if Elizabeth had not paffed her famous law to prohibit any future mo. dus, the church would have had no tythes to be thus modified at prefent; and the work would have been done to Mr. Middleton's hand. But, Elizabeth, I honour her memory for the act, though I deteft her conduct in general, ftopped the rapacious Middletons then from plundering the parochial clergy any more, and kept only the fuperior clergy as a kind of royal game for her own plucking. Yet the Middletons of our times fhew their eagerness for over-leaping the fences of Elizabeth, for catching hold of the parochial clergy themselves, and for ftripping the poor half-naked birds to the very skin. For, as Mr. Middleton goes on with his account of parifhes, and from "happily" concerning farms paying a modus should in regular affent have added "more happily" for farms paying nothing, there are › others that are entirely tythe-free;" that, therefore, contribute nothing to the worship of God, to the minifteries of Christianity, or to the maintenance of one fet apart for that, and ordained for these.

But Mr. Middleton next recites fome cafes of oppression, as he is pleafed to call it, in taking up of tithes. Many cafes affuredly may be adduced, which, with fuch a judge as Mr. Middleton, would inftantly be condemned as oppreffive. Many a land-furvey or might I produce, who has been very honeft, yet has been thought to be a knave. In faying this, however, I mean no reflection upon Mr. Middleton. I mean only to fhew him, by his own feelings, how easily an invidious intimation may be given, and an honeft man be thought to be a knave. But, to come clofer to Mr. Middleton's own business and bofom, many a land-furveyor has been confidered as very oppreffive to tenants, merely because he has been honest in himself, and just to his employer. Would Mr. Middleton then wifh the clergy to be less just and lefs honeft than land-furveyors? lefs honeft to themselves, and less just to their fucceffors. But Mr. Middleton produces his cafes, as he notes exprefsly, in order to fhew more clearly than I could otherwife do," that taking tythes in kind operates, as he fhould have faid, in conformity with all which he had faid before, but as he does fay, and as he thus expofes the deformity of his defigns, "that tythes," at large, operates against the improvement of the foil, and confequently against the intereft of the nation," just as all rents, all rates, all taxes equally do. And, if the tythes were not paid to the clergyman, they would be paid to the land-owner; are actually paid to the land-owner, where eftates are tythe-free; even pay more to the land-owner, than others pay to the clergyman. Thus religion is deprived of its public maintenance, and agriculture equally, even more, difcouraged. Yet Mr. Middleton is one of those mole-eyed writers, who love to work on in darkness, and turn from the smallest glimmer of light. Tythes are an obstruction to agricultural improvements, in the heavy hands of the clergy; but are no obftructions in the heavy hands of the laity.

"I met with an intance, near Longford, in this county," he tells us, accordingly, "of a farmer having, with great pains, and by an expenfive culture, raifed large crops. He offered a guinea an acre,*

* "Which was exactly the rent he paid per acre." J. M.

as

as a compofition for the tythes of his wheat; but it was refufed, and was fpitefully and maliciously taken in kind." As to the alledged maliciousness and spite in the clergyman, Mr. Middleton must be weak, and wilful indeed, to alledge it. The clergyman had a right to the tythe, and took it. But the whole cafe carries fuch incredibilities upon its head, as fhew it to be grofsly mifreprefented. That the farmer should have neglected to fecure his intended crops by a compofition beforehand for years, that the clergyman fhould have refused the full rent for the tythes, both circumftances prove fome trick to have been intended by the one before, or shew foine fraud to have been apprehended by the other in future. The clergyman was probably to have a guinea an acre for that year, and not a fhilling for the next. He, therefore, refufed to fell his right at all for the one year, in order to make up for the deficiency of the coming years. And, in fuch a case, he would have been an ideot to fell what he had a right to keep. "A late Rector," Mr. Middleton should have faid Vicar, "of Kenfington, in this county, after having for fome time haraffed his parishioners in the Court of Exchequer," as all appeals even to courts of equity are barraffing from clergymen, it feems, though neceffary and expedient from laymen, "obtained a decree," which proved decifively he had not been harraffing, but which Mr. Middleton has yet the boldness to abufe, as he produces the whole cafe in accusation of the clergyman; "that pine-apples, &c. which are well known," and known therefore to the court itself, "to be raised at the expence of hot-houses, and other confiderable expences," juft as wheat is raised at the expence of dung, much labour, and even feed corn, "fhould yield their tythe in kind," as corn pays its tythe in kind. “ I have not heard how many hot-houses were pulled down on that occafion,” and we have not heard, but believe not one was, because Mr. Middleton would certainly have told us if one had been, and because the raifers of pine-apples, &c. were too wordly-wife to throw away a pound for a penny. "But a very exorbitant compofition was demanded and received from the inhabitant in lieu of paying their tythes in kind." They had thus a fair alternative prefented to them, to pay in kind, or in compofition. They made their election. They preferred the compofition. If then it was exorbitant, they had only themselves to cenfure for the exorbitancy. But we may be very fure, that it was not exorbitant; fince those who were beft able to judge, the very inhabitants themfelves, preferred this to the payment of tythes in kind. Yet Mr. Middleton interpofes wildly between the parties, condemns the clergyman for his share of the bargain when he should condemn the inhabitants for theirs, and would have condemned him ten times more if he had done as the law authorized him to do, not offered them a compofition, but taken the tythes in kind. Such a wretched Minos here prefumes to take the bench of justice in the shades of Erebus!

