... If what I write is liked, so much the better;
but, liked or not liked, sold or not sold, Wilson Crokered or not
Wilson Crokered, I will write."[122]
He now returns to the "Prebends" which the Commissioners propose to
confiscate. Some of these, he says, are properties of great value. He
instances one which will soon be worth between L40,000 and L60,000 a year.
Some of them are held by non-residentiary Prebendaries, who never come near
the Cathedral, and who have no duty except to enjoy their incomes. Those
prebends Sydney Smith, as a real though temperate reformer, would now
surrender, and make from them a fund to enrich poor livings. But for the
prebends of the Residentiaries, who perform the daily duties of the
Cathedral, he will fight to the death. With splendid courage he asserts
that these great estates, held for life by ecclesiastical officers, are as
well managed, and as profitably employed, with a view to the general
interests of the community, as the lands of any peer or squire.--
"Take, for instance, the Cathedral of Bristol, the whole estates of
which are about equal to keeping a pack of foxhounds. If this had been
in the hands of a country gentleman; instead of Precentor, Succentor,
Bean, and Canons, and Sexton, you would have had huntsman,
whippers-in, dog-feeders, and stoppers of earths; the old squire, full
of foolish opinions and fermented liquids, and a young gentleman, of
gloves, waistcoats, and pantaloons: and how many generations might it
be before the fortuitous concourse of noodles would produce such a man
as Professor Lee,[123] one of the Prebendaries of Bristol, and by far
the most eminent Oriental scholar in Europe.
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