THE DEAN OF YORK.
A PRINCIPAL item in the "Sporting Intelligence" of last week was the appointment of the Honourable Augustus Duncombe to a post of dignity and influence. His promotion has created great satisfaction, for the brother of Lord Feversham naturally enjoys a high position in the County of York, and the Duncombes are ex- ceedingly popular with an influential class. Hitherto the poor gentleman, to whom we refer, has enjoyed but a poor income, al- though he holds several posts, as well as some portion of that pro- perty which comes to him in his capacity of younger son. His in- come has not exceeded a miserable twelve thousand a year, and even now, poor fellow, his promotion will bring him more rank than emolument ; for in becoming Dean of York he obtains an ad- dition of only a thousand a year to his annual revenue. How- ever the Duncombes are liked by their friends ; the honourable and reverend Augustus can ride across the country against any man of his own weight ; and his religious opinions of course are orthodox. We hear complaints that he is at once too High Church and too Low Church, which of course is absurd ; and it is well known that whatever may be his sentiments on some of the abstruse subjects of the Church, and on that point we can judge the less confidently since he has published no works to en- lighten us, he is unquestionably of the good old Port standard in doctrine. The appointment too has the additional advantage of proving that whatever Lord Derby's "parasites," as Mr. Dis- raeli would call them, may say to procure votes in the House of Commons, the noble Earl and the influential part of his Cabinet are thoroughly Tory at heart.
The appointment indeed is exceedingly valuable at the present moment, since it points more than one moral. We all know the connexion of the Church with the manners and customs of the rustic classes. It is cheering to see this revival of ecclesiastical influence in the sporting fields of the country. Woe betide the day when we should sever the cloth from the saddle. It is indeed possible that some of the degeneracy which has been observed of late years,—the decline of those rural sports which Lord John Manners desires to revive, or the exclusive and destructive atten- tion to light weights and short distances at Epsom and Ascot,— may be, in part, owing to the restraints which a censorious public have imposed upon the clerical influences in such directions. While the Church is thus restored to the field in Yorkshire, we observe a cognate measure for introducing the Game Laws into Ireland; another proof of the advance of that country towards the English standard of civilization. Where hitherto the Riband- man has stalked, we are henceforth to see the poacher • and it only wants extensive preserving for the purpose of battue ;hooting to bring forth the poacher breed in its fullest perfection. Since Lord Derby's recent accession to office, nothing has dis- tinguished him more than his fidelity to the Church of England. He has indeed yielded on the Jew question ; but he has done it in a manner which shows how reluctant the concession is. He has absolutely refused to sanction the abolition of Church-rates, a measure which would go so far to encroach upon property such as the Deanery of York. It is evident that the Premier has a very distinct idea of the true relation of a Church to, what Mr. Disraeli calls, " an obsolete oligarchy." The deaneries and such offices are preserves for gentlemen of the Duncombe stamp. Some of us have entertained different ideas with regard to the national Church. We have thought that as the doors of the parish edifice should stand open for the whole people of the parish, so the pulpit within, and the highest seat in the Cathedral, should be open to the learn- ing and piety of the country, in order that the mind of England might call into the House of God the great body of England's laity ; but evidently that is not at all the idea which prevails at head-quarters just now. On the contrary, the Church is a vested interest; and what would Duncombes, with such paltry incomes as twelve thousand a year, do for augmentations, if Cathedral stalls were to be thrown open to " the canaille " ? If reformers fail to read aright the lesson of this appointment they must be blind indeed. We suppose that even Lord Derby has his moments of serious thought. We do not envy him his reflections upon this subject.
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