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value--had become an anomaly and out of date; but were residents,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";[114] 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 L150,000, have been put to a good and practical use. By
yet another change the mediaeval 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 c