Twelfth Night, All's Well that Ends Well, A& v. Sc. ii. allus confiders the day as no go, on which I do not contrive, one way or another, to pick up half-a-crown or fo. And then I ain't allus an afker, (as fome of our people call themselves,) but when haying is going on, I can lend a hand,—or indeed at most other forts a work." "Thank you, my boy, for your information, and here's the fhilling I promised you. I shall turn it to account as a Magistrate, and I recommend you by all means to take to a more regular and refpectable way of living." The boy's look almost said, "There's fomething in me that reproved my fault;" but, the chances are, he held to his own way of living, for when the Vicar's Friend and his companion turned round to look at him, he was smoking his short pipe with an earnestness which would have supplied an illustration for Knickerbocker's Account of New York. Cer-. tainly he was in no plight to say, with Paroles, "I am a man, fir, muddied in fortune's moat, and smell somewhat ftrong of her strong dif pleasure." Fortune had not cruelly scratched him! No doubt there are plenty of tramps who are very badly off and fuffer much,-but begging as a trade, the old Vicar faid, was derogatory to all good principle, and led to deceit, and lying, and evil practices of all forts. Numbers of ftories he had picked up on this fubject by the wayfide, and once, he faid, (will you believe it?) an impudent Scotch beggar answered me almost in a paraphrase of Burns' Death and Dr. Hornbook. "Folk maun do something for their bread, And fae maun death." And upon another occafion, when I thought it neceffary to addrefs a regular old campaigner, who haunted the Parish, in somewhat feverer words,-"Tramp, indeed, Tramp do you call me? What would you have a body do, would you have a body fly?"-and off fhe buftled, "With fuch haste, as new Shorn meadows, when approaching storms are nigh, Tir'd labourers huddle up." In the long run, to pafs from stories of Tramp life, nothing does more harm in a Parish than indifcreet largefs. It puts temptation into the way of poor people. Many of them, it is true, require no temptation, and have their price, and will fell themselves to the highest bidder. Others there are, however, whose "poverty, rather than their will, confents" to be bought over, and these are a Chamberlayne's Vol. ii. 88. people to be pitied,—to be dealt with tenderly, -and to be handled with refpect. It is a painful page in the American Miffionary's very interefting work, the Land and the Book, which contains the following. "As to the multitude they fought Jefus, not because they saw the miracles, and were convinced, but because they ate and were filled. And fo it always has been, and is now in this fame. country. In this matter our Missionary experience is most painful, and I hope Somewhat peculiar. It would not be charitable,— poffibly not just,—to fay to every applicant, You seek us, not because you have examined our doctrines, and believe them, but for the loaves and fishes of fome worldly advantage which you hope to obtain: and yet it is difficult for me at this moment to recall a single inftance in which this was not the first moving motive. Nor does this apply to converts to Proteftantism merely, but to all fects, and to all religious changes among the people. Religion is, in fact, a fpecies of property, valued not for its truth, but for its available price in the market." "But I may illuftrate what I mean," said the old Vicary to me one day, "in two inftances. which juft occur to me,-traits of character picked up alfo by the Wayfide,-some of The fimple annals of my Parish poor;' though, perhaps, in the former instance, the word fimple may be misapplied, for there was little fimplicity, and no integrity in the man or woman's cafe. All was duplicity. Crabbe, The i. Sc. ii. Act ii. "Googy Rentfail, (fo we will call him,) was by no means an unintelligent person, and in better hands might have done better. But his wife was a coarse, thick-fet, ill-conditioned woman, who thought nothing of locking up her children o'nights, and going the round, and holding the roufe with fingers, and Hamlet, A&t i. waffailers, and minstrels,-the name even Sc. iii. yet had not died out by the Sea-board and the Down, and I have often told you that the learned Selden's name ftill appears in our Register as the 'fon of the minftrell.' -This woman was always on the look out for what she could get, and was by no means particular as to the means. To make matters worse, she put on the mask and vizor of religion, and although, when occafion served, the noisiest and most violent of finners, yet would she absent herself from the House of Prayer, as not fufficiently inftructive or See Parochial P. 79. The Gamefter, evangelical. But, did there come a Mormonite or a Plymouth Brother, or any other wild fectarian in her way, with money at command, never fo good a man as he was feen before! fo unctuous, so persuasive!—and then, all at once she became a Saint, and looked upon her neighbours as dark, dark. Such, you know, is the cant phrase with that would-be religious ariftocracy who call themselves THE ELECT. Often as I noted the poor man, I thought he would willingly have used Shirley's words, 'I would there were a parfon to unmarry us! If any of our clergy had that faculty, He might repair the old, and build as many fo miferable and hen-pecked did he look. |