when his repeated remonstrances to Blackwood failed to procure their discontinuance in the Magazine, he parted with his share rather than be, however remotely, responsible for that of which he disapproved. His generosity, on all occasions liberal, at times was splendid. When Scott was carrying on his terrible struggle against the misfortunes which had befallen him, Murray learned that he was anxious to acquire the one-fourth share in the copyright of Marmion which Murray held, and he wrote to Scott in these terms—

'I have been already applied to by Messrs. Constable and Messrs. Longmans to know what sum I would sell this share for; but so highly do I estimate the honour of being, even in so small a degree, the publisher of the author of the poem, that no pecuniary consideration whatever can induce me to part with it. But there is a consideration of another kind, which, until now, I was not aware of, which would make it painful to me if I were to retain it a moment longer. I mean, the knowledge of its being required by the author, into whose hands it was spontaneously resigned in the same instant that I read his request. This share has been profitable to me fiftyfold beyond what either publisher or author could have anticipated, and, therefore, my returning it on such an occasion, you will, I trust, do me the favour to consider in no other light than as a mere act of acknowledgment for benefits already received' (ii. 275).

Enough has been said to indicate the sterling character of the man : one last page must be devoted to the special work with which he was always proud to be identified. It is not easy to exaggerate the service which the Quarterly Review has rendered both to literature and to the country. To estimate this we must not appeciate the periodical press of that day by the standard of knowledge, courtesy, and fairness which prevails now, but by the tone and spirit which were then almost universal. No one would of course be prepared to endorse all that appeared in its pages. Gifford had the reputation of being a severe, occasionally almost a savage writer, and instances might be quoted of the use of language which its best friends would regret. No doubt, also, its influence was exerted at times to oppose reforms which the changed circumstances of the country had made inevitable, and whose results have been on the whole beneficial. taking a broad and judicial survey of its long and energetic career-in no mere party sense-but on the great lines of Constitutionalism as opposed to rash innovation, and of Churchmanship as opposed to the motley host of the Church's foes, the service rendered by the Quarterly Review has been signal, we had almost said priceless. It afforded a rallying

But

point for forces until its appearance scattered and parted. It showed that intellect and learning and wit were not the monopoly of the anti-Church and revolutionary party, and thus preserved many young and ardent spirits from the seductive glamour that might have misled them. It enlisted the services of men of moderation and judgment, whose literary ability without it might have helped to give currency to views of an extreme type. It tempered the tone of its great rival, and prevented political discussion in England from degenerating into the violence which disfigured it on the continent. It maintained a manly and absolute independence alike in literature and politics, not sparing even from acute criticism works written by the ablest contributors to its own pages and published by its owner, and not following obsequiously any party leader, however eminent or powerful. Above all, it displayed unflinching faith in the stability and excellence of our constitutional system when men's hearts were failing them for fear, and it upheld the national honour and expressed undaunted confidence in the national courage at a crisis when the value of so bold a front was inestimable. A periodical which gathered at lavish cost, and set before the English reader, the talent of Canning and Frere and Croker and Grant and Gifford, in the field of politics; of Southey and Scott, of Hallam and Milman, of Palgrave and Lockhart, in that of history and poetry; which could command the help of Murchison and Lyell in science, of Bishops Phillpotts and Monk and Heber, of D'Israeli and Barrow, of Head and Basil Hall, and of many a good man and true besides, could hardly have other than a supreme influence for good; and, in view of the gigantic influence of periodical literature in our own day, and of its high character and temper, no small share in tracing its origins' must be accorded to the Quarterly Review.

ART. X.-MOZLEY'S LETTERS FROM ROME. Letters from Rome on the occasion of the Ecumenical Council, 1869-70. By the Rev. T. MOZLEY. In Two Volumes. (London, 1891.)

A SPECIAL interest is attached to these Letters for more reasons than one. In the first place they give us a view of the Vatican Council of 1869-70, from a somewhat new standpoint-different, on the one hand, from that taken in the

interesting biography of Bishop Dupanloup, where we are introduced behind the scenes by one who might truly say of all that went on, 'Quorum pars magna fui'; different from that of Mr. Gladstone, who regards the Council with the eye, not only of an English Churchman, but also of an English statesman who had always advocated the 'Catholic claims' (as they were called), and observes with dismay the complete change which the result of the Council was likely to make in the position of his clients; different from that of the late Bishop Christopher Wordsworth, and of the Anglo-Continental Society generally;2 different from that of such writers as ' Quirinus' and 'Janus,' on the one hand, who watched the Council merely to condemn it, and from that of the Papal organs on the other, which watched it only to approve of everything that was done. Mr. Mozley writes as a man of the world, in the good sense of the term. There is nothing whatever in his Letters inconsistent with his status as an Anglican priest; but, as correspondent of the Times, he naturally adopts the tone, so far as he can without sacrificing any principle, of its writers and readers. Then, again, the Letters take us back to a past state of the religious and political world, in a way quite different from that in which a history would do. The advice of Horace to the poet has been more than acted on by the letter-writer. Instead of locking up his letters until the ninth,3 he has locked them up until the twenty-first year, and then he gives them to the world in a collected form, wisely making no attempt at altering them to suit the further enlightenment which two decades have naturally given. The result is that the reader is himself carried back from 1891 to 1869, when the temporal power of the Pope was still a living reality, when 'Napoleon III.' was still a name to conjure with, when French troops were still quartered at Civita Vecchia, when a united Germany was still but a dream, and when Italy could still be spoken of without manifest absurdity as a 'puny military Power' (ii. 193).

