Untitled - Electric Scotland

528 LIKK OK ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. xvm.
and amused his friends, upon the due recognition of his
own position as Provincial Dean/ His friend Dean Alford,
in a private letter, invited him to the ceremony. He
replied that he could only attend as Dean of the Province,
and must receive an official invitation with due assign
ment of his part in the proceedings. The programme
was already issued, however, without any mention of
him, and the officials, among whom his letter created
quite a little storm, while they admitted that an error
had been made, fell back upon the haziness of the prece
dents, and begged him to attend informally. This he
declined to do, and wrote to his legal secretary as
follows :
The Bis/top of London to Mr. J. />.
Lee.
"FULHAM 1 A LACK, S.W.,
Dec. Wi, 1862.
"Mv DEAR MR. LEE, -The Dean of Canterbury has sent to
me the enclosed, with two papers one, the printed programme for
Friday ; the other, the official record of what took place in 1848.
I have called his attention to an important point which must be
submitted to Dr. Twiss. 1 The mistake of the printed programme
appears to be this (as compared with 1848), that it ignores the
1 rovincial College and its offices as such, classing them all under
the name of attendant Bishops -a phrase which does not occur
in the precedent of 1848; and this becomes really important in
that part of the proceedings in which the Archbishop takes
possession of the Marble Chair. The printed programme states
that the same form is then repeated as when he takes possession
of the Throne. The precedent of 1 848 gives a different form,
referring to the Metropolitical dignity, and not that of the See,
and makes the members of the Provincial College officially to
take part in the latter act. A question indeed arises, whether this
part of the ceremony, viz., the second enthroning in the Marble
Chair, ought not to be entirely transacted by the officers of the
Provincial College, and whether the idea of the second enthroning
1 The Bishop s law officer.