A CLERICAL AND LAY PROCESSION. 153 



siastical dignitaries, whose very titles were all strange to 

 me; but altogether forming, what Mrs. Jones said we should 

 e, a very pretty pack of priests.&quot; The bishop was a thin 

 man, with a mean face and crisp hair, brushed back from his 

 forehead; dressed in a black gown with white lawn sleeves 

 and a cap on his head. The dean, a burly red-faced man, 

 strikingly contrasting with the bishop, particularly when 

 hey laughed, in white gown with a sort of bag of scarlet 

 &amp;gt;ilk, perhaps a degenerate cowl, tied around his neck, and 

 dangling by strings down his back. The others had some- 

 tnng of the same sort, of different colours. We were told 

 afterwards, that these were university badges, and that the 

 colour was a mark of rank, not in university honours, but in 

 the scale of society as nobleman or commoner (a pretty 

 thing to carry into the worship of the Father, is it not ?) The 

 others were in black. 



We walked about for a few minutes outside the columns 

 reading the inscriptions on the stones of the floor, which 

 showed that they covered vaults for the dead, and looking at 

 the tablets and monumental effigies that were attached to the 

 walls and columns. They were mostly of elaborate heraldic 

 design, many with military insignia, and nearly all excessive- 

 ly ugly, and entirely inappropriate to a place of religious 

 meditation and worship. 



After a while the great bell ceased tolling, and some men 

 m black serge loose gowns, two bearing maces of steel with 

 silver cups on the ends, the rest carrying black rods, entered 

 and saluted the bishop. A procession then formed, headed 

 by the boys, in double file, followed by the bishop, dean 

 subdean, canons major and minor, archdeacon, prebendaries 

 &c, and closed by three Yankees in plain clothes; passed 

 between the vergers, who bowed reverently and presented 

 arms, through the door under the organ into the choir a 



