among us: And here likewise the load is to lie entirely on the shoulders
of the Clergy, while the landlords reap all the benefit. It will not be
easy to foresee where such proceedings are like to stop: Or whether by
the same authority, in civil times, a parliament may not as justly
challenge the same power in reducing all things titheable, not below the
tenth part of the product, (which is and ever will be the Clergy's
equitable right) but from a tenth-part to a sixtieth or eightieth, and
from thence to nothing.

I have heard it granted by skilful persons, that the practice of taxing
the Clergy by parliament, without their own consent, is a new thing, not
much above the date of seventy years: before which period, in times of
peace, they always taxed themselves. But things are extremely altered at
present: It is not now sufficient to tax them in common with their
fellow subjects, without imposing an additional tax upon them, from
which, or from anything equivalent, all their fellow-subjects are
exempt; and this in a country professing Christianity.

The greatest part of the Clergy throughout this kingdom, have been
stripped of their glebes by the confusion of times, by violence, fraud,
oppression, and other unlawful means: All which glebes are now in the
hands of the laity. So that they now are generally forced to lie at the
mercy of landlords, for a small piece of ground in their parishes, at a
most exorbitant rent, and usually for a short term of years; whereon to
build a house, and enable them to reside. Yet, in spite of these
disadvantages, I am a witness that they are generally more constant
residents than their brethren in England; where the meanest vicar hath a
convenient dwelling, with a barn, a garden, and a field or two for his
cattle; besides the certainty of his little income from honest farmers,
able and willing, not only to pay him his dues, but likewise to make him
presents, according to their ability, for his better support. In all
which circumstances, the Clergy of Ireland meet with a treatment
directly contrary.

It is hoped, the honourable House will consider that it is impossible
for the most ill-minded, avaricious, or cunning clergyman, to do the
least injustice to the meanest cottager in his parish, in any bargain
for tithes, or other ecclesiastical dues. He can, at the utmost, only
demand to have his tithe fairly laid out; and does not once in a hundred
times obtain his demand. But every tenant, from the poorest cottager to
the most substantial farmer, can, and generally doth impose upon the
minister, by fraud, by theft, by lies, by perjuries, by insolence, and
sometimes by force; notwithstanding the utmost vigilance and skill of
himself and his proctor. Insomuch, that it is allowed, that the Clergy
in general receive little more than one-half of their legal dues; not
including the charges they are at in collecting or bargaining for them.

The land rents of Ireland are computed to about two millions, whereof
one-tenth amounts to two hundred thousand pounds. The benefited
clergymen, excluding those of this city, are not reckoned to be above
five hundred; by which computation, they should each of them possess two
hundred pounds a year, if those tithes were equally divided, although in
well cultivated corn countries it ought to be more; whereas they hardly
receive one half of that sum; with great defalcations, and in very bad
payments. There are indeed, a few glebes in the north pretty
considerable, but if these and all the rest were in like manner equally
divided, they would not add five pounds a year to every clergyman.
Therefore, whether the condition of the Clergy in general among us be
justly liable to envy, or able to bear a heavy burden, which neither the
nobility, nor gentry, nor tradesmen, nor farmers, will touch with one of
their fingers; this, I say, is submitted to the honourable House.

One terrible circumstance in this Bill, is, that of turning the tithe of
flax and hemp into what the lawyers call a _Modus_, or a certain sum in
lieu of a tenth part of the product. And by this practice of claiming a
_Modus_ in many parishes by ancient custom, the Clergy in both kingdoms
have been almost incredible sufferers. Thus, in the present case, the
tithe of a tolerable acre of flax, which by a medium is worth twelve
shillings, is by the present Bill reduced to four shillings. Neither is
this the worst part in a _Modus_; every determinate sum must in process
of time sink from a fourth to a four-and-twentieth part, or a great deal
lower, by that necessary fall attending the value of money, which is now
at least nine tenths lower all over Europe than it was four hundred
years ago, by a gradual decline; and even a third part at least within
our own memories, in purchasing almost everything required for the
necessities or conveniencies of life; as any gentleman can attest, who
hath kept house for twenty years past. And this will equally affect poor
countries as well as rich. For, although, I look upon it as an
impossibility that this kingdom should ever thrive under its present
disadvantages, which without a miracle must still increase; yet, when
the whole cash of the nation shall sink to fifty thousand pounds; we
must in all our traffic abroad, either of import or export, go by the
general rate at which money is valued in those countries that enjoy the
common privileges of human kind. For this reason, no corporation, (if
the Clergy may presume to call themselves one) should by any means grant
away their properties in perpetuity upon any consideration whatsoever;
Which is a rock that many corporations have split upon, to their great
impoverishment, and sometimes to their utter undoing. Because they are
supposed to subsist for ever; and because no determination of money is
of any certain perpetual intrinsic value. This is known enough in
England, where estates let for ever, some hundred years ago, by several
ancient noble families, do not at this present pay their posterity a
twentieth part of what they are now worth at an easy rate.

