approbation of my services; and I have no doubt, had he possessed borough-interest, or any of the avenues to church preferment, he would have been happy to have rewarded me with a living. Hitherto, amidst all my inconveniences, I had never been disgusted with drudgery; but had enjoyed the otia sacra Camoenis, leisure sacred to the Muses, and had projected many literary undertakings, which my want of perseverance constantly rendered abortive. The scene, however, was about to change; but, since from this period commences a new series of events, I shall reserve the conclusion of my history for a future letter.

Lincolnshire,

Feb., 1793,

Your constant reader,

MUTABILIS.

THE COUNTRY SPECTATOR, No. 21, February 26, 1793.

in the several characters of an undergraduate at the university, a curate in a country village, a lecturer in London, and a travelling tutor. At the time of my return to England from my tour, I was in my thirtieth year; yet my loco

motive propensities still acted with all their force my constant amusement was to pore over a map, which gave me the idea of a change of place, and no music was so delightful to my ear as the rattling of a post-chaise.

Having waited some time, to no purpose, in the hope of employment, I accepted the appointment of an assistant at a large free-school in Kent. This was my first attempt at the business of education; and what can be more pleasant in the theory? But experience will convince all, who need conviction, that "to rear the tender thought, and teach the young idea how to shoot," is not, at least in a free-school, a very

delightful task." I soon found that my ushership entitled me to little or no respect, either among the scholars or the inhabitants of the town; and the efforts which I made to raise my importance, served only to subject me to ridicule and contempt: for how was it possible for an usher to be a gentleman? But the want of respect I could easily have endured: the want of ease and of every comfort was a far weightier evil. The hours of confinement were no less than ten in the day: and almost the whole burden of teaching fell upon myself. The master, being a clergyman without preferment, ingeniously contrived to make a benefice of his school. It was his custom to hear the boys their first lesson on the Monday morning, and thus to conclude his labours for the week. Out of the endowment, which was two hundred and fifty pounds annually, he regularly paid me the odd fifty pounds, for being (what he called with great accuracy of language) his assistant.

The mastership was in the gift of one of the companies in London: and it had generally been their practice to appoint the usher to fill the vacancy. This was a piece of intelligence which my employer took especial care to have me acquainted with. He repeatedly reminded me, "that he was sinking apace into the vale of

years, and I was a healthy young man, who might reasonably expect to survive him; that the character he had given of me to the trustees would infallibly ensure my election; and that he thought my prospect, if I persevered in my undertaking, highly flattering and desirable." All this rhetoric went only to prove, that he was very well satisfied with his usher; but as the satisfaction was not reciprocal, at the expiration of two years from my original engagement with him, I retired from his service.

Scarcely had I been settled in another situa tion, when my late employer actually died: and, to my great mortification, I heard of my successor's promotion to the vacant place after a service of a very few months. Repentance for having resigned my post, however vain, was imbittered with the reflection, that I had changed my condition not at all for the better, and I have sometimes thought for the worse. I was once more in a curacy; but a very different one from that, in which I had embarked at my departure from college. It was the curacy of a market town in Yorkshire, containing five or six thousand inhabitants. How I came to accept it, I now scarcely recollect; my accep tance of it, however, forms an epoch in my

history, as it opened to me a scene of life altogether new.

At my entering on my office I found, that I was little indebted to my predecessors for any advantages which I was to enjoy. It had frequently been the policy of the rector to take into his church such men, as would be most likely to submit to drudgery without repining or reluctance; men of unaspiring hopes and confined prospects, and who felt not the generous pride inseparable from liberal education. The curacy, therefore, was considered, as it well might be, a very mean employment; not, indeed, so low, as to be incapable of exaltation; and to entail certain discredit on all who should undertake it, but in some measure dependant on the conduct of the curate. After this statement, it may subject me to the charge of vanity, to inform you that I gradually rose into the esteem of the inhabitants, and, at length, was treated with a degree of respect scarcely inferior to that which was the portion of the rector himself: yet the obligations of truth and gratitude are too binding to be violated on any consideration whatever. The parishioners, for the most part, were people in business; I do not mean petty tradesmen, but extensive merchants, or men who speculated largely in their