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 riddles and charades,
Mild were his doctrines, and not one discourse
But gained in softness what it lost in force;
Kind his opinions; he would not receive
An ill report, nor evil act believe.

* * * * *

Now rests our vicar. They who knew him best
Proclaim his life t' have been entirely--rest.
The rich approved--of them in awe he stood;
The poor admired--they all believed him good;
The old and serious of his habits spoke;
The frank and youthful loved his pleasant joke;
Mothers approved a safe contented guest,
And daughters one who backed each small request;
In him his flock found nothing to condemn;
Him sectaries liked--he never troubled them;
No trifles failed his yielding mind to please,
And all his passions sunk in early ease;
Nor one so old has left this world of sin
More like the being that he entered in."

A somewhat caustic and sarcastic sketch, and perhaps a little
ill-natured, of a somewhat amiable cleric. Dr. Syntax is a good example
of an old-world parson, whose biographer thus describes his
laborious life:

"Of Church preferment he had none;
Nay, all his hope of that was gone;
He felt that he content must be
With drudging-in a curacy.
Indeed, on ev'ry Sabbath-day,
Through eight long miles he took his way,
To preach, to grumble, and to pray;
To cheer the good, to warn the sinner,
And if he got it,--eat a dinner:
To bury these, to christen those,
And marry such fond folks as chose
To change the tenor of their life,
And risk the matrimonial strife.
Thus were his weekly journeys made,
'Neath summer suns and wintry shade;
And all his gains, it did appear,
Were only thirty pounds a-year."

And when the last event of his hard-working life was over--

"The village wept, the hamlets round
Crowded the con