amended by stat. 57 Geo. III. c. 99, now repealed. By this last act, every incumbent absenting himself from a benefice with cure, without licence, for the period of three months consecutively, or at several times for so many days as are equal to this period, and abiding elsewhere than at some other benefice, forfeited for an absence exceeding three months, but not above six months, one-third of the annual value of the benefice, clear of all outgoings except the curate's salary. Absences of a longer duration were subjected to proportional penalties, and the whole of the penalty in each case was given to the party suing, together with such costs as are allowed by the practice of the court where the action is brought. All who were exempt from residence before the last statute were still exempt, and the exemption was extended to several others, including public officers in either of the two universities, and tutors and public officers in any college. Students in the universities were exempted till they were thirty years of age; and the king's prerogative to grant dispensations for nonresidence to his chaplains was not affected by the statute. But no person could have the benefit of an exemption, unless he made a notification of it every year, within six weeks from the 1st of January, to the bishop of the diocese. Besides the exemptions, the bishop might grant a licence for non-residence for the illness or infirmity of an incumbent, his wife or child, and for other causes specified in the act; and if the bishop refused a licence, the incumbent might appeal to the archbishop. The bishop might also grant licences for non-residence for causes not specified in the act, but in that case the licences must be allowed by the archbishop. Licences might be revoked, and no licence could continue in force above three years from the time of its being granted, or after the 31st of December in the second year after that in which it was granted. The act also contained directions with respect to the lists of exemptions and licences for nonresidence, which were to be kept in the registry of each diocese for public inspection. The act 57 Geo. III. c. 99 (repealed, as already observed, by 1 & 2 Vict. c. 106), provided also for the appointment of licensed curates in benefices, the incumbents of which were absent with or without licence or exemption, and regulated the salaries of such curates upon a scale proportioned to the value of each benefice, and the number of the population within its precincts; and in all cases of non-residence from sickness, age, or other unavoidable cause the bishop might fix smaller salaries at his discretion. The subject of non-residence is now regulated by 1 & 2 Vict. c. 106. Under this act the penalties for non-residence of an incumbent without a licence are onethird of the annual value of the benefice when the period of absence exceeds three and does not exceed six months; one-half of the annual value when the absence exceeds six and does not exceed eight months; and when the period of non-residence has been for the whole year, three-fourths of the annual income is forfeited. Certain persons are exempt from the penalties of non-residence, as the heads of colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, the warden of Durham University, and the head-masters of Eton, Winchester, and Westminster schools. Privileges for temporary non-residence are granted to a great number of persons, as persons holding offices in cathedrals and at the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge; chaplains of the royal family, of the bishops, or of the House of Commons; those who serve the office of chancellor, vicar-general, or other similar office; readers in the royal chapels; preachers in the inns of court or at the Rolls; the provost of Eton, warden of Winchester College, master of the Charter-House, and the principals of St. David's College and of King's College. During the time any of the above classes or persons are actually engaged in their duties, their absence is not accounted as non-residence. Performance of cathedral duties may be accounted as residence under certain restrictions. Every person desirous of a licence for non-residence must present a petition to the bishop setting forth a number of particulars, for instance, if he intends to employ a curate, and what salary he proposes to give him, &c. In case of a licence being refused, an appeal lies to the archbishop. A copy of every licence | There are certain liabilities which parsons, vicars, and other spiritual persons legally incur in respect of their benefices. Thus, by 43 Eliz. c. 2, they are rateable in respect of their benefices for the relief of the poor; and, although the burden of the repairs of the body of the church falls upon the parishioners, the rector (and, where the parsonage is appropriated, the impropriator) is liable for the repairs of the chancel. And the stat. 35 Edw. I. sess. 2, the object of which was to prohibit rectors from cutting down trees in churchyards, contains an express exception of the case where such trees are wanted for the repair of the chancel. Besides the liability implied in the lastmentioned prohibition, all ecclesiastical incumbents are liable