A CONCEITED PARSON.
Windsor.-Who should find me out now but Dr. Shepherd.[243] He is here as canon, and was in residence. He told me he had long wished to come, but had never been able to find the way of entrance before. He made me an immense length of visit, and related to me all the exploits of his life,-so far as they were prosperous. In no farce did a man ever more floridly open upon his own perfections. He assured me I should be delighted to know the whole of his life; it was equal to anything; and everything he had was got by his own address and ingenuity.
“I could tell the king,” cried he, “more than all the chapter. I want to talk to him, but he always gets out of my way; he does not know me; he takes me for a mere common person, like the rest of the canons here, and thinks of me no more than if I were only fit for the cassock;—a mere Scotch priest! Bless ‘em!—they know nothing about me. You have no conception what things I have done! And I want to tell ‘em all this;—It’s fitter for them to hear than what comes to their ears. What I want is for somebody to tell them what I am.”
They know it already, thought I.
Then, when he had exhausted this general panegyric, he descended to some few particulars; especially dilating upon his preaching, and applying to me for attesting its excellence.
“I shall make one sermon every year, precisely for you!” he cried; “I think I know what will please you. That on the creation last Sunday was just to your taste. You shall have such another next residence. I think I preach in the right tone—not too slow, like that poor wretch Grape, nor too fast like Davis and the rest of ‘em; but yet fast enough never to tire them. That’s just my idea of good preaching.”
Then he told me what excellent apartments he had here and how much he should like my opinion in fitting them up.