The Express.
London, England, 1851-12-20 00:00:00

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TO CORRESPONDENTS.
A sewed &Wes .f " The Uprise; esatidaiim 'be mem bere
*Oesette." petAkehei teseday sad blip 'Agit. la doe
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Arbieueneeaseieleetled lee "Tie ?Apra." Lads VOWS( pew,
ingst be at tM MON 10, BOMIIiFII7IIIIIIOI7 TWO SIII
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HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
*eta DAT—Weestag. ta. tom.
—Morals". IL-- SU. ..Aftinima. Oa.

LONDON, RATURDAY, DECEMBER 20.

SYDNEY SETH once remarked how mach a clever
friend's conversation would be improved by a few
brilliant flashes of silence. Of late the noisy and
turbulent episcopal career of Dr. PHILLrotTs has
been illuminated by a flash of silence wily agreea-
ble to the whole country.
During the last three months he has neither ana-
thematised the Primate of his province, nor perse.-
cited any of the clergy of his diocese; he hasnet-
thee printed curses nor prayed libels; he has neither,
clipped the Cfer.t.s's prerogatives, nor
.extended the
wings of his own pretensions ; he has neither knocked
down any layman with the Apocalypse, nor scattered
discord -broadcast over England from the Fatima.
The synod of Exeter was almost forgotten; its
" Acts" had descended to the butterman and the
trunkmaker ; the Bishop's age and infirmities
seemed to be bringing back peace, and calm, and
repose to the diocese of Exeter; his thoughts were,
it was hoped, being turned from the troubles of earth
towards the quietude of heaven.
But no: the flush is post—he is again to be hearl.
The stormy petrel of episcopacy preludis by . his
approach another tempest. 'The diocese cf Exeter is,—
we have heard him teach,—a perfect church in itself.
In it we have seen him miserable and preside over a
legislature of its own ; and, having varied the doc-
trine, and separated the church of Exeter from the
church of England, he is now, after a use, settling
the millinery and the decorations of his new esta-
habiliment.
This he does by an instrument no less grave and
solemn than a "Judgment." Other bishops write
letters,—but HENRY of ExteTElLintheplenitude of his
power, pens decrees only. Prelates of greater learn-
ing but more modesty offer advice, muke mom-
mendatieno, and state their opinions; he adjudicates,
adjudges, and decides ; they try to persuade, to
convince, to guide and direct by their counsels; he
orders and commands by his authority. They ad-
just their communications to the improved and re-
fined tone of modern society ; he preserves intact and
unmitigated the harsh language and severe phraseo-
logy of the middle ages. They—good, quiet, timid
men scarcely dare to put on their mitres ; he never
sinks to sleep without the haughtiest emblem of
his power on his uneasy head. And thus, in one of
the most difficult and delicate questions that could
come before a bishop, we have from him, without
doubt or hesitation, a judgment—nothing less.
It is about paintings in churches. To adorn
and beautify places of worship with works of art, is
at once so conformable with human weaknesses, no
sanctioned by both heathen and Christian pract ices, ai d
yet so dangerous and hazardous in its tendencies, us
renders it any time, —lint particularly now,—a ques-
tion both difficult aid delicate. It was a reproach
often urged against the early Christians that they
did not adorn their churches with the art
they saw in Pagan temples; and that re-
proach One:Ls answered by telling his oppo-
nents, that the images to be dediestcd to Guts
were not to he carved with the hands of artists,
but to he formed and fashioned in use by his word;
they were to be the virtues of justice, and teniperance,
and wisdom, and piety. Nor are there wanting
decrees and memo of early councils (t but of 11.1.111i:et°
for example) against placing paintings in churches.
Whilst the story of EPIPIIANIU4 tearing down a
picture from the antis of a village church in Pales-
tine, and giving the shreds to the churchwardens
to be used as a winding-sheet for the poor, is fumi-
liar to students of ecclesiastical history.
The cultivation of art in churches is, however, ono
of the glories and %great part of the strength of the
Romish church. When Europe emerged from bar-
barism, cathedrals became great exhibitions of art ;
and as corruptions grew in that church their adorn-
ments had much the same effect on the Christian re-
ligion us it had on Pagan rites and ceremonies. It
