gfflffj ftjf jj j mm |i|$g^ mm ffiBfflffl pHFHfflfflfW »£ RSil -XI E> RAHY OF THE U N IVER.SITY OF ILLINOIS 823 G 48cou V./ ,iv COUNTRY CURATE'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY OR PASSAGES OF A LIFE WITHOUT A LIVING. Curo — curas — cura^ i. Var. Led. Curo — curavi — curas. (Translation,) Cares are my lot, and cares have ever been- A Curate I— IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: SMITH, ELDER AND CO. CORNHILL, EOCE.SELI.FHS TO THEIR MAJESTIES. 1836. PRINTED BY STEWART AND CO. OLD BAILEY. 8£3 PREFACE. An Autobiography, even when it carries with it the sanction of personage or celebrity, labours under a reproach which it must al- ways require a good deal of moral courage to encounter. A man, say they, must needs have a considerable share of self-conceit or ill humour, before he can sit down, day by day, and write about himself; as if he thought his thoughts more profound, and judged his judg- ment more worthy, than what we see to distinguish every moral creature in the uni- verse. One thing, however, is certain — that, if all writers 'had been restrained from this mode VI PREFACE of renowning (as the German students have it), literature would be minus her most fasci- nating smile : for there is, after all the odium cast upon it, a something so endearing in the first 'person singular, that it carries one along with it just as a shadow follows the sub- stance, encouraging us with a show of reality and rewarding us with the consolation of (at least, apparent) truth. Though the writer of the following pages is too insignificant to be accountable to any earthly being, he nevertheless feels called upon, here, in limine, to give a reason of the undertaking, and to state, at once, what is the operis occasio which has prompted him to take his place at the fag-end of those who have written some portion of the lives of themselves. It is this : The Church has many enemies, — these are not dreaded ; but she has, also, PREFACE. VU many friends, no small portion of whom are negatively hostile to her cause. While those are roaring without, these are snoring within; and it is difficult to say which most offends the tranquil spirit of the religion of peace. It is just to say a word of caution that the author ventures from his obscurity ; and if the exhibition of a few things as they are, with reference to the church, be worth attention, here follows the "unvarnished tale." October 15, 1836. CONTENTS. VOLUME THE FIRST. CHAPTER I. Advantages of a Tour at home. The tide of human happiness, with regard to Present, Future, and Prseterite. Introduc- tion of the writer, with his friend, to the reader — in the Highlands of Scotland. Cave of Rob Roy Macgregor visited — the stranger Page 1 CHAPTER II. How to do nothing, though the aim of many, is with some to undo every thing. " Honours" at Cambridge — how to be ac- quired ; their use, profit, and importance considered in a new light. A vindication of the " poll," as more honourable than " honours." The Cambridge Philosophical Society — unde derivatur. The " previous examination." Is Uni- versity fame the index of public usefulness ? — Consolation to those whose names are not immortalized in €t the Calendar." Page 8 CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. Arrived at Edinburgh, the writer hears a voice and recognizes an acquaintance who knows not him, and acts as most men do at some period of life. Too late for the Mail. The " tattoo." Speculations upon the Expediency of a married Clergy, upon the benefit or disadvantage of a wealthy priesthood, and upon the primitive communion of goods. Another subject. . . Page 17 CHAPTER IV. The declaration. Account of an excursion to the summit of Ben- Lomond— a Scotch mist interspersed with English reflec- tions — an unexpected end to a long story. . . Page 27 CHAPTER V. Pamphlets — the Church attacked and defended. The writer's return home — his meditations, by the way, on — First, that which lay nearest to his heart; secondly, that which was to occupy that place; thirdly, the Church — its claims upon our respect and adherence, and its sempiternal superiority to dis- sent, persecution, and opposition. The outside passenger, day-break. . . . . '. . . . Page 41 CHAPTER VI. The ordeal passed. A letter to B , the writer's friend, in which are contained — the restoration to paternal fondness, the confession of a lover, and the mode of obtaining a " Title for Orders." The author's reception at the Palace ; — his ordination and its circumstances; — the commencement of his clerical life under — what auspices ? Recollections of a deceased father Page 51 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER VII. B 's answer to my letter. " Reading men" considered. B 's account of an overland expedition from Inverness to Perth; — places and scenes of interest by the way; — legends of the inhabitants; — pearls, precious stones, and banditti in North Britain; — a college frolick on Loch Ness; — Perth. — Why is the Church opposed and assailed by so many enemies ? — and whence supported ? . . Page 60 CHAPTER VIII. The call of the sacred ministry. Incapacities of a Deacon. The writer's first ministrations in the Church. The exercise and proof of a father's fondness. The pupils. The tutor's emancipation and the Curate's release. The second chapter of the New Testament considered with reference to clerical elocution Page 74 CHAPTER IX. My first appointment to a stipendiary curacy, with the advantage of a Parsonage to dwell in ; — consequences of this, and con- sequences of these. The recollection of Ellen, a lady al- ready well known to the reader, revived, — supplanted by the remembrance of another, — reluctantly resigned. A compa- rison between the two attractions, and a struggle between sincerity and prudence. The latter triumphs ; — bitter fruits of this, and bitter reflections upon these. The letter of the deserted Ellen Page 88 CHAPTER X. What are Curates in the Established Church, and what ought they to be ? A letter to the Editor of a Tory-newspaper now for the first time laid before the public. . Page 101 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. A packet from the North, bringing praises in behalf of the de- serted one, encomiums upon disinterested affection, and a week's Diary of a route in Scotland, from Stirling to Fort William. Doune Castle; Callender; Ben Ledi — "the hill of God;" — supposed worship of Baal on its summit; — similar practices, within a recent period, at Callender; grave of Rob Roy ; anecdote of Robert Bruce ; superstition of St. Fillans pool, and an appeal to British missionaries. A youthful expedient against the dullness of bad weather ; portrait of the female character of the Highland peasantry ; Glencoe, — its terrors, tragedies, and traditions, — a scene of the present day therein — anecdote of Capt. Campbell. The burying-place of Lochaber and Glencoe; grave of Mac Ian, the murdered laird of Glencoe ; grave of the outcast in " the Isle of the Solitary One." Eve of the Sabbath ;— the Sab- bath. Fort William; — Ben Nevis. . . . Page 107 CHAPTER XII. Progress consequent upon a second declaration, to the same effect if not to the same person; with an attempt to propi- tiate the reader. * * * Pastoral occupations. The Visit- ation of the Sick — its good effects strikingly illustrated in a singular instance — crime without a name and sin without pardon, relieved of their terrors by the work of Christian repentance — the change, the recovery, the deliverance, of a man whose days were (thought to be) numbered. Page 126 CHAPTER XIII. His occupation gone, the writer leaves the Parsonage, and, enter- ing upon another Curacy, takes up his residence in a farm- house. * * * * Personal addresses to the object of the CONTENTS. Xlll new suit, and pretensions of the suitor — how received — why- slighted. " Calebs in search," for the third time, meets with " the stranger" again. Contrast between " town" and " country." The event — the mutual recognition — the con- versation — the disclosure — the invitation, consequent upon this second meeting. The return of first affections dawns. Saturday-night at home, with the brother of . The re- vival of feelings, never yet estranged, but disguised only in the fallacies of mammon. The delinquent's petition. Page 139 CHAPTER XIV. The young clergyman's Sabbath-morning; — The iron file of Time wears away his feelings. Dialogue between a follower of Knox and the writer, upon the duties of the sanctuary, in- terrupted by a third party. Independent notions versus Presbyterian principles, in an amicable controversy. Anec- dote of Independence. Page 1 54 CHAPTER XV. The explanation — rivalry without rancour, and the entertainment of two suitors without offence. A lady's letter, in which true greatness is seen superior to " contempt" and " maiden pride." Matrimony contemplated and resolved upon. Education and bread. The preparation and — the wedding. A foretaste of the want of mutual sympathy and brotherly kindness among the Clergy of our admirable Establish- ment—great things do show themselves in little matters. Page 168 CHAPTER XVI. A fellow gets a living, and will marry. An inquiry into the merits of our University-regulations touching the matter of XIV CONTENTS. celibacy. An instance in which marriage mars not friend- ship. The sea-side parsonage. " A discreet learned clergy- man, with a competency fit for one of his education/' and a poor curate, howbeit very " discreet learned," shown to be two beings of different degrees of usefulness. . Page 179 CHAPTER XVII. Honey-moons in general, and ours in particular. Stage-coach in- cidents. The arrival of the new married couple — public re- joicings from private motives — appearance at church — calls — comings without income end in going without notice — Stage-coach again ! Evil-report and its reception. Change CHAPTER XVIII. Confined circumstances tending to confine — an evil which must be surmounted, without the aid of Joseph Adey. Excellen- cies of the suaviter in modo. Discernment to be applied to " saints " — to " orthodox " — to "high churchmen. " Change of residence again, by which the rolling stone gathers some moss. Character of our new abode — portrait of a little market-town — advantages of a public school. Cobbett's sketch of a Dissenting Minister. The secret of Dissent. " The Spirit of the Age." An illustration of my reasons for not