the age of fourteen to twenty-one, the most important period of human life; it is the parent of firmness, patience, and perseverence, and is the origin of good discipline. As the sports of the field (which I shall show) make bold, active, daring, fearless officers; so the subordination created by this act alone makes the steady soldier or sailor. As in the one there is no luxurious effeminacy, he can be a daring, dashing, leader; so the other follows on readily to the assault with cool, determined, persevering bravery; and, if repulsed, he is not discomfitted, but will march on again and again, when orders are given so to do. CLERGYMEN, CLERKS, AND THE SEXTONESS. "SOME negligent pastorlings there are, who have more heede to their owne hides than to the soules of the people."-BISHOP HALL. FROM the general state of society, it will not be expected that the clergy were in a much more refined state than their flocks. Those lights of the age only show "darkness visible, serving only to discover sights of wo." "England is the only country in Christendom where simony is openly practised and vindicated." How this should be, among men who solemnly swear on the altar that "they believe themselves called to the care of souls by the Holy Ghost," is surprising, and is only to be witnessed to be believed; but so it is. It is not my desire to make a display of the clerical errors of this period; sufficient will it be to produce only those few blights by which my readers may understand something of the manners and customs of the age. "More herein to speak I am forbidden; Sometimes for speaking truth one may be chidden." From "Drake's Shakespeare and his Times " I learn that "a clergyman was called SIR, (which was not discontinued till the reign of Charles II.,) from the word dominus, a bachelor's degree." Harrison says the "apparell of our clergymen is comlie and, in truth, more decent than ever it was in the Catholic church before the universities bound their graduates to a sable attire. It was the custom of some patrons (after the reformation) to bestow advowsons and benefices upon their bakers, butlers, cookes, goodrakes, falconers, and horse-keepers, instead of other recompenses for their long and faithful services." The following curious entry, from the household book of the Stationer's Company, 1560, will give an idea of their poor pay, compared with other dependants: Item. Paide the preacher, S. d. vi. 2 66 the minstrelle, xij. 0 for one day. The following graphic, but miserable, account of the collegian is from Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," published 1621:* "Where shall he have it, (preferment?) he is as far to seek it as he was (after twenty years' standing) at the first day of his coming to the university. For what cause shall he take, being now capable and ready? The most parable and easie, and about which many are employed, is to teach a school, turn lecturer or curate; and for that he shall have falconer's wages, (ten pound per annum and his diet, or some small stipend,) so long as he can please his patron or the parish. If they approve him not, (for usually they do but a year or two-as inconstant as they that cried Hosanna' one day and Crucifie him' the other,) serving-man like, he must go and look for a new master: if they do approve him, what is his reward? "Like an ass, he wears out his time for provender, and can show a stum-rod, an old gown, and an ensign of his infelicity; he hath his labour for his pains; a modicum to keep him till he be decrepit. If he be a trencher chaplain in a gentleman's house, (as it befell Euphormio,) after some seven years' service, he may, perchance, have a living to the halves, or some small rectory with the mother of the maids at length, a poor kinswoman, or a cracked chambermaid, to have and to hold during the time of his life. But if he offend his good patron, or displease his lady-mistress in the meantime, as Hercules did Cacus, he shall be dragged forth out of doors by the heelsaway with him. "If he bend his forces to some other studies, with an intent to be a secretis to some nobleman, or in such a place with an ambassador, he shall find that these persons rise like 'prentices, one under another; and So, in many tradesmen's shops, when the master is dead, the foreman of the shop commonly steps in his place.” He then quotes from a sermon preached at Paul's Cross, *This reverend gentleman had the living of St. Thomas, in the city of Oxford, in 1616. At this vicarage he is remarked to have always given the sacrament in wafers. 1597. "We that are bred up in learning, and destinated by our parents to this end, we suffer our childhood in the grammar school, which Austin calls magnam tyrannidem et grave malum, and compares it to the torments of martyrdom: when we come to the university, if we live of the college allowance as Phalaris objected to the Leontines, neady of all things but hunger and fear; or, if we be maintained but partly by our parents' cost, to expend in unnecessary maintenance, books, and degrees, before we come to any perfection, five-hundredth pounds, or a thousand marks. If by this expense of time, our bodies and spirits, our substance and patrimonies, we cannot purchase those small rewards which are ours by law and the right of inheritance, a poor parsonage or a vicarage of £50 per annum; but we must pay to the patron for the lease of a life, (a spent and outworn life,) either in annual pension or above the rate of a copy-hold, and that with the hazard and loss of our souls, by simony and perjury, and the forfeiture of all our spiritual preferments in esse and posse, both present and to come; what father, after a while, will be so improvident to bring up his son, to his charge, to this necessary beggary? what Christian will be so irreligious as to bring up his son in that course of life which, by all probability and necessity, cogit ad turpia, enforcing to sin, will entangle him in simony and perjury; when, as the poet saith, a beggar's brat taken from the bridge where he sits begging, if he knew the inconvenience, had cause to refuse it." He continues: "This being thus, have we not fished