"I re

and tenderness, out of regard to his past services, though he had been useless for several years." There was a picture in his gallery of two young men standing in a river, the one naked and the other in livery. This was painted in memory of an act of gallantry and devotion by one of his servants, who jumped into the water and saved his master from drowning. His bounty was carried so far that the faithful domestic was enabled to become the possessor of a pretty residence, which the Spectator had observed as he approached the house. membered, indeed, Sir Roger said, that there lived a very worthy gentleman to whom he was highly obliged, without mentioning anything farther." At a little distance from the house, among the ruins of an old abbey, "there is a long walk of aged elms, which are shot up so very high that when one passes under them the rooks and crows that rest upon the tops of them seem to be cawing in another region.” "I am," continues the Spectator, "very much delighted with this sort of noise, which I consider as a kind of natural prayer to that Being who, in the beautiful language of the Psalms, feedeth the young ravens that call upon him." And Sir Roger at church! where he will not let anybody take a quiet nap but himself, and

sermon.

"As

calls John Matthews to mind what he is about, and not disturb the congregation. For John Matthews was an idle fellow, who sometimes amused himself by kicking his heels during the The following passage has more than once formed the subject of a picture, and it would be difficult to find a more pleasing one of a country gentleman of the olden time. soon as the sermon is finished nobody presumes to stir till Sir Roger is gone out of church. The Knight walks down from his seat in the chancel between a double row of his tenants, that stand bowing to him on each side: and every now and then inquires how such a one's wife, or mother, or son, or father do, whom he does not see at church, which is understood as a secret reprimand to the person that is absent."

How touchingly is the death of the good old Knight related in the letter from his butler to the Spectator, written, of course, by Addison. "I am afraid,” he says, "he caught his death the last county-sessions, where he would go to see justice done to a poor widow woman and her fatherless children, that had been wronged by a neighbouring gentleman; for you know, sir, my good master was always the poor man's friend." And then he complained that he had lost “his roast-beef stomach," and grew worse

and worse, although at one time he seemed to revive “upon a kind message that was sent him from the widow lady whom he had made love to the forty last years of his life." He bequeathed to her, "as a token of his love, a great pearl necklace and a couple of silver bracelets, set with pearls, which belonged to my good lady his mother. . . . It being a very cold day when he made his will, he left for mourning to every man in the parish a great frieze coat, and to every woman a black riding-hood." What a charming trait of considerate kindness is this! And then he took leave of his servants, most of whom had grown grey-headed in his service, bequeathing to them pensions and legacies. "The chaplain tells everybody that he made a very good end. . . . The coffin was borne by six of his tenants, and the pall held up by six of the quorum. The whole parish followed the corpse with heavy hearts and in their mourning suits; the men in frieze and the women in ridinghoods." As for the old house-dog, “it would have gone to your heart to have heard the moans the dumb creature made on the day of my master's death." *

It has been said that Addison put Sir Roger to death to prevent liberties being taken with the character by Steele and others, in case he was supposed to remain alive.

In the 'Spectator' also we have the memoirs. of a country gentleman, "an obscure man who lived up to the dignity of his nature and according to the rules of nature." Amongst other memoranda are the following

Mem.: Prevailed upon M. T., Esq., not to take the law of the farmer's son for shooting a partridge, and to give him his gun again.

"Paid the apothecary for curing an old woman that confessed herself a witch.

"Gave away my favourite dog for biting a beggar.

"Laid up my chariot and sold my horses to relieve the poor in a scarcity of grain.

"In the same year remitted to my tenants a fifth part of their rents.

"Mem.: To charge my son in private to erect no monument for me; but put this in my last will."

Such a character we may hope was not merely ideal-and it may be fairly put into the scale against the Squire Westerns and Squire Tyrrels of the century.

CHAPTER IV.

THE PARSON OF THE LAST CENTURY.-FLEET MARRIAGES.

N a famous chapter of his History

of England,' Lord Macaulay has de

scribed the state of the Clergy in the seventeenth century in terms the truth of which has been much disputed. He refers to Eachard and Oldham as authorities for some of his most telling passages. Eachard was master of Catherine Hall at Cambridge, and published in 1670 a book called 'Causes of the Contempt of the Clergy and Religion.' Swift says of him"I have known men happy enough at ridicule, who upon grave subjects were perfectly stupid ; of which Dr. Eachard of Cambridge, who writ The Contempt of the Clergy' was a great example." The book, which is very short, assigns as the chief reasons for the contempt of the clergy their ignorance and poverty. The remarks are, upon the whole, exceedingly sensible, and some of them well worthy of atten