into it by his brethren. There is a handsome mosque near it, | supply, by any antiquarian conjectures of his own, the which I entered with my Moucre, pretending to be a Saracen. distressing silence of the original. Saving such omis Further on is a stone bridge over the Jordon, called Jacob's sions, there is something pleasant in the narrative of Bridge, on account of a house hard by, said to be the residence this arch-divider of fowls. He is an honest, brave, of that patriarch. The river flows from a gentle lake situated at the foot of a mountain to the north-west, on which Namcar-liberal man; and tells his singular story with great din has a very handsome castle.'-(pp. 122-128.) brevity and plainness. We are obliged to Mr. Johnes for the amusement he has afforded us; and we hope he will persevere in his gentlemanlike, honourable, and useful occupations. LETTER ON THE CURATE'S SALARY BILL. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1808.) A Letter to the Right Honourable Spencer Perceval, on a Subject connected with his Bill, now under Discussion in Parlia ment, for improving the Situation of Stipendiary Curates. Svo. Hatchard, London. 1808. theme with novelists, sentimental tourists, and elegiTHE poverty of curates has long been a favourite From Damascus, to which he returns after his expedition to Nazareth, the first carver of Philip le Bon sets out with the caravan for Bursa. Before he begins upon his journey, he expatiates with much satisfaction upon the admirable method of shoeing horses at Damascus-a panegyric which certainly gives us the lowest ideas of that art in the reign of Philip le Bon; for it appears that, out of fifty days, his horse was lame for twenty-one, owing to this ingenious method of shoeing. As a mark of gratitude to the leader of the caravan, the esquire presents him with a pot of green ginger; and the caravan proceeds. Before it has advanced one day's journey, the esquire, however, deviates from the road, to pay his devoirs to a miraculous image of our Lady of Serdenay, which always sweats-not ordinary sudorific matter-but an oil of ac poets. But notwithstanding the known accuracy great ecclesiastical efficacy. While travelling with of this class of philosophers, we cannot help suspect the caravan, he learnt to sit cross-legged, got drunking that there is a good deal of misconception in the who discovered that he had money. In some parts of privately, and was nearly murdered by some Saracens, popular estimate of the amount of the evil. A very great proportion of all the curacies in Eng. Syria, M. de la Brocquière met with an opinion, which land are filled with men to whom the emolument is a must have been extremely favourable to the spirit of matter of subordinate importance. They are filled by proselytism, in so very hot a country-an opinion young gentlemen who have recently left college, who that the infidels have a very bad smell, and that this of course are able to subsist as they had subsisted for is only to be removed by baptism. But as the baptism seven years before, and who are glad to have an op was according to the Greek ritual, by total immersion, portunity, on any terms, of acquiring a practical Bertrandon seems to have a distant suspicion that this familiarity with the duties of their profession. They miracle may be resolved into the simple phenomenon cies occur; and make way for a new race of ecclesias move away from them to higher situations as vacan of washing. He speaks well of the Turks, and repre- tical apprentices. To those men, the smallness of sents them, to our surprise, as a very gay, laughing the appointment is a grievance of no very great magpeople. We thought Turkish gravity had been almost proverbial. The natives of the countries through which we passed, pray (says he) for the conversion of Christians; and especially request that there may be never sent among them again such another terrible man as Godfrey of Boulogne. At Couhongue the caravan broke up; and here he quitted a Mameluke soldier, who had kept him company during the whole of the journey, and to whose courage and fidelity Europe, Philip le Bon, and Mr. Johnes of Hafod, are principally indebted for the preservation of the first esquire carver. nitude; nor is it fair, with relation to them, to represent the ecclesiastical order as degraded by the indi gence to which some of its members are condemned. With regard, again, to those who take curacies merely as a means of subsistence, and with the prospect of remaining permanently in that situation, it is certain that by far the greater part of them are persons born in a very humble rank in society, and accustomed to There are scarcely any of those persons who have no greater opulence than that of an ordinary curate. taken a degree in an university, and not very many who have resided there at all. Now the son of a small Welsh farmer, who works hard every day for less than 401. a year, has no great reason to complain of degradation or disappointment, if he get from 50!. to 100l. for a moderate portion of labour one day in seven. The situation, accordingly, is looked upon by these people as extremely elegible; and there is a great competition for curacies, even as they are now provided. The