intending to send my son to a public school. The Dance of Life. ....... Page 200 CHAPTER XIX. Support of conscience against opposition. The Spirit of the Age again — how I cope with it. How a person may (not) be under the care of one whom he rules. Character of my new " master. ," Want of compact among the clergy, and CONTENTS. XV its consequences — what would be the advantage of the reverse ? The author's charge against two existing Bishops. One of the mortal wounds of the Church, prognosticated before her fall. ... ... Page 210 CHAPTER XX, Circumstances alter things with regard to the sea-side rectory. Greater evils to the parson than smuggling, and greater enemies to the smuggler than the parson's garden. Un- willing to commit his flock to a hireling, and unable to maintain two pastors, the incumbent resolves upon (what some call) traffic. The farewell sermon. A living in Ire- land resolved upon as preferable to death on the eastern coast of England. The English minister's reception with the Irish. Character of the peasantry of Ireland, and an attempt to account for their present condition. . Page 219 CHAPTER XXI. The Curate's poverty accounted for under the advantages of a doubled income — his father's death. Should a Curate — should he not — be allowed to take pupils ? Why are lying and slander so universal ? What effects has a situation of straitened circumstances upon the performance of pasto- ral duties ? The difficulty of gainsaying the position — ex ni/iilo nihil Jit ; and the necessity of providing a competency for the working clergy Page 232 CHAPTER XXII. The religious disadvantages consequent upon extensive travelling. The Latin Church— the Greek Church — Mahommedanism — the Jews' faith ; Popery most captivating of all. Difference between St. Peter and his soi-disant successor of the present XVI CONTENTS. day. Attractive ceremonial of the Church of Rome — hymn to the Blessed Virgin — the Pope's exalted station in the eyes of his worshippers. Christianity distinct from super- stition ; and the difference between their respective influ- ences. Proof of the gross superstition of the lower classes in Roman Catholic countries — not to be found in Protes- tant countries. The excellency of Christianity, in enabling us to attain less carnal notions of the Deity and His perfec- tions. Preliminaries of a paper war. . . Page 244 CHAPTER XXIIL The Curate's progress. Strictures and observations on the read- ing of the " Common Prayer," in all the services of the Sabbath morning Page 259 A COUNTRY CURATES AUTOBIOGRAPHY. CHAPTER I. As with new wine intoxicated both, They swim in mirth, and fancy that they feel Divinity within them, breeding wings Wherewith to scorn the earth. Milton. It is, no doubt, a trite remark that, if our modern travellers would first of all make themselves acquainted with the scenery and manners of home, much good English money would be saved from continental dis- sipation ; and, what is far more desirable, in a social as well as political view, many good English subjects would settle down, in a healthy and well-affected state of mind, in the bosom of their own country, — vol. I. b Z A COUNTRY CURATE S be it the sea-girt Britain or her emerald consort of the main. The monkey that had seen the world may, honestly and good-naturedly, be held forth as a pat- tern to be avoided by all well-disposed citizens ; and, surely, no proficiency is really less enviable than that in virtue of which a man claims his acquaintance in voluptuous Italy or restless France — among Scythians or Barbarians ; but has no knowledge of his native hills, and few endearments of a compatriot and truly congenial character. With such ideas as these, the writer of this little book calls to mind a season in which, free as the winds, light as the clouds, and willing as the streams which play around her mountains, he wandered in the Western Highlands of Scotland ; and here, early as it may be to apostrophize, he turns aside to place on record the generous effect now produced — now, that nought but " Fond Memory brings the light Of other days around me/' Gentle, courteous reader, there is a time of life in which the blood is warm. Circling gaily in its chan- nels, few impediments interrupt its course. It is an interregnum between the despotic rule of school- masters, tutors, proctors and moderators, and the dynasty of care. Prize it highly, if thou have it AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 6 now ; for, with a mind not more sordid, not fallen lower than the primaeval cause and curse have ren- dered unavoidable, it is a time of golden dreams — it is a time in which love, friendship, and honour are thy graces. If it be in store for thee, bear with becoming patience the restraints, as, one by one, they loose their hold, which parents and guardians sea- sonably impose ; and remember always, that our friend — once too familiar, now too long forgotten — counsels well, with regard to the " qukquid corrigere est nefas," which may now be fastened on thee — " Leviusjit patientid." But if, with me, you stand on tiptoe, and through the medley of events, endeavour to look back upon those sunny scenes which once acknowledged our individual presence, why, let us not repine. Let us learn to acknowledge that, though morning suns were bright and alluring, noon, ay, afternoon and evening too, have charms. Under the heat and labour of the day, domestic objects fling over us a grateful shade ; nor are the chills and damps of evening less cheer- ingly warded off by those rational joys which crown the later scenes of life. To begin is easy, in almost all things but writing. Perhaps it may be an omen in my favour, that we smoothly glide into vicious courses ; and the very difficulty with which we enter on the rugged path of b2 A COUNTRY CURATES virtue (happy thought !) may account for the labour- ing effort which brings to the birth this Autobio- graphy. It is, however, now done. He gives tivice who gives quickly ; and, once for all, I give myself to public indulgence, while I trace the simple annals of a few years' progress in this interesting world. B was one of those fortunate men who, after having pleasantly passed the season of undergradu- ateship, find themselves dignified with the immortal honour of a place among wranglers, and gently sliding into the importance of a fellowship. I was one of those non-fortunate men, who scramble to shore from the wreck of college-life, and think them- selves happy — " post tot naufragia" — in having lost every thing but themselves. But, though thus dis- similar in academic posture, there was a great con- geniality and sympathy between us. We had both a rational tinge of romance. We were both in love with nature, and liked her the more, the more extra- vagant and domineering she appeared. We regarded the artificial parts of life as only so many vessels, in which were served the rich and savoury viands of sentiment and intellectuality. Thus disposed, we sat at breakfast one summer's morning, not a dozen years ago, in the small parlour of an inn on the western shore of Loch Lomond. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 5 " How strange," said he, " that we should have reached this house in safety, undrowned and un- plundered, from the opposite shore ! Why, that fellow's mountain dew was smooth as honey, but ran deep as Acheron. Surely, the enchantress of that cavern must have robbed us of our wits for spite !" " Nay, it was in the way of nature. Twas no landsman's task to row obliquely across that lake ; and then, the offspring of the illicit still stole too easily upon our worn-out energies. In truth, we were not criminally — " " Oh, no — only in the last stage — sans everything. It was the mere effect of drinking lire instead of water ; of being in the bowels of the earth instead of on her bosom; and of toasting, with that honest Scotch scoundrel, the memory of Rob Roy, Burns, and Sir Walter, instead of paying due attention to our own." " But, I say, B , how did we ever get down the headlong face of that rock, which we climbed with so much difficulty by the light of the moon, into our boat again? I have some recollection ot being carried by our guide." " My memory serves me j ust thus far. You pro- posed, with more gallantry than prudence, a health to all the bonnie lassies of Caledonia. Our companion, touched with patriotic fire, quickly filled again, gave A COUNTRY CURATES the honour of England, and all her sons and daughters, tippled his glass, and then, taking his lamp in one hand, and yourself under the other arm, bade me follow. The same broken, winding passage brought us back again to the light of heaven ; and then, after having cautioned me to remain where I was, he care- fully descended with you to the boat. Having re-as- cended, with all the agility of a mountain cat, he helped me down, just as some son of Neptune gal- lants a faultering maiden from the deck of a man-of- war to the tiny boat by her side ; and, with strict injunctions, (observing that the rock was mony a fothom more below than above the surface of the loch) left me to the care of you, while he returned to the cavern for the things which, in his concern for us, he had left behind. I can just collect some remem- brance of a cold shudder, as he jumped into the middle of the boat, some half-stifled apprehensions as he opened a prodigious clasp-knife, cut away the mooring, and, stoutly grasping both the oars, pulled away like one bent on desperate purposes. " " Thank Heaven ! we are here." " And so is he, too. He waits in the house, de- claring that he will have nothing (save whiskey), but is determined to drink our health before he leaves " Honest fellow ! there was that about the man, I AUTOBIOGRAPHY. could have placed a hundred lives in his hand, and yet we seem to have escaped the jaws of destruction in having got free of him." " Well, let us have him in, shall we ? " So saying, B touched the bell, and a few seconds and a few minutes brought him before us, and made us acquainted with all that which may be surmised from the dialogue above — how, like impas- sioned rivals, we sang sonnets to the moon, and how his oars kept time with our alternate modulations — how, at other times, we sang together, and he j oined in chorus, the scraps of Scotch melodies which we managed to remember — how, in short, occurred every incident of a night to