splendid establishment was, at the Reformation under Queen Elizabeth, reduced to a limited number of canons, or prebendaries, minor canons, singing men and boys, vergers and bedesmen. As, however, under the new régime the services were little more than daily morning and evening prayer, the reduced staff had little or nothing to do. Accordingly the canons took turns to reside in the cathedral close and usually held benefices in other places. They married like other clergy; but were still, nominally, monastic persons attached to the cathedral. As time went on the estates of the chapters or colleges of the deans and canons became very valuable; and their positions were much coveted as the prizes of the church. A cathedral chapter therefore was, as a rule, an aristocratic body, consisting of the dean nominated by the crown, and the canons, as a rule, by the bishop. Of course the bishops, in days when public opinion was not powerful, put their relatives into the canonries; and there were many ties between the various members of the cathedral bodies, who kept the rest of the world, and especially the inferior clergy, at a respectful distance. With this attempt to explain the situation let me try to set forth some of the principal characters in “The Warden” and “Barchester Towers”; remembering that men are living under an order of things which was beginning to pass away. First we have two charming characters in the Bishop and the Warden. Bishop Grantley is an aged man, a gentleman in the truest sense of the word; but a prelate who had never perhaps in his life been particularly energetic, and was passing his later days in dignified ease. He is a little lonely, as very old men often are; and he does not comprehend the new age in which men have to fight to maintain their position and privileges; so he fails to understand his energetic son, who has married the Warden’s daughter. His one friend is the Warden, a man, younger than himself, though elderly. The Warden holds one of those anomalous positions not uncommon in the church at that time. He is head of a hospital for old men, in receipt of a very comfortable income of £800 ($4000); and he is also the precentor, that is, leader of the music in the cathedral. He is a modest retiring man, an exquisite musician, and a kindly friend to the old men under his charge. Very different is the Bishop’s son, Archdeacon Grantley. The Archdeacon is a strong man, determined to stand up for his rights, and what he believes to be the rights of his church. He is thoroughly efficient, a vigorous administrator, a capable ruler of the rich parish over which he presides. He cannot understand his father’s allowing things to drift, nor the placid piety of his father-in-law, the Warden. The two old men are terribly worried, and when they dine together they plot feebly how to resist the Archdeacon, but give way whenever he appears on the scene. But at last the crisis comes. The