That the first bishops in England were of Roman origin is obvious from their very names: and that wherever St. Augustin appointed a bishop he founded a monastery, is a fact established by the history of every cathedral. But in cases where the metropolitan did not found a monastery and appoint a bishop at the same time, it appears that a monastic establishment was formed shortly after by the newly appointed bishop. By the time of Offa, king of the Mercians, about twenty great monasteries had been established in England, with nearly the same number of episcopal sees. Of the latter, several were not conjoined with the former; the general design of both being to civilise and instruct mankind by inculcating the doctrines of divine truth and revelation; but in ways that differed much in after ages, not only between the several bodies, but also between the superiors to whom they respectively adhered. Offa’s zeal prompted him to do, what many of his crowned predecessors had done before him; and feeling perhaps the acute pangs of a guilty conscience, in reference to the death of Ethelbert, he sought peace of mind and reconciliation with Heaven, by erecting some splendid monument of his penitence and remorse. It were needless to remind the reader how many of the great ecclesiastical establishments of Christendom have originated from similar causes: how many propitiatory Altars have been raised, only to attest those “compunctious visitings” by which their noble or royal founders were driven from the glittering pageants of state, to seek hope and refuge in the sanctuaries of religion--in the lowly cell [Illustration] of the anchorite. What made monastic endowments part of a dying man’s charity, was the special provision it secured for his safety and welfare in another world. Here was an institution in which the “rich profligate” was deeply interested; in which, after he himself had long passed away, he might still benefit by the prayers and devotion of those who ministered within its walls, and blessed the munificence of the founder. Such were the hopes, such was the resolution, of King Offa, when intending to finish a life of great earthly glory, sullied with many crimes, he bethought him of building “a house where God might dwell.”