A tax affecting one part of a nation, which already bears its full share
in all parliamentary impositions, cannot possibly be just, except it be
inflicted as a punishment upon that body of men which is taxed, for some
great demerit or danger to the public apprehended from those upon whom
it is laid: Thus the Papists and Nonjurors have been doubly taxed for
refusing to give proper securities to the government; which cannot be
objected against the Clergy. And therefore, if this Bill should pass; I
think it ought to be with a preface, shewing wherein they have offended,
and for what disaffection or other crime they are punished.

If an additional excise upon ale, or a duty upon flesh and bread, were
to be enacted, neither the victualler, butcher, or baker would bear any
more of the charge than for what themselves consumed; but it would be an
equal general tax through the whole kingdom: Whereas, by this Bill, the
Clergy alone are avowedly condemned to be deprived of their ancient,
inherent, undisputed rights, in order to encourage a manufacture by
which all the rest of the kingdom are supposed to be gainers.

This Bill is directly against _Magna Charta_, whereof the first clause
is for confirming the inviolable rights of Holy Church; as well as
contrary to the oath taken by all our kings at their coronation, where
they swear to defend and protect the Church in all its rights.

A tax laid upon employments is a very different thing. The possessors of
civil and military employments are no corporation; neither are they any
part of our constitution: Their salaries, pay, and perquisites are all
changeable at the pleasure of the prince who bestows them, although the
army be paid from funds raised and appropriated by the legislature. But
the Clergy as they have little reason to expect, so they desire no more
than their ancient legal dues; only indeed with the removal of many
grievous impediments in the collection of them; which it is to be feared
they must wait for until more favourable times. It is well known, that
they have already of their own accord shewn great indulgence to their
people upon this very article of flax, seldom taking above a fourth part
of their tithe for small parcels, and oftentimes nothing at all from new
beginners; waiting with patience until the farmers were able, and until
greater quantities of land were employed in that part of husbandry;
never suspecting that their good intentions should be perverted in so
singular a manner to their detriment, by that very assembly, which,
during the time that convocations (which are an original part of our
constitution ever since Christianity became national among us) are
thought fit to be suspended, God knows for what reason, or from what
provocations; I say, from that very assembly, who, during the intervals
of convocations, should rather be supposed to be guardians of the rights
and properties of the Clergy, than to make the least attempt upon
either.

I have not heard upon inquiry, that any of those gentlemen, who, among
us without doors, are called the Court Party, discover the least zeal in
this affair. If they had thoughts to interpose, it might be conceived
they would shew their displeasure against this Bill, which must very
much lessen the value of the King's patronage upon promotion to vacant
sees; in the disposal of deaneries, and other considerable preferments
in the Church, which are in the donation of the Crown; whereby the
viceroys will have fewer good preferments to bestow on their dependants,
as well as upon the kindred of members, who may have a sufficient stock
of that sort of merit, whatever it may be, which may in future times
most prevail.

The Dissenters, by not succeeding in their endeavours to procure a
repeal of the Test, have lost nothing, but continue in full enjoyment of
their toleration; while the Clergy without giving the least offence, are
by this Bill deprived of a considerable branch of their ancient legal
rights, whereby the schismatical party will have the pleasure of
gratifying their revenge. _Hoc Graii voluere._

The farmer will find no relief by this _Modus_, because, when his
present lease shall expire, his landlord will infallibly raise the rent
in an equal proportion, upon every part of land where flax is sown, and
have so much a better security for payment at the expense of the Clergy.

