202 Tithes versus Rent. [FEB. 



four shillings and ninepence did the nobleman refuse to pay, instead of 

 (as the parson afterwards ascertained he ought to have paid) 2. 18s. Od. 

 Thus the noble lord was not content with the parson's tameness, or rather 

 meanness, in offering to take less than one twelfth of his due ! Here be 

 facts for the dispassionate and candid amongst the men of England ! 

 The Lord deliver them from the judgment of such wholesale-parson- 

 haters as a Westminster reviewer ! Our parson was a most veracious 

 parson ; but human credulity would have been too much taxed to be- 

 lieve him, had he merely stated his knowledge of the ci-devant brewer, 

 above alluded to, having written as follows, in consequence of a simi- 

 larly moderate demand by a parson, of 4s. 9d. an acre on land possessed 

 by the noble house of Cowper. The evidence of his own words yet 

 . remaining, the just and patriotic malster, (for it seems he had substi- 

 tuted malting, as well as landowning, for brewing any thing to gain 

 an honest penny !) after quoting some sarcasms of the poet Cowper on 

 the peculiar failings of the clergy, continued in his printed pamphlet 

 thus : " Had the pious poet, when he wrote these lines, foreseen, with 

 prophetic spirit, what would have fallen (namely, the affair of the 

 4s. 9d.) on the offspring of his illustrious house ! could his imagination 

 have reached the hateful scene of such a rector, who, after every offer 

 of conciliation, could consign the revenues of his living to an alehouse- 

 keeper, to exercise his dominion over the estates of the nobility, gentry, 

 and tenantry of the parish, celebrated as the birth-place and residence 

 of the noble house of Cowper ! had he seen the dejection of the hus- 

 bandman, placed beyond the power of nobility to relieve ! had he 

 seen the delightful domains of his relations overshadowed by such a 

 scene, and reduced to such a state of ecclesiastical vassalage I as must 

 wound the feelings of every true Briton, his pen would have fallen 

 from his hand before he had finished the portrait, his tender heart- 

 strings would have broken, and his pious spirit would have fled from 

 these scenes of noise and strife to the peaceful realms of eternal bliss !" 

 So much for Parson Bearblock, and the farmers, and gentleman 

 brewers, and noble corn-dealers ! 



The writer of the present article felt, in his own instance, the general 

 prejudice against a book, by a parson too, on tithes ; and, as he consi- 

 ders himself a fairer man, more inclined to give the devil himself his 

 due than most men in England, he is well aware how little can be 

 known by third parties in general, by mere uninquisitive lookers- 

 on, of the comparative merits of tithes and rent. The fair-dealing 

 writer himself was prejudiced against Parson Bearblock's book ; and 

 he feels certain, therefore, that gentlemen in general, who are not 

 nearly so fond of inquiry as he is, would as soon think of reading a 

 religious tract on the peculiar acceptability to Heaven of mortified, 

 discontented spirits, and sour faces, as upon the treatise on tithes in its 

 own proper form. 



Gladly, then, has the truth-loving-writer availed himself of the 

 friendship of the very discriminating editor of the-as-it-is-now-con- 

 ducted-undoubtcdly - sound -principled, -universally - interesting, - extensively - 

 circulated ,-and-indeed- pretty-generally - appreciated-and- acceptable-publi- 

 cation, the Monthly Magazine, to insinuate the matter-of-fact evidence of 

 the tithe- treatise into the ear of those before whom he pleads the cause, 

 " Tithes versus Rent." 



But time's up Parson Bearblock's seasonable interposition has 



