fourth year of Queen Anne, for the better collecting charity money on
briefs by letters-patent, &c. the ministers are obliged only to read the
briefs in their churches, without any particular exhortations; neither
are they commanded to go from house to house with the church-wardens,
nor to send the money collected to their respective chancellors, but pay
it to the undertaker or agent of the sufferer. So that, we humbly hope,
the clergy of this kingdom shall not, without any law in being, be put
to greater hardships in this case than their brethren in England, where
the legislature, intending to prevent the abuses in collecting charity
money on briefs, did not think fit to put the clergy under any of those
difficulties we now complain of, in the present brief by letters patent,
for the relief of Charles M'Carthy aforesaid.
The collections upon the Lord's day are the principal support of our own
numerous poor in our several parishes; and therefore every single brief,
with the benefit of a full collection over the whole kingdom, must
deprive several thousands of poor of their weekly maintenance, for the
sake only of one person, who often becomes a sufferer by his own folly
or negligence, and is sure to overvalue his losses double or treble: So
that, if this precedent be followed, as it certainly will if the present
brief should succeed, we may probably have a new brief every week; and
thus, for the advantage of fifty-two persons, whereof not one in ten is
deserving, and for the interest of a dozen dexterous clerks and
secretaries, the whole poor in the kingdom will be likely to starve.
We are credibly informed, that neither the officers of the Lord Primate,
in preparing the report of his Grace's opinion, nor those of the
great-seal, in passing the patent for briefs, will remit any of their
fees, both which do amount to a considerable sum: And thus the good
intentions of well-disposed people are in a great measure disappointed,
a large part of their charity being anticipated, and alienated by fees
and gratuities.
Lastly, We cannot but represent to your Grace our great concern and
grief, to see the pains and labour of our church-wardens so much
increased, by the injunctions and commands put upon them in this brief,
to the great disadvantage of the clergy and the people, as well as to
their own trouble, damage, and loss of time, to which great additions
have been already made, by laws appointing them to collect the taxes for
the watch and the poor-house, which they bear with great unwillingness;
and, if they shall find themselves further laden with such briefs as
this of M'Carthy, it will prove so great a discouragement, that we shall
never be able to provide honest and sufficient persons for that weighty
office of church-warden, so necessary to the laity as well as the
clergy, in all things that relate to the order and regulation of
parishes.
Upon all these considerations, we humbly hope that your Grace, of whose
fatherly care, vigilance, and tenderness, we have had so many and great
instances, will represent our case to his Most Excellent Majesty, or to
the chief governor in this kingdom, in such a manner, that we may be
neither under the necessity of declining His Majesty's commands in his
letters patent, or of taking new and grievous burthens upon ourselves
and our church-wardens, to which neither the rubric nor any other law in
force oblige us to submit.
***** ***** ***** *****
ON
THE BILL
FOR
THE CLERGY'S RESIDING ON THEIR LIVINGS.
NOTE.
In the note to the tract, "Some Arguments against enlarging the Power of
Bishops in letting Leases" (p. 219), it was pointed out that the Bill
against which this tract was written was an attempt on the part of the
bishops to get back a power which they once had abused. Failing in this
attempt, in 1723, they renewed the attack in 1731 by promoting two
bills, one called a Bill of Residence, the other a Bill of Division.
The ostensible object of the Bill of Residence was to compel the clergy
to reside on their livings. By this bill, any person taking a benefice,
with cure of souls, of the annual value of £100, was forced, if the land
attached to that benefice had no house fit for residence, to build one
thereon, in any situation the bishop might think suitable, this house to
cost one year and a half's income, and to be completed within a time
fixed by the bishop. It will at once be seen that the power over the
inferior clergy which this bill placed in the bishops' hands was by no
means insignificant; and Swift felt that to make such a bill law would
not only tend to impoverish, the inferior clergy, but would place them
in a position of subjection at once degrading and dispiriting. He
opposed the bill, with the consequence that the House of Commons
rejected it.
By the Bill of Division "it was intended to be enacted that whenever a
church should become vacant, although the incumbent should refuse his
consent, it might be lawful for the chief governor, with the assent of
the major part of the Privy Council, six at least consenting, by and
with the consent of the ordinary and the patron, to subdivide any parish
into as many portions as they might think fit, provided that, after such
division, the church of the old parish should continue worth, at the
least, £300 per annum." This bill, which passed the House of Lords two
days after the Bill of Residence, Swift opposed in a spirited and
somewhat bitter manner. His opposition largely influenced the Lower
House in rejecting it. The two tracts which state the grounds of his
opposition to both bills are the present one, and the following tract,
"Considerations upon two Bills, sent down from the House of Lords to the
House of Commons in Ireland, relating to the Clergy."