If we judge by things past, it little avails that this Bill is to be
limited to a certain time of ten, twenty, or thirty years. For no
landlord will ever consent that a law shall expire, by which he finds
himself a gainer; and of this there are many examples, as well in
England, as in this kingdom.

The great end of this Bill is, by proper encouragement to extend the
linen manufacture into those counties where it hath hitherto been little
cultivated: But this encouragement _of lessening the tithe of flax and
hemp_ is one of such a kind as, it is to be feared, will have a directly
contrary effect. Because, if I am rightly informed, no set of men hath
for their number and fortunes been more industrious and successful than
the Clergy, in introducing that manufacture into places which were
unacquainted with it; by persuading their people to sow flax and hemp,
by procuring seed for them and by having them instructed in the
management thereof; and this they did not without reasonable hopes of
increasing the value of their parishes after some time, as well as of
promoting the benefit of the public. But if this _Modus_ should take
place, the Clergy will be so far from gaining that they will become
losers by any extraordinary care, by having their best arable lands
turned to flax and hemp, which are reckoned great impoverishers of land:
They cannot therefore be blamed, if they should shew as much zeal to
prevent its being introduced or improved in their parishes as they
hitherto have shewed in the introducing and improving of it. This, I am
told, some of them have already declared at least so far as to resolve
not to give themselves any more trouble than other men about promoting a
manufacture by the success of which, they only of all men are to be
sufferers. Perhaps the giving them even a further encouragement than the
law doth, as it now stands, to a set of men who might on many accounts
be so useful to this purpose, would be no bad method of having the great
end of the Bill more effectually answered: But this is what they are far
from desiring; all they petition for is no more than to continue on the
same footing with the rest of their fellow-subjects.

If this _Modus_ of paying by the acre be to pass into a law, it were to
be wished that the same law would appoint one or more sworn surveyors in
each parish to measure the lands on which flax and hemp are sown, as
also would settle the price of surveying, and determine whether the
incumbent or farmer is to pay for each annual survey. Without something
of this kind, there must constantly be disputes between them, and the
neighbouring justices of peace must be teazed as often as those disputes
happen.

I had written thus far, when a paper was sent to me with several reasons
against the Bill, some whereof although they have been already touched,
are put in a better light, and the rest did not occur to me. I shall
deliver them in the author's own words.

N.B. Some Alterations have been made in the Bill about the _Modus_,
since the above paper was writ; but they are of little moment.


*****       *****       *****       *****




SOME

FURTHER   REASONS

AGAINST

THE BILL FOR SETTLING THE TITHE

OF

HEMP, FLAX, &c.


I. That tithes are the patrimony of the Church: And if not of Divine
original, yet at least of great antiquity.

II. That all purchases and leases of titheable lands, for many centuries
past, have been made and taken, subject to the demand of tithes, and
those lands sold and taken just so much the cheaper on that account.

III. That if any lands are exempted from tithes; or the legal demands
of such tithes lessened by act of parliament, so much value is taken
from the proprietor of the tithes, and vested in the proprietor of the
lands, or his head tenants.

IV. That no innocent unoffending person can be so deprived of his
property without the greatest violation of common justice.

V. That to do this upon a prospect of encouraging the linen, or any
other manufacture, is acting upon a very mistaken and unjust
supposition, inasmuch as the price of the lands so occupied will be no
way lessened to the farmer by such a law.

VI. That the Clergy are content cheerfully to bear (as they now do) any
burden in common with their fellow-subjects, either for the support of
his Majesty's government, or the encouragement of the trade of the
nation but think it very hard, that they should be singled out to pay
heavier taxes than others, at a time when by the decrease of the value
of their parishes they are less able to bear them.

VII. That the legislature hath heretofore distinguished the Clergy by
exemptions, and not by additional loads, and the present Clergy of the
kingdom hope they have not deserved worse of the legislature than their
predecessors.

