In the case of Mr. Collins, the patron happened to be a lady, but the instances were numberless in which clergymen spent all their time toadying and drinking with a fox-hunting squire.
Arthur Young says of the French clergy—
“One did not find among them poachers or fox-hunters, who, having spent the morning scampering after hounds, dedicate the evening to the bottle, and reel from inebriety to the pulpit,” from which we may infer that many English clergymen did.
Cowper’s satire on the way in which preferment is secured is worth quoting in full—
“Church-ladders are not always mounted best
By learned clerks and Latinists professed.
The exalted prize demands an upward look,
Not to be found by poring on a book.
Small skill in Latin, and still less in Greek,
Is more than adequate to all I seek.