EVILS AND THE BITTEREST OF OUR

GRIEVANCES ORIGINATE

FROM OURSELVES."

CUNNI

UNNING AS SERPENTS, HARMLESS AS DOVES. A schoolfellow and early friend of the editor of this miscellany, religiously educated, and till within a few years, of sober life and conversation, having, to the surprize and regret of his associates, suddenly seceded from the religious faith of his forefathers, and entirely absented himself from public worship; after frequent mild reprehensions and amicable exhortations, produced the words which stand at the head of my present article, as the cause of his unwarrantable secession; insisting, that a character formed upon, and acted up to this maxim, was an unpleasant and dangerous companion.

His friends, two of them worthy divines of the church of England, considering it as a matter of some importance to reclaim a lost sheep, after many long and interesting expostulations, found their attempts unsuccessful.

In the course of these conversations, the unbeliever frequently observed, "that in the course of a long and busy life, he had occasionally mixed with a number of serious and apparently devout christians, whose con

VOL. IV.

duct, so far as related to gross indulgence and carnal sensuality, was exemplary and correct; but that he never had carried on any transaction, commercial, legal, or political with them, without being over-reached by subtlety, craft, or finesse,”

This charge, if brought home and proved, a very heavy one, he more particularly applied to Quakers and Dissenters; insisting that the more correct and christian-like their doctrines and general deportment, the more he dreaded having any intercourse with them as neighbours, and members of society.

ness

When pressed by incontrovertible arguments on the unfairof taking up prejudices against religion from the erroneous conduct of a few individuals who professed it, when told there was nothing in the christian dispensation which could legalize fraudulent hypocrisy, and that there was no reason why a good man should not by all fair means promote the interest of his family, he usually seized his hat and quitted the room with one of those ironical smiles, which those who remember the late Mr. Gib bon during such contests, may recollect, usually played on the extraordinary countenance of the sceptic; a countenance indeed so particular, that a coarse and indecorous

K

indecorous polemic in the irritation of zeal, and losing sight of politeness, actually compared it to a child's

This delicate and curious comparison, when repeated to the historian, for he never read the pamphlet, created a hearty laugh; and he has often been heard to mention this attack on his poor double chin, as he used to call it, at the same time stroking it between his finger and thumb, with considerable merriment and glee.

rectory of Foulsham in the county of Norfolk together with the rectory of Market Deeping in Lincolnshire; the parishes in this instance being considerably beyond the distance from each other allowed by an archbishop's presentation.

On this occasion, the baronet waited on Dr. Tennison, at that time archbishop of Canterbury, with the clergyman to whom he had presented the living, when the following conversation took place.

Soon after they were announced at Lambeth, the primate entered :

Sir Jacob A.-My lord, I wait on your grace in behalf of this clergyman, Mr., to whom I have given the presentation of Foulsham in Norfolk, to desire your dispensation, that he may hold that living together with Market Deeping in Lincolnshire, of which he is now rector.

Dr. Tennison.-Sir, you come at a bad time, for my wife is ill, and I am myself much indisposed.

Sir Jacob A.-I am sorry to disturb you, my lord, but the occasion was urgent, and my authority is the queen's warrant.

Dr. Tennison.-The queen's warrant? Pray what do you mean, sir?

Sir

Sir Jacob A.-Being informed that your grace's dispensing power was limited to thirty miles, we applied for a royal dispensation.

Dr. Tennison. This is a very wicked thing, and I wonder you would undertake it.

Sir Jacob A.-The power of dispensing without limitation of distance was given to the crown by the same parliament, that gave the archbishop of Canterbury power to dispense for thirty miles. Dr. Tennison.-'Tis a very wicked thing.

Sir Jacob A.-Your grace frequently makes use of your dispensing power, and why may not the queen, on similar occasions, exert a prerogative placed in her hands by the constitution? But, my lord, will you permit the gentleman to speak for himself? He has the queen's warrant directed to your grace.

Dr. Tennison.-Warrant! I had rather he would come and cudgel me. But I am resolved not to agree to it; let the queen do what she pleases; I will go to prison first.

Sir Jacob A.-If your grace would but permit the gentleman to speak.

Dr. Tennison.-Well. Clergyman.—I have the queen's warrant; would your grace please to see it?

(Archbishop reads the warrant)-I will never suffer it. Well, things are come to a fine pace; this is what king William would never have done; he promised me he would not, for 'tis unreasonable, and not lawful.

