A CLERICAL AND LAY PROCESSION. 131 



brushed back from his forehead, dressed in a black gown with 

 white lawn sleeves, and a cap on his head. The dean, a burly 

 man, strikingly contrasting with the bishop, particularly when 

 they laughed, in white gown with a sort of bag of scarlet silk, 

 perhaps a degenerate cowl, tied around his neck, and dangling by 

 strings down his back. The others had something of the same 

 sort, of different colors. We were told afterwards, that these 

 were university badges, and that the color was a mark of rank, 

 not in university honors, 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, read- 

 ing 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 mili- 

 tary insignia, and nearly all excessively ugly and inappropriate 

 to a place of religious meditation and worship. 



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

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

 cups on the ends, the rest carrying black rods, entered and salu- 

 ted 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, etc., 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 part of the edifice (in the 

 centre of the cross) which is fitted up inconveniently for public 

 worship. 



It is a small, narrow apartment, having galleries, the occupants 

 of which are hidden behind a beautiful open-work carved wood 

 screen, and furnished below with three or four tiers of pews and 



