attempted reservation comes too late. At any rate, we are not trusting to President Berwick's admissions. The evidence as to every department is simply overwhelming. In Belfast, considering the comparative success of the Queen's College in consequence of its adoption by the Presbyterian General Assembly, the evidence is frightful and scandalous. The most elementary studies, Geometry, English, are as neglected as Classics could be. Thus Mr. Tait, Professor of Mathematics, told the Commissioners that he had "to examine but a small portion of the students at the Matriculation examination, in the very elements of Geometry and Algebra," and that, nevertheless, "the average standard of preparation is very much lower than ought to be expected." At the same time he confessed that there were few rejections, "because," as he mildly put it, "the average standard has been somewhat reduced." Doctor Frings, Professor of Modern Languages, pleaded that there might be a matriculation examination "of ever so low a standard, in one of the modern languages.' The unfortunate "Professor" did not know what to do with the interesting alumni of the Presbyterian Alma Mater, inasmuch as "very few of them ever saw a French word in their lives." Mr. Craik, Professor of History and English Literature in the same favoured institution, began his revelations about the Belfast matriculation by acknowledging to Sir Thomas Redington that so far as his department was concerned the matriculation examination "merely involves a knowledge of the English. language, and of the elements or outlines of Geography, a little Greek and Roman History and English History too." When interrogated about the extent to which the juvenile pasteurs satisfied the exigencies of this formidable test, Mr. Craik replied-our readers will hardly believe their eyes-"I could hardly insist on a student being rejected, however great his deficiency in my department." "But," said Sir Thomas Redington-we may readily suppose, in blank amazement"if the student proceed to Medicine, his knowledge of the English language is not tested in any subsequent year?" And Mr. Craik admitted that this was the case, and that in fact a man may proceed through the whole course of this college and obtain a degree in Medicine without having any competent knowledge whatever of the English language." readers may judge from this avowal what the conditions were in 1857 of the education of the professional students which Queen's Collegism so desperately counts to its credit as a "University." Even though the knowledge of the Arts students was "tested" in subsequent years, it is plain that their entrance education in English was not fixed at a standard

Our

which ought sensibly to thin the ranks of the Presbyterian Kirk in Ulster. "Possibly," said Mr. Craik, "possibly I could hardly go the length of saying that if a person came entirely ignorant of the English language I should pass him.” It might have been better in the long run if the president, professors, and council of Belfast Queen's College had been less cannily alive to the "painfulness of having our assemblage in St. Patrick's Hall, and being able to present to the public no degrees." It might have been better, too, if the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Kirk in Ulster had been so good as to thrust less impertinent interference into the affairs of Catholic education and had devoted a little intelligent attention to the education that was being provided for its own Ministers and Ruling Elders in futuro. But this involves a supposition.

We do not believe it is necessary to trouble our readers with many more details of the plight to which the Queen's Colleges had been already reduced a whole decade of years before Mr. Thompson's American excursion. We would only add the evidence of Professor Bagley, of Queen's College, Galway, on the general question of the trustworthiness of the intra-collegiate examinations,-sessional examinations and like "tests"-which the happy Elect of the matriculation ordeal were supposed to undergo on their course to the degree.

Mr. PRICE.-You do not appear to lay much stress on the certificates of the professors, which are returned to the University, that the subjects are fairly studied?

WITNESS.-My impression is, that in most cases where a man had been studying very hard at other subjects, the professors would be disposed to deal very leniently with him.

So much for the extent to which the intra-collegiate studies were allowed to correct the miserable deficiencies condoned at matriculation.

That

We had almost forgotten Queen's College, Cork. institution of some two hundred medical and engineering students, together with about as many Arts students as disposable Arts scholarships and exhibitions, deserves a word, and we cannot do better, out of the mass of corroborative testimony of all kinds, than allow its Vice-President to say that word. It is perfectly graphic. This is the way in which, as far back as 1857, Queen's College, Cork, got its forty or fifty Arts students, on the oath of Vice-President Ryall.

Mr. PRICE. According to the system on which the matriculation examination is conducted here, it is perfectly possible for an examiner in any distinct

branch to report a man as a total failure, and yet that the Council shall admit him upon their own judgment, however arrived at.

WITNESS.-Perfectly possible, and it is the constant practice!

We daresay it will hardly be asserted that even in 1857 the proposed Queen's Colleges and Queen's University in Ireland had made much progress towards realization. And in 1857 it must at least be said that the outline of a university existed on paper, at any rate in calendars and regulations, if not in lecture-halls and at examinations. We do not pretend to know the designs of the Cabinet on the subject of Irish university reform. It is certain, however, that before Mr. Gladstone can either include or exclude the Queen's University under any system he may be maturing, it will be necessary for him to have a Queen's University of some sort in the first place. Considered as a Christmas pantomime, what is called the Queen's University might be unobjectionable, but real universities and true graduates will hardly feel a fraternal sentiment towards the travesty which Queen's College Councils have, unfortunately not in vain, "desired to see." We trust that, whatever may happen, the Cabinet will not forget either to close the so-called Queen's College at Belfast, or at least subject it to the requisite transformation at the hands of some university board. Best of all, perhaps, if for a generation or so, at any rate, the pupils of the General Assembly should be introduced to university teaching in Trinity College, Dublin. They could not become more intolerant, while, in respect to culture and education, the novelty would have much to recommend it. It is true that, as regards Trinity College, Dublin, the best possible reasons exist for the reluctance with which that protected establishment views the approach of any reforins which could expose its venerable far niente to the dreaded test of Catholic competition.* The pampered monopoly would slumber in its Sleepy Hollow yet a while longer if it could. Were it never to wake, its inaction and inertia would be life and vigour compared to the stagnant superficiality of the Queen's University shams.

* While this article was going through the press, we received Mr. Howley's trenchant pamphlet on the abuses which a privileged security has naturally developed in the superannuated institution of the penal days, the rich but silent sister of Oxford and Cambridge. Trinity College, Dublin, presents, on an immense scale, an example of the results of enormous wealth when a public foundation has for generations been taught to consider itself safe from rivalry, and to despise exertion.

ART. V.-ITALIAN CHURCH ARCHITECTURE.

THA

(COMMUNICATED.)

THAT different ideas of the human mind are expressed by different styles of architecture will hardly, I suppose, be denied by any who has thought upon the subject.

If this be granted, then it is difficult to see how any one style of architecture can be upheld to the exclusion of all others. One style may, indeed, be preferred by us to another, as more in har-. mony with our thoughts and feelings, or more in accordance. with the wants of