The Sun.
London, England, 1834-10-16 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

HISTORY OF ENGLAND, Vol. IX.
Valpy. London, 1834.
The present volume forms the first of Smollett's
continuation of Hume. Smollett was a better novelist
than an historian ; he had not the philosophic spirit
or patience of research necessary to enable him to earn
distinction in this last department of mind. Still his
history, considering its author's known prejudices, is
remarkably impartial, though in its statement of facts
it is occasionally a little inaccurate. The style, too, is
involved and careless ; and, except in one instance,
where Smollett draws the character of King
is utterly devoid of dignity. Mr. Valpy, however, has
done wisely to republish the history ; for, defective as
it is, it is by far the best record we have of the times
of which it treats.

ON CHURCH PROPERTY.
Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, London.

Theie is nothing remarkably striking, nor altogether
new, in the opinions put forth in this pamphlet. The
best that can be said of it is, that it is a. clever exposi-
tion of the errors of Dr. Cove, and all such champions
of the divine origin of tithes. The following extract is
a fair specimen of the author's mode of treating his

subject
When we reflect on the various sources through which
property has flowed into ecclesiastical corporations--when we
recollect that, if some of the donations made to them have
proceeded from the purest motives of piety and benevolence,
others have been suggested by the blindness of superstition
and the artifices of the priesthood—that many have arisen from
vanity, caprice, indifference or aversion to natural heirs, mo-
tives discreditable alike to the giver and receiver—it must be
obvious that these endowments have nothing in common but
their destination to what was regarded, at the time of their
foundation, to be pious uses. The question for consideration
is, whether, ceasing to be useful according to their present
application, they may not be converted to beneficial purposes—

whether, for instance-, the revenues of a parish church, where
i_i_
few or none of the inhabitants can join in religious worweli
with the incumbent, may not, wholly or Partially, be emPlq,,
in institutions for education, or in works of charity. To Oa:.
tiri the contrary, is to represent every ecclesiastical corpora,
tion as a gulf or abyss, into which things may enter, but from
which nothing can come out. Was it so in the prlmPe,
church ? So much the reverse 'was the fact, that in aarlYti.
the bishops were empowered, in cases of emergency, not tine
to disse of the annual revenue,' but to alienate the lane
church,the towards the relief of the poor, the support of to:
ministers of religion, the redemption of captives, or other P
poses connected with the objects for which they had bef,.
given ; and it was only the abuse of this privilege by the eP .0
copal order that led to restraints on its exercise. Is it ix: I
Roman Catholic countries ? In Austria, monastic institutions
have been suppressed without number, and their revenues
plied to other purposes. In France, before the revolution,
1789, the concurrence of the civil and ecclesiastical anthorlr
was able, at all times, to extinguish, unite, dissever, supPre'
burthen, or alienate, the benefices held by ecclesiastical corP'
rations. In England before the Reformation, Welsey
pressed several monasteries, and applied their lands and tel'
nues to the erection of colleges for education ;
ilnci
l aoed'
earlier period, when the order of the Templars waeabat°
the judges and others of the King's Council decided, that 0,4
lands and tenements they formerly possessed had by the law yrs
England escheated to the Crown, or to the original &te
as
and their heirs, who might well and lawfully retain thew
their rightful escheats.' "