Sir Jacob A.-What is confirmed by act of parliament cannot be unlawful; it is an undoubted prerogative of her majesty, which may be exercised at her royal pleasure.

Dr. Tennison.-The queen may do her pleasure; I will write to my Lord Bolingbroke about it, but will never consent, let them do what they will; for if I once suffer them to break in upon me, I know not where they will stop.

But hark you, sir,

(addressing himself to the clergyman) how can you as one man supply these two livings?

Clergyman.-One I will serve myself, and provide a sufficient curate for the other.

it

Dr. Tennison.-I tell you, is unlawful; how far distant are the places apart?

Clergyman. Between forty and fifty miles, my lord.

Dr. Tennison.-Abominable! How dare you ask so wicked a thing? it was what good king William abhorred. I tell you, sir, I never will do it.

Clergyman. If it be not unreasonable for your grace to grant

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Dr. Tennison.--I TELL YOU I NEVER DID IT IN ALL MY LIFE, and never will.

Clergyman.-I am informed, and on good authority, my lord, that King William granted his warrant in a similar case, and that it was obeyed.

Dr. Tennison.-Who told you that? I am sure King William was too good a man to do so wicked a thing.

assure

Sir Jacob A.-I can your grace, there was a royal dispensation granted in the reign of King William.

Dr. Tennison.-Pray urge me no longer, for I will never do it. Sir Jacob A.-I take your grace's refusal very unkindly, it being a thing warranted by law, and there is no precedent for its having been refused before.

Dr. Tennison. - Pluralities were designed to reward men of extraordinary merit; here was the other day the son of my intimate friend, Dr. B., a man of extraordinary talents and faultless character, he came to me to get a living; and here you, who are so much his junior, have gotten two. This is very fine.

Clergyman. Your grace's argument will hold equally good against all pluralities; but it is hard that an exception should be made against what is become almost a general rule, only in my case; I know the gentleman your lordship mentions very well, we were schoolfellows, but at the university I was his senior,

Dr. Tennison.-Well, well, 'tis all one; I will not do it. Pray let me have your name, that of your college, and the degrees you have taken.

Clergyman. My name is

, my degree is batchelor of law, and I resided about seven years ago in Jesus college, Cambridge.

Dr. Tennison.-I wonder people do not understand better than to trouble me when my wife is so ill; but we are come to a fine pace.

Sir Jacob A.-I considered the queen's warrant as a sufficient reason for calling on your grace, and I might have mentioned another claim I had on your gratitude; this is the living I gave your grace's uncle, archdeacon Tennison.

Dr. Tennison.-I remember it, but I cannot allow this gentleman to have it.

Sir Jacob A.-Your grace's humble servant.

Dr.

Dr. Tennison.-God bless you, Sir Jacob; let us hear no more of this wicked thing.

This conversation has been thought worth preserving, and for several reasons; it proves that in his own mind, Dr. Tennison disapproved of pluralities, although as archbishop of Canterbury, he frequently granted dispensations for them.

It may also be observed, that if a clergyman's holding two livings forty or fifty miles distant from each other was a very wicked thing, a dispensation for holding them thirty miles asunder could not be very good.

Persons better acquainted with the sources of ecclesiastical information than the editor of this collection can soon determine, whether the primate was afterwards prevailed on to alter his mind.

The colloquial incorrectness of Dr. Tennison's language, which I have marked with the silent censure of italics, perhaps was excusable in a very old man.

The following cause, which after a long hearing at the Court of Arches in Doctor's Commons was decided thirty years ago, seems to be a proper addition to this article, and excited at the time considerable interest with clergymen in general:

Mr. Blundel, patron of the rectory of Costard D'Arcey, cited the Reverend Mr. Green, rector of that parish, to show cause, why that rectory should not be declared void, in conse➡ quence of Mr. Green having accepted without dispensation two perpetual curacies in the county of Berks and diocese of Salisbury, both more than thirty miles distant, on the appointment of and by licence from the dean of Salisbury.

It was contended on the part of Mr. Blundel, that such curacies were now in fact benefices with cure of souls, as they had both been augmented with perpetual stipends by the act of the twenty-ninth of Charles the second, which gives to the holders of such curacies a right of distress on the tythes, or an action for debt; that by a determination of the council of Lateran held under pope Innocent the third in 1215, which in such matters is allowed to be the law of the realm, the holding such benefices makes void the holding others with cure of souls.

The arguments produced by Dr. Marriott and Dr. Calvert, who on this occasion exhibited extensive reading and most skilfully applied it, the arguments of these gentlemen on behalf of

Mr.