nd pouch at side,"

"triumphant over time,
And over tune, and over rhyme"--

who by his snivelling enunciation of the responses and his nasal
drawlings of the A--mens, was sure to provoke the risibility of his
hearers. Mr. Young's own clerk was, however, a very worthy man, of such
lofty aspirations and of such blameless purity of life, that in making
him Nature made the very ideal of a village clerk and schoolmaster, and
then "broke the mould." His grave yet kindly countenance, his
well-proportioned limbs encased in breeches and gaiters of corded
kerseymere, and the natural dignity of his carriage, combined "to give
the world assurance of" a bishop rather than a clerk. It needed
familiarity with his inner life to know how much simpleness of purpose
and simplicity of mind and contentment and piety lay hid under a pompous
exterior and a phraseology somewhat stilted.

His name was William Hinton, and he dwelt in a small whitewashed cottage
which, by virtue of his situation as schoolmaster, he enjoyed rent free.
It stood in the heart of a small but well-stocked kitchen garden. His
salary was L40 per annum, and on this, with perhaps L5 a year more
derived from church fees, he brought up five children in the greatest
respectability, all of whom did well in life. They regarded their
father with absolute veneration. By the side of the labourer who only
knew what he had taught him, or of the farmer who knew less, he was a
giant among pygmies--a Triton among minnows.

When Mr. Young went to the village, with the exception of a Bible, a
Prayer Book, a random tract or two, and a _Moore's Almanac_, there was
scarcely a book to be found in it. The rector kindly allowed his clerk
the run of his well-stocked library. Hinton devoured the books greedily.
So receptive and imitative was his intellect that his conversation, his
deportment, even his spirit, became imbued with the individuality of the
author whose writings he had been studying. After reading Dr. Johnson's
works his conversation became sententious and dogmatic. _Lord
Chesterfield's Letters_ produced an airiness and jauntiness that were
quite foreign to his nature. His favourite authors were Jeremy Taylor,
Bacon, and Milton. After many months reverential communion with these
Goliaths of literature he became pensive and contemplative, and his
manner more chastened and severe. The secluded village in which he dwelt
had been his birthplace, and there he remained to t