Soon afterwards he expresses himself thus:

"As the sons of clergymen may be justly thought more adapted to learning and to orthodoxy; so I am too sure the condition of their friends does more especially require the benefits of charity for the good education of them. For the legal maintenance of the Clergy being for their own lives, and that generally bare competence, does not enable them to make such provision for their children as is commonly made by the laity of all degrees. And what a discouragement is it, that while many of the POORER Clergy indulge the inclination of their sons by breeding them to a good competence of school-learning, when they should remove them to the University, they cannot there support them; and so out of necessity divert them to mean and unsuitable employs. Especially, if such lads are left minors, their father's blessing dies with them, and they are thrown upon an uncharitable world with hopeful parts, and no dependence.

"The enemies to our blessed Reformation are well known to charge this odium upon the marriage of our Clergy; that their numerous issue are often exposed to neglect and want, and so bring a reproach upon that function to which they were related; whereas the celibacy of Priests would at least have this political effect, that they could not burden the nation by leaving families destitute and poor. Now nothing would sooner stop the mouths of these adversaries than to see a new reformed seminary founded and endowed for the sons of our English Clergy, by whose ingenuous education and competent support the Protestant religion would be more firmly entailed to posterity, and the son of Priest would be as honourable in this nation as it is scandalous abroad.

"Many pious and charitable persons of our own communion have been sensible there is no greater object of charity than the families which the poorer Clergy leave behind; and upon this motive there have been many suitable provisions made for the widows of deceased ministers. But sure a College for the sons would be of larger extent in doing good than an hospital for the mothers. For one son being so provided, might by degrees be able to provide for a whole family, or at least to encourage and assist them in their other honest ways of living.

"It can scarce be imagined what a life and spirit it would put

into all the rural Clergy, to hear of such a noble and magnificent project. For though very few of them might ever come to any actual benefit by it, yet the hopes and expectations would extend to all. It might possibly have some effect upon the more creditable matches of young divines; their children to be born capable of such provision might be one argument to excuse the defect of better settlement. It would however comfort and relieve the thoughts of many a parson and vicar, charged with a numerous family, to flatter himself that one of his forward boys might come at least to be a member of the Clergy-College, and so rise to a capacity of helping all the rest. It would excite the Clergy to a stricter guard upon their own lives and conversation, when the preferment of a son might depend much upon the father's character. It might encourage them to the preserving and augmenting their libraries when they have the prospect of transmitting them to a child that will understand them. It may have a great many good consequences, and above all other ways and means may in time wipe off that contempt of the Clergy which has been the sin and shame of this latter age."-Collectanea Curiosa, vol. II. pp. 304-307.

The reader has now sufficient evidence to judge of the accuracy of Mr. Macaulay's description of the general character of the wives and families of the country Clergy in the latter part of the seventeenth century.

This section shall be concluded with three extracts from Dr. Sprat's Sermon preached at the Anniversary Meeting of the Sons of Clergymen, at St. Marylebone, London, Nov. 1678:

"What argument either civil or ecclesiastical can justify, can commend the marriage of churchmen, and vindicate our whole reformation on that account, if this sight be not sufficient to do it? This assembly? The lawful offspring of such marriages, the genuine seed, the proper issue of the Reformation; and, if you permit me to say it, I dare say the honour of it too. An assembly composed of men considerable in all worthy professions; eminent in many ways of life, all honest ways, some venerable, some honourable; men favoured by God in your birth, your education, your several stations in this world; so far above what

the adversaries of our Church most maliciously upbraid, so far above contempt or meanness, that you are plentifully blessed by our gracious God with abilities; and, which is more, endowed by him with hearts too to do good to others."-Sprat's Sermon, pp. 2, 3.