which, however ill-suited to the gravity of my present calling, I cannot look back but with a sensation of something very like delight. The audience of our mysterious friend — for mysteri- ous he was — gifted with an elegance of sentiment and strength of language which contrasted strangely with the dress of an inland sailor, or, as he appeared in another light, patron of a nest of smuggling distillers — was suddenly broken off by the arrival of the post, bringing for each of us that always welcome, though often disagreeable, minister of suspense — a letter. A COUNTY CURATE S CHAPTER II. A man is an ill husband of his honour, that entereth into any action, the failing wherein may disgrace him more than the carrying of it through can honour him. Bacon. My father, a professional man of shire, had sent me to college, under strong impressions of parental fondness and partiality; and, as I was not consi- dered ' * the fool of the family" — for, indeed, we were a very bright set, — had marked out for me — dear, sanguine man — nearly the highest honours of the University ; and, now that I had disappointed all those anticipa- tions, — not, in that I had, instead of honour, earned disgrace ; but, because a simple and unassuming post in the middle of the poll — that summum desiderium of so many — was wormwood to the hopes of misplaced ambition — I was unhappy, inasmuch as I was in- nocently a source of some unhappiness to him. I had achieved that consummation which is the subject of AUTOBIOGRAPHY. V rejoicing to most; but, because in achieving it I had suffered more lofty laurels to be carried out of reach, I seemed to have been accessory to a parent's disap- pointment — I seemed to be guilty, I was miserable — in the phrase of the day, I had done nothing, and had thereby undone every thing. I had, however, every hope that some little conver- sation would remove all the ill-grounded chagrin of my father ; and, as I reasoned with myself so suc- cessfully, was not without assurance that he too would see the entire fallacy of that rule nisi which is derived from the " Cambridge Bachelors' Com- mencement." The letter which I had j ust received determined me in my resolution to seek personally that reconcilia- tion, the want of which had placed me for some months at a distance from the parental roof — in the enjoyment (if, under such a want it w T ere enjoyment | of my friend B.'s society : for he, pupilizing during the long vacation at the little county-town of Inverary, had invited me to become his companion. But, as the subject of my defence, which had often occu- pied my serious attention, was now, more earnestly than ever, canvassed in my mind, it may be allowed to form a legitimate part of this Biography ; and the reader will perhaps pardon the introduction of thoughts, the validity of which has been amply tested b5 10 A COUNTRY CURATE'S by the circumstances of my subsequent course of life. There are two methods, all the world knows, of ob- taining the degree of B.A. at Cambridge — the one, by taking an honour in mathematics ; the other, by passing through the ordeal of a general examination. The means of accomplishing either are well defined and known beforehand. There are men in the Uni- versity who can cram the aspirant, provided that he have the base of a common understanding and will ready to any degree of plumpness. So that, though a candidate may be somewhat higher or lower than he expected, (according to the turn of the moderation,* if he be a mathematical scholar — according to the chances of the examination,* if a general scholar) he has no one but himself to blame, if he fail of obtaining the object in view. It is a race in which all who run may obtain the quantum suff. — a lottery in which there are no actual blanks. It comes, however, by comparison, to be considered otherwise. Comparison is a good word. There are three degrees — the Wrang- ler's, which is, superlatively, — the Senior- Optime's, which is, comparatively, — and the Junior Optime's, which is, positively, more honourable than the degree obtained by him who has undergone the general exa- * The judges of the one class are called Moderators ; of the other, Examiners. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 11 mination. But why, I must say I have never yet been able to see a sufficient cause. The honour-man gains his degree by mathematics only — in other words, by a scholastic course of read- ing, and cramming into his memory a variety of De- finitions, Solutions of Problems, Theorems, Scholia, &c. (commonly called Book-iuork) — the results of the labours of different philosophers down from Newton to the last petit-maitre whose " treatise" is before the world. The poll-man* gains his degree by a scanty display of general information in Classics, in moral and argu- mentative Theology, such as Paley exhibits it, in a shadow of Logic, according to Locke, and in the lower branches of the Mathematics. Each, according to his proficiency, occupies a place in his respective department ; — i. e. down from the Senior Wrangler to the lowest Junior Op. on the one hand, and down from the captain to the last man of the honourless band. But, it should be observed that, as between these two there is a great gulf fixed which receives the refuse of the former, so at the end of the latter there is a falling~off of some. Those go away without an honour, but with a degree — these, with nothing, but * One of 01 ttoWoi, or the many. 12 A COUNTRY CURATE'S without a feather, are significantly said to be plucked : — those the friendly gulf sustains, these stripped of their supporting plumes sink, to rise again only at the bar of some more auspicious (commonly a private bye- term) examination.* Let it, then, be fairly weighed, whether, in point of real merit, the poll-man should not be rather ac- counted honourable — " A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind." He must have some general infor- mation — he must be able to read Homer and Virgil, to write something like his own language, and to say his Multiplication-table; whereas, the honour- man may, like a horse in a mill, be confined to his own narrow sphere, with a head capable of retaining a good deal of that which, by constant repetition, has been worked into it. Like Master (what's his name?) who can, in a moment, tell you how many inches of whipcord would encircle the planet Mercury, but cannot tell why Mercury is called a planet, or * There are other technicalities connected with this ordeal, which, however, come under the denomination of slang. The last Wrangler, the last Senior Op. and the last Junior Op. are, respectively, yclep'd — " The golden spoon," " The silver spoon," and " The wooden spoon ;'' and by a metonymy, the men, who get these places, may be said to have got these articles. The last twelve of the poll, have been (indecorously) called " Apostles ;'' and those who are infra-ordinary, being classed alphabetically, I have heard named " Elegant Extracts." AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 13 why the planet is called Mercury, Mr. Senior Wrangler (and this is taking the extremest case) may be able to work out, by memory, vast problems of scientific research which mighty men have solved before, even as the cur may yelp at the heels of the fleetest courser, but cannot, perhaps, give one ray of information to the admiring multitude who applaud his wisdom ; and such men are the fuimus Trots of the Cambridge Philosophical Society.* There is a " previous examination," in justice be it said, (instituted of late years) by which all students are supposed to be laid under an obligation to display some classical knowledge. But, what is it? a short Greek, and a short Latin subject, most literally done into vile English by the press, and one of the Gospels or the Acts. A whole year is given in which to prepare for this august tribunal ; and he must be obtuse indeed who cannot be even parrotized so as to meet its terrors. Such, however, are these terrors that, to escape a second and enlarged edition of * In making this observation, it is not by any means insinuated (for such an insinuation would be base as groundless) that there are a great many wranglers who are thus confined to their single glory ; but there are some, and the writer has known one Senior Wrangler who, by length of time and dint of labour bestowed on a single branch of knowledge — and what cannot be done by these means ? — earned a literary fame to which he was any thing but entitled. 14 A COUNTRY CURATE'S them, they frighten into mathematics many a Cantab who would be glad of a dispensation from the honour of being immortalized in the Cambridge University Calendar. But, if the evil terminated in Trumpington Street, or on Castle-hill even, there would be no room for re- marks which doubtless appear invidious. As Aca- demic exercises, mathematics have every merit ; but, as the qualification for all the preferments of after- life, they are plainly inadmissible to calm and un- biassed judgment. If a man be a better teacher, a more polished advocate, a more zealous clergyman, or a more effective preacher, a sounder statesman, judge or magistrate, because his name is attached to one of the legs of the Tripos* the Pythia herself, methinks, could not divine the reason why. Content even to let these distingues nestle themselves into all the pretty pickings of their respective colleges — let them be V.-Cs, heads-of-houses, fellows, tutors, proctors, taxors, college-deans, librarians, bursars — they worked for it, they have earned it, and they have it. But, I say, let not the free and healthy circulation of public life be checked and benumbed by such a fallacy — let not the working curate starve in a discharge of duties by which the goodwill and approbation of a parish are * The three classes of Wranglers, Senior Optimes and Junior Optimes, are understood in this word. