branded those whom she abhors as nonconformists with some appellation which imputes heretical, ridiculous, profligate, or infidelical actions to them,) such as Waldana, an outcast; Valdrés, a worth-nothing, a ribald, a licentious scoffer; or Zabatatus, a wooden sandal wearer. And when at last there was some colour for giving to those who protested against her, a name that implied a recent origin, and a derivation from a reformer, or an hæresiarch, under the ban of the church, this would absorb and represent all the rest, and be received as the common appellation of all who rendered themselves formidable or obnoxious to Rome, either as reformers, or protestants, or nonconformists. This was the case when the merchant of Lyons made his appearance with vernacular scripture in his hand, and confirmed those who were previously inclined to reform the church in their resolutions. His name, however he came by it, or whatever was its orthography, resembled appellations by which reformers and seceders had been designated before his time. It was adopted accordingly, and the Romanists took advantage of it, and assigned a comparatively modern date to doctrines which had never wanted witnesses somewhere or other, from the time when Rome first departed from scriptural Christianity. I am, my dear Sir, yours faithfully, Norham Vicarage. W. S. GILLY. ON RATING TITHE. SIR,-Having in vain attempted to obtain at quarter sessions a decision on the present rateability of ecclesiastical tithes, and in the event (a probable one) of that decision being adverse to the claims of the incumbent and to the interests of patrons, a case for the Queen's Bench, -I am made to occupy, in fashionable Frenchified phrase, “a false position,"-made to appear a wanton litigant with my own parishioners, -and what were worse, to appear to be a defeated and mortified "selfseeker." In truth, however, I am neither. Yet I am sorry that I have not been an instrument to obtain a decision, as well for the sake of 7000 poor and oppressed incumbents, as for my own family's sake, and for the sake of the clergy and church at large, as for the particular and the yet unfelt interest of the poor of every parish in England and Wales. For if the clergy are to be rated without reference to their "relative ability" as "inhabitants," without allowance for the omission to rate farming and trading "profits," then they can no longer be foremost men in all parochial charity and charitable institutions, as they are, or ought to be, according to their means. With their abridged charity, down will go the contributions of the laity,— like the line of beauty,-"fine by degrees, and beautifully less." I shall not, with your late correspondent, Mr. Austen, suspect that you will not grant insertion to this my letter, unless indeed it do not deserve it; for I write with a view to caution the clergy against going to quarter sessions, where no quarter will be given them; for I have not only to pay my own costs, which I grudge not, but I was very nigh being saddled with the costs of the parish, six out of thirteen justices having voted for the respondent's costs, although every magistrate present, a score or more, saw with his own eyes that the whole rate was "informal and bad.” Yet the bench said that they could not notice that, since the appellant had not noticed it, but had appealed on the ground of " inequality" only in the rate, and given no proof of any profits made by occupiers. Now, if I had noticed the informality, what would have been the result? Why, that the rate would have been quashed, that I should have escaped all costs, that my parishioners would have been doubly angry with me,-but that no decision on the merits could have been had, and that I must have gone to the next quarter sessions on another similar rating of the tithes. I believe that an impression against me was made by an absolute and most audacious falsehood of the respondent's counsel-viz., that “I had lugged my parishioners into quarter sessions' expense, when I had given them no opportunity to go to the cheaper petty sessions, provided by the Parochial Assessment Act." Now, I had no witness to contradict this, never suspecting that-after going to the overseer, an ignorant publican, to advise him to get aid to make his rate properly, and, after it was made improperly as the former, offering to accompany him to the justices, before it had the fiat of signature; nay, after this fiat and my payment made, and after notice given of appeal to quarter sessions; after my offering the vestry assembled to withdraw my notice, if it would either return part of my payment, or correct the rate with consent of petty sessions, (I having at the time made the only payment to the overseer) - never suspecting, I say, such advantage would be taken of my going unaccompanied by my lawyer to the vestry, which invited my presence when it was sitting with its attorney, I had no witness at quarter sessions to contradict the above profitable falsehood. So the landlord justices, six of them (all Whigs and Radicals, I am told) were for giving the parish costs, as rating them, I suppose, and