1 827.] Notes for the Month. 397 



who actually perform no duty for these sums, even in the way of their 

 calling ; but the persons whom these well-paid sinecurists hire to execute 

 their sacred office, are so wretchedly remunerated for their work, that they 

 are compelled literally to become beggars for private bounty, and cap for 

 a douceur at the end of their task, like postilions or mail coachmen. We 

 have nothing to do here with the abstract question of the degradation or 

 non-degradation of poverty; an immense sum is levied, for the mainte- 

 nance of a certain class of public functionaries ; and the least that we 

 are entitled to expect is to see those functionaries credit the country by 

 presenting the style and habits of respectability. Men whose livelihood is 

 gained by the daily soliciting of gratuities (according to the opinions and 

 feelings that prevail in England) do not do so. It is offensive we might 

 almost say disgusting to see in a wealthy and populous London parish 

 a parish which pays perhaps to its resident clergy an income of four or 

 five thousand pounds a-year the officiating minister of that parish, after 

 delivering a solemn exhortation from the pulpit to fifteen hundred, or two 

 thousand persons, lay his sacred garments (and tone) briskly aside, and 

 bow, as he receives the church dues after the performance of a wedding 

 or a christening *' For so much" (whatever are the regular fees) " I 

 am accountable to Dr. (So-and-So) the rector : any thing you please 

 to give me over that sum, I am allowed to keep for myself!" It 

 has been said, that a religion like every other institution in which mortals 

 have concern has but its day and its termination : and perhaps the con- 

 dition of any system must be something advanced, under which such ad- 

 vertisements as that in a Gloucestershire paper that lies before us at this 

 moment " To be sold, the nex* presentation to a living of 800/. a-year; 

 in a good sporting neighbourhood" may be found twice a week in half the 

 newspapers in England. But this practice of clergymen asking alms in the 

 church is too disgraceful, where a liberal and large allowance (as far as the 

 public is concerned) is already made. We have no intention, by these 

 remarks, to wound the feelings of individuals. On the contrary, we en- 

 tertain no doubt that the parties whose conduct we complain of, are the 

 sufferers under a bad system, rather than the offenders. But still the 

 system is disgraceful, and ought to be altered. It may be difficult for 

 any church establishment to secure the consistent private conduct of all 

 its members ; but it is scandalous that a church, endowed as that of Eng- 

 land is, should leave them without the means (in public) of maintaining 

 a deportment of independence and respectability. 



Letters from Cheltenham state, that " Mr. Terry (late of Covent Garden) 

 who is the manager of the theatre there, takes his benefit this evening. 

 Colonel Berkeley performs on the occasion, and is to wear a dress which 

 has cost seven hundred guineas. The character which the noble amateur 

 enacts is his favourite one of " Richard Coeur de Lion" ! / 



Fowling Extraordinary ! " The Duke of St. Albans," an Evening 

 Paper says, " intends to commence the shooting season in good earnest. 

 His Grace has ordered fifty canisters of gunpowder ; sixteen bags of 

 shot ; and two double-barrelled guns, with gold touch-holes, and armorial 

 bearings /" Devant tant de belles choses, les perdrix se prosternent ! 

 or ought to do. But we are surprised it has never occurred to his Grace, 

 since his marriage, or to other persons of his rank, to shoot with gold 

 shot! 



" It is said that Sir James Mackintosh has sold his History of England 



