His dietary is open to no objection in regard either to quantity or quality; except that, in both respects, it tends rather to produce plethora and engender gout. It is, in fact, discretional; for even when he enjoys an indoor maintenance, he receives a stipend in lieu of rations, and this sum is usually handsome enough to enable him to indulge in every delicacy of every season.
When he thus lives in the House--the Almshouse provided for him--he has the whole of it to himself, and is required to share it with nobody except his own family if he is blessed with one: so far, therefore, from being separated from his wife in a comfortless ward, he occupies a mansion which is the abode of domestic happiness.
His work is mostly as optional, conversely, as his victuals: so that he can eat and drink as much, and exert himself as little as he likes. The only employment obligatory upon him is light clerical duty, and the greater part of that he is permitted to delegate to somebody else. He is supposed, indeed, to be continually producing new editions of Greek Testament, biblical or patristic commentaries, confutations of Popery, apologies for Church-rates, and other works tending to the spiritual welfare of the nation; to the due performance of which tasks a necessary condition is learned leisure, accompanied by nutritious food and generous liquor.
This walking monument of beneficence--walking when he does not ride in a well-appointed carriage--is almost the only eleemosynary kind of person, except the actual mendicant, existing among HER MAJESTY'S subjects. The funds which serve for the maintenance of the order of industrious poverty to which this useful member of society belongs, are derived from freehold and personal property together with rent-charges on land, amounting on the whole to £50,000,000. That all this property was granted by our ancestors for charitable purposes--to wit hospitals and schools--attests their munificence; whilst how prosperous we are is evident from the fact, that in order to use up all their bounty, we roll several hundred paupers into one.
The Clerk of the Weather ought certainly to be called to account for his treatment of our gallant soldiers at Chobham, who have been literally in "soak" during nearly the whole of the present campaign. The incessant wet is, in fact, a reflection upon the courage of the military, for we may well ask if they are subjected to weather that is always foul on the principle, that "none but the brave deserve the fair."