VIII. That by the original constitution of these kingdoms, the Clergy
had the sole right of taxing themselves, and were in possession of that
right as low as the Restoration: And if that right be now devolved upon
the Commons by the cession of the Clergy, the Commons can be considered
in this case in no other light than as the guardians of the Clergy.

IX. That besides those tithes always in the possession of the Clergy;
there are some portion of tithes lately come into their possession by
purchase; that if this clause should take place, they would not be
allowed the benefit of these purchases, upon an equal footing of
advantage with the rest of their fellow-subjects. And that some tithes
in the hands of impropriators, are under settlements and mortgages.

X. That the gentlemen of this House should consider, that loading the
Clergy is loading their own younger brothers and children; with this
additional grievance, that it is taking from the younger and poorer, to
give to the elder and richer. And,

_Lastly_, That, if it were at any time just and proper to do this, it
would however be too severe to do it now, when all the tithes of the
kingdom are known for some years past to have sunk above one-third part
in their value.

Any income in the hands of the Clergy, is at least as useful to the
public, as the same income in the hands of the laity.

It were more reasonable to grant the clergy in three parts of the nation
an additional support, than to diminish their present subsistence.

Great employments are and will be in the hands of Englishmen; nothing
left for the younger sons of Irishmen but vicarages, tide-waiters'
places, &c.; therefore no reason to make them worse.

The _Modus_ upon the flax in England, affects only lands reclaimed since
the year 1690, and is at the rate of five shillings the English acre,
which is equivalent to eight shillings and eightpence Irish, and that to
be paid before the farmer removed it from the field. Flax is a
manufacture of little consequence in England, but is the staple in
Ireland, and if it increases (as it probably will) must in many places
jostle out corn, because it is more gainful.

The Clergy of the Established Church, have no interest like those of the
Church of Rome, distinct from the true interest of their country; and
therefore ought to suffer under no distinct impositions or taxes of any
kind.

The Bill for settling the _Modus_ of flax in England, was brought in, in
the first year of the reign of King George I., when the Clergy lay very
unjustly under the imputation of some disaffection. And to encourage the
bringing in of some fens in Lincolnshire, which were not to be continued
under flax: But it left all lands where flax had been sown before that
time, under the same condition of tithing, in which they were before the
passing of that Bill: Whereas this bill takes away what the Clergy are
actually possessed of.

That the woollen manufacture is the staple of England, as the linen is
that of Ireland, yet no attempt was ever made in England to reduce the
tithe of wool, for the encouragement of that manufacture.

This manufacture hath already been remarkably favoured by the Clergy,
who have hitherto been generally content with less than half--some with
sixpence a garden--and some have taken nothing.

Employments they say have been taxed, the reasons for which taxation
will not hold with regard to property, at least till employments become
inheritances.

The Commons always have had so tender a regard to property; that they
never would suffer any law to pass, whereby any particular persons might
be aggrieved without their own consent.


*****       *****       *****       *****




AN ESSAY

ON THE

FATES OF CLERGYMEN.


NOTE.

This essay was first printed in Nos. v. and vii. of "The Intelligencer"
(Dublin, 1728). In that periodical it bore the title: "A Description of
what the World calls Discretion;" and had the following lines from Ben
Jonson as a text:

  "Described it's thus: Defined would you it have?
  Then the World's honest Man's an errant knave."

The text here printed is based on the original issue, and collated with
the "Miscellanies," vol. iii. of 1732, and the "Miscellanies," vol. ii.,
1747.

[T.S.]


  AN ESSAY ON THE FATES OF
  CLERGYMEN.


There is no talent so useful towards rising in the world, or which puts
men more out of the reach of fortune, than that quality generally
possessed by the dullest sort of people, and is in common speech called
discretion; a species of lower prudence, by the assistance of which,
people of the meanest intellectuals, without any other qualification,
pass through the world in great tranquillity, and with universal good
treatment, neither giving nor taking offence. Courts are seldom
unprovided of persons under this character, on whom, if they happen to
be of great quality, most employments, even the greatest, naturally
fall, when competitors will not agree; and in such promotions, nobody
rejoices or grieves. The truth of this I could prove by several
instances within my own memory; for I say nothing of present times.

