* "Has been the pleasure that our grief repays; Rife in a mellow light by fome new charm adorn'd.” Had the bard feen my very thoughts, and in his own beautiful language thus honoured them in expreffion, he could not more exactly have painted my fituation and fenfations. And it is sweet to me to know, that we must both have felt and thought alike under fimilar circumftances. It juftifies one's felf, love, which is often a very virtuous affection, to trace a resemblance of one's own mind and fancy in that of another, who has given proof of a tender dif. pofition: it may truly be called meeting with a congenial fpirit."-" That thefe feelings will be easily understood by thofe in whom the business or the pleasure of the world has not extinguished fenfibility, is the remark of a most elegant mind. There is a filent chronicle of past hours in the inanimate things amidit which they have been spent, that gives us back the affections, the regrets, the fentiments of our former days; that gives back their joys without tumalt, their griefs without poignancy; and produces, equally from both, a penfive pleasure which men who have retired from the world, or whom particular circumftances have fomewhat eftranged from it, will be peculiarly fond of indulging."—" There is a certain attachment to place and things, by which the town, the house, the room in which we live, have a powerful influence over us. He must be a very dull, or a very diffipated man, who, after a month's abfence can open his own door without emotion, even though he has no relation or friend to welcome him within.". been obferved, that this attachment to inanimate objects, discovering itself in a fort of filent converse with an old accustomed chair, for instance, or bed, or any other piece of furniture to which we have been long used, is character tically British. But the "Sirmio" of Catullus feems to prove, that the old Bomans had hearts to feel the fame domeftic fympathies." Catullus faw, once more, the lucid tide, Around the green banks of his Sirmio roll, Amid his oliv'd island to repofe ! Here, on my old couch,' (the mafter cried) Shall I difmifs a train of wakeful woes; Here, in delicious fleep, my heavy eyelids close." "It has We cannot, in justice to Mr. Pratt, conclude this article without congratulating him, as we moft fincerely do, on his fuccefs in correcting various errors, which we had conceived to be attached to his literary character. We are happy to find, that we were, in fome degree, miftaken. We here perceive no unbecoming badinage; no improper levity. We have no freaks or grimaces, exhibited to en liven dullness; no fentimental jargon; no unnatural description. Both the fentiment and the language are eafy and graceful. On the whole, we recommend the work before us, as one of the moft ufeful of Mr. Pratt's productions; and not the leaft entertaining. It is true, there are fome exuberances; but it is very difficult to check, at all times, a too luxuriant fancy. An Enquiry into the Neceffity, Justice, and Policy of a Commutation of Tithes. By Morgan Cove, L. L. B. Prebendary of Hereford, and Rector of Eaton-Bishop, Herefordshire. 8vo. PP. 122. Rivingtons. 1800. OUR UR readers are not now to be told, that the fubject of this inquiry has long engaged our most earnest and profound attention; nor are they yet to learn, that our efforts have been strenuously directed to ftem the tide of popular clamour, popular error, and popular invective, on a topic on which ignorance and malevolence feem to have joined hand in hand, in order to impofe on the thoughtless, and to ftimulate the difaffected. We premife thus much, merely to fhew, that the opinion which we have formed on the tract before us is not the rash and hafty decision of prejudice, but the cool result of deliberate investigation, the well-weighed fentence of impartial judgment. We have one word more to say on a topic which we confider as one of infinite importance. Unfashionable as our notions may be deemed, incompatible as they may appear with the most approved maxims of modern liberality, we fhall ever be ready to defend tithes on the ground of their divine right, as we are to defend government on the ground of its divine origin; though both of them may be fuccefsfully defended on grounds much more congenial with the fpirit of the age. Notwithstanding the arch fneer of the philofophift, the fardonic grin of the diffenter, and the contemptuous ribaldry of the man of reason, we fear not to declare, that the divine right or divine origin of any inftitution is with us an additional motive to afford it protection and fupport; and that such an institution has stronger hold on our feelings, ftronger claims on our duty, than any which is founded on rights, or which can be traced to an origin, merely human. We fhall, no doubt, be cenfured for this gratuitous declaration; but, before we are condemned, we fhall beg to be understood; nor will fuch request be deemed either unneceffary or unreasonable by those who have clofely watched the current of human affairs, during the last few years, and who, of course, have seen, in fome important points of religion and politics, decifion precede conviction, and condemnation underlanding. Mr. Cove has evidently ftudied his fubject with the attention which