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provided for by a present contribution. Now as the sum so required is for the provision of vested interests, which every year-every month must diminish, while on the other hand, the means will, by the demise of bishops and dignitaries-the falling in of see leases-the improvement of waste lands, &c., be perpetually increasing; I would venture to calculate that a small charge, in the nature of a land-tax, laid as exclusively as possible on the absentees and the Protestant landlords that have the most beneficial interests, must on a scale of only 1s. 3d. per acre, for three years, 10d. per acre for the three next, and 6d. per acre for the four subsequent years, wholly relieve the country from the assessment of tithes, without invading any right, and the immediate relief of those whose industry has been hitherto crushed by that impost. After that period, the dignitaries and beneficed clergy of the established church will be, according to the next proposition, fully endowed for the extent and real benefit of their congregations.

"The see lands, or those paying lay impropriate tithes, should be, and are in the above calculation supposed to be, exempted from this assessment, as being chargeable with their own burdens.

"Eighth-Let the commissioners institute such inquiries as may enable them to report what sees and benefices can be advantageously united, with due respect to the rights of patronage, and with a view to the reduction thereof to the number and revenues sufficient for the service.

"If I were called upon to define that number and their revenues, I would submit the following scale :

1 Archbishop.....

4 Bishops...

4 Other Bishops..

300 Dignitaries and Clergy..

400 Clergy........

Each. Total per Annum.
£5,000.......... £5,000

3,000.......... 12,000
2,000................ 8,000

500.......... 15,000

400.......... 160,000

£335,000

[Independent of those maintained by ministers' money in the great towns.]

"The precedents of unions of bishopricks and benefices in Ireland, are certainly sufficiently numerous to establish the right, and I think there are few candid men will deny its present propriety. Can the supposition be for a moment entertained, that where twenty-six archbishops and bishops are sufficient for the whole Protestant population of England and Wales, twenty-two such dignitaries should be required for half a million of Protestants in Ireland? Neither should the amount of the above stipends be considered insufficient, particularly when it is borne in recollection, that the bishops and dignitaries will still have their right of patronage, enabling them to provide for the really deserving members of their family, whilst the clergy will have suitable glebes, and from church dues an additional and just revenue of nearly three-fourths of the above stipends. A new division of parishes may make variations in this scale necessary, as may best suit the duties to be performed, and the means of the country.

"Is the Scots' clergyman,' it has been asked, 'with his £100 or £150 per annum, a house, garden, and small glebe, constantly

See Edinb. Rev. vol. 41, p. 377.

+ See Ante, p. 54.

residing in his parish, instructing and catechising his flock, ministering to their wants both spiritual and temporal, setting them a laudable example of temperance and self-denial, and watching over their welfare with truly pastoral care, a less respectable character than those, who in indolence and ease conceive they hold church benefices merely to enjoy the luxuries of life?'*

"These stipends also, when they accrue, which they gradually must, should be paid out of the treasury.

"I confess my humble opinion is opposed to the commutation of tithes for lands. If it were intended thereby that the tithes should remain parochial charges for the benefit of the purchaser, I think the measure would be inoperative by the nerve of popular opinion. If it only implies that lands should be purchased in the several parishes, at the charge of the state, for the future support of the Protestant rectors, while their bishops, &c. are suffered to remain in the full possession of their immense estates, I think it would be, in the first instance, a prodigious waste of public money and an idle object of taxation. In another financial point of view, while it would be very difficult to procure small estates just situated as desired, and clear in title, where such did offer they would be highly rated indeed, while the expenses of proving their various titles, as titles in Ireland must now be proved through all the incidents of forfeitures-ecclesiastical charges-settlements and incumbrances-would bear no inconsiderable proportion to even that excessive rate of purchase. Neither as regards the clergy themselves, do I think their becoming the farmers of estates and merchants of agricultural produce, would much conduce with their ecclesiastical duties, or contribute to uphold their respect even amongst their own congregation.

Ninth-Let all species of pluralities be strictly prohibited in the succeeding clerical establishment.

"Let each bishop take the cathedral for his parochial church, as certainly was the original institution; let him discharge all parochial duties belonging to it, preaching, prayer, &c., and there let him constantly reside. Let none be a prebendary of two cathedrals, or a dean of one and a prebendary of another. In truth, chapters, deans, prebends, are but sinecures, and should, I submit, be wholly discontinued after the present dignitaries.

"Tenth-Let the demesne lands of such discontinued dignitaries, as also of such bishoprics as in time may be merged in others, and the glebe lands of such parishes, as cease to be parochial residences, be vested in the said commissioners, to manage on similar principles with the bishops' lands as far as applicable.

"I think I may safely conclude, that in less than ten years the income derivable under this management, from church property, would be more than sufficient to discharge the salaries and stipends of all the bishops, dignitaries, and clergy. From the moment that such an excess commenced, the surplus funds should be devoted to the purchasing all lay impropriate tithes; and with the object of doing so on the most eligible terms.

* Wakefield's Ireland, vol. 2, p. 496

"Eleventh-Let the said commissioners be empowered to ascertain the real value and extent of all lay impropriate tithes. By what grants, and with what restrictions, they have been conveyed, and by what exemptions, privileges, or burdens, they are affected.

"Much of these tithes can, I think, be proved affected by exemptions, moduses, and compositions real; and many more by charges, independent of those for collection; such as repairs of churches, maintenance of hospitals, support of vicars or curates, &c. &c.