And, indeed, as regularity and forms are of great use in carrying on the
business of the world, so it is very convenient, that persons endued
with this kind of discretion, should have that share which is proper to
their talents, in the conduct of affairs, but by no means meddle in
matters which require genius, learning, strong comprehension, quickness
of conception, magnanimity, generosity, sagacity, or any other superior
gift of human minds. Because this sort of discretion is usually attended
with a strong desire of money, and few scruples about the way of
obtaining it; with servile flattery and submission; with a want of all
public spirit or principle; with a perpetual wrong judgment, when the
owners come into power and high place, how to dispose of favour and
preferment; having no measures for merit and virtue in others, but those
very steps by which themselves ascended; nor the least intention of
doing good or hurt to the public, farther than either one or t'other is
likely to be subservient to their own security or interest. Thus, being
void of all friendship and enmity, they never complain or find fault
with the times, and indeed never have reason to do so.

Men of eminent parts and abilities, as well as virtues, do sometimes
rise in the court, sometimes in the law, and sometimes even in the
Church. Such were the Lord Bacon, the Earl of Strafford, Archbishop
Laud, in the reign of King Charles I., and others in our own times, whom
I shall not name; but these, and many more, under different princes, and
in different kingdoms, were disgraced or banished, or suffered death,
merely in envy to their virtues and superior genius, which emboldened
them in great exigencies and distresses of state, (wanting a reasonable
infusion of this aldermanly discretion,) to attempt the service of their
prince and country, out of the common forms.

This evil fortune, which generally attends extraordinary men in the
management of great affairs, has been imputed to divers causes that need
not be here set down, when so obvious a one occurs, if what a certain
writer observes be true, that when a great genius appears in the world,
the dunces are all in confederacy against him. And if this be his fate
when he employs his talents[1] wholly in his closet, without interfering
with any man's ambition or avarice, what must he expect, when he
ventures out to seek for preferment in a court, but universal opposition
when he is mounting the ladder, and every hand ready to turn him off
when he is at the top? And in this point, fortune generally acts
directly contrary to nature; for in nature we find, that bodies full of
life and spirits mount easily, and are hard to fall, whereas heavy
bodies are hard to rise, and come down with greater velocity, in
proportion to their weight; but we find fortune every day acting just
the reverse of this.

[Footnote 1: "And thus although he employs his talents." This is the
reading of "The Intelligencer." [T.S.]]

This talent of discretion, as I have described it in its several
adjuncts and circumstances, is nowhere so serviceable as to the clergy,
to whose preferment nothing is so fatal as the character of wit,
politeness in reading or manners, or that kind of behaviour which we
contract by having too much conversation with persons of high station
and eminency: these qualifications being reckoned, by the vulgar of all
ranks, to be marks of levity, which is the last crime the world will
pardon in a clergyman; to this I may add a free manner of speaking in
mixed company, and too frequent an appearance in places of much resort,
which are equally noxious to spiritual promotion.

I have known, indeed, a few exceptions to some parts of these
observations.[2] I have seen some of the dullest men alive aiming at
wit, and others, with as little pretensions, affecting politeness in
manners and discourse: But never being able to persuade the world of
their guilt, they grew into considerable stations, upon the firm
assurance which all people had of their discretion, because they were of
a size too low to deceive the world to their own disadvantage. But this,
I confess, is a trial too dangerous often to engage in.

[Footnote 2: This word is "regulations" in "The Intelligencer." [T.S.]]

There is a known story of a clergyman, who was recommended for a
preferment by some great men at court, to an archbishop.[3] His grace
said, "he had heard that the clergyman used to play at whist and
swobbers;[4] that as to playing now and then a sober game at whist for
pastime, it might be pardoned, but he could not digest those wicked
swobbers;" and it was with some pains that my Lord Somers could
undeceive him. I ask, by what talents we may suppose that great prelate
ascended so high, or what sort of qualifications he would expect in
those whom he took into his patronage, or would probably recommend to
court for the government of distant churches?

[Footnote 3: Archbishop Tenison, who, by all contemporary accounts, was
a very dull man. There was a bitter sarcasm upon him usually ascribed to
Swift, "That he was as hot and heavy as a tailor's goose." [S.]

