and Latin than
himself. These illiterate boors, as he supposed them, caught him at once
in a false concord, and Mr. Platitude had to slink home overwhelmed with
shame. To avenge himself he applied to the ecclesiastical court, but was
told that the Dissenters could not be put down by the present
ecclesiastical law. He found the Church of England, to use his own
expression, a poor, powerless, restricted Church. He now thought to
improve his consequence by marriage, and made up to a rich and beautiful
young lady in the neighbourhood; the damsel measured him from head to
foot with a pair of very sharp eyes, dropped a curtsey, and refused him.
Mr. Platitude, finding England a very stupid place, determined to travel;
he went to Italy; how he passed his time there he knows best, to other
people it is a matter of little importance. At the end of two years he
returned with a real or assumed contempt for everything English, and
especially for the Church to which he belongs, and out of which he is
supported. He forthwith gave out that he had left behind him all his
Church of England prejudices, and, as a proof thereof, spoke against
sacerdotal wedlock and the toleration of schismatics. In an evil hour
for myself he was introduced to me by a clergyman of my acquaintance, and
from that time I have been pestered, as I was this morning, at least once
a week. I seldom enter into any discussion with him, but fix my eyes on
the portrait over the mantel-piece, and endeavour to conjure up some
comic idea or situation, whilst he goes on talking tomfoolery by the hour
about Church authority, schismatics, and the unlawfulness of sacerdotal
wedlock; occasionally he brings with him a strange kind of being, whose
acquaintance he says he made in Italy. I believe he is some sharking
priest, who has come over to proselytize and plunder. This being has
some powers of conversation and some learning, but he carries the
countenance of an arch villain; Platitude is evidently his tool."

"Of what religion are you?" said I to my host.

"That of the Vicar of Wakefield--good, quiet, Church of England, which
would live and let live, practises charity, and rails at no one; where
the priest is the husband of one wife, takes care of his family and his
parish--such is the religion for me, though I confess I have hitherto
thought too little of religious matters. When, however, I have completed
this plaguy work on which I am engaged, I hope to be able