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PROJECTED CATHEDRAL AT LIVERPOOL.

THE Corporation of Liverpool are said to have solicited the erection of a Bishopric, for which they are in return to show their zeal by the erection of a cathedral. The Bishopric is to be composed of the diocese of the Isle of Man, and a fragment of that of Chester. The diocese of Man is an absurd anomaly in the establishment, for it makes his Grace the Duke of Athol head of a church, and gives him the disposal of a mitre, which, of course, always falls on the head of the "gude blude." This strange privilege ought to be extinguished, and probably will, by the way most congenial to the pockets of the great dispensers of the good things of this world. But the formation of a new diocese out of that of Chester may have its difficulties. Chester is an immense diocese, extending over a considerable part of the north-west, even into Yorkshire; but it has the episcopal objection of being rather unproductive as it is. Such a Bishop as Bishop Bloomfield deserves the richest see of them all; and even if he should be translated, his successor will have to stomach the mortification.

But the proposal of the Liverpool people is more obnoxious. To build a Cathedral would be to embark in a tremendous expense, for no useful object under the sun. Cathedrals were the natural growth of the monkish system. When rival abbots laboured to attract popular favour to their pious fooleries, by exciting popular wonder, the Cathedral, too, was the scene of rival ambition. Nothing could better show off the idolatrous tricks or the pompous train of this early prelacy. The Cathedral, besides, gave the chief employment that men of monkish seclusion could find for the exercise of their tastes in architecture, which were sometimes cultivated in Italy, and were admirable. The expense of the building was unimportant to those who received immense sums of money which they had but few other means of employing; the work gave occupation to artists and the peasantry. It was equivalent to the manufacturing occupation of later days, and at once made the brotherhood popular, serviceable to the district, comfortable and stately in their dwellings, and se

cure in the possession of a property which could not be taken from them by the common predatory habits of the time. They produced noble buildings; and however it is to be regretted that the enormous sums laid out on them were not better employed, in the popular education, in the propagation of science, or in works of humanity and charity, yet here we have them, and it would be culpable to let them go to decay. But the idea of building new Cathedrals is totally absurd, extravagant, and useless. The modern expense of building a single Cathedral on the old scale and to build it on any other must be beggarly-would actually erect fifty tolerable churches, which are as much wanting in the northern parts of the diocese of Chester as in any other quarter of the kingdom,-would repair all the glebehouses, would erect and furnish an hospital in every town in Lancashire, and, in short, do a multitude of most useful and most necessary things. The best Cathedral that we could build would be a bad one, for economy would, of course, be among the principles of the founders. But economy has nothing to do with the lavish expenditure that alone could make one of those edifices in any degree correspondent to the name. We should have a bad Cathedral, probably never more than half-finished; for the funds and the zeal of the Corporation would soon be equally exhausted by the expenditure, which would so soon be discovered to be totally misapplied.

The fact is, that the whole Cathedral system is, to the mind even of churchmen, the most cumbrous and inefficient part of the church polity. The reformers, however, were forced to take it as it was-edifice, form of government, and state of revenue. The prebends were once little better than sinecures; and though they are now often given to men diligently employed in parishes, or perhaps as the rewards of literature, they are obnoxious from their being connected with scarcely any other actual duty than that of sitting in a stall twice a-day, for a month or two in a year, for an hour at a time, which is called residence, and which any man alive may do, and devote the rest of his existence to lounging at a watering-place,

touring on the continent, or going pleasantly through the nothingness of London life. This is not said in a spirit of reproach to the general spirit of the British ecclesiastics, for they uniformly, when they have any sense of the infinitely solemn importance of their duty, regret this temptation to indolence, a temptation which is besides chiefly reserved for men willing enough already to save themselves trouble the sons and connexions of the higher orders. The whole system ought to be revised. The stalls ought to be connected with positive duties. The Cathedrals ought to be turned into Colleges for theological education, or for some public purpose connected with the public knowledge. stalls ought to be given to clergymen distinguished by their literature, and who would be actual professors. It is singular that in England, the Protestant head of Europe, and the actual stronghold of whatever religious truth subsists among men, there is no institution for religious education. In the universities it forms an altogether subordinate branch, and the divine is left to hunt out his knowledge as well as he can.