for dilapidations. A dilapidation is said to be the pulling down or destroying in any manner any of the houses or buildings belonging to a spiritual living, or suffering them to run into ruin or decay, or wasting or destroying the woods of the church, or committing or suffering any wilful waste in or upon the inheritance of the church. Such proceedings may be prevented by the spiritual censures of the ordinary; and the profits of the benefice may be seques tered until the damage be repaired; and the Court of Chancery will, at the suit of the patron, grant an injunction to restrain this as well as every other species of waste. Or the next incumbent may recover damages for dilapidations either in the Spiritual Court, or in an action on the case at common law against his predecessor, or, if he be dead, against his personal representatives. The remedies for the subtraction of tithes given by the law of England to the clergy were sufficiently ample. [TITIES.] With respect to actions and suits for recovery of lands or rents by parsons, vicars, or other spiritual corporations sole, the 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 27, § 29, subjects them to the period of limitation of two successive incumbencies, together with six years after the appointment of a third person to the benefice, or in case of this period not amounting to sixty years, then to the full period of limitation of sixty years. Having thus shown how possession of the different kinds of benefices in England is acquired and maintained, and what are the principal legal incidents of such possession, it remains to consider how benefices may be vacated or avoided. And this may happen several ways: 1. By the death of the incumbent. 2. By resignation, which is made into the hands of the ordinary, except in the case of donatives, which must be resigned into the hands of the patron, who alone has jurisdiction over them. The resignation must be absolute, unless it be for the purpose of exchange, in which case it may be made on the condition that the exchange shall take full effect. Where two parsons wish to exchange benefices, they must obtain a licence from the ordinary to that effect; and if the exchange is not fully executed by both parties during their lives, all their proceedings are void. (See Burn, Eccles. Law, tit. 'Exchange.") 3. A benefice may be avoided by the incumbent's being promoted to a bishopric; but the avoidance in this case does not take place till the actual consecration of the new prelate. The patronage of the benefice so vacant belongs for that turn to the king, except in the case of a clergyman beneficed in 66 England accepting an Irish bishopric: for no person can accept a dignity or benefice in Ireland until he has first resigned all his preferments in England; so that in this case the patron, and not the king, has the benefit of the avoidance. The avoidance may be prevented by a licence from the crown to hold the benefice in commendam. Grants in commendam may be either temporary or perpetual. They are said to be derived from an ancient practice in the Roman Catholic church, whereby, when a church was vacant, and could not be immediately filled up, the care of it was commended by the bishop or other ecclesiastical superior to some person of merit, who should take the direction of it until the vacancy was filled up, but without meddling with the profits. This practice, however, in process of time being abused for the purpose of evading the provisions of the canon law against pluralities, became the subject of considerable complaint, and of some restraints, by the authority of popes and councils, and particularly of the celebrated Council of Trent in the sixteenth century. (See Father Paul's Treatise on Benefices.') A benefice may be granted in commendam to a bishop after consecration, but then the patron's consent must be obtained, in order to render the commendam valid. If the incumbent of a donative be promoted to a bishopric, no cession takes place, but it seems that he may retain the donative without a commendam. (Viner's Abr. tit. "Presentation," K. 6.) 4. If an incumbent of a benefice with cure of souls accepts a second benefice of a like nature without procuring a dispensation, the first, by the provisions of the canon law, is so far void, that the patron may present another clerk, or the bishop may deprive; but till deprivation no advantage can be taken by lapse. The stat. 21 Henry VIII. c. 13, which was repealed by 1 & 2 Vict. c. 106, provided that where a person, having a benefice of the value of 8. per annum or upwards, according to the valuation of the king's books, accepted any other, the first should be adjudged void, unless he obtained a dispensation in conformity with the pro visions of the statute. And dispensations not in conformity with the statute were declared void, and heavy penalties were imposed upon persons endeavouring to procure them. But by virtue of such dispensations, spiritual persons of the king's council might hold three benefices with cure, and the other persons qualified by the statute to receive dispensations might each hold two such benefices. The persons who might receive dispensations were, the king's chaplains, those of