The Argosy — page 324: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Hap and Mishap. 303 prolonged tuning up of wheezy instruments abruptly ceased upon his vociferous exclamation, ‘‘ Sthop that feedle !” Speaking of curates, I remember that singularly uninteresting man, Bishop Jacobson, remarking to my incumbent, who had expressed regret at my leaving: ‘‘ You find the market for curates rather tight, don’t your” The truth is that curates are better off than half the incum- bents at the present day, whose income too much resembles that of a vicar in Cumberland in 1832 :— Fifty shillings per annum, a new surplice, a pair of clogs, and feed on the common for one goose.” One is almost sorry that the old act of Elizabeth is not in force, which allowed incumbents whose benefices did not exceed twelve pounds per annum to follow some trade. Curates, even in the time of Wickliff, had 43 6s. 8d. per annum; and the Mess-Johns and Trencher-chaplains at the houses of the squires, during last century, had a merry time of it, although the pay was but 426 a-year. If the singing-gallery was a feature in the churches of fifty years ago, sO was the square, spacious, and eminently comfortable family pew. Such is well described by Jane Welsh Carlyle, during her visit to the Bullers at Troston Rectory. ‘‘‘It is a nice pew that of ours,’ said old Mr. Buller; ‘it suits me remarkably well; for being so deep I am not overlooked ; and in virtue of that, I read most part of the Femme de Qualité this morning. But don’t,’ he added, ‘ tell Mr. Regy (his son, the Rector) this.’ I, also,” continues Mrs. Carlyle, ‘turned the depth of the pew to good account. When the sermon began, I made myself at the bottom of it a sort of Persian couch, out of the praying cushions, laid off my bonnet, and stretched out myself very much at my ease.” My earliest ecclesiastical recollections are associated with the family pew in the centre of a church: purchased, I believe, for a consider- able sum some years before; and, therefore, quite as exclusive as the family drawing-room. At each corner adjoining other pews rose a rod of iron several feet high, with four branches ending in small knobs: the whole resembling a plain gas standard. These were designed for gentlemen’s hats: and certainly kept them uninjured : but the sight of so many beavers, “the cynosure of neighbouring eyes,” dangling in mid-air was anything but devotional. At Christmas we had further adornment. ‘The decoration known as “twigging” caused sundry sprays of holly and mistletoe to be stuck at the top of the pew: and as my father followed the usual custom of standing with one knee bent on the seat during the prayers, and resting his book on the ledge, the prickly evergreen begot many a mild anathema. Other relatives had a square seat over the family vault, before the sanitary craze set in: and the remembrance that a few inches only separated us from the dust that once was love gave additional interest and solemnity to the spot. The cosy squire’s pew of the eighteenth century was an elaborate structure, luxuriously furnished, and surmounted by crimson curtains. connicloooks CO mn