In "The Intelligencer" the word "archbishop" is replaced by the letters
A.B.C.T. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 4: "Swobbers" were four privileged cards used, at one time,
for betting purposes, in the game of whist. [T.S.]]

Two clergymen, in my memory, stood candidates for a small free school in
Yorkshire, where a gentleman of quality and interest in the country, who
happened to have a better understanding than his neighbours, procured
the place for him who was the better scholar, and more gentlemanly
person, of the two, very much to the regret of all the parish: The
other, being disappointed, came up to London, where he became the
greatest pattern of this lower discretion that I have known, and
possessed it with as heavy intellectuals; which, together with the
coldness of his temper, and gravity of his deportment, carried him safe
through many difficulties, and he lived and died in a great station;
while his competitor is too obscure for fame to tell us what became of
him.

This species of discretion, which I so much celebrate, and do most
heartily recommend, hath one advantage not yet mentioned, that it will
carry a man safe through all the malice and variety of parties, so far,
that whatever faction happens to be uppermost, his claim is usually
allowed for a share of what is going. And the thing seems to me highly
reasonable: For in all great changes, the prevailing side is usually so
tempestuous, that it wants the ballast of those whom the world calls
moderate men, and I call men of discretion; whom people in power may,
with little ceremony, load as heavy as they please, drive them through
the hardest and deepest roads without danger of foundering, or breaking
their backs, and will be sure to find them neither rusty nor vicious.

I[5] will here give the reader a short history of two clergymen in
England, the characters of each, and the progress of their fortunes in
the world; by which the force of worldly discretion, and the bad
consequences from the want of that virtue, will strongly appear.

[Footnote 5: In "The Intelligencer," No. v., this paragraph reads as
follows: "In some following Paper I will give the reader a short history
of two Clergymen in England, the characters of each, and the progress of
their fortunes in the world. By which the force of worldly discretion,
and the bad consequences from the want of that virtue, will strongly
appear." In No. vii. the subject is continued as in the next paragraph.
[T.S.]]

Corusodes, an Oxford student, and a farmer's son, was never absent from
prayers or lecture, nor once out of his college, after Tom had tolled.
He spent every day ten hours in his closet, in reading his courses,
dozing, clipping papers, or darning his stockings; which last he
performed to admiration. He could be soberly drunk at the expense of
others, with college ale, and at those seasons was always most devout.
He wore the same gown five years without draggling or tearing. He never
once looked into a playbook or a poem. He read Virgil and Ramus in the
same cadence, but with a very different taste. He never understood a
jest, or had the least conception of wit.

For one saying he stands in renown to this day. Being with some other
students over a pot of ale, one of the company said so many pleasant
things, that the rest were much diverted, only Corusodes was silent and
unmoved. When they parted, he called this merry companion aside, and
said, "Sir, I perceive by your often speaking, and your friends
laughing, that you spoke many jests; and you could not but observe my
silence: But sir, this is my humour, I never make a jest myself, nor
ever laugh at another man's."

Corusodes, thus endowed, got into holy orders; having, by the most
extreme parsimony, saved thirty-four pounds out of a very beggarly
fellowship, he went up to London, where his sister was waitingwoman to a
lady, and so good a solicitor, that by her means he was admitted to read
prayers in the family twice a-day, at fourteen[1] shillings a month. He
had now acquired a low, obsequious, awkward bow, and a talent of gross
flattery both in and out of season; he would shake the butler by the
hand; he taught the page his catechism, and was sometimes admitted to
dine at the steward's table. In short, he got the good word of the whole
family, and was recommended by my lady for chaplain to some other noble
houses, by which his revenue (besides vales) amounted to about thirty
pounds a-year: His sister procured him a scarf from my lord, who had a
small design of gallantry upon her; and by his lordship's solicitation
he got a lectureship in town of sixty pounds a-year; where he preached
constantly in person, in a grave manner, with an audible voice, a style
ecclesiastic, and the matter (such as it was) well suited to the
intellectuals of his hearers. Some time after, a country living fell in
my lord's disposal; and his lordship, who had now some encouragement
given him of success in his amour, bestowed the living on Corusodes, who
still kept his lectureship and residence in town; where he was a
constant attendant at all meetings relating to charity, without ever
contributing further than his frequent pious exhortations. If any woman
of better fashion in the parish happened to be absent from church, they
were sure of a visit from him in a day or two, to chide and to dine with
them.