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What is the practical value of St.

Paul's and Westminster Abbey as churches? Next to nothing. A corner is railed off, in which a service is chanted, which during the week nobody attends, which on Sundays is attended by no more than the ordinary congregation of any of the small churches, and which is the most incongruous and unsuitable form of service, as any one will know who attempts to sing his prayers. The Cathedral and its service are equally the legacy of Papal times. St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey are actually little better than cemeteries, and very fine ones they are; and it is well, on the whole, that we have such receptacles for our national monuments. But as there are no such uses for our country cathedrals, however it may be right to keep them up, the Liverpool Corporation will act wisely in thinking a little, before they fling away their money on a mountain of stone, useless to every purpose but those of the contractors for the stones, and the idle, who may be pleased to promenade its aisles. Let them build churches, hospitals, and alms-houses, if they have money to dispose of, and desire to dispose of it usefully.

MANAGERS OF THE OPERA.

WHY, among the innumerable books of the day, has no book appeared on the destiny of Theatres? The OperaHouse is in the market again. It would seem of all others the most certain source of fortune, yet nothing is more unaccountable than the fates of every lessee of this theatre, contrasted with the eagerness for the purchase. The history of the adventurers for the last half century would be worthy of a first-rate collector of the speculations of mankind. Gould, who had the theatre when Kelly, whose Memoirs have lately so much amused the world, was manager, died, it was supposed, deeply embarrassed. Some of his shares got into the hands of an opulent trader, Waters, who purchased on until he had in one way or other embarked little less than a plum in the speculation. He grew sick of it, and a party started up to purchase his title. They actually offered him L.90,000. He pondered on this most tempting chance of inde

pendence, but some property boxes to be soon out of lease, and to revert to the income of the lessee, tempted Waters still more! he finally refused the offer, with expectation of making a mine of gold out of those boxes. He relied on a banker, the banker relied on something else; both were mistaken! the bank stopped, and Waters went abroad sur le champ.

Another lessee was Taylor, whose name has figured so often in the perpetual Chancery proceedings of this theatre. He, however, began his speculation with so little to lose, that his losses could not be formidable; but his chief dwelling continued to the last to be in a place where, as the wits say, to live within Rules, is not always to live in comfort.

Ebers, a respectable and active manager, then took it, urged by the peculiar patrons of the Italian Theatre among the nobility. He carried it on with unusual spirit, and apparently with considerable success. But he too

is gone.

At present there is actually a keen canvass for the hire of the theatre from year to year. Laurent, a Frenchman, a most dashing speculator, is stirring up powerful patronage to back his proposal. This man is certainly not afraid of being overstocked with business. For he has already the English theatre in Paris, a theatre in Brussels, branches of thea tres in other places of the Continent, and some interest in the theatres of Italy, to which he is labouring to add the tremendous responsibility of the King's Theatre. What is the business of a prime minister to this man's wear and tear of brain! His chief antagonist on the present occasion is one, who, like himself, sets distance at defiance; Price, the manager at once of Drury-Lane and of New York, with half a dozen, or half a hundred theatres besides in the States. His management of Drury-Lane certainly affords a favourable promise of his success in any dramatic speculation. Following poor Elliston, who had every fault of rashness, over-activity, and

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under-diligence, the cleverest, giddiest, most hurrying, and most tardy of earthly creatures, his whole conduct has formed the most advantageous contrast, and his success has corresponded to his prudence. At a season when theatres can but seldom collect an audience, he has full houses. train of new performances, the secret of success, has rapidly been presented, without being pressed on the public. If they have been found unpopular, the manager has flung them aside after a night or two, and something else has started forth. The result has been success to the theatre.

Other candidates for the OperaHouse are making their proposals with the vigour of projectors, and the Duke of Devonshire is understood to declare his astonishment that there is so much money on earth to be disposed of in scenery and singing, and his sorrow that his acceptance of a "sinecure" should have suddenly overloaded him with the most laborious office under the Crown.

MILITARY UNIFORMS.