"Jonathan Tyers, Efq." Mr. Middleton fubjoins from the bench, "was at the expence of making a hop-plantation at Denbys, (Surrey). The Vicar refufed to compound on any reasonable terms," that is

reasonable

reasonable in the judgement of one party only, when a bargain like
this requires the terms to be reafonable in the judgement of both parties,
"and infifted on taking the tythes in kind," when the fact is, that
Mr.Tyers, on the Vicar's refufal to take his offer, gave notice he would
fet out his tythe, in kind, actually fet them out without picking and
by the tenth pole; the Vicar therefore refused them, as infifting "alfo
to have them picked," the law had even previously directed they
Bould be.
"A fuit in the court of Exchequer was litigated," a fuit
litigated, Mr. Middleton!" and the decree going against Mr.
Tyers," which proves demonftrably he was in the wrong, and the
Vicar in the right; Mr. Tyers did what even Mr. Middleton is
afhamed to tell of him, and therefore very difhoneftly fuppreffed, ap-
pealed to the House of Lords against the decree, and there had it con-
firmed into another proof, another demonftration, how much the Vicar
was in the right and Mr. Tyers in the wrong. Yet Mr. Middleton
has the affurance and the temerity to produce this cafe as an act of op-
preffion in a Clergyman; when the two highest courts in the kingdom
concurred to fanction it, and when the oppreffion was evidently from
Mr. Tyers himfelf upon the Vicar. Then Mr. Tyers, with the fame
fpirit of oppreffivenefs continued, as we learn the fact without the re-
flection from Mr. Middleton, " grubbed up his hops, fewed grafs-
feeds, and made a pasture of the land. Thus was a produce of up-
wards of thirty pounds an acre" in tythe to the Vicar, when Mr.
Tyers actually offered only twenty to him, and this Mr. Middleton
has called "reasonable terms" before, when he now acknowledges it
was merely two-thirds of the value, "reduced to three" by the
knavish obstinacy of a man, who wanted to force twenty pounds upon
the Vicar for thirty, who really forced him into the Exchequer to gain
his thirty, who again forced him into the House of Lords, and who, at
laft, to fpite the Vicar, to spite the courts, to spite the whole nation,
facrificed more than three hundred a year to fave thirty. Such a tale
from Mr. Middleton's pen is not merely,

An idiot's tale told with found and fury,
Signifying nothing;

but actually turns against the teller, and bewrays the badnefs of his head to be as great as that of his heart. The whole cafe was laid long fince before the public, and is in that very work, which Mr. Middleton cites in the next page, Burn's Ecclefiaftical Law. From this I have corrected his account before. Nor need I to add any more, than that Mr. Tyers, I apprehend, was the man who first formed the gardens of Vauxhall, and who, on having much rain in one or two fummers after he had opened them, exclaimed in a paroxyfm and frenzy of wickednefs against God, "That, had he himself been a hatter, God, he believed, would have made men without heads to spite him."

"The parish of Hutton, in Effex," Mr. Middleton fubjoins in his impotent malice against the Clergy, betraying the foulness of his ftomach, and even stepping out of Middlefex in order to discharge it upon them, "was much occupied by the fuckling of calves.

