some talk I had with the peasants I chanced
to meet upon the road, the ignorance of the
inhabitants seemed quite stupendous. What
necessity, I wondered, could there be for
my having taken honours at the university,
about which the vicar had been particularly
solicitous? It struck me that a
seventeenth wrangler and the gainer of a
theological prize was about to be thrown
away.

A boy in a stable dress was wheeling a
barrow through the garden-gate as I drove
up. He shut it rudely in my face, and caused
me to wait outside for a considerable time.
I could have sworn—had the canon law
permitted it—that the same identical youth let
me in at the front door at last; although his
face had acquired the tint of beetroot, from
the haste with which he had cast himself into
those pepper-and-salts. I observed that the
umbrella-stand in the entrance hall was also
a hat-stand and a coat-stand, a home for
the barometer, and a stall for the garden spud.
I saw that Mr. Shiftwell himself wore a sort
of garment in which he might have played at
skittles, danced the mazourka, or preached
the assize sermon before the judges, without
its attracting notice upon either occasion.
Whether the room wherein he sat was the
dining-room, or the drawing-room, or the
library, no upholsterer could accurately
determine. I know not whether the collation
of which he pressed me to partake should be
more fitly called luncheon, or dinner, or
breakfast à la fourchette; and, after I had
remained a year within that house, I was
still in doubt whether the parlour-maid or
the housemaid was the cook, or whether
there was indeed no housemaid or parlour-
maid, and but one poor miserable domestic,
after all. Mr. Shiftwell strolled out with me
after—the meal, and behaved most frankly
and agreeably; exhibiting the church that
was also the school-room, and the churchyard
wherein a cow and a horse were feeding along
with a flock of sheep, and which he assured
me produced a good crop of hay at the proper
time besides. To my inquiries about lodgings
in the village, he replied that it was his
desire that I should take up my residence
with him. There was plenty of room, he said,
and we should doubtless be good company to
one another. In discussing ecclesiastical
matters, he observed, "I cannot think how
so many of my brethren can find it in their
consciences to accept the gratuitous services
of men of their own cloth. For my part, I
never give less than one hundred pounds
a-year to any priest, or than sixty pounds
a-year to any deacon. I give that sum even
with a title, and with what little advantages
my poor house can offer likewise." I could
not help observing upon this unwonted
generosity; but Mr. Shiftwell refused to listen to
any encomiums. "There is no generosity in
the matter, sir," said he, "it's a mere question
of Christianity; but I hope I am not
illiberal by nature either." Our conversation
having been interrupted more than once by
the boisterous laughter of some youths at
play in the neighbouring meadow, he
presently remarked, "I am a widower, Mr.
Andrews, and these are my three boys. The
eldest of them is only fifteen; but he shows
an uncommon talent, and will do something, I
hope, some day, at your own college. By
the bye, sir, I forget whether I mentioned
that I should expect you to afford my boys
some of your spare time every day as an
instructor; from nine to twelve, say, and from
two till four."

This was the reason why the Vicar of
Multum in Parvo was so anxious about his
curate having taken honours: also, perhaps,
in some measure, the explanation of his
seeming munificence: his plan for educating
his three boys being decidedly cheaper than
that of either Eton or Rugby.

Nevertheless I abode with Mr. Shiftwell
for my year of bondage, and made three
tolerable bricks out of an insufficient quantity
of straw. After that period; and having
been ordained a priest, I began to entertain
hopes of bettering myself. I had a notion—
common among young curates, but still, I
think, not in my case without foundation—
that I had an especial gift for pulpit
eloquence, which seemed altogether a buried
talent so long as I should remain at Multum
in Parvo. An advertisement in my Vicar's
weekly paper (which combined the information
of Bell's Life, the Court Journal, and
the Church and State Gazette) seemed to
afford a chance of distinguishing myself in a
more open field of action. At Santon, a
fashionable watering-place on the east coast,
a young evangelical minister, with a pleasant
voice and engaging manners, was said to be
in request. There was no parish work, the
assistant being required for a proprietary
chapel, by that popular preacher, the Reverend
Speke Softly.

I was introduced to the countenance of this
gentleman by every print-shop which I
passed in Santon, before I enjoyed the privilege
of seeing it in the flesh. Whether a
temporary attack of bile or jaundice had
marred those insinuating features, I cannot,
at this distance of time, remember; but, with
the same hyacinthine locks, the same snow-
white hands, the same exquisitely accurate
get-up, as represented in the engraving, he
was certainly less benignant than it was, in
expression. He took no pains to hide the
relative positions in which he considered we
two stood. His opinion of me was the same
which the man who plays Hamlet may be
supposed to entertain of the man who plays
the cock. I was to read prayers morning and
evening; but to preach only in the afternoon,
when servants and children were
supposed alone to form the congregation.

Mr. Speke Softly was either not ambitious
of a rival, or hesitated to entrust the precious