His wife
ministers to him in vain. As morning dawns the good woman notices
Peter's wig suspended on the great chair. "Oh, Peter," she cries, "what
hast thou been doing to burn all t' hair off one side of thy wig?" "Ah!
bless thee," says the clerk, "thou hast cured me with that word." The
mysterious "hiss" and "hush" were sounds from the frizzling of Peter's
wig by the flame of the candle, which to his imperfect sense of hearing
imported things horrible and awful. Such is the story which a writer in
Hone's _Year Book_ tells, and which is said to have afforded Peter
Priestly and the good people of merry Wakefield many a joke.
The _Year Book_ is always full of interest, and in the same volume I
find an account of a most worthy representative of the profession, one
John Kent, the parish clerk of St. Albans, who died in 1798, aged eighty
years. He was a very venerable and intelligent man, who did service in
the old abbey church, long before the days when its beauties were
desecrated by Grimthorpian restoration, or when it was exalted to
cathedral rank. For fifty-two years Kent was the zealous clerk and
custodian of the minster, and loved to describe its attractions. He was
the friend of the learned Browne Willis. His name is mentioned in
Cough's _Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain_, and his intelligence
and knowledge noticed, and Newcombe, the historian of the abbey,
expressed his gratitude to the good clerk for much information imparted
by him to the author.
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