bearing a long inscription in which his good works are put forth very expressively. It then says: "Let us stop, therefore; it repays delay to know who lies here by Langton's side. Hacket alone is worthy to trouble Langton's ashes, by whose pious liberality they were kept from freezing. There lies the founder, here the restorer of Lichfield Cathedral."
It is left us only to conjecture why the founders of English cathedrals and abbeys built them on such low grounds. One would naturally think that they would have chosen commanding eminences for the erection of these magnificent temples of worship; that they would have accepted some of the everlasting hills as foundations furnished by nature for structures which should rival them in strength and duration. These noble monuments of all the Christian ages of England would have made splendid crowns of glory on such a setting. But all but two or three are built on the level of meadow brooks. Lincoln and Durham stand on grand pedestals of nature, worthy the superstructure. But Salisbury, Peterborough, Winchester, Lichfield and others arise from humble levels. The nave of grand old Salisbury is sometimes flooded at the rising of the little river near it. If the monks and other ecclesiastics lived more on fish than their successors of the present day, surely they would not have erected their great religious
