e should now call "jobbery"; and during the period of Sir Robert
Walpole's administration it was rarely that an Irishman was selected. On
any question, therefore, which affected the welfare of the lower clergy,
it will at once be seen, that the Lords Spiritual, sitting in the Irish
Upper House, would find little difficulty in coming to a solution. That
the solution should also be one which only increased the clergy's
difficulties, might be expected from a body which aimed chiefly at
acquiring wealth and power for itself.

In the reign of Charles I. an act was passed, "prohibiting all bishops,
and other ecclesiastical corporations, from setting their lands for
above the term of twenty-one years: the rent reserved to be half the
real value of such lands at the time they were set." As Swift points
out, about the time of the Reformation, a trade was carried on by the
popish bishops, who felt that their terms of office would be short, and
who, consequently, to get what benefit they could while in office, "made
long leases and fee-farms of great part of their lands, reserving very
inconsiderable rents, sometimes only a chiefry." It was owing to a
continuance in this traffic by the bishops when they became Protestants,
and to a recognition of the injustice of such alienation, that the
legislature passed the act. In 1723, however, an attempt was made for
its repeal. Swift was not the man to permit the bishops to have their
way, if he could help it. His opinion of Irish bishops is well known.
"No blame," he said, "rested with the court for these appointments.
Excellent and moral men had been selected upon every occasion of
vacancy, but it unfortunately happened, that as these worthy divines
crossed Hounslow Heath, on their way to Ireland, to take possession of
their bishoprics, they have been regularly robbed and murdered by the
highwaymen frequenting that common, who seize upon their robes and
patents, come over to Ireland, and are consecrated bishops in their
stead." To prevent, therefore, the encroachments of such individuals he
wrote this tract, in which he clearly demonstrates the justice and
salutariness of Charles's act. His contention, as Monck Mason points out
("History of St. Patrick's Cathedral," p. 392, note 1) "is confirmed by
all writers upon the subject," and quotes from Carte's "Life of James,
Duke of Ormond," where it is stated that the bishoprics in Ireland had,
"the greatest part of them, been depauperated in t