THE CLERK AS A POET
The parish clerk, skilled in psalmody, has sometimes shown evidences of true poetic feeling. The divine afflatus has occasionally inspired in him some fine thoughts and graceful fancies. His race has produced many writers of terrible doggerel of the monumental class of poetry; but far removed from these there have been some who have composed fine hymns and sweet verse.
An obscure hymn-writer, whose verses have been sung in all parts of the world, was Thomas Bilby, parish clerk of St. Mary's Church, Islington, between the years 1842 and 1872. He was the parish schoolmaster also, and thus maintained the traditions of his office handed down from mediæval times. Before the days of School Boards it was not unusual for the clerk to teach the children of the working classes the three R's and religious knowledge, charging a fee of twopence per week for each child. Mrs. Mary Strathern has kindly sent me the following account of the church wherein Thomas Bilby served as clerk, and of the famous hymn which he wrote.
The church of St. Mary's, Islington, was not internally a thing of beauty. It was square; it had no chancel; the walls were covered with monuments and tablets to the praise and glory of departed parishioners. On three sides it had a wide gallery, the west end of which contained the organ, with the Royal Arms as large as life in front. On either side below the galleries were double rows of high pews, and down the centre passage a row of open benches for the poor. Between these benches and the altar, completely hiding the altar from the congregation, stood a huge "three-decker." The pulpit, on a level with the galleries, was reached by a staircase at the back; below that was "the reading desk," from which the curate said the prayers; and below that again, a smaller desk, where, Sunday after Sunday, for thirty years, T. Bilby, parish clerk and schoolmaster, gave out the hymns, read the notices, and published the banns of marriage. He was short and stout; his hair was white; he wore a black gown with deep velvet collar, ornamented with many tassels and fringes; and he carried a staff of office.
It was a great missionary parish. The vicar, Daniel Wilson, was a son of that well-known Daniel Wilson, sometime vicar of Islington, and afterwards Bishop of Calcutta. The Church Missionary College, where many young missionaries sent out by the Church Missionary Society are trained, stood in our midst; and it was within St. Mary's Church the writer saw the venerable Bishop Crowther, of the Niger, ordain his own son deacon. Mr. Bilby had at one time been a catechist and schoolmaster in Sierra Leone, and was full of interesting stories of the mission work amongst the freed slaves in that settlement. He had a magic lantern, with many views of Africa, and of the churches and schools in the mission fields, and often gave missionary lectures to the school children. It was on one of these occasions, when he had been telling us about his work abroad, and how he soon got to know when a black boy had a dirty face, that he said: "While I was in Africa, I composed a hymn, and taught the black children to sing it; and now there is not a Christian school in any part of the world where my hymn is not known and sung. I will begin it now, and you will all sing it with me." Then the old man began:
"Here we suffer grief and pain."
Immediately every child in the room took it up, and sang with might and main:
"Here we meet to part again;
In heaven we part no more."
We had always thought the familiar words were as old as the Bible itself, and could scarcely believe they had been written by our own old friend.
Soon after that memorable night, the old man began to get feeble; his place in the church and schools was frequently filled by "Young Bilby," as he was familiarly called; and in 1872, aged seventy-eight, the old parish clerk was gathered to his fathers, and his son reigned in his stead.
The other day a copy of a Presbyterian hymn-book found its way into my house, and there I found "Here we suffer grief and pain." I turned up the index which gives the names of authors, wondering if the compilers knew anything of the source from whence it came, and found the name "Bilby"; but who "Bilby" was, and where he lived, is known to very few outside the parish, where the name is a household word, for Mr. Bilby's son is still the parish clerk of St. Mary, Islington, and through him we learn that his father composed the tune as well as the words of "Here we suffer grief and pain."
As the hymn is not included in Hymns Ancient and Modern or some other well-known collection, perhaps it will be well to print the first two verses. It is published in John Curwen's The Child's Own Hymn Book:
"Here we suffer grief and pain;
Here we meet to part again:
In heaven we part no more.
