The clerk,[121] infinitely more important than the divine, is kept awake by contemplating the charms of a voluptuously blooming damsel, who, in studying the Service of Matrimony, has sighed her soul to rest. The eyes of this pronouncer of Amen are visibly directed to her. In the pew opposite are five swains of the village; "Each mouth distended, and each head reclin'd, They soundly sleep." To render this rural scene more pastoral, they are accompanied by two women who have once been shepherdesses, and perhaps celebrated by some neighbouring Theocritus as the Chloe and Daphne of their day. Being now in the wane of their charms, poetical justice will not allow us to give them any other appellation than old women. They are awake. Whether the artist intended by this to show that they are actuated by the spirit of contradiction, for the preacher entreats them to go to rest, or meant it as a compliment to the softer sex, as being more attentive than men, I cannot tell; let those who have studied their characters more than I have, determine as seemeth best in their eyes. In the gallery are two men joining in chorus with the band below. One of them has the decency to hide his face; but the other is evidently in _full song_. The heavy architecture and grotesque decorations lead us to conjecture that this now venerable edifice was once the cottage of Baucis and Philemon, so exquisitely described by Swift: "_Grown to a church by just degrees_-- ---- The ballads pasted on the wall, Of _Joan of France_, and _English Moll_, _Fair Rosamond_, and _Robin Hood_, _The little Children in the Wood_, Now seem to look abundance better, Improv'd in picture, size, and letter, And, high in order plac'd, describe The heraldry of every tribe." The "Children in the Wood" are now exalted above the Gothic windows. One of them we see transformed to an angel; which, to prove its being of a more exalted species, and no longer a mere mortal, has four thighs. "The pretty Robin Redbreasts, which Did cover them with leaves," have undergone a transmigration much to their advantage. It has somewhat sullied their plumage, but they have assumed a more important appearance, and the loss of beauty is compensated by an abundant increase in bulk and dignity. Exalted to the upper part of a fluted pillar, and seated in heraldic state, they seem to mortal eyes the emblems of wisdom, the symbols of Minerva.[122] A lion and companion unicorn, concealed by the pillar, was originally an headpiece to that excellent old ballad, beginning with "The fierce lyon of faire Englonde Didde swallowe the lillie of France." With jaws extended wide enough to swallow a bed of lilies, he is one of the supporters to the king's arms.