the queen and royal family, and other persons who were allowed by the statute to retain a certain number of chaplains, and also the brethren and sons of all temporal lords, the brethren and sons of knights, and all doctors and bachelors of divinity and law admitted to their degrees in due form by the universities. The privilege was not extended to the brethren and sons of baronets, as the rank of baronet did not exist at the time when the statute was passed. The statute expressly excepted deaneries, archdeaconries, chancellorships, treasurerships, chanterships, prebends, and sinecure rectories. Donatives are within the statute, if a donative is the first living; but if a donative is the second living taken without a dispensation, the first is not made void by the statute, the words of which are "instituted and inducted to any other," words not applicable to donatives. But it seems that both in the cases excepted by the statute, and in the case where the second living is a donative, a dispensation is equally necessary in order to hold both preferments, as otherwise the first would be voidable by the canon law. The stat. 36 George III. c. 83, brought chapels and churches augmented by Queen Anne's Bounty within the Statute of Pluralities, by enacting that such churches and chapels shall be considered as presentative benefices, and that the licence to serve them shall render other livings voidable in the same manner as institution to presentative benefices. It appears that both by the common law and by the provisions of statute 37 Henry VIII. c. 21, and 17 Charles II. c. 3, a union or consolidation of two benefices into one might, with consent of patrons, ordinaries, and incumbents, be made in such a manner as not to be affected by the statute of Pluralities. Under § 72 of 1 & 2 Vict. c. 106, benefices may be divided or consolidated with the consent of patrons, and there is a clause for apportioning in certain cases the incomes of two benefices belonging to one patron. (Burn's Eccles. Law, tit. "Union.") For the manner of obtaining dispensations from the archbishop, and for the form of such dispensations, and of the confirmation thereof by the lord chancellor, and the provisions which the canon law requires to be inserted in such dispensations, see Burn's Eccles. Law, tit. "Plurality." The subject of Pluralities is now regulated by 1 & 2 Vict. c. 106, entitled 'An Act to abridge the holding of Benefices in Plurality, and to make better provision for the residence of the clergy.' By this act no persons holding more benefices than one shall hold therewith any cathedral preferment or any other benefice. The term "cathedral preferment" comprehends every dignity and office in any cathedral or collegiate church. An archdeacon may hold two benefices with his archdeaconry under the limitations of the act. Two benefices held by one person must be within ten miles of each other, and a licence of dispensation must be obtained from the archbishop of Canterbury. No person is to hold a benefice with a population of more than three thousand persons, if he has already a benefice with a population exceeding five hundred persons; and two benefices cannot be held if their joint yearly value exceeds 1000l. If, however, the yearly value of one of the benefices be under 150l., and the population does not exceed 2000, two bene, fices may be held together, although their joint value exceed 10007.; but the incumbent must give to the bishop a statement in writing of the reasons why the two benefices should be held together, and the bishop may require him to reside nine months in the year on one of them. 5. Another mode of avoidance of a benefice is by deprivation under a sentence of an ecclesiastical court. The principal causes on which sentence of deprivation is usually founded are heresy, blasphemy, gross immorality; or convic tion of treason, murder, or felony. 6. A benefice may be avoided by act of the law; as where the incumbent omits or refuses to subscribe the Thirty-Nine Articles, or declaration of conformity to the Liturgy, or to read the Articles or Book of Common Prayer, in pursuance of the statutes which render those acts necessary. But the most remarkable mode of avoidance which is to be classed under this head is that for simony, in pursuance of the statute 31 Elizabeth, c. 6. By this statute for the avoiding of simony, it is among other things enacted, that if any patron, for any sum of money, reward, profit, or benefit, or for any promise, agreement, grant, bond, of or for any sum of money, reward, gift, profit, or benefit, shall present or collate any person to an ecclesiastical benefice with cure of souls or dignity, such presentation or collation shall be utterly void, and the crown shall present to the benefice for that turn only. The statute also imposes a penalty upon the parties to the simoniacal contract to the amount of double the value of a year's profit of the benefice, and for ever disables the person corruptly procuring or accepting the benefice from enjoying the same. And by statute 12 Anne, sess. 2. c. 12, a purchase by a clergyman, either in his own name or that of another, of the next presentation for himself, is declared to be simony, and is attended