O! that will be joyful,
Joyful, joyful, joyful,
O! that will be joyful!
When we meet to part no more!
"All who love the Lord below,
When they die to heaven will go,
And sing with saints above.
O! that," etc.
A poet of a different school was Robert Story, schoolmaster and parish clerk of Gargrave, Yorkshire. He was born at Wark, Northumberland, in 1795, but migrated to Gargrave in 1820, where he remained twenty years. Then he obtained the situation of a clerk in the Audit Office, Somerset House, at a salary of £90 a year, which he held till his death in 1860. His volume of poems, entitled Songs and Lyrical Poems, contains some charming verse. He wrote a pathetic poem on the death of the son of a gentleman at Malham, killed while bird-nesting on the rocks of Cam Scar. Another poem, The Danish Camp, tells of the visit of King Alfred to the stronghold of his foes, and has some pretty lines. "O, love has a favourite scene for roaming," is a tender little poem. The following example of his verse is of a humorous and festive type. It is taken from a volume of his productions, entitled The Magic Fountain, and Other Poems, published in 1829:
"Learn next that I am parish clerk:
A noble office, by St. Mark!
It brings me in six guineas clear,
Besides et cæteras every year.
I waive my Sunday duty, when
I give the solemn deep Amen;
Exalted then to breathe aloud
The heart-devotion of the crowd.
But oh, the fun! when Christmas chimes
Have ushered in the festal times,
And sent the clerk and sexton round
To pledge their friends in draughts profound,
And keep on foot the good old plan,
As only clerk and sexton can!
Nor less the sport, when Easter sees
The daisy spring to deck her leas;
Then, claim'd as dues by Mother Church,
I pluck the cackler from the perch;
Or, in its place, the shilling clasp
From grumbling dame's slow opening grasp.
But, Visitation Day! 'tis thine
Best to deserve my native line.
Great day! the purest, brightest gem
That decks the fair year's diadem.
Grand day! that sees me costless dine
And costless quaff the rosy wine,
Till seven churchwardens doubled seem,
And doubled every taper's gleam;
And I triumphant over time,
And over tune, and over rhyme,
Call'd by the gay convivial throng,
Lead, in full glee, the choral song!"
The writers of doggerel verses have been numerous. The following is a somewhat famous composition which has been kindly sent to me by various correspondents. My father used to tell us the rhymes when we were children, and they have evidently become notorious. The clerk who composed them lived in Somersetshire [67], and when the Lord Bishop of the Diocese came to visit his church, he thought that such an occasion ought not to be passed over without a fitting tribute to the distinguished prelate. He therefore composed a new and revised version of Tate and Brady's metrical rendering of Psalm lxvii., and announced his production after this manner:
"Let us zing to the Praze an' Glory of God part of the zixty-zeventh Zalm; zspeshul varshun zspesh'ly 'dapted vur t'cazshun.
"W'y 'op ye zo ye little 'ills?
And what var du 'ee zskip?
Is it a'cause ter prach too we
Is cum'd me Lord Biship?
"W'y zskip ye zo ye little 'ills?
An' whot var du 'ee 'op?
Is it a'cause to prach too we
Is cum'd me Lord Bishop?
"Then let us awl arize an' zing,
An' let us awl stric up,
An' zing a glawrious zong uv praze;
An' bless me Lord Bishup."
[67] Another correspondent states that the incident occurred at Bradford-on-Avon in 1806. Mr. Francis Bevan remembers hearing a similar version at Dover about sixty years ago. Can it be that these various clerks were plagiarists?
