he
altar.

I am, indeed, in some concern about a fund for building a thousand or
two churches, wherein these probationers may read their wall lectures,
and begin to doubt they must be contented with barns; which barns will
be one great advancing step towards an accommodation with our true
Protestant brethren, the Dissenters.

The scheme of encouraging clergymen to build houses by dividing a living
of L500 a-year into ten parts, is a contrivance, the meaning whereof
hath got on the wrong side of my comprehension; unless it may be argued,
that bishops build no houses, because they are so rich; and therefore,
the inferior clergy will certainly build, if you reduce them to beggary.
But I knew a very rich man of quality in England, who could never be
persuaded to keep a servant out of livery; because such servants would
be expensive, and apt, in time, to look like gentlemen; whereas the
others were ready to submit to the basest offices, and at a cheaper
pennyworth might increase his retinue.

I hear, it is the opinion of many wise men, that before these bills pass
both Houses, they should be sent back to England with the following
clauses inserted:

First, that whereas there may be about a dozen double bishoprics in
Ireland, those bishoprics should be split and given to different
persons; and those of a single denomination be also divided into two,
three, or four parts, as occasion shall require; otherwise there may be
a question started, whether twenty-two prelates can effectually extend
their paternal care and unlimited power, for the protection and
correction of so great a number of spiritual subjects. But this proposal
will meet with such furious objections, that I shall not insist upon it,
for I well remember to have read, what a terrible fright the frogs were
in, upon a report that the sun was going to marry.

Another clause should be, that none of these twenty, thirty, forty, or
fifty pounders may be suffered to marry, under the penalty of immediate
deprivation, their marriages declared null, and their children bastards;
for some desponding people, take the kingdom to be not in a condition of
encouraging so numerous a breed of beggars.

A third clause will be necessary, that these humble gentry should be
absolutely disqualified from giving votes in elections for parliament
men.

Others add a fourth, which is a clause of indulgence, that these reduced
divines may be permitted to follow any lawful ways of livin