and a critical exercise of observation, he penetrated every man's characteristic foible, and worked upon it as he pleased.
Such was the Rev. Mr. Standfast, private chaplain to Major Malplaquet, and curate of Little Hockley. To this person I am going to introduce the vicar of Castlewick, who, conscious of the rectitude of his own intentions, was indulging himself in the flattering hope that his efforts, in conjunction with those of the curate, would effectually make up every breach between the two contending parties.


To the qualities already celebrated in Tiger Standfast—for so had he been nicknamed by his companions, from the utter impossibility of taming him—I shall add, that, let him converse with whom he might, he, as the phrase is, knew his man; and was always provided with so many shifts and turns, that come what would he was never off his guard. Besides he had an admirable knack of siding with his enemy, the better to laugh at him,
I thought it necessary to premise this, lest the reader should wonder how it came about that the moment he saw Mr. Mildman he should not only welcome him with all imaginable courtesey, but declare he intended, the next morning, to have paid him a visit, in order to consult with him on the very subject which had now brought them together:—adding, as he took the good old vicar by the hand, that he had a hard time of it indeed, but bad examples were terrible things, and if Lord Hazard

would encourage his tenants in idleness—which Mr. Mildman's experience must have long taught him is the corner stone of the temple of corruption—of what avail were all his prayers, nay his tears, in enforcing either their duty towards God or their neighbour.
The astonished vicar could scarcely credit his ears. He had not to learn the general character of Standfast; but, on the contrary, had both heard and believed much ill of him: and indeed, on his way, had uncharitably, as he now thought, conjured up a number of difficulties in his mind, which he expected would be thrown in the way of his beneficent plan.
This Standfast well knew, and as the first blow in argument, as well as boxing, is a manifest advantage, he had the inward satisfaction—I say inward because his features betrayed no such sensation—of seeing his antagonist struck aghast.
To pursue this first blow, therefore, he thus went on.
'I see Mr. Mildman you are shocked to find I have no more influence over my parishioners.'

The vicar, to whom truth was as