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another-" are you fool enough to take notice of it ?"

When Dr. Secker was enthroned, or soon after, he gave a charge to his clergy, and among other articles found great fault with the scanty allowance frequently paid to curates. Patten, who was there, (though not summoned, the bishop, fearful of some of his remarks, having ordered the proctor to leave him out of the list,) got up, and bowing to the archbishop, said with a loud voice, "I thank your grace." After the charge was over, the proctor by mistake called the Rev. Mr. Patten, who, bustling through the crowd, came up to the archbishop; he seeing he could not avoid it, began with the usual question, "You are, Sir, I think, curate of Whitstable ?" To which Patten replied, "I am, may it please your grace, and have for it received from your grace's predecessors the paltry sum of thirty pounds per annum only, although the living brings in above three hundred !" "Don't enlarge," said the archbishop. "No, but I hope your grace will," rejoined Mr. Patten.

The following story, of Parson Patten laying a ghost, I had from his own mouth.

A substantial farmer, married to a second wife, and who had a son grown up to man's estate, frequently promised to take him in as a partner in his farm, or at least to leave it to him at his decease; but having neglected to do either, on his death, his widow took possession of the lease, and carried on the business, the son in vain urging the father's promise, and requesting she would at least take him as a partner. In order to terrify his mother into a compliance, he used to rise at midnight, and with hideous groans to drag the waggon-chain about the yard and outhouses, circulating a report that this noise was occasioned by his father's ghost, and that

he would not rest quietly in his. grave till his promise to his son was completed. This was carried on for some time, till at length the widow, who had no relish for giving up any part of the farm, applied to Mr. Patten (in whose parish the farm lay) for his advice, saying she would have the ghost laid in the Red Sea, if he could do it. Patten, though no believer in ghosts, resolved to turn this matter to his own advantage, and putting on a grave counte nance, told her, that what she required was no small matter: that to lay a ghost, besides a good stock of courage, required much learning, as the whole form must necessarily be pronounced in Latin; wherefore he could not afford to do it under a guinea. The widow hereupon demurred for some time; but at length, tired out with the freaks of the supposed ghost, who every day became more and more outrageous, agreed to give it.. Patten, moreover, required a fire in the best parlour, two candles, and a large bowl of punch. These being all prepared, the parson took his post, expecting the ghost. The farmer's son, who did not know the sort of man he had to deal with, thought he could frighten the parson, and accordingly at twelve began his perambulation. No sooner did Patten hear his chain and groans than he sallied forth, and without any farther ceremony seized the supposed ghost by the collar, belabouring him at the same time heartily with a good oak sapling. The young farmer, finding himself by no means a match for his opponent, fell on his knees, and confessed the contrivance, beseeching the parson at the same time not to expose him, nor reveal it to his mother-in-law, who would have been glad of the pretence to turn him out of the house. The parson, on the young man's promise never to disturb the house again, let him go, and undertook to settle matters with his mother-inlaw.

Early next morning she came down, anxious to know what had passed the preceding night, when the parson, with a well-counterfeited terror in his countenance, told her he had been engaged in a tertible conflict, the deceased being one of the most obstinate and fierce spirits he had ever met with but that he had at length, with great difficulty and expence of Latin, laid him. Poor wicked soul ! (says he) I forgive him, though great part of his disquiet is owing to thirty shillings, for tythes, of which he defrauded me, but which he desired, nay, commanded, you should pay, and on that condition only he has agreed to trouble the house no more ; he does not insist on your completing his promise to your son, but wishes you would at least let him have a share in the farm. To this the woman assented; and the parson received the thirty shillings over and above the stipulated guinea. The woman likewise admitted her son-in-law joint partner with her in the lease,

Among the good qualities the Rev. Mr. Patten had to boast of, that of a good paymaster was not included: on the contrary, fame spoke so unfavorably of him respecting this article that none of the Canterbury tradesmen would let him have a single article of goods without first depositing the ready money for it. Under this predicament, his wig had long passed through the medium of strait hair to the state of curling negatively or inwards, or, in plain terms, was reduced to the condition of being only fit for a scare-crow: but how to get another was the difficulty--he had not the money, and christian faith was wanting.

In this situation, he accidentally heard of a new peruke-maket from London, who had lately settled in the High-street. To him he went a little before dinner-time, and bepoke a full cauliflower wig.

The barber, struck with the reverend appearance of his new customer (whose character had not reached his ears), gladly undertook to furnish him; and his dinner being ready, he respectfully begged the honor of the doctor's company to partake of it, and afterwards introduced a large bowl of punch. Patten ate and drank heartily, and got into great good humour. When the bowl was out, the barber would have proceeded to business, and produced his measures; but Patten cut him short, and greatly surprised him by saying, "he need not trouble himself to measure him, he would get his wig elsewhere." The barber, fearing he had taken offence at something that had passed at table, humbly begged pardon if he had been wanting in respect, protesting it was unintentional, and contrary to his meaning."No, no, Sir," answered Patten, "it is nothing of that: look you, you are an honest ge nerous fellow; it would be a pity to take you in I should never have paid you for your wig, I will therefore get it elsewhere.'

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A neighbouring clergyman, who pretended to great skill in the Hebrew and Oriental languages, shewed Patten his study, in which were books in almost every language. "And pray, brother," said Patten, "do you understand all those different tongues?" On being answered in the affirmative, "One would think," rejoined he, "that you had got your head broken with a brick from the tower of Babel.

Patten long refused to read the Athanasian creed. The archdeacon reproving him for that omission, told him, his grace the archbishop read it.

"That

may be," answered Patten," perhaps he may believe it, but I don't: he believes at the rate of seven thousand per annum; I at that of less than fifty."

Patten, in his last sickness, was in great distress, which Dr. Secker hearing, sent him ten guineas by the archdeacon; to whom he made the following acknowledgment: "Thank his grace most heartily, and tell him, now I know he is a man of God, for I have seen his good angels."

STRANGE VENGEANCE

TAKEN BY A MALAY SLAVE, AT THE CAPE, ON HIS DUTCH MASTER.

HE slave having served with great activity and

cipation. His request was denied. A few days afterwards, he murdered his fellow-labourer and friend. Being brought before a commission of the court of justice, he acknowledged that the youth whom he had murdered was his friend, but that the killing him had appeared the most effectual way of being revenged on his master, and better than even the killing the master himself, because by robbing him of 1000 rixdollars by the loss of the boy, and another thousand by bringing himself to death, the avaricious mind of his master would be for ever tormented for the remainder of his days.

The voluminous commentator, Burman, used to read out a certain number of pipes of tobacco. His countrymen at the Cape of Good Hope have adopted the same mode of reckoning time when they flog the Hottentots. The government of Malacca also flog by pipes, and the chief magistrate and his assessors are the smokers on such occasions.

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