I hope I shall be acquitted of any wish to depreciate the real excellences of Robert Walker’s character; but I maintain that it is scarcely just to the bulk of human kind to bestow the title of “Wonderful” upon an individual who to the frugality, temperance, integrity, and industry of the class he sprang from, superadded the piety, purity, and some of the learning of the profession he adopted. But, as sings the Roman poet— Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona Multi; sed omnes illachrymabiles Urgentur ignotique longâ Nocte, _carent quia vate sacro_. That his poverty was by no means wonderful, the following sketch of the English Country Clergy of the seventeenth century, from Macaulay’s history, may suffice to prove, bearing in mind that the circumstances of the clergy of that date in the more populous parts of the kingdom were those of the clergy of these remote chapelries far into the succeeding century. And Southey tells us that the curate of Newlands, near Keswick, about that time was obliged to add to his income by exercising the crafts of tailor, clogger, and butter-print maker. [Sidenote: “A NOBLE PEASANT.”] Here is Macaulay’s picture:— “Not one living in fifty enabled the incumbent to bring up a family comfortably. As children multiplied and grew, the household of the priest became more and more beggarly. Holes appeared more and more plainly in the thatch of his Parsonage, and in his single cassock. Often it was only by toiling on his glebe, by feeding swine, and by loading dung-carts, that he could obtain daily bread; nor did his utmost exertions always prevent the bailiffs from taking his concordance and his inkstand in execution. It was a white day on which he was admitted into the kitchen of a great house, and regaled by the servants with cold meat and ale. His children were brought up like the children of the neighbouring peasantry. His boys followed the plough; and his girls went out to service. Study he found impossible; for the advowson of his living would hardly have sold for a sum sufficient to purchase a good theological library; and he might be considered as unusually lucky, if he had ten or twelve dog-eared volumes among the pots and pans on his shelves. Even a keen and strong intellect might be expected to rust in so unfavourable a situation.” And again, to prove that his original class do, in some instances, possess the virtues specified, I may adduce the case of a neighbour of Mr Walker's, whose melancholy end caused a wide-spread feeling of commiseration and regret throughout this and the neighbouring dales; and I shall quote the account of her given by a gentleman who knew her well—who frequently stayed in her house when hereabout on fishing excursions—who, with a hand “open as day to melting charity,” possesses a heart ready to acknowledge and to sympathize with goodness, whether it appears in the disposition and the works of peasant, parson, peer, or prince—