Scott notes that the "tone of _aigreur_," which is more distinctly felt
in the second of these tracts, intimates a "deep dissatisfaction with
late ecclesiastical preferments, which may perhaps be traced as much to
personal disappointment as to any better cause;" a statement which it
was hardly worth making; since, however deep may have been Swift's
personal feelings, he never allowed them to be the impelling motive to
his work. It should suffice us to know that the cause which Swift
espoused was a disinterested one. As Vicar of Laracor he knew what it
was to make a shift of living on an insufficient income; and it may have
been, this experience as much as "personal disappointment" which gave
pungency to his criticism. It is easy enough to find questionable
motives for a satirist, especially when that satirist is Swift; let us
not, however, forget that in his case the personal element was never
permitted to overweight the impersonal purpose. Other men when they
reach prosperity often forget or ignore the hard conditions of their
previous state; to Swift these conditions were always existing factors
in his considerations for the amelioration of his fellow-men. This it is
which gives to his writings so much of the "tone of _aigreur_."
In his letter to John Stearne, Bishop of Clogher, dated July, 1733,
which is one of Swift's most characteristic epistles--characteristic,
because the embodiment of truthful candour--he gives no equivocal
expression of opinion on these two bills. He calls them, "abominable
bills, for enslaving and beggaring the clergy, (which took their birth
from hell)." "I call God to witness," he adds, "that I did then, and do
now, and shall for ever, firmly believe, that every Bishop who gave his
vote for either of these bills, did it with no other view (bating
further promotion), than a premeditated design, from the spirit of
ambition, and love of arbitrary power, to make the whole body of the
clergy their slaves and vassals until the day of judgment, under the
load of poverty and contempt."
About the same time, 1732, appeared another pamphlet entitled, "The
Reconciler ... shewing how all the good ends proposed by either of those
bills, may, by a more gentle and easy method, be attained, without
injury to the rights of my lords the bishops; or rigour and violence to
the inferior clergy." In the main, the writer agrees with Swift; but the
tract is valuable as showing that the controversy was no small one, and
it furnishes also what is, apparently, an impartial history of the whole
affair. Three Irish prelates voted against the bills on a
division--Theophilus Bolton, Archbishop of Cashel, Charles Carr, Bishop
of Killaloe, and Robert Howard, Bishop of Elphin.
The text of this tract is based on that which appeared in a volume of
"Miscellanies in Prose and Verse" in the year 1789. It has been collated
with those given by Scott, Hawkesworth, and other editors.
[T.S.]
ON THE BILL FOR THE CLERGY'S
RESIDING ON THEIR LIVINGS.
Those gentlemen who have been promoted to bishoprics in this kingdom for
several years past, are of two sorts: first, certain private clergymen
from England, who, by the force of friends, industry, solicitation, or
other means and merits to me unknown, have been raised to that character
by the _mero motu_ of the crown.
Of the other sort, are some clergymen born in this kingdom, who have
most distinguished themselves by their warmth against Popery, their
great indulgence to Dissenters, and all true loyal Protestants; by their
zeal for the House of Hanover, abhorrence of the Pretender, and an
implicit readiness to fall into any measures that will make the
government easy to those who represent His Majesty's person.
Some of the former kind are such as are said to have enjoyed tolerable
preferments in England; and it is therefore much to their commendation
that they have condescended to leave their native country, and come over
hither to be bishops, merely to promote Christianity among us; and
therefore in my opinion, both their lordships, and the many defenders
they bring over, may justly claim the merit of missionaries sent to
convert a nation from heresy and heathenism.
Before I proceed farther, it may be proper to relate some particulars
wherein the circumstances of the English clergy differ from those of
Ireland.
The districts of parishes throughout England continue much the same as
they were before the Reformation; and most of the churches are of the
gothic architecture, built some hundred years ago; but the tithes of
great numbers of churches having been applied by the Pope's pretended
authority to several abbeys, and even before the Reformation bestowed by
that sacrilegious tyrant Henry VIII., on his ravenous favourites, the
maintenance of an incumbent in most parts of the kingdom is contemptibly
small; and yet a vicar there of forty pounds a year, can live with more
comfort, than one of three times the nominal value with us. For his
forty pounds are duly paid him, because there is not one farmer in a
hundred, who is not worth five times the rent he pays to his landlord,
and fifty times the sum demanded for the tithes; which, by the small
compass of his parish, he can easily collect or compound for; and if his
behaviour and understanding be supportable, he will probably receive
presents now and then from his parishioners, and perhaps from the
squire; who, although he may sometimes be apt to treat his parson a
little superciliously, will probably be softened by a little humble
demeanour. The vicar is likewise generally sure to find upon his
admittance to his living, a convenient house and barn in repair, with a
garden, and a field or two to graze a few cows, and one horse for
himself and his wife. He hath probably a market very near him, perhaps
in his own village. No entertainment is expected from his visitor beyond
a pot of ale, and a piece of cheese. He hath every Sunday the comfort of
a full congregation, of plain, cleanly people of both sexes, well to
pass, and who speak his own language. The scene about him is fully
cultivated (I mean for the general) and well inhabited. He dreads no
thieves for anything but his apples, for the trade of universal stealing
is not so epidemic there as with us. His wife is little better than
Goody, in her birth, education, or dress; and as to himself, we must let
his parentage alone. If he be the son of a farmer it is very sufficient,
and his sister may very decently be chambermaid to the squire's wife. He
goes about on working days in a grazier's coat, and will not scruple to
assist his workmen in harvest time. He is usually wary and thrifty, and
often more able to provide for a numerous family than some of ours can
do with a rectory called 300_l_. a year. His daughters shall go to
service, or be sent 'prentice to the sempstress of the next town; and
his sons are put to honest trades. This is the usual course of an
English country vicar from twenty to sixty pounds a year.