fair all this while, that are initiated divines, to find no better fruits for our labours? Do we mecerate ourselves for this? Is it for this we rise so early all the year long, 'leaping (as he saith) out of our beds when we hear the bell ring, as if we had heard a clap of thunder?" If this be all the respect, reward, and honour we shall have, let us give over our books, and betake ourselves to some other course of life. To what end should we study? "If there be no more hope of reward, no better encouragement, I say again, let's turn soldiers, sell our books and buy swords, guns, and pikes, or stop bottles with them; turn our philosopher's gowns (as Cleanthes once did) into millers' coats; leave all, and rather betake ourselves to any other course of life than to continue longer in this misery." But there came a change much for the better for them; for Pope, in his description of the happy state of life of the country clergyman, thus speaks of them in allusion to their easy way of living: “October storel and best Virginia,? Tythe pigs and mortuary guinea4!' 1. Ale brewed in that month is the best. 2. Tobacco. 3. Every tenth pig. 4. "Mortuary is a voluntary gift left to a parish church for the recompense of personal tythes and offerings, not duly paid in the person's lifetime."-Harris. According to the treaty of Westphalia, 1648, England has alternately the right of appointing the Bishop of Osnaburgh. George III. inducted his son, the late Duke of York, the vacancy falling when the duke was only five years old; a worse selection in every respect, as the history of his whole life will show, could not have been possible. In 1654 "the bishop attended, to consecrate a church at Poplar, near London; but during the ceremony he heard that some of his family was sick, and he instantly left off, without completing it."* During the commonwealth those churches and chapels that were built, and other graveyards, were not consecrated. "The inhabitants of Wales were nearly destitute of Christian instruction. Their language was little understood; and their clergy were so ignorant and inattentive to their cares, that they preached scarcely one sermon in a quarter of a year. The people had neither bibles nor catechisms for their instruction. The parliament, therefore, taking their case into consideration, passed an act for the better propagation of the gospel, and for ejecting scandalous ministers and schoolmasters. Pursuant to this measure, there were soon 150 pious ministers in the principality; most of them preached three or four times a week. In every market town was placed one, and in most two, schoolmasters, able and learned university men; and the tythes were all employed to the maintenance of godly ministers, the payment of taxes to the support of schoolmasters, and the fifths to the wives and children of the ejected clergy." The following list of vicars of Worfield church, Shropshire, presents a remarkable account of only four in 199 years; from which it will be but fair to infer they were, at any rate, all temperate. It was not a valuable living: Demerick, the last Catholic conformed to the law established church during the first six years of Queen Elizabeth, died 1564. The next, whose name was Barney, died 1608. The next, name died 1664. The next, Hancocks, died 1707. The next, Anderson, died 1763. There was one very extraordinary man, Richard Haddock, of New College, Oxford. Arthur Wilson says: "He used to * Pennant. + History of Religious Liberty, published 1820. preach in his sleep; he maketh good, learned sermons, but, when awake, known to be no great scholar; in those sermons he makes when asleep he speaks exceedingly good Greek and Hebrew; when he is awake he understandeth neither language: some of his auditory were willing to reduce him to silence, by pulling, hauling, and pinching, yet he preacheth all the while." He was sent to preach before the king, but was discovered to be a cunning fellow, feigned this trick, and got church preferment. The following is a graphic account of the clerks of Cornwall: "In the last age there was a familiarity between the parson and the clerk, which our feelings of decorum would revolt at; ergo: I have seen the ungodly flourish like a green bay tree." 'How can that be, maister?' said the clerk of St. Clements. "Of this I was myself an ear-witness.' 999 "At Kenwyn two dogs, one of which was the parson's, were fighting at the west end of the church; the parson, who was then reading the second lesson, rushed out of the pew and went and parted them; returning to his pew, and being doubtful where he had left off, he asked the clerk, Roger, where was I?' 'Why, down parting the dogs, maister,' said Roger.' "At Mevagissay, when a non-resident clergyman officiated, it was usual with the squire to invite him to dinner. Several years ago a non-resident clergyman was requested to do duty on the Sunday when the creed of St. Athanasius is directed to be read. Before he began the service the parish Iclerk asked him 'Whether he intended to read the creed that morning.' 'Why?' said the clergyman. Because, if you do, there's no dinner for you at the squire's at Penwarne." " A very short time since parish clerks used to read the lessons. I once heard the clerk of St. Agnes cry out," At the mouth of the viery vurnis Shadrac, Meschac, and Abednego com voath and com hether." Daniel, chap. iii. The clerk of Lamorran, in giving out the psalm, “Like a timorous bird, to distant mountains fly," always said it, "Like a timersum burde," &c., with a shake of the head and a quivering of the voice, which could but provoke risibility.* Having given some account of the clergyman and his coadjuter, the clerk, I will now introduce a curious character in another capacity, viz., a sextoness. In the year 1637 there died, aged seventy-nine, Mary Marshall, who served this very important and necessary office at Sibsay, in Lincolnshire. She had been thirty-nine years a widow, during which time she had refused adimittance into her house to any one. Although very penurious in her own habits, she feasted upward of a dozen *Rev. Polwhele's "Recollections in Hone's Table Book." |