rt, the
three sumptuous tables daily spread in his refectory, the forty-four
gorgeous copes in his chapel, his running footmen in rich liveries, and
his body guards with gilded poleaxes. Thus the sacerdotal office lost
its attraction for the higher classes. During the century which followed
the accession of Elizabeth, scarce a single person of noble descent took
orders. At the close of the reign of Charles the Second, two sons of
peers were Bishops; four or five sons of peers were priests, and held
valuable preferment: but these rare exceptions did not take away the
reproach which lay on the body. The clergy were regarded as, on the
whole, a plebeian class. [77] And, indeed, for one who made the figure
of a gentleman, ten were mere menial servants. A large proportion of
those divines who had no benefices, or whose benefices were too small to
afford a comfortable revenue, lived in the houses of laymen. It had
long been evident that this practice tended to degrade the priestly
character. Laud had exerted himself to effect a change; and Charles the
First had repeatedly issued positive orders that none but men of
high rank should presume to keep domestic chaplains. [78] But these
injunctions had become obsolete. Indeed during the domination of the
Puritan, many of the ejected ministers of the Church of England could
obtain bread and shelter only by attaching themselves to the households
of royalist gentlemen; and the habits which had been formed in those
times of trouble continued long after the reestablishment of monarchy
and episcopacy. In the mansions of men of liberal sentiments and
cultivated understandings, the chaplain was doubtless treated with
urbanity and kindness. His conversation, his literary assistance, his
spiritual advice, were considered as an ample return for his food, his
lodging, and his stipend. But this was not the general feeling of the
country gentlemen. The coarse and ignorant squire, who thought that it
belonged to his dignity to have grace said every day at his table by an
ecclesiastic in full canonicals, found means to reconcile dignity with
economy. A young Levite--such was the phrase then in use--might be had
for his board, a small garret, and ten pounds a year, and might not
only perform his own professional functions, might not only be the most
patient of butts and of listeners, might not only be always ready in
fine weather for bowls, and in rainy weather for shovelboard, but
might also save