I take it that the state in which the parish registers have been kept are a fair test as to what sort of parsons there were. Now certainly they were very neglectfully kept at the Restoration and for a short while afterwards. That is not to be wondered at. During the Commonwealth they had been taken from the parsons and committed to lay-registrars in the several parishes, who certainly kept them badly, and at the Restoration they were not at once and always reclaimed, but continued to be kept by the clerk, who stepped into the place of the registrar appointed by the Commonwealth. But in the much-maligned Hanoverian period they were carefully kept by the clergy, and as a rule neatly entered. If such an indication be worth anything, it shows that the country parsons did take pains to discharge at least one of their duties. He that is faithful in a small matter, is faithful also, we may conclude, in that which is great. I presume that Dr. Syntax may be regarded as typical of the class, and Combe says of him-- "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 he dies-- "The village wept, the hamlets round Crowded the consecrated ground; And waited there to see the end Of Pastor, Teacher, Father, Friend." What a charming picture does Fielding draw in his _Joseph Andrews_ of Mr. Abraham Adams, the parson--gentle, guileless, learned, and very poor. And Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield--was ever a purer, sweeter type of man delineated? The description given of his parsonage and mode of life is valuable, and must be quoted; for it shows what a change has come over the parsonage and the parson's manner of intercourse with his parishioners since Goldsmith's time. [Illustration: An Old Country Parsonage, Bratton-Clovelly.]