amount of the evil, then, as to the On taking leave of him, I was desirous of showing my gra- curates themselves, cannot be considered as very enor. titude; but he would not accept of any thing except a piece mous, when there are so few who either actually feel, of our fine European cloth to cover his head, which seemed to or are entitled to feel, much discontent on the subject. please him much. He told me all the occasions that had come The late regulations about residence, too, by dimin to his knowledge, on which, if it had not been for him, I should have run risks of being assassinated, and warned me to be ishing the total number of curates, will obviously very circumspect in my connections with the Saracens, for throw that office chiefly into the hands of the well ed that there were among them some as wicked as the Franks. I ucated and comparatively independent young men, write this to recall to my reader's memory, that the person who seek for the situation rather for practice than who, from his love to God, did me so many and essential kind-profit, and do not complain of the want of emolunesses, was a man not of our faith.'-(pp. 196, 197.) 'I bade adieu,' he says, 'to my Mameluke. This good man, whose name was Mohammed, had done me innumerable services. He was very charitable, and never refused alms when asked in the name of God. It was through charity he had been so kind to me; and I must confess that, without his assistance, I could not have performed my journey without incurring the greatest danger: and that had it not been for his kindness, I should often have been exposed to cold and hunger, and much embarrassed with my horse. For the rest of his journey, he travelled with the family of the leader of the caravan, without any occurrence more remarkable than those we have already noticed-arrived at Constantinople, and passed through Germany to the court of Philip le Bon. Here his narrative concludes. Nor does the carver vouchsafe to inform us of the changes which time had made in the appetite of that great prince; whether veal was more pleasing to him than lamb-if his favourite morsels were still in request-if animal succulence were as grateful to him as before the departure of the carveror if this semisanguineous partiality had given way to a taste for cinereous and torrefied meats. All these things the first esquire-carver might have said,-none of them he does say -nor does Mr. Johnes of Hafod ment. Still we admit it to be an evil, that the resident clergyman of a parish should not be enabled to hold a respectable rank in society from the regular emoluments of his office. But it is an evil which does not exist exclusively among curates; and which, wherev er it exits, we are afraid is irremediable, without the destruction of the Episcopal church, or the augmenta tion of its patrimony. More than one-half of the liv. ings in England are under 801. a year; and the whole income of the church, including that of the bishops, if was excited to this article by Sir William Scott, who brought * Now we are all dead, it may be amusing to state, that I me the book in his pocket; and begged I would attend to it, carefully concealing his name; my own opinions happened entirely to agree with his. thrown into a common fund, would not afford above | upon them; that some share of the talents and infor1801. for each living. Unless Mr. Perceval, therefore, mation which exist in the country must naturally fall will raise an additional million or two for the church, to their lot; and that the complete subjugation of such there must be poor curates, and poor rectors also; a body of men cannot, in any point of view, be a matand unless he is to reduce the Episcopal hierarchy to ter of indifference to a free country. the republican equality of our Presbyterian model, he must submit to very considerable inequalities in the distribution of this inadequate provision. Instead of applying any of these remedies, however,-instead of proposing to increase the income of the church, or to raise a fund for its lowest servants by a general assessment upon those who are more opulent, instead of even trying indirectly to raise the pay of curates, by raising their qualifications in res. pect of regular education, Mr. Perceval has been able, after long and profound study, to find no better cure for the endemic poverty of curates, than to ordain all rectors of certain income, to pay them one-fifth part of their emoluments, and to vest certain alarming powers in the bishops for the purpose of controlling their appointment. Now this scheme, it appears to us, has all the faults which it is possible for such a scheme to have. It is unjust and partial in its principle, it is evidently altogether and utterly inefficient for the correction of the evil in question, and it introduces other evils infinitely greater than that which it vainly proposes to abolish. To this project, however, for increasing the salary of curates, Mr. Perceval has been so long and so obstínately partial, that he returned to the charge in the last session of Parliament, for the third time; and ex. perienced, in spite of his present high situation, the same defeat which had baffled him in his previous attempts. Though