"The

Clergyman

Clergyman infifted on taking the tythes in kind," or (as the writer really means,) taking the ty the of milk in kind, he having the ty the of the calves before. "The inhabitants were willing to set out onetenth of every meal's milk," when the law had always ordered every tenth meal to be fet out, though the other (as Mr. Middleton avers) "was the only means they had of continuing the fuckling bufinefs." The averment is not true. "The fuckling bufinefs" was and is "continued" all over the island, under a tythe of the tenth meal, or even of the two meals on the tenth day. But then one-tenth of every meal's milk was more convenient for the knavifh farmer, because the frequency of the meals, and the diminutiveness of the quantity, dif abled the Clergyman effectually from collecting the milk fo tythed. And a tythe, impoffible to be collected, is only the fhadow of a tythe, an appearance without a reality. "This, however, would not content the Parfon-no: he insisted on having all the milk of every tently day, though he must know that it would ruin their fuckling fyftem;" when Mr. Middleton must know, that "the fuckling fyftem," as he ridiculously calls it, is carried on all over the kingdom under this very ty the at present. The Rev. Dr. Bosworth, Rector of Tortworth in Gloucestershire, was compelled, by the oppreffivenefs of the late Lord Ducie, in putting the tenants to fet out their tythe-milk every fifth evening, a much fairer mode of ty thing than Mr. Middleton's tenth of every meal! to fue them in the Exchequer. He there obtained a decree, that milk should be tythed for the future by the whole morning's and the whole evening's meal on the tenth day. An appeal was made, as by Tyers before, to the House of Lords; and, as before, the decree was confirmed; this mode of tything milk being thus established finally for the whole kingdom, on February 2, 1779. This determination the Clergyman of Hutton, in all probability, knew, and demanded accordingly. "They of course refifted; the parties were feveral years at law; and at last," the parishioners becoming aware what the decree would be, though Mr. Middleton has again fuppreffed a circumftance fo apparent upon his own narration," an unreasonable compofition was obtained from the farmers." So much is Mr. Middleton a traitor to his own purpose, that he produces inftances of oppreffivenefs in the Clergy, which turn out even in his own narrative, to be defigns of oppreffiveness from the laity, which were fanctioned by every appeal to the law, and which finally appear not even in his own account, to have "ruined," to have injured flightly, to have affected at all, their fuckling fyftem."

Such are the reafonings by which Mr. Middleton has written against taking tythes in kind, or taking any ty the at all, and on which the Monthly Reviewer has pronounced an eulogium! The clear and decided" fentiments of the author, on examination, appear to be clouded over with confufedness, to be balancing in uncertainty, to be even directed at laft against the very cause itself. The reproaches peculiarly terminate in one, that nothing but the impotence of malice could confider as a reproach, that "a Vicar of Batterfea" was "ftimulated” by "the fuccefs of thefe and the like cafes" to take "the tythes of

that

that parish in kind," to the injury of no man furely, as they were his own property; but then this practice "was continued for two or three years," "till to the injury of no man, either real in itself or pretended by our author, as the only wrong pretended by him is, that "during this time nothing was more common," ftartle not ye readers!" than to meet his carts in the streets retailing his tythes, with a perfon in each vociferating, come buy my afparagus, oh, rare cauliflowers.' Such is the happy fatire of Mr. Middleton, upon the poor Clergy! How peculiarly happy then would he have been, could he have ferved the caufe of irreligion as well, to have laughed at the Duke of M. for felling the fish out of his ponds, because he could not, we believe, keep them there from the hands of poachers. Had Mr. Middleton been a poacher, and as much a punfter as the late Mr. Thomas Warton, he would have pronounced him a fell-fif man. But let us turn from Mr. Middleton's fatire to his reafoning. This anecdote of the Vicar of Battersea is the laft of " the oppreffive cafes of tythes," which Mr. Middleton promifed us; and fhows only, that the Vicar-took his own. Every one but Mr. Middleton will "forgive him this wrong." And at the close of this Mr. Middleton adds, that "a few inftances equally oppreffive as thefe," only a few, and but equally oppreffive! when thefe are only three for the whole county of Middlesex, and one thrown in as a make-weight from the whole county of Effex; "have happened in every county in England." Had Mr. Middleton known this to be true, he would certainly have ranged into other counties, as he ranges into Effex, to collect them. But the malice of the man is too ftrong for his intellect. The point of the fhaft wounds only the weak hand, that would draw the bow. His four cafes all unite to do honour to the Clergy, and to reflect difgrace upon their abufer.

This abufer then goes on to inveigh against them, because some Clergyman wanted to have tythes from new inclofures; and because another was willing to take land instead of tythes from another inclofure. In both inftances the fcheme of an inclofure was given up, because the former demand appeared unreasonable, and the latter was thought-unreasonable too; when inclosures are made every year in every part of the kingdom, upon the plan of tythes or the plan of lands given to the Clergy. The former fet of Mr. Middleton's in. clofures was given up, rather than the land fhould be fubjected to yield tythes in kind," when, it must already have yielded them, and would only yield them now in greater abundance. Nor does any equivalent appear, from Mr. Middleton, to have been offered the Clergy. So much does he play booty with his own caufe! In the latter, however, an equivalent would have been accepted by the Clergyman, but was refufed by the laity; becaufe he would have " a particular part of the commons, containing 300 acres, allotted to him in one piece, inclofed with a ditch, bank, and park paling, and maintained in good repair for ever at the expence of the other perfons who had a right of common." This requifition Mr. Middleton profcribes at once, as an "un-reafonable requeft," which "could not be complied with;" without pointing out how it was unreasonable and

why