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 15 derived to him, while a man, it may be of far inferior talents, walks into beneficial fatness, merely and solely because he was a Wrangler. Fuimus Trots should not (and old iEneas himself must admit it) be the motto which gains men the power and choice of settleme?it, because it insures success, wherever they prefer to fix their residence ; though it may be a suitable passport to the presence of Minerva, as she sits on high amid the Cambridge Philosophical So- ciety. I hold it monstrous that a man, who once knew all Euclid by rote, and has entirely forgotten both the integral and differential calculus, should be deemed preferable to him who, having laid his foun- dation in general literature, has built up a superstruc- ture from every loop-hole of which the beams of useful knowledge may direct and inform his fellow- creatures, and, rendering them happy, lead them on to the noblest contemplations of which the human mind is capable. But, I suppose it ever will be so : and, therefore, come Poverty, but bring Contentment with thee, and I will learn to live in the light of my own conscience, to leave the monopolists of human favour (in this as in all other things) to glad themselves, like the glow- worm, in the illumination of their own fancied supe- riority, and to derive the intellectual food of my ex- istence from the far more expansive excellences of an ]6 A COUNTRY CURATE S universe. The world is gulled by Fame, and she, returning to her place among the inhabitants of a nobler sphere, laughs at the victims of her caprice : so, when we retire to the closet of our own feelings, may we experience the satisfaction of knowing our- selves superior, though, mayhap, no one else can find it out. Under such comfortable and accommodating no- tions, I penned a hasty reply to my anxious father, and set my things in order for a journey to Edinburgh, whence I purposed without delay to start for home — that haven of endearments which reconcile even the wretch to his lot, and without which the most pros- perous voyager in life is wretch indeed. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 17 CHAPTER III. " I stood in * *, on the bridge of sighs." Byron. It is but a small part of my plan to detail the circumstances of outward imagery. I rather deal with a biography of thoughts. Else, the reader might be gratified with the picture of a steamer on the mag- nificent Loch Lomond, studded with its beautiful miniatures of islands ; and of the various characters which swell the list of tourists. I might dole out the tadia of a passage in the track-boat along " the Great Union Canal," through tunnels and over aque- ducts of various extent and of considerable interest or beauty ; and would dwell upon the enchanting view of Linlithgow by moonlight, with the silvery lake be- hind the castle, and the light from the Carron iron- works, flaring in the midnight sky ; — thus bringing my reader, paulatim, to the Athenian pretensions of 18 A COUNTRY CURATE'S Auld Reeky ; but others have done all this, and I did it in a Diary which is long since consigned to the place of all lost — Mi Lector, be pleased to walk with me round the corner which, in that day, it was neces- sary to double, before, in coming from the General Post-office, you could gain a station on the High- bridge in Edinburgh. Upon this bridge I stood, looking down upon the stream of population below. It is a bridge across a valley, in fact, across a broad and irregular street ; and to indulge in this speculation is, like the gaze at St. Dunstan's quondam clubmen, a mark or sign of recent importation to the Athens of the Scots. Quickly turning round at the sound of a voice, which seemed even more than familiar to one who thought himself nearly sequestered from all men he had ever seen before, I perceived, in earnest conversation as they shot, like a vision, by me, two of Scotland's fairest daughters. One, the fairer and taller, was known to me, intimately, if I may borrow a word from my feelings; but, perhaps, would not have known me at all, had I claimed acquaintance. If any one, who reads these pages, have ever felt himself so hopelessly alone in the world that he would gladly hold a conversation with the eyes of his dog — that feeling which is apt to steal over one, alone and unknown in a strange city, where so many AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 19 happy and so many wretched faces disown all sym- pathy with an alien, and yet where so much passing good-humour and politeness only paint more vividly the chasm between hearts which own no common at- traction — he may surmise that with glistening eyes I followed the direction which the females took, until my steps, instinctively, were in the path which they had left behind them. From the foot of the bridge, at which I had ascended it, they turned to the left, and pursued their course and conversation, both alike rapid and heed- less of all observation, along Prince's Street — that lovely lounge — how unlike the Prince's Street of London ! — until they arrived at a door, nearly oppo- site the Episcopal chapel, which received them at once without knocking. " Well, it is a shame," thought I, as I retraced my steps, " that I, so soon to be admitted to a sacred office, should dally at the heels of a highland girl who would not even know me, perhaps, and for whom I can have no real affection — a mere creature of the imagination, attired in the most shadowy reality — whom I never saw but once, and hardly ever spoke to." I had lost the mail — the only coach by which I could reach my father's house on the day appointed. I had also thrown away the money advanced for my 20 A COUNTRY CURATE'S place; and should inevitably incur the expense of another day's delay in Edinburgh. These, in spite of all the enthusiasm which had scarcely yet relaxed its hold upon me, and which in vain I endeavoured to reason down, were reflections which produced no small mortification, and had the effect of rendering my countenance (as repeated bumps and collisions bare testimony) much more downcast, and my pace much more tardy, than when I careered it in the op- posite direction. But, the blast of bugles from the castle gave a fresh channel to my meditations ; and the tattoo of drums and trumpets which succeeded, flinging its martial and admonitory notes across the valley be- tween, and re-echoing from side to side, or, at other times, cooped up within the castle-walls, giving that oft-reverberated sound which fires the imagination with thoughts of ancient chivalry, had the effect of not only reconciling me to my losses, but winning me to the notion that I was happy in having another day to stay in a city which possessed so many and such varied attractions. Musing thus, in happier mood, I found myself at the entrance of my tavern ; and here I soon gave way, in all the composure and elasticity of a sum- mer's evening, to a regular, methodical, but romantic, reverie — inviting and entertaining just such ideas as AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 21 were perfectly agreeable, and rejecting at once the overtures of the more objectionable — a happy condi- tion, it is true, for a lover ; but not so serviceable to a young divine. Nothing could be more reasonable than that one, intended, as I was, for holy orders, should be sincere and disinterested, consulting real and honourable feeling, not sordid views of gain or advancement. Nay — it was the path of duty ; and he, who was to preach to others the worthlessness of all earthly treasures, ought, by his own example, to give vigour to his doctrine. She was not what the world calls great; and the love, therefore, was not the staring Cupid that presides over, or concocts, good matches: but the heart was the touchstone of all that was really good, and great, and desirable, and conduct, in obedience to its dictates, must not only, at length, gain the applause of good men, but have, for its warrant and support, the countenance of Heaven. During the rumination, of which this is a mere epitome, it never entered my mind that I might be pursuing a phantom, which had indeed twice ap- peared, but might perchance never walk again ; or, that, with all my vaunted sincerity and disinterested- ness, I might be the most self-determined admirer that ever followed in the rosy train of blind-fold love. It never occurred to me that, discarding, as I pro- 22 A COUNTRY CURATE'S fessed to do, all worldly motives, I might be most covetous of a treasure to which, not merely had my own feelings attached an inordinate value, but another might have a paramount and affianced claim. But, no drawbacks operated upon the course of my cogitations — " All went merry as a marriage- bell" — and, borrowing a glow of sentiment from the warm lustre of sunset, I strolled up the Calton Hill, contemplated Nelson's monument, and felt all-suffi- cient in myself to brave the storms of a world in arms against an act so improvident as the perpetration of marriage (if it should come to this) without, what the lawyers call, consideration. Lord Bacon has written — " A numerous married clergy, giving life to great numbers of idlers, or persons never to work, is very dangerous to a state, by creating mouths with- out creating a suitable portion of labour at the same time ;" but, in spite of all remonstrances, and, with- out staying to inquire why (if they do not) the chil- dren of clergymen should not work, I was fully possessed with a conclusion that all clergymen ought to be at full liberty to marry ; I placed, in op- position to Bacon's exceptionable remark, what I found in Atterbury — that a married clergy, " by teaching their flocks how to carry themselves in their relations of husbands and wives, parents and children, AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 23 have without question adorned the gospel, glorified God, and benefited man, much more than they could have done in the devoutest and strictest celi- bacy ;" and, having already made two or three unsuc- cessful offers to enter the porch of Hymen with the regular and approved formalities, felt that I gratified a pique in resolving to climb into the temple by some way unknown to the vulgar, while I obeyed that imagined law of necessity— for the expediency of a married clergy soon towers up into necessity — to which I was so soon intended to be amenable. Thus, how well I represented the species — ever ready to make sure of what their own wayward appetites long for, but diffident of themselves when the object is proposed according to rule. But I was impelled, or, rather, fortified, in the pro- secution of my lucreless ambition by such ideas — whether well, or ill, or not at all, grounded, my reader will determine — as these. The ministry of the church, thought I, must be either a worldly or a spiritual occupation — I had no