the subject is gone by once more for the present, we cannot abstain from bestowing a little gentle violence to aid its merited descent into the gulf of oblivion, and to extinguish, if possible, that resurgent principle which has so often disturbed the serious business of the country, and averted the attention of the public from the great scenes that are acting in the world-to search for some golden medium between the selfishness of the sacred principal, and the rapacity of the sacred deputy. If church property is to be preserved, that precedent is not without danger which disposes at once of a fifth of all the valuable livings in England. We do not advance this as an argument of any great importance against the bill, but only as an additional reason why its utility should be placed in the clearest point of view, before it can attain the assent of well-wishers to the English establishment. Our first and greatest objection to such a measure, is the increase of power which it gives to the bench of bishops, an evil which may produce the most serious effects, by placing the whole body of the clergy under the absolute control of men who are themselves so much under the influence of the crown. This, indeed, has been pretty effectually accomplished, by the late residence bill of Sir William Scott; and our objection to the present bill is, that it tends to augment that excessive power before conferred on the prelacy. If a clergyman lives in a situation which is destroy. ing his constitution, he cannot exchange with a brother clergyman without the consent of the bishop; in whose hands, under such circumstances, his life and death are actually placed. If he wishes to cultivate a little land for his amusement or better support,-he cannot do it without the license of the bishop. If he wishes to spend the last three or four months with a declining wife or child at some spot where better med ical assistance can be procured, he cannot do so with out permission of the bishop. If he is struck with palsy, or racked with stone, the bishop can confine him in the most remote village in England. In short, the power which the bishops at present possess over their clergy, is so enormous, that none but a fool or a madman would think of compromising his future hap. piness, by giving the most remote cause of offence to his diocesan. We ought to recollect, however, that the clergy constitute a body of 12 or 15,000 educated persons; that the whole concern of education devolves N It is in vain to talk of the good character of bishops. Bishops are men; not always the wisest of men; not always preferred for eminent virtues and talents, or for any good reason whatever known to the public. They are almost always devoid of striking and indecorous vices; but a man may be very shallow, very arrogant, and very vindictive, though a bishop; and pursue with unrelenting hatred a subordinate clergyman, whose principles he dislikes, and whose genius he fears. Bishops, besides, are subject to the infirmities of old age, like other men; and in the decay of strength and understanding, will be governed as other men are, by daughters and wives, and whoever ministers to their daily comforts. We have no doubt that such cases sometimes occur; and produce, whenever they do oc. cur, a very capricious administration of ecclesiastical affairs. As the power of enforcing residence must be lodged somewhere, why not give the bishop a council, consisting of two-thirds ecclesiastics, and one-third laymen: and meeting at the same time as the sessions and deputy sessions;-the bishop's license for nonresidence to issue, of course, upon their recommendations? Considering the vexatious bustle of a new, and the laxity of an aged bishop, we cannot but think that a diocese would be much more steadily administered under this system than by the present means. Examine the constitutional effects of the power now granted to the bench. What hinders a bishop from becoming in the hands of the court, a very important agent in all county elections? what clergyman would dare to refuse him his vote? But it will be said that no bishop will ever condescend to such sort of intrigues:-a most miserable answer to a most serious objection. The temptation is admitted,―the absence of all restraint;-the dangerous consequences are equally admitted; and the only preservative is the personal character of the individual. If this style of reasoning were general, what would become of law, constitution, and every wholesome restraint which we have been accumulating for so many centuries? We have no intention to speak disrespectfully of constituted authorities; but when men can abuse power with impunity, and recommend themselves to their superiors by abusing it, it is but common sense to suppose that power will be abused; if it is, the country will hereafter be convulsed to its very entrails, in tearing away that power from the prelacy which has been so improvidently conferred upon them. It is useless to talk of the power they anciently possessed. They have never possessed it since England has been what it now is. Since we have enjoyed practically a free constitution, the bishops have, in point of fact, possessed little or no power of oppression over