At this time, indeed, “a young Levite, such was the phrase 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 the bowls, and in rainy weather for the shovel-board, but might also save the expense of a gardener or a groom. Sometimes the reverend man nailed up the apricots, and sometimes he curried the coach horses; he cast up the farrier’s bills; he walked ten miles with a message or parcel; he was permitted to dine with the family, but he was expected to content himself with the plainest fare, he might fill himself with the corned beef and the carrots, but as soon as the tarts and cheese-cakes make their appearance he quitted his seat, and stood aloof till he was summoned to return thanks for the repast, from a great part of which he had been excluded.” {127a} This certainly was not a very cheerful state of things for the working clergy and the people; and, although the _high dignitaries of the church_ had few kind words to bestow on Cromwell, or the Commonwealth, it will be observed that the clergy and the people of Paddington had no reason to regret the establishment of the Parliamentary Commission. The commissioners wished to see the tithes let at something like their real value: a new church built out of the rectory funds; and “a godly able preaching minister” appointed, whose pay was to be something more than the paltry stipend allowed by the lessee, previous to the Revolution; or than poor Mr. Anthony Dodd’s liberal salary of twenty-eight pounds per annum, for his two full services and two sermons “every Lord’s day.” But, if the suggestions of the commissioners were not completely carried out, the report of 1649 was not entirely unheeded, even after the restoration of the episcopacy; for the trustworthy public notary, Newcourt, tells us that Bishop Sheldon bound his nephews “to pay the curate here eighty pounds per year, at the four most usual feasts, viz. twenty pounds per quarter;” and he also informs us that “The church was but small and being very old and ruinious was about the year 1678 pulled down and new built from the ground, at the cost and charges of Joseph Sheldon, knight, sometime Lord Mayor of the City of London, and his brother, Mr. Daniel Sheldon, then lessees of the manor of Paddington.” And one would have thought that the memory of these events would have been preserved in less crazy heads than Mr. Dick’s; that the good example set to his successors by Bishop Sheldon would have been followed; and as the population of this place increased, and the value of the rectory-lands was thereby increased, the religious wants of the people would have been provided for out of these increased funds.