Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/296

288 relates to the church, there are few persons with whose opinions I am better pleased to agree; and am therefore grieved when I find him charging the inconveniencies in the payment of tithes upon the clergy and their proctors. His lordship is above considering a very known and vulgar truth, that the meanest farmer has all manner of advantages against the most powerful clerygman, by whom it is impossible he can be wronged, although the minister were ever so ill disposed; the whole system of teizing, perplexing, and defrauding the proctor, or his master, being as well known to every ploughman, as the reaping or sowing of his corn, and much more artfully practised. Besides, the leading man in the parish must have his tithes at his own rate, which is hardly ever above one quarter of the value. And I have heard it computed by many skilful observers, whose interest was not concerned, that the clergy did not receive, throughout the kingdom, one half of what the laws have made their due.

As to his lordship's discontent against the bishops court, I shall not interpose farther than in venturing my private opinion, that the clergy would be very glad to recover their just dues, by a more short, decisive, and compulsive method, than such a cramped limited jurisdiction will allow.

His lordship is not the only person, disposed to give the clergy the honour of being the sole encouragers of all new improvements. If hops, hemp, flax, and twenty things more are to be planted, the clergy alone must reward the industrious farmer by abatement of the tithe. What if the owner of nine parts in ten, would please to abate proportionably in his