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under which designation history finds us Bacon; and Wem, under which it
finds us Jeffreys. Bacon and Jeffreys! both names overshadowed, though
by different crimes. In 1705, the twenty-six bishops were reduced to
twenty-five, the see of Chester being vacant. Amongst the bishops some
were peers of high rank, such as William Talbot, Bishop of Oxford, who
was head of the Protestant branch of that family. Others were eminent
Doctors, like John Sharp, Archbishop of York, formerly Dean of Norwich;
the poet, Thomas Spratt, Bishop of Rochester, an apoplectic old man; and
that Bishop of Lincoln, who was to die Archbishop of Canterbury, Wake,
the adversary of Bossuet. On important occasions, and when a message
from the Crown to the House was expected, the whole of this august
assembly--in robes, in wigs, in mitres, or plumes--formed out, and
displayed their rows of heads, in tiers, along the walls of the House,
where the storm was vaguely to be seen exterminating the Armada--almost
as much as to say, "The storm is at the orders of England."
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