bishop might be able to perform his duties, but
'that it really requires and deserves a good commendam to support it
with any dignity.'

Herring held the deanery of Rochester in commendam with the bishopric of
Bangor. Wilcocks was Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster, and
was succeeded both in the deanery and the bishopric by Zachary Pearce.
Hoadly held the see of Bangor for six years, apparently without ever
seeing the diocese in his life. Even the excellent Dr. Porteus (one of
the most pious, liberal, and unselfish of men) thought it no sin to hold
a country living in conjunction with the bishopric of Chester. He
actually had permission to retain the important living of Lambeth as
well; but 'he thought,' says his biographer with conscious pride, 'with
so many additional cares he should not be able to attend to so large a
benefice, at least to the satisfaction of his own mind, and therefore
hesitated not a moment in giving it up into other hands.'[654] Bishop
Watson, of Llandaff, gives a most artless account of his non-residence.
'Having,' he tells us, 'no place of residence in my diocese, I turned my
attention to the improvement of land. I thought the improvement of a
man's fortune by cultivating the earth was the most useful and
honourable way of providing for a family. I have now been several years
occupied as an improver of land and planter of trees.'[655] The same
bishop gives us a most extraordinary description of the sources from
whence his clerical income was derived. 'The provision of 2,000_l._, a
year,' he says, 'which I possess from the Church arises from the tithes
of two churches in Shropshire, two in Leicestershire, two in my diocese,
three in Huntingdonshire, on all of which I have resident curates; of
five more appropriations to the bishopric, and two more in the Isle of
Ely as appropriations to the archdeaconry of Ely.[656]

Pluralities and non-residence being thus so common among the very men
whose special duty it was to prevent them, one can hardly wonder that
the evil prevailed to a sad extent among the lower clergy.

Archbishop Secker, in his charge to the diocese of Canterbury in 1758,
complains of 'the non-resident clergyman, who reckons it enough that,
for aught he knows to the contrary, his parishioners go on like their
neighbours,' and attributes to this, among other causes, 'the rise of a
new sect, pretending to the strictest piety.' It seems, however, to have
been taken for granted