their clergy, It must be remembered, however, that we are speaking only of probabilities: the fact may turn out to be quite the reverse; the power vested in the bench may be exercised for spiritual purposes only, and with the greatest moderation. We shall be extremely happy to find that this is the case; and it will reflect great honour upon those who have corrected the improvidence of the legislature by their own sense of propriety. It is contended by the friends of this law, that the respectability of the clergy depends in some measure on their wealth; and that, as the rich bishop reflects a sort of worldly consequence upon the poor bishop, and the rich rector upon the poor rector;-so, a rich class of curates could not fail to confer a greater degree of importance upon that class of men in general. This is all very well, if you intend to raise up some new fund in order to enrich curates: but you say that the riches of some constitute the dignity of the whole; and then you immediately take away from the rector, the su *Bold language for the year 1808. f I have seen in the course of my life, as the mind of the prelate decayed, wife bishops, daughter bishops, butler bisaops, and even cook and housekeeper bishops, perfluous wealth which, according to your own method of reasoning, is to decorate and dignify the order of men to whom he belongs! The bishops constitute the first class in the church; the beneficed clergy the second; the curates the last. Why are you to take from the second to give to the last? Why not as well from the first to give to the second,-if you really mean to contend that the first and second are already too rich? It is not true, however, that the class of rectors is generally either too rich, or even rich enough. There are 6000 livings below 801. per annum, which is not very much above the average allowance of a curate. If every rector, however, who has more than 5007. is obliged to give a fifth part to a curate, there seems to be no reason why every bishop who has more than 10007. should not give a fifth part among the poor rectors in his diocese. It is in vain to say this assessment upon rectors is reasonable and right, because they may reside and do duty themselves, and then they will not need a curate; that their non-residence, in short, is a kind of delinquency for which they compound by this fine to the parish. If more than a half of the rectories in England are under 801. a year, and some thousands of them under 401., pluralities are absolutely necessary; and clergymen, who have not the gift of ubiquity, must be non-resident at some of them. Curates, therefore, are not the deputies of negligent rectors ;-they are an order of priests absolutely necessary in the present form of the Church of England: and a rector incurs no shadow of delinquency by employing one, more than the king does by appointing a lord-lieutenant of Ireland, or a commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, instead of doing the duty of these offices in person. If the legislature, therefore, is to interfere to raise the natural, i. e., the actual wages of this order of men, at the expense of the more opulent ministers of the Gospel, there seems to be no sort of reason for exempting the bishops from their share in this pious contribution, or for refusing to make a similar one for the benefit of all rectors who have less than 1001. per annum. come. In a year or two his rector dies, or exchanges his living; and the poor man is reduced, by the effects of comparison, to a much worse state than before the operation of the bill. Can any person say that this is a wise and effectual mode of ameliorating the condi tion of the lower clergy? To us it almost appears to be invented for the express purpose of destroying those habits of economy and caution, which are so indispensably necessary to their situation. If it is urged that the curate, knowing his wealth only to be temporary, will make use of it as a means of laying up & fund for some future day, we admire the good sense of the man: but what becomes of all the provisions of the bill? what becomes of that opulence which is to confer respectability upon all around it, and to radiate even upon the curates of Wales? The money was expressly given to blacken his coat,-to render him. convex and rosy,-to give him a sort of pseudo-recto rial appearance, and to dazzle the parishioners at the rate of 2501, per annum. The poor man, actuated by those principles of common sense which are so con. trary to all the provisions of the bill, chooses to make a good thing of it, because he knows it will not last; wears his old coat, rides his lean horse, and defrauds the class of curates of all the advantages which they were to derive from the sleekness and splendour of his appearance. "It is of some importance to the welfare of a parish, and the credit of the church, that the curate and his rector should live upon good terms together. Such a bill, however, throws between them elements of mistrust and hatred, which must render their agreement highly improbable. The curate would be perpetually prying into every little advance which the rector made upon his tithes, and claiming his proportionate increase. No respectable man