THE COMICALITIES OF THE CATHEDRAL. 157 



into the other with most unpleasant discord. The same with 

 the Litany. Even the prayers could with difficulty be under 

 stood, owing partly to echoes, in which all distinctness was 

 lost. 



Despairing of being assisted by the words of the service, 

 therefore, I endeavoured to &quot; work up&quot; in myself the solem 

 nity and awe that seemed due to the place and the occasion 

 by appropriate reflections. Under this vaulted ceiling, what 

 holy thoughts, what heavenly aspirations have been kindled 

 what true praise of noble resolution has, like unconscious 

 incense, grateful to God, ascended from these seats. On these 

 venerable walls, for hundreds of years, have the eyes of good 

 men rested, as from their firm and untottering consistency 

 they gained new strength and courage to fight the good fight, 

 and again I raised my eyes to eaten communion with them. 

 They fell upon a most infamous countenance, like to the 

 representations of FalstafF s, a man with one eye closed and 

 his tongue tucked out the side of his mouth, his body tied 

 up in a sack, his knees being brought up each side of his chin 

 to make a snugger bundle. I turned away from it imme 

 diately ; but there was another face in most doleful grimace, 

 as if a man that had been buried alive had suddenly thrust 

 his head out of his coffin, and was greatly perplexed and dis 

 mayed at his situation. Again I turned my eyes they fell 

 upon the face of a woman under the influence of an emetic 

 again upon a woman with the grin of drunkenness. Every 

 where that any thing like a knob would be appropriate to the 

 architecture were faces sculptured on the walls that would 

 be a fortune in a comic almanac. 



I closed my eyes again, and tried to bring my mind to a 

 reverent mood, but the more I tried the more difficult I found 

 it. My imagination was taken possession of by the funny 

 things, and refused to search out the sublime. Not but that 



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