No. CXIX..

The Folly of bringing up Children to a Learned Profession, without the Probability of providing them with a Competency.

THAT admiration is the effect of ignorance is a truth universally confessed; and nothing so forcibly excites the wonder of the illiterate Plebeian as the character of profound erudition.

Dazzled by the splendour of literary honours, many an honest parent has prevented his son from acquiring a fortune behind the counter, to see him starve in a pulpit.

These reflections were occasioned by meeting an old friend at a coffeehouse one evening last week. His looks were meagre, his dress shabby, and he sufficiently apologized for the rustiness of his coat by the following narrative:

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"My father," said he, after some preliminary conversation, was a shoemaker of tolerable business in London; a very honest man, and very much given to reading godly books, whenever he could steal a moment from the lapstone and the last. As I was the only child, he took great delight in me, and used frequently to say, that he hoped in time to see me Archbishop of Canterbury, and no such great matters neither; for as to my parentage, I was as good as many a one that had worn a mitre; and he would make me as good a scholard too, or it should go hard with him.

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My destination to the church was thus unalterably fixed before I was five years old; and in consequence of it, I was put to a grammar school in the city, whence, after a thousand perils of the cane, and

perils of the rod, I went to the University on an exhibition of fifteen pounds a year, which my father obtained from one of the city companies with no small difficulty. So scanty an allowance would by no means defray the enormous expense of university education; and my father, whose pride would not let me appear meaner than my companions, very readily agreed to pay me forty pounds out of the yearly profits of his trade, and to debar himself many innocent gratifications, in order to accomplish in me the grand object of all his ambition.

"In consequence of my father's desire, that I should complete the full term of academical education, I did not go into orders till I was of seven years standing, and had taken the degree of Master of Arts. I was therefore incapable of receiving any pecuniary emoluments from my studies till I was six and twenty. Then, however, I was resolved to make a bold push, and to free my father from the burden of supporting me with half the profits of his labours. The old man was eager that I should attempt to get some kind of preferment; not, as he would generously say, that he wanted to withdraw, his assistance, but that he thought it was high time to begin to look up at the Bishoprick.

"I hastened to London as the most ample field for the display of my abilities, and the acquisition of money and fame. Soon after my arrival, I heard of a vacant Lectureship; and though I was an entire stranger to every one of the parishioners, I resolved to trust my cause to honest endeavours, and a sedulous canvass. I shall not trouble you with an enumeration of the several indignities I suffered (for I had not lost my university pride), from being under the necessity to address, with the most abject supplication, chandlers, barbers, and greengrocers. Suffice it to acquaint you, that myself, and another

young clergyman of regular education, appeared, on the day of election, to have but seventeen votes between us; and that a methodistical enthusiast, who had once been a carpenter, bore away the prize with a majority of a hundred and twenty.

'Though disappointed, I was not dejected; and I applied to a certain Rector for his Curacy, the duty of which consisted in prayers twice a day, a sermon on Sundays, and innumerable burials, christenings, and weddings. I thought myself happy, however, in being offered forty guineas a year, without surplus or surplice fees; but how wås I chagrined on being told by the Rector, on the very first Sunday I went to officiate, that I need not trouble myself, as another gentleman had undertaken the whole duty at forty pounds!

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'I waited now a considerable time in expectation of something to fall; but heard of nothing in which there was the least probability of success, unsupported, as I was by friends, and unknown to fame. At last, I was informed by an acquaintance, that a certain Clergyman in the city was about to resign his Lectureship, and that he would probably resign in my favour if I were early enough in my application. I made all the haste I possibly could to reach this gentleman before his resignation; and found very little difficulty in persuading him to intercede in my favour. In short, his endeavours, joined to my own, secured the Lectureship, and I was unanimously chosen. The electors, however, expressed a desire that I would quit my place of residence, which was a long way off, and live in the parish. To this request I consented; and immediately fixed myself in a decent family, where I lodged and boarded for fifty pounds a year; and as I was not so ambitious as my father, I congratulated myself on the happy event, and sat down contented and satisfied. But,

alas! how was I confounded, when my collectors brought the annual contribution, to find it amount to no more than an exact sum of twenty-one pounds two shillings and three pence three farthings! I was under an immediate necessity of discharging my lodging, resigning my preferment, and quietly decamping with the loss of no inconsiderable sum.

"Thus, Sir," said he, "have I now for these twenty years been tossed about in the world, without any fixed residence, and without any certain prospect of my bread. I must not however complain, as I am well assured there are many in the metropolis in situations very similar to mine. Yet sometimes, I own, I cannot help being foolish enough to imagine that I might, perhaps, have been happier, and I am sure I could have been richer, had I been brought up to my paternal awl and last. My poor father died about two years ago, and I have reason to think his disappointment and sorrow for my ill success hastened his dissolution.

I now support myself tolerably well in the capacity of, what the world ludicrously calls, a Hackney Parson. And though I do not get quite so much as a journeyman shoemaker, I make shift to keep soul and body together; and I thank God for that. If, Sir, could recommend me, you here is my address, up four pair of stairs."

He was proceeding, but he had too powerfully excited my sympathy; and after consoling him to the best of my power, I took my leave of him, not without severe reflections on those parents who, to indulge a childish vanity, bring up their offspring to misery and want.

No. CXX.

On Decency, as the only Motive of our apparent Virtues, and particularly of our Religious Behaviour.

WHATEVER may be the vices of this age, it cannot be said to be particularly distinguished by hypocrisy. Selfishness reigns triumphant; and men, for the most part, pursue whatever they think conducive to their own pleasure or interest, without regarding appearances, or the opinions of others, except, indeed, when their interest or their pleasure are immediately concerned.

Even they who fill offices of confidence and honour in the community, are, in this age, fond of divesting themselves of that external dignity with which the wisdom of our ancestors judged it right to surround them. They descend with a peculiar kind of pride from their natural or political eminence, and will not even display the appearance of those virtues and abilities which are absolutely necessary in their offices and stations. They ostentatiously exhibit a carelessness and profligacy in their conversation and behaviour, which, if they really possess, ought to displace them from their rank, and strip them of their blushing honours.

In those who fill public offices, or who are fixed in the more important professions, a regard to external decency is itself a virtue. But, in truth, if the present disordered state of things would permit, none ought to fill those offices and professions whose regard to decency does not arise from a regard to virtue.

There are, indeed, many who are esteemed good