its confequence imperiously claimed from him. The scope of his argument may be clearly comprehended from the following short paffage "On "On no fubject, perhaps, have more erroneous notions been more induftriously circulated, or more haftily believed, than on the effect of Tithes on Agriculture; nor has any fubject, poffibly, been more wilfully misrepre fented, or more generally mifunderstood. An inquiry, therefore, into the operation of Tithes upon Agriculture, is abfolutely requifite; and it is prefumed, that in the profecution of it, fufficient evidence will arife to fhew, that neither the rights of the tithe-holders, nor their general conduct in the exercife of thofe rights, are, or have been, unfriendly to agricultural' purfuits; that no immediate intereft of the land-occupier, nor future prudential intereft of the land-proprietor, can fanction an alteration in the prefent property and form of tithes; and that an abolition or commutation of them is not defenfible on the principles of neceffity, juftice, or policy." The proofs which he adduces in fupport of this fundamental pofition are fuch as may be cavilled at, but can neither be destroyed nor invalidated; they are full, cogent, and conclufive. Speaking of a plan for the fale of the tithes, and for confequently rendering the clergy penfioners of the ftate, a plan so strongly and fo justly deprecated by the late Mr. Burke, in his admirable reflections on the French revolution, a plan which, we are bold to say, even the boasted omnipotence of parliament is as incompetent to enforce, as it is to convert all the landed eftates of the country into a funded property, the author extracts the following pointed remarks from a contemporary writer. "To convert the ftipend of the clergy to a money-payment, and veft their property in the funds, is the wickedeft idea a profligate and unprincipled mind ever feriously conceived. The author of the project is every day finking into contempt; and it is unneceffary to warn my country against the dangers of a fingle individual, more diftinguished by low cunning than profound knowledge-by pliability to the bent of intereft than folidity of judgment-more by pertness of plausibility than found reasoning and extensive information.*" Of the facrednefs of this fpecies of property, on which we have fo often and fo ftrongly infifted, it is moft truly obferved The clergy, and the lay-impropriators derivatively from them, hold their tithes by a more ancient and indefeafible title, than attaches, perhaps, to any other landed property in the kingdom;-a title invariably recognized by the laws and conftitution, fanctioned at the important æra of our civil liberty by Magna Charta, which declares the Church of England to be free, and that the fhall have all her rights and liberties inviolable,' and most exprefsly confirmed at the establishment of our ecclefiaftical liberty by the act of the 27th of Henry VIII. which declares tithes to be due unto God and Holy Church." The gradual decrease of our exportation of corn, and the confequent gradual augmentation of our import of it, our author imputes to four grand caufes; the increase of population; the ufe of an enormous multitude of horfes; the extended confumption of malt liquor; and the cuftom adopted of late years by the lower claffes of *66 Thoughts on Non-refidence, Tithes, Inclofures," &c. p. 39. people, people, of eating wheaten bread only. To which he adds feveral fubordinate caufes, all of which contribute, in a greater or lefs degree, to promote the fame end. But he has alfo proved, that if the tillage of corn had not increased with our population, our imports must have been juft double what they have been. Mr. Cove agrees with us, in our opinion of the recent labours of the Board of Agriculture; he quotes fome of our obfervations on them, and adds fome juft remarks of his own; fome of which we fhall felect. "In the formation of the firft sketches of the County Agricultural Reports, drawn up for the ufe of, and difperfed by the Board of, Agriculture, the feveral furveyors were left at liberty to note down fuch information and remarks on all relevant fubjects, as were dictated by their knowledge, judgment, and obfervation; but in the improved Reports of each County, already or hereafter to be republished, they are confined to an exprefs form of compilation, and are obliged to give opinions upon fubjects which they might wish to avoid, or upon which they might not think themselves competent to decide. "In confequence of this regulation, nearly a fourth part of the writers of thofe first sketches of the English and Welfh counties, are compelled to appropriate a chapter to the confideration of tithes, if not abfolutely to point them out as an obstacle to agricultural improvements; though thefe writers had originally either declined mentioning them, or flightly noticed them, and in fome inftances fpoken in favourable terms of tithe-holders in general. ́ And at the fame time that these reports are thus re-modelled and re-published under the plan and fanction of the Board of Agriculture, it is pretended that the Board of Agriculture does not confider itself as refponfible for any fact or obfervation therein contained: fo that thefe improved reports (leaving the reconcilement of the