Cf. also Parson Adams in ch. iii of 'Joseph Andrews', who has
twenty-three; and Mr. Rivers, in the 'Spiritual Quixote',
1772:--'I do not choose to go into orders to be a curate all my
life-time, and work for about fifteen-pence a day, or
twenty-five pounds a year' (bk. vi, ch. xvii). Dr. Primrose's
stipend is thirty-five in the first instance, fifteen in the
second ('Vicar of Wakefield', chapters ii and iii). But
Professor Hales ('Longer English Poems', 1885, p. 351) supplies
an exact parallel in the case of Churchill, who, he says, when
a curate at Rainham, 'prayed and starved on 'forty pounds a
year'.' The latter words are Churchill's own, and sound like a
quotation; but he was dead long before 'The Deserted Village'
appeared in 1770. There is an interesting paper in the
'Gentleman's Magazine' for November, 1763, on the miseries and
hardships of the 'inferior clergy.
Pages:
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255