g on, the good
Wells folk would put up with a sermon. He knew Lady Yarmouth was coming,
and what a power she had in the giving of livings and the dispensing of
bishoprics, the Defender of the Faith of that day having a remarkable
confidence in her ladyship's opinion upon these matters;--and so we
may be sure that Mr. Sampson prepared his very best discourse for her
hearing. When the Great Man is at home at the Castle, and walks over to
the little country church, in the park, bringing the Duke, the Marquis,
and a couple of Cabinet Ministers with him, has it ever been your lot
to sit among the congregation, and watch Mr. Trotter the curate and his
sermon? He looks anxiously at the Great Pew; he falters as he gives out
his text, and thinks, "Ah! perhaps his lordship may give me a living!"
Mrs. Trotter and the girls look anxiously at the Great Pew too,
and watch the effects of papa's discourse--the well-known favourite
discourse--upon the big-wigs assembled. Papa's first nervousness is
over: his noble voice clears, warms to his sermon: he kindles: he takes
his pocket-handkerchief out: he is coming to that exquisite passage
which has made them all cry at the parsonage: he has begun it! Ah! What
is that humming noise, which fills the edifice, and causes hob-nailed
Melibaeus to grin at smock-frocked Tityrus? It is the Right Honourable
Lord Naseby snoring in the pew by the fire! And poor Trotter's visionary
mitre disappears with the music.

Sampson was the domestic chaplain of Madame Bernstein's nephew. The two
ladies of the Esmond family patronised the preacher. On the day of the
sermon, the Baroness had a little breakfast in his honour, at which
Sampson made his appearance, rosy and handsome, with a fresh-flowered
wig, and a smart, rustling, new cassock, which he had on credit
from some church-admiring mercer at the Wells. By the side of his
patronesses, their ladyships' lacqueys walking behind them with their
great gilt prayer-books, Mr. Sampson marched from breakfast to church.
Every one remarked how well the Baroness Bernstein looked; she laughed,
and was particularly friendly with her niece; she had a bow and a
stately smile for all, as she moved on, with her tortoiseshell cane. At
the door there was a dazzling conflux of rank and fashion--all the
fine company of the Wells trooping in; and her ladyship of Yarmouth,
conspicuous with vermilion cheeks, and a robe of flame-coloured taffeta.
There were shabby people present, b