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The defendant refused to pay a farthing and was removed in custody; but later our dear old Vicar, very generously, came forward and paid the amount himself. Shortly before the church restoration I had a notice to attend an archidiaconal visitation, and duly appeared at the church at the time arranged.

And why should the things be sold at all, when the archdeacon had tacitly withdrawn his threats, when he had given his son to understand that the allowance would still be paid quarterly with the customary archidiaconal regularity, and that no alteration was intended in those settlements under which the Plumstead foxes would, in the ripeness of time, become the property of the major himself.

He has a polished, tasteful, clerical contour; attends well to his hair, whiskers, and linen; wears a hat half bishoply and half archidiaconal in its brim; is a good scholar, a clear reasoner, an able-preacher, but repeats himself often, and gets long-winded on Sunday nights; is highly enamelled, touchy, and imperial; is lofty in tone, cream laid and double thick in manner; is full of metal, and there is a stately mystery about him, as if he were a blood relation of the Great Mokanna; he is nearly infallible, and would make a good Pope; he is strongly combative, and would be a vigorous bruiser in stormy ecclesiastical circles.

The Archdeacon was seen at the lych-gate of a country church in company with a churchwarden farmer, the Vicar being unable to attend. The contrast was well delineated the Archdeacon tall, thin, and ascetic, in a long black coat and archidiaconal hat; and the farmer of the John Bull type, in ample breeches and gaiters. The churchyard presented a magnificent crop of exuberant wheat: Archdeacon.

He was tall, broad, thick; his gold-rimmed spectacles were engulfed in the folds of his long face; his hair was a tossed mass of greasy blackness; he puffed and rumbled as he talked; his Phi Beta Kappa key shone against a spotty black vest; he smelled of old pipes; he was altogether funereal and archidiaconal; and to real-estate brokerage and the jobbing of bathroom-fixtures he added an aroma of sanctity.

His lordship then presented them to his lady wife; the archdeacon first, with archidiaconal honours, and then the precentor with diminished parade. After this Mr Slope presented himself. The bishop, it is true, did mention his name, and so did Mrs Proudie too, in a louder tone; but Mr Slope took it upon himself the chief burden of his own introduction.

It merely takes us round in a circle, telling us that poetry is poetical, that the archdeacon performs archidiaconal functions. And while it is not more illuminative than that famous and useful jest, it has the drawback of being positively delusive, which the jest is not.

Thus, the Archidiaconal Courts, the Consistory Courts, the Court of Arches, the Court of Peculiars, and the Court of Delegates were revived: but the enactment by which Elizabeth and her successors had been empowered to appoint Commissioners with visitatorial authority over the Church was not only not revived, but was declared, with the utmost strength of language, to be completely abrogated.

It was now proposed to put new stained glass in the defective lights. Some of the more advanced of the parishioners, including the parson and the builder, thought the old glass had better all come out, "the only way to make a good job of it"; but at an archidiaconal visitation the archdeacon protested, and he was allowed to have his own way.

These officers, at first merely attendant on the bishops at public services, were gradually entrusted by the latter with their own jurisdictional powers, owing to the vast extent of dioceses, so that "the holding of General Synods or Visitations when the Bishop did not visit, came by degrees to be known and established Branches of the Archidiaconal Office, as such, which by this means attained to the dignity of Ordinary instead of delegated jurisdiction."