inclination to view it as that di vino-secular employment which, after all, it perhaps is. If worldly, the hire of the labourer ought to be adequate to his wants, these wants being, in a Protestant church, to be extended to the possibility of matrimony and its contingencies ; spe- cially, when this church'has, in her own coffers, the 24 A COUNTRY CURATE'S means of thus supplying the lawful wants of her mi- nisters. If spiritual, then, as I concluded, the ways and means should be a question not permitted to dis- tract the mind and relax the sacred efforts of the divine. To what extent the expenses of a clergyman's family should be carried, the laws of society seem to have decreed : he is thereby required to appear in a decent state of comfortable superiority to the wants and emergencies of life; and few sincere clergymen have any desire to overstep the limits which are thus indulgently prescribed. It may be questioned, whether the influx of men of fortune to the ministerial office be an acquisition to be valued, or an ornament to be dispensed with; and the best evidence may, perhaps, be derived from a con- sideration of the comparative efficiency of the two grades (if I may so speak) of clergymen. The poor, to whom the gospel is specially preached, are decidedly won by that faithful exercise of duty which a mere competency is so well calculated to pro- mote; and the middle classes follow as surely in the same path, if we may not add most of the upper ranks, so far as these are accessible to the influence of the pastoral office: but, once let the clergyman be known to be actually poor — in plain terms, unable to answer the demands upon him for expenses, next to unavoid- able if he have a family, and gratuities equally in- AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 25 dispensable if he be the curate of a parish ; and the certain consequence is, that he meets with such altered demeanour in those who formerly paid him some marks of respect, encounters such efforts of scandal, has such intimations from his creditors in the shape of certain repeated accounts of bills de- livered, and experiences so many proofs (indescribable and, to the layman, unimaginable,) of declining use- fulness, that he must be a man of apostolic energy indeed, if he do not yield to the blast, and imbibe a portion of disgust with the bitter draughts he is com- pelled to swallow. On the other hand, the man of fortune, to whose influence the clerical distinction is, perhaps, but the least important appendage, having the means, and generally the disposition, to mix with the highest circles, is too apt to consign the endearing office of curate to a minister of the other grade, and to become, in the eyes of at least the vulgar, and prejudiced, (and these are, perhaps, the most numerous, as they require the most anxious attention, in the whole flock), a being out of the reach of ordinary men, and iden- tified only with the distinguished few. I dreamed, indeed, in this state of embryo, of the apostolical communion of goods : and, when the cavil arose in my mind, relative to the motion, and call, of the Holy Spirit, (in the former of which the deacon vol. i. c 26 A COUNTRY CURATE'S has declared his trust, and in the latter the priest his conviction) knowing that God worketh as he will without respect of rich or poor, I concluded that those of the clergy, who were men of fortune, (to use my former designation,) might reasonably be required, either not to draw from the common fund of Church property, or to distribute, after due attention to the claims of kindred, their goods to feed the poor — but, alas ! what had I to do with it? Time enough, when I should be one of those whose plighted vows had gained them entrance to the sacred order; and, in the playfulness of one who was yet a layman, I ventured to indite a note, so dissonant (and yet, I know not whether a less fastidious ear would not discover some strains of harmony, were the coda allowed to be added; though according to the spirit of the age, it was so dissonant) from the precocious tone in which I had just discussed some of the proprieties of the clerical character, that I cannot even append it to this chapter. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 27 CHAPTER IV. The circling hills, all black and wild, Are o'er its slumbers darkly piled, where far below, The everlasting waters flow, And, round the precipices vast, Dance to the music of the blast. Malcolm's Poems. Scarcely had the life of another day begun, when I penned the following effusion to her, for whose sake, or, at least, on whose account, I again opened my eyes in the " land of the mountain and the flood/' — the production of last evening, being deemed too ethereal for the ken of mortal eye, sobered into vision by the surrounding objects of a busy world : — « Miss C 11, u (For the heart, which now endeavours to address you, disdains every expression of words by which love c2 28 A COUNTRY CURATE'S and admiration are wont to be conveyed). Permit me, by way of introduction, to remind you of the moment in which I first beheld you. — That moment was con- secrated by a love as warm as the circumstances of its birth were sudden and extraordinary ; and it is in this hour of calm reflection, that I seek to avow to you its continued existence. "You will remember the appearance of two strangers at your father's door, one evening — a fortnight ago to- morrow. Do you remember the one who lingered behind, and, as you stood waiting by that jutting rock to which you had conducted them, (like the guardian angel of their route,) to see that your in- structions were observed, waved a hand to signify assurance of the way ? He it is who now ventures to lay at your feet, at once, this declaration of an in- domitable love and an offer of his heart and affections upon terms which you yourself (should you deign — and oh ! you will not refuse ? — to accept them,) are besought to impose. " By the providence of an indulgent Disposer of events, I stood on the High-bridge, last evening, as you passed with (do I conjecture wrongly?) your sister. I followed you to the house at which I leave this — I learned that it was your residence ; and I now wait, at the door of the Episcopal Chapel, to receive one word of encouragement, or to be consigned to AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 29 hopelessness for ever. Be kind, as you are beautiful; and, as you resemble those happy beings whose occu- pation is holy joy, be merciful to " Your devoted, Such was the act and deed — such the condition of the autobiographer. u Poor Romeo is already dead ! Stabb'd with a white wench's black eye, Run through the ear with a love-song." My reader is, perhaps, anxious to know the par- ticulars of that Jirst-sight to which I alluded in my note ; and, as it may be conceived to have borne por- tentously upon my after-life, a sketch of them, with an account of the expedition which led to them, is here offered to his notice. On the same side of Loch Lomond as the cave of Rob Roy, to which allusion was made in the first chap- ter but some few miles farther down in the direction of Balloch Ferry, there is a place called Rowerdennam Inn. It is at or near the foot of Ben-Lomond, or, to speak in a more appropriate figure, it is placed, like the beazel of a ring, upon one of his extended toes. From this Inn, B and myself, having furnished ourselves with what they call a guide, and him with 30 A COUNTRY CURATE'S a lomb-leg and its appurtenances of bread, salt, and whiskey, set out, in the early afternoon of one of the pleasant days we passed together in that delightful and eventful neighbourhood, with a determination of purpose to the summit of the mountain. The day was much more favourable to the ascending, than the many hot ones which had preceded it ; and, as we breasted the rugged side of this, the Caledonian Ande, we had little reason to complain of fatigue. A little rivalry in the display of agility and perseverance, how- ever, brought on, at last, that singularly oppressive sensation of weariness in the thighs, which they, who have toiled to the ball of St. Paul's, will not need to have explained : and, as B— strided away, over rock and hether, I more than once called a halt, while I lay to regale my limbs, and to feast my eyes with the beauty of the lake, as we rose above it, studded with its many and picturesque islands. It was the marble pavement, whereon the giant, which is nature's hus- band, had cast the verdant chaplet, scattered into fragments, from his brows, before he reposed in sullen but majestic grandeur upon his mountain-couch. We had performed perhaps five of the six or seven miles of variously inclined plane, when we both turned round to behold, in admiration, a dense and dark cloud which, like a veil of " sackcloth of hair," was rapidly overspreading the scene behind us. The AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 31 hues of different objects were lost in the gradations of shade which now enveloped them all ; the islands being discernible only by their deeper gloom, while the mountains around us were blending fast with the general darkness. Half bewailing the loss of prospect from the summit, and half rejoicing in the anticipation of a coming summer-storm, we quickened our pace, and soon gained the point on which (a mere rod to the eye below) a vast trunk of a tree has been reared, as the staff of an ensign, or as a beacon to the wild mountaineers of Charley's days, or the black-mail worthies of a less amiable generation. There was, in the rude strength of this object, a something which, placed as it and we were, brought forcibly to mind the events of Bannockburn and Preston-pans, the ponderous morglay of the Scottish chieftain, (as you see it in Dumbarton Castle,) the rent-paying clay- more, and all the recollections of even ruder ages, when savage murders went unpunished, and horrors were perpetrated, such as Macduff took vengeance for, under the cloak of the brutal spirit of clanship. We soon found that we were not sole monarchs of the summit; for a band of tourists were grouped behind the compressed and cowering peak of the mountain, giving that satisfaction to their mouths which the clouds denied to their eyes. All was in- 32 A COUNTRY CURATE'S distinct; around, above, and below, the quality of the prospect was fog ; and the party we had come in sight of