because any decision of his must be
severely criticised from one quarter or another. The Abbey retains, I
understand, some of its pre-Reformation privileges, and is not under the
jurisdiction of Bishop or Archbishop. Yet no one who has ever visited
the Chapel of St. Edward the Confessor on October 13th, the festival of
his translation, can accuse the Abbey authorities of bigotry or narrow-
mindedness. Only a few years ago I fought my way, with other Popish
pilgrims, to the shrine of our patron Saint (as he _was_, until
superseded by Saint George in the thirteenth century), and there I
indulged in overt acts of superstition violating Article XXII. of 'the
Church of England by law established.' A verger, with some colonial
tourists, arrived during our devotions, but his voice was lowered out of
regard for our feelings. Indeed, both he and the tourists adopted
towards us an attitude of respectful curiosity (not altogether
unpleasant), which was in striking contrast to the methods of the
continental _Suisse_ routing out worshippers from a side chapel of a
Catholic church in order to show Baedeker-ridden sightseers an
altar-piece by Rotto Rotinelli.

Thoughts of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley irresistibly mingled with my
devotions. What had the poor fellows burnt for, after all? Here we were
ostentatiously ignoring English history and the adjacent Houses of
Parliament; outraging the rubrics by ritual observations for which poor
curates in the East End are often suspended, and before now have been
imprisoned. I could not help thinking that the Archbishop of Westminster
would hardly care to return these hospitalities, by permitting, on August
24th, a memorial service for Admiral Coligny in Westminster Cathedral. . . .
I rose from my knees a new Luther, with something like a Protestant
feeling, and scrutinised severely the tombs in Poets' Corner. Even there
I found myself confronted with an almost irritating liberalism. Here was
Alexander Pope, who rejected all the overtures of Swift and Atterbury to
embrace the Protestant faith. And there was Dryden, not, perhaps, a
great ornament to my persuasion, but still a Catholic at the last. Dean
Panther had not grudged poet Hind his niche in the National Valhalla (I
knew I should be reduced to that periphrasis). And here was the mighty
Charles Darwin, about whose reception into the English Pantheon (I have
fallen again) I remember there was some trouble. Well, if precedent