CHAP. The country clergy men. two hundred and sixteen clergymen who each hold two livings; forty who hold three each; thirteen who hold four each; one who holds five; one who holds six, besides dignities and offices.'1 Such a system could not work well. When benefices were popularly supposed to be the means of providing for a near relation; when the greater part of the emoluments attached to a living were diverted into another parish to support a non-resident clergyman; the clergy could not be expected to entertain any very exalted notions of the duties of their profession. Good men, no doubt, there were in abundance. Gentlemen, struggling on a scanty salary to provide for the spiritual and temporal wants of the people entrusted to their care. Gentlemen providing out of their wealth vast sums for charitable purposes. But the ordinary clergyman had no such disposition. He was usually a sportsman, and, during six out of the seven days of the week, he passed his time in hunting, shooting, or fishing. He was generally not merely a sportsman, but a very keen one. The country squires had other duties to attend to; the country clergyman had nothing to do but shoot or fish. He was frequently the hardest rider, the best shot, and the keenest fisherman in the parish. Nothing interfered with his sport except an occasional funeral: and he left the field or the covert, and read the funeral service with his white surplice barely concealing his shooting or hunting dress. The people were so accustomed to conduct of this kind that they saw nothing indecent in it. All that they expected of their clergyman was that he should read service and preach on Sundays, and that he should perform the occasional functions, which he was required to discharge, on week days. The rest of his time was at his own disposal; and there was nothing in the public opinion of the day which prevented him from spending it in the same way as his squire. 'Black Book, pp. 31 and 36. II. The picture may seem overdrawn: but it was painted CHAP. in even stronger colours by a contemporary artist. Crabbe described the parish priest, in the Village,' as, A jovial youth, who thinks his Sunday task urge their chase, to cheer them or to chide. Crabbe, indeed, after he had himself taken orders, naturally drew the clergy in more pleasing colours. The vicar in the Borough' is a much more estimable character than the jovial youth in the Village.' Old Dibble, the sexton in the Parish Register,' moreover, gives an account of all the clergymen whom he had remembered, and it is fair to add that there was not a sportsman among them. 'Addle,' the first, was a sleepy old don; 'Peele,' the second, screwed up the tithes; Grandspear, the third, was liberal and rich; the fourth was an author; the fifth a consumptive young gentleman from Cambridge: The reader concludes that the village was in private patronage; the parish a college living. macy. If the bishops did little to improve the position of Church the clergy, their influence was at any rate sufficient to premaintain the supremacy of the Church. Since the days of Charles II. no one had been eligible for a seat in Parliament, or for any office either in the State or a Municipality, who did not first receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and take the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration. The Test Act, which excluded nonconformists from offices in the State, had originally been framed to deprive the Roman Catholics of power. But its effect had been wider than its originators had intended. It had been designed to exclude the Roman СНАР. 11. Catholics from all authority. It had the effect of disabling all Protestant dissenters from legally holding office in the government of the country. Even those scrupulous individuals, who were ready to admit the doctrines of the Church, but who had conscientious objections to taking any oath whatever, were excluded from all offices by this unjust law. The whole system of government turned on the supremacy of the Church; and no one was allowed to have any practical influence in the affairs of the state except a churchman. The supremacy, which the Church had thus obtained, was felt in almost every phase of life. The dissenter had to register his place of worship with the archbishop or bishop of the diocese. The dissenting minister was precluded from celebrating the marriage service; no funeral service, except that prescribed by the Church, could be read over the dead; the Church service was confined to those who had been baptised in the Church of England. A Roman Catholic or a dissenter could not send his sons to the University. All the great charitable endowments for educational purposes were under the control of clergymen, but the dissenters were rated for the support of the churches. No one but a churchman could easily obtain an education for his children; no one but a churchman could hope for advancement in the public service. The highest legal authority of the day was of opinion that it was penal to deny the doctrine of the Trinity. Yet the men, who thus denied the commonest privileges of humanity to a large number of their fellow subjects, were ready enough to condemn similar intolerance when it was practised towards themselves. Every well-educated English gentleman must have read, and no English gentleman could have read without admiring, the passionate description of Narcissa's' secret burial in Young's Night Thoughts.' Twiss' Eldon, vol. ii. p. 513. For O, the cursed ungodliness of zeal ! The Church, which denied the superstition of Rome, was Such was the state of the Church in England at the period at which this history commences. The supremacy of one persuasion had a natural effect. A few old families were hereditary Roman Catholics. A considerable minority among the poorer classes were dissenters. But the mass of the community embraced the only creed which gave them their full rights as citizens. Every man who had any ambition to satisfy, or any children to provide for, adopted the only religion which enabled him to gratify his own wishes, or give his sons a chance. It was the clear interest of all persons to be churchmen; it was 'ungentlemanlike' to be a dissenter. Such was the state of things in England. But in Ireland the result was very different. There, the supremacy of the Church was regarded as the mark of foreign conquest. There, the great majority of the population were devout Roman Catholics. There, public opinion despised the Protestant minority and ranged itself under the banners of the СНАР. II. CHAP. II. Wages. Church of Rome. The time was fast approaching when the discontent, which was in consequence produced, was to destroy the supremacy to which statesmen still fondly clung. It will however be more convenient to defer to a future chapter the further consideration of the effects which the supremacy of the Protestant Church were producing in Ireland. The country gentlemen, it has already been shown, had benefited from the rise in the price of corn; rents had risen, and their incomes had in consequence increased. The clergy had shared in the gain which had thus been obtained. They were dependent to a very great extent on tithes, and the value of the tithe-the tenth of the produce-rose of course with the value of the produce itself. The great proportion of the population, however, had no interest either in rents or tithes. They were dependent for their bread on their labour; and, as the price of bread continually rose, and the value of their labour did not rise in a corresponding degree, they were perpetually becoming more and more impoverished. Skilled artisans at the commencement of the present century might have earned their thirty shillings a week; but an ordinary day labourer usually received nine or ten shillings. Occasionally, indeed, wages sank to a lower level. Harvest wages in 1798 in North Wales were only 1s. or 14d. a day. The amount was miserably insufficient, when the price of wheat had averaged, as it had before 1800, less than 60s. a quarter. But the price of wheat rose in 1800 to 113s. 10d.; in 1802 to 119s. 6d. ; and, though it fell in succeeding years, and only averaged about 60s. in 1803 and 1804, it rose again to 126s. in 1812. The high price was hardly more serious to the labourer than the variations in price. Bread formed his chief food, and in one year the quartern loaf was purchasable for 9d., in another it could not be ob1 See the Tables in McCulloch's Dict. sub verb. Corn Laws. |