Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/415

 2d s. N 21., MAY 24. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

407

Daly impeached by the Commons ; at four in the after- noon Committee of Petitions sits; Chief Justice Keat- ing's Petition read; Lord Forbe's and Lord Gal way's adjourned to the 31st, because the 30th was a Popish Holiday.

"May 31. Judg Daly's Petition read and granted ; Scope of it for time to answer the Commons Impeach- ments, and to have a Copy of it : Lord Galway's heard at the Bar about his Ladies Remainder in Lord Lanes- borough's Estate ; Proviso granted for it : Lord Rivers- town reports the Alterations made in the Bill of Repeal by the Committee, which were all consented to.

(To be continued.)

CLERICAL DESIGNATIONS.

In the Marquis of Blandford's proposed " New Parishes Act," it is intended to coin a new term for a class of beneficed clergymen, viz. " district rector." But this would be rather anomalous in places like Cheltenham, where the incumbent of the old parish church is a " perpetual curate." I would recall attention to my remarks in " N. & Q.," 1 st S. xii. 160., and observe that a new ad- justment of terms is needed.

In the Rubric appended to the Communion Service we read, " The parson, vicar, or curate, or his or their deputy or deputies." As parson means " rector," so 1 presume curate here means what we now call " perpetual curate;" while the deputy means what we now call a " curate," i. e. (legally) a "stipendiary curate," or deputy- minister paid by the incumbent. Can any of your readers trace out the rise and progress of the present use of the various terms ?

Could the opportunity of any new act be taken for the legal re- adjustment of these things ? For example, the incumbents of parishes where the tithes are all appropriated or impropriated, or where there are no tithes at all, might suitably be termed a " pro-rector " (i. e. for a rector), instead of perpetual curate, leaving the term " vicar " to the cases where there are vicarial tithes. The terra " district rector " would not then be quite so incongruous if applied to incumbents of new "ecclesiastical parishes;" though the one term " pro-rector " would do as well for all such cases as any distinctive title. The stipendiary assistant might be termed a " deputy," or (as I hinted in 1 st S. xii. 160-1.) a " clerk in orders ;" and the parish clerk be termed a " lay clerk," which term is now legally applicable under the act of 7 & 8 Viet. c. 59. to the person who acts as " parish clerk " (i. e. as responding clerk), when the office of parish clerk is held by a clergyman who serves as curate, and who is then called the " clerk in orders," .as in Liverpool, St. James's, Westmin- ster, and other large places. For the responding clerk is appointed by the clergyman, and not by the parish ; so that the term " lay clerk " would

be more correct than the term " parish clerk " is. The term "clerk in orders" would admirablv ex- press the position of (what we now call) a " cu- rate," for he is paid by the incumbent to perform the office of a " clerk " (i. e. of one who can read and write) in matters requiring a person " in orders," i. e. in reading the church prayers and occasional services, and writing and reading sermons ; and he stands much in the same sort of a position to the incumbent as a lawyer's clerk does to a lawyer.

In the recent " Church Discipline Bill " of the Lord Chancellor, a good opportunity would have occurred for introducing the legal use of the term " clergyman " for clerk, and perhaps of formally substituting it in all future documents. Could it be done in any future bill ? As " clerk " means one who can read, so it seems to me that it may be applied as much to a layman as to a clergyman. And as the census papers complained of the con- fusion caused by the use of " clerk," so I would beg to invite the clerical readers of " N. & Q." to endeavour at once quietly and practically to in- troduce the use of the word " clergyman ; " thus in all petitions to parliament, in all baptismal and marriage registers, and in all documents where they now usually add "clerk," or "clerk in holy orders," to their names, or the names of others, to denote their occupation, let them henceforth put " clergyman." I am informed on good authority that in the nomination to a curacy, or testimonials to a bishop, there is no necessity for the use of the term " clerk," and that " clergyman " would do quite as well. I have myself adopted the latter term, as more consistent with common sense, for the word " clerk " may mean almost anything.

C. H. DAVIS, Clergyman. Nailsworth.

P. S. Perhaps some of your legal readers would kindly point out any cases where " clerk " may be essential to create a legal document ? Wherever it is not essential, surely the sooner it is abolished the better.

BOSWELL'S " JOIIXSON."

1. As a laudable desire has been shown to il- lustrate the English Classic, I would ask through your columns if the name of the party who mali- ciously reprinted the Marmor Norfolcicnse in 1775, with a stinging dedication to Johnson, under the signature of " Tribunus," is known ? Enjoy- ing, as the Doctor then was, a pension from the House of Hanover, he could ill afford to have his earlier Jacobite tendencies recalled to public notice ; nevertheless, Boswell tells us that he met this attack upon him by one of his petty adversaries with great good humour ; laying aside both his