"While any lay impropriate tithes continue, I am free to admit the great benefit that will arise to the country by the abolition of clerical tithes, can not be perfect. I say so, not merely on a calculation of the proportion of those respective tithes, but yet more, because, though the privilege of being tithe-free is, by the first step of abolition, diffused over much more than three-fourths of Ireland, (for such lay impropriate tithes as have come into clerical hands will be included in it,) yet while a large portion of the country is permitted to be covered with tithes, the rents of the lands exempted from its imposts will decidedly on any new lettings, rise to a greater extent than they would on a total abolition. It might, therefore, and in my humble judgment, it would be most advisable, that a fund for buying up lay impropriate tithes, should be raised by loan and secured upon the church property, to be repaid as the income of that property became available to such applications. The whole lands of Ireland might then be made alike tithe free. The exemptions, that made some districts so peculiarly desirable hitherto, would cease to raise them in a market, where all were to be thenceforth alike exempt. Other lands would not rise to their former rent, but they would sink to nearly that of others.

"I repeat it nearly that of others; for I certainly cannot but assure myself, that on the abolition of tithes, land would rise in a small proportion, not certainly at all commensurate with the tithe, as I meant to shew by my last paragraph, but possibly with so much of it as was properly a tax upon the rent; those fractional parts of it, that might be considered as drawn from the labour of the farmer, and the capital expended in cultivation, the most odious items of the exaction, would sink for ever! For let it be remembered, the farmer not only pays the tithe of his labour and capital, but he also pays the tithe of his rent. For instance, out of 100 acres of arable land, let us suppose that the tithe owner, as in strictness he might, and in some cases does, takes the produce of ten; for these ten, the farmer is not only obliged to pay the rent to the landlord, but also to pay all the expenses of the seed and labour necessary to produce a crop. From a tenth part of his rent therefore the farmer derives no advantage, and he must plough, sow, and reap, for the benefit of the tithe-owner. When, however, the profit of these ten acres accrues to the farmer himself, he will most likely be required, and I do not think he should be reluctant, to pay a fair proportion of moderately increased rent for the ten acres which he never enjoyed before, but his labour and

* Ante, p. 19.

his capital will no longer be the unjust causes, and admeasurement of his own taxation. If I am correct in this view, the landlord. should, with less unwillingness, discharge the temporary cess, herein before proposed.

"Twelfth-Let said commissioners for all the purposes aforesaid be armed with powers to examine witnesses, and if deemed advisable to hear counsel in controverted cases.

"Such is my plan, as far as an anxious wish to do justice to all parties could dictate it. Many of the details must depend upon contingencies which the scope of this little treatise does not permit me to enter into. This much at least is demonstrable, that upwards of £1,000,000 per annum, would, with the most liberal indulgence to the bishops' lessees, be, by this plan, derivable from church lands in twenty years. But let it be remembered, that I too, look upon that million as 'sacred; not a shilling of it should be allowed to pass into the pockets of individuals.

"The sum of £335,000 will, as I have ventured to prescribe, defray the total charge of the Protestant establishment, at that period; and while it is borne in mind, that the industrious are, from the day that my project is adopted, provided with employment, ample and nationally beneficial, it will be evidently seen that a balance of no less a sum than £665,000 per annum, will remain for the uses of the poor, the building and repair of churches, and much in aid of the clergy of every persuasion.

"I have now submitted my plan, as far as it could be defined, and may I venture to ask, who can say he would be injured by it ?-clergyman, landlord, or lessee? And yet more, who can say I have dared to divert church property from those sacred uses, for which alone, I from my heart declare it has been, and should be consecrated?

"It is time to conclude, and whilst I sincerely hope that his majesty's ministers will promote the speediest means to adjust this harassing subject in Irish politics, with an honest consideration of the feelings and circumstances of a long injured people, and the reasonable support of the Established church; I cannot deny my cordial assent to the opinion of a contemporary periodical, in the event of any strong measures being adopted to continue the opprobrious impost. No severity, however great, will ever be sufficient to induce men to submit to such unparalleled extortion, as the enforcement of Irish tithes exhibits. You may send hundreds of thousands of troops into Ireland-you may erect a gibbet in every village, and fence every cottage with bayonets, but until this monstrous and complicated system of abuse and oppression be put down, the flames of civil war, and the inhuman attacks of the midnight murderer, will never cease to spread terror and desolation throughout that country.'

This book has appeared in very good time. The partial evidence collected by the Parliamentary Commissioners was chiefly oral, and therefore but little calculated to throw a light on a subject which was

* Edinb. Rev. v. 37. p. 78.

obscured by the retrospect of centuries. The nature of the inquiry, also, depended upon matters of record, and not upon opinion. The subject, therefore, was a legitimate one for the pursuit of an antiquarian lawyer, and the product of his labours proves what patriotic assiduity he brought to the task. With all the caution which is the result of his habits of reference and research, he forms no conclusion of his own, without having some trait of history to support and establish it; and, satisfied with having collected from the tomes of the past ages every fact connected with the object he had in view, he offers his own observations with so little pretension, as to incline us to regret that he had not been less sparing of them.

Regarding this volnme as a most valuable epitome of the former career of tithes, during the rise and flourishing progress of that ecclesiastical impost, another service remains yet to be rendered, namely, to indite its decline and fall ;" and to the Irish Gibbon who will undertake the task, we wish all the pleasure and profit which his researches among "the venerahle ruins" will afford.

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The characters marked thus were not prefixed to the first Act, which appeared in the last number of The Irish Monthly Magazine, as they did not occur in it, nor was it indeed known to the author what number of characters might be required, as the piece itself was not at the time in further progress.

ACT II.-SCENE I.

[The Temple of the Sun; the King discovered on a throne in his robes of state, surrounded by Guards, Druids, Virgins of the Sun, Attendants, &c. &c.]

Conor: Have messengers been ordered to apprise

Our Queen, that all is in fit preparation

To celebrate our nuptial ceremonies?

VOL. 1. NO. III,

2 F

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