he had to resign his post and take to his bed, and was not afraid to die
when his time came. It is a very tender and touching little story, a
very faithful picture of an old clerk[43].

[Footnote 43: _Essays and Tales_, by Frances Parthenope Lady Verney, p.
67.]

Passing from grave to gay, we find Tom Hood sketching the clerk
attending on his vicar, who is about to perform a wedding service and
make two people for ever happy. He christens the two officials "the
joiners, no rough mechanics, but a portly full-blown vicar with his
clerk, both rubicund, a peony paged by a pink. It made me smile to
observe the droll clerical turn of the clerk's beaver, scrubbed into
that fashion by his coat at the nape."

Few people know Alexander Pope's _Memoir of P.P., Clerk of this Parish_,
which was intended to ridicule Burnet's _History of His Own Time_, a
work characterised by a strong tincture of self-importance and egotism.
These are abundantly exposed in the _Memoir_, which begins thus:

"In the name of the Lord, Amen. I, P.P., by the Grace of God, Clerk of
this Parish, writeth this history.

"Ever since I arrived at the age of discretion I had a call to take upon
me the Function of a Parish Clerk, and to this end it seemed unto me
meet and profitable to associate myself with the parish clerks of this
land, such I mean as were right worthy in their calling, men of a clear
and sweet voice, and of becoming gravity."

He tells how on the day of his birth Squire Bret gave a bell to the ring