could brook such inqui sition; some, we fear, would endeavour to prevent its effects by clandestine means. The church would be a perpetual scene of disgraceful animosities; and the ears of the bishop never free from the clamours of rapacity and irritation. It is some slight defect in such a bill, that it does not proportion reward to the labour done, but to the wealth of him for whom it is done. The curate of a parish containing 400 persons, may be paid as much as another person who has the care of 10,000; for, in England, there is very little proportion between the value of a living, and the quantity of duty to be per formed by its clergyman. The true reason, however, for exempting my lords the bishops from this imposition, is, that they have the privilege of voting upon all bills brought in by Mr. Perceval, and of materially affecting his comfort and security by their parliamentary control and influence. This, however, is to cure what you believe to be unjust, by means which you must know to be unjust; to fly out against abuses which may be remedied with- The bill does not attain its object in the best way. out peril, and to connive at them when the attempt at Let the bishop refuse to allow of any certain curaie a remedy is attended with political danger; to be mute upon a living above 500l. per annum, who is not a and obsequious towards men who enjoy church prop- Master of Arts at one of the universities. Such cuerty to the amount of 8 or 19,000l. per annum; and to rates will then be obtained at a price which will ren be so scandalized at those who possess as many hund-der it worth the while of such men to take curacies; reds, that you must melt their revenues down into curacies, and save to the eye of political economy the spectacle of such flagrant inequality! In the same style of reasoning, it may be asked why the lay improprietors are not compelled to advance the salary of their perpetual curacies, up to a fifth of their estates? The answer, too, is equally obvious Many lay improprietors have votes in both houses of Parliament; and the only class of men this cowardly reformation attacks, is that which has no means of saying anything in its own defence. and such a degree and situation in society will secure good curates much more effectually than the compli cated provisions of this bill: for, prima facie, it ap pears to us much more probable, that a curate should be respectable who is a Master of Arts in some Eng. lish university, than if all that we knew about him was, that he had a fifth of the profits of the living. The object is, to fix a good clergyman in a parish. The law will not trust the non-resident rector to fix both the price and the person; but fixes the price, and then leaves him the choice of the person. Our plan Even if the enrichment of curates were the most im- is, to fix upon the description of person, and then to perious of all duties, it might very well be questioned, leave the price to find its level; for the good price by whether a more unequal and pernicious mode of ful-no means implies a good person, but the good person filling it could be devised than that enjoined by this bill. Curacies are not granted for the life of the cu- Where the living will admit of it, we have commonrate; but for the life or incumbency or good-liking of the rector. It is only rectors worth 500l. a-year who are compelled by Mr. Perceval to come down with a fifth to their deputy; and these form but a very small proportion of the whole non-resident rectors; so that the great multitude of curates must remain as poor as formerly, and probably a little more discontented. Suppose, however, that one has actually entered on the enjoyment of 2501 per annum. His wants, and his habits of expense are enlarged by this increase of in * The first unfortunately make the laws. will be sure to get a good price. ly observed that the English clergy are desirous of put ting in a proper substitute. If this is so, the bill is unnecessary; for it proceeds on the very contrary sup position, that the great mass of opulent clergy consult nothing but economy in the choice of their curates. It is very galling and irksome to any class of men to be compelled to disclose their private circumstances; a provision contained in and absolutely ne cessary to this bill, under which the diocesan can always compel the minister to disclose the full value of his living. After all, however, the main and conclusive objec ion to the bill is, that its provisions are drawn from low such a leader. We are extremely happy the bill nch erroneous principles, and betray such gross ig- was rejected. We have seldom witnessed more of orance of human nature, that though it would infalli- | ignorance and error stuffed and crammed into so very oly produce a thousand mischiefs foreseen and not narrow a compass. Its origin, we are confident, is foreseen, it would evidently have no effect whatsoever from the Tabernacle; and its consequences would in raising the salaries of curates. We do not put this have been, to have sown the seeds of discord and as a case of common buyer and seller; we allow that treachery in an ecclesiastical constitution, which, unthe parish is a third party, having an interest ;* we