the only pew in said chancel, to sit, kneel, and hear divine service and sermons; and also an unmolested right of burial, in an ancient family vault therein, and of placing tablets or monuments on the walls and floor to the memory of deceased relatives ;that for all such purposes they have, without any let or molestation, passed to and fro through the body of the said church, without paying any other fee than two guineas, whenever a burial takes place.

The said Charles Wodsworth was therefore directed to show good and sufficient cause, why the Lord Bishop of Peterborough should not grant his license or faculty to the said E. Bouverie, Esq., according to the prayer of the petitioner, as set forth in the citation issued,—and in default thereof, that the said Vicar may be condemned in the costs of the suit, and condemned to the due and effectual payment thereof.

On the 24th of March the Rev. Charles Wodsworth, in his own proper person, in reply to the above allegations, stated, that though he admitted the right of E. Bouverie to the free and unmolested right and occupation of the said pew, and to the usual rights of lay impropriators of burial in an ancient family vault, yet he denied that they either have or can have, by law, an unmolested and undisturbed right or privilege of placing tablets on the floor, or against the walls.

It is an axiom, he argued, in all ecclesiastical law, that the freehold of the church is vested in the incumbent, be he rector, vicar, or perpetual curate; that by his induction, he is invested with what is equivalent to the livery of seizin; that the lay impropriator has only a qualified freehold, and the law points out how he is to exercise his rights :-true it is that he repairs the chancel at his sole costs, and he enjoys privileges exercised by no other parishioner,—that, under certain regulations, of interment in his vault, and putting up tablets or monuments, so that they be not unfit or unseemly, or so as to deface the edifice, or obstruct him and the parishioners in the enjoyment and use

of the chancel. If the prayer of this petition were granted to the extent prayed for, it would go far to secularize the Church, as Lord Ellenborough observed in the case, Beckwith v. Harding. He submitted therefore to the court, if such custom has in fact existed, (and he did not, for the sake of shortening the proceedings as to time and expense, intend to deny that it had existed as alleged,) that such custom is bad and contrary to law.

If the prayer of the citation, he continued, had been for some specific purpose, that of erecting a tablet or monument, the dimensions of such should be stated, that the Ordinary might judge whether it were seemly, and would not disfigure the Church. The Vicar would have offered no opposition to the grant of the faculty; and this led him to state to the court why it was that he was cited, and on what grounds he opposed the grant of the faculty sought for.

In the year 1834, he was inducted into his benefice; and shortly after Mr. Bouverie, without any application to him or the Ordinary, obtained the key of his church from the clerk, and erected a tablet to the memory of a lately deceased daughter. The Vicar, believing that no lay impropriator had any legal right thus to enter his freehold without some ecclesiastical control, and believing that he was entitled to a fee for such erection, wrote to Mr. Bouverie on the subject; and as he, in the correspondence which then took place, still continued to think that he had only exercised, and that legally, his rights and privileges, Mr. Wodsworth offered to take the opinion of Dr.Lushington, or by letters permissory to obtain in a friendly suit the judgment of Sir Herbert Jenner, and to pay half the expenses. Both these courses were refused by Mr. Bouverie; Mr. Wodsworth therefore took himself the opinion of Dr. Lushington, which confirmed him in his supposition, that Mr. Bouverie had acted illegally in erecting his tablet, but that he the Vicar could claim no fee as a matter of right.

The usual course indeed is, that the

incumbent's consent being obtained, (which it is by the payment of a compliment or customary fee,) a faculty, though strictly in point of law requisite, is seldom required; and in such cases, Lord Stowel observes, (vide Maidman v. Malpas) the ecclesiastical court is not eager to interfere. Since the irruption into his church, the Vicar stated that he has kept the key in his own custody; and in October last, upon the lay impropriator sending a tablet without any previous communication with him, and demanding the key by a common labourer, Mr. Wodsworth asked if he had brought a note from Mr. Bouverie, or was provided with a faculty: and on his producing neither, refused to admit it. He however subsequently communicated to Mr. Bouverie, that if he would acknowledge his error as to the erection of the former tablet, and would state his wishes as to the one now sought to be erected, and ask his sanction, no obstruction would be offered by him; and that he would leave the payment or not of any fee or compliment entirely to his liberality and discretion. "No reply, Worshipful Sir," continued Mr. Wodsworth, "was vouchsafed to this communication, except the citation, against the prayer of which I now appear: as therefore, while I have been willing to grant Mr. Bouverie the free and legal exercise of his rights, being anxious only at the same time to preserve those of the Church, and especially that to which I have been appointed by the Crown, I beg that this suit may be discharged, and the said Mr. Bouverie condemned in the costs. I should add in conclusion, that I consider the prayer to enter and pass into and from and through the body of my freehold, without any let or molestation, is contrary to law, and is not a fit subject for the grant of a faculty; and that a faculty, if granted for such a purpose, would be illegal and void."

