The great solemn place is filled with the thrilling sweetness of boyish voices, and we heartily join in their tuneful, long ‘Amen,’ as it rings and resounds down the empty nave, and echoes again and again from distant chapel and far-receding vaults. “The Bishop’s palace is romance made tangible, even to ‘spell-bound princes oaring their way as swans among the lilies of the moat.’ In this home of peace good Bishop Ken led his simple, happy life, awaking with the sun and joining with the birds in their morning hymn, and each eventide singing to his lute— “‘Glory to thee, my God, this night, For all the blessings of the light.’ Beyond the gardens and the moat run avenues of stately elms; hard by, to the north, are the cathedral’s triple towers, and, for background, the mighty range of the Mendips; all round is meadow-grass; to the west nestles the little town, with the stately tower of St. Cuthbert’s church; and, five miles away, conical tors rise on either side of the isle of Avalon, the storied land of Glastonbury, where twice each year bloomed the sacred thorn struck by Joseph of Arimathea from a thorn in the Saviour’s crown; where, too, lies King Arthur, borne thither after the fatal battle of Camelot, and buried in an unknown grave with the inscription, ‘Hic jacet Arturus rex quondam rexque futurus.’ This land of Somerset to the Englishman should be holy ground.” [Illustration: NORTH TRANSEPT.] The peculiar charm of Wells lies, as Professor Freeman remarks, in the union and harmonious grouping of the cathedral with its surroundings. It does not stand alone. On the other hand, it is not crowded by incongruous buildings, like the great cathedrals of France, rising in precipices from narrow lanes or stone paved _place_. Nor, again, is it isolated from those buildings which are its natural and necessary complement—the palace of the Bishop, the deanery, the residence of the Archdeacon, the Cathedral school, the Vicar’s Close, the homes of precentor, organist and architect. Nearly all the officials still live in the houses which Bishop Beckington built four centuries ago. And with the most perfect and picturesque of all these, “a double row of little ancient houses,” the Vicar’s Close, the north transept of the cathedral is connected by a delightful mediæval bridge. [Illustration: SUGAR’S CHANTRY IN NAVE.] The diocese of Wells is an offshoot of that of Winchester. When Wessex grew populous, the bishopric of Sherborne was split off from that of Winchester; and in 909 the shire of the Sumorsaetas was split off from Sherborne, and the men of Somerset got a bishop of their own. The diocese long had two cathedrals: one at Wells, served, as at this day, by secular canons; the other at Bath, served by the monks of the Benedictine abbey. The latter was suppressed by Henry VIII., and ever since the bishop has been but in name Bishop of Bath.