pass,
In spite of bonds, still _Freeman_ was.
'Tis well his pate was weather-proof;
The palace like it had no roof;
The hair was off, and 'twas the fashion,
The _crown_ being _under sequestration_.
Tho' bald as time and mendicant,
No fryer yet, but Protestant--
His head each morning and each even
Was watered with the dews of heaven.
He lodged alike, dead and alive,
As one that did his grave survive,
For he is now, though he be dead,
But in a manner put to bed,
His cabin being above ground yet,
Under a thin turf coverlet.
Pity he in no porch did lay,
Who did in porches so much pray;
Yet let him have this Epitaph:
Here sleeps poor Jacob, stone and staff."
We must not close our chapter on cathedrals and bishops without some
little further notice of the more important branch of the subject,
although we venture not upon biographies of the many whose names shine
forth from among the list of "spiritual fathers," well meriting more
detailed sketching than would be here in place. Hall, Nix, Lyhart, and
Goldwell, have had their share of passing comment, but there are other
names that must not be looked over in silence. Among the earliest stands
Pandulph, the notorious legate from the Pope, during the troubled reign
of John, when disputes about the appointment of Stephen Langton to the
archbishopric of Canterbury had had our country under the interdict of
his papal majesty; and for six years all Christian rites were suppressed,
save baptism and confirmation, in consequence of jealousies between these
rival powers upon the vexed question of the right of investiture. It was
mainly through the agency of Pandulph that the king was at last inclined
to submit, in return for which the bishopric of this diocese was
conferred on the successful diplomatist. Walter de Suffield, another
name of at least great local repute, was the founder of the Old Man's
Hospital, an institution at this day in the receipt of 10,000 pounds a
year, out of which some _two hundred_ old men and women are maintained in
clothes, food, and a shilling a day, and _lodged_ in a beautiful _old
church_, founded by Lyhart at a later period, the trustees of such a fund
thinking this arrangement preferable to restoring the church to its
original use, and providing more suitable buildings for the accommodation
of the recipients of the charity. The tomb of Suffield, in his own
chapel, at
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