THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 67 



help him with a charity sermon, adding, " Mr. 

 Wallas (the late vicar) tells me you preached 

 for the Blue-Coat School in this town fifty 

 years ago, and thinks you would be willing to 

 do so again next September. This I hope may 

 be the case, and I know that many of my 

 parishioners are hoping so too." 



Mr. Wallas also informs him that " the re- 

 ceipts on that occasion were more than they 

 have ever been since, except once, when the 

 late Bishop Phillpotts preached ; and then his 

 lordship's collection only exceeded yours by a 

 few shillings." 



That gifted bishop, it will be remembered, 

 was second to no man of his day in point of 

 powerful reasoning and persuasive eloquence ; 

 he had, too, the advantage of being a bishop — 

 a dignitarv formerlv so seldom seen in those 

 parts that the country people, according to 

 Grose, in their eagerness to. catch sight of him, 

 left their milk-pans on the fire till the cream 

 was "smitched," or, perhaps, burned; and 

 hence the proverb, " The bishop has put his 

 foot in it." 



The public, doubtless, no longer extend to 

 the clergy addicted to field sports the same 

 toleration they were wont to show them in 

 former times. Those times have, indeed, under- 

 gone a change ; but, with latitudinarianism, if 

 not infidelitv, rampant on one side, and Ritualism 