A somewhat similar effusion was composed by Eldad Holland, parish clerk of Christ Church, Kilbrogan parish, Bandon, County Cork, in Ireland. This church was built in 1610, and has the reputation of being the first edifice erected in Ireland for the use of the Church of Ireland after the Reformation. Bandon was originally colonised by English settlers in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and for a long time was a noted stronghold of Protestantism. This fact may throw light upon the opinions and sentiments of Master Holland, an original character, whose tombstone records that "he departed this life ye 29th day of 7ber 1722." When the news of the victory of William III reached Bandon there were great rejoicings, and Eldad paraphrased a portion of the morning service in honour of the occasion. After the first lesson he gave out the following notice:
"Let us sing to the praise and glory of William, a psalm of my own composing:
"William is come home, come home,
William home is come,
And now let us in his praise
Sing a Te Deum."
He then continued: "We praise thee, O William! we acknowledge thee to be our king!" adding with an impressive shake of the head, "And faith, a good right we have, for it was he who saved us from brass money, wooden shoes and Popery." He then resumed the old version, and reverently continued it to the end [68].
[68] This information was kindly sent to me by Mr. Robert Clarke, of Castle Eden, Durham, who states that he derived the information from The History of Bandon, by George Bennett (1869). My father used to repeat the following version:
"King William is come home,
Come home King William is come;
So let us then together sing
A hymn that's called Te D'um."
I am not sure which version is the better poetry! The latter corresponds with the version composed by Wesley's clerk at Epworth, old John; so Clarke in his memoirs of the Wesley family records.
"King William is come home,
Come home King William is come;
So let us then together sing
A hymn that's called Te D'um."
In a parish in North Devon [69] there was a poetical clerk who had great reverence for Bishop Henry Phillpotts, and on giving out the hymn he proclaimed his regard in this form: "Let us sing to the glory of God, and of the Lord Bishop of Exeter." On one occasion his lordship held a confirmation in the church on 5 November, when it is said the clerk gave out the Psalm in the usual way, adding, "in a stave of my own composing":
"This is the day that was the night
When the Papists did conspire
To blow up the King and Parliament House
With Gundy-powdy-ire."
[69] My kind correspondent, the Rev. J.B. Hughes, abstains from mentioning the name of the parish.
My informant cannot vouch for the truth of this story, but he can for the fact that when Bishop Phillpotts on another occasion visited the church his lordship was surprised to hear the clerk give out at the end of the service, "Let us sing in honour of his lordship, 'God save the King.'" The bishop rose somewhat hastily, saying to his chaplain, "Come along, Barnes; we shall have 'Rule, Britannia!' next."
Cuthbert Bede tells the story of a poetical clerk who was much aggrieved because some disagreeable and naughty folk had maliciously damaged his garden fence. On the next Sunday he gave out "a stave of his own composing":
"Oh, Lord, how doth the wicked man;
They increases more and more;
They break the posts, likewise the rails
Around this poor clerk's door."
He almost deserved his fate for barbarously mutilating a metrical Psalm, and was evidently a proper victim of poetical justice.
A Devonshire clerk wrote the following noble effort:--
"Mount Edgcumbe is a pleasant place
Right o'er agenst the Ham-o-aze,
Where ships do ride at anchor,
To guard us agin our foes. Amen."
Besides writing "hymns of his own composing," the parish clerk often used to give vent to his poetical talents in the production of epitaphs. The occupation of writing epitaphs must have been a lucrative one, and the effusions recording the numerous virtues of the deceased are quaint and curious. Well might a modern English child ask her mother after hearing these records read to her, "Where were all the bad people buried?" Learned scholars and abbots applied their talents to the production of the Latin verses inscribed on old brass memorials of the dead, and clever ladies like Dame Elizabeth Hobby sometimes wrote them and appended their names to their compositions. In later times this task seems to have been often undertaken by the parish clerk with not altogether satisfactory results, though incumbents and great poets, among whom may be enumerated Pope and Byron, sometimes wrote memorials of their friends. But the clerk was usually responsible for these inscriptions. Master John Hopkins, clerk at one of the churches at Salisbury at the end of the eighteenth century, issued an advertisement of his various accomplishments which ran thus:
"John Hopkins, parish clerk and undertaker, sells epitaphs of all sorts and prices. Shaves neat, and plays the bassoon. Teeth drawn, and the Salisbury Journal read gratis every Sunday morning at eight. A school for psalmody every Thursday evening, when my son, born blind, will play the fiddle. Specimen epitaph on my wife:
My wife ten years, not much to my ease,
But now she is dead, in cælo quies.