Looking back now from the vantage-ground of twenty years, one is struck with the comparatively small difference which the Council has made in the Church at large, and apparently even in the Roman branch of it in particular. To judge from the prophecies which immediately preceded and See Mr. Gladstone's Vaticanism-On the Nature of Papal Infallibility, 1875 2 See Life of Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln, pp. 363Ist edition. 3 'Nonumque prematur in annum.' De Arte Poetica, 1. 388.

370.

the comments which immediately followed, the promulgation of the dogma of Papal Infallibility was going to make such a revolution in the worlds of thought and of action as had not been seen for at least three centuries. Not only alarmists like poor Dr. Cumming, but clear-headed, calm observers like Bishop Thirlwall, declared that it was 'an event far more important than the great change in the balance of power' brought about by the Franco-German war; Mr. Gladstone called it (and not without reason) 'the legal extinction of right, and the enthronement of will in its place, throughout the churches of one half of Christendom'; 2 Bishop Wordsworth predicted that it might be 'an event fraught with more important results to Christendom than any that has occurred during the last three hundred years.'

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But twenty years have elapsed, and the Roman Church goes on to all appearance very much as she went on before the Council; while outside the Roman communion the results appear to be small indeed. The subject of Mr. Mozley's Letters is a deeply interesting one; but its interest is mainly historical, and, with one important exception, has little or no bearing upon present events. That exception is, of course, the rise of the Old Catholics, a movement to which we heartily wish success. But, apart from that, the world seemed to have well-nigh forgotten all about the Vatican Council; and we have reason to be grateful to Mr. Mozley for recalling attention to proceedings which at any rate do not deserve to be consigned to the limbus of complete oblivion. Mr. Mozley can, indeed, add but little to what may be known from other sources respecting the doings of the Council. For even the magic name of the Times did not act as a talisman to procure him either admission into the Council Hall, or trustworthy reports of what was done there; his information is after all only the information of 'the man in the street,' but it is something to learn what an exceptionally intelligent observer, who was at any rate on the spot, saw and heard; and this he has told us in his own bright and vigorous style. Moreover, though Roman Catholics would probably not agree with us in this, it is, in our opinion, the information of a very fair and impartial witness. If Dr. Cumming had had his wish, and then given us his account, we could not have accepted it without many grains of salt. But the brother-in-law and devoted admirer of Cardinal Newman would naturally be inclined to

1 Charge of the Bishop of St. David's in 1872.

2 Vaticanism, ut supra.

3 The Vatican Council, Miscellanies, i. 312.

look with as lenient an eye as possible upon the acts of the Church of Newman's adoption; and, apart from family feelings, Mr. Mozley's own sentiments would not tempt him to err on the side of ultra-Protestantism. Indeed, from his Reminiscences we gather that at one time he felt an inclination to join the Church of Rome himself; and there are instances in these volumes in which he seems to us to favour the Roman at the expense of his own branch of the Church. Take, for example, the following passage :

'Palm Sunday is one of the most picturesque spectacles of the Roman year. It is the opening scene of the great epic. Our own Reformers carefully eliminated all notice or reminder of the day out of the Calendar. Psalms, Lessons, Collect, Epistle, and Gospel are all equally without allusion to the striking incidents described in Holy Writ, with exact time, place, manner, and circumstance. Perhaps the ceremony was overdone in those days, as many might fairly think it overdone here yesterday, or perhaps the compilers of our Liturgy wished to avoid the recognition of Maccabees, to which we must have recourse if we want an express and undoubted precedent for carrying the palm branches. Neither the Jewish nor the Pagan precedent seems to have been thought sufficient by our good people at home, and Palm Sunday in England is a name, and no more' (ii. 329).

Now, is it quite sure that Rome is right in laying so much stress on the event which gives the popular name to the day, and England wrong in directing exclusive attention to the fact that it was the beginning of the week of suffering? Is there not something to be said for the view that the triumphal entry into Jerusalem was no real triumph, but only, as it has been said, 'the childish reception of a childish people,' and the cause of sorrow rather than of joy to the Saviour; and that it is therefore conveying a false impression to dwell so markedly on the event? Take, again, the following passage:

'Some good people here are saying the whole thing is an outrage, a delusion, and especially an insult to our Anglican Church. They cannot see how any serious person can wish to be present, or in what mood he can attend. As for joining in the slightest degree, that is pronounced impossible. I don't see this, and never did. What we are witnessing here, and what we are to see and hear tomorrow, is the faith and practice of England for a thousand years, when we were not a very bad nation and people, or very particularly foolish. I claim communion with the founders of our Universities and Colleges, and with our bishops to Augustine' (i. 69). We should certainly demur to the assumptions that the Roman Church of the latter part of the nineteenth century

VOL. XXXIII.-NO. LXV.

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