der the care of prudent and honest men, may always fully admit the right of the legislature to interfere be rendered a source of public happiness. for their relief. We only contend, that such interference would be necessarily altogether ineffectual, so long as men can be found doing the duty of curates, and willing to do it for less than the statutory minimum. If there is a competition of rectors for curates, it is quite unnecessary and absurd to make laws in favour of curates. The demand for them will do their business more effectually than the law. If, on the contrary (as the fact plainly is), there is a competition of curates for employment, is it possible to prevent this order of men from labouring under the regulation price? Is it possible to prevent a curate from pledg ing himself to his rector, that he will accept only half the legal salary, if he is so fortunate as to be preferred among an host of rivals, who are willing to engage on the same terms? You may make these contracts illegal: What then? Men laugh at such prohibitions; and they always become a dead letter. In nine instances out of ten, the contract would be honourably adhered to; and then what is the use of Mr. Perceval's law? Where the contract was not adhered to, whom would the law benefit?-A man utterly devoid of every particle of honour and good faith. And this is the new species of curate, who is to reflect dignity and importance upon his poorer brethren! The law encourages breach of faith between gambler and gambler; it arms broker against broker;-but it cannot arm clergyman against clergyman. Did any human being before, ever think of disseminating such a principle among the teachers of Christianity? Did any ecclesiastic law, before this, ever depend for its success upon the mutual treachery of men who ought to be examples to their fellow-creatures of every thing that is just and upright. One glaring omission in this bill we had almost forgotten to mention. The chancellor of the exchequer has entirely neglected to make any provision for that very meritorious class of men, the lay curates, who do all the business of those offices, of which lazy and non-resident placemen receive the emoluments. So much delicacy and conscience, however, are here displayed on the subject of pocketing unearned emoluments, that we have no doubt the moral irritability of this servant of the crown will speedily urge him to a species of reform, of which he may be the object as well as the mover. PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF VICE. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1809.) Statement of the Proceedings of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, from July 9 to November 12, read at their General Meeting, held November 12, 1804. With an Appendix, containing the Plan of the Society, &c., &c., &c. London, 1804. An Address to the Public from the Society for the Suppression of Vice, instituted in London, 1802. Part the Second. Containing an Account of the Proceedings of the Society from its original Institution. London. 1804. A SOCIETY that holds out as its object the suppres sion of vice, must at first sight conciliate the favour of every respectable person; and he who objects to an institution calculated apparently to do so much good, is bound to give very clear and satisfactory reasons for his dissent from so popular an opinion. We cer tainly have, for a long time, had doubts of its utility; and now think ourselves called upon to state the grounds of our distrust. We have said enough already upon the absurdity of punishing all rich rectors for non-residence, as for a presumptive delinquency. A law is already passed, Though it were clear that individual informers are fixing what shall be legal and sufficient causes for useful auxiliaries to the administration of the laws, it non-residence. Nothing can be more unjust, then, would by no means follow that these informers should than to punish that absence which you admit to be be allowed to combine-to form themselves into a legal. If the causes of absence are too numerous, body-to make a public purse-and to prosecute unlessen them; but do not punish him who has availed der a common name. An informer, whether he is himself of their existence. We deny, however, that paid by the week, like the agents of this society-or they are too numerous. There are 6000 livings out of by the crime, as in common cases-is, in general, a 11,000 in the English church under 801. per annum: man of a very indifferent character. So much fraud many of these 201., many 301. per annum. The and deception are necessary for carrying on his trade whole task of education at the university. public-it is so odious to his fellow subjects-that no man of schools, private families, and in foreign travel, de- respectability will ever undertake it. It is evidently volves upon the clergy. A great part of the literature impossible to make such a character otherwise than of their country is in their hands. Residence is a very odious. A man who receives weekly pay for prying proper and necessary measure; but, considering all into the transgressions of mankind, and bringing them these circumstances, it requires a great deal of mode- to consequent