sent plaintiff, or a Mr. Jones should be his colleague; a poll having been demanded by Jones, it was granted, and in the same good feeling which characterized the rest of the proceedings in this election the church was turned into a poll booth. Soon after the poll had begun, a discussion arose between a Mr. Hurcombe and Roffey, which quickly degenerated into abuse, and ended as might have been expected in a quarrel. Between these two, the glorious distinction of who behaved worst in this meeting seems to rest. About nine o'clock a personal struggle takes place between them, constables are called in, and Roffey is taken into custody. Tyon then in the church yard (who acted as sidesman to Roffey) hearing the noise, comes into the church, and endeavours to rescue his churchwarden (and if this had been all he had done his conduct might not have been perhaps unjustifiable) takes up his personal quarrel, and in the end commits assaults on several individuals, and finishes his part of that evening's employment, like his principal, by being apprehended by a constable. Both suits were instituted by order of the vestry, and if two individuals were to be selected on whom the parish vengeance should be wreaked, and by whom the ecclesiastical costs be paid, the most guilty should have been chosen: and who amongst the brawlers and quarrellers of that evening, would have disputed the palm with Hurcombe and Roffey? Both Roffey and Tyon had rendered themselves amenable to the ecclesiastical law, and the statute against brawling, 5 and 6 Edw. VOL. I. NO. I. VI. c. 4. On the judgment being pronounced, it was well observed, that if two parties quarrel and brawl in the church, who is most guilty, is nearly immaterial; that the respect due to the sacredness of the place, should have induced each to abstain, and each, continuing the fray, incurred the same penalty. Amongst other important points noticed by the court is, the strange misapprehension which prevailed amongst all parties respecting the power of the parish officers. It seems to have been considered that nothing special attached to the place, in which they were assembled, but that, as if an affray had happened in the street or in a tavern, constables might be called in to quell the disturbance. But the churchwardens in the first instance were the proper persons to maintain good order in the church, which duty if they neglected, or were unable to perform, civil officers perhaps are warranted in interfering. the execution of their duty, the churchwardens have peculiar privileges and are protected by law. (See Hawe v. Planner 1st Saunder's Reports, p. 63.) In the particular case of Tyon, it appeared that he was taken into custody by a constable without any requisition to that effect having been made, and in a place where his authority was superior to that of a peace officer. In with. The court considered that in the suit instituted against Roffey, for conduct which his office and situation especially condemned, Mr. Palmer did but his duty, and the defendant Roffey was condemned in the costs of the suit. In pronouncing judgment against Tyon the court expressed an opinion, that if any other individual than Roffey should have been prosecuted for conduct on that disgraceful evening, Hurcombe was the proper object. The second prosecution could not be considered to have been solely instituted to assert the sanctity of the place; nor impartially to correct those who had sinned against public decorum: and although this suit had been commenced by order of the vestry, the churchwarden, Palmer, was not bound to obey its direction; he might judge of its propriety; and the court could not say that this was the case of a public officer acting without private motives in the discharge of his duty. Instead therefore of full costs, Mr. Tyon was condemned to pay 50l. nomine expensarum. GATES V. CHAmbers. 2 Addam's Reports, p. 177. Articles were filed in the Arches Court of Canterbury against the defendant, for having read prayers in the parish church of Byfield in the county of Northampton, on Sunday the 14th of Sept. 1823, without licence from the Bishop of Peterborough or any other competent authority, and also for having thereby obstructed the curate, the Rev. S. S. Paris, duly licensed in the performance of his clerical duties, in violation of the 48th. canon, and against the laws and constitutions ecclesiastical of this realm. This cause was heard on the point whether the allegation pleaded responsively to these articles could be admitted to proof. The facts disclosed by the pleadings on both sides appeared to be as follows. The Rev. Charles Wetherell was the rector of the parish of Byfield and resident therein. In Sept. 1822 he engaged the Rev. S. S. Paris as his cutate to assist him occasionally in the performance