In climbing learning's rugged, steep ascent;
When to the top the bold adventurer's got,
He reigns vain monarch of a barren spot;
While in the vale of ignorance below,
Folly and vice to rank luxuriance grow;
Honours and wealth pour in on every side,
And proud preferment rolls her golden tide.
CHURCHILL

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THE VICAR--THE CURATE.

The lately departed Minister of the Borough--His soothing and
supplicatory Manners--His cool and timid Affections--No praise due
to such negative Virtue--Address to Characters of this kind--The
Vicar's employments--His Talents and moderate Ambition--His dislike
of Innovation--His mild but ineffectual Benevolence--A Summary of
his Character. Mode of paying the Borough-Minister--The Curate has
no such Resources--His Learning and Poverty--Erroneous Idea of his
Parent--His Feelings as a Husband and Father--the Dutiful Regard of
his numerous Family--His Pleasure as a Writer, how interrupted--No
Resource in the Press--Vulgar Insult--His Account of a Literary
Society, and a Fund for the Relief of indigent Authors, &c.

THE VICAR.

WHERE ends our chancel in a vaulted space,
Sleep the departed Vicars of the place;
Of most, all mention, memory, thought are past -