The poverty of great numbers among the Clergy of England, hath been the continual complaint of all men who wish well to the Church, and many schemes have been thought on to redress it; yet an English vicar of £40 a-year, lives much more comfortably than one of double the value in Ireland. His farmers generally speaking, are able and willing to pay him his full dues. He hath a decent church of ancient standing, filled every Lord's day with a large congregation of plain people, well clad, and behaving themselves as if they believed in God and Christ. He hath a house and barn in repair, a field or two to graze his cows, with a garden and orchard. No guest expects more from him than a pot of ale; he lives like an honest, plain farmer, as his wife is dressed but little better than Goody. He is sometimes graciously invited by the squire, where he sits at humble distance; if he gets the love of his people, they often make him little useful presents; he is happy by being born to no higher expectation, for he is usually the son of some ordinary tradesman or middling farmer. His learning is much of a size with his birth and education, no more of either than what a poor hungry servitor can be expected to bring with him from his college. It would be tedious to shew the reverse of all this in our distant poorer parishes, through most parts of Ireland, wherein every reader may make the comparison. Lastly, the honourable House of Commons may consider, whether the scheme of multiplying beggarly clergymen through the whole kingdom who must all have votes for choosing parliament men (provided they can prove their freeholds to be worth 40s. per annum, _ultra reprisas_) may not, by their numbers, have great influence upon elections, being entirely under the dependance of their bishops. For by a moderate computation, after all the divisions and subdivisions of parishes, that, my lords, the bishops, have power to make by their new laws, there will, as soon as the present set of clergy go off, be raised an army of ecclesiastical militants, able enough for any kind of service, except that of the altar. I am, indeed, in some concern about a fund for building a thousand or two churches, wherein these probationers may read their wall lectures, and begin to doubt they must be contented with barns; which barns will be one great advancing step towards an accommodation with our true Protestant brethren, the Dissenters.