2nd §, No 21,, May 24. °56.] 
Daly impeached by the Commons; at four in the after- 
noon Committee of Petitions sits; Chief Justice Keat- 
ing’s Petition read; Lord Forbe’s and Lord Galway’s 
adjourned to the 31st, because the 30th was a Popish 
Holiday. 
“ May 31. Judg Daly’s Petition read and granted ; 
Scope of it for time to answer the Commons Impeach- 
ments, and to have a Copy of it: Lord Galway’s heard at 
the Bar about his Ladies Remainder in Lord Lanes- 
borough’s Estate; Proviso granted for it: Lord Rivers- 
town reports the Alterations made in the Bill of Repeal 
by the Committee, which were all consented to. 
(To be continued.) 
CLERICAL DESIGNATIONS. 
In the Marquis of Blandford’s proposed * New 
Parishes Act,” it is intended to coin a new term 
for a class of beneficed clergymen, viz. “ district 
rector.” But this would be rather anomalous in 
places like Cheltenham, where the incumbent of 
the old parish church is a “ perpetual curate.” I 
would recall attention to my remarks in “ N. & 
Q.,” 1% S. xii. 160., and observe that a new ad- 
justment of terms is needed. 
In the Rubric appended to the Communion 
Service we read, “ The parson, vicar, or curate, 
or his or their deputy or deputies.” As parson 
means “ rector,’ so 1 presume curate here means 
what we now call “ perpetual curate ;” while the 
deputy means what we now call a “curate,” i.e. 
(legally) a “stipendiary curate,” or deputy- 
minister paid by the incumbent. Can any of 
your readers trace out the rise and progress of 
the present use of the various terms ? 
Could the opportunity of any new act be taken 
for the legal re-adjustment of these things? For 
example, the incumbents of parishes where the 
tithes are all appropriated or impropriated, or 
where there are no tithes at all, might suitably be 
termed a “ pro-rector” (i. e. for a rector), instead 
of perpetual curate, leaving the term “ vicar” to 
the cases where there are vicarial tithes. The 
term “ district rector ” would not then be quite so 
incongruous if applied to incumbents of new 
“ ecclesiastical parishes ;” though the one term 
* pro-rector”” would do as well for all such cases 
as any distinctive title. The stipendiary assistant 
might be termed a “deputy,” or (as I hinted in 
1* §. xii. 160-1.) a “clerk in orders;” and the 
arish clerk be termed a “lay clerk,” which term 
is now legally applicable under the act of 7 & 8 
Vict. c. 59. to the person who acts as “ parish 
clerk” (i. e. as responding clerk), when the office 
of parish clerk is held by a clergyman who serves 
as curate, and who is then called the “clerk in 
orders,” as in Liverpool, St. James’s, Westmin- 
ster, and other large places. For the responding 
clerk is appointed by the clergyman, and not by 
the parish ; so that the term “lay clerk” would 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
407 
be move correct than the term “ parish clerk” is. 
The term “ clerk in orders” would admirably ex- 
press the position of (what we now call) a “ cu- 
rate,” for he is paid by the incumbent to perform 
the office of a “ clerk” (7. e. of one who can read 
and write) in matters requiring a person “in 
orders,” 7.¢. in reading the church prayers and 
occasional services, and writing and reading 
sermons; and he stands much in the same sort of 
a position to the incumbent as a lawyer’s clerk 
does to a lawyer. 
In the recent “ Church Discipline Bill” of the 
Lord Chancellor, a good opportunity would have 
occurred for introducing the legal use of the term 
“clereyman” for clerk, and perhaps of formally 
substituting it in all future documents. Could it 
be done in any future bill? As “clerk” means 
one who can read, so it seems to me that it may 
be applied as much to a layman as to aclergyman. 
And as the census papers complained of the con- 
fusion caused by the use of “clerk,” so I would 
beg to invite the clerical readers of ““ N. & Q.” to 
endeayour at once quietly and practically to in- 
troduce the use of the word “clergyman ;” thus 
in all petitions to parliament, in all baptismal and 
marriage registers, and in all documents where 
they now usually add “clerk,” or “clerk in holy 
orders,” to their names, or the names of others, to 
denote their occupation, let them henceforth put 
“clergyman.” Iam informed on good authority 
that in the nomination to a curacy, or testimonials 
to a bishop, there is no necessity for the use of the 
term “clerk,” and that “clergyman” would do 
quite as well. Ihave myself adopted the latter 
term, as more consistent with common sense, for 
the word “clerk” may mean almost anything. 
C. H. Davis, Clergyman. 
Nailsworth. 
P.S.— Perhaps some of your legal readers 
would kindly point out any cases where “ clerk” 
may be essential to create a legal document ? 
Wherever it is not essential, surely the sooner it 
is abolished the better. 
BOSWELL’'s “ JOHNSON.” 
1. Asa laudable desire has been shown to il- 
lustrate the English Classic, I would ask through 
your columns if the name of the party who mali- 
ciously reprinted the Marmor Norfolciense in 
1775, with a stinging dedication to Johnson, under 
the signature of ‘ Tribunus,” is known? Enjoy- 
ing, as the Doctor then was, a pension from the 
House of Hanover, he could ill afford to have his 
earlier Jacobite tendencies recalled to public 
notice; nevertheless, Boswell tells us that he met 
this attack upon him by one of his petty adversaries 
with great good humour; laying aside both his 
