We now went the rounds of the Church, with the stupid verger for our orator, and I began to experience the intolerable annoyance complained of by all travellers. “Oh, that he might hold his tongue! We know it—we know it—only let us alone, and here’s your shilling”—said my inmost heart, a score of times, but still he mumbled on. He was most impressive in detailing the exploits of the Puritans: here they hacked, and there they hewed; this was done by Cromwell’s men—when they broke into the old Bishops’ sepulchres; and that, when they hunted a cat, with the hounds, through the nave and aisles. Here they _tooted_ with the broken organ pipes, and there the soldiers mounted the pulpit, and preached _à la Woodstock_. They went so far as to cut up their rations of flesh meat on the altar, and they baptised a calf at the font; but, enough; mine eyes have seen that there were such men in England two hundred years ago, and oh, let us pray that we may not deserve such judgments again. It was refreshing to stop before the tomb of Bishop Hacket, and to thank God, who put it into his heart to be a repairer of the breach. The Bishop had his failings, but what he did for his cathedral should cover a multitude of sins, if he had so many. He was the man who, during the worst scenes of the rebellion, was threatened by a soldier with instant death, unless he desisted from the prayers which he was then offering, in the Church of St. Giles, Holborn, and who answered, calmly, “you do what becomes a soldier, but I shall do as becomes a priest,” and so went on with the service. At the Restoration, being already three-score and ten, he was appointed to this See. He found the cathedral almost a ruin; thousands of round shot, and hand-grenades had been fired upon it; the pinnacles were battered to pieces, and the walls and spires seemed ready to fall, while the interior was a mass of filth and desolation. The very next day after his arrival, he set his own horses to work in clearing away the rubbish, and for eight years he devoted his wealth and labor, and made perpetual efforts among the zealous laity of the kingdom, to achieve and pay for the restoration of the Church, which he thus accomplished. Finally he reconciled the holy place by a solemn ceremonial, and re-instituted the services. When he heard the bells ring, for the first time, being then confined to his bed-chamber, he went into another room to hear the sound; but, while he blessed God that he had lived to enjoy it, said it was his knell, and so, soon after, died like old Simeon.