H. was High and told me of his persecutions; L. was Low and tried to interest me in the conversion of the Jews. The alphabet becomes wearisome. Suffice it to say that the society never became wearisome. In their reception of the common enemy, the Inspector, they varied, as they varied in their pursuits: it is not every man that can stand being told that his school is bad, and that the grant will be reduced; and therefore the smiles of welcome varied a good deal in direct proportion with last year’s school balance: but we were very good friends on the whole. If old Bookworm compared me to Gloster-- “the clergy’s bags Are lank and lean with thy extortions”-- I knew that love of Shakespeare, not hatred of Inspectors, moved him. If Carker complained that I had plucked his best boy in Arithmetic, he melted into apologies on seeing the prodigy’s prodigiously incorrect sums. The Norwich district barely touched the Fens. That dismal region where, as a Cambridge man assured me, the inhabitants are web-footed and speckle-bellied (like frogs) was naturally and officially wedded to Cambridge; and I regret that I am unable to report on the accuracy of my friend’s statement. On our side the livings of the clergy in the ’seventies were fat, and the churches were magnificent. I fancy that, even then, the congregations were not equal to the splendour of the buildings. There may have been reasons for this. It used to be said in Cambridge in the early years of the last century, that the incumbents of the Fen district lived in Cambridge from Monday to Saturday. On the last day of the week they sought their sphere of labour--where no gentleman could be expected to _live_--and got through their Sunday duty with tolerable acceptance. A select band would centre at the “Lamb” at Ely, and with the aid of the hebdomadal rubber made the place almost as snug as Cambridge. Freeholders! Freeholders! “O sainte Église! something divine must indeed dwell in thee, when even thy ministers have not been able to ruin thee.” In the ’seventies the Norfolk clergy as a rule were resident. There was indeed a strip of country in one quarter, where for several miles the incumbents had “left their country for their country’s good,” but retained the income of the benefice, only deducting (with much reluctance) the salary of a cheap curate: and there were others whose throats and chests were not strong enough to stand the Norfolk winter: but Providence tempers even the Norfolk wind in certain cases, and I was assured that the common herd, whose livings were of less value than £1,200 a year, bore up well. There is a system of compensation in the distribution of good things.