As to the clergy of our own kingdom, their livings are generally larger.
Not originally, or by the bounty of princes, parliaments, or charitable
endowments, for the same degradations (and as to glebes, a much greater)
have been made here, but, by the destruction and desolation in the long
wars between the invaders and the natives; during which time a great
part of the bishops' lands, and almost all the glebes, were lost in the
confusion. The first invaders had almost the whole kingdom divided
amongst them. New invaders succeeded, and drove out their predecessors
as native Irish. These were expelled by others who came after, and upon
the same pretensions. Thus it went on for several hundred years, and in
some degree even to our own memories. And thus it will probably go on,
although not in a martial way, to the end of the world. For not only the
purchasers of debentures forfeited in 1641, were all of English birth,
but those after the Restoration, and many who came hither even since the
Revolution, are looked upon as perfect Irish; directly contrary to the
practice of all wise nations, and particularly of the Greeks and Romans,
in establishing their colonies, by which name Ireland is very absurdly
called.
Under these distractions the conquerors always seized what lands they
could with little ceremony, whether they belonged to the Church or not:
Thus the glebes were almost universally exposed to the first seizers,
and could never be recovered, although the grants, with the particular
denominations, are manifest, and still in being. The whole lands of the
see of Waterford were wholly taken by one family; the like is reported
of other bishoprics.
King James the First, who deserves more of the Church of Ireland than
all other princes put together, having the forfeitures of vast tracts of
land in the northern parts (I think commonly called the escheated
counties), having granted some hundred thousand acres of these lands to
certain Scotch and English favourites, was prevailed on by some great
prelates to grant to some sees in the north, and to many parishes there,
certain parcels of land for the augmentation of poor bishoprics, did
likewise endow many parishes with glebes for the incumbents, whereof a
good number escaped the depredations of 1641 and 1688. These lands, when
they were granted by King James, consisted mostly of woody ground,
wherewith those parts of this island were then overrun. This is well
known, universally allowed, and by some in part remembered; the rest
being, in some places, not stubbed out to this day. And the value of the
lands was consequently very inconsiderable, till Scotch colonies came
over in swarms upon great encouragement to make them habitable; at least
for such a race of strong-bodied people, who came hither from their own
bleak barren highlands, as it were into a paradise; who soon were able
to get straw for their bedding, instead of a bundle of heath spread on
the ground, and sprinkled with water. Here, by degrees, they acquired
some degree of politeness and civility, from such neighbouring Irish as
were still left after Tyrone's last rebellion, and are since grown
almost entirely possessors of the north. Thus, at length, the woods
being rooted up, the land was brought in, and tilled, and the glebes
which could not before yield two-pence an acre, are equal to the best,
sometimes affording the minister a good demesne, and some land to let.
These wars and desolations in their natural consequences, were likewise
the cause of another effect, I mean that of uniting several parishes
under one incumbent. For, as the lands were of little value by the want
of inhabitants to cultivate them, and many of the churches levelled to
the ground, particularly by the fanatic zeal of those rebellious saints
who murdered their king, destroyed the Church, and overthrew monarchy
(for all which there is a humiliation day appointed by law, and soon
approaching); so, in order to give a tolerable maintenance to a
minister, and the country being too poor, as well as devotion too low,
to think of building new churches, it was found necessary to repair some
one church which had least suffered, and join sometimes three or more,
enough for a bare support to some clergyman, who knew not where to
provide himself better. This was a case of absolute necessity to prevent
heathenism, as well as popery, from overrunning the nation. The
consequence of these unions was very different, in different parts; for,
in the north, by the Scotch settlement, their numbers daily increasing
by new additions from their own country, and their prolific quality
peculiar to northern people; and lastly by their universally feeding
upon oats (which grain, under its several preparations and
denominations, is the only natural luxury of that hardy people) the
value of tithes increased so prodigiously, that at this day, I confess,
several united parishes ought to be divided, taking in so great a
compass, that it is almost impossible for the people to travel timely to
their own parish church, or their little churches to contain half their
number, though the revenue would be sufficient to maintain two, or
perhaps three worthy clergymen with decency; provided the times mend, or
that they were honestly dealt with, which I confess is seldom the case.
