With my estimable friend, I visited Durham, its cathedral and University, and enjoyed great privileges in so doing, as the result of his kindness. On our way, he pointed out the secluded and saintly Jarrow, and the tower of Bernard Gilpin’s Church. In this neighbourhood occur two names that startle an American: he comes to _Franklin_, and to _Washington_, little villages which have imparted their names to hundreds of places in America, by first giving them to two really great men. With us, places are named from individuals; but in England, the reverse is more frequently the case. “Stupendous”—is the epithet for the cathedral of Durham. It is the poetry of the frigid zone of architecture, as Milan cathedral is of its tropics. The first impressions, on entering, were instinctively those of the patriarch—“how dreadful is this place—this is none other than the House of God.” At York, I had said—‘this is the gate of heaven.’ Here an overpowering solemnity brooded over every thought, and I less admired than wondered. One thing was most pleasing: there is no screen, and the eye ranges through nave and choir, unrestrained, to the altar itself to which a bas-relief of the last supper, gives a fine effect. Under the guidance of Canon Townsend, who had lately returned from his most primitive visit to the Pope, we surveyed the entire cathedral and its adjoining courts, all alike builded for everlasting, if the solidity and grandeur of its masonry be any index of its design. We visited “the Galilee,” and the tomb of the venerable Bede, the “nine altars,” at the eastern end, and the tomb of St. Cuthbert. Also, the chapter-house, hallowed by the names of Aidan and Finan, those apostles of the North, who came forth from Iona to illuminate our Saxon ancestors. I pity the man who claims no kin with their ancient faith and piety! They infused into the Church of England many elements of its present character, and Bernard Gilpin was their legitimate son, even more than Bede himself.