yesterday. A
short record of his death, giving his age and the various
pieces of preferment which he has at different times held,
will be found in another column of this paper. The only
fault we knew in him was his age, and as that is a crime
of which we all hope to be guilty, we will not bear
heavily on it. May he rest in peace! But though the great
age of an expiring dean cannot be made matter of reproach,
we are not inclined to look on such a fault as at all
pardonable in a dean just brought to the birth. We do hope
that the days of sexagenarian appointments are past. If
we want deans, we must want them for some purpose. That
purpose will necessarily be better fulfilled by a man of
forty than by a man of sixty. If we are to pay deans at
all, we are to pay them for some sort of work. That work,
be it what it may, will be best performed by a workman in
the prime of life. Dr. Trefoil, we see, was eighty when he
died. As we have as yet completed no plan for pensioning
superannuated clergymen, we do not wish to get rid of any
existing deans of that age. But we prefer having as few
such as possible. If a man of seventy be now appointed, we
beg to point out to Lord ---- that he will be past all use
in a year or two, if indeed he be not so at the present
moment. His lordship will allow us to remind him that all
men are not evergreens like himself.

We hear that Mr. Slope's name has been mentioned for
this preferment. Mr. Slope is at present chaplain to the
bishop. A better man could hardly be selected. He is a man
of talent, young, active, and conversant with the affairs
of the cathedral; he is moreover, we conscientiously
believe, a truly pious clergyman. We know that his
services in the city of Barchester have been highly
appreciated. He is an eloquent preacher and a ripe
scholar. Such a selection as this would go far to raise
the confidence of the public in the present administration
of church patronage and would teach men to believe that
from henceforth the establishment of our church will not
afford easy couches to worn-out clerical voluptuaries.

Standing at a reading-desk in the Barchester news-room, Mr. Slope
digested this article with considerable satisfaction. What was
therein said as to the hospital was now comparatively a matter of
indifference to him. He was certainly glad that he had not succee