The last measure on ecclesiastical subjects was also chiefly of a financial character, though its details were calculated, some directly, others indirectly, to produce benefits of a still more important nature.  The condition of the property of the bishops and the ecclesiastical chapters had long been a subject of censorious remark.  The various dioceses differed greatly in extent, as did, therefore, the labors of the diocesans.  Some sees contained above 1000, one (London) even above 1200 parishes; others contained under 150.  The revenues of some were very large, in one or two instances approaching L20,000 a year, while those of others scarcely exceeded L1000 or L1500 a year, thus affording incomes palpably inadequate to the support of the Episcopal dignity; so inadequate, indeed, that they were generally supplemented by the addition of some better endowed deanery or canonry.  It was universally felt that such a deficiency and such a mode of supplying it were in themselves a scandal, which was greatly augmented by the system of translations to which it had given birth.  The poorer bishoprics would hardly have been accepted at all had they not been regarded as stepping-stones to others of greater value; and the hope of such promotion had in some cases the not unnatural, however deplorable, effect of making the bishop anxious to please the minister of the day, to whom alone he could look for translation, by parliamentary subservience; and the still more mischievous result (if possible) of rendering the whole Bench liable to the same degrading suspicion; while the canonries and prebends in the different chapters, whose revenues also varied greatly, were in every diocese so numerous that they had become nearly sinecures, the duties rarely exceeding residence for a month, or, at the outside, six weeks in a year.

These abuses (for such they could not be denied to be) had attracted the attention of Sir Robert Peel, who had appointed a commission, of which many of the highest dignitaries of the Church were members, and who, after very careful investigation and deliberation, presented a series of reports on which the ministry framed its measure.  They proposed, as has already been mentioned in connection with the labors of Sir Robert Peel, an amalgamation of four of the smaller bishoprics at their next vacancy, in order hereafter to provide for the addition of two new ones at Manchester, or Lancaster, and Ripon, without augmenting the number of bishops.  Lord Melbourne apparently feared to provoke the hostility of some of the extreme Reformers, who had recently proposed to deprive the bishops of their seats in the House of Lords, if he should attempt to increase the number of the spiritual peers; though, as their number had been stationary ever since the Reformation, while that of the lay peers had been quadrupled, such an objection hardly seemed entitled to so much consideration.  Another clause was directed toward the establishment of greater equality