EVERY-DAY CHARACTERS. I. THE VICAR. SOME years ago, ere Time and Taste Back flew the bolt of lissom lath; Fair Margaret in her tidy kirtle, Led the lorn traveller up the path, Through clean-clipt rows of box and myrtle: And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray, Upon the parlor steps collected, Wagged all their tails and seemed to say, "Our master knows you; you're expected!" Up rose the Reverend Doctor Brown, Up rose the Doctor's winsome marrow; The lady laid her knitting down, Her husband clasped his ponderous Barrow; Whate'er the stranger's caste or creed, Pundit or papist, saint or sinner, He found a stable for his steed, And welcome for himself, and dinner. If, when he reached his journey's end, And twenty curious scraps of knowledge;If he departed as he came, With no new light on love or liquo1— Good sooth, the traveller was to blame, And not the Vicarage, nor the Vicar. His talk was like a stream which runs It passed from Mahomet to Moses: The planets in their radiant courses, And ending with some precept deep For dressing eels or shoeing horses. He was a shrewd and sound divine, Of loud Dissent the mortal terror; And when, by dint of page and line, He 'stablished Truth, or started Error, |