and now I pass the Cherwell, and get a view of Magdalen-walks on one hand, and of Christ Church meadows on the other. And now a tollgate, and now the country road—and I can scarce conceive that I have passed through Oxford, and that mine eyes have really seen it, and that fancy, and the pictures, are no longer my chief medium of knowing how it looks. How rapidly I have lost the use of helps on which I have depended for years! Like the lame man healed, I can hardly believe that I have gone on crutches. But honestly, now—is the reality up to what I looked for? Thus I thought, and questioned, as I jogged along. Cuddesdon is the name of a little hamlet in Oxfordshire, on a wooded hill, overlooking a wide extent of country, besprinkled with many similar hamlets, and distinguished by a pretty parish Church, and the adjoining residence, or palace, of the Bishop. The residence is one of those rambling and nondescript houses, of ecclesiastical look, which one associates with English rural scenery; but of a class which it is difficult to characterize, except as something too modest for a nobleman’s seat, and something too lordly for a vicarage. The nearness of the parish Church might, indeed, suggest the idea of the parson’s abode—but what should a parish priest want of so large a house, or of the little private chapel which, on one side, makes a conspicuous part of the pile? On the whole, one might conceive it the residence of a Bishop without being told the fact, or before descrying the arms of the See, over the entrance, encircled by the Garter, of which most noble Order, the Bishop is Chancellor. Nothing could exceed the kindness and affability with which the estimable prelate received me, and made me welcome as his guest: his manner, at once dignified and engaging, sufficing immediately to make a visitor at home in his presence, however deeply impressed with reverence for his person. I esteemed it an additional privilege to be presented to the Bishop’s brother, Archdeacon Wilberforce, then just arrived at the palace from his own residence in Yorkshire: and I soon found, among the guests of the Bishop, several other persons of eminent position in society, from whose agreeable intercourse I derived the highest satisfaction. I had arrived on a Saturday, and, after a pleasant evening, the week was solemnly closed in the private chapel, with appropriate prayers. Here, twice every day, all the members of the household, the family, the guests, and the servants together, are assembled before the Lord their Maker, while the Bishop, like a patriarch, assisted by his chaplains, offers the sacrifices of prayer and thanksgiving, and sanctifies his house. It was beautiful, on one occasion, to see such a household together receiving the Holy Eucharist, and it was good to participate in the solemnity. The sanctity of my privilege, as the guest of such a family, forbids any further allusion to the delightful scenes of domestic piety of which I was so