Note 207 — No. 255. [Addison. From Thursday, Nov. 23, to Saturday, Nov. 25, 1710.

Mr. Overton, in his "Life in the English Church, 1660-1714," denies the truth of Macaulay's account of the condition of the clergy. He points out that the sons of many noble families were in the Church, and many clergymen of the highest standing were once domestic chaplains. But there was much "contempt of the clergy," as Eachard puts it, in his book published in 1670. Many enjoyed pluralities, which, of course, meant that a larger number than would otherwise have been the case were poor all their lives. Swift wrote: "I never dined with the chaplains till to-day; but my friend Gastrel and the Dean of Rochester had often invited me, and I happened to be disengaged: it is the worst provided table at court. We ate on pewter. Every chaplain, when he is made a dean, gives a piece of plate, and so they have got a little, some of it very old" ("Journal," October 6, 1711). See, too, Swift's "Project for the Advancement of Religion," and "Directions to the Waiting-Maid." Many private chaplains had salaries of £10 to £30 a year, with vales, and were called Mess Johns, trencher chaplains, and young Levites (Lecky's "History of England in the Eighteenth Century," i. 77, 78). Bishop Bramhall replied to Eachard in 1671, in "An Answer to a Letter of Inquiry," &c., and said that some gentlemen, at any rate, treated their chaplains with all proper respect. Edward Chamberlayne, on the other hand, in his "Angliæ Notitia" (1669), said that men thought it a stain to their blood to make their sons clergymen, and that women were ashamed to marry with any of them.