and in Sertland, the Protestants of Ireland can be presumed to reze. Practice reaction, the only species of reduction which avolis injustice, has already been commenced in the higher departments of the Irish Church establishment. The dioceses are to be reduced to ten, by consolidation with others, on the death of the present incumbents. But will not this number still be excessive? After including the Wesleyan Methodists, there are only $52.064 members of the Established Church in Ireland. There are only 1885 benefices, under a system in which we maintain that division into benefices has been multiplied unnecessarily. Look at the extent of episcopal duties with ref rence to population and benefices laid down in the proposed arrangements of the English Church Commissioners. T.: diocese of London is to be left, with a population of 1,746,504: which, taking the Established Church and Wesleyan Methodis at two-thirds, will leave of persons in one diocese, not dissentig from the Establishment, a greater number by 200,000 than a to be found in the whole of Ireland. They even propose create a new diocese of Manchester, of which the population be 1,208,533, which will leave, according to the foregoing c lation, above 800,000 members of the Established Church. At the duties of the bishop to be estimated by benefices? Norw under the proposed arrangement, will include 809 benefices the diocese of Lincoln 780. These two combined will e 196 more benefices than are subjected to the superintendene all the archbishops and bishops in Ireland. If the English copal system is allowed to be any criterion, it will be ada that one archbishop and three bishops would be amply su

for the whole of Ireland.

As for the parochial clergy in the two countries, the pr tions which they bear to population in towns will best comparison, because the density is in such instances every nearly the same; and such a comparison of Ireland with E will show how much the clergy preponderate in the former. parishes in Dublin, containing 47,813 members of the Esta Church, have 46 resident clergymen, or one to less than In St Finbarrs, Cork, containing 1826 of the Established C there are three; in St Mary Shandon, Cork, with 1666 Established Church, there are two. There are three Deanery, Waterford, containing 2685 members of the Esta Church; and two in St Patrick's in the same city, cont 1597. Now turn to England. From the Report of the C Revenue Commission we learn that in Bethnal Green, to a: lation of 62,018, there are only four clergymen-to St G in the East, with 38,505, there are two-to St Giles" Fields, with 36,432, there are three-to St Andrews, Ha

with 35,599, three-to St Leonards, Shoreditch, with 33,000, two -to Stepney, with 51,200, three-to St Luke's, with 46,642, two -to St Mary's, Whitechapel, with 30,000, only one. In Liverpool, in two parishes having together a population of more than 34,000, there are four clergymen-in Macclesfield, three to more than 23,000—in Oldham, four to 32,000—in Birmingham, sixteen to 107,000-in Leeds, nine to 71,600-in Sheffield, nine to more than 73,000. Now, if we assume that in England only half the population are members of the Established Church, which we believe to be much below their real amount, we shall find, that while in Ireland the proportion of clergymen to members of the Establishment in towns, is as one to 1100, to 900, o 800, to 600-in England, in our large provincial towns, it s as one to 3400 in Birmingham; to 4000, and 4300 in Leeds, Sheffield, Oldham, Macclesfield, and Liverpool-while in some f the London parishes it is as one to 6000, to 7000, to 8000, o 9000, to 10,000, to 12,500, to 15,000! Either, therefore, bere is an extreme dearth of clergy in the town parishes in Engand, or in Ireland there is a much greater number than can posbly be required.

We must now quit this extensive subject, on which our resent limits do not permit us to dwell as fully as its nportance demands. We have drawn with a sincere desire

be accurate and impartial, what we firmly believe to be a ithful picture of the Church of Ireland. We have attempted e unfold its abuses, in the confident hope, that erelong these buses will cease to exist; for, to use the words of the only man hose eloquence and authority could be expected to arrest, even ra short period, the inevitable progress of ecclesiastical reform, tries the time has come when all abuses must be corrected,' and 'no one will vindicate the exact distribution of the ecclesiastical nees revenues of Ireland, according to the mode heretofore adopted, and provided you can show that another distribution for the same the objects will be more serviceable and advantageous.'*

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We think it proper to mention, that this article was written. efore the late announcement of the Ministerial measure of cit ish Church Reform, in Lord Morpeth's temperate and able art of eech.

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* Sir Robert Peel's Speech, April 2. See Mirror of Parliame

NOTE

Respecting Mr ALAN STEVENSON's Evidence before the
Parliamentary Committee on Lighthouses.

ALTHOUGH it is contrary to our practice to insert any replies to the strictures which we may find it necessary to make in the discharge of our duty, yet, as Mr Alan Stevenson has complained that his character is injured by a statement made in our second article on the British Lighthouse system,' we shall afford him an opportunity of being heard in his defence. It would give us sincere pleasure were we able either to modify or withdraw the reproof which we found it necessary to administer to him; but after perusing the following letter, we have no hesitation in saying that had we known the facts which it contains before we wrote the passage alluded to, we should have expressed ourselves with double severity.

To the Editor of the Edinburgh Review.