punishment, will always be hated by ration and temper to carry it into effect, without doing mankind; and the office must fall to the lot of some more mischief than good. At present, however, the men of desperate fortunes and ambiguous character. torrent sets the other way. Every lay plunderer, and The multiplication, therefore, of such officers, and the every fanatical coxcomb, is forging fresh chains for extensive patronage of such characters, may, by the the English clergy; and we shall not be surprised, in management of large and opulent societies, become an a very little time, to see them absenting themselves evil nearly as great as the evils they would suppress. from their benefices by a kind of day-rule, like pri- The alarm which a private and disguised accuser ocsoners in the king's bench. The first bill, which was easions in a neighbourhood, is known to be prodigious, brought in by Sir William Scott, always saving and not only to the guilty, but to those who may be at excepting the power granted to the bishops, is full of once innocent, and ignorant, and timid. The destrucuseful provisions, and characterized throughout by tion of social confidence is another evil, the consegreat practical wisdom. We have no doubt but that quence of information. An informer gets access to my it has, upon the whole, improved the condition of the house or family-worms my secret out of me-and English church. Without caution, mildness, or infor- then betrays me to the magistrate. Now, all these mation, however, it was peculiarly unfortunate to fol- evils may be tolerated in a small degree, while, in a greater degree, they would be perfectly intolerable. Thirty or forty informers roaming about the metropolis, may frighten the mass of offenders a little, and do some good: ten thousand informers would either create an insurrection, or totally destroy the confi dence and cheerfulness of private life. Whatever may * We remember Horace's description of the misery of a parish where there is no resident clergyman. Illacrymabiles Urgentur, ignotique longâ be said, therefore, of the single and insulted informer, | no means trust to an unknown combination A vast it is quite a new question when we come to a corpora- distinction is to be made, too, between official duties tion of informers supported by large contributions. and voluntary duties. The first are commonly carried The one may be a good, the other a very serious evil; on with calmness and moderation; the latter often the one legal, the other wholly out of the contempla- characterized, in their execution, by rash and intem tion of law-which often, and very wisely, allows in-perate zeal. dividuals to do what it forbids to many individuals as sembled. If once combination is allowed for the suppression of vice, where are its limits to be? Its capital may as well consist of 100,000l. per annum, as of a thousand its numbers may increase from a thousand subscribers, which this society, it seems, had reached in its second year, to twenty thousand: and, in that case, what accused person of an inferior condition of life would have the temerity to stand against such a society? Their mandates would very soon be law; and there is no compliance into which they might not frighten the common people, and lower orders of tradesmen. The idea of a society of gentlemen, calling themselves an association for the suppression of vice, would alarm any small offender to a degree that would make him prefer any submission to any resistance. He would consider the very fact of being accused by them, as almost sufficient to ruin him. An individual accuser accuses at his own expense; and the risk he runs is a good security that the subject will not be harassed by needless accusations-a security which, of course, he cannot have against such a society as this, to whom pecuniary loss is an object of such little consequence. It must never be forgotten, that this is not a society for punishing people who have been found to transgress the law, but for accusing persons of transgressing the law; and that before trial, the accused person is to be considered as innocent, and is to have every fair chance of establishing his innocence. He must be no common defendant, however, who does not contend against such a society with very fearful odds ;-the best counsel engaged for his opponents great practice in the particular court and particular species of cause-witnesses thoroughly hackneyed in a court of justice-and an unlimited command of money. It by no means follows, that the legislature, in allowing individuals to be informers, meant to subject the accused person to the superior weight and power of such societies. The very influence of names must have a considerable weigh with the jury. Lord Dartmouth, Lord Radstock, and the Bishop of Durham, versus a Whitechapel butcher or a publican! Is this a fair contest before a jury? It is not so even in London; and what must it be in the country, where a society for the suppression of vice may consist of all the principal persons in the neighbourhood? These societies are now established in York, in Reading, and in many other large towns. Wherever this is the case, it is far from improbable that the same persons, at the Quarter