works edited by Mr. Llewellyn Jewitt,
F.S.A., amongst his other poems wrote a set of verses on _The Way to
Find Sunday without an Almanack_. It tells the story of a Welsh
clergyman who kept poultry, and how he told the days of the week and
marked the Sundays by the regularity with which one of his hens laid her
eggs. The seventh egg always became his Sunday letter, and thus he
always remembered to sally forth "with gown and cassock, book and
band," and perform his accustomed duty. Unfortunately the clerk was
treacherous, and one week stole an egg, with dire consequences to the
congregation, which had to wait until the clergyman, who was engaged in
the unclerical task of "soleing shoes," could be fetched. The poem is a
poor trifle, but it is perhaps worth mentioning on account of the
personality of the writer.

There is a charming sketch of an old clerk in the _Essays and Tales_ of
the late Lady Verney. The story tells of the old clerk's affection for
his great-grandchild, Benny. He is a delightfully drawn specimen of his
race. We see him "creeping slowly about the shadows of the aisle, in his
long blue Sunday coat with huge brass buttons, the tails of which
reached almost to his heels, shorts and brown leggings, and a
low-crowned hat in his hand. He was nearly eighty, but wiry still,
rather blind and somewhat deaf; but the post of clerk is one considered
to be quite independent and irremovable, _quam diu se bene gesserit_,
during good behaviour--on a level with Her Majesty's judges for that
matter. Having been raised to this great eminence some sixty years
before, when he was the only man in the parish who could read, he would
have stood out for his rights to remain there as long as he pleased
against all the powers and principalities in the kingdom--if, indeed, he
could have conceived the possibility of any one, in or out of the
parish, being sufficiently irreligious and revolutionary to dispute his
sovereignty. He was part of the church, and the church was part of
him--his rights and hers were indissolubly connected in his mind.

* * * * *

"The Psalms that day offered a fine field for his Anglo-Saxon plurals
and south-country terminations; the 'housen,' 'priestesses,' 'beasteses
of the field,' came rolling freely forth from his mouth, upon which no
remonstrances by the curate had had the smallest effect. Was he, Michael
Major, who had fulfilled the important office 'afore that young