A deeper preparatory cut into all private property was, I think, never given than in this " Commutation Act;" and so our nobility and gentry will find, when they shall see the use made of it by those who are ripe for making an iniquitous use of every thing; when, as the times grow more daring in their seditions, more remiss in their duties, and more expert in their villanies, they shall behold this violation of our property followed up by a like violation of their own, and this pillage of the revenues of the church the revolutionary signal for a still deeper pillage and plunder of their estates.

CLAUSE XC.

Act not to extend to Easter-Offerings, &c. or to payments instead of Tithes in London, or to permanent Rentcharges by custom or Act of Parliament.

It seems by this clause that our fees are to remain in their present state, and so is the tithe of fish, but that that of mills is to be included probably in the money-payment. What is here meant by the words "or to any personal tithe other than that of mills," I do not well know. I am not aware of any other personal tithe usually taken, save this of mills. I have indeed heard of a publican being sued for the tithe of ale, but I believe it was not allowed. I do not think the clergy lost much by it, for such slop-wash as our brewers now send to country public houses, would scarcely have been worth the trouble of tithing. If a brewer had either shame or conscience about him, he would not continue to poison Her Majesty's liege subjects by such filthy and abominable mixtures.

I've drugg'd their possets

That death and nature do contend about them,
Whether they live or die.

It is too true. The public-house sot scarcely crawls out half his time. He must be a powerful man indeed that a brewer's dray will not presently bring upon his last legs.

Had this portion of our tithes (personal tithe) been more seriously urged, more generally extended, and more frequently recoverable, the landed interest might in time have felt the benefit of it, not by any reduction of the sacred principle of our right of onetenth of the clear produce of the earth, but by lessening the rate of composition per acre. And I can see no good reason why lawyers, merchants, and opulent trades should not be made subject, as well as landowners, to the support, in a certain measure, of an ecclesiastical establishment by which all are equally benefited. The tithe of a lawyer's profession might be a golden treasure to us indeed.

In a note to this clause, the solicitor for the Bill, adverting to the tithe of milk, calves, pigs, &c. observes, "the inconvenience of fixing a permanent rent-charge in lieu of a tithe so transitory and intermitting, was foreseen, and a proviso was therefore framed, excepting them from the operation of this Bill, which, however, was rejected. The consequences are, that supposing sixty or one hundred cows to be now kept, and milked in sheds, the tithe of their milk and calves must be perpetuated against the whole parish, and apportioned by valuers, or by the commissioners, on some lands or premises in that parish."

Now, as it was before observed, that "abatements of tithe from mere compassion" are not to operate against the clergy, our country vicars will, I suppose, be allowed to put these cottagers' articles (cows, pigs, &c.) into the amount of the value of their vicarages, and the land-owners be compelled either so to receive them, or to set their own value upon them.

This is a serious regulation as to small livings, and it will be the duty of the commissioners to see that the clergy have here full justice done them, and that their past kindness towards the poor operate not to their future detriment. To perpetuate against them any compositions, of any kind, resulting from their generosity or humanity, must be to punish the exertions of virtue just as we should have punished those of vice. One good turn, the proverb says, deserves another; I wish the Act may say the same. But, indeed, I almost suspect this intended regulation does not look so promising as we might be led to anticipate; for, with a spirit but too sadly prophetic, the solicitor for the Bill somewhat despondingly observes:- "It is much to be feared that this will put difficulties in the way of the voluntary adoption of the Bill in all places where more than a trifling amount of such tithe exists. It is of importance that all parties should be aware of the difficulty." The fear is not unreasonable; the difficulties are not unimportant; but, as in most other cases, we are left to get out of them as well as we can.

What is here to be understood by "cows milked in sheds ?" Enlarged minds cannot descend to trifles. A great genius, whether for poetry or politics, is always in the clouds. It can indeed grasp the universe, and direct the lightnings of heaven, but if it stoop to talk of milk and calves, of pigs and poultry, of stall-fed cattle and cows milked in sheds, ten to one but it forgets there are such things as green fields and farmer's yards. I believe, however, we may venture to take for granted, that these shed cows must mean cows in general. Perhaps this part of our mixt tithe had been better left to the operation of the old system.

66

CLAUSE XCIII.

False Evidence to be deemed Perjury; withholding Evia dence a Misdemeanor.

The clergy need not, I trust, nor the land-owner, be afraid of wilfully falling under this penalty; for no man who has any reputation to sacrifice would voluntarily destroy, or even endanger it by so flagrant an offence. The commissioners must, however, make libera! allowance for ignorance, misapprehension, forgetfulness, and unacquaintance with a business so entirely new to the greater part of both land and tithe-owners. If the evidence be, in any case, incorrect, it may be found perhaps to arise from imperfect information, or from erroneous judgment.

As to the latter part of the clause, that "withholding evidence will be deemed a misdemeanor," there we can hardly say how the matter may stand. It may depend on the nature, the certainty or uncertainty, or degree of punishment. Whig ministers have been known to plead for incendiaries and house-breakers, and to protect offences against the good order of society, again and again; and it is very possible they may fall into the same mistaken lenity in other cases. So far as justice between man and man is concerned; so far as truth is the grand aim in every investigation, all means should be afforded of arriving at the knowledge of it. In the case of moduses especially, this withholding evidence must be contrary to all honourable bearing, must be a total reversion of the sacred principle of doing unto others as we would they should do unto us."

66

CLAUSE XCVII.

May be Amended, &c. this Session.

This, though a mere general form, will, in all likelihood, find its particular application before many years have passed by. Our elections just over, though they may not have materially reduced the pernicious majority of the whigs in the House of Commons, have yet fully satisfied my Lord Melbourne how the English counties stand affected to him and his trumpery and mischievous administration. He may turn all the Cokes in the kingdom into earls and viscounts.—He may cut out his fresh batch of Temporal Lords from the revolutionary block-he may radicalize the whole Bench of Bishops, with death upon his right hand assisting him, but all will not do.-The people of England, most emphatically speaking; the nobility, clergy, and gentry of the realm, are against him and his treacherous and despicable popish cabinet. He will find that he can get on with no public business, and that he must give up the reins to an abler head and an honester heart; to a heart truly attached to the Protestant interests of his country. And the sooner this is done the greater will be the joy of the united empire.

CONCLUSION.

And now, my Reverend Brethren, I feel it is time to shut up my book and close my accounts. How far you may approve of this my " Commentary on the Act for the Commutation of Tithes in England and Wales,” I must leave; indeed I hardly dare enquire. It may be found, I fear, something like an unweeded garden, with here and there a flower lifting up its head above the surrounding desolation.

I will not say whether I have entirely understood my subject as I went along. Acts of Parliament I