became a medium and a source of corrupt religion ;
and in images and painting's the reformers saw only
the worship of saints and unseripturul intercessors.
Renee, to use the language of WHEATLEY (a very
high church authority), " they thought them too
false a beauty fur the house 01 Goo." In themselves
humanising and civilising, their presence in churches
is hazardous and dangerous. And this feeling predo-
minated in England from the Reformation until
the birth of Tructalianism. Then, with the
doctrines, the pretensions, and the ceremonies.
of the Runtish church, began to be cultivated meth-
revel art ; and no little of the success of that delusion
may be trued to this new passion. It appeared in
every thing: in our churches and in our plates and
dishes; inside and outside the prayer-book; in
vestments and in dress. New handicrafts, new trades,
new feelings, new thoughts were opened by it. It
produced St. Barnabas ; but, until now, it hat nut in-
troduced paintings into our churches.
At last, however, it has taken that step. Sheviocke
is a small rectory in Cornwall ; its value is under
5001. a year, anti its population not much greater
than that number. The chancel of our churches be-
longs to the rectors, ecelesiustical or lay ; they arc
bound to repair them ; and generally in very
bad repair they arc kept. This chancel, in
a rural church, attended chiefly by plough-
men and farm labourers, the rector of Sheviocke
resolved to beautify. Ile painted the north wall red
and white, intending to cover the white with gilt;
and on this ground is tilling in medallion pictures,
via.:—l. The Annunciation. 2. Our Loan "in
Majesty " seated on a Rainbow. 3. Our LORD being
led to execution. 4. Our LORD with MARTHA,
MARY, and LOAM:A. 5. The First Miracle in Cana
of Gallidev. And these finished, the other walls have
to be eimilarly illustrated.
This proceeding very properly alarmed the prin-
cipal inhabitants, and a vestry being held, a vote was
passed condemning the paintings, and calling on the
bishop to require their removal. Dr. PitILLPOTTS sent
the rural dean to inquire into the facts; and the rectof
on the other hand got a majority of the ploughmen or
the parish to express their " warm approval" of his
decorations. It is in this state of things the judg-
ment is issued; and a very rare document it cer-
tainly is.
First, is carefully noted the numerical majority in
the rector's favour. But, us any argument derived
from majorities might hereafter be dangerous for the
Bishop on other questions and in other Parishes, he,
baring placed it foremost and dwelt most impres-
sively on it, " immediately dismisses it altogether
from consideration in deciding on the matter before
me." A majority: either one way or other is as
nothing compared with the rector's right to do with
the chancel ea ho pleases, subject always to the
Bishop's control. " I have no hesitation in saving
that I recognise that right of the rector." The rights,
of majorities are nought. are nil, are worthless ;
the feelings of parishioners are idle whimsies, not
worth a rectorial thought or an episcopal considera-
tion. But the rector's right"—that is indefeasible,
predominant, ever to be respected. It must be pro-
tected; and Dr. PHILLI`OrTs does protect it.
" Looking at the question thus, I Mist very little
which demands my interference in the partially
executed designs or in what is further intended."
They are " from Oecrbeck;" and therein the epis-
copal consolation is great. Still they do—in one
trifling unimportant trait—just in a corner—exceed
propriety. So. brush in hand, the Bishop daubs out
his "single objection"--an angel kneeling to the
Vints. That done, he cannot too much bespatter
the rector with pranies:
In an see when no decoration is deem d too costly for
the dwellings of the opulent among us, of all milers, it is
surely a matter of just praise, rather than of reasonable
censure, that a not opulent clergyman, modest and unpre-
tending in his own house, devotes whatever means he can
command to the somewhat sumptuous, it may be, yet sober
and reverential adorning the house of God.
What better than Fetish is this? The finer we
dress the finer must be our churches ; the more,
sumptuous our houses, the gaudier our chancels;
because ladies put rouge on their cheeks, the walls
of our places of worship must be bedizened with ver-
million. The poor, not allowed to enter the magni-
ficent mansions of the rich, must be astonished by
oar wealth in the parish church. Why, it is po.

