d understanding that they were wholly exceptional. The
Commissioners of King William's time had suggested that the chanting of
divine service in cathedrals should be laid aside;[1177] and even
Archbishop Sharp, although in many respects a High Churchman, told
Thoresby that he did not much approve of singing the prayers, 'but it
having been the custom of all cathedrals since the Reformation, it is
not to be altered without a law.'[1178] Exaggerated dread of Popery
suspected latent evils, it scarcely knew what, lurking in this kind of
worship. Perhaps, too, it was thought to border upon 'enthusiasm,' that
other religious bugbear of the age. A paper in the 'Tatler' speaks of it
not with disapproval, but with something of condescension to weaker
minds, as 'the rapturous way of devotion.'[1179] In fact, cathedrals in
general were almost unintelligible to the prevalent sentiment of the
eighteenth century. Towards the end of the period a spirit of
appreciation grew up, which Malcolm speaks of as being in marked
contrast with the contemptuous indifference of a former date.[1180] They
were regarded, no doubt, with a certain pride as splendid national
memorials of a kind of devotion that had long passed away. Some young
friends of David Hume, who had been to service at St. Paul's and found
scarcely anybody there, began to speak of the folly of lavishing money
on such useless structures. The famous sceptic gently rebuked them for
talking without judgment. 'St. Paul's,' he said, 'as a monument of the
religious feeling and taste of the country, does it honour and will
endure. We have wasted millions upon a single campaign in Flanders, and
without any good resulting from it.'[1181] There was no fanatic dislike
to cathedrals, as when Lord Brooke had hoped that he might see the day
when not one stone of St. Paul's should be left upon another.[1182] They
were simply neglected, as if both they and those who yet loved the mode
of worship perpetuated in them belonged to a bygone generation. In the
North this was not so much the case. Durham Cathedral especially seems
to have retained, in a greater degree than any other, not only the
grandeur and hospitality of an older period, but also the affections of
the townsmen around it. Defoe, in 1728, found a congregation of 500
people at the six-o'clock morning service.[1183] In most cases, even on
Sundays, the attendance was miserably thin. Doubtless, many individual
members of cathedral chapters l