and justice of the demand, so as to yield to a moderate advancement, rather than engage in a suit, where law and equity are directly against him. By these means the bishops have been so true to their trusts, as to procure some small share in the advancement of rents; although it be notorious that they do not receive the third penny (fines included) of the real value of their lands throughout the kingdom.

I was never able to imagine what inconvenience could accrue to the public, by one or two thousand pounds a year in the hands of a protestant bishop, any more than of a lay person.* The former, generally speaking, lives as piously and hospitably as the other; pays his debts as honestly, and spends as much of his revenue among his tenants: besides, if they be his immediate tenants, you may distinguish them at first sight by their habits and horses; or, if you go to their houses, by their comfortable way of living. But the misfortune is, that such immediate tenants, generally speaking, have others under them, and so a third and fourth in subordination, till it comes to the welder (as they call him), who sits at a rack-rent, and lives as miserably as an Irish_farmer upon a new lease from a lay landlord. But, suppose a bishop happens to be avaricious (as being composed of the same stuff with other men), the consequence to the public is no worse than if he were a squire; for he leaves his fortune to his son, or near relation, who, if he be rich enough, will never think of entering into the church.

This part of the paragraph is to be applied to the period when the whole was written, which was in 1723, when several of queen Anne's bishops were living.

*

And as there can be no disadvantage to the public in a protestant country, that a man should hold lands as a bishop, any more than if he were a temporal person; so it is of great advantage to the community, where a bishop lives as he ought to do. He is bound in conscience to reside in his diocese, and by a solemn promise to keep hospitality; his estate is spent in the kingdom, not remitted to England; he keeps the clergy to their duty, and is an example of virtue both to them and the people. Suppose him an ill man; yet his very character will withhold him from any great or open exorbitancies. But in fact it must be allowed, that some bishops of this kingdom, within twenty years past, have done very signal and lasting acts of public charity; great instances whereof are the late and present† primate, and the lord archbishop of Dublin ‡ that now is, who has left memorials of his bounty in many parts of his province. I might add the bishop of Raphoe, § and several others: not forgetting the late dean of Down, Dr Pratt, who bestowed one thousand pounds upon the university: which foundation (that I may observe by the way), if the bill proposed should pass, would be in the same circumstances with the bishops, nor ever able again to advance the stipends of the fellows and students, as lately they found it necessary to do; the determinate sum appointed by the statutes for commons, being not half sufficient, by the fall of money, to afford necessary sustenance. But the passing of such a bill must put an end to all ecclesiastical beneficence for the time to come; and

whether this will be supplied by those who are to reap the benefit, better than it has been done by grantees of impropriate tithes, who received them upon the old church conditions of keeping hospitality, it will be easy to conjecture.

To allege, that passing, such a bill would be a good encouragement to improve bishops' lands, is a great error. Is it not the general method of landlords to wait the expiration of a lease, and then cant their lands to the highest bidder? and what should hinder the same course to be taken in church leases, when the limitation is removed of paying half the real value to the bishop? In riding through the country, how few improvements do we see upon the estates of laymen, farther than about their own domains? To say the truth, it is a great misfortune, as well to the public as to the bishops themselves, that their lands are generally let to lords and great squires, who, in reason, were never designed to be tenants; and therefore may naturally murmur at the payment of rent, as a subserviency they were not born to. If the tenants to the church were honest farmers, they would pay their fines and rents with cheerfulness, improve their lands, and thank God they were to give but a moderate half value for what they held. I have heard a man of a thousand pound a year talk with great contempt of bishops' leases, as being on a worse foot than the rest of his estate; and he had certainly reason: my answer was, that such leases were originally intended only for the benefit of industrious husbandmen, who would think it a great blessing to be provided for, instead of having their farms screwed up to the height, not eating one comfortable meal in a year, nor able to find shoes for their children.

I know not any advantage that can accrue by such a bill, except the preventing of perjury in jurymen, and false dealings in tenants; which is a remedy like that of giving my money to a highwayman, before he attempts to take it by force; and so I shall be sure to prevent the sin of robbery.

I had wrote thus far, and thought to have made an end; when a bookseller sent me a small pamphlet, entitled, The Case of the Laity, with some Queries; full of the strongest malice against the clergy, that I have any where met with since the reign of Toland, and others of that tribe. These kinds of advocates do infinite mischief to our GOOD CAUSE, by giving grounds to the unjust reproaches of TORIES and JACOBITES, who charge us with being enemies to the church. If I bear a hearty unfeigned loyalty to his majesty king George, and the house of Hanover, not shaken in the least by the hardships we lie under, which never can be imputable to so gracious a prince; if I sincerely abjure the pretender, and all popish successors; if I bear a due veneration to the glorious memory of the late king William, who preserved these kingdoms from popery and slavery, with the expense of his blood, and hazard of his life; and lastly, if I am for a proper indulgence to all dissenters, I think nothing more can be reasonably demanded of me as a wHIG, and that my political catechism is full and complete. But whoever, under the shelter of that party denomination, and of many great professions of loyalty, would destroy, or undermine, or injure the church established; I utterly disown him, and think he ought to choose another name of distinction for himself and his adherents. I came into the cause upon other principles, which by the grace of God I mean to pre

serve as long as I live. Shall we justify the accusations of our adversaries? Hoc Ithacus velit.-The tories and jacobites will behold us with a malicious pleasure, determined upon the ruin of our friends. For is not the present set of bishops almost entirely of that number, as well as a great majority of the principal clergy? And a short time will reduce the whole by vacancies upon death.

An impartial reader, if he pleases to examine what I have already said, will easily answer the bold queries in the pamphlet mentioned: he will be convinced, that the reason still strongly exists, for which that limiting law was enacted. A reasonable man will wonder, where can be the insufferable grievances, that an ecclesiastical landlord should expect a moderate or a third part value in rent for his lands, when his title is at least as ancient and as legal as that of a layman: who is yet but seldom guilty of giving such beneficial bargains. Has the nation been thrown into confusion; and have many poor families been ruined. by rack-rents paid for the lands of the church? does the nation cry out to have a law that must in time send their bishops a-begging? but God be thanked, the clamour of enemies to the church is not yet the cry, and I hope will never prove the voice, of the nation. The clergy, I conceive, will hardly allow that the people maintain them, any more than in the sense that all landlords whatsoever are maintained by the people. Such assertions as these, and the insinuations they carry along with them, proceed from principles which cannot be avowed by those who are for preserving the happy constitution in church and state. Whoever were the proposers of such queries, it might have provoked a bold writer to retaliate, perhaps with more justice than prudence, by showing at