's fat chaps were always greasy with the crackling of tithe
pigs. Caricaturists delight to represent him so: round, short-necked,
pimple-faced, apoplectic, bursting out of waistcoat, like a
black-pudding, a shovel-hatted fuzz-wigged Silenus. Whereas, if you take
the real man, the poor fellow's flesh-pots are very scantily furnished
with meat. He labours commonly for a wage that a tailor's foreman
would despise: he has, too, such claims upon his dismal income as most
philosophers would rather grumble to meet; many tithes are levied upon
HIS pocket, let it be remembered, by those who grudge him his means
of livelihood. He has to dine with the Squire: and his wife must dress
neatly; and he must 'look like a gentleman,' as they call it, and bring
up six great hungry sons as such. Add to this, if he does his duty,
he has such temptations to spend his money as no mortal man could
withstand. Yes; you who can't resist purchasing a chest of cigars,
because they are so good; or an ormolu clock at Howell and James's,
because it is such a bargain; or a box at the Opera, because Lablache
and Grisi are divine in the PURITANI; fancy how difficult it is for a
parson to resist spending a half-crown when John Breakstone's family
are without a loaf; or 'standing' a bottle of port for poor old Polly
Rabbits, who has her thirteenth child; or treating himself to a suit
of corduroys for little Bob Scarecrow, whose breeches are sadly out at
elbows. Think of these temptations, brother moralists and philosophers,
and don't be too hard on the parson.

But what is this? Instead of 'showing up' the parsons, are we indulging
in maudlin praises of that monstrous black-coated race? O saintly
Francis, lying at rest under the turf; O Jimmy, and Johnny, and Willy,
friends of my youth! O noble and dear old Elias! how should he who
knows you not respect you and your calling? May this pen never write a
pennyworth again, if it ever casts ridicule upon either!

CHAPTER XII--ON CLERICAL SNOBS AND SNOBBISHNESS

'Dear Mr. Snob,' an amiable young correspondent writes, who signs
himself Snobling, 'ought the clergyman who, at the request of a noble
Duke, lately interrupted a marriage ceremony between two persons
perfectly authorised to marry, to be ranked or not among the Clerical
Snobs?'

This, my dear young friend, is not a fair question. One of the
illustrated weekly papers has already seized hold of the clergyman,
and blackened him most unmercifully, by