looked more of optical illusions than proper men : and while the rain, mingled with hail, fell, or rather was discharged, upon us, with a fury which rendered recklessness the height of wisdom, we fol- lowed their example, and beckoned to our attendant to approach with his welcome store. Well acquainted with the localities of the moun- tain, he quickly fetched water from the nearest spring, and full soon, with the help of our guide and of the like functionary of our friends from Glasgow or Paisley, (as, with an unchristian sneer, we surmised,) both meat and drink were discussed, and old Hugo in possession of the bone. We had, consequently, leisure to enjoy the sub- limities of the storm, now increased by thunders louder than the inhabitants of a champaign ever hear, and by lightnings which, darting from the ex- ploding clouds around and below us, seemed to rush with mad delight to the lower regions of the plain. It was novel, it was grand, and it was alarming to us, to hear the unutterable crash (as it were of a finished world, but in truth,) of cloud with cloud, and to look down upon the sources of lightning, while we stood exalted higher than the conflicting elements ; and as the demons of the storm seemed at AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 33 times to hurl their thunders at the head of Ben Lomond, it was horribly bewitching to be amidst the lightnings, with rattling peals about our elbows, and we looked at each other's paleness with all the inter- esting solemnity which may be supposed to have characterized the " thane of Glamis" and his com- rade, in their interview with the choppy -fingered damsels. Being most handsomely drenched, — the black dye from B 's travelling cap running in streams down his cheeks, and the green from my gambroon jacket variegating in like manner my " whitey-brown" trowsers, — we had fully enjoyed the more bustling part of the scene, and would have gladly said, "Hold! enough!" when the conical heads of the surrounding hills began to be dimly visible, and the islands on the loch again peeped through their veil. He who has been here will remember that there is an assemblage of mountain-tops, about the head of Loch Long, west of Ben Lomond, among which the Cobler and his wife take a conspicuous station ; and to him I need not endeavour to describe the majestic character which the whole assumes. To us they were indescribably grand. As the storm cleared off, this bold and irregular zigzag line of peaks and headlands was thrown out in fine relief by the red and lurid light which, based (so to speak) in the horizon, shone c5 34 A COUNTRY CURATE'S with a dull but fiery splendour from behind them. They seemed as the bulwarks of a place of torment — the ramparts of a prison-house of suffering souls ! and if ever papist really thought of purgatory, he might have fancied it behind those mountains. Fully satisfied with the result of our enterprise, so far as it had gone, we now dismissed our guide, not- withstanding his expostulations and warnings, and prepared to descend by another side of the mountain. He pointed out to us a stream (at that moment lying, like a silver serpent, smiling in the sun) which would lead us, if we adhered to its course, in our progress to the place marked out for our night's retreat; and we descended gaily, with the one in view and the other in anxious anticipation ; for though the animal, as well as mental, had been well sustained, yet the effects of the pelting we had endured, together with that sort of stupefaction which fairly puts an end to all former regimes, were such as to call loudly for reinforcements in behalf of the former. We were supporting each other's spirits, by mutual congratulations on the scenery we had witnessed, when both at once— fort emque Gyan, fortemque Cloanthum — we lost sight of the stream which had, till j ust now, glittered along the plain below. Clouds intervening, we were exposed to, and fell into the error of wind- ing, for want of an object, round the side of the AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 35 mountain ; and the halloa ! of our abandoned guide, into whose track our spiral propensity had brought us, but whom, in our elastic boundings down the declivities, we had far outstripped, reduced us to an acknowledgment of our folly. Being put right again, as far as we could be in a Scotch mist, we, however, persisted in our determination to adventure, not only rejecting the proffered gratuity of his guidance, but turning a deaf ear to a tale of a jontleman who was lost and starved to death in the same parts but a year before, and took an affectionate and grateful leave of our humble Mentor. Feeling sure that we must soon reach the stream, the sight of which the envious clouds denied us, we dashed on as buoyantly as be- fore, tumbling at one time over craggy impediments, at another plunging into hether, drenched as we were, up to the middle. Strong coveys of grouse, and, now and then, the noble black-cock, took wing at our approach; the traces of man's handiwork, too, were observed in the sheep-hovels which we met with, but no welcome chimney smoking gave sign of his proximity. We had now descended to the plain, a conviction which was brought forcibly home to us by the increased labour of walking under a burthen of wet clothes. The time, in which we ought to have reached the rivulet, was more than spent, and yet we saw nothing 36 of it. Cold, wet, and weary, we now reproached ourselves (each himself out of courtesy), with head- strong foolishness. We would have kindled a fire of some of the turf which we found under sheds, but, alas ! the lucifers were spoiled with the rain. Food we had none — silver and gold we had both; but, fine moral reflection ! not all the wealth of Croesus could have now procured for us a single bannock ; and, as we gravely worked out the conclusion, not all that we possessed could purchase a muchkin of " the real mountain dew." What was to be done ? We had more than once been led into a temptation to " go-about ;" and, though we had endeavoured to observe a strict correspondence between all our re- spective turnings and returnings, still we must have lost in the long-run, and were too evidently far out of our proper course. The sun would have guided us ; but all was fog and rain, clouds and doubts and misgivings. We had been directed to cross the stream, at a well-described bridge ; and, coming at last to the edge of a ravine, in the bottom of which water was indeed abundant, we concluded this was the course of the long-lost current, that we had left the bridge far away, and that now we must cross, as best we might. Into this pass, then, — neither more nor less than the celebrated pass of Aberfoil, — with a difficulty AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 37 which, though great in retrospect, was hardly felt at the time, we descended ; and, after running up and down in search of the best apparent ford, we dashed into the stream, which was in many parts a frightful torrent, as heedless of the water as wet skins and empty stomachs may be supposed to have rendered us. After indescribable fatigue we reached the sum- mit of the opposite cliff; and, here sitting down — seriously moved by the questionableness of the man- ner in which we should pass the night now nearly upon us — we looked back upon the flood through which we had just waded, and then before us upon a dreary heath confined within the limits of a fog, and appealing to the senses only by the pitter-pattering of the rain. Thousands of better men undergo as much fatigue and infinitely more privation commonly; but to us the trial had been, and continued to be, severe and appalling. Cold and hunger, and ex- haustion of strength, heightened by disappointment, which almost amounted to despair, had taken full possession of us ; and I verily believe that, after a walk of three or four more miles, one more blow would have laid us up, or down, for the night, when an object too cheering for description was, by de- grees, confirmed to our inquiring eyes. A row of Highland cottages was certainly revealed by that line of chimney-like elevations which were dimly 38 A COUNTRY CURATE'S shadowed through the atmosphere, just now relaxing into a smile of daylight ; and, with ecstatic hope, we ran towards the object, as if anticipating the but too evident design of the returning fog to snatch it from our view. At last, the oh ! quando te aspiciam ! was lost in an exultation of joy, when we clearly descried the whiter wreath of smoke, and hurried down, our sorrows all forgotten, to the goal of deliverance. Guess at our appearance — our light summer- dresses blended in one general aspect of watery wretchedness — my straw hat hanging about my head, and poor B 's cap even yielding its precise and formal qualities to the circumstances of the time — never was such a pitilessly pelted pair of tourists. Approaching the door of what seemed to be the prin- cipal one of the tenements (for, it had a rapper, and other indications of superiority), no wary dun, with ear inclined and stooping form, ever knocked with more j udicious modesty than did friend B . Had it been in the sunny morning, some familiarising voice would have summoned, through the opened door, the attendance of an inmate. Now, in the evening of adversity, and within the gripe of real affliction, we sought, as for an alms, that for which we were pre- pared to astonish the simple swain with our liberality. Such is the influence, perhaps, of the atmosphere upon animal spirits, and, through these, upon animal AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 39 deportment. Such may be an example and a proof of that rule of distinction between the manners of different nations— that, while the Englishman's back- ward, hesitating, and somewhat confused entrance to a dining-room would be looked for in one whose intention it was to purloin the forks and spoons ; the inhabitant of more sunny shores — our neighbour from la belle France, for instance — displays a brazen, star- ing impudence (in the eyes of J. B.), which would seem to set down all the rest of the company for a corps dramatique of puppets, over which he reigns as showman. But, without further ethicizing, B 's fingers were not upon the latch — his rap was double, but simple — not the tap of a mendicant, nor the rat- tat-tan of a man out of the common ; but something in medio, and, therefore, safest. The low growl of the house-dog, and that concord of sweet sounds — the har- mony of domestic, female voices — sufficiently proved to us that suffering had now triumphed ; and we were already giving our wet and muddy extremities an instinctive shaking, when the sticking door (sel- dom used but when the rent-day came), opened with a jerk, and revealed to our astonished eyes — not one of those mountain hags, with pipe short and black on one side of the mouth, and a little cloud on the other, whom we sometimes met with — not a brawny Highlander, backed by his beautiful, sleek, black 40 A COUNTRY CURATE'S sheep-dog — no ; nor a stout young Scotch lassie, with bare feet and ankles, and a carter's whip in her hand — but a paragon of beauty, symmetry, and ele- gance — a nymph, the nymph which adorned and sanctified these wilds of nature — a sylph, whose duty seemed to be to live in contrast with a surrounding wilderness, and be, as it was grand and horrible, a charming and enchanting Circe, who gave draughts of intellectual pleasure to the beings that resorted to her shrine. The reader will pardon this — the extravagance of the moment which I attempt to describe — and allow me to inform him that this was the young lady in- troduced to his notice at the beginning of this chapter. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 41 CHAPTER V. When some writer in a public cause, His pen, to save a sinking nation, draws, While all is calm, his arguments prevail ; Till power, discharging all her stormy bags, Flutters the feeble pamphlet into rags. Swift. We must now be content to leave Ellen (for this was the name of this person), on a visit to the gay and gossiping town of , where my father dwelt, in all the greatness of a fame which an ex-lord- chancellor awarded him when, at the bar, he called him thefloicer of the shire attorneys. His tem- perament, always sanguine, was now bubbling with excitement ; and, as the cause of this intimately affected me, both then and afterwards, I shall lay it down as briefly as possible. A letter, written by a talented innovator, published 42 A COUNTRY CURATE'S in the interesting form of a shilling pamphlet, and , laid out to catch the popular prejudices against the Church Establishment, had been addressed to the highest ecclesiastic in the diocese. To this letter I had ventured a reply, and having transmitted the MS. to my father, left it to the exercise of his dis- cretion, when I went away into Scotland. With all the partiality of a parent, he had sent it, with un- mixed confidence, to the press ; and now the fer- ment, produced by its appearance, was leavening the whole lump of the good folks, not only in our town, but in those for some miles round. In fact, such was the enthusiasm, that my fortune was considered made, and the conclusion was, that, notwithstanding some little irregularity (the consequence of partial blindness and elevated plebeianism,) in my college- testimonials, and a considerable difficulty in getting a title for orders, I had only to place myself, an accredited author and champion, before the prelate, and he would ordain me. This, I say, was the unc- tion with which my good friends cheered me. It was to prosecute the designs of which this was to be the consummation, that I was so strenuously invited home ; and, after having been cruelly disap- pointed in my anticipations of an interview — or at least an interchange of notes — with Ellen, and having thrust my things into my portmanteau, I took my seat AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 43 on the roof of the mail, the most comfortless (save in the advantages of quick travelling) of all conveyances. A long and delightful evening was favourable to medi- tation ; and, whether I thought of the bishop or of the beauty; pamphlets or love-letters; orders or matri- mony ; my mind was in an admirably placid frame, and every thing seemed to follow my wishes in most perfect acquiescence. I had received no answer to my note ; but then it might have been intercepted ; or, engaged in the attention due to a prior claimant, the young lady might probably have yielded to prudence (alias pru- dery) what was denied to romance. I blamed myself for not having entered into some account of my pre- tensions. I had relied upon the idea that every thing pertaining to, or consequent upon, circumstances so singular as those detailed in the preceding chapter, should be done in an out-of-the-way style ; and, while I felt that I was sincere and passionate in the per- formance of my Romeo, I forgot that my Juliet might not have caught the fire of unsuspecting love. However, though many surmises crossed my mind — some, indeed, turning on the possibility that the heart, as well as the outward circumstances, of the nymph of the storm (as B and I had designated her), might be averse from me and my offer ; others, that, as I had never appeared to her but in the doubtful light of 44 A COUNTRY CURATE'S (at best) a pedestrian-tourist (though I cherished an idea that my altered appearance was scanned through the blinds during my long saunter in front of the Episcopal chapel), I had no right to conclude that she thought me worthy of her hand — I was neverthe- less bent upon rejecting all obstacles and adhering to my passion, 'mid all the graver concerns which called me for a time away. We had ascertained the name, condition and cir- cumstances of Ellen, from the landlord of the inn, at which we tarried not only the night, but during the day and night following, after the adventure of Ben Lomond. For this worthy Boniface (Stuart was his royal name, and his house on the side of a sweet little loch, not far from another lovely water — the scene of the Lady of the Lake) had readily consented to lionize us by the fire-side at the expense of our company ; and we as eagerly entered into such a mode of passing the greater part of a night in which sleep was mur- dered by the vision which occupied our minds, and the recollection of the no less, but otherwise, stirring events of the past day. We were indeed, a droll pair of knights-errant , in each other's estimation, as we sat devouring the legends of the lakes and hills, and quaffing gaily the well-earned rewards of " toils and dangers o'er." There we were, dressed out from head to foot, in the raiment of Jemmie Stuart — we AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 45 herring-gutted striplings, he being a noble, well- paunched representative of the good cheer for which his house was famed : B adorned in a coat and vest of divers colours, according to the clan of our host, cut in the style of a half-century ago, with goodly silver buttons, not only where we yet retain them, but on the waistcoat-pocket flaps which lay upon his retiring thighs, — I, in a roomy boating jacket of shaggy blue, with trowsers (to match, in capacity) of even coarser and warmer flannel. Thus we sat, one in each corner and Boniface between us ; while the rest of the household were actively and cheerfully em- ployed in washing and drying our proper habiliments, for the morrow — the glide wife condescending occa- sionally to throw in an interjection, the object of which was either to correct her husband's tendency to the marvellous or to compliment the sagacity of her guests ; and, not unfrequently, to taW a drop of con- solation under the unusually and unreasonably labo- rious task in which she had consented to forego the enjoyment of rest. Well — as all these things, when recalled to mind, played about the current of my thoughts, I remem- bered that the landlord Stuart told us of the fair one ; — that she was the elder daughter of the house and heart of her father, a respectable Highland gentle- man-grazier ; — that she had been educated in one of 46 A COUNTRY CURATE'S the first " establishments" in Glasgow — was as ami- able as she was bonnie, and the pride and admiration of all the country round — " and I ken/' added the worthy man, with a politeness, mixed with good- humour, which gave sufficient instance of his high descent, " that ye are na the furst, by mony, wha ha' fa'n i' love wi' bonnie Miss C 11 ; and here's to your health, and my service to ye, jontlemen." We were relieved, moreover, from much mystery by the intelligence that what we had conceived to be a hamlet was, in fact, only one house made up of many ; and that, had we stepped in, (as, indeed, we were invited, but from a sort of panic had declined,) we should have found the arrangements within in perfect contrast with the outward appearance, mysti- fied as it was by the torrents of rain to which we had been exposed and could give testimony. When thoughts of this more felicitous kind gave way to speculations on my future profession, I was no less disposed to view things w T ith a single eye, seeing in Bishops every thing that was grave, benevolent and good ; and anticipating, in the whole body of the clergy, an active and healthy circulation of brotherly kindness, helping one another, and capable of any thing but of not loving one another : — " Just men they seemed, and all their study bent To worship God aright." AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 47 Of myself, I thought, or rather, never doubted, that the qualities essential to a clergyman were in my composition. I was alive and open to all the wants and infirmities of my fellow- creatures — I could soothe and console them in their distresses ; and, when it should be permitted me, I would win them to the love of holy things by an ingenuous zeal in their behalf. A great-uncle of my father had been a clergyman ; and from what I had heard of his character, he was the pat- tern which I had placed before me, and the rivalry to which I aspired was to equal him in the posthumous praise which was conferred upon his memory, by Dr. Watson, then Bishop of Llandaff, in some lines upon his monument, which I here transcribe, partly through a natural vanity, but partly (and especially) because they explain the ideas I had of the clerical character, and are an exquisitely beautiful specimen of first- rate elegiac talents. " Amidst a flood of sorrows bursting forth, Speak, grateful friendship! gentle * * 's worth; With steady faith, each movement to controul, Dwelt piety, the inmate of his soul. Ne'er did his soul from virtue swerve aside, With learning stor'd, yet free