I shall name only one, and it is the deanery of Derry; the revenue
whereof, if the dean could get his dues, exceeding that of some
bishoprics, both by the compass and fertility of the soil, the number as
well as industry of the inhabitants, the conveniency of exporting their
corn to Dublin and foreign parts; and, lastly, by the accidental
discovery of marl in many places of the several parishes. Yet all this
revenue is wholly founded upon corn, for I am told there is hardly an
acre of glebe for the dean to plant and build on.
I am therefore of opinion, that a real undefalcated revenue of six
hundred pounds a year, is a sufficient income for a country dean in this
kingdom; and since the rents consist wholly of tithes, two parishes, to
the amount of that value, should be united, and the dean reside as
minister in that of Down, and the remaining parishes be divided among
worthy clergymen, to about 300_l_. a year to each. The deanery of Derry,
which is a large city, might be left worth 800_l_. a year, and Rapho
according as it shall be thought proper. These three are the only
opulent deaneries in the whole kingdom, and, as I am informed, consist
all of tithes, which was an unhappy expedient in the Church, occasioned
by the sacrilegious robberies during the several times of confusion and
war; insomuch that at this day there is hardly any remainder left of
dean and chapter lands in Ireland, that delicious morsel swallowed so
greedily in England, under the fanatic usurpations.
As to the present scheme of a bill for obliging the clergy to residence,
now or lately in the privy council, I know no more of the particulars
than what hath been told me by several clergymen of distinction; who
say, that a petition in the name of them all hath been presented to the
lord lieutenant and council, that they might be heard by their counsel
against the bill, and that the petition was rejected, with some reasons
why it was rejected; for the bishops know best what is proper for the
clergy. It seems the bill consists of two parts: First, a power in the
bishops, with consent of the archbishop, and the patron, to take off
from any parish whatever, it is worth above £300 a year; and this to be
done without the incumbent's consent, which before was necessary in all
divisions. The other part of the bill obligeth all clergymen, from forty
pounds a year and upwards, to reside, and build a house in his parish.
But those of £40 are remitted till they shall receive £100 out of the
revenue of first-fruits granted by Her late Majesty.
***** ***** ***** *****
CONSIDERATIONS
UPON
TWO BILLS, &c.
NOTE.
"In the year 1731 a Bill was brought into the House of Lords by a great
majority of the Right Reverend the Bishops, for enabling them to divide
the livings of the inferior Clergy; which Bill was approved of in the
Privy-Council of Ireland, and passed by the Lords in Parliament. It was
afterwards sent to the House of Commons for their approbation; but was
rejected by them with a great majority. The supposed author of the
following Considerations, who hath always been the best friend to the
inferior Clergy of the Church of England, as may be seen by many parts
of his writings, opposed this pernicious project with great success;
which, if it had passed into law, would have been of the worst
consequence to this nation." [Advertisement to the reprint of this
pamphlet in Swift's Works, vol. vi. Dublin: Faulkner, 1738.]
Fuller details of the circumstances which gave Swift the opportunity for
writing this tract are given in the note prefixed to the previous
pamphlet (see p. 250).
The text here given is that of the first edition.
[T.S.]
CONSIDERATIONS
UPON TWO
BILLS
Sent down from the R---- H---- the
H---- of L----
To the H----ble
H---- of C----
Relating to the
CLERGY
OF
_I----D_.
LONDON.
Printed for A. MOORE, near St. _Paul's_, and Sold by the Booksellers of
_Westminster_ and _Southwark_, 1732.
I have often, for above a month past, desired some few clergymen, who
are pleased to visit me, that they would procure an extract of two
bills, brought into the council by some of the bishops, and both of them
since passed in the House of Lords: but I could never obtain what I
desired, whether by the forgetfulness, or negligence of those whom I
employed, or the difficulty of the thing itself. Therefore, if I shall
happen to mistake in any fact of consequence, I desire my remarks upon
it, may pass for nothing; for my information is no better than what I
received in words from several divines, who seemed to agree with each
other. I have not the honour to be acquainted with any one single
prelate of the kingdom, and am a stranger to their characters, further
than as common fame reports them, which is not to be depended on.
Therefore, I cannot be supposed to act upon a principle of resentment. I
esteem their functions (if I may be allowed to say so without offence)
as truly apostolical, and absolutely necessary to the perfection of a
Christian Church.