There is not perhaps another metropolitan population in the
world that would tolerate such conduct as is pursued to "that
great lubber, the public" by the Dean and Chapter of
Westminster, and submit in silence to be shut out from the
only building in the two cities which is worthy of the name of
a cathedral. But the British public will bear anything; they
are so busy in speculating in railroad shares.
When Egremont had entered on his first visit to the Abbey by
the south transept, and beheld the boards and the spikes with
which he seemed to be environed as if the Abbey were in a
state of siege; iron gates shutting him out from the solemn
nave and the shadowy aisles; scarcely a glimpse to be caught
of a single window; while on a dirty form, some noisy vergers
sate like ticket-porters or babbled like tapsters at their
ease,--the visions of abbatial perfection in which he had
early and often indulged among the ruins of Marney rose on his
outraged sense, and he was then about hastily to retire from
the scene he had so long purposed to visit, when suddenly the
organ burst forth, a celestial symphony floated in the lofty
roof, and voices of plaintive melody blended with the swelling
sounds.
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