On the 26th of May, the judge, Dr. Butler, the chancellor of the diocese, gave judgment as follows:

"I consider that the general faculty thus prayed for, goes to the length, not only of prohibiting all interruption on

the part of the Vicar, but also excluding, by a novel concession on the part of the bishop, all future exercise of the authority now vested in him, (save only in cases of such tablets or monuments as should be complained of as nuisances): thereby virtually relinquishing a portion of the rights of the bishop as ordinary. The present right of the bishop to interfere, is not only established by all law precedents, but admitted by the petitioner in the very act of applying for this faculty. But the petitioner claims a right founded on PRESCRIPTION, extending as far back as 1650, which the Vicar alleges, without denying that such custom has existed, is bad and wholly contrary to law :' and I find in the case, Seager v. Bowle, it is ruled that no practice can absolutely legalize the erection of a tablet or monument without a faculty. The whole fabric of the church, including the chancel, is committed to the care of the Ordinary, that it may not be injured or defaced by the caprice of individuals. The consent of the incumbent is taken on such occasions, (the erection of a monument) as well as that of the Rector of the chancel.

"In this case the Rector, being the promoter, has no reason to require the Vicar's consent for the exercise of his legal privileges; nor can the Vicar refuse him admission into the chancel through the only door by which he can have access to the church, or demand, as a matter of right, a fee for such permission. But the grant of this prayer for a general faculty, instead of a special faculty, thus to erect tablets or monuments, would not be a legal exercise of promoter's right; as the Ordinary cannot part beforehand with that episcopal control, which is a portion of his peculiar rights and privileges, and which, in behalf of himself and his successors, and for the benefit of the Church, he is bound by oath to maintain.

"As to the question of the right of the incumbent withholding admission into the church, he has certainly, in the first instance, the right of possession of the key of the church; and the churchwardens even have only

under him the custody of the church; but if he refuse, on fitting occasions, access to the church, he exceeds his authority and abuses his power. Now, cases of interment in an ancient family vault are fitting occasions for such access; and the incumbent cannot refuse admission, on payment of a customary fee, on such occasions. In cases of such interment, the petitioner requires no faculty; but in EVERY CASE for the erection of a tablet or monument, he is bound by law to apply for a SPECIAL faculty.

"According to the prayer of the petition of the promoter, (received, it is supposed, by the judge, since the last court, as the Vicar heard nothing of such application; and if he had, we have authority to state that he would have offered no opposition to such prayer,) I now grant permission to the said Edward Bouverie, and his family, so long as he or they continue inhabitants of his present mansion, in the parish of Hardingstone, to stand, kneel, &c. in the pew of the said chancel; to

hear divine service and sermons, &c.; to permit the use of the said ancient family vault, for the interment of said E. Bouverie and his family, on payment of fee to Vicar of two guineas on each interment; to set up a tablet, of dimensions not exceeding two feet, nor projecting more than two inches from the wall of the said chancel, to the memory of Major Francis Bouverie, son of said Edward Bouverie.

"With respect to costs, they must be borne exclusively by said E. Bouverie; as the citation taken out by him asserts a larger right than I conceive he is legally entitled to claim, and calls upon the Vicar to show cause why a faculty should not be granted confirmatory of that asserted right;non constat that any opposition would have been offered by the Vicar, had the prayer of Mr. Bouverie been confined within the limits of the faculty, which the Court has now thought proper to grant.

"I therefore dismiss Mr. Wodsworth with his costs."

DOMESTIC.-There have been, since our last Retrospect, several very important discussions in Parliament, but which nevertheless have led to no other result, than to show the incapacity of Ministers, and to expose the means by which they are allowed to retain their places: The debate in the House of Lords, especially on the Spanish question, has been most conducive to this result, in which the more than extraordinary fact was elicited, that our ships of war had been authorised to fire upon certain Sardinian vessels, which were supposed to be about to bring munitions of war to Don Carlos. Happily, such an event did not happen, from some cause or other; but this overbearing insolence towards a feeble power like Sardinia, which sets at defiance all the principles of international law, forms a melancholy contrast to the base truckling shown to Russia in the affair of the Vixen. We are anxiously

expecting the discussions likely to arise on the latter point.

FRANCE.-A blockade of the 'ports of Mexico has been declared by France, in order to enforce certain claims made by French residents in Mexico, for alleged confiscations of goods and other iujuries; which are, however, generally thought very exorbitant and unjust. How far Mexico may be compelled to acquiesce by the means adopted, is doubtful; at present, she refuses to submit, but the evils of the blockade may eventually compel her. In Africa, the arms of France have subdued nearly all opposition; and her colonizing projects seem to prosper in all directions, as the Arabs at length begin to acquiesce in the presence of the French.

THE NETHERLANDS.-At length the long pending dispute between Belgium and Holland seems on the point of adjustment. Belgium has again roused up the revolutionists on her soil to