Great variety to be seen within. Your humble servant, John Hopkins."
My wife ten years, not much to my ease,
But now she is dead, in cælo quies.
Poor David Diggs, the hero of Hewett's story of The Parish Clerk, used to write epitaphs in strange and curious English. Just before his death he put a small piece of paper into the hands of the clergyman of the parish, and whispered a request that its contents might be attended to. When the clergyman afterwards read the paper he found the following epitaph, which was duly inscribed on the clerk's grave:
"Reader Don't stop nor shed no tears
For I was parish clerk For 60 years;
If I lived on I could not now as Then
Say to the Parson's Prases A loud Amen."
A very worthy poetical clerk was John Bennet, shoemaker, of Woodstock. A long account of him appears in the Lives of Illustrious Shoemakers, written by W.E. Winks. He inherited the office of parish clerk from his father, and with it some degree of musical taste. In the preface to his poems he wrote: "Witness my early acquaintance with the pious strains of Sternhold and Hopkins, under that melodious psalmodist my honoured Father, and your approved Parish Clerk." This is addressed to the Rev. Thomas Warton, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and sometime curate of Woodstock, to whose patronage and ready aid John Bennet was greatly indebted. Southey, who succeeded Warton in the Professorship, wrote that "This Woodstock shoemaker was chiefly indebted for the patronage which he received to Thomas Warton's good nature; for my predecessor was the best-hearted man that ever wore a great wig." Certainly the list of subscribers printed at the beginning of his early work is amazingly long. Noblemen, squires, parsons, great ladies, all rushed to secure the cobbler-clerk's poems, which were published in 1774. The poems consist mainly of simple rhymes or rustic themes, and are not without merit or humour. He is very modest and humble about his poetical powers, and tells that his reason for publishing his verses was "to enable the author to rear an infant offspring and to drive away all anxious solicitude from the breast of a most amiable wife." His humour is shown in the conclusion of his Dedication, where he wrote:
"I had proceeded thus far when I was called to measure a gentleman of a certain college for a pair of fashionable boots, and the gentleman having insisted on a perusal of what I was writing, told me that a dedication should be as laconic as the boots he had employed me to make; and then, taking up my pen, added this scrap of Latin for a Heel-piece, as he called it, to my Dedication:
"Jam satis est; ne me Crispini scrinia lippi
Compilasse putes, vertum non amplius."
The cobbler poet concludes his verses with the humorous lines:
"So may our cobler rise by friendly aid,
Be happy and successful in his trade;
His awl and pen with readiness be found,
To make or keep our understandings sound."
Later in life John Bennet published another volume, entitled Redemption. It was dedicated to Dr. Mavor, rector of Woodstock. It is a noble poem, far exceeding in merit his first essay, and it is a remarkable and wonderful composition for a self-taught village shoemaker. The author-clerk died and was buried at Woodstock in 1803.
A fine character and graceful poet was Richard Furness [70], parish clerk of Dore, five miles from Shalfield, a secluded hamlet. He was then styled "The Poet of the Peak," of sonorous voice and clear of speech, the author of many poems, and factotum supreme of the village and neighbourhood. Two volumes of his poems have been published. He combined, like many of his order, the office of parish clerk with that of schoolmaster, his schoolroom being under the same roof as his house. Thither crowds flocked. He was an immense favourite. The teacher of children, healer of all the lame and sick folk, the consoler and adviser of the troubled, he played an important part in the village life. His accomplishments were numerous. He could make a will, survey or convey an estate, reduce a dislocation, perform the functions of a parish clerk, lead a choir, and write an ode. This remarkable man was born at Eyam in 1791, the village so famous for the story of its plague, in an old house long held by his family. Over the door is carved:
R. 1615. F
[70] Biographical Sketches of Remarkable People, by Spencer T. Hall.