with the same penalties and forfeiture as are imposed by the statute of Elizabeth. Upon the construction of this statute of Elizabeth it has been held, that if the next presentation can be shown to have been purchased with the intention of presenting a particular person, who, upon a vacancy taking place, is presented accordingly, this fact is sufficient to render the transaction simoniacal. An exception has indeed been made in the case of a father providing for his son by the purchase of a next presentation, but the principle of this exception has lately been denied. (2 B. & C. 652.) The circumstance of the incumbent being at the point of death at the time of the contract, may also vitiate the transaction; except where the fee simple of the advowson is purchased, in which case it has been decided that the knowledge of the state of the incumbent's health does not make the purchase simoniacal. It has been a question much agitated in our courts, whether a presentation is valid where the person presented enters into a bond or agreement, either generally to resign the benefice at the patron's request, or to resign it in favour of a particular person specified in the instrument. After several contrary decisions in the courts below, it was finally decided by the House of Lords, towards the latter end of the last century, that general bonds of resignation were simoniacal and illegal. A similar decision has lately been made by the same tribunal with respect to bonds of resignation in favour of specified persons. As there is no objection on the grounds of public policy to the last-mentioned instruments, if restrained within due limits, the interference of the legislature has been thought necessary in order to regulate transactions of this nature. On this account, after a retrospective act (7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 25) had been passed, to remedy the hardships that might otherwise have been occasioned by the lastmentioned judgment of the House of Lords, it was finally enacted by the 9 Geo. IV. c. 94, that every engagement, bona fide made for the resignation of any spiritual office or living, in favour of a person, or one of two persons to be specially named therein, being such persons as were mentioned in a subsequent section of the act, should be valid and effectual in law, provided such engagement were entered into before the presentation of the party entering into the same. By the section referred to, where two persons are specially named in the engagement, each of them must be, either by blood or marriage, an uncle, son, grandson, brother, nephew, or grand-nephew of the patron (provided the patron is not a mere trustee), or of the person for whom the patron is a trustee, or of the person by whose direction the presentation is intended to be made, or of any married woman whose husband in her right is patron, or of any other person in whose right the presentation is intended to be made. The deed containing the engagement to resign must be deposited for inspection with the registrar of the diocese wherein the benefice is situated, and every resignation made in pursuance of such an engagement must refer to the same, and state the name of the person for whose benefit it is made and becomes void, unless that person is presented within six months. The statute is limited in its operation to cases where the patronage is strictly private property. There are certain benefices of which the patronage is either by custom or act of parliament vested in certain public officers or corporations. Thus, the lord chancellor has the absolute patronage of all the king's livings which are valued at 201. per annum or under in the king's books. It is not known how this patronage of the chancellor was derived; but it appears from the rolls of parliament in the 4 Edward III., that the chancellor at that time had the patronage of all the king's livings of the value of 20 marks or under, and it is not improbable that at the time of making the new valuation of benefices in the reign of Henry VIII., a new grant was made to the chancellor by the crown, in consideration of the altered value or ecclesiastical property. By the Municipal Corporations Act (5 & 6 Will. IV. c. 76) all advowsons, rights of presentation or nomination to any benefice or ecclesiastical preferment in the gift of any body corporate, according to the meaning of the act, were required to be sold under the direction of the ecclesiastical commissioners, and the proceeds invested in government securities, the interest on which was to be carried to the account of the borough fund (§ 139). The act 1 & 2 Vict. c. 31, was passed for facilitating this transfer of patronage. By stat. 3 Jac. I. c. 5, popish recusants are disabled from exercising any right of ecclesiastical patronage; and the patronage of livings in the gift of such persons is vested in the two universities, according to the several counties in which the livings are situate. This disability was confirmed by the subsequent statutes 1 William and Mary, c. 26, 12 Anne sess. c. 14, and extended to cases where the right of patronage was vested in a trustee for a papist; and is not removed (along with the other disabilities affecting Roman |