[vi]
pounds a year, fell vacant by the death of Dr. Mark Braithwaite, an advocate in the ecclesiastical court. Dr. Topham made a grasp for that office, but missed. The place was given to William Stables, another ecclesiastical lawyer. Thereupon Dr. Topham made a grasp for the Commissaryship of the Peculiar Court of Pickering and Pocklington, which had likewise become vacant by the death of Dr. Mark Braithwaite. This office, valued at six pounds a year, he missed also; the Dean generously presented it to his friend Laurence Sterne. Over these appointments Dr. Topham raised a loud clamor. Had not the Chapter been packed against him, he declared, he would have got the first; and had the Dean kept his solemn promise, he would have got the second. The quarrel rose to its height at a dinner of the York clergy, where the Dean and Sterne denounced him as a liar.
Thereafter, Dr. Topham kept reasonably quiet for several years—until the advent of Dr. Gilbert in 1757. On first meeting the new Archbishop, the lawyer told him that he would find it very difficult to live upon good terms with the Dean and Chapter, for they were a set of strange people. The Archbishop, however, might be assured that he would have a zealous champion in all disputes which might arise. Needless to say, Dr. Topham saw to it that petty disputes did arise over questions con-
