The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-22 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON', SATURDAY EVENING, JUNE 22, 1544,

COWES, ISLE OF WIGHT.
FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company's
steamer, Braganza, which has been for some months past
hauled upon Messrs. Thomas and John White's patent slip,
and been lengthened thirty feet amidships, is now nearly
ready to go afloat ; she has been newly coppered, and will be
launched next spring tides.
Very few weeks more can elapse before the necessity of
hauling up such huge leviathans on the slip will be done
away with, for we find the Messrs. White's, the proprietors
of the extensive building-yard and dry-dock at West Cowes,
have, in order to keep pace with the times, and provide for
the wants of the shipping interest, commenced another
great undertaking, viz., the construction of a dock, which is
to be the largest in the world, capable of taking in the largest
steamer afloat. We have, during the week, paid a visit to
the spot, and were surprised to find what energy and means
are being used to bring this great, almost national, undertak-
ing to a completion, nature having, in a great measure, formed
of herself the site selected. It was formerly the mast pond,
the whole of which has been piled in, and the soil, which is
a thick stratum of clay, is already two-thirds excavated.
The foundation of the dock-heads have been laid, and hun-
dreds of tons of stone have arrived, already prepared to lay
down. There appears to be a most important object which
the proprietors have in view, and that is keeping clear a
sufficient space at the head of the dock to enable them at
any future time to enlarge it. The entrance of the dock
will be more than sufficiently wide to admit therein the
largest steamer without the necessity of removing their
paddle .wheels. From the magnitude of the work and pre-
cautions taken to meet all ends, the follies of the projectors of
the Great Britain have been guarded against.
Great benefit will arise from having so capacious a dock in
this port; and the advantage will be great to the Royal Mail
West India and other steamers ; and we hope the spirited
and talented proprietors will meet with the success they so
highly deserve.
LAUNCH OF THE. WATERWITCH. —All the scientific men
in this neighbourhood were attracted to Cowes on this occa-
sion, and a splendid launch it was. Exactly at twelve
o'clock she was, as it were, let loose. There was no coyness
in the lady ; but she rushed into the bosom of the brine as if
it were her own, and she knew she had no equal on it. The
waves received her as their queen. She sits on the water
like a wild sea-bird, and floats like a thing of air. The
Corkes say neither of the new ones can touch her, and they
are pretty good judges of what " the water likes."

THE WELSH CHURCH.
(FROM A CORRESPONDENT.)

FINE ARTS.
MAPS OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1815.

" Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priests' offices that
1 may eat a piece of bread."

