lives. They are made beautiful that this worship may be attractive to men, and not for the glory of God. What architect would now think it necessary to spend time and money in the adornment of parts of his edifice which no mortal eye can reach? But such was done in the old days when deans were first instituted. Multitudes, no doubt, crowded our cathedrals in those times,--when bishops and deans were subject to the Pope--but they were there for the honour of God, testifying their faith by the fact of their presence. That all this has been changed need hardly be explained here; but in the change it would seem that the real work of the dean has gone,--except so far as it may please him to take some part in those offices of the church service which it is necessary that a clergyman should perform. It is now ordinarily believed that to the dean is especially entrusted the care of the structure itself; and luckily for us, who love our old cathedrals, we have had some deans of late who, as architectural ecclesiastics, have been very serviceable; but should a dean have no such tendencies,--as many deans have had none,--no penalty for neglect of prescribed duty would fall upon him. A certain amount of yearly residence is enjoined; and it is expected, of course, that a dean should show himself in his own cathedral. Let him reside and show himself, and the city which he graces by his presence will hardly demand from him other services. In truth, the lines of deans have fallen in pleasant places. Man, being by nature restless and ambitious, desires to rise; and the dean will desire to become a bishop, though he would lose by the change his easy comfort, his sufficient modest home, and the grace of his close in which no one overtops him. To be a Peer of Parliament, to rule the clergy of a diocese, and wear the highest order of clerical vestment, is sweet to the clerical aspirant. A man feels that he is shelved when he ceases to sing excelsior to himself in his closet. But the change from a deanery of the present day to a palace is a change from ease to work, from leisure to turmoil, from peace to war, from books which are ever good-humoured to men who are too often ill-humoured. The dean’s modest thousand a year sounds small in comparison with the bishop’s more generous stipend:--but look at a dean, and you will always see that he is sleeker than a bishop. The dean to whom fortune has given a quaint old house with pleasant garden in a quaint old close, with resident prebendaries and minor canons around him who just acknowledge, and no more than acknowledge, his superiority,--who takes the lead, as Mr. Dean, in the society of his clerical city,--who is never called upon to discharge expensive duties in London, though he may revisit the glimpses of the metropolitan moon for a month, perhaps, in the early summer, showing his new rosette at his club,--seems indeed to have had his lines given to him in very pleasant places.