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    collectors came to the house of an old lady of the name of Waken * eld , who then lived in the town aforesaid , and having told her their errand , * Alas I alas I' said she , < a poor King , indeed , to go a begging the first year of his reign ! But stay , I will bestow something on him , ' and telling them out ten broad pieces , * Here ! ' says she , * take those . ' The officers were going away very thankful for what they had got . * Hold !* says the old

    lady , * here are ten more to bear the charges of the other , and then , perhaps , some of them may reach him . ' " * [ ParL Hist . Vol . II . p . 364 ) Although Mr . Hal lam has entered at great length into the ecclesiastical history of some parts of our annals , he has treated very sparingly of those two very important measures the Corporation and Test Acts , with regard to which we had hoped to find some curious historical information * At the present moment , when the policy of continuing those enactments is

    called in question , it would have been a singular service to the cause of liberal inquiry to have examined the original reasons and grounds upon which these measures were founded . With regard to the Corporation Act , Mr . Hallam appears to be mistaken in supposing that it " struck at the heart" of the Dissenting party . At the time of the passing of this Act , a considerable proportion of the churches were filled by the Presbyterian clergy , who did not retire from them till compelled by the Act of Uniformity ,

    and the Dissenting laity at this period were in the habit of communicating with the church . Even after the passing of the Act of Uniformity , the taking of the Sacrament according to the Church of England was no test by which the Dissenters could be distinguished , for though after that Act the Presbyterian ministers thought proper , for the most part , to withdraw from their churches , yet they by no means inculcated upon their laity the propriety of abstaining from a communion with the church . " The Church of

    England , " says a wnter , not too well disposed towards the Dissenters , " was now so firmly by law established , that there could have been nothing wanting towards peace and conformity but a steady execution of the laws , and some tender regard to the ejected ministers , who were many of them men of piety and moderation , and who did not pretend that the church communion was unlawful as to lay communion , though they thought the terms of ministerial conformity too hard for them , and therefore , after the exercise of their ministry in some private meetings , they usually came to the public offices in

    their parish church , and joined with the priest and congregation , not only in prayers , but in the Sacrament of the Lord ' s Supper , so beginning the example of occasional conformity , not for interest or for any secular intention , but to all appearance for charity and brotherly love . "f It is singular that so general a misapprehension should have existed on this point , for there is no fact in our history capable of fuller and more satisfactory proof than this , that the Sacramental Test in the Corporation Act was not intended to operate to the exclusion of Dissenters from municipal offices .

    Hall the Chronicler tells a somewhat similar story of Edward IV . " The King had called before him a widow gentlewoman muck abounding in wealth , and equally stricken in years , of whom he only demanded what she would freely give him towards the support of his great charges . By my troth , quoth the old lady , for the sake of thy lovely countenance y thou shalt have twenty pounds * The King expecting scarce half that sum , thanked her , and gave her a loving kiss . Whether the flavour of his breath did so warm her old heart , or she esteemed the kiss of a king 00 precious a jewel , she swore directly that he should have twenty pounds more , which she as willingly paid as offered , " t Kennel ' s Complete Hist , of Eng . Vol . HI . p . 267 .

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    252 Review . —Hallam * * Constitutional History of England .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1828, page 252, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2559/page/36/