Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/402

394 force, after the church had been so terribly stripped, appeared to her majesty and the kingdom a very unnecessary hardship; upon which account it was at several times relaxed by the legislature. Now, as the relaxation of that statute is manifestly one of the reasons which gives the bishop those terrible apprehensions of popery coming on us; so, I conceive, another ground of his fears, is, the remission of the first-fruits and tenths. But where the inclination to popery lay, whether in her majesty who proposed this benefaction, the parliament which confirmed, or the clergy who accepted it, his lordship has not thought fit to determine.

The other popish expedient for augmenting church-revenues, is, engaging the clergy to renew no leases. Several of the most eminent clergymen have assured me, that nothing has been more wished for by good men, than a law to prevent bishops, at least, from setting leases for lives. I could name ten bishopricks in England, whose revenues one with another do not amount to 600 pounds a year for each: and if his lordship's, for instance, would be above ten times the value when the lives are expired, I should think the overplus would not be ill disposed, toward an augmentation of such as are now shamefully poor. But I do assert, that such an expedient was not always thought popish and dangerous by this right reverend historian. I have had the honour formerly to converse with him; and he has told me several years ago, that he lamented extremely the power which bishops had of letting leases for lives; whereby, as he said, they were utterly deprived of raising their revenues, whatever alterations might happen in the value