The Anatomy of Melancholy

He will receive every kind word that can be offered: “A fine man! What a pity he has no appointment!” All good wishes—but the patron, unyielding and hard-hearted as he is, will not advance him, though he has the power, because the scholar is “without a dowry”: he has no money. Or, if the patron does take him into his household, however well qualified he may be, however he pleads kinship by marriage or blood, or his own competence, he must serve seven years, as Jacob did for Rachel, before he receives the appointment.

If he wants to enter at once, he must still come in through that simoniacal gate, pay handsomely and provide sound security that he will fulfil every condition; otherwise the patron will neither deal with him nor admit him. But if some poor scholar, some worthless parson offers himself—some table-fed chaplain who will take the living on halves or thirds, or accept whatever the patron will give—he is welcome. Let him conform and preach as the patron wishes, and he is preferred to a million others: for the best is always the cheapest.

And then, as Jerome said to Chromatius, “a lid worthy of the dish”: such a patron, such a clergyman. The parish is well provided for, and everyone is pleased.

So what Chrysostom complained of in his own time remains true in ours: “The wealthier men force them into the ranks of parasites and keep them at their tables like dogs, stuffing their shameless bellies with the remnants of unjust feasts and using them at will.”

Rich men keep these lecturers and fawning parasites like so many dogs at their tables, fill their hungry guts with scraps from their meals, misuse them at pleasure and make them say whatever they prescribe.

As children treat a bird or butterfly on a string, pulling it in and letting it out as they please, so these men treat their table-fed chaplains: they lay down rules, command their minds, pull them in and let them out as they think best. If the patron is a strict Puritan, his chaplain must be one too; if he is a papist, his clergyman must also be one, or be turned out.

These are the clergymen who serve their purpose, whom they commonly employ and nominate to church livings. Meanwhile we university men, like so many stunted calves in a pasture, wait out our time and wither away like an unpicked flower in a garden, never put to use. Or, like so many candles, we light only ourselves, obscuring one another’s light, and are not noticed here at all. Yet the least of us, moved to a dark room or some country living where he could shine on his own, would give a good light, visible everywhere.

While we lie waiting here for a favourable hour, as those sick men waited by the pool of Bethesda until the angel stirred the water, they step in between and cheat us of our advancement. I have not yet said this: if, after long waiting, great expense and labour, and earnest appeals by ourselves and our friends, we finally obtain a small living, our misery begins afresh. The flesh, the world and the devil suddenly meet us with a fresh assault. We exchange a quiet life for an ocean of troubles.