cieely thus, Father Hrc tells us, they worship
BUDDHA in the Sliunsseries of Mon"ilia and Thibet;
it is after this fashion, and in this spirit, that the
adorn their idols on the western coast of
nAeres.. But this, we use the freedom to tell Bishop
PIIILLPOTTS, is to paganise, to Judaize, nap worse
than either, is to Romanist+ the Christian religion. It
is to dress, to adorn, to deface, to conoral it ; to make
it consist in external emblems, in images, in
pictures, in painted windows and sculptured walls,
at the risk of expelling it from the mind. It is to
direct the ploughmen of Sheviocke from the prayers
of an humble and a contrite heart to daubs of red and
white in its chanceL
If Bishop Pittu.ro'rrs live many years longer, the
church of Exeter will be as different from the church
of England as Romaniem is from Protestantism. It
was not without an object he set up an Establishment
of his own in that diocese ;—and very steadily, logic-
' ally, and consistently he is pursuing It.

te any one imagines that the feudal sentiment
has departed from the minds of our great land-
owners, the long—and in some respects able
and intelligent--speech of the Duke of NEW-
CASTLE to his tenantry last week will correct that
error. Lately become the owner of a large
hereditary. estate,—which is well known to be
heavily encumbered,—the Duke of NEWCASTLE
' fairly enough looks at his position and at that
of his tenants, with a view to their present relations
and future prospects. Ile finds, as he frankly states,
that many of his farms are occupied by men who
have not capital sufficient for their cultivation; that I
most of the farms are ill managed; that the condi- 1
tion of the buildings is deplorable; that cottage ac-
commodation is scanty and bad; that drainage
is greatly required; and—in presence of all this—
that the means at his command will only per-
mit slow and painful efforts to attempt, rather
than effect, a gradual amelioration of such of
these evils as are confessedly within the land-
lord's province to cure. The Duke, in fact, made
two speeches. In the one he strongly urged his
his tenants to abandon all expectation of any return
to " protection," and to rely on their own exertions
—intimating that the gain from improvements upon
their farms would prove more than equivalent to any
loss they may hare sustained from free-trade prices.
lie said that upon his estate " there is great want of
energy and skill . . . there is great want of due
' and proper economy of manure ;" that it "is really
painful to witness the state of the farm-yards, ana
the most valuable portions of the manure running
into the ditches or wasting on the roads, when
a trifling expenditure woud, in many instances,
obviate so great a loss." And again he said—
" Look at the kind of stock to be found on sonic
of the farms—stock which would hardly bring
anything to the tenant when sold, beyond
the price at which they were bought in. Look,
again, at the fields with a perfect carpet of twitch."
Referring to former penods of low prices, he
added, that men who thus farm have ever been, and
must always be, in a state of chronic distress; con-
cluding with very full and detailed reasons why
upon public grounds any return to protection has
become impossible.
The other speech war more domestic, and referred
especially to his own acts of management since he
had come to the estate, and his proposed plans for its
future management. It is with this speech we
propose to deal. Nor must our comments be assumed
to be altogether adverse to the Duke personally, for
the system he intends to adopt is, in many respects,
greatly superior to that pursued upon most large
landed properties in England, though it forcibly
illustrates the fact that, in even the most improved
management of their estates by our great land•
owners, feudalism is a predominant clement. The
Duke of Nswessrt.E admitted that the public
had nn interest in the management adopted on the
great territorial estates of the country, and it is in
reference to that interest we would canvass the
Duke's acts and sentiments.
The course adopted is this. Two valuers, appointed
by the Duke, have gone over his estate, and made
a valuation of each farm, according to actual prices
and pre 'cut prospects, and the result is, that in most
eases the rents have been reduced, though in sonic
instances the valuation has proved higher than the
present rental. The latter has occurred only on the
farms of the best farmers, where, to use the Duke's
words, " the principal increase in their value had
been caused by an outlay of their own skill
and industry, and above all by their own capi-
tal." In all such cases the Duke declared his
intention not to avail himself of the increased value;
while on the other hand he submitted to
a reduction of rents to the actual valuations;
though such reductions have occurred because
the tenants have not made the exertions they
should have done. So that in truth the reduction of
rent is a premium on bad farming. Nor is this any-
thing new in the history of English husbandry, for
in the time of old Tesses., it was said of farmers,
that :

