Neal has wholly omitted, as well as the Archbishop's answer, which in fairness ought to have been given. Yet upon such mutilated history as this is founded the abuse of Archbishop Whitgift!-Mr. Neal also asserts of Whitgift

"He complied with the times in Queen Mary's reign, though he disapproved of her religion."

We have no hesitation in saying either that Neal knew this to be untrue, or that he was totally ignorant of the facts which were necessary to writing a history of the time. The truth is thus told by Strype :

"Whitgift was one of these, being this year, 1557, Master of Arts, and foreseeing his danger, not only of expulsion out of the University, but further of his life, since he could not comply with what would be required, he resolved with himself to leave the college and depart abroad, and sojourn among the famous exiles in Strasburg, Frankfort, or other places, in Helvetia, or elsewhere. Dr. Perne, the master, under

standing Whitgift's purpose, and observing him fixed in his religion, by the many good arguments he used, he bade him keep his own counsel, and by no means utter his opinion, whereby he might be brought into question, and he would conceal him, without incurring any danger to his conscience in that visitation, nor being forced to leave his studies."—Strype.

From these two specimens our readers will now be able to judge pretty well what dependence is to be placed upon such an historian as Neal, and how weak the case must be which rests on his authority. The following opinion of him has been long before the public, and with all our heart we can freely assent to it :

"If to disguise or colour over facts, which, under a fair representation, would not bear the test-if to warp, curtail, or mangle authorities, to pick out of an author what he likes, though never so slenderly supported, and omit taking notice, even in that same author, of what makes against him—if to dwell upon invidious circumstances in the character of an adversary, and to pass over those that are favourable with silence and neglect-be marks and characteristics of a partial historian, I declare, I know no historian more partial than Mr. Neal."-Dr. Zachary Grey.

Dr. Lamb, therefore, we apprehend, is still in want of an advocate with an historian of credit to back him; and if he refuses now either to justify his attack upon Whitgift before the public, or to retract what he has said, he must be content to suffer that damage to his character which unjustifiable defamation always brings with it.

CHURCH MATTERS.

WAKES AND FESTIVALS.

A GOOD deal has been said and done lately as to Wakes and Festivals. The evil of them, as they are now kept, in various parts of the country, seems allowed on all hands. They are, in short, scenes of sabbath-breaking and low profligacy, and constantly lead to the crimes punishable by law-violence, theft, &c. In Herefordshire, a society for their suppression has been formed, which is respectably patronized. On the other hand, it is said (and a very able paper, too long for insertion just now, was sent to this Magazine, taking this view,) that these wakes were originally feasts in commemoration of the dedication of the parish church, kept on the saint's day to whom the church was VOL. XIV-August, 1838.

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dedicated, continuing, as was usual, for seven days, and ending with an octave ;-that we of the reformed church have only to thank ourselves for the guilt and evil of these feasts, as we have chosen carefully on all occasions to separate them from all religious solemnities, and thus to deprive them of their proper character;-that, instead of suppressing them, we ought to try to restore that proper character to them;-that, instead of allowing them to begin on the Sunday, they should be brought to their proper day ;-that there should be full service, with the eucharist;-and that then the seigneur of the parish should entertain the people, or encourage and sanction their amusements, &c. Thus, the one party thinks the wakes an incurable evil, and is for abolishing them; the other thinks that by giving them a religious character they might be made beneficial and useful.

The subject is one of real and great importance; not merely as relates to wakes, which are not known in many counties, but as relates to the amusements of the poor generally. That the poor will and ought to have their seasons of recreation no right-minded man will deny. The point is, how to rescue them from becoming scenes of intemperance and vice. The hope of the great man of the place assisting must be a delusive one. Sometimes there is no such person. Sometimes (which is worse) there are two or three great men, and nobody knows who is kar' ¿oxnv,-the great man. And very often he would be quite against these festivals, and decline all participation in them. The writer has neither time nor space at present to discuss this great question. But he takes this opportunity of inviting the attention of those who have leisure to it, and would gladly see a discussion of it take place. The only thing which strikes him at the moment as worth observing is, that one great safeguard would probably be, the confining festivals as much as possible to the people of the village where they are held. Great numbers are the great evil. For supposing many to come without any evil intention, very many evil persons will, for lucre's sake, come to places of large resort, and offer temptations to drinking, gambling, and profligacy, which weak principle cannot resist. And it is to be feared, that in those cases where religion does attempt to interfere, in spite of numbers, it is too often sadly profaned. The writer would refer to the terrible histories of Irish pilgrimages and patterns, &c.; and again, to what every one who has been at Vienna has probably heard of. There is a convent called Mariezell or Mariezoll (or some such name) a few miles from that city, which at one season is a place of great resort. The people pour out of Vienna almost by thousands. The abbot of the convent told the late Madame de Purgstall, who told the writer, in 1824, that they had that year, at the beginning of the festival, given the eucharist to (he is afraid to say how many) thousands; and after this, the people spend the whole night out in the open air, and every kind, degree, and excess of profligacy takes place. It is obvious, therefore, that even the most awful solemnity of religion does not of itself produce the desired effect, and that there are other circumstances which counteract

