* * * * *

If pride were his, 'twas not their vulgar pride,
Who, in their base contempt, the great deride:
Nor pride in learning--though by Clerk agreed,
If fate should call him, Ashford might succeed."

[Footnote 40: _The Parish Register_, Part III.]

He paints yet another portrait, that of old Dibble[41], clerk and
sexton:

"His eightieth year he reach'd still undecayed,
And rectors five to one close vault conveyed.

* * * * *

His masters lost, he'd oft in turn deplore,
And kindly add,--'Heaven grant I lose no more!'
Yet while he spake, a sly and pleasant glance
Appear'd at variance with his complaisance:
For as he told their fate and varying worth,
He archly looked--'I yet may bear thee forth.'"

[Footnote 41: _The Parish Register_, Part III.]

George Herbert, the saintly Christian poet, who sang on earth such hymns
and anthems as the angels sing in heaven, was no friend of the
old-fashioned duet between the minister and clerk in the conduct of