Captain Siborne, the constructor of the well-known
model of the battle of Waterloo which was exhibited
so successfully for more than one season some few
years since at the Egyptian Hall, has just completed a
series of maps illustrative of the campaign of 1815,
which was crowned by the memorable victory of Wa-
terloo, and the subsequent march of the triumphant
British and Prussian armies on Paris. These maps
are eleven in number, are coloured with great
beauty and nicety, and represent with the ut-
most minuteness, and with a simplicity that there
can be no misunderstanding, all the various move-
ments of the contending forces during their three
days' hard fighting. Two of the maps are devoted to
the delineation of the closing action at Waterloo,
and those who study them with attention will
have a distincter and completer idea of that
murderous and obstinately contested battle than
they have yet had. The first of the two maps
gives a view of the state of the field at a quarter before
eight o'clock in the evening, when Napoleon,
all his other chances having failed, had just issued
orders for the final charge of the squadrons of the
Imperial Guard. These brave veterans, who are
coloured in blue, to distinguish them from the British
troops, who are coloured in red, are represented in
the act of advancing at full speed in a compact, for-
midable body, up the long, undulating ridge behind
which the English, with Wellington at their head,
were quietly waiting their approach. The names
of the different divisions and brigades, both horse and
foot, are also distinctly marked, together with the
exact position they maintained at this critical mo-
ment. To the right of the spectator the Prussian
auxiliary forces, coloured in green, are coming up at
the extremity of the field by the road from Ligny,
moving onward in heavy compact columns. In the
second map, which exhibits the condition of the con-
tending parties at five minutes past eight o'clock in
the evening, we see the Imperial Guard scattered in
all directions, and precipitately retreating from the
ridge, with Adams's division apparently foremost in
pursuit, mingled among them, and the Prussians by
this time close at hand. The representation of this
last disastrous attack of the French Emperor is deeply
interesting, and places the whole scene vividly before
us. But indeed no spot or movement of any import-
ance is omitted in these maps. We have the attack
and defence of Hugouemont, with the exact appearance
of its garden, the farm of La Belle Alliance, the high
road leading across the field from Charleroi, and even
the inequalities of the ground, its level and its rising
portions, discriminated by shadows of more or less
depth. The same praise that we have given to the
two coloured maps of Waterloo may be extended to
those which represent the battles of Ligny, Quatre-
Bras, and Wavre, at the most critical period of these
sanguinary contests. •The idea of these maps is a
perfectly novel one; and the constructor's (Captain
Siborne) skill in military surveying has enabled him
to give a scale of measurement which is characterised
by the most scrupulous accuracy. The majority of
our readers are of course perfectly acquainted with
the particulars of the brief, but glorious and decisive
campaign in Belgium; but we will venture to say
that of all the careful and circumstantial descriptions
they may have read of this campaign, none will give
them so distinct, vivid, and correct an idea of its cha-
racter as these eleven maps. We should not omit to
notice that they are engraved by Freebairn, who has
acquitted himself of a difficult and complicated task
with the greatest skill, spirit, and ingenuity, and dis-
played first-rate abilities as an engraver.

However, in these days of degeneracy, we may lament
the decline of zeal in the ministrations of the ordered
priest, we must at least acknowledge that it has lost
none of its pristine ardour in the aspirations of the can-
didate for that holy office. The " piece of silver " and
the " morsel of bread " still exercise their influence in
all its native freshness and vigour. Nor are these crav-
ings of the aspirant permitted to remain unallayed. The
importunity of the seeker awakens the sympathy of the
bestower of office in a manner truly exemplary ; both
exert themselves with the most laudable emulation to
carry into effect the principles upon which they are con-
federated.

But if we would see this system in its full and perfect
organisation, we must step over into Wales, and look at
the practice of the Welsh Church ; and there we shall
find the " piece of sifter " and the " morsel of brew.' "
stand out as prominently as if they formed the subject of
one of the queries in the ordination service, and some
essential qualification wereconnected with their presence.
In that unhappy country we shall find this pernicious
system as regularly maintained as if some dire fatality
rested on the land, for there we shall find prelates and
patrons, candidates and examiners, exerting themselves
to carry out this baneful principle with the infatuation
of men doomed to fulfil a curse.

We have already pointed to the custom in the Welsh
Church of denying to the people the service in their
native tongue, and thereby excluding them from the
communion, and ultimately driving them to the Dis-
senting chapels. We will now advert to a concurrent
practice, a branch of the same cankered trunk, of ad-
mitting into orders and instituting to livings men unqua-
lified for their office, through an utter ignorance of the
language. of the people whom they undertake to in-
struct. That an abuse so enormous should be suffered
to exist is absolutely incredible, except upon positive
and ocular testimony ; but, unhappily, in Wales such
testimony thrusts itself upon our notice, in whatever
direction we move. For the last century the Welsh
bishops have none of them been natives of the Princi-
pality, and, of course, true to the system of nepotism by
which they themselves were placed in their respective
stations, they never failed to bestow upon their English
relatives and friends such livings and dignities as fell to
their gift, and were worth accepting ; and where pri-
vate advowsons existed, the same system of presenta-
tion obtained ; the bishop, of course, extending towards
other patrons a liberal indulgence, and refraining from
too rigid an inquiry into qualifications. By such prac-
tices the Welsh churches became to a great extent occu-
pied by men unacquainted with the language of the
country ; the poorer benefices alone escaping the cor-
rupting influence. In the course of time the effects of
this system began to show themselves in the rise of Dis-
sent, and the inhabitants of the Principality, from being
a strict and constant Church-going people, became a race
of determined and inveterate Dissenters. Doubtless, it
was no trifling sense of injury that could compel a
people, so attached to ancient customs as the Welsh, to
forsake the hereditary habits of their country, and
abandon those places of worship to which they had re-
sorted in their youth, and where the graves of their fore-
fathers lay. But such was the violence done to their
feelings by the unprincipled and oppressive proceedings
of those ecclesiastical traffickers who were sent amongst
them, that the strong bands of early attachment, and
even of religious association, were rent assunder, and the
people of Wales are at this moment a nation of Dissen-
ters, becoming every day more and more exasperated
against that Church out of whose communion they were
driven.