of his parochial duties, such engagement to be determined by either party on giving three months' notice. In Nov. 1822, Mr. Paris was licensed by the Bishop of Peterborough to the curacy of Byfield. Soon after the rector was dissatisfied with his curate and gave him notice on the 6th of January 1823, to quit the curacy; and in the month of February following requested the Bishop of Peterborough to withdraw the licence. Mr. Paris still continued to reside in the parish but had not officiated in the church between February and the 14th of September, 1823, the whole duty in the interim having been performed by the rector. On the 14th of September the rector was absent at Malvern in attendance upon a sick wife, and he requested the defendant to perform the morning duty. The defendant was licenced curate of Willoughby in Warwickshire, not in the diocese of Peterborough. Previous to proceeding to church, the defendant produced his licence from the Bishop of Lichfield and Co ventry to one of the churchwardens who accompanied him to the church, and gave him possession of the reading desk; while there, and before the service had begun, Mr. Paris came up with the other churchwarden, and claimed to perform the duty. The defendant then said, Mr. Paris was no longer curate to Mr. Wetherell, by whose express desire he had that day come to do the duty; that he was not aware of violating any law by assisting a friend in his absence, and that disclaiming all idea of acting perversely he should persist in officiating for that day. The defendant then promised at the request of Mr. Paris to admit that he Mr. Paris had claimed and was there ready to perform the service, which was afterwards performed by the defendant. The point most material for Mr. Paris to have established was, that being a licenced curate, he was not removable at the mere will and pleasure of the rector, but continued curate till the licence was revoked. For which doctrine the case of Hyde v. Martin Cowper 440, was relied on; Sir John Nicholl, decided that the defensive allegation offered on behalf of the defendant was admissible. Upon the words of the 40th canon it did not appear that the defendant attended at Byfield as curate, he only came to officiate for the rector on a particular occasion; that without further consideration, it would not lay down as a rule of the law, that 1 occasional assistance, so given, merely because the minister, so assisting, had not been licensed by the Bishop of the diocese was punishable as an ecclesiastical offence. Inasmuch as the allegation responsive to the articles filed against the defendant, contained facts, the probable tendency of which was, to render it a case at least for mitigated costs, if not to establish a complete legal defence to both parts of the charge, the court admitted it to proof. After the court had pronounced this opinion, the proctor for Mr. Gates stated that he proceeded no further; upon which as a matter of course the cause was dismissed with costs. The cause being stopped in this stage, the great question on the power of the rector or vicar, to remove at his own will a licenced curate was not determined. If a curate is licensed, it has been said by very high authority, that he is removable only sub modo; for instance by the consent of the bishop, or by the rector doing the duty himself. See the dictum of Lord Mansfield, on the argument in the case above quoted from Cowper's Reports. But this has been denied to be law, as contrary to former decisions, see Burn's Ecclesiastical law by Tyrwhit, Vol. 2. p. 54, 55. The point seems still open for decision, and from its importance, would (we should think) speedily call for determination. HISTORY OF THE DIOCESE OF CANTERBURY. ALTHOUGH the History of the Church of Canterbury may be said to commence with the legation of Augustine, the influence of that circumstance upon the state of the country generally, renders a hasty retrospect necessary to afford a knowledge of the various races to whom his mission extended, and the consequent duties devolved upon him. Scanty as are the sources from which its early history is to be derived, it is not so utterly lost in Cimmerian darkness, nor inextricably interwoven with fiction, as to be altogether contemptible. The aboriginal superstition of Britain, although sanguinary in its rites, yielded, by no means, to a purer mythology on the introduction of that of Rome. Probably, indeed, the doctrines of the immortality of the soul and of a virgin's conception, which were taught by the Druids, conduced to facilitate the reception of the gospel when the colonists imported that best gift. Of the arrival of Joseph of Arimathea in Britain, we may, unhesitatingly, class the relation among the forgeries which were uttered in the time of Charlemagne, in