[Footnote 6: Scott has "ten shillings." [T.S.]]

He had a select number of poor constantly attending at the street door
of his lodgings, for whom he was a common solicitor to his former
patroness, dropping in his own halfcrown among the collection, and
taking it out when he disposed of the money. At a person of quality's
house, he would never sit down till he was thrice bid, and then upon the
corner of the most distant chair. His whole demeanour was formal and
starch, which adhered so close, that he could never shake it off in his
highest promotion.

His lord was now in high employment at court, and attended by him with
the most abject assiduity; and his sister being gone off with child to a
private lodging, my lord continued his graces to Corusodes, got him to
be a chaplain in ordinary, and in due time a parish in town, and a
dignity in the Church.

He paid his curates punctually, at the lowest salary, and partly out of
the communion money; but gave them good advice in abundance. He married
a citizen's widow, who taught him to put out small sums at ten per
cent., and brought him acquainted with jobbers in Change-alley. By her
dexterity he sold the clerkship of his parish, when it became vacant.

He kept a miserable house, but the blame was laid wholly upon madam; for
the good doctor was always at his books, or visiting the sick, or doing
other offices of charity and piety in his parish.

He treated all his inferiors of the clergy with a most sanctified pride;
was rigorously and universally censorious upon all his brethren of the
gown, on their first appearance in the world, or while they continued
meanly preferred; but gave large allowance to the laity of high rank, or
great riches, using neither eyes nor ears for their faults: He was never
sensible of the least corruption in courts, parliaments, or ministries,
but made the most favourable constructions of all public proceedings;
and power, in whatever hands, or whatever party, was always secure of
his most charitable opinion. He had many wholesome maxims ready to
excuse all miscarriages of state: Men are but men; _Erunt vitia donec
homines_; and, _Quod supra nos, nil ad nos_; with several others of
equal weight.

It would lengthen my paper beyond measure to trace out the whole system
of his conduct; his dreadful apprehensions of Popery; his great
moderation toward dissenters of all denominations; with hearty wishes,
that, by yielding somewhat on both sides, there might be a general union
among Protestants; his short, inoffensive sermons in his turns at court,
and the matter exactly suited to the present juncture of prevailing
opinions; the arts he used to obtain a mitre, by writing against
Episcopacy; and the proofs he gave of his loyalty, by palliating or
defending the murder of a martyred prince.

Endowed with all these accomplishments, we leave him in the full career
of success, mounting fast toward the top of the Ladder Ecclesiastical,
which he hath a fair probability to reach; without the merit of one
single virtue, moderately stocked with the least valuable parts of
erudition, utterly devoid of all taste, judgment, or genius; and, in his
grandeur, naturally choosing to haul up others after him, whose
accomplishments most resemble his own, except his beloved sons, nephews,
or other kindred, be in competition; or, lastly, except his inclinations
be diverted by those who have power to mortify, or further advance him.

Eugenio set out from the same university, and about the same time with
Corusodes; he had the reputation of an arch lad at school, and was
unfortunately possessed with a talent for poetry; on which account he
received many chiding letters from his father, and grave advice from his
tutor. He did not neglect his college learning, but his chief study was
the authors of antiquity, with a perfect knowledge in the Greek and
Roman tongues. He could never procure himself to be chosen fellow: For
it was objected against him, that he had written verses, and
particularly some wherein he glanced at a certain reverend doctor famous
for dulness: That he been seen bowing to ladies, as he met them in the
streets; and it was proved, that once he had been found dancing in a
private family, with half a dozen of both sexes.

