in the country, certainly have little claim to any profit from the patrimony of the Church. Instances are not unfrequent of gentlemen poffeffing very confiderable estates, clearing 8001. or 10001. per annum by long leafes of

tithes; while the meritorious but unfortunate Vicar with the utmost difficulty supports his family, and maintains hofpitality, on an income perhaps not exceeding 1001. or 2001. a year. My opinion, Mr. Urban, is, that in all cafes, the Resident Incumbents hould have an offer of a lease of the great tithes, either for seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years, as may be most agreeable to the patrons. Thus both parties would be benefited: the Proprietors of the great tithes would increase their revenue, and the flender falary of the Vicar would receive a confiderable augmentation. I am aware that one objection would be raised; the Clergy are generally in narrow circumftances. But, to obviate this difficulty, the Vicar to whom the tithes are to be let on lease, should be obliged to find two securities of 500l. each, or to pay a year in advance; by this plan the patrons could not fuftain any injury, and the condition of the inferior Clergy would be much ameliorated. I suggest these hints, which perfons better acquainted with the fubject may improve at their leisure. Yours, &c.

Mr. URBAN,

THE remarks of

A LAYMAN.

Νου. 10, 1807. your Correspondent

S. (vol. LXXVII. p.831) would have been just, had Hector returned his boy to the Nurse; but he returned him to his Wife, and not a word is faid by Homer about fondly gazing on her charms. "Thus Hector fpoke, and then return'd the boy; [five joy

His Wife with smiles and tears and penReceiv'd the child upon her fragrant breaft, At once delighted, melted, and distress'dGreat Hector's foul was mov'd, her hand he took,

And thus in sympathetic words he spoke, My best belov'd, endeavour to controul The undue feelings of thy troubled foul." A. B.

Yours, &c.

Mr. URBAN, Nov. 11, 1807. CORRESPONDENT defires to A know, whether it was Homer or Pope that was napping in the quotation

which he has adduced.

I have a fac fimile of Pope's handwriting traced from the original manufcript trantlation at the British Mu

IT is merely from a regard to that

IT

decorum which is effential to the

very existence of civilization in fociety, that I flep out of my way to make a few observations on a paper which stands sentry, as it were, at the head of your Magazine for last month, and, like the Dragon of the Hesperian gardens, seems determined to arrest our course towards the instructive seast which you every month prepare for us. It is doubtless no small comfort to your Correspondent to know, that it would be utterly impossible to detail the very extraordinary, and to him confounding, history of the Claim in that Publication into which he has fcrewed his invective. The utmost that can be done there is, to answer, where we can discover diftinctness, his diftinct obfervations. Let us attempt it.

He tells us, in the first place, that the late Claimant was "tainted by the fillieft fort of pride, which rendered him an eafy prey to the artifices of others,

* The words in hooks are punged, and fondly and on her inferted.

and

and fuffered him at last to be seduced into the adoption of a measure," &c. (meaning the inftitution of the Claim); and "that the Claimaint's indignation ought to have been applied against thote who had made him their stalking-horse, &c." Now on this I will observe, that what he here advances is scarcely possible. For the Claim was inftituted, as I have always understood, under the immediate auspices, and for fix years carried on with the co-operation of a Herald (whose well-known modetty I will not offend by naming him), who, though (as appears by the peculiar line of practice which he prefers in his profeffion) a pretty constant encourager of what your Correfpondent calls the filliest fort of pride, undoubtedly would have instantly and honourably disclosed to the Claimant that folly, or fallacy, which his experience and ingenuity, aided by the Claimant's implicit confidence, could not have failed to detect.

Sudeley must mean then, I suppose, to charge that perfon with undue artifices, and with making the late Claimant his stalking-horse; and thus he himself furnishes us with the first proof of his ignorance of a most important circumstance in the history of the cafe.

He has contrived to couple, in very few lines of the next paragraph, a grofs mifrepresentation with a very mischievous equivocation; for he there tells us (and afterwards repeats it again and again) that the article in p. 989, relating to the death of the late Claimant, imputes the most " infamous and diabolical motives to the perfons who have been indecently called Opponents, whether appearing at the Bar of the House of Lords as the great Law Officers of the Crown, or in the more humble, but not less respectable, character of Heralds." Not to dwell for a moment on the abfurdity of imputing indecency to him who may give the very natural name of Opponents to those who oppose, or on the concluding member of the sentence, which, strictly construed, makes the same identical persons alternately great Law Officers of the Crown and humble Heralds, I will appeal to every man who has read that article in your Obituary, whether a single word is to be found, from which the utmost ingenuity of misconstruction could infer even a hint of reflection on any of the great Law Officers of the Crown. Here

is the misrepresentation; now for the equivocation..

It is convenient to his purpose to speak plurally of Heralds. Does he mean to say that the Heralds were unanimous in oppofing the Claim in question? or that a majority of them opposed it? Does he mean to say even that more than one of them opposed it? If he means to say either, he means to deceive your readers. The fact is, that the very Herald who, as I have faid before, originally undertook the conduct of the Claim, and did conduct it for fix years, afterwards became its most zealous, bufy, and indefatigable Opponent; and that no other Herald ever did oppose it: among the rest, some warmly espoused it, and others

were indifferent. I mention these circumstances, not only to expose in this instance that want of candour which disgraces equally every part of your correspondent's letter, but in order to obtain juftice to these faid Heralds, who have been thus, I dare say unwillingly, dragged into fuch confpicuity. If the opposition of the one individual anong them who did oppose the Claim were laudable, to him be allotted the whole praise; if it were blaineable, his brethren in office ought not to share the obloquy.

In the conclusion of his letter he quits his profound ambiguity, and deviates into fomewhat like meaning. Here, therefore, he may be shortly and easily answered. It confists in two points: Firft, In charging the present Representative of the late Claimant's family with abusing somebody. Secondly, In charging somebody with illicit practices as to various evidence touching the claim.

As to the first, I have already, faid that I believe not even the flightest breath of complaint on the fubject has ever been uttered by any one againft the Law Officers of the Crown, or against any of the Heralds, one only excepted. On this point I positively deny your Correspondent. Let him tell us then who the perfon or perfons are on whose behalf he has thus boldly, and permit me to fay rashly, thrown down his gauntlet?

As to the second, it refutes itself. That high Court of Judicature which by its vote of June 13, 1803 *, fufpended the claim to the Barony, has too much reverence for its own ex

* See Gent. Mag. vol. LXXVII. p. 958. alted