It is said that the present state of the military uniforms is about to undergo some revision, and that already the revision has produced, as military matters may be fairly entitled to do, some very belligerent conversation in very high quarters. The Lord High Admiral has begun with his department, and the navy are in future to invest their lower man in blue trowsers, seamed with gold, for dress, instead of close white pantaloons, which must have been, of all possible investments, the most inconvenient for tars. The naval uniform in all other points is, however, the most rational of that of all our services, because the practical life of the navy compels a man to rationality. The cocked hat may be an exception, for no more inconvenient contrivance for covering or comfort was ever adopted for the human head. But it is seldom used on board, its chief display is on gala days, and in the streets of the dock-yards; and if the navy are fond of it, they may be allowed to have their whim. But the dress of the army is the true object of censure.

Of the two purposes of uniform,-to

give the soldier a convenient clothing, and to distinguish him from the enemy,

The

neither is attained by the present system, and the failure in the latter point is striking and unaccountable. entire service, which is most likely to be confounded with the enemy, from the nature of its operations, and whose confounding is, of course, most hazardous to the general force, is actually made as like as possible to the same description of troops in the foreign armies. If we have lancers to raise, instead of making them so obviously British as to leave no liability to mistake in the field, we dress them on the very model of the French; who, notwithstanding all their experience, are so afflicted with melodramatic taste, that they make everything on the model of a stage-tailor. We load the horseman with a cap of sickening weight, good for nothing as a defence, and so high, that in the commonest breeze half his time is taken up with keeping it from flying off, with himself in it. We cover the English face, not merely with the dandyism of the moustache, a military-looking appendage enough when worn by a

foreigner, but inevitably incongruous and coxcombish when pasted on an English countenance. But the Lancer goes farther, and buries his physiognomy in a huge bush of beard-which would do honour to a Turk, and leaves scarcely any other evidence of the human face than the nose and eyes. At three inches off, no man could distinguish between this bearded burlesque and any savage from Scythia. The rest of the uniform is exactly of the cut, the colour, and the frippery of the Frenchman. The accumulation of all this foolery, which costs a prodigious deal to the country in the case of the privates, as may be judged from the expense of the officers' uniform, which amounts to about five hundred pounds, actually unfits the British soldier for anything but a dandy. Our light cavalry are, of all others, the most inefficient in the field. The outpost duty is intrusted to our German allies, and the charges are given up to the heavy dragoons. Yet these lancers are, of course, individually as brave as other men. But the evil does not stop here. From their studied similitude to French cavalry, the enemy have frequently contrived to get in upon our infantry; the firing that might have repelled them was restrained, under the idea that they were our own troops, and the mistake was discovered only when they began sabreing away in our very lines.

All our light cavalry are, upon the same principle, as close as possible in their resemblance to the foreigners, and no officer alive could tell, at a quarter of a mile's distance, whether the column of light cavalry advancing upon him were English or foreign. To what hesitation this doubt might give rise, in circumstances where hesitation may be ruin, is easily conceivable. Yet all this hazard, which may be the utter destruction of an army or of a kingdom, is incurred from our taste for the fashions of men, to whom the British troops, undebased by foreign frippery, have been in every age superior. The whole of our light cavalry wear blue, for no other earthly reason than that the French and German cavalry wear blue. To say that this absurd imitation is for the sake of tricking the French in the field, is to know but little of the French, who are our masters in trickery of every kind, and who, in the field,

are sure to turn our clumsy tricks against us. To say that blue is necessary for concealment in the operations of light cavalry, is absurd, to those who know that cavalry of any kind have little or nothing to do in woods or ditches; that to conceal the horse is next to impossible; and that to sit as a vidette and gallop off with intelligence, is the most that can be expected of any light-horseman; or, at all events, of the British trooper. But if concealment were to be ensured, its fullest advantages are not to be put in competition with a tenth of the disadvantages felt in every campaign by the Infantry Officer's utter impossibility of discovering a few hundred yards off whether the regiment, riding down upon him, is coming to reinforce or to charge.

