"I felt as if a sunbeam had passed through my parish," wrote a clergyman from a remote corner of his diocese, after a visit from him, "and had left me to rejoice in its genial and cheerful warmth. From that day I would have died to serve him; and I believe that not a few of my humble flock were animated by the same kind of feeling." His yearly visits to his former parish of Alderley were looked forward to by those he had known and loved during his long parochial ministrations as the greatest pleasure of their lives. "I have been," he writes (in the last year of his life), "in various directions over the parish, visiting many welcome faces, laughing with the living, weeping over the dying. It is gratifying to see the cordial familiarity with which they receive me, and Norwich clergy would scarcely know me by cottage fires, talking over old times with their hands clasped in mine as an old and dear friend." Under the light which streams through the stained glass of his own cathedral the remains of Bishop Stanley rest in the thoroughfare of the great congregation. "When we were children," said a grey-haired Norfolk rector this very year, "our mother never allowed us to walk upon the stone covering Bishop Stanley's grave. I have never forgotten it, and would not walk upon it even now." "We pass; the path that each man trod Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds: What fame is left for human deeds In endless age? It rests with God." [Illustration: _P. Green, pinx circa 1800. Emery Walker Ph. Sc._ _Edward Stanley._] CHAPTER I NEW FRANCE AND OLD EUROPE Rouen and its theatres--Painted windows--Paris--Costumes _à la Française_--The guillotine--Geneva--Vetturino travelling--Italy--Spain--The Ship _John_ of Leith--Gibraltar. In June, 1802, Edward Stanley started on the first of those foreign journeys which, throughout his life, continued to be his favourite form of holiday. He had just left Cambridge, having obtained a brilliant degree, and before taking Orders he set out with his college friend, Edward Hussey,[3] on the Grand Tour which was then considered necessary to complete a liberal education. They were fortunate in the moment of their journey, for the Treaty of Amiens, which had been concluded only a few months before, had enabled Englishmen to tour safely in France for the first time for many years; and every scene in France was full of thrilling interest. The marks of the Reign of Terror were still plainly to be seen, and the new order of things which the First Consul had inaugurated was only just beginning. It was an epoch-making journey to a young man fresh from college, and Edward Stanley was deeply impressed by what he saw.