held on for three hundred years, and then the mighty mass began to give way, and Sir Gilbert Scott tells the story of its reparation in 1870, of the triumphs of the skill of modern builders, and their bravery and resolution in saving the fall of that great tower.  The greatest credit is due to all concerned in that hazardous and most difficult task.  It had very nearly gone.  The story of Peterborough, and of several others, shows that many of these vast fanes which have borne the storms and frosts of centuries are by no means too secure, and that the skill of wise architects and the wealth of the Englishmen of to-day are sorely needed to prevent them from vanishing.  If they fell, new and modern work would scarcely compensate us for their loss.

We will take Wells as a model of a cathedral city which entirely owes its origin to the noble church and palace built there in early times.  The city is one of the most picturesque in England, situated in the most delightful country, and possessing the most perfect ecclesiastical buildings which can be conceived.  Jocelyn de Wells, who lived at the beginning of the thirteenth century (1206-39), has for many years had the credit of building the main part of this beautiful house of God.  It is hard to have one’s beliefs and early traditions upset, but modern authorities, with much reason, tell us that we are all wrong, and that another Jocelyn—­one Reginald Fitz-Jocelyn (1171-91)—­was the main builder of Wells Cathedral.  Old documents recently discovered decide the question, and, moreover, the style of architecture is certainly earlier than the fully developed Early English of Jocelyn de Wells.  The latter, and also Bishop Savaricus (1192-1205), carried out the work, but the whole design and a considerable part of the building are due to Bishop Reginald Fitz-Jocelyn.  His successors, until the middle of the fifteenth century, went on perfecting the wondrous shrine, and in the time of Bishop Beckington Wells was in its full glory.  The church, the outbuildings, the episcopal palace, the deanery, all combined to form a wonderful architectural triumph, a group of buildings which represented the highest achievement of English Gothic art.

Since then many things have happened.  The cathedral, like all other ecclesiastical buildings, has passed through three great periods of iconoclastic violence.  It was shorn of some of its glory at the Reformation, when it was plundered of the treasures which the piety of many generations had heaped together.  Then the beautiful Lady Chapel in the cloisters was pulled down, and the infamous Duke of Somerset robbed it of its wealth and meditated further sacrilege.  Amongst these desecrators and despoilers there was a mighty hunger for lead.  “I would that they had found it scalding,” exclaimed an old chaplain of Wells; and to get hold of the lead that covered the roofs—­a valuable commodity—­Somerset and his kind did much mischief to many of our cathedrals