On the twenty-sixth day of February, in the twenty-eighth year of his reign, George the third, granted by his letters patent to the Rev. Thomas Hayter, the curate of the parish; the Rev. John Shepherd, the assistant curate; and certain others; the power to beg “from house to house throughout England, our town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, &c.” to enable them to rebuild the parish church, which this Brief, and the preamble of the twenty-eighth Geo. III, cap. 74—“An Act for rebuilding the parish church of _Paddington_, in the county of _Middlesex_, and for enlarging the church-yard of the said parish,”—tell us “is a very ancient structure, and in such a decayed state, that it cannot be effectually repaired, but must be taken down and rebuilt; besides which, the same is so small, that one-fourth of the present inhabitants within the said parish cannot assemble therein for Divine worship.” Down to this time, the lords of the Paddington soil, or their lessees, had furnished the tenants, who lived on this church-land, with some sort of church accommodation; but another church was now required and was to be built, although this _very ancient_ and _decayed structure_ was but one hundred and ten years old; and the question naturally arose, who was to build it? The then lessees; as the lessees had done in 1678? The “Lord of the manor of Paddington;” as the then bishop is called? Or these together? Neither the one, nor the other, nor the two combined. It is no longer those who hold “the rectorial and other lands,” and whose income from those lands has been increasing ever since the time of Bishop Sheldon, who are to build churches in Paddington. The lord and his lessees know their duty better than that. Begging boxes are to be sent “from house to house throughout England;” and as that does not succeed, those to whom a portion of the increased accommodation is to be offered, are to be induced or compelled to furnish the necessary funds. Moreover, at the expense of the people, (for the Act expressly declares the pews shall be “rent-free,”) comfortable accommodation, “in or near the chancel,” is to be provided for the lord of the manor of Paddington, “or his or their lessee or lessees.” And although there is now no Dunstan’s bailiff to dread, let those who doubt that the law had power in Paddington at the end of the last century, as it has now, “to take by force” this extra and new church-tax, look to the fourteenth, thirty-fourth, and other sections of this _public_ Act; the _first_ of the Paddington church building Acts.