The Parish Clerk Part 7

Yet again does the poet allude to the occupant of the lowest tier of the great "three-decker," when he in the opening lines of _The Sofa_ depicts the various seekers after sleep. After telling of the snoring nurse, the sleeping traveller in the coach, he continues:

"Sweet sleep enjoys the curate in his desk, The tedious rector drawling o'er his head; And sweet the clerk below--"

a pretty picture truly of a stirring and impressive service!

Cowper, if he were alive now, would have been no admirer of _Who's Who_, and poured scorn upon any

"Fond attempt to give a deathless lot To names ign.o.ble, born to be forgot."

Beholding some "names of little note" in the _Biographia Britannica_, he proceeded to satirise the publication, to laugh at the imaginary procession of worthies--the squire, his lady, the vicar, and other local celebrities, and chants in his anger:

"There goes the parson, oh! ill.u.s.trious spark!

And there, scarce less ill.u.s.trious, goes the clerk."

The poet Gay is not unmindful of the

"Parish clerk who calls the hymns so clear";

and Tennyson, in his sonnet to J.M.K., wrote:

"Our dusty velvets have much need of thee: Thou art no sabbath-drawler of old saws, Distill'd from some worm-canker'd homily; But spurr'd at heart with fiercest energy To embattail and to wall about thy cause With iron-worded proof, hating to hark The humming of the drowsy pulpit-drone Half G.o.d's good Sabbath, while the worn-out clerk Brow-beats his desk below."

In the gallery of d.i.c.kens's characters stands out the immortal Solomon Daisy of _Barnaby Rudge_, with his "cricket-like chirrup" as he took his part in the social gossip round the Maypole fire. Readers of d.i.c.kens will remember the timid Solomon's visit to the church at midnight when he went to toll the pa.s.sing bell, and his account of the strange things that befell him there, and of the ringing of the mysterious bell that told the murder of Reuben Haredale.

In the British Museum I discovered a fragmentary collection of ballads and songs, made by Mr. Ballard, and amongst these is a song relating to a very unworthy follower of St. Nicholas, whose memory is thus unhappily preserved:

THE PARISH CLERK

A NEW COMIC SONG

_Tune_--THE VICAR AND MOSES

Here rests from his labours, by consent of his neighbours, A peevish, ill-natur'd old clerk; Who never design'd any good to mankind, For of goodness he ne'er had a spark.

Tol lol de rol lol de rol lol.

But greedy as Death, until his last breath, His method he ne'er failed to use; When interr'd a corpse lay, Amen he'd scarce say, Before he cry'd Who pays the dues?

Not a tear now he's dead, by friend or foe shed; The first they were few, if he'd any; Of the last he had more, than tongue can count o'er, Who'd have hang'd the old churl for a penny.

In Levi's black train, the clerk did remain Twenty years, squalling o'er a dull stave; Yet his mind was so evil, he'd swear like the devil, Nor repented on this side the grave.

_Fowler, Printer, Salisbury_.

That extraordinary man Mr. William Hutton, who died in 1813, and whose life has been written and his works edited by Mr. Llewellyn Jewitt, F.S.A., amongst his other poems wrote a set of verses on _The Way to Find Sunday without an Almanack_. It tells the story of a Welsh clergyman who kept poultry, and how he told the days of the week and marked the Sundays by the regularity with which one of his hens laid her eggs. The seventh egg always became his Sunday letter, and thus he always remembered to sally forth "with gown and ca.s.sock, book and band," and perform his accustomed duty. Unfortunately the clerk was treacherous, and one week stole an egg, with dire consequences to the congregation, which had to wait until the clergyman, who was engaged in the unclerical task of "soleing shoes," could be fetched. The poem is a poor trifle, but it is perhaps worth mentioning on account of the personality of the writer.

There is a charming sketch of an old clerk in the _Essays and Tales_ of the late Lady Verney. The story tells of the old clerk's affection for his great-grandchild, Benny. He is a delightfully drawn specimen of his race. We see him "creeping slowly about the shadows of the aisle, in his long blue Sunday coat with huge bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, the tails of which reached almost to his heels, shorts and brown leggings, and a low-crowned hat in his hand. He was nearly eighty, but wiry still, rather blind and somewhat deaf; but the post of clerk is one considered to be quite independent and irremovable, _quam diu se bene gesserit_, during good behaviour--on a level with Her Majesty's judges for that matter. Having been raised to this great eminence some sixty years before, when he was the only man in the parish who could read, he would have stood out for his rights to remain there as long as he pleased against all the powers and princ.i.p.alities in the kingdom--if, indeed, he could have conceived the possibility of any one, in or out of the parish, being sufficiently irreligious and revolutionary to dispute his sovereignty. He was part of the church, and the church was part of him--his rights and hers were indissolubly connected in his mind.