He was the younger son to a gentleman of good birth, but small estate;
and his father dying, he was driven to London to seek his fortune: He
got into orders, and became reader in a parish church at twenty pounds
a-year; was carried by an Oxford friend to Will's coffee-house,
frequented in those days by men of wit, where in some time he had the
bad luck to be distinguished. His scanty salary compelled him to run
deep in debt for a new gown and cassock, and now and then forced him to
write some paper of wit or humour, or preach a sermon for ten shillings,
to supply his necessities. He was a thousand times recommended by his
poetical friends to great persons, as a young man of excellent parts who
deserved encouragement, and received a thousand promises; but his
modesty, and a generous spirit, which disdained the slavery of continual
application and attendance, always disappointed him, making room for
vigilant dunces, who were sure to be never out of sight.

He had an excellent faculty in preaching, if he were not sometimes a
little too refined, and apt to trust too much to his own way of thinking
and reasoning.

When, upon the vacancy of a preferment, he was hardly drawn to attend
upon some promising lord, he received the usual answer, "That he came
too late, for it had been given to another the very day before." And he
had only this comfort left, that everybody said, "It was a thousand
pities something could not be done for poor Mr. Eugenio."

The remainder of his story will be dispatched in a few words: Wearied
with weak hopes, and weaker pursuits, he accepted a curacy in
Derbyshire, of thirty pounds a-year, and when he was five-and-forty, had
the great felicity to be preferred by a friend of his father's to a
vicarage worth annually sixty pounds, in the most desert parts of
Lincolnshire; where, his spirit quite sunk with those reflections that
solitude and disappointments bring, he married a farmer's widow, and is
still alive, utterly undistinguished and forgotten; only some of the
neighbours have accidentally heard, that he had been a notable man in
his youth.


*****       *****       *****       *****




CONCERNING THAT

UNIVERSAL HATRED,

WHICH PREVAILS

AGAINST THE CLERGY.


May 24, 1736.

I have been long considering and conjecturing, what could be the causes
of that great disgust, of late, against the clergy of both kingdoms,
beyond what was ever known till that monster and tyrant, Henry VIII. who
took away from them, against law, reason, and justice, at least
two-thirds of their legal possessions; and whose successors (except
Queen Mary) went on with their rapine, till the accession of King James
I. That detestable tyrant Henry VIII. although he abolished the Pope's
power in England, as universal bishop, yet what he did in that article,
however just it were in itself, was the mere effect of his irregular
appetite, to divorce himself from a wife he was weary of, for a younger
and more beautiful woman, whom he afterwards beheaded. But, at the same
time, he was an entire defender of all the Popish doctrines, even those
which were the most absurd. And, while he put people to death for
denying him to be head of the Church, he burned every offender against
the doctrines of the Roman faith; and cut off the head of Sir Thomas
More, a person of the greatest virtue this kingdom ever produced, for
not directly owning him to be head of the Church. Among all the princes
who ever reigned in the world there was never so infernal a beast as
Henry VIII. in every vice of the most odious kind, without any one
appearance of virtue: But cruelty, lust, rapine, and atheism, were his
peculiar talents. He rejected the power of the Pope for no other reason,
than to give his full swing to commit sacrilege, in which no tyrant,
since Christianity became national, did ever equal him by many degrees.
The abbeys, endowed with lands by the mistaken notions of well-disposed
men, were indeed too numerous, and hurtful to the kingdom; and,
therefore, the legislature might, after the Reformation, have justly
applied them to some pious or public uses.

In a very few centuries after Christianity became national in most parts
of Europe, although the church of Rome had already introduced many
corruptions in religion; yet the piety of early Christians, as well as
new converts, was so great, and particularly of princes, as well as
noblemen and other wealthy persons, that they built many religious
houses, for those who were inclined to live in a recluse or solitary
manner, endowing those monasteries with land. It is true, we read of
monks some ages before, who dwelt in caves and cells, in desert places.
But, when public edifices were erected and endowed, they began gradually
to degenerate into idleness, ignorance, avarice, ambition, and luxury,
after the usual fate of all human institutions. The Popes, who had
already aggrandized themselves, laid hold of the opportunity to subject
all religious houses with their priors and abbots, to their peculiar
authority; whereby these religious orders became of an interest directly
different from the rest of mankind, and wholly at the Pope's devotion. I
need say no more on this article, so generally known and so frequently
treated, or of the frequent endeavours of some other princes, as well as
our own, to check the growth, and wealth, and power of the regulars.