he would become almost convulsed with laughter when the suggestion was made that Francis was the man who had worn the mask.

In taking account of Wesley's intercourse with the upper classes, we may conclude with a word concerning his friends and foes among the bishops. That he had many warm sympathisers among those who are supposed to be fathers in the Church, is well known, but there were some enemies. Among the latter we have to make mention of 'an episcopal buffoon,' as Tyerman calls him, Lavington of Exeter. Read in the light of to-day, the wild violence and scurrility of this contemptible time-server, or wolf in sheep's clothing, needed no answer; it would have been in unison with the bishop's character, had he possessed genius equal to the task, if he had written indecent plays for poor Foote, who ridiculed and mimicked Methodists on the stage. In one instance, Wesley undertook to reply to the western libeller and lampooner, and addressing him personally, has these remarks:

'I am persuaded, every candid man, who rightly weighs what has been said, with any degree of attention, will clearly see, not only, that no one of those arguments is of any real force at all, but that you do not believe them yourself; you do not believe the conclusion which you pretend to prove; only you keep close to your laudable resolution of throwing as much dirt as possible.'

Lavington showed all the worst phases of the lowest example of an eighteenth-century bishop;

and we cannot suppose that such a man ever properly understood the Gospel. He seems to have been a liar, lampooner, and libeller all in one; but even in coming in contact with such a man as this-one who was false to his profession-the noble traits of Wesley's character were brought out. In all his controversies he never did or said anything which tarnished the Christian profession.

CHAPTER VIII

Ex

PRISONS AND PRISONERS

XCEPT to duly appointed or privileged visitors who visit them for philanthropic purposes, the common gaols of the country at the present time are not easily accessible to merely inquisitive people. Some years ago, with an order from the late Sir William M'Arthur, then the Lord Mayor, I made the tour of Newgate, and was much interested. With the exception of two sentenced murderers, each of whom occupied a 'condemned' cell, the great City prison was empty, however. As the building, which had been used for centuries as a place of confinement and of punishment, was then already given up by the authorities, the sombre memories of former days, which were suggested at every step, were perhaps more vivid than they would have been had the prisoners and their keepers all been in the building. The rows of busts of executed murderers, the apparatus of the hangman, the arrangements for the passing out of the condemned when the gallows were in the street, and much more besides, all produced an impression of prison life in the