Strafford fell on the 12th of May. Amidst the mingled awe and exultation of the moment--whilst the name of the nobleman who had perished passed from lip to lip through London, and the sawdust on the scaffold continued moist with blood--the House of Commons calmly sat to hear an appeal respecting Deans and Chapters. The men, who unconscious of guilt had brought Strafford to the block, and had thus swept from their path a huge obstacle, were at this awful moment quietly pursuing their measures of ecclesiastical reform. The event of the morning, however, one would imagine, came too vividly before them to allow of perfectly serene attention to the pleadings carried on in their presence. [Sidenote: _Deans and Chapters._] Great alarm had been felt for the safety of cathedral establishments, although no measure at present had appeared in either House affecting their dignity or diminishing their revenues. But reports of approaching danger were rife, which did not at first alarm and arouse the "prelatical court clergy" so much as it did some others. They waited to see distinctly what impended before attempting a defence. Now they bestirred themselves and prepared petitions, and being informed that the order of the House would not permit of their employing counsel, they delegated Dr. John Hacket, Prebendary of St. Paul's and Archdeacon of Bedford, to plead their cause. On this 12th of May, Hacket came up to the bar of the House to fulfil an office which, he said, had been assigned to him only the afternoon before. He pleaded, that cathedrals supplied the defects of private worship, though he quaintly admitted that--through the super-inquisitiveness of the music--what was intended for devotion vanished away into quavers and airs, whereof he wished the amendment; and passing to what he termed "the other wing of the cherubim," he expatiated on the excellent preaching supplied by these establishments; refuting, by the way, slanders on lecturers as an upstart corporation, and shewing that the local statutes of most cathedrals required week-day lectures. The advocate urged further, that Deans and Chapters advanced the cause of learning, and provided persons for defending the Church. Moreover, he said, the institute comported with primitive usage, being in fact a _senatus episcopi_, and therefore meeting a want of which some of his reverend brethren complained. Warming with his subject, he praised the magnificence of cathedral buildings, mentioned the number dependent on the foundations, insisted on the excellence of Deans and Chapters as landlords, and their enrichment of cities by their residence and hospitality. The Doctor proceeded to uphold cathedral revenues as prizes to stimulate lawful ambition, and contended for a better maintenance of the clergy than in neighbouring reformed Churches--that they might not be like "Jeroboam's priests, the basest of all the people." To destroy Deans and Chapters,