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If, when he reach'd his journey's end,
And warm'd himself in court or college,
He had not gain'd an honest friend,

And twenty curious scraps of knowledge;—
If he departed as he came,

With no new light on love or liquor,-Good sooth, the traveller was to blame, And not the vicarage, or the Vicar.

His talk was

like a stream which runs, With rapid change, from rock to roses; It slipp'd from politics to puns,

It pass'd from Mahomet to Moses: Beginning with the laws which keep

The planets in their radiant courses, And ending with some precept deep, For dressing cels or shoeing horses.

He was a shrewd and sound divine,

Of loud Dissent had mortal terror; And when, by dint of page and line,

He 'stablish'd truth, or started error, The Baptist found him far too deep;

The Deist sigh'd, with saving sorrow;

And the lean Levite went to sleep,

And dream'd of tasting pork to-morrow.

His sermons never said or show'd

That earth is foul, that heaven is gracious,

Without refreshment on the road

From Jerome or from Athanasius;

And sure a righteous zeal inspired

The hand and head that penn'd and plann'd them,

For all who understood, admired.

And some who did not understand them.

THE VICAR.

He wrote, too, in a quiet way,

Small treatises, and smaller verses: And sage remarks on chalk and clay,

And hints to noble lords and nurses; True histories of last year's ghost,

Lines to a ringlet or a turban; And trifles for the Morning Post, And nothing for Sylvanus Urban.

He did not think all mischief fair,
Although he had a knack of joking:
He did not make himself a bear.

Although he had a taste for smoking:
And when religious sects ran mad,

He held, in spite of all his learning, That if a man's belief is bad.

It will not be improved by burning.

And he was kind, and loved to sit

In the low hut or garnish'd cottage, And praise the farmer's homely wit,

And share the widow's homelier pottage: At his approach complaint grew mild,

And when his hand unbarr'd the shutter,

The clammy lips of Fever smiled

The welcome which they could not utter.

He always had a tale for me,

Of Julius Cæsar or of Venus:
From him I learn'd the Rule of Three,
Cat's-cradle, leap-frog, and Que genus,
I used to singe his powder'd wig,

To steal the staff he put such trust in; And make the puppy dance a jir,

Alack the change! in vain I look

For haunts in which my boyhood trifled,

The level lawn, the trickling brook,

The trees I climb'd, the beds I rifled: The church is larger than before,

You reach it by a carriage entry; It holds three hundred people more, And pews are fitted up for gentry.

Sit in the Vicar's seat: you'll hear
The doctrine of a gentle Johnian,
Whose hand is white, whose tone is clear,

Whose style is very Ciceronian.

Where is the old man laid?

Look down,

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