whole amounting to about 29,000l., and therefore it still kept up the name of a Fifteenth, when, by the alteration of the value of money and the increase of personal property, things came to be in a very different situation. So that when, of later years, the Commons granted the King a Fifteenth, every parish in England immediately knew their proportion of it; that is, the same identical sum which was assessed by the same Aid in the eighth of EDWARD the Third,-and then raised it by a rate among themselves, and returned it into the Royal Exchequer. These duties, however, must always be referred to the necessities of the times when extraordinary exactions were required, and under pretences of this nature a tenth or a fifteenth part of the goods of Merchants was occasionally taken for the purposes of the State.2 But the method of rating Subsidies was so loose, and it became at last so unequal * Frost's Notices relative to the early History of Hull, p. 93. and uncertain, that the Parliament, in 1663, was obliged to change it into a Land Tax. In 1491, JOHN HILL granted an estate in Burford, upon trust, that the rents should be paid to The Chamberlains, for the benefit of the town, when Taxes or Fifteenths of the King (HENRY the Seventh) should be imposed, or to the discharge of any other burdens, if they should be demanded.3 In 1547, RICHARD HUMFREY bequeathed to the Parish of Boughton, in the County of Northampton, certain lands, to the intent that the rents thereof should be yearly bestowed for amending the Highways thereabout, or towards the payment of a Fifteenth, or to any other needful causes of that town, or to the relief of the poor of the same.* In 1562, ROGER MUNDIE, a Grantee in trust for Sir MARTIN Bowes, by his Will, dated the 12th of August of that year, after reciting a Deed of Conveyance from * Rep. xi. p. 43. 'Rep. vii. p. Sir MARTIN Bowes to him, to the effect hereafter mentioned, gave to The Wardens and Commonalty of The Mystery of Goldsmiths, all that his great Messuage or tenement, with all the stables, courts, gardens and hereditaments thereto belonging, situate in the parish of St. Botolph without Billingsgate, in London, and also 22 gardens and a small tenement and garden, all situate in the same Parish, and which great Messuage, gardens and premises were then of the yearly rent of 137. 6s. 8d. And after reciting that the Ward of Langbourn, in London, in which Sir MARTIN BOWES then inhabited, was charged for every Fifteenth, granted by Act of Parliament to the King, the sum of 207. 10s., which was a great burden to the poor within the said Ward, the Will of Sir MARTIN BOWES, and also of him the testator ROGER MUNDIE, was, that whensoever any Fifteenth after the decease of Sir MARTIN Bowes should be granted by Act of Parliament, the said Wardens and Commonalty should, with the rents and profits of those premises, for ever discharge the inhabitants of the Ward of Langbourn from the payment of the said 207. 10s., for every Fifteenth so granted.5 In 1595, JOAN ROBOTHAM bequeathed 10%. to the use of the Township of New Thame, that it might be, from time to time, eased therewith, viz., by the payment of the Fifteenths within New Thame, in such manner as the Trustees should think meet and convenient.6 In a Decree made under a Commission of Charitable uses at Banbury, in 1602, it is recited, that certain lands, tenements, and sums of money, had been given and appointed for the aid, ease and benefit of the inhabitants of the town of Bloxham, towards the payment of their Fifteenths, reparations of their parish Church, relief of aged, impotent and poor people, and other such good and charitable uses.7 5 Rep. VIII. p. 328. 6 Rep. VIII. p. 551. 7 Rep. xi. p, 201. : POOR RATES. CHARITY, although one of the first of Virtues, has, if not exercised with great caution, an attendant evil of a very serious nature, and that is, the encouragement which it affords to Indolence, the most dangerous of Vices, because it is the most difficult to eradicate, and often leads to all the rest. When men, however hardy and active their habits may previously have been, once become accustomed to a life of lazy pauperism, it is scarcely possible, if they have been long in such a state, to make them feel again the stimulus of Industry, or the manly desire of Independence. Whenever, therefore, men who are able and willing to work, fail in obtaining and are obliged to resort to the parish for the means of subsistence, it is very desirable that the relief which is afforded them, should be of such a nature as to |