marks existed in the great University
diocese, which was presumably in advance rather than behind the age, and
that, moreover, the clergy were presided over by a man who was
thoroughly earnest and conscientious, and yet that he can only hint in
the most delicate way at improvements which, as the tone of his
exhortation evidently shows, he hardly hoped would be carried out, it
may be imagined what was the condition of parishes in less favoured and
more remote dioceses.

Another evil, which was greatly aggravated by the multiplication of
benefices in a single hand, was clerical poverty. There was in the last
century a far wider gap between the different classes of the clergy than
there is at the present day. While the most eminent or most fortunate
among them could take their places on a stand of perfect equality with
the highest nobles in the land, the bulk of the country curates and
poorer incumbents hardly rose above the rank of the small farmer. A much
larger proportion than now lived and died without the slightest prospect
of rising above the position of a stipendiary curate; and the regular
stipend of a curate was 30_l._ a year. When Collins complained of the
expense of maintaining so large a body of clergy, Bentley replied that
'the Parliamentary accounts showed that six thousand of the clergy had,
at a middle rate, not 50_l._ a year;' and he then added that argument
which was subsequently used with so much effect by Sydney Smith--viz.
that 'talent is attracted into the Church by a few great prizes.'[660]
Some years later, when Lord Shelburne asked Bishop Watson 'if nothing
could be gotten from the Church towards alleviating the burdens of the
State,' the Bishop replied that the whole revenue of the Church would
not yield 150_l._ a year to each clergyman, and therefore a diminution
would be inexpedient unless Government would be contented to have a
beggarly and illiterate clergy, which no wise minister would wish.'[661]
He might have added that, even as it was, a great number of the clergy,
if not 'beggarly and illiterate,' were either weighed down with the
pressure of poverty, or, to escape it, were obliged to have recourse to
occupations which were more fit for illiterate men. Dr. Primrose, in his
adversity, and Parson Adams are specimens of the better type of this
class of clergy, and it is to be feared that Parson Trulliber is not a
very unfair specimen of the worst. There is an odd illustration of the
immeasur