LETTER III.

And telling me the sov’reign’st thing on earth
Was parmacity for an inward bruise. 
                  Shakspeare, Henry IV, Part I

So gentle, yet so brisk, so wond’rous sweet,
So fit to prattle at a lady’s feet. 
                                   Churchill

Much are the precious hours of youth misspent
In climbing learning’s rugged, steep ascent;
When to the top the bold adventurer’s got,
He reigns vain monarch of a barren spot;
While in the vale of ignorance below,
Folly and vice to rank luxuriance grow;
Honours and wealth pour in on every side,
And proud preferment rolls her golden tide. 
          
                          Churchill

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The vicar—­the curate.

The lately departed Minister of the Borough—­His soothing and supplicatory Manners—­His cool and timid Affections—­No praise due to such negative Virtue—­Address to Characters of this kind—­The Vicar’s employments—­His Talents and moderate Ambition—­His dislike of Innovation—­His mild but ineffectual Benevolence—­A Summary of his Character.  Mode of paying the Borough-Minister—­The Curate has no such Resources—­His Learning and Poverty—­Erroneous Idea of his Parent—­His Feelings as a Husband and Father—­the Dutiful Regard of his numerous Family—­His Pleasure as a Writer, how interrupted—­No Resource in the Press—­Vulgar Insult—­His Account of a Literary Society, and a Fund for the Relief of indigent Authors, &c.

The vicar.

Where ends our chancel in a vaulted space,
Sleep the departed Vicars of the place;
Of most, all mention, memory, thought are past —
But take a slight memorial of the last. 
   To what famed college we our Yicar owe,
To what fair county, let historians show: 
Few now remember when the mild young man,
Ruddy and fair, his Sunday-task began;
Few live to speak of that soft soothing look
He cast around, as he prepared his book;
It was a kind of supplicating smile,
But nothing hopeless of applause the while;
And when he finished, his corrected pride
Felt the desert, and yet the praise denied. 
Thus he his race began, and to the end
His constant care was, no man to offend;
No haughty virtues stirr’d his peaceful mind;
Nor urged the Priest to leave the Flock behind;
He was his Master’s Soldier, but not one
To lead an army of his Martyrs on: 
Fear was his ruling passion; yet was Love,
Of timid kind, once known his heart to move;
It led his patient spirit where it paid
Its languid offerings to a listening Maid: 
She, with her widow’d Mother, heard him speak,
And sought awhile to find what he would seek: 
Smiling he came, he smiled when he withdrew,
And paid the same attention to the two;