he change of religion
by absolute grants and long leases (made generally by the popish bishops
that conformed)--some of them not able to maintain a bishop, several
were, by these means, reduced to L50 a year, as Waterford, Kilfenora,
and others, and some to five marks, as Cloyne and Kilmacduagh." To Swift
is largely due the fact that the House of Commons, when they received
the bill from the Lords, threw it out.

Scott, in his note on this pamphlet (amended from one by Lord Orrery),
takes his usual course when considering Swift's attitude of opposition
--he implies a motive or prejudice. In his opinion, Swift considered the
bill for the repeal of Charles's act, "an indirect mode of gratifying
the existing bishops, whom he did not regard with peculiar respect or
complacency, at the expense of the Church establishment," and that,
therefore, "the spirit of his opposition is, in this instance,
peculiarly caustic." As a matter of fact, the spirit of Swift's
opposition was always peculiarly caustic, in this case no more so than
in any other. But to imply that his motive was a self gratifying one
only, is to treat Swift unfairly. If the bishops required an example as
to how they should deal with their lands, they could easily have found
one in Swift himself. In all the renewals of the leases of the Deanery
lands, Swift never sought his own immediate advantage, his terms were
based on the consideration that the lands were his only in trust for a
successor. To take one instance only, the instance of the parish of
Kilberry in county Kildare, cited by Monck Mason (p. 27, note h). In
1695 the rent of this parish was reserved at L100 English sterling, in
1717, Swift raised this rent to L150, in 1731 to L170, and in 1741 to
L200 per annum, with a proportionable loss of fine upon each occasion.

The tract is dated October 21st, 1723, but as I have not come across a
copy of the original separate issue, I have based the text on that given
by Faulkner (vol. iv, 1735), and the title page here reproduced is from
that edition. The fifth volume of "Miscellanies," also issued in 1735,
contains this tract, and I have compared the texts of the two. The notes
given in Scott's edition are, in the main, altered from Faulkner's
edition.

[T.S.]

SOME
ARGUMENTS
AGAINST ENLARGING the
POWER OF BISHOPS
In LETTING OF
LEASES.
WITH
REMARKS on some _Queries_
lately published.

_Mibi credite, major haereditas venit unicuique