not me, according to their lie-ability! I would, Sir, willingly at this time reimburse to my parishioners their costs (by the way, one fifth of these falls on myself) if I had obtained a victory. I had a defeat, or drawn battle, only for forbearing to quash a bad rate, and to prove profits made and omitted. My gross and net income were identical sums in the rate, contrary to the express provisions of the Parochial Assessment Act, making the rate "null and void" by that act. Mr. Perceval Wolden Banks, my counsel, did his part well; and if we had not "deserved success," Cato, "we should have had it," said Lord Byron. I say to my clerical brethren,-under the rose, the rose de quatre saisons-vulgò, the "quarter sessions' rose," to decide, try the courts above, before the House of Commons precludes your claim. I am, dear Sir, yours, &c. THOMAS NEWCOME. Shenley Parsonage. ON RATING TITHE. SIR,-Your correspondent, Mr. Austen (p. 298), attempts to prove too much. His object seems to be to shew that the farmer derives no profit from the land. I have heard many persons-who, after having left the lowest mechanical trades, have, as farmers, in the course of ten or twelve years, become men of property, and landowners of considerable extent-assert, particularly when a composition for tithes has been in agitation, that they get nothing by their farms. I have learnt to take the assertion of these veracious persons cum grano, or rather, cum multis granis salis. The land to which Mr. A. refers must be very bad, or in a very neglected state, to require so great an outlay, and so great an annual expenditure of labour, &c., as he calculates upon. As to the first outlay of the owner, in taking it into his own hands, which he confesses to remain still in value upon the land, it is unfair to deduct the whole of that from the produce; at most, the interest alone ought to be deducted. The expense of a bailiff is another unfair deduction. If he does not choose to manage it himself, an experienced labourer as foreman, at twelve, fifteen, or twenty shillings a week, to be included in the general expense of labour, will better answer the purpose. He might almost as well bring in the expense of a gig and a servant, to drive round to view his improvements. I shall therefore beg to take from his deductions, or, which is the same thing, to add to what he allows for the ten years' profit, half of 24501., the first outlay, and 10007., the bailiff's wages, being together 22251., which will bring the ten years' amount to 38451. 5s. I have no doubt that a farmer, by fair management, would make much more. I suppose, in the general expense of labour &c., of nearly 9001. a year upon this moderate farm, must be included the support of the farmer's family. It is very easy by figures to bring out any plausible result. It is like the picture of a lion conquered by a man. If the lion had been the limner, it would have been different. In the beginning of this year I published a small pamphlet on tithes, including the mode of assessment, in which, reasoning from my own ideas alone, I came to pretty nearly the same conclusion as the judges in the case Rex v. Joddrell, of which, at that time, I knew nothing more than an accidental observation in a provincial newspaper. Had I been wholly acquainted with it, I should have taken much stronger grounds of argument. I was sorry that I did not mention this in the pamphlet, because, though the opinion of a clergyman in such matters-as a correspondent observes to me-goes for nothing, it might, in this case, have been entitled to some consideration when in accordance with the decision of a court of justice. I desired the publisher, Fellowes, of Ludgate street, to send a copy, with an advertisement, to the "British Magazine," but saw no account of it. About two months ago, also, I wrote a letter to the "Standard," on Mr. Shaw Lefevre's Bill, which, having been sent by a private hand, might possibly have been miscarried. I hope this letter will be more fortunate. It is to be hoped that the Poor and Tithe Commissioners, or the legislature, in the next session of parliament, will send out some definite law on the subject, and thus put an end to, or rather prevent, the disputes which must arise all over the kingdom. I cannot think that a man of Mr. S. Lefevre's high mind and acknowledged liberality, will persist in his original intention. The system of commutations appears to me to be a substitute for the principle adopted in inclosures: a part of the land will virtually be apportioned to the church; and if the clergyman, quasi landowner, is to be rated on the whole of his rent-charge, i. e., on the whole of the produce of his portion, and the landowner and farmer together are rated only on the rent, i. e., much less than the whole of the produce of their portion, there will be a manifest inequality. Either, therefore, let us be assessed on half the produce of our portion-as I have attempted to shew in my pamphlet-or from the whole let all outgoings be deducted, including the stipend of a curate, whether employed or not, to which the clergyman has certainly a better claim than the farmer to the pay of a bailiff; and this, in many instances, will bring the assessment lower than by the other method. I am, Sir, your very obedient servant, JAMES COX, D.D. Vicar of Hoxne cum Denham. P.S.-I am by no means satisfied with the last mode of rating, mentioned above-viz., the whole rent-charge, minus all the outgoings of the living, though this may be more advantageous to small livings than the other. On the supposed possibility of the rates amounting again to nearly twenty shillings in the pound, mind you, the church is tied by the leg; and while the other property keeps pace with the times, and marches forward in full stride, both in quantity and price of produce, she comes hobbling behind with lame and limping step that must at last reduce her to beggary; therefore, ye legislators, be merciful! ON THE MEANING OF THE TERM "COMMON LAW." SIR,-Will you oblige me by finding room for the following extracts? Sir Matthew Hale on the History of the Common Law. Ed. 1716. "I now come to that part of our laws called Lex non Scripta, under which I include, not only general customs, or the common law, properly so called, but even those more particular laws and customs applicable to certain courts and persons."p. 22. "I shall, for more order, and the better to guide my reader, distinguish them into two kinds,-First, the common law, as it is taken in its proper and usual acceptation. Secondly, those particular laws applicable to particular subjects, matters, or courts." -p. 24. "Now, secondly, as to those particular laws I before mentioned, which are applicable to particular subjects, or courts......by those particular laws I mean the laws ecclesiastical, &c., the civil laws, so far forth as they are admitted in certain courts, and certain matters allowed to those courts."-p. 26. VOL. XIV.-Dec. 1838. 5 F Blackstone's Commentaries. I. "The Lex non Scripta, or unwritten law, includes not only general customs, or the common law, properly so called, but also the particular customs of certain parts of the kingdom; and likewise those particular laws that are by custom observed only in certain courts and jurisdictions."—p. 63. "This unwritten, or common law, is properly distinguishable into three kinds :1, General customs, which are the universal rule of the whole kingdom, and form the common law in its stricter and more usual signification; 2, Particular customs which, for the most part, affect only the inhabitants of particular districts; 3, Certain particular laws, which by custom are adopted, and used by some particular courts of pretty general and extensive jurisdiction."—p. 67. "The third branch of them are those peculiar laws which, by custom, are adopted and used in certain particular courts and jurisdictions. And by these I understand the civil and canon laws."-p. 79. "The canon law is a body of Roman ecclesiastical law......... Besides these pontifical collections......there is also a kind of national canon law, composed of legatine and provincial constitutions."—p. 82. I hope it may appear from these, that in supposing the judges, whom Mr. Goode has cited, as affirming that the liability to churchrate is a common-law liability, not to have used the term in its strict and proper sense, I am offering no disrespect to them; seeing that these eminent writers upon English law do not consider that term, in its strict and proper sense, as applicable to the laws of the ecclesiastical courts. Thus much I have thought it right to add in my own vindication. As regards the actual state of the case, it appears to be this, that no instance can be found of the courts of common law having ever interfered to compel the making of a church-rate; nor has any express declaration of any common-law judge been adduced, affirming the power of the common-law courts to interfere for that purpose. But, on the contrary, we have the express declaration of Chief Justice Abbott, that the Court of King's Bench WILL NOT, and of Lord Kenyon, that it CANNOT, interfere by mandamus to compel a rate; the reason assigned in both cases being the same—namely, that it is a matter PURELY of ecclesiastical cognizance. From which, until better informed, I will suppose the reasonable inference to be, that it is not a question of common law, in the strict and proper acceptation of the term. I remain, Sir, your obedient servant, East Horsley. ARTHUR PERCEVAL. ON SIR CHARLES WOLSELEY'S ACCOUNT OF POPISH BIBLES. SIR, The letter which Archdeacon Hodson lately published upon "The Church of Rome's Traffic in Pardons," and which was reviewed in the last number but one of your Magazine, has called forth a pamphlet entitled "Catholic Clergymen versus Protestant Parsons," by Sir Charles Wolseley, Bart. In page 5 of this publication you will find the following passage:"The archdeacon's proofs (?) are contained in his pamphlet; and to MR. GREEN I shall, with perfect confidence, leave the issue of the contest, and take a more particular notice of another of the archdeacon's slanders-viz., that of the bible being 'locked up' from the catholics! Pray, my friends, read with attention what I shall |