LOVESUIT AND LAWSUIT.
Promise of marriage is like precious China—a man has so much to pay for its breakage.
MARTIN IN JACK'S GOWN; OR, MAWWORM WELL ACTED.
There is no kind of man more delightful to meet with than a good clergyman who is also a good fellow, and, moreover,—within canonical and decent limits—a wag. Now, here is one such singularly pleasant parson, writing, as a correspondent of the Times, thus:—
"Sir,—My attention has just been directed to an Advertisement in the Times of the 11th instant, inserted by the Great Western Railway Company, announcing an excursion train for Sunday, the 17th instant, to Oxford, Banbury, Leamington, Warwick, and concluding by saying, that 'the Warwick station is only a short distance from the romantic ruins of Kenilworth Castle.'
"This last sentence is probably only added as a bait to catch excursionists. It is well, therefore, that such and the public in general should know that—thanks to the excellent proprietor, the Earl of Clarendon—'the romantic ruins of Kenilworth Castle' are not open to visitors on the Sabbath—an arrangement, I may add, which has added much to the morality and proper observance of the Lord's Day in our parish.
"I remain, your obedient Servant,
"Edward R. Eardley Wilmot,
Vicar of Kenilworth."
"Vicarage, Kenilworth, July 18."
This is no judaising Puritan, this Mr. Wilmot. This is no semi-Christian pharisee, substituting for the broad phylactery the extensive white choker highly starched; no fanatical sort of hybrid or mule, taking most after donkey. No; our Reverend gentleman is a genial, kindly priest, with a turn for playful irony—in the spirit whereof he writes to the Times. He knows well enough—bless him!—that the liberal Earl of Clarendon would never have shut up "Kenilworth Castle" against the busy people, on the only day when there would be any use in opening it to them. He, to be sure, is aware that the ungracious deed has been perpetrated by some underling; some sanctimonious Barebones of a steward, or some methodistical old housekeeper, to whom the "bitter observance of the Sabbath" is sweeter than fees. Indeed, his use of the Jewish word Sabbath, in this connexion, for the day which he calls below by its Christian name, allows his real feeling as regards the matter to transpire. In feigning to thank the excellent Earl of Clarendon for a miserable act of bigotry, he takes a funny way of letting the noble Earl know what a sectarian ass some one of his servants has been making himself in the name, and at the expense, of the reputation of his Lordship.
The conclusion of our Reverend humourist's epistle is capital. No doubt such an arrangement as that of shutting up "a romantic ruin," a scene of picturesque and venerable beauty, replete with historical associations of famous memory, suggestive of lofty and solemn thought: no doubt the arrangement of closing such an objectionable place as this on the Sunday, must have "added much to the morality and proper observance" of that day in the parish, by tending considerably to increase the congregation at—the public-house.