Be who improves must flit;
Ile who havocks may sit.
And the same principle still prevails on the Clamber
estates, fur the improving farmer gets no reduction,
while the incompetent and slovenly husbandman ob-
tain a reduction in rent equivalent to the inferiority
of their cultivation. It is true the Duke hopes that
those whose rents have been thus reduced, not
because the land is worse, but because they are con-
tent to vegetate on the land, and really to do no-
thing more, will "endeavour to alter their position,
and revive their farms ;" and intimates that
there are some whose capital is so totally
inadequate to the cultivation of the farms they hold,
that if they do not voluntarily retire they must be
removed.
What a picture does this present; and the natural
question is, how has such a state of things arisen?
' Hear what the Duke says: "The whole system as
carried on between landlord and tenant in this dis-
trict is based upon confidence; the whole of the
tenants upon the estate are without leases, and are
tenants from year to year," and therefore he felt
that it would be unjust to take the higher rates at
which the improved farms are valued. But this is a
mere set of generosity, which may be recalled to-
morrow. Or the Duke may die, and the trustees for
his son would find it their duty to exact the utter-
most farthing of the valued rental. And then we
find, that this estate, which affords such a me-
lancholy example of ill-managed property, is
one on which there has been a " system
of hereditary tenancies" which "tends to pioduce
great attachment between landlord and tenant."
Translated into plain words, this really means
that the tenants are "dependants"—that they live
on the landlord's will, and at his mercy. lie boasts
of the time they have paid rent to his family, whilst
they feel that at his bidding they may be ousted.
They are his tenants; his people; living on his
territory. Attachment between landlord and ten-
ant is a very good thing, if accompanied by
other excellencies, and a reference to it in the
Duke's speech produced warm and natural applause.
But when we find the " attachment" has been ac-
companied by the most miserable style of husbandry,
there is no injustice in attributing the backward
condition of the tenants to their dependent unenter-
prising habits.
It is all well enough to adjust the rental perma-
nentl)• according to the actual value of the property;
but if the Duke means to act like a man of sense
and business, he must abandon the " hereditary te-
nancies," grant reasonable lenses to tenants who
can farm well, and by a sale of some portion of his
estate raise the means of putting the remainder into
such a state as will induce men of capital and enter-
prise to take that land which the present tenants
cannot properly manage.

DEATH OF GEN. P. ANDERSON.—This distinguished
general died yesterday, after • somewhat lengthened
Illness. General Anderson entered the army in 17hi, and
was at the storming of the court Mien redoubts, the kloxelle
Fort, and the siege of Calvi, in Corsica. He served subse-
quently in the West Indies, and received • severe contusion
in the side in the storming of Morse Ckapot, St. Lucia ;
was aide.de.eamp to Sir John Moore in the expedition to
Holland; and afterwards served in the expedition to Egypt,
where he was severely wounded by • shot in the arm, in the
action of March 21. General Anderson also served in the
expedition to Watchmen, was present at the siege of Flush-
ing, and obtained a medal for Corinna. In 1837, the de-
ceased °facer was appointed colonel of the 78th Foot
(Highlanderi), a command which becomes vacant by his
demise.
GREAT WESTERN EXTENSION ATMOSPITERICERAIL.
_ . .

WAY.—Claigns of 1,16h1. by Mr. Taylor, engineer, and Mr
Mitchell, advertising agent, for 1,0001., were brought in
I against this company on Thunday.