hat they are usually respectable tradesmen, who wear
hats with brims inclined to flatness, and who occasionally testify in
gilt letters on a blue ground, in some conspicuous part of the church, to
the important fact of a gallery having being enlarged and beautified, or
an organ rebuilt.

The master of the workhouse is not, in our parish--nor is he usually in
any other--one of that class of men the better part of whose existence
has passed away, and who drag out the remainder in some inferior
situation, with just enough thought of the past, to feel degraded by, and
discontented with the present. We are unable to guess precisely to our
own satisfaction what station the man can have occupied before; we should
think he had been an inferior sort of attorney's clerk, or else the
master of a national school--whatever he was, it is clear his present
position is a change for the better. His income is small certainly, as
the rusty black coat and threadbare velvet collar demonstrate: but then
he lives free of house-rent, has a limited allowance of coals and
candles, and an almost unlimited allowance of authority in his petty
kingdom. He is a tall, thin, bony man; always wears shoes and black
cotton stockings with his surtout; and eyes you, as you pass his
parlour-window, as if he wished you were a pauper, just to give you a
specimen of his power. He is an admirable specimen of a small tyrant:
morose, brutish, and ill-tempered; bullying to his inferiors, cringing to
his superiors, and jealous of the influence and authority of the beadle.

Our schoolmaster is just the very reverse of this amiable official. He
has been one of those men one occasionally hears of, on whom misfortune
seems to have set her mark; nothing he ever did, or was concerned in,
appears to have prospered. A rich old relation who had brought him up,
and openly announced his intention of providing for him, left him
10,000_l._ in his will, and revoked the bequest in a codicil. Thus
unexpectedly reduced to the necessity of providing for himself, he
procured a situation in a public office. The young clerks below him,
died off as if there were a plague among them; but the old fellows over
his head, for the reversion of whose places he was anxiously waiting,
lived on and on, as if they were immortal. He speculated and lost. He
speculated again and won--but never got his money. His talents were
great; his disposition, easy, generous and liberal. His friends p