such a man
as Professor Lee,[123] one of the Prebendaries of Bristol, and by far
the most eminent Oriental scholar in Europe."

Then he reverts to his familiar argument that the abolition of these
ecclesiastical prizes would lower the social character of the clergy as a
body.--

"To get a stall, and to be preceded by men with silver rods, is the
bait which the ambitious squire is perpetually holding out to his
second son.... If such sort of preferments are extinguished, a very
serious evil (as I have often said before) is done to the Church--the
service becomes unpopular, further spoliation is dreaded, the whole
system is considered to be altered and degraded, capital is withdrawn
from the Church, and no one enters into the profession but the sons of
farmers and little tradesmen, who would be footmen if they were not
vicars--or figure on the coach-box if they were not lecturing from the
pulpit.

* * * * *

"If you were to gather a Parliament of Curates on the hottest Sunday
in the year, after all the services, sermons, burials, and baptisms of
the day, were over, and to offer them such increase of salary as would
be produced by the confiscation of the Cathedral property, I am
convinced they would reject the measure, and prefer splendid hope, and
the expectation of good fortune in advanced life, to the trifling
improvement of poverty which such a fund, could afford. Charles James,
of London, was a Curate; the Bishop of Winchester[124] was a Curate;
almost every rose-and-shovel man has been a Curate in his time. All
Curates hope to draw great prizes.

* * * * *

"One of the most foolish circumstances attending this destruction of
Cathedral property is the great sacrifice of the patronage of the
Crown: the Crown gives up eight Prebends of Westminster, two at
Worcester, L1500 per annum at St. Paul's, two Prebends at Bristol, and
a great deal of other preferment all over the kingdom: and this at a
moment when such extraordinary power has been suddenly conferred upon
the people, and when every atom of power and patronage ought to be
husbanded for the Crown. A Prebend of Westminster for my second son
would soften the Catos of Cornhill, and lull the Gracchi of the
Metropolitan Boroughs. Lives there a man so absurd, as to suppose that