empt_, while the fragment of
the tract which he had begun, _Concerning that Universal Hatred which
prevails against the Clergy_, brings us still more closely to Eachard.
The likeness between them cannot be traced further; they were both, it is
true, humorists, but there is little in common between the austere and
bitter, yet, at the same time, delicious flavour of the one, and the
trenchant and graphic, but coarse and rollicking, humour of the other.

The essays reprinted from the _Tatler_ give humorous expression to a
grievance which not only wounded the pride of the clergy, but touched
them on an equally sensitive part--the stomach. It was not usual for the
chaplain in great houses to remain at table for the second course. When
the sweets were brought in, he was expected to retire. As Macaulay puts
it: 'He might fill himself with the corned beef and carrots; but as soon
as the tarts and cheese-cakes made their appearance, he quitted his seat
and stood aloof till he was summoned to return thanks for the repast,
from a great part of which he had been excluded.' Gay refers to this
churlish custom in the second book of _Trivia_:--

'Cheese that the table's closing rites denies.
And bids me with th' unwilling chaplain rise.'

Possibly the custom originally arose, not from any wish to mark the
social inferiority of the chaplain, but because his presence was a check
on conversation. It must be owned, however, that this would have been
more intelligible had he retired, not with the corned beef and carrots,
but with the ladies. The passage quoted by Steele from Oldham is from his
_Satire, addressed to a Friend that is about to Leave the University and
come Abroad in the World_, not the only poem in which Oldham has thrown
light on the degraded profession of the clergy. See the end of his
_Satire, spoken in the person of Spenser_.

The last piece in this Miscellany has no connection with what precedes
it, but it has an interest of its own. Among the many services of one of
the purest and most indefatigable of philanthropists to his
fellow-citizens was the establishment of what is commonly known as _Poor
Richard's Almanack_. Of this periodical, and of the particular number of
it which is here reprinted, Franklin gives the following account in his
autobiography:--

'In 1732 I first published an Almanack, under the name of _Richard
Saunders_; it was continued by me about twenty-five years, and commonly
called _Poor Ri