His tenure at Norwich (where George Meredith's elder son was among his pupils) was uneventful, and from the fact that he seldom, if ever, alludes to schoolmastering in his subsequent writing, it may not have been to his taste.

His work certainly was what the editor wanted, and he wrote well, in a forcible, colloquial style, with earnestness, full of knowledge of his subjects, and helped by boisterous illustrations.

He was firmly convinced that things were not going well in the rural parishes, and he was righteously indignant at the condition of the labourer's cottage, and the growing tendency to deprive him of all chance of rising to a higher level, an evil aggravated by the abolition of small farms.

He certainly did his best to brighten village life; he was quite free from clerical bigotry, and candidly admits that the stuffy little Ranter's chapel is too often the only place where the religious emotions of the rural poor can be stirred and the yearnings of the soul satisfied.

Numbers of The Nineteenth Century travelled down to Scarning; and when local celebrities recognised their portraits, dancing with stage antics to amuse the rector's town friends, and understood he was getting paid handsomely for the show, the feud waxed bitter.

His One Generation of a Norfolk House must have cost him much labour; it is the story of one of the Walpoles who became a Jesuit in the time of Elizabeth, and it was while he was engaged over it at Mannington Hall, Lord Orford's seat, that he was favoured by a nocturnal visit from a ghostly ecclesiastic in the library.

Much good-humoured banter followed his communication of his experience to the press, and probably his picturesque statement helped to draw public attention to this Henry Walpole, an unimportant figure and quite undeserving of the toil and research his vates sacer bestowed upon him.

In 1879, he published his History of the Diocese of Norwich; in 1885, The Coming of the Friars and Other Historical Essays; and in 1881 and 1890, Arcady for Better or Worse and The Trials of a Country Parson, his most popular works.

[4] In 1884, Jessopp theoretically came close to eternal damnation of his soul when he ran foul of the Muggletonians, who claimed to possess this power through issuing curses.

[9] In 1896 he and M. R. James co-edited an edition of Thomas of Monmouth's Life of William of Norwich, containing historical essays on the background to the events, which were the origin of the antisemitic blood libel.

In 1890, Oxford appointed him a select preacher, and his handsome presence and his sonorous voice made him an imposing figure in St Mary's pulpit.