T9 



chnrch in England, its walls measuring only seventeen feet in 

 length on the outside. Wordsworth describes it as being scarcely 

 larger than many of the single stones or fragments of rock lying 

 near it. Like so many other chapels of the same class, it has been 

 rebuilt. In the notes to Mr. White's Lays and Legends of the 

 English Lake Country, there is some interesting information about 

 the chapelries in the fell dales, from which some of the following 

 particulars are taken. He tells us that the curacy of Buttermere 

 was certified to the governors of Queen Anne's bounty at one pound 

 yearly, paid by the contributions of the inhabitants ; it was also 

 certified that this chapel and Wythop were served by readers, 

 except when the curate of Lorton officiated in them, three or four 

 times a year. Such curacies were held in these northern counties 

 by unordained persons, until about the middle of George II.'s 

 Teign, when the bishops came to the resolution that no one should 

 officiate who was not in orders. But, to avoid injustice to those 

 already ofificiating, they were admitted to deacon's orders without 

 any preliminary examination. The reader, as he was called, at 

 the chapel in the vale of Newlands, received this kind of ordination, 

 he also exercised the various trades of dogger, tailor, and butter- 

 print maker. But the pay of a reader was so trifling, that he could 

 only maintain himself by the aid of some secular employment. 

 Even the livings were, many of them, not worth more than two or 

 three pounds a year ; and the ministers were therefore, in a great 

 measure, dependant upon the voluntary contributions of their 

 parishioners. Their stipends, besides the small money payment 

 above named, comprised "clothes yearly, and whittlegate." 

 "Clothes yearly," meant one suit of clothes, two pairs of shoes, 

 and one pair of clogs — more or less, according to the bargain 

 made. Mr. Clark gives the following explanation of the term 

 "whittlegate." '^'^ Whittlegate meant two or three weeks' victuals 

 at each house, according to the ability of the inhabitants, which 

 was settled among themselves ; so that the minister could go his 

 course as regularly as the sun, and complete it annually. Few 

 houses having more knives than one or two, the pastor was often 

 obliged to buy his own knife, or 'whittle.' Sometimes it was 



