ing the cathedral, though it is not known
with what welcome the appeal was received.

Towards the beginning of the eighteenth century much harm was done to the
cathedral by the zeal of Bishop Bisse, one of those irritating people who
mean well but act abominably. He spent much, both on the palace and the
cathedral, employing in the alterations of the former the stones of the
chapter-house, which had been doubtless much injured but not irreparably
so. In the cathedral itself he erected a mass of masonry intended to
support the central tower, which was, however, nothing but a hideous
architectural blunder. In itself it was ugly to behold, and actually
weakened by lateral pressure that which it was intended to support. He
also presented an elaborate altar-piece and Grecian oak screen with scenic
decoration above, boards painted to represent curtains, and wooden
imitations of tassels which hung immediately over the heads of the
ministering priests as they stood at the altar. These were found later on
to be hung on rusty nails by twine "little better than pack thread."

[Illustration: THE WEST FRONT (FROM AN OLD PRINT).]

THE WEST FRONT (FROM AN OLD PRINT).

During the episcopate of the Hon. Henry Egerton, 1723-1746, an ancient
building of early Norman date used as a chapel for the palace was pulled
down. It consisted of an upper and a lower portion, the lower a chapel
dedicated to St. Katherine and the upper one to St. Mary Magdalene. Part
of one wall still remains. It was during the next episcopate, on Easter
Monday 1786, that a terrible calamity occurred,--the fall of the great
western tower. Directly and indirectly this was the worst accident that
has happened to Hereford Cathedral. The west front was utterly destroyed,
and a great part of the nave seriously injured, while the injudicious
restoration begun in 1788 by the Dean and Chapter, with James Wyatt for
architect, did nearly as much to ruin the cathedral as the fall of the
tower.

[Illustration: THE NAVE AFTER THE FALL OF THE WEST END.]

THE NAVE AFTER THE FALL OF THE WEST END.

_From a drawing by T. Hearne_, 1806.

Already, at Salisbury, Wyatt had been busy with irreparable deeds of
vandalism, but at Hereford he surpassed his previous efforts in this
direction. He altered the whole proportion of the building, shortening the
nave by a bay of 15 feet, erected a new west front on a "neat Gothic
patte