Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/447

Rh cum variis lectionibus, and the second appeared in 1780.

Kennicott took his degree of D.D. in 1761, and received from the Crown a pension of £200. In 1770 he was made Prebendary of Westminster, but this he afterwards exchanged for a canonry at Christchurch. He was also rector of Culham, a valuable living, but resigned it, as owing to his studies he was unable to reside and pay attention to his pastoral duties there.

Against the garden wall of Exeter College grew a fig tree, and Kennicott was very partial to figs. Now in a certain year there was but a single fig on the tree. The Doctor watched it, eagerly expecting when it would be ripe, for a fig is like a pear, it ripens and reaches perfection all at once, before which moment it is no good at all. To secure this fruit for himself he wrote out a label, "Dr. Kennicott's Fig," and hung it above the fruit on the tree. But just as the fig was fit to be gathered and eaten, some audacious undergraduate managed to get it, plucked, ate, and then reversing the label wrote in large letters thereon "A Fig for Dr. Kennicott."

When the reverend divine was at the height of his fame he visited Totnes, and was asked to preach in the parish church. This he consented to do. In the vestry he found his old father, still parish clerk, prepared to robe him. The Doctor protested. No on no account would he suffer that. He could perfectly well and unassisted encase himself in cassock and surplice and assume his scarlet doctorial hood. But the old man was stubborn. "But, Ben—I mean Reverend Doctor—do it I must, and do it I will. You know, Ben—I mean Reverend Sir—I am your father and you must obey." So the Hebrew scholar was fain to submit and give to the old parish clerk the proudest hour of his