to the university, and from
suffering them to enter into holy orders, when they are likely to
languish under a curacy, or small vicarage, to the end of their lives:
But this is all a vain imagination; for the decrease in the value of
money will equally affect both kingdoms: And besides, when bishoprics
here grow too small to invite over men of credit and consequence, they
will be left more fully to the disposal of a chief governor, who can
never fail of some worthless illiterate chaplain, fond of a title and
precedence. Thus will that whole bench, in an age or two, be composed of
mean, ignorant, fawning gownmen, humble suppliants and dependants upon
the court for a morsel of bread, and ready to serve every turn that
shall be demanded from them, in hopes of getting some _commendam_ tacked
to their sees; which must then be the trade, as it is now too much in
England, to the great discouragement of the inferior clergy. Neither is
that practice without example among us.

It is now about eighty-five years since the passing of that limiting
act, and there is but one instance, in the memory of man, of a bishop's
lease broken upon the plea of not being statutable; which, in
everybody's opinion, could have been lost by no other person than he who
was then tenant, and happened to be very ungracious in his county. In
the present Bishop of Meath's[3] case, that plea did not avail, although
the lease were notoriously unstatutable; the rent reserved, being, as I
have been told, not a seventh part of the real value; yet the jury, upon
their oaths, very gravely found it to be according to the statute; and
one of them was heard to say, That he would _eat his shoes_ before he
would give a verdict for the bishop. A very few more have made the same
attempt with as little success. Every bishop, and other ecclesiastical
body, reckon forty pounds in an hundred to be a reasonable half value;
or if it be only a third part, it seldom, or never, breeds any
difference between landlord and tenant. But when the rent is from five
to nine or ten parts less than the worth; the bishop, if he consults the
good of his see, will be apt to expostulate; and the tenant, if he be an
honest man, will have some regard to the reasonableness and justice of
the demand, so as to yield to a moderate advancement, rather than engage
in a suit, where law and equity are directly against him. By these
means, the bishops have been so true to their trusts, as to procure som