'SIR-A gross calumny is directed against me in an article 'on Lighthouses in Number CXXIII. of the Edinburgh Review; and I request your insertion of the following statement, exposing the falsehood of the accusation.

The Reviewer quotes my Evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Lighthouses, from question 2471 to 2482 inclusive; but his calumnious charge is 'grounded on my answers to the first four questions, which are " as follows:

:

“2471. The Bell Rock Lighthouse is a revolving light?— "It is.

"2472. Of what colour?-Red and white.

"2473. What are the number of burners in the white frame? "-Five.

"2474. The number in the red ?-Five also."

On this evidence the Reviewer has thought fit to indulge in the following remarks, concluding with the calumny to which I allude.

"The only remark," he says, "which the preceding piece of "evidence requires, regards the strange assertion, that, in the "Bell Rock Lighthouse, there are five white lights and five red "ones; whereas our animadversions, though equally just in this case, were particularly directed against reddening the weak beam

of light produced by the FIVE reflectors, in place of the strong "beam produced by SEVEN reflectors. In Mr Robert Stevenson's "folio engraving of the reflector frame, published in 1824, "fourteen years after the completion of the lighthouse, the "reflectors are, as we have stated, SEVEN on one side and FIVE "on the other, and the red glasses are placed in front of the "FIVE. It is, therefore, an unpardonable attempt in the Clerk "of Works to diminish the force of our reproof, and the magni"tude of the engineer's blunder, by making the Committee "believe that there were five reflectors on each side of the "frame."

This charge I answer by a flat denial; and I prove its 'falsehood by stating the fact, that on the night of the 16th No'vember, 1823, the SEVEN reflectors on the two white sides were 'reduced in number, by the extinction of two on each face; so that, 'during a period of nearly eleven years before I gave the evidence above quoted, there was, as I have stated to the Committee, FIVE reflectors on each side, white as well as red. I may also add, that, at page 526 of my father's work on the Bell Rock Lighthouse, the number of reflectors is stated to be twenty (or five 'on each of the four sides, as altered in 1823).

'But, farther, this fact is fully proved by no fewer than three official documents in the Northern Lights Office, one of which I sent to Mr Hume, the chairman of the Select Committee, 'who alludes to it as a proof of the accuracy of the statements ' of my evidence in the following letter:

"Bryanston Square, 29th April, 1835. “SIR-I have received your letter of the 18th instant, call"ing my attention to an article On Lighthouses' in Number "CXXIII. of the Edinburgh Review, where, at page 241, the “Reviewer accuses you of deceiving the Select Committee of "the House of Commons by erroneous evidence as to the "number of reflectors at the Bell Rock Lighthouse.

66

"As chairman of that Committee, I can state, in contradic"tion of that assertion of the Reviewer, that I have now before me the original return from the lighthouse-keeper of the "Bell Rock, for the month of November, 1823, in which the "number of reflectors used on the 15th of that month were twenty-four, and on the 16th the number were reduced to

66

1823.

This plate represents the reflector frame before

altered in

"twenty, as stated in your evidence, which is therefore quite "correct, and in accordance with that report.

"I may further add, in justice to you, that your evidence be"fore the Committee was able and candid, and showed your "perfect acquaintance with the whole department; and I regret "that any charge to the contrary should have been made against "you by the Reviewer. I remain your obedient servant," "JOSEPH HUME.

"To Mr ALAN STEVENSON, Edinburgh."

To such unanswerable evidence, and more especially to the ' clear statement of it in Mr Hume's letter, no comment need be added; and I, therefore, dismiss for ever this unfounded calumny 'from my mind.

I have the honour to be, &c.

ALAN STEVENSON.'

That our readers may understand the reply which the above letter requires, we must inform them that in our CXVth Number, p. 181, we preferred against Mr Robert Stevenson the heavy charge of having lighted up the Bell Rock Lighthouse with an apparatus utterly defective in principle, and incapable of fulfilling the essential objects of a sea-light.' In place of using seven reflectors with red light, and fire with white light, in order to make the two visible at the same distance, his apparatus censisted of seven reflectors with white light, and five with red; the consequence of which was that the red lights disappeared at distances where the white lights were visible; and the Bell Rock ceased to be a distinguishing light within that vast extent of ocean which lies between the extreme range of the seven white lights, and the extreme range of the five red ones.'

This grave charge attracted the notice of the Committee of the House of Commons; and on the 25th April, 1834, Mr Hume, or some other member, having our Article either before him, or in his mind, interrogated Mr A. Stevenson on the subject. The object evidently was to discover whether or not the apparatus was such as was described by the Reviewer, and what reason could be assigned by the engineer for having made such a blunder. The interrogator, therefore, asks Mr A. Stevenson, What is the number of burners in the white frame? He answers FIVE; whereas the Reviewer had declared there were SEVEN, on the authority of five different drawings of the Lighthouse in Mr Robert Stevenson's book, published in the year 1824 (fourteen years after the completion of the Lighthouse), in each of which