from learning's pride ; Rewarding plenty bless'd his calm abode, And wisdom's right hand length of days bestow'd, When nature droop'd, oppress'd with slow decay, 48 Mild-beaming hope illum'd his setting day ; Around his couch soft-whisp'ring comfort stood, And peace — attendant only on the good. Her faithful herald did Religion mourn, And * *, hapless village, wept forlorn. But, though for ever silent is the tongue On which persuasion's sweetest accents hung, That bade the sinner grace's call obey, That charm'd so oft despondency away, — Though nought could rescue from the ruthless grave His heart that sympathiz'd — his hand that gave; Yet shall the truth recording marble tell — How lov'd he liv'd, and how lamented fell." My ideas of the Church were then such as were put forth in my letter to the bishop's invader, and such as I am proud to acknowledge yet. I was ready to defend her ministers, for, though I knew little of them, that little contained much less of evil. Her liturgy I could even more readily defend, because I knew what its effects had been on my own mind, and how often unruly passions and inordinate affections had been subdued and chastened in the chapel of our college; and I remembered how, in childhood and succeeding youth, my devotion had increased with each par- ticipation in its service. Added to these impressions, the sanctifying influence of her long-drawn aisles and cloistered courts upon my imagination, had made me, what I professed to be, a zealous champion of her in- AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 49 stitutions ; and, while education and habit had made me a churchman, my judgment had convinced me that, as far as this age can be compared with that in which the Gospel was announced to the world, our establishment, her ministry, and her forms of worship, were in accordance (with very few, and these not general, exceptions) to the spirit and intentions of Christianity. Dissenters I viewed with a perfect in- difference, except that I wondered how men could differ from what was so palpably desirable, and attri- buted the departure of the multitude from the church to a want of information and an innate love of change, connected with that self-important, all-sufficient dis- position to j udge for himself, which perhaps charac- terizes the uneducated Englishman. That dissenters should abound in a country like ours, worked up to the highest pitch of national pride and importance, was no wonder. Many there are, no doubt, whose difference is in point of faith ; but the great mass are nothing but political mal-contents — a division which obtains a place, because idleness and dissipation will always produce restlessness and complaint, in every community; but never so decidedly as in one which has been long prosperous and flourishing. John Bull will think for himself; and, sooner than let another appear to think for him, he w T ill deny his own creed, and be a Dissenter. But, though it may be the effect VOL. I. D 50 A COUNTRY CURATE ? S of political distraction to weaken, and, if carried far enough, to destroy a state, yet the Church, I felt convinced, was in no danger. The spiritual nature of truth must triumph for ever, and, though the fabric may fall, its walls having been stripped, its altars polluted, and its sacred records mingled with the dust, yet the spirit shall remain unsubdued ; and, as there was the Church in the wilderness, so, if England, as a human polity, should be doomed to follow in the train of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, yet, as a religious community, her Church will continue to shine even in affliction's blackest night. These thoughts, under every possible circumstance of variation, occupied my mind, until, worn out with the night's travelling, I was glad to fold up both mind and body in the bare endurance of the journey. All who have travelled through a summer's night on the roof of a coach, are well acquainted with the searching cold of the wind, which ushers in the dawn of the morning — how it defeats every attempt at self- composure, only to make the enjoyment greater when the god of day mounts, with his glowing steeds, the acclivity of the horizon, and visits the earth amid the chorus of a thousand songs. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 51 CHAPTER VI. Where thou art gone, Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown ; May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore — Cowper. Every man, who has passed through any one of those ordeals, from the grave and important decisions of which the world receives tributary streams of pro- fessional talents or pretensions, will easily comprehend me, when I say, that the restless and fidgetty fortnight which succeeded my return, was crowned by my admission to the sacred office of a Deacon. Intro- ducing myself to the reader in this altered character, I may be expected to say something of the modus operandi by which I was outwardly (let no one accuse me of jesting with spiritual things,) received into the ministry of the Gospel ; but, before I do this, let d2 52 A COUNTRY CURATE'S me lay before him a copy of a letter to B , whom I had so suddenly left in the heart of the High- lands: — " My dear B- " By this time you are in Edinburgh, and my pro- mise to write is the more readily sought to be fulfilled, inasmuch as a strong tide of selfishness impels me to it. " Congratulate me upon the entire restoration of all the peace and good understanding which ever existed between me and my father — upon, I may say indeed, the triumph over every thing of gloom or disappoint- ment, on his part ; and this has been effected by the success of a little pamphlet of which I now send you a copy. Ay, in utter detestation of that worthless class of roues with whom (and I may with confidence appeal to you) I never, even in appearance, had any connection, but in the warmest and most endearing remembrance of those intellectual hours — those soul- improving events — those edifying, ennobling, inspiring conversations, the calling back of which brings with them the name of B , I demand and obtain your sympathy in the real pleasure which paternal love and solicitude have made me again acquainted with. In the warmth of his affection, and (if I may add, with- out vanity,) of his pride, he calls me his brave lad, AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 53 acknowledges that, indeed, I never gave him real cause of anger or disappointment — in that I never failed to obtain and keep the road, though I never soared much in the air ; — laments only that my talents (as he is pleased to call them) had not been planted in the more congenial soil of a classical uni- versity — that Cam — the unpropitious Cam — had the honour of my acquaintance ; and enters so fully and generously into the things which belong to me, that, with the peculiar feeling of a father, he makes them all his ow 7 n. Congratulate me, I say, on these things. " Can I ask the same suffrage on behalf of another acquisition ? ' You remember Ellen, our hamlet's pride,' — the remembrance of those events through which, like a heavenly star, she shone to guide and bless her votaries, will never die. — I am in love with her, honestly, and in the fullest sense of the phrase. I saw her in Edinburgh. I wrote to her, but had no answer. This note (enclosed), the superscription of which will inform you of her residence in town, is for the post, (have they a two-penny post in auld Reeky?) and may it, in its introduction to your hands, obtain the happy consummation of those auspices which led us jointly to that door at which we first beheld her! " Let me now inform you that I am to be ordained next Sunday. A clergyman, far advanced in years and 54 A COUNTRY CURATE'S a magistrate, has been, after much shuffling and dis- appointment with regard to others, prevailed upon to grant me a title, i. e. to nominate me to the office of curate in one of the two parishes of which he is the incumbent. This nomination, as he frankly ac- knowledged, had been twice refused by the bishop : but as, considering his own farther progress in years with a correspondent increase of infirmity, and my late achievement, a third effort seemed more than likely to be successful, he consented to furnish the necessary document upon the terms of a covenant, which, nothing less than a desire to see such woful practices banished from the world, could have in- duced me to be explicit enough to state, even to you. " For the mere nomination on his part, I am to do whatever duty he may require, in the said parish, for two years, for nothing; although, in the nomination, it is written that I am to have £80 (or is it only £50?) a-year, a consideration which I readily consented to forego, the statement of it being merely pro forma. Had this been all, it were well : but, in addition, as an acknowledgment of the boon (for the other is a service to the gratuitous discharge of which I aspire) I am to be private tutor to five or six of his children, girls as well as boys. " This is a monstrous piece of market- work. And, yet, according to our constitution in church and state, AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 55 every man is compelled to go through something of the sort, (except, indeed, you ' little kings,' who en- joy the i pretty things') unless he be fortunate enough to have that influence in his behalf which falls to the lot of only few. I have no kinsman in the church, near enough to be actuated by any feel- ing of partiality towards me ; and every clergyman, who has a bond fide title at his disposal, has some re- lation (money or blood will make relationship in these bad days) for whom his privilege is in store. Can any thing be done to remedy this ? Perhaps, if the bishop had the charge of appointing curates, in rota- tion from a list of names of all eligible candidates with- in their respective dioceses, much that is really self- degrading might be avoided. " I forbear from expressing to you my feelings with regard to yourself — my ever best and most valued friend ! but beg of you to believe me, " Yours, very truly and sincerely, « # # >» It should be observed that I had received, from the worthy prelate to whom a copy of my little publi- cation had been sent, and in his own hand, a very flattering and courteous acknowledgment of the " service' 7 which 1 had u done the state" —