Again:

"'Tis an evident observation, that no other one race, not the sons of any one other profession, not perhaps all together, are so much scattered amongst all professions, all ways of life, as the sons of clergymen alone. Of most others the children are commonly bred up in their father's way: or so plentifully provided for that they are left at large; some few permitted to venture on the Church. But with churchmen 'tis far otherwise: their children, we see, flow abroad, are confined to none, overspread all our ways of breeding and life; our shops, our schools, our universities, our inns of court, our college of physicians, our towns, our country, our court, our cities; this court, this city especially."-Ibid. pp. 32, 33.

And to take one more passage in conclusion:

"Though it should be true, as I fear it is, that never any time since the Reformation can shew so many poor among the widows and orphans of churchmen, as this particular time; yet I believe it to be as true, and we ought to rejoice at it, that God in his mercy has now more than ever provided and pointed out a proportionable supply for them within ourselves. As more clergymen were impoverished by the calamities of the late war and oppression of the Church and State than ever in the like space before, so I think it may be said without envy, (I am sure, if this work proceeds, it may) that more clergymen or their heirs than ever in one time before, since they were allowed marriage, have been brought to a plentiful and prosperous condition by his majesty's and with him the Church's most happy restoration."—Ibid. pp. 41, 42.

SECTION VII.

OF THE CLERGYMAN'S LIBRARY AND STUDIES.

MR. MACAULAY, speaking of the country Clergyman generally, describes his literary opportunities as follows:

"Study he found impossible: for the advowson of his living would hardly have sold for a sum sufficient to purchase a good theological library; and he might be considered as unusually lucky if he had ten or twelve dogeared volumes among the pots and pans on his shelves. Even a keen and strong intellect might be expected to rust in so unfavourable a situation."-Macaulay's Hist. of Eng. vol. I. p. 330.

From the above graphic account it should seem that in general the library of the country parson was considerably short of ten volumes. At first sight it may appear that it is justified by Eachard's statement, from which it is no doubt taken :

"As for books, he is (for want of money) so moderately furnished that except it be a small Geneva bible, so small as it will not be desired to lie open of itself, together with a certain Concordance thereunto belonging; as also a book for all kind of Latin sentences, called Polyanthea, with some exposition upon the Catechism (a portion of which is to be got by heart and to be put off for his own); and perhaps Mr. Caryl upon Pineda, Mr. Dod upon the Commandments, and Mr. Clark's Lives of famous men both in Church and State, such as Mr. Carter of Norwich, that used to eat such abundance of pudding: besides these, I say, there is scarce anything to be found but a budget of old stitched sermons, hung up behind the door."-The Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy, &c. pp. 106, 107.

Now let it be remembered that Eachard is not speaking of the country Clergy generally, but of those who "are pinched as to the tolerable conveniences of life." In one of his answers to an opponent (who, like Mr. Macaulay, concludes what Eachard says of a few to be meant of all, though he could not believe that such an account could be generally true) he expresses himself in these words:

"The case is this (or as you are pleased to read it, the ball of contention), Whether there may not be here and there a clergyman so ignorant, as that it might be wished that he were wiser. For my own part I went and guessed at random, and thought there might be one or so: but my adversary holds and maintains not only that there is not so much as one now in the whole nation, but shews it to be impossible that there ever was one, or ever shall be one."A Letter to the Author of the Vindication of the Clergy from T. B. [Eachard], p. 234, (Lond. 1685).

The truth is, that Eachard was speaking of the very worst cases he knew of; and was endeavouring, through an innate love of drollery, to make the very worst of those bad cases: Mr. Macaulay seizes upon these extreme and colored cases, and makes it out that these unfortunates were the "unusually lucky" ones of the whole body! In a word, Eachard's droll minimum is Mr. Macaulay's serious maximum. The inkstand and the concordance seem (according to him) to have been the average furniture of the country parson's library, (p. 330).

However let us look at Eachard himself. His observations (strained as they always are) naturally gave offence to many, and amongst the number to the author of a tract which was written in reply to his own," wherein is contained a Sober Vindication of the Clergy of England from the imputation of folly and ignorance." Eachard, in reply to this pamphlet, maintains that his words had been supposed to mean more than he meant by them.