When a boy he was very fond of reading, and studied mathematics and poetry. Don Quixote was his favourite romance. His father would not allow him to read at night, but the student could not be prevented from studying his beloved books. In order to prevent the light in his bedroom from being seen in other parts of the house, he placed a candle in a large box, knelt by its side, and with the lid half closed few rays of the glimmering taper could reach the window or door. When he grew to be a man he migrated to Dore, and there set up a school, and began that active life of which an admirable account is given by Dr. G. Calvert Holland in the introduction of The Poetical Works of Richard Furness, published in 1858. In addition to other duties he sometimes discharged clerical functions. The vicar of the parish of Dore, Mr. Parker, was somewhat old and infirm, and sometimes found it difficult to tramp over the high moors in winter to privately baptize a sick child. So he often sent his clerk to perform the duty. On dark and stormy nights Richard Furness used to tramp over moor and fell, through snow and rain to some lonely farm or moorland cottage in order to baptize some suffering infant. On one occasion he omitted to ascertain before commencing the service whether the child was a boy or a girl. Turning to the father in the midst of a prayer, when the question whether he ought to use his or her had to be decided, he inquired, "What sex?" The father, an ignorant labourer, did not understand the meaning of the question. "Male or female?" asked the clerk. Still the father did not comprehend. At last the meaning of the query dawned upon his rustic intelligence, and he whispered, "It's a mon childt."
Thus does Richard Furness in his poems describe his many duties:
"I Richard Furness, schoolmaster, Dore,
Keep parish books and pay the poor;
Draw plans for buildings and indite
Letters for those who cannot write;
Make wills and recommend a proctor;
Cure wounds, let blood with any doctor;
Draw teeth, sing psalms, the hautboy play
At chapel on each holy day;
Paint sign-boards, cast names at command,
Survey and plot estates of land:
Collect at Easter, one in ten,
And on the Sunday say Amen."
He wrote a poem entitled Medicus Magus, or the Astrologer, a droll story brimming over with quiet humour, folk-lore, philology and archaic lore. Also The Ragbag, which is dedicated to "John Bull, Esq." The style of his poetry was Johnsonian, or after the manner of Erasmus Darwin, a bard whom the present generation has forgotten, but whose Botanic Garden, published in 1825, is full of quaint plant-lore and classical allusions, if it does not reach the highest form of poetic talent. Here is a poem by our clerkly poet on the Old Year's funeral:
"The clock in oblivion's mouldering tower
By the raven's nest struck the midnight hour,
And the ghosts of the seasons wept over the bier
Of Old Time's last son--the departing year.
"Spring showered her daisies and dews on his bed,
Summer covered with roses his shelterless head,
And as Autumn embalmed his bodiless form,
Winter wove his snow shroud in his Jacquard of storm;
For his coffin-plate, charged with a common device,
Frost figured his arms on a tablet of ice,
While a ray from the sun in the interim came,
And daguerreotyped neatly his age, death, and name.
Then the shadowing months at call
Stood up to bear the pall,
And three hundred and sixty-five days in gloom
Formed a vista that reached from his birth to his tomb.
And oh, what a progeny followed in tears--
Hours, minutes, and moments--the children of years!
Death marshall'd th' array,
Slowly leading the way,
With his darts newly fashioned for New Year's Day."
Richard Furness died in 1857, and was buried with his ancestors at Eyam. He thus sang his own requiem shortly before he passed away:
"To joys and griefs, to hopes and fears,
To all pride would, and power could do,
To sorrow's cup, to pity's tears,
To mortal life, to death adieu."
I will conclude this chapter on poetical clerks with a sweet carol for Advent, written by Mr. Daniel Robinson, ex-parish clerk of Flore, Weedon, which is worthy of preservation: