The Rev. Julian Charles Young, rector of Ilmington, in his _Memoir of Charles Mayne Young, Tragedian_, published in 1871, speaks of the race of parish clerks who flourished in Wiltshire in the first half of the last century. Instead of a nice discrimination being exercised in the choice of a clerk, it seems to have been the rule to select the sorriest driveller that could be found--some "lean and slippered pantaloon, with spectacles on nose and pouch at side," "triumphant over time, And over tune, and over rhyme"-- who by his snivelling enunciation of the responses and his nasal drawlings of the A--mens, was sure to provoke the risibility of his hearers. Mr. Young's own clerk was, however, a very worthy man, of such lofty aspirations and of such blameless purity of life, that in making him Nature made the very ideal of a village clerk and schoolmaster, and then "broke the mould." His grave yet kindly countenance, his well-proportioned limbs encased in breeches and gaiters of corded kerseymere, and the natural dignity of his carriage, combined "to give the world assurance of" a bishop rather than a clerk. It needed familiarity with his inner life to know how much simpleness of purpose and simplicity of mind and contentment and piety lay hid under a pompous exterior and a phraseology somewhat stilted. His name was William Hinton, and he dwelt in a small whitewashed cottage which, by virtue of his situation as schoolmaster, he enjoyed rent free. It stood in the heart of a small but well-stocked kitchen garden. His salary was £40 per annum, and on this, with perhaps £5 a year more derived from church fees, he brought up five children in the greatest respectability, all of whom did well in life. They regarded their father with absolute veneration. By the side of the labourer who only knew what he had taught him, or of the farmer who knew less, he was a giant among pygmies--a Triton among minnows.