Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/451

not necessary toward the dispatch of any one capitular act, the senior residentiary supplying their absence, in every case, with full authority. Thus, I say, the case generally is in the old deaneries, unless where the local statutes may have expressly reserved some peculiar power or privilege to the deans of those churches. But none of them, I dare say, have a negative, either by common law, custom, or local statute. Thus much to show you, that a nice search into the peculiar rights of the dean of Sarum will be needless, if not mischievous to you. The three deaneries, which I have had, are all of the new foundation, by Henry VIII, or queen Elizabeth. In the charters of all there is a clause, empowering the dean to make, punish, and unmake all the officers. In the statutes of one of them (Carlisle) the dean's consent, in all the graviores causæ, is made expressly necessary, and in the other two nothing from the foundation of those churches ever passed the seal without the dean's sigillitur first written on the lease, patent, presentation, &c. which is a manifest and uncontested proof of his negative. As to the power of proposing, that I apprehend not to be exclusive to the other members of chapters. It is a point chiefly of decency and convenience; the dean being the principal person, and supposed best to be acquainted with the affairs of the church, and in what order they are fittest to be transacted. But if any one else of the body will propose any thing, and the rest of the chapter will debate it, I see not how the dean can hinder them, unless it be by leaving the chapter; and that itself will be of no moment in churches, where his absence does not break up and dissolve the