The several powers and jurisdictions of the Indian bishops are to be limited by his Majesty's Letters Patent. The Bishop of Calcutta is to be Metropolitan, subject, however, to the Archbishop of Canterbury; and a power is given to the metropolitan, with one other bishop, to consecrate a third. The Bishopric of Calcutta, includes the new presidency of Agra; it is probable the Archdeaconries of Ceylon and New South Wales, which are King's colonies, will be placed under the Bishops of Madras and Bombay.

It may be asked, what is to become of the present Archdeacons of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay? At Calcutta, Mr. Corrie, having served his period, is entitled to his retiring pension. At Madras, it is announced that Mr. Robinson is to be preferred to the bishopric. At Bombay, Mr. Grant stated the archdeaconry to be vacant; this is a mistake; Mr. Carr was collated to it by Bishop Wilson in April last, before the bill was introduced; and as the act has reference only to archdeacons "hereafter to be appointed," it is presumed he is entitled to a continuation of the present salary and pension. The act comes into operation in April next, when the nomination and patents of the new bishops will be officially made out.

In the ecclesiastical arrangements for India, it is much to be desired that the government would consent to the formation of an Ecclesiastical Board; whose duty it should be to hold correspondence with the Indian, and all our colonial, bishops; to select clergymen in England to be appointed chaplains; and to be the channels of communication on all matters relating to the church, and to the spiritual welfare and interests of the British residents in the colonies.

THAT the natural features of a country influence its ecclesiastical architecture, is an observation which has frequently been made, and the present subject affords no exception to the remark. Those counties which have little irregularity of surface, such as Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire, are sprinkled with tapering spires, or, if the village church be devoid of this monitory pyramid, "whose silent finger points to heaven," its bell-tower is buttressed and many-staged, with the elevation increased, perhaps, by a lantern turret, or by clusters of pinnacles. Similar erections characterize the flatter parts of our coast, such as that of Lincolnshire, doubtless as sca-marks or beacons; while in

those shores which are of a bolder description, with cliffs or neighbouring eminences, of which the Isle of Wight is an example, the village churches rarely exhibit such prominent features. More mountainous districts, such as "rocky Cumberland," and the inland parts of Yorkshire, seem to have edifices of greater compactness, upon which the storms of such regions may have less hold than on loftier or more diffuse structures. The only other great local distinction we shall notice is that of a woodland district; and what Gilpin has said, speaking of the church in New Forest, now under consideration, points out very acutely a marked peculiarity :-"All the churches of the forest are loftily seated. For when the whole country was covered with woods, and before roads were cut through them, it was necessary to place the church in a lofty situation, that the inhabitants might the more easily find their way to it."* The truth of the remark is justified to the present writer's experience by the site of Lyndhurst, Bramshaw, Brockenhurst, as well as Boldre, all within the circuit of the forest; for Beaulieu, though beautifully embosomed in primeval woods, must be considered as a monastery; while Lymington, Milford, and Christchurch, are modified by proximity to the sea-side. In addition to the reason already given for our forest churches being so perched, Warner adds, "that the danger of being bewildered in the mazes of the wood was not the only danger the parishioner had to encounter in his attendance at Divine service, when the church was situated in a forest. Bogs and inundations in the winter, thieves and outlaws in the summer, frequently prevented or surprised him in his pious expedition."+

The necessity of thus fixing the place of worship, would, of course, generally constitute it a leading object in the landscape, and its precincts would naturally be a station affording fine views of the surrounding scenery. Such is eminently the case with Boldre Church, which, possessing few intrinsic beauties of ancient architecture, and but slight historical interest, has all the charms which sylvan seclusion can yield to the meditative, and which a diversified picture of hill and dale and distant ocean can open to the lover of external nature; but, above all, it has a moral attraction, as being the arena of the Christian labours of the excellent, we might almost say the apostolical, William Gilpin.

It is a popular error, that Boldre Church was one of very few spared, out of many pulled down, by William the Conqueror, when he desolated the lower part of Hampshire, in order to form a spacious hunting ground: but Warner and others have shewn that the monkish writers are not to be trusted in their representations of the imputed havoc on this occasion. It is certain that

* Forest Scenery, ii. 129.

Topog. Remarks, S. W. Hants, i. 85.

a fresh tract was appropriated for the royal sport,-the very name of New Forest alone indicates so much; but that churches were destroyed for the purpose is very unlikely. In spite of the assertions of chroniclers, no local proof or presumption of such sacrilege has been alleged. "The fury of the devastation would not have allowed him leisurely to remove every vestige of the desecration; and unless this had been carefully done in the first instance, casualty or curiosity must have discovered in succeeding ages some traces of the sacrilegious deed."* At all events, the church of Boldre did not exist when Domesday book was compiled, but an ancient document proves it to have been erected by Henry the First's time. That of Brockenhurst, which is only a chapel of ease at present to Boldre, is, however, mentioned in that primitive survey, and of course that church was spared in the work of afforestation.

Boldre never could have boasted of much beauty as a building. The portion erected first was massively clumsy, and subsequent additions did not improve it. It is now a compound of the styles of all ages. The west end retains most marks of antiquity, but with nothing striking in it. The north aisle is divided from the nave by three handsome pointed arches, which Warner (to whom we owe much of our information, aided by a recent inspection) thinks are of the age of King John. Since the time when he published, in 1793, the painted glass with the arms of the Dauphin Louis, put up by his adherent William de Vernun, has quite disappeared. If there ever were corresponding arches on the south side, they have been materially altered, probably when the tower was partly rebuilt in 1697. This date is cut on the outside with the name of their vicar, Bernard Brougham. The walls of the original tower, which is singularly placed at the south-east part of the structure, remain complete to the height of twenty feet, on which the modern addition of brick with stone quoins serves as a belfry. Inside of it below is a piscina, in a perfect state. The mutilated remains of the ancient font are preserved, but a diminutive modern one supplies its place. There are no monumental or other inscriptions of an earlier date than the seventeenth century, but near the altar is a large flat stone with a cross upon it; and in the north aisle are two stones shaped like the lid of a coffin, with ornamental crosses cut on them. How far these are the memorials of ecclesiastics connected with the priory of Christchurch, Twyneham, to which Boldre was a prebend till the Reformation, it is now impossible to ascertain. The priory appointed a vicar, who received the small tithes of the living for his labours, while the greater ones were carried into the barns of the monastery.

* Warner, Top. Rem. i. 194.