We had not much time to explore the interior, but were obliged to visit the white marble effigy by the famous Chantrey of the “Sleeping Children” of Prebendary Robinson.  It was beautifully executed, but for some reason we preferred that of little Penelope we had seen the day before, possibly because these children appeared so much older and more like young ladies compared with Penelope, who was really a child.  Another monument by Chantrey which impressed us more strongly than that of the children was that of Bishop Ryder in a kneeling posture, which we thought a very fine production.  There was also a slab to the memory of Admiral Parker, the last survivor of Nelson’s captains, and some fine stained-glass windows of the sixteenth century formerly belonging to the Abbey of Herckrode, near Liege, which Sir Brooke Boothby, the father of little Penelope, had bought in Belgium in 1803 and presented to the cathedral.

[Illustration:  THE WEST DOOR, LICHFIELD.]

The present bishop, Bishop Selwyn, seemed to be very much loved, as everybody had a good word for him.  One gentleman told us he was the first bishop to reside at the palace, all former bishops having resided at Eccleshall, a town twenty-six miles away.  Before coming to Lichfield he had been twenty-two years in New Zealand, being the first bishop of that colony.  He died seven years after our visit, and had a great funeral, at which Mr. W.E.  Gladstone, who described Selwyn as “a noble man,” was one of the pall-bearers.  The poet Browning’s words were often applied to Bishop Selwyn: 

  We that have loved him so, followed and honour’d him,
  Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
  Caught his clear accents, learnt his great language,
  Made him our pattern to live and to die.

There were several old houses in Lichfield of more than local interest, one of which, called the Priest’s House, was the birthplace in 1617 of Elias Ashmole, Windsor Herald to King Charles II, and founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.  When we got into the town, or city, we found that, although St. Chad was the patron saint of the cathedral, there was also a patron saint of Lichfield itself, for it was Johnson here, Johnson there, and Johnson everywhere, so we must needs go and see the house where the great Doctor was born in 1709.  We found it adjoining the market-place, and in front of a monument on which were depicted three scenes connected with his childhood:  the first showing him mounted on his father’s back listening to Dr. Sacheverell, who was shown in the act of preaching; the second showed him being carried to school between the shoulders of two boys, another boy following closely behind, as if to catch him in the event of a fall; while the third panel represents him standing in the market-place at Uttoxeter, doing penance to propitiate Heaven for the act of disobedience to his father that had happened fifty years ago.  When very young he was afflicted with scrofula, or king’s evil;