or Town Sessions, may be both judges and accusers; and st more fatally so, if the offence is tried by a special jury. This is already most notoriously the case in societies for the preservation of game. They prosecute a poacher;-the jury is special; and the poor wretch is found guilty by the very same persons who have accused him. If it is lawful for respectable men to combine for the purpose of turning informers, it is lawful for the lowest and most despicable race of informers to do the same thing; and then it is quite clear that every species of wickedness and extortion would be the consequence. We are rather surprised that no society of perjured attorneys and fraudulent bankrupts has risen up in this metropolis, for the suppression of vice. A chairman, deputy-chairman, subscriptions, and an annual sermon would give great dignity to their proceedings; and they would soon begin to take some rank in the world. The present society receives no members but those who are of the Church of England. As we are now arguing the question generally, we have a right to make any supposition. It is equally free, therefore, upon general principles, for a society of sectarians to combine and exclude members of the Church of England; and the suppression of vice may thus come in aid of Methodism, Jacobinism, or of any set of prin ciples, however perilous, either to church or state.The present society may, perhaps, consist of persons whose sentiments on these points are rational and respectable. Combinations, however, of this sort may give birth to something far different: and such a supposition is a fair way of trying the question. We doubt if there be not some mischief in averting the fears and hopes of the people from the known and constituted authorities of the country to those selfcreated powers;-a society that punishes in the Strand, another which rewards at Lloyd's Coffeehouse! If these things get to any great height, they throw an air of insignificance over those branches of the government to whom these cares properly devolve, and whose authority is by these means assisted, till it is superseded. It is supposed that a project must necessarily be good, because it is intended for the aid of law and government. At this rate there should be a society in aid of the government, for procuring intelligence from foreign parts, with accredited agents all over Europe. There should be a voluntary transport board, and a gratuitous victualling office. There should be a duplicate, in short, of every department of the state, the one appointed by the king, and the other by itself. There should be a real Lord Glenbervie in the woods and forests, and with him a monster, a voluntary Lord Glenbervie, serving without pay, and guiding gratis, with secret counsel, the axe of his prototype. If it be asked, who are the constituted authorities who are legally appointed to watch over morals, and whose functions the society usurp? our answer is, that there are in England about 12,000 clergy, not unhandsomely paid for persuading the people, and about 4000 justices, 30 grand juries, and 40,000 constables, whose duty and whose inclination it is to compel them to do right. Under such circumstances, a voluntary moral society does indeed seem to be the purest result of volition; for there certainly is not the smallest particle of necessity mingled with its existence. It is hardly possible that a society for the suppression of vice can ever be kept within the bounds of good sense and moderation. If there are many members who have really become so from a feeling of duty, there will necessarily be some who enter the society to hide a bad character, and others whose object it is to recommend themselves to their betters by a sedulous and bustling inquisition into the immoralities of the public. The loudest and noisiest suppressors will always carry it against the more prudent part of the community; the most violent will be considered as the most moral; and those who see the absurdity will, from the fear of being thought to encourage vice, be reluctant to oppose it. It is of great importance to keep public opinion on the side of virtue. To their authorized and legal correctors, mankind are, on common occasions, ready enough to submit; but there is something in the selferection of a voluntary magistracy which creates so much disgust, that it almost renders vice popular, and puts the offence at a premium. We have no doubt but that the immediate effect of a voluntary combinaIt is true that it is the duty of grand juries to inform tion for the suppression of vice, is an involuntary cornagainst vice; but the law knows the probable number bination in favour of the vices to be suppressed; and of grand jurymen, the times of their meeting, and the this is a very serious drawback from any good ef description of persons of whom they consist. Of volun- which such societies may be the occasion; for the tary societics it can know nothing-their numbers, state of morals, at any one period, depends much more their wealth, or the character of their members. It upon opinion than law; and to bring odious and dismay therefore trust to a grand jury what it would by gusting auxiliaries to the aid of virtue, is to do the us |