HEREFORD CATHEDRAL. 65 



practice, and enjoying a considerable fortune. He had been 

 confined for several years, but, it was thought, would soon be 

 released. The placards of an association for taking the part 

 of imprisoned debtors were posted in the hall. 



The title city is applied, in England, only to a town which 

 is the residence of a bishop, and is equivalent to &quot; a cathedral 

 town.&quot; Hereford is a city ; Chester is a city ; but Liverpool, 

 with ten times the population of both of them, is not a city. 

 The term town, again, in England, is never applied to the 

 subdivisions of a county, (a township,) but is used to desig 

 nate a place that is closely built, and with a considerable 

 population what we should give the title of city to. Thus 

 London, the largest town, is every where called &quot; the town.&quot; 

 &quot;The city&quot; designates a small part of London, near the 

 Cathedral of St. Paul. (All over Great Britain they speak of 

 going &quot; down to London,&quot; never &quot; up.&quot; This use of &quot; down&quot; 

 and &quot; up,&quot; meaninglessly, in a sentence, I had supposed was a 

 &quot; down-east&quot; idiom ; but it is common in old England.) 



The cathedral at Hereford, built in the time of William 

 the Conqueror, is in a more ornamental style of Gothic than 

 any ancient religious edifice we had seen. I did not greatly 

 admire it. Considerable additions or repairs have been lately 

 made. On one of the new gables I was surprised to see some 

 fifty of those grotesque heads, freshly cut. They were not 

 very ugly, or very droll indeed, had no marked character, or 

 any thing that showed a genius, even for the comical, in their 

 designer or executor. They were not necessary to the har 

 mony of the modern work with the old ; were, I think, dis 

 cordant, and what they were put there for I don t know. 

 Extensive alterations had lately been made in the choir, and 

 it was the most convenient hall for public exercises that I 

 recollect to have seen in any English cathedral. The ceiling 

 was painted (in encaustic) in the bright-coloured bizarre style 