paradox to the honourable Board itfelf,) are re-published with and without its approbation and authority.. "Thus, in the first sketches of the Middlefex, Somerset, Norfolk, and Nottingham Reports, the furveyors had been wholly filent on the fubject of tithes. But in the improved Report for Middlefex,* the fubject is taken up (by a new furveyor, the old one, perhaps, not having been fo pliant and accommodating,) with fuch unfeemly warmth, invidious invective, and raking up of old ftories, as, in the opinion of candid and difpaffionate men, inuft wholly difqualify him from judging of the actual operation of tithes in kind upon "This work has been quoted with approbation. But, according to ftatements (apparently very accurate,) in Beeke's Obfervations, it is moft notoriously incorrect in fome of the most important parts of our internal economy. And, if its credit be thus impeachable in points of the firft confequence, furely it is not judging unfairly of the whole work, at least to doubt its credibility in other refpects; and to queftion the moral and justifiable tendency of fome particular paffages in it. In a copious review of the chapter on tithes, the author is charged with petulance, folly, ignorance, mifreprefentation, abuse, and malice; and the cafes of oppreffion (as he is pleafed to call them,) cited by him in relation to tithes and the collection of them, are fhewn to da honour to the clergy, and to reflect difgrace on their abuser"-Anti-Jacobin Review, vol. vi, p. 89. our . our agriculture, whatever may be his imaginary merit in other branches of political economy. On the contrary, in the improved Report for Somerset, the original Surveyor, though he begs leave to wave the difcuffion of the dif ficult, though important, fubject of tithes, fays, that, in respect to their influence on the agriculture of this diftrict, (the north-eaft part of the county,) I fee but little to complain of: both the clergy and lay-impropriators have been fo moderate in their demands, and, in general, have agreed to fo reafon. able a compofition, that the progrefs of improvement has received but little check on this account. So, again, in the improved Report for Norfolk, a county most highly and expenfively cultivated, and, in proportion to its fize, productive perhaps of a greater quantity of corn than any other county in the kingdom,the original furvey or expreffes himfelf greatly to the credit of the clergy and lay-impropriators, and ftates very obvious reafons for afcribing the caufes of moft tithe difputes to the land occupiers, and that it is folly and injuftice to make farmers believe they fhould have their land cheaper, if they could get rid of tithes; and that, though tithes may be a difcouragement to new improvements, he doubted whether, in order to a total extinction of tithes, it would not be extremely difficult to fettle fuch a proper equivalent as fhould keep pace with the times.' And, again, in a fimilar ftrain of credit to the clergy and lay-impropriators, in the improved Report for Nottingham, the original furveyor, perhaps, too independent in principle and fituation to difguife or be over-awed in his fentiments, fays, in two different places,Tithes are in many places taken in kind, but are more frequently compounded for, at a much lower rate than they could be valued by any furveyor.' And, afterwards, in ftating actual facts, and the almoft certain confequences of any compenfation for tithes, he adds, "Some perfons have confidered tithes as a great obftacle to improvement, and a law to compel a general compenfation for them, as a money or corn rent, as a remedy. I muit, however, beg to offer my doubts as to the propriety or the efficacy of it. The right of tithes in the clergy or lay-impropriators is as much fixed and guarded by law as any other property; and, confequently, no alteration fhould be attempted against their inclination, but for very cogent reafons indeed. It must be allowed, that the taking tithe in kind tends to impoverish the lands of those who pay it, by depriving them of fo much straw for manure, whilft it enriches thofe of the Rector, or Impropriator, or their Leffee. It may, likewife, fometimes difcourage the growing of fome particular valuable crops, though in that cafe the Rector will generally find it his intereft to come to a compofition. The Legiflature has, indeed, interfered; and, for the encouragement of valuable crops, fixed a certain fum in lieu of tithes, as in the cafe of madder. But what weighs moft with me, is, that in this, and, I believe, in moft other counties, more tithes are paid by composition than in kind. The com pofitions, from the defire of Clergymen to live well with their parishioners, and partly perhaps from habit, are much lower than the real value of the tithe. If therefore a general compenfation is to be fixed by law, which muft neceffarily be by understanding perfons upon oath, I apprehend much the greater part of the occupiers would, instead of being relieved, find themselves charged with a much heavier expence than before; and, confequently, inftead of a general fatisfaction, a general complaint would enfue." We fhall he re add one fact which has recently occurred to prove how very oppreffive to the farmers, how very injurious to agricul ture, |