"The Psalms that day offered a fine field for his Anglo-Saxon plurals and south-country terminations; the 'housen,' 'priestesses,' 'beasteses of the field,' came rolling freely forth from his mouth, upon which no remonstrances by the curate had had the smallest effect. Was he, Michael Major, who had fulfilled the important office 'afore that young jackanapes was born, to be teached how 'twere to be done?' he had observed more than once in rather a high tone, though in general he patronised the successive occupants of the pulpit with much kindness.

'And this 'un, as cannot spike English nayther,' he added superciliously concerning the north-country accent of his pastor and master."

On weekdays he wore a smock-frock, which he called his surplice, with wonderful fancy st.i.tches on the breast and back and sleeves. At length he had to resign his post and take to his bed, and was not afraid to die when his time came. It is a very tender and touching little story, a very faithful picture of an old clerk[43].

[Footnote 43: _Essays and Tales_, by Frances Parthenope Lady Verney, p.

67.]

Pa.s.sing from grave to gay, we find Tom Hood sketching the clerk attending on his vicar, who is about to perform a wedding service and make two people for ever happy. He christens the two officials "the joiners, no rough mechanics, but a portly full-blown vicar with his clerk, both rubicund, a peony paged by a pink. It made me smile to observe the droll clerical turn of the clerk's beaver, scrubbed into that fas.h.i.+on by his coat at the nape."

Few people know Alexander Pope's _Memoir of P.P., Clerk of this Parish_, which was intended to ridicule Burnet's _History of His Own Time_, a work characterised by a strong tincture of self-importance and egotism.

These are abundantly exposed in the _Memoir_, which begins thus:

"In the name of the Lord, Amen. I, P.P., by the Grace of G.o.d, Clerk of this Parish, writeth this history.

"Ever since I arrived at the age of discretion I had a call to take upon me the Function of a Parish Clerk, and to this end it seemed unto me meet and profitable to a.s.sociate myself with the parish clerks of this land, such I mean as were right worthy in their calling, men of a clear and sweet voice, and of becoming gravity."

He tells how on the day of his birth Squire Bret gave a bell to the ring of the parish. Hence that one and the same day did give to their own church two rare gifts, its great bell and its clerk.

Leaving the account of P.P.'s youthful amours and bouts at quarter-staff, we next find that:

"No sooner was I elected into my office, but I layed aside the gallantries of my youth and became a new man. I considered myself as in somewise of ecclesiastical dignity, since by wearing of a band, which is no small part of the ornaments of our clergy, might not unworthily be deemed, as it were, a shred of the linen vestments of Aaron.

"Thou mayest conceive, O reader, with what concern I perceived the eyes of the congregation fixed upon me, when I first took my place at the feet of the Priest. When I raised the Psalm, how did my voice quiver with fear! And when I arrayed the shoulders of the minister with the surplice, how did my joints tremble under me! I said within myself, 'Remember, Paul, thou standest before men of high wors.h.i.+p, the wise Mr.

Justice Freeman, the grave Mr. Justice Tonson, the good Lady Jones.'

Notwithstanding it was my good hap to acquit myself to the good liking of the whole congregation, but the Lord forbid I should glory therein."

He then proceeded to remove "the manifold corruptions and abuses."

1. "I was especially severe in whipping forth dogs from the Temple, all except the lap-dog of the good widow Howard, a sober dog which yelped not, nor was there offence in his mouth.

2. "I did even proceed to moroseness, though sore against my heart, unto poor babes, in tearing from them the half-eaten apple, which they privily munched at church. But verily it pitied me, for I remembered the days of my youth.

3. "With the sweat of my own hands I did make plain and smooth the dog's ears throughout our Great Bible.

4. "I swept the pews, not before swept in the third year. I darned the surplice and laid it in lavender."

The good clerk also made shoes, shaved and clipped hair, and practised chirurgery also in the worming of dogs.

"Now was the long expected time arrived when the Psalms of King David should be hymned unto the same tunes to which he played them upon his harp, so I was informed by my singing-master, a man right cunning in Psalmody. Now was our over-abundant quaver and trilling done away, and in lieu thereof was inst.i.tuted the sol-fa in such guise as is sung in his Majesty's Chapel. We had London singing-masters sent into every parish like unto excis.e.m.e.n."

P.P. was accused by his enemies of humming through his nostrils as a sackbut, yet he would not forgo the harmony, it having been agreed by the worthy clerks of London still to preserve the same. He tutored the young men and maidens to tune their voices as it were a psaltery, and the church on Sunday was filled with new Hallelujahs.

But the fame of the great is fleeting. Poor Paul Philips pa.s.sed away, and was forgotten. When his biographer went to see him, his place knew him no more. No one could tell of his virtues, his career, his excellences. Nothing remained but his epitaph:

"O reader, if that thou canst read, Look down upon this stone; Do all we can, Death is a man That never spareth none."