The earlier Parliaments returned by the first Reform Bill brought about sweeping and ill-considered changes, both diocesan and capitular. Essex and the small archdeaconry of St. Alban's were separated from the diocese, and instead of being formed into a new one, were annexed to Rochester.[112] The capitular changes were chiefly the work of one sweeping Act which applied to the Chapters as a body (3 and 4 Vict. c. 113). The obligation of residence was removed from the prebends; four new resident canonries were created, and the revenues of the prebends alienated. By this scheme the greater part of the authority was entrusted to the dean and the residentiaries, and the thirty prebends became almost honorary, excepting that the old fees had still to be paid on installation. Thirty benefices—sinecures most of them in the modern sense and of large and increasing value—had become an anomaly and out of date; but were residents, officially non-resident for three-fourths of the year, the happiest method of reform? What Sydney Smith, one of the last of the old resident prebendaries, thought of these changes may be read in his life. A more competent authority on matters capitular than Sydney Smith, and like him in other respects an admirer of the first Victorian ministry, roundly declared, "The three months system is a mockery and worse";[113] and as a matter of fact the residentiaries prefer to discharge their duties by a more regular attendance. The patronage of three of these coveted stalls was reserved to the Crown; the fourth was left to the Bishop; but although the Archdeaconry of London was annexed to this fourth, one-third of the revenue was deducted for the remaining Archdeaconry of Middlesex. Since then the income of this fourth stall has been raised to the level of the others, and the prebendal stall of Cantlers re-endowed, the occupant being the diocesan inspector in religious knowledge. The one satisfactory feature in these changes is that the alienated revenues, estimated at £150,000, have been put to a good and practical use. By yet another change the mediæval college of the petty canons has been dissolved, and the minor canons reduced from twelve to six.
The best vindication of the new order of things is to look at results. It was left to Dean Milman and his Chapter, originally at the suggestion of Bishop Tait, to endeavour to carry out Wren's designs and Wren's ideas. The high exterior railings are gone: the organ removed to its proper position and the organ screen taken away, so that dome and choir are connected for congregational purposes: the system of decoration by mosaics well advanced. The absolute necessity of using the dome was emphasised, not only by the Sunday evening services, but by the appointment of Henry Parry Liddon to a resident's stall. Competent judges have asserted that Henry Melvill, though not the greater thinker, was the greater preacher of the two; but Melvill was almost past his best on his appointment in 1856, and he is rather associated with the choir than the dome. Be this as it may, Wren would have been gratified indeed to have seen the favourite offspring of his genius filled from arch to arch, and to have listened to the clear and melodious high-pitched voice of the great preacher, always articulate, and with an articulation after Wren's own heart that did not drop the last words of the sentences. Wren would have been further gratified to have seen his dome used, in addition to weekday services, three times each Sunday, as he would have been to have worked under those successive Deans—Milman, Mansel, Church, Gregory—who, in conjunction with their Chapters, have loyally endeavoured to put the cathedral to the use he wished from the day he first began to design his short Greek cross; and finally, he would have been gratified at Gounod's statement that the services are rendered to the finest music in the world, and to have seen the free facilities offered to the public for studying his architecture, and would have contrasted the orderly behaviour of the visitors from every quarter of the globe with the old-time swashbucklers and rowdies of Paul's Walk; and any objection to the lengthening westward would have been removed, had he lived to have seen his great cathedral filled from door to door with a congregation of from ten to twelve thousand at the special musical services.
This all too short summary must close by recording that the Queen attended the Thanksgiving service in February, 1872 for the recovery of the Prince of Wales; and on Queen Victoria's Day, Tuesday, June 22, 1897, again proceeded in state from Buckingham Palace to St. Paul's, where a Thanksgiving service was held at the West Front on occasion of the Diamond Jubilee, her Majesty returning by way of London and Westminster Bridges.
FOOTNOTES:
[109] Tatler, No. 52.
[110] Milman, p. 449.
[111] The account in Dugdale (p. 455) from the London Gazette of January 18, 1806, fills more than eight folio pages of small print.
[112] A small part of the Surrey side was also in the diocese.
[113] Freeman's "Wells," p. 95.