the silly contest of the clergy for the superior antiquity of their several churches; and King Lucius, the legendary founder of those few structures in the county of Kent, which are traced to the primitive Christians, was perhaps indebted, not for his crown alone, but for his existence, to the same mint of lies. But it is not to be doubted that when the Christian revelation became known in the heart of the empire, some who professed it were to be found in the great train of the Emperor Claudius, or among those whose business or offices brought them into Britain; and that some of the Britons themselves, who were led to Rome either as captives or hostages, were thus brought within the light of the gospel; among whom, Brân, the father of Caractacus, acquired the name of Fendigaid, or the blessed, from having introduced Christianity into his native country on his return. That the seed thus scattered had an abundant increase, is testified by Tertullian, who says that, in the time of Severus, many parts of Britain, on which Rome had not been able to impose her yoke, had bowed to the light yoke of Christ; and, at the period of the Dioclesian persecution, the Church was become a numerous body, and sealed in blood its testimony to the faith which it professed. One dubious name alone is handed down to us of this glorious company of martyrs, but the best earthly record of their sufferings is the rapid increase and establishment of the Church, which immediately followed. British Bishops, deputed probably from London, York, and Caerleon, attended, in the following century, at the councils of Nice, of Sardis, of Arles, and of Rimini; and took an honourable part in opposition to the heresy of Arius; and if that of Pelagius is to be traced in some degree to the country of his birth, she partook not in the virulent spirit which it called forth in those of his sojourn. That many of the tenets of Pelagius prevailed at the college of Bangor there is abundant proof; and the legations of Germanus and Severus, of Palladius and Patricius, were principally designed to eradicate them from the British Isles. They were attended with various degrees of success. The Culdees retired before them from Ireland to Iona: but the war of opinion was undecided in South Britain, when the irruption of Goths into Italy relieved at once the colonies from the legions, and their churches from the visitation of Rome. From the former they were liberated for ever; but only to fall under a heavier rod. They had been compensated, by their late masters, with some portion of the refinement of Italy; but when the incompetency of their native princes yielded them a prey to the sons of Odin, a few indignant spirits rebelled, the mean and the unprincipled dragged out their ignominious lives in servitude, and the Church shrank before the intruders within the remote fastnesses of Wales and of Cornwall. Kent was the price which Vortigern had paid for the daughter of Hengist, and was probably the first province in Britain from which the profession of Christianity disappeared. For a few years Vortimer maintained a successful struggle; but the Anglo-Saxon princes finally established themselves in their petty kingdom, and with them, the scheme of Mythology which prevailed therein at the close of the sixth century, when Gregory the Great renewed the intercourse between Rome and Britain. The conjuncture was favourable to the views of the Pontiff. Ethelbert, the descendant of Hengist, and the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon kings, had received in marriage a niece of Chilperic. She had been attended from Paris by several Christian ministers, and had already obtained a desecrated church at the eastern end of Canterbury, which Luidpard, Bishop of Soissons, had dedicated to St. Martin, and restored to the purposes of Christian worship when the missionaries of Gregory landed in Thannet. Their fame had gone before them, and the jugglery which the Romish Church condescended to practice, had prepared Ethelbert to regard them as potent magicians, to whom it was equally unsafe to grant or to deny access. He afforded them the measured courtesy of an interview in the open air, and, as they drew near in long procession, preceded by the crucifix, and chaunting the litanies, contemplated his guests as something more than human. Gregory, himself one of the most unostentatious of the Roman Bishops, had prescribed the use of music and of pomp in divine worship, with the avowed object of alluring converts, and the establishment of Augustine in Kent may be admitted in proof of his judgment. It would have been well if no more serpentine arts had been resorted to in the course of his mission; but whilst we abhor the "pious frauds" of Gregory and of his legate, it would be unreasonable to decry the |