 but withall so heavy an article in itself, as to disable him from any
other act of generosity in his parish: Besides this he considered, that, with
half the sum thus galloped away, he could do ten times as much good; -- and what
still weighed more with him than all other considerations put together, was
this, that it confined all his charity into one particular channel, and where,
as he fancied, it was the least wanted, namely to the child-bearing and
child-getting part of his parish; reserving nothing for the impotent, - nothing
for the aged, - nothing for the many comfortless scenes he was hourly called
forth to visit, where poverty, and sickness, and affliction dwelt together.
    For these reasons he resolved to discontinue the expence; and there appeared
but two possible ways to extricate him clearly out of it; - and these were,
either to make it an irrevocable law never more to lend his steed upon any
application whatever, - or else be content to ride the last poor devil, such as
they had made him, with all his aches and infirmities, to the very end of the
chapter.
    As he dreaded his own constancy in the first, -- he very chearfully betook
himself to the second; and tho' he could very well have explain'd it, as I said,
to his honour, - yet, for that very reason, he had a spirit above it; choosing
rather to bear the contempt of his enemies, and the laughter of his friends,
than undergo the pain of telling a story, which might seem a panegyric upon
himself.
    I have the highest idea of the spiritual and refined sentiments of this
reverend gentleman, from this single stroke in his character, which I think
comes up to any of the honest refinements of the peerless knight of La Mancha,
whom, by the bye, with all his follies, I love more, and would actually have
gone further to have paid a visit to, than the greatest hero of antiquity.
    But this is not the moral of my story: The thing I had in view was to shew
the temper of the world in the whole of this affair. - For you must know, that
so long as this explanation would have done the parson credit, - the devil a
soul could find it out, - I suppose his enemies would not, and that his friends
could not. -- But no sooner did he bestir himself in behalf of the midwife, and
pay the expences of the ordinary's licence to set her up, -
