The Parish Clerk

by P. H. Ditchfield

"The Churches Bible-clerk attends
Her utensils, and ends
Her prayers with Amen,
Tunes Psalms, and to her Sacraments
Brings in the Elements,
And takes them out again;
Is humble minded and industrious handed,
Doth nothing of himself, but as commanded."

Of the sexton he wrote:

"The Churches key-keeper opens the door,
And shuts it, sweeps the floor,
Rings bells, digs graves, and fills them up again;
All emblems unto men,
Openly owning Christianity
To mark and learn many good lessons by."

In that delightful sketch of old-time manners and quaint humour, Sir Roger de Coverley, the editor of The Spectator gave a life-like representation of the old-fashioned service. Nor is the clerk forgotten. They tell us that "Sir Roger has likewise added five pounds a year to the clerk's place; and that he may encourage the young fellows to make themselves perfect in the Church services, has promised, upon the death of the present incumbent, who is very old, to bestow it according to merit." The details of the exquisite picture of a rural Sunday were probably taken from the church of Milston on the Wiltshire downs where Addison's father was incumbent, and where the author was born in 1672. Doubtless the recollections of his early home enabled Joseph Addison to draw such an accurate picture of the ecclesiastical customs of his youth. The deference shown by the members of the congregation who did not presume to stir till Sir Roger had left the building was practised in much more recent times, and instances will be given of the observance of this custom within living memory.

Two other references to parish clerks I find in The Spectator which are worthy of quotation:

"Spectator, No. 372.
"In three or four taverns I have, at different times, taken notice of a precise set of people with grave countenances, short wigs, black cloaths, or dark camblet trimmed black, with mourning gloves and hat-bands, who went on certain days at each tavern successively, and keep a sort of moving club. Having often met with their faces, and observed a certain shrinking way in their dropping in one after another, I had the unique curiosity to inquire into their characters, being the rather moved to it by their agreeing in the singularity of their dress; and I find upon due examination they are a knot of parish clerks, who have taken a fancy to one another, and perhaps settle the bills of mortality over their half pints. I have so great a value and veneration for any who have but even an assenting Amen in the service of religion, that I am afraid but these persons should incur some scandal by this practice; and would therefore have them, without raillery, advise to send the florence and pullets home to their own homes, and not to pretend to live as well as the overseers of the poor.
"HUMPHRY TRANSFER.

"Spectator, No. 338.
"A great many of our church-musicians being related to the theatre, have in imitation of their epilogues introduced in their favourite voluntaries a sort of music quite foreign to the design of church services, to the great prejudice of well-disposed people. These fingering gentlemen should be informed that they ought to suit their airs to the place and business; and that the musician is obliged to keep to the text as much as the preacher. For want of this, I have found by experience a great deal of mischief; for when the preacher has often, with great piety and art enough, handled his subject, and the judicious clerk has with utmost diligence called out two staves proper to the discourse, and I have found in myself and in the rest of the pew good thoughts and dispositions, they have been all in a moment dissipated by a merry jig from the organ loft."

Dr. Johnson's definition of a parish clerk in his Dictionary does not convey the whole truth about him and his historic office. He is defined as "the layman who reads the responses to the congregation in church, to direct the rest." The great lexicographer had, however, a high estimation of this official. Boswell tells us that on one occasion "the Rev. Mr. Palmer, Fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge, dined with us. He expressed a wish that a better provision were made for parish clerks. Johnson: 'Yes, sir, a parish clerk should be a man who is able to make a will or write a letter for anybody in the parish.'" I am afraid that a vast number of our good clerks would have been sore puzzled to perform the first task, and the caligraphy of the letter would in many cases have been curious.

That careful delineator of rural manners as they existed at the end of the eighteenth century, George Crabbe, devotes a whole poem to the parish clerk in his nineteenth letter of The Borough. He tells of the fortunes of Jachin, the clerk, a grave and austere man, fully orthodox, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, and detecter and opposer of the wiles of Satan. Here is his picture:

"With our late vicar, and his age the same,
His clerk, bright Jachin, to his office came;
The like slow speech was his, the like tall slender frame:
But Jachin was the gravest man on ground,
And heard his master's jokes with look profound;
For worldly wealth this man of letters sigh'd,
And had a sprinkling of the spirit's pride:
But he was sober, chaste, devout, and just,
One whom his neighbours could believe and trust:
Of none suspected, neither man nor maid
By him were wronged, or were of him afraid.
There was indeed a frown, a trick of state
In Jachin: formal was his air and gait:
But if he seemed more solemn and less kind
Than some light man to light affairs confined,
Still 'twas allow'd that he should so behave
As in high seat, and be severely grave."