“But, at least,” I pleaded, “they don’t drink?”
“No-a, indeed; because they can’t afford it: Else——”
“Thou shalt not escape calumny,” said Hamlet. “Did a day’s work?” “Yes: because he is a man of the world.” “Didn’t get drunk?” “No: can’t afford it.” And even the wise and (comparatively) virtuous Inspector, when he meets in school the man of the world, who in general demeanour compares unfavourably with the schoolmaster, remembers easy-going old Broadcloth with a sigh, and hopes the new broom will sweep clean.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] See “Memoir of Dean Goulburn,” page 15.
[16] From a professional point of view Erasmus’ Geography was lamentable. He speaks of “this sea-side saint,” and says that the place is on “the extreme coast of England on the North West.” It is 7 miles from the Wash.
CHAPTER XI
MILLER’S
“A merrier man
Within the limit of becoming mirth
I never spent an hour’s talk withal.”
Love’s Labour’s Lost.
It was not in Norfolk that I met the Rev. Joseph Miller, Hon. Canon of his Cathedral, Rural Dean, and formerly Fellow and Tutor of some College in Oxford. Having at one time or another inspected schools in ten different counties I may leave the venue uncertain. It is merely for convenience that I record the visit here.
At the time when I made his acquaintance, he had acquired some notoriety in clerical circles in a singular way. In those days—I know not whether the rule is altered—the Bampton Lecturer at Oxford was appointed by a committee: there was a list of subjects to which the lecturer was confined, and any one who felt a call to the University pulpit sent in his application, specifying the particular subject upon which he was moved to discourse.