To prevent, therefore, the encroachments of such individuals he wrote this tract, in which he clearly demonstrates the justice and salutariness of Charles’s act.  His contention, as Monck Mason points out ("History of St. Patrick’s Cathedral,” p. 392, note 1) “is confirmed by all writers upon the subject,” and quotes from Carte’s “Life of James, Duke of Ormond,” where it is stated that the bishoprics in Ireland had, “the greatest part of them, been depauperated in the change of religion by absolute grants and long leases (made generally by the popish bishops that conformed)—­some of them not able to maintain a bishop, several were, by these means, reduced to L50 a year, as Waterford, Kilfenora, and others, and some to five marks, as Cloyne and Kilmacduagh.”  To Swift is largely due the fact that the House of Commons, when they received the bill from the Lords, threw it out.

Scott, in his note on this pamphlet (amended from one by Lord Orrery), takes his usual course when considering Swift’s attitude of opposition —­he implies a motive or prejudice.  In his opinion, Swift considered the bill for the repeal of Charles’s act, “an indirect mode of gratifying the existing bishops, whom he did not regard with peculiar respect or complacency, at the expense of the Church establishment,” and that, therefore, “the spirit of his opposition is, in this instance, peculiarly caustic.”  As a matter of fact, the spirit of Swift’s opposition was always peculiarly caustic, in this case no more so than in any other.  But to imply that his motive was a self gratifying one only, is to treat Swift unfairly.  If the bishops required an example as to how they should deal with their lands, they could easily have found one in Swift himself.  In all the renewals of the leases of the Deanery lands, Swift never sought his own immediate advantage, his terms were based on the consideration that the lands were his only in trust for a successor.  To take one instance only, the instance of the parish of Kilberry in county Kildare, cited by Monck Mason (p. 27, note h).  In 1695 the rent of this parish was reserved at L100 English sterling, in 1717, Swift raised this rent to L150, in 1731 to L170, and in 1741 to L200 per annum, with a proportionable loss of fine upon each occasion.

The tract is dated October 21st, 1723, but as I have not come across a copy of the original separate issue, I have based the text on that given by Faulkner (vol. iv, 1735), and the title page here reproduced is from that edition.  The fifth volume of “Miscellanies,” also issued in 1735, contains this tract, and I have compared the texts of the two.  The notes given in Scott’s edition are, in the main, altered from Faulkner’s edition.

[T.S.]

SOME ARGUMENTS AGAINST ENLARGING the POWER OF BISHOPS In LETTING OF LEASES.  WITH REMARKS on some Queries lately published.

Mibi credite, major haereditas venit unicuique vestraem in iisdem bonis ae jure & ae legibus, quam ab iis ae quibus illa ipsa bona relicta sunt.