and my own, which among them all I should have preferred. At first sight, that of the Rev. Louis Lackingham seems one that few men would have declined; the much respected rector of a large, opulent, and agricultural parish, to whom the Clergy List assigned an income of rather over 2,000l. per annum. In those days our clergymen were almost invariably men of good family and university education, and such a prize was not a rara avis; but now, when district churches are springing, up and pew-rents, the voluntary system, and short cuts into holy orders, are superseding the ancient ways, these good things are becoming each day more scarce. Probably there was greediness, unscrupulousness, and time-serving among some of the clergy. But let us do justice to the old times: human nature is still the same-the thing which has been is that which shall be: we shall not the less have greediness and unscrupulousness in the hundred candidates for an episcopal chapel, the income of which is made up of pew-rents, and cannot by any exertion be worked into 500l. per annum;

but it is a lower, and consequently a more numerous, class that furnishes the competitors.

Louis Lackingham, in the first instance a Winchester scholar, was, at the age of nineteen, transferred to Oxford. He was well-born, goodlooking, possessed great natural gifts of pleasing, and being early left an orphan, he had never experienced the wholesome restraint of parental control. His guardian informed him that in six more years he would be sole masterof 12,000l., and recommended the Church as a gentlemanly profession. Neither the information nor the suggestion was thrown away. He adopted the clerical vocation, and proceeded to spend his money in advance: first, the university tradesmen, the tailors, tobacconists, pastry-cooks, jewellers, and livery-stable livery-stable keepers, and, secondly, the children of Israel,-became his creditors; so that long before he had taken his degree, what with the legal debts of the first, and the usurious loans of the last, he owed very

nearly as much as he would receive two years from that time.

At length the moment of departure came, and for once he looked his affairs in the face; the result of the experiment was such a shock that for the rest of his life he never repeated the operation. "If only Lackingham would look his affairs in the face!" said one of his friends. "Yes; but he won't," replied a practical junior,. "and you can no more make a man look, than you can make him drink.”

So when he took his degree, he retired from the university as quietly as possible, giving such promises to his creditors as were best calculated to appease for the moment, and procured a title to holy orders in the shape of a curacy at a very secluded village in the most out-of-the-way part of Cornwall; where, for the space of one year, he gathered health and strength, and certainly spent little or nothing.

When the control of his guardian ceased, and the money was made over to him, he did what he considered best under the circumstances: he paid as little of it away as possible, and indeed only silenced a few of the most clamorous. He

then proceeded to conclude an engagement as travelling tutor to a nobleman, and for the next ten years the Rev. Louis Lackingham, in this capacity, and in other succeeding ones of the like nature, improved his knowledge of foreign languages and human nature, and added greater polish to an address naturally courtly and refined. He did not rebuke sin by any austerity of demeanour either in public or private; and was popular, consequently, with both men and women: he was discreet also, and a good listener, so that few guests were more welcome in polite society.

About this time, to his surprise, and I am not quite sure that it was to his gratification, he was presented to a fashionable curacy in the West End of London: I use the expression

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was presented," designedly, for it best expresses the operation, as far as he was concerned.

It

was one of those places where a diminution of popularity is very decidedly followed by a falling off of income. He was at this period thirty-four years of age, and in appearance an eminently

handsome and distinguished looking man. .His hair grew far back on the head, giving a semblance of greater benevolence and breadth to the upper regions than rightfully belonged to them; he had clearly defined eyebrows, a full purplegray eye, a well-cut nose, and a mouth and lips which his best friends admitted to be somewhat sensual and pleasure-loving in expression. He did not possess that first requisite of a town clergyman, the gift of eloquent discourse; but what his intellect or moral weight failed to hold, was won by his courteous manners and fine person; and if it may be said without scandal, wealthy widows and enterprising spinsters soon formed an obtrusively prominent portion of his congregation. Any conspiracy, however, entered into by these ladies against his celibate state was fated to fail; and the marriage of the Rev. Louis Lackingham to a very young lady of good family, considerable beauty, and an heiress in her own right, was not only duly announced, but solemnized with the pomp usual on these occasions.

Whether it were that perfect faith is due to