Folly and vice to rank luxuriance grow;
Honours and wealth pour in on every side,
And proud preferment rolls her golden tide.
CHURCHILL
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THE VICAR - THE CURATE.
The lately departed Minister of the Borough - His soothing and supplicatory Manners - His cool and timid Affections - No praise due to such negative Virtue - Address to Characters of this kind - The Vicar’s employments - His Talents and moderate Ambition - His dislike of Innovation - His mild but ineffectual Benevolence - A Summary of his Character. Mode of paying the Borough-Minister - The Curate has no such Resources - His Learning and Poverty - Erroneous Idea of his Parent - His Feelings as a Husband and Father - the Dutiful Regard of his numerous Family - His Pleasure as a Writer, how interrupted - No Resource in the Press - Vulgar Insult - His Account of a Literary Society, and a Fund for the Relief of indigent Authors, &c.
THE VICAR.
WHERE ends our chancel in a vaulted space,
Sleep the departed Vicars of the place;