We commenced our last chapter with the beadle of our parish,
because we are deeply sensible of the importance and dignity of his
office. We will begin the present, with the clergyman. Our curate
is a young gentleman of such prepossessing appearance, and
fascinating manners, that within one month after his first
appearance in the parish, half the young-lady inhabitants were
melancholy with religion, and the other half, desponding with love.
Never were so many young ladies seen in our parish church on Sunday
before; and never had the little round angels' faces on Mr.
Tomkins's monument in the side aisle, beheld such devotion on earth
as they all exhibited. He was about five-and-twenty when he first
came to astonish the parishioners. He parted his hair on the
centre of his forehead in the form of a Norman arch, wore a
brilliant of the first water on the fourth finger of his left hand
(which he always applied to his left cheek when he read prayers),
and had a deep sepulchral voice of unusual solemnity. Innumerable
were the calls made by prudent mammas on our new curate, and
innumerable the invitations with which he was assailed, and which,
to do him justice, he readily accepted. If his manner in the
pulpit had created an impression in his favour, the sensation was
increased tenfold, by his appearance in private circles. Pews in
the immediate vicinity of the pulpit or reading-desk rose in value;
sittings in the centre aisle were at a premium: an inch of room in
the front row of the gallery could not be procured for love or
money; and some people even went so far as to assert, that the
three Miss Browns, who had an obscure family pew just behind the
churchwardens', were detected, one Sunday, in the free seats by the