However, at length these evils began to assume an as-
pect so threatening, that it was determined that persons
appointed to Welsh parishes should be acquainted with
the Welsh language, and that all candidates should un-
dergo an examination in that language. The effect of •
this was that every man who had any prospect of a
Welsh curacy, or a Welsh living, applied himself with
all his energies to the acquiring of the language, pro-
mising himself to be able in the few months allowed him,
to master a new and difficult language, whose idioms
and pronounciation were, previous to that time, totally
unknown to him. And now we find another striking
feature present itself to our view : the bishops are, but
with one single exception, all of them utterly
and hopelessly ignorant of the language, and,
therefore, the examination is entrusted to a deputy. How
that duty is performed will not be asked, when we
state of the multitudes of candidates of all ages and
capacities who, after four or five months' study, have
offered themselves for examination, not one has ever
been rejected. Men are often plucked, in a Latin exami-
nation, after a course of study of ten or fifteen years ;
but a man acquires Welsh in half as many months !
Aye, and is entrusted with the communication, through
that language, of the great mysteries of salvation ; he is,
thus scantily provisioned, sent forth to instruct the igno-
rant, to combat error, to dispute with the subtle and
fluent Dissenter, and, in a word, to fill an office in which,
of all others, a knowledge of language and a command
of idiom and phraseology are indispensable. Well then,
the newly-appointed minister commences his labours.
His first essay excites derision ; his next creates dis-
gust ; his third or fourth begins to empty hischurch ; and
before his half-dozenth is finished, preparations are making
for erecting a new dissenting chapel in his parish. And
how can we expect that it should be otherwise ? The
Welsh are, of all people on earth, the least likely to be
satisfied with mediocrity in the addresses they hear from
the pulpit. They are accustomed to a style of oratory
of the most stirring character. When the London re-
porters visited the Principality during the late disturb-
ances, though by no means disposed to speak favourably
of the Welsh, yet in this respect they were constrained
to acknowledge a degree of excellence of no ordinary
occurrence. After having attended the public meetings
on the mountains, and the religious assemblies in the
chapels, and listened to the various speakers addresSing
the people in their native language, and thus feeling
themselves competent to form a correct opinion on the
subject, these men have told us distinctly, that they have
heard the most eloquent and distinguished sneakers in
Britain, in the church, the senate, and at the bar, and
yet for action, delivery, fluency of language, and effect
upon the hearers, they never saw the real orator till
they came amongst what they designate as " the in-
spired peasantry of Wales." And it is to this people
that the English bishops of Wales send men to preach
who, till within a few months of undertaking that office,
have never pronounced one word of the language!
When, therefore, the people contrast the freedom of
utterance of their native preachers, with the stammer-
ing, hesitating, and blundering of their new preceptors,
and the manner in which the latter endeavour to squeeze
the bold and masculine intonations of the ancient
British into the slender, wiredrawn accents of modern
tea-table English, is it to he wondered at that they turn
away with contempt and disgust, and seek some other
instructors ? But what cares the new incumbent for all
this? He has got his " piece of silver " and" morsel of
bread?" What cares the patron? He has provided for
his friend. What cares the bishop? He looks forward
to be translated to a more lucrative see.