“Learn next that I am parish clerk: 
     A noble office, by St. Mark! 
     It brings me in six guineas clear,
     Besides et caeteras every year. 
     I waive my Sunday duty, when
     I give the solemn deep Amen;
     Exalted then to breathe aloud
     The heart-devotion of the crowd. 
     But oh, the fun! when Christmas chimes
     Have ushered in the festal times,
     And sent the clerk and sexton round
     To pledge their friends in draughts profound,
     And keep on foot the good old plan,
     As only clerk and sexton can! 
     Nor less the sport, when Easter sees
     The daisy spring to deck her leas;
     Then, claim’d as dues by Mother Church,
     I pluck the cackler from the perch;
     Or, in its place, the shilling clasp
     From grumbling dame’s slow opening grasp. 
     But, Visitation Day! ’tis thine
     Best to deserve my native line. 
     Great day! the purest, brightest gem
     That decks the fair year’s diadem. 
     Grand day! that sees me costless dine
     And costless quaff the rosy wine,
     Till seven churchwardens doubled seem,
     And doubled every taper’s gleam;
     And I triumphant over time,
     And over tune, and over rhyme,
     Call’d by the gay convivial throng,
     Lead, in full glee, the choral song!”

The writers of doggerel verses have been numerous.  The following is a somewhat famous composition which has been kindly sent to me by various correspondents.  My father used to tell us the rhymes when we were children, and they have evidently become notorious.  The clerk who composed them lived in Somersetshire[67], and when the Lord Bishop of the Diocese came to visit his church, he thought that such an occasion ought not to be passed over without a fitting tribute to the distinguished prelate.  He therefore composed a new and revised version of Tate and Brady’s metrical rendering of Psalm lxvii., and announced his production after this manner: 

“Let us zing to the Praze an’ Glory of God part of the zixty-zeventh Zalm; zspeshul varshun zspesh’ly ’dapted vur t’cazshun.

     “W’y ’op ye zo ye little ’ills? 
       And what var du ’ee zskip? 
     Is it a’cause ter prach too we
       Is cum’d me Lord Biship?

     “W’y zskip ye zo ye little ’ills? 
       An’ whot var du ’ee ’op? 
     Is it a’cause to prach too we
       Is cum’d me Lord Bishop?

     “Then let us awl arize an’ zing,
       An’ let us awl stric up,
     An’ zing a glawrious zong uv praze;
       An’ bless me Lord Bishup.”

[Footnote 67:  Another correspondent states that the incident occurred at Bradford-on-Avon in 1806.  Mr. Francis Bevan remembers hearing a similar version at Dover about sixty years ago.  Can it be that these various clerks were plagiarists?]