The arming of the light-horseman is equally cumbrous. He is loaded with a carbine, which, in the line, he never uses, and which in skirmishing he uses to no effect. The German mounted marksman is a valuable soldier, for his shots tell from practice. Not one shot out of five hundred of the British is calculated to do anything better than frighten the crows. His horse is unruly under fire, his hand is unpractised, and he only wastes powder, and exposes himself to be taken down by the enemy's rifles. A dozen carbineers to a regiment, trained to the use of the weapon, would be enough for the purpose of protecting the outposts of the camp, or concealing the movements of the lines, and would save the general incumbrance and expense of a weighty and an expensive

weapon.

The true service for the British is the heavy cavalry. An Englishman will never equal a foreigner in the outpost duties. He wants the forest habits; he is unaccustomed to the half wild life familiar to the Austrian hussar; he can never attain the patient vigilance, the power of enduring thirst, hunger, and the weather, nor even the adroitness in the management of his charger and weapons, that are almost native to the light troops of Germany. We also disregard the common expedients which might, in some degree, remedy those original disabilities. Who ever hears in England of a summer camp for the exercise of the cavalry? The thing is done every year in every principality of the Continent. The troops are there

Why should our other branch of service, the artillery, wear blue, when red is the distinguishing colour of the British army? In short, why should there be the existing rage for making the army as motley as possible, with only the principle preserved of making it as unlike a British one, and as like a French, as we can? The rifle corps must be excepted, as their business is concealment, and the more their colour resembles the trees, or the grass in which they lurk, the better. But in all other instances let us discard the foreign foolery. If Englishmen have beaten their enemies without the help of moustaches and beards, cuirasses and enormous conical caps, blue coats, and lace enough on one of them to eat up the fortune of a younger son-let us do without those absurdities, and fight with clean faces, and limbs clothed in the same colour in which Marlborough rode over the field at Blenheim.

taught to take up positions, to move over various kinds of ground, to manœuvre, to bivouac; the whole activity of a campaign is gone through, and nothing new to either officer or soldier can occur on actual service. In England we have still extensive spaces for such exercises. A camp on Dartmoor would give the range of a country wide enough for the whole display of a campaign. But we need not go so far. Windsor Forest would allow of every operation on the most interesting scale. Health, activity, and intelligence, would be combined, and the next scene of actual service would tell a different tale from the history of the British light-horse in the Peninsula and Flanders. But why should not the equivocal and foreign colour be changed at once for the English red? It is infinitely handsomer, is not more expensive, is as easily kept clean, and at once adds to the appearance of the soldier and the security of the general system.

STEAM CARRIAGES.

THE most novel application of that most powerful of all agents, Steam, is now coming before the public in a form which at least promises practical effects. Gurney, an ingenious chemist and mechanician, has, after various attempts and failures, brought his steam carriage into a state allowing of actual experiment on the road. It some time since ran up Highgate Hill, a very steep ascent, at the rate of probably ten miles an hour; but its descent was more formidably rapid, for the pilot was unable to guide its velocity, and it tore off one of its wheels. To be run away with by a horse of this kind, that would think nothing of whirling carriage, passengers, and all, into the third heavens, or dissolving them to a jelly in the face of mankind, was too perilous an adventure to be assured of popularity. In the meantime another engineer sent another steam carriage to perambulate the streets, but his name was the most disastrous imaginable for the purpose. An old Roman would have pronounced him destined by fate never to prosper in steam apparatus, for the name was Burstall. The omen was true, for the carriage blew up, and boiled and par boiled several scientific spectators, do

ing at the same time the good work of washing the faces of the mob far and wide.

Gurney's carriage is now ready, like a pair of lovers, for a run on the north road, and the Edinburgh mail may begin to tremble. But its first run will be to Windsor to pay its respects to Majesty, as in duty bound. It is next to visit Bristol by day, and having felt its way in sunshine, is to try its speed with the mail; this will be a decisive proof of its locomotive powers, for the rapidity of the Bristol mail is such, that double insurance is said to be required by the Offices for all who travel in it, and all who have anything to leave are publicly requested to make their wills. But this machine has the one grand defect, that the steamery is under the feet of the passengers. The mighty agent which could make mince-meat of the whole cargo at a moment's warning, is working under the boards on which 20 human beings pretend to be at their ease, travelling fourteen miles an hour. Where the journey may end, whether at Bristol or in the other world, is the problem; and it will be some time before those who are not zealous of their speedy riddance of all the cares of life, will be

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