* At this time of the year, space could be given to longer papers.

and overcome its effects. If the numbers were much smaller, and only those met to enjoy themselves who were known to each other, the very remembrance that they had seen one another in the house of God in the morning would do much, it might be hoped, to restrain them from sin in the after part of the day.*

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE'S RATING BILL.

ONE gets quite out of heart as soon as any matter affecting clerical property comes before the House of Commons. One has heard much of the Inquisition; and really, as far as affects the clergy, the House of Commons very much follows the practice of that celebrated tribunal respecting the Jews. Both seem to be considered as fair game. Power is in the hands of the tribunal, and nothing but the sense of power seems to guide its decisions. The one object, not of the whole house certainly, but of the larger part of it, (not at all excepting conservative country gentlemen,†) seems to be, to put down the clergy. There are two motives for this among country gentlemen. The first, to speak plainly, is cupidity. Not satisfied with the enormous gain which they derive from the late Tithe Bill, and the future depression which it will cause in the condition of the clergy, they are now striving, through Mr. Lefevre, to squeeze still more out of the pockets of the clergy into their own. They know that the clergy have no direct power of resistance, and so they hope to seize on their prey. The other motive is, a sort of mean jealousy of the clergy being so much on an equality with themselves. They would like a resident clergy, no doubt, and talk loudly about it; but then that clergy ought to be dependent on them, useful to them in looking after the poor, very glad to dine with them on the Sunday if sent for, but not presuming to think themselves in any way equal to the lords of the soil. How is it to be tolerated that the squire, with 5,000l. a year, shall be reckoned rather dull, and the vicar, with 5007., well-informed and agreeable, and quite as gentlemanlike, though (it may be) with a shorter pedigree than the great man?

In this particular case, nothing can by possibility be more unjust, on two separate grounds, than Mr. Lefevre's Bill. First of all, it is unjust in its principle. Mr. Lefevre may argue as long as he pleases about the difficulty of assessing profits, but what is the thing for which he contends in truth? Simply this, that the clergy may be rated much higher than any one else in the parish. Why, (except on the ground of Stat pro ratione, &c.,) he does not attempt to say. He does not explain whether he means it as a judicial mulet for the clergy for some untold crime, or on what other ground they are not to be taxed on the same principle as other people. Common sense, and common

If the reader will refer to the very first number of this Magazine he will see how long ago this evil was felt, from a resolution passed by the parish of Buxted, in Sussex, in the year 1613, to transfer a feast (called Youfaull) from the Sunday on which it had been kept for many years to St. James's day.

The clergy, by the way, are much indebted to Mr. Goulburn for the leading part which he has taken in opposing this bill.

justice, and common honesty, say, that if a sum is to be raised in a parish for a given purpose, all parties ought to contribute in the same proportion. Take a given sum as the value of A's property, and say he is to be taxed at two-thirds of that sum; then B must be taxed at two-thirds of his. The clergyman has a corn-rent now given him in lieu of tithes. This is known, and he is assessed at one-half, or twothirds, or three-fourths of this, as the case may be. Then the land ought to be assessed on the same principle. Now, the rateable value of land must be, the average profit of the land after paying all proper outgoings; and that profit consists of the rent paid to the landlord, and the gain made by the occupier. Can any one deny this? But what Mr. Lefevre proposes is, that the occupier's gain should not be assessed at all. Mr. Preston stated that this gain ought to be equal to the rent; and if so, Mr. Lefevre's proposal is, that the clergy shall be rated just twice as high as any one else. The exact proportion, however, is not of any consequence at all. If it be only one-sixth higher, the injustice is just the same in kind; and it is so obvious that one would have expected honourable men to shrink from it, if one had not become used to the notion that clergy are not to expect justice.

But this bill is exceedingly unjust, because it destroys the principle laid down both in the Tithe Bill and a subsequent one, in reliance on which, too, the clergy have been complying with the wishes of the legislature, and in many hundred cases already made commutations. Would they have done so, and on the same terms, had Mr. Lefevre introduced his bill before?

The writer would have gone more at length into this most iniquitous bill, had not all that he could say been entirely anticipated in three or four most able articles in the "St. James's Chronicle" (and he supposes the "Standard," but cannot, at this moment, see that paper,) within the last week. If the bill should be thrown out now, as the attempt will doubtless be renewed, those articles shall be reprinted in the Magazine, in order to supply matter for petitions, &c. The clergy of Canterbury have already moved in this way.

The writer has not yet seen Mr. Jones, the Tithe Commissioner's pamphlet on the subject. Doubtless it is a very able one.

P.S.-The "St. James's Chronicle," of July 17, contains a letter from the incumbent of Shenley, which puts the case, in the form of a dilemma, so clearly that it ought to be transcribed :-"The Parochial Assessment Bill was intended, or was not intended, to leave the law untouched, for the relative rating of land and tithes. If the law and decisions on the law be the same as before the late act, why prevent appeals to the court?" [i. e., why refuse the clergy that common right of applying to the laws of their country which is not refused to any one else?] "But if the Parochial Assessment Bill did iniquitously (i. e., unequally) alter the proportionate rating of land and tithes, and other rateable matter of profit,' it did so surreptitiously, not openly, or why were this bill of open and partial excising of tithe incomes alone now necessary?" [This bill was printed in the Magazine in October, 1836; and of course there is no doubt that the first

of the two alternatives just noticed is the truth. The proviso at the end of the first clause shews fully that it was intended to leave things as they were; and this was, in truth, a victory gained by the friends of justice.]

EDUCATION.

WHEN the late miserable affair took place in Kent, the reader will remember that Messrs. Hume, Albert Conyngham, and others of the same range of powers and rectitude of views, immediately began to abuse the clergy. Those people who followed the madman were, of course, all uneducated; and that, of course, was the fault of the resident clergy, to whom all the mischief was attributable. Mr. Hume particularly attacked them for being on this, and all such cases, so prominent. Really, this wretched man makes curious exhibitions. It appears that Mr. Handly, a clergyman, was with his brother, a magistrate, when the madman shot at him, so that his own life was clearly not safe, especially when his subsequent conduct is considered; for seeing many poor men whom he knew with the madman, he openly remonstrated with them, pointed out how wrong they were, and to what serious danger, in every way, they exposed themselves, both from the law and from the physical force which would soon come against them. Had his kind and friendly advice (given at the risk of his life) been followed, many lives might have been spared. But he behaved shamefully, it seems. When he saw misguided men, for whom and their families he felt deep interest, exposing themselves to great evil, instead of trying to save them, and exposing himself to great danger in doing so, as he was a clergyman, he ought not to have been so prominent, but to have slunk away home, and left the people without any friendly advice at all. This is Mr. Hume's direction to the clergy,-not to interfere, or advise men against breaking the peace, and endangering other men's lives and their own!

But now, one word as to education. Grant all that these great and enlightened men say to be true; grant that those poor peasants, if instructed by Mr. Wyse and Mr. Simpson's system, would have been perfectly wise and perfectly virtuous, how does it follow that the clergy are to blame for their not being thus educated? Do the sages mean to assert now, that every clergyman is bound to maintain a school at his own cost? How will things be with the working clergy, whose case Mr. Hume is always affecting hypocritically to deplore, they who have hardly bread to eat themselves?

These occurrences took place at a village called Boughton Blean, if the writer recollects. Now, by the book, the value of that benefice is 300l. [There are two other Kentish Boughtons, one standing in the book above, and the other below, this, of the value of 2161. and 1761. respectively. The place in question might be one of these, but the writer thinks that the adjunct was Blean.] Do the Liberals expect the vicar to maintain a school there? No! it will be said, "you are talking folly. But what they do expect is, that the clergyman should exert himself, and see that there is a school." Yes! that is the cry.