For prating so long, like a book-learned sot,
Till pudding and dumpling burn to pot?
Burn to pot."
There can be little question that the parson did get cheated over and over again, and bore it without a murmur.
An amusing ballad is sung to this day in the west of England relative to the way in which parsons were treated by their parishioners—
"There wor a man in our town,
I knowed him well, 'twor Passon Brown,
A man of credit and renown,
For—he wor our Passon.
Passon he had got a sheep,