The Parish Clerk | Page 6

to us of the faithlessness,
sluggishness, idleness, and base conduct of the clergy of the eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries, and perhaps a little too much boasting
about the progress which our age has witnessed.
It would be an easy task to record the lives of many worthy country
clergymen of the much-abused Hanoverian period, who were
exemplary parish priests, pious, laborious, and beloved. In recording
the eccentricities and lack of reverence of many clerics and their
faithful servitors, it is well to remember the many bright lights that

shone like lamps in a dark place.
It would be a difficult task to write a history of our parish priesthood,
for reasons which have already been stated, and such a labour is beyond
our present purpose. But it may be well to record a few of the
observations which contemporary writers have made upon the parsons
of their day in order to show that they were by no means a set of
careless, disreputable, and unworthy men.
During the greater part of the eighteenth century there lived at
Seathwaite, Lancashire, as curate, the famous Robert Walker, styled
"the Wonderful," "a man singular for his temperance, industry, and
integrity," as the parish register records.
Wordsworth alludes to him in his eighteenth sonnet on Durdon as a
worthy compeer of the country parson of Chaucer, and in the seventh
book of the Excursion an abstract of his character is given:
"A priest abides before whose lips such doubts Fall to the ground, as in
those days When this low pile a gospel preacher knew Whose good
works formed an endless retinue; A pastor such as Chaucer's verse
portrays, Such as the heaven-taught skill of Herbert drew, And tender
Goldsmith crown'd with deathless praise."
The poet also gives a short memoir of the Wonderful Walker. In this
occurs the following extract from a letter dated 1775:
"By his frugality and good management he keeps the wolf from the
door, as we say; and if he advances a little in the world it is owing more
to his own care than to anything else he has to rely upon. I don't find
his inclination in running after further preferment. He is settled among
the people that are happy among themselves, and lives in the greatest
unanimity and friendship with them; and, I believe, the minister and
people are exceedingly satisfied with each other: and indeed, how
should they be dissatisfied, when they have a person of so much worth
and probity for their pastor? A man who for his candour and meekness,
his sober, chaste, and virtuous conversation, his soundness in principle
and practice, is an ornament to his profession and an honour to the

country he is in; and bear with me if I say, the plainness of his dress,
the sanctity of his manners, the simplicity of his doctrine, and the
vehemence of his expression, have a sort of resemblance to the pure
practice of primitive Christianity."
The income of his chapelry was the munificent sum of £17 10 s. He
reared and educated a numerous family of twelve children. Every
Sunday he entertained those members of his congregation who came
from a distance, taught the village school, acted as scrivener and lawyer
for the district, farmed, and helped his neighbours in haymaking and
sheep-shearing, spun cloth, studied natural history, and, in spite of all
this, was throughout a devoted and earnest parish priest. He was
certainly entitled to his epithet "the Wonderful."
Goldsmith has given us a charming picture of an old-world parson in
his Vicar of Wakefield, and Fielding sketches a no less worthy cleric in
his portrait of the Rev. Abraham Adams in his Joseph Andrews. As a
companion picture he drew the character of the pig-keeping Parson
Trulliber, no scandalous cleric, though he cared more for his cows and
pigs than he did for his parishioners.
"Hawks should not peck out hawks' e'en," and parsons should not scoff
at their fellows; yet Crabbe was a little unkind in his description of
country parsons, though he could say little against the character of his
vicar.
"Our Priest was cheerful and in season gay; His frequent visits seldom
fail'd to please; Easy himself, he sought his neighbour's ease.
* * * * *
Simple he was, and loved the simple truth, Yet had some useful
cunning from his youth; A cunning never to dishonour lent, And rather
for defence than conquest meant; 'Twas fear of power, with some desire
to rise, But not enough to make him enemies; He ever aim'd to please;
and to offend Was ever cautious; for he sought a friend. Fiddling and
fishing were his arts, at times He alter'd sermons, and he aimed at
rhymes; And his fair friends, not yet intent on cards, Oft he amused

with