QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY.

his office. He joined in carouses and field-sports; Ch. 14. and his presence rarely imposed any restraint on the conversation or indulgence of the festive board. On Sunday the service was hurried over, terminating, perhaps, in a sermon affectedly learned and abstruse. The daily attendance on his parishioners, which is now considered by every conscientious clergyman the most important part of his duties, was wholly neglected by the incumbents who flourished in the early years of the Hanover succession; and, even down to a much later period, the jovial rector, if called upon to perform a duty on a week-day, might be seen hurrying over the office of matrimony or burial in a surplice carelessly thrown over a hunting-frock or other equipment for the field.

41

The statutes known by the name of Queen Queen Anne's Bounty and Anne's Bounty, and other acts of parliament re- other Acts. laxing the law of mortmain in favour of the parochial clergy, relieved, to some extent, the sordid poverty by which they were oppressed; but the institution of lay patronage, still more than pauperism, had the effect of bringing the clergy into contempt. A living was considered merely as a provision for a younger member of the patron's

* The number of livings under £80 per annum was over 5,000. The revenues arising from first-fruits and tenths appropriated by Queen Anne's Bounty to the augmentation of poor livings, having been anticipated by various grants for lives and years, were not available until many years after this appropriation. Only 300 livings had benefitted by it in 1720.-CHAMBERLAYNE'S Present State of Great Britain, p.202.

42

DISTRIBUTION OF PATRONAGE.

Ch. 14. family; or, in the absence of such a claimant, was more likely to be conferred upon some disreputable dependant than upon a person of any merit or The family

Abuses of patronage in

the Church. qualification for his sacred office.

The educated clergy.

living still exists; but the incumbent of the present day is, on the average, as good a parish priest as the selected nominee of an ecclesiastical corporation; and the instances are rare indeed in which the most thoughtless or dissolute patron wilfully bestows church preferment upon an unworthy candidate. The contrary was the case in the times to which I am referring. The son, or brother, or nephew of the patron was, probably, a clown or a spendthrift; or, in the failure of his kinsmen, the son of a jobbing attorney or scrivener, the brother of a mistress, a boon companion, a low flatterer, or pimp, would probably be deemed a fit person for the cure of souls. The greater proportion of the livings were thus filled.

The more refined and educated class of clergymen, though their lives and characters were not, like some of those who have been named, positively disgraceful to the order, contributed little to its utility. If the parson had the manners of a gentleman, he had likewise the tastes and habits of polite society. Instead of passing his time in field-sports and drinking bouts, he was to be seen at fashionable assemblies, or sauntering at watering places, or in attendance at the levees of great men. The aim of a clergyman, who frequented

43

THE BENEFICED CLERGY.

good society, was to obtain some preferment which Ch. 14, would at once flatter his pride and enable him to live in luxury. With this object, he was not nice as to the services he rendered his patron. Sometimes he accompanied the young heir on the grand tour, nominally as a preceptor, really as a servile companion. If he had a ready pen, he would, perhaps, be engaged to write pamphlets or newspaper paragraphs in the interest of his employer. More frequently he was used as an agent for electioneering purposes; and, in that capacity was required to employ the local influence derived from his position as rector or curate; nor did he scorn to be the channel through which the vile wages of corruption were dispensed. Too often, indeed, he was charged with rendering his patron still more scandalous services. The high places in the Church-bishoprics, deaneries, and stallswere filled chiefly from this class of clergymen ; and it is easy, therefore, to believe that the imputations which were lavishly cast upon the morals and principles of the dignitaries of the establishment were not wholly false and calumnious.

respect for

These are some of the causes to which the General disinefficiency of the Church, and the decay of religion religion. are to be attributed. From the Revolution to an advanced period of the reign of George the Third, every writer who refers to the subject bears testimony to the prevalent infidelity of the age. It was to little purpose that the champions of the Church defended revelation against the attacks of

44

POPULAR CONTEMPT FOR RELIGION.

Ch. 14. sceptical writers; for it was not so much a spirit of rationalism, as of indifference and contempt which pervaded society. Religious observances were openly derided; and no man who dreaded ridicule would venture, in polite company, to shew any respect for sacred things. It was the evangelical doctrine which revived the fainting spirit of the ministry, and infused new vigour and vitality into all its members. Whether the constitution of the Church has been impaired by the vigour and vitality thus communicated to her is a question, the solution of which seems to be now in progress; but it is undeniable, I apprehend, that the interest of religion, the end and object of every ecclesiastical establishment, has been signally served by the remarkable movement which commenced about the middle of the eighteenth century.

Venality of

statesmen.

The age of infidelity was also infamous for the relaxation of every moral tie which binds society together. Public virtue was almost extinct. The statesmen of the Restoration were as void of civil wisdom as of virtue. Their financial measures were open robbery and swindling; their domestic government was the spoliation of chartered rights; their foreign policy was venal subserviency to France. Of the men who took part in public affairs during the reign of Charles, Temple alone appears to have had any pretension to common

b BROWN'S Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times, published in 1758. Montesquieu.

ABSENCE OF CIVIC VIRTUE.

honesty; and Temple, consequently, soon found that it was not for such as he to take part in the administration of the King's Government. Among the statesmen who framed the settlement of 1688, Somers was the only one in whose breast a regard for the public welfare predominated over fear and self-interest. He was one of those divine men who, like a chapel in a palace,' according to the sublime image in which he is described, remain unprofaned, while all the rest is tyranny, corruption, and folly.' i

Ch. 14.

1688.

45

The instability of the settlement of 1688, for a Settlement of series of years suspended public spirit altogether; politicians were merely time-servers and waiters upon Providence; and, when the revolution at length terminated in the ascendancy of the democratic branch of the legislature, a new school of corruption was inaugurated. The Act of Settlement, the Bill of Rights, the annual Mutiny Act, the annual Appropriation Act, the Act for securing the Independence of the Judges, completely destroyed the whole fabric of arbitrary power. The taxing prerogative, the dispensing prerogative, Commons. which had so long been the great questions in dispute between the Crown and the people were now finally determined. The absolute dominion over the public revenue, the power of dismissing the ministers of justice, the royal franchise of erecting new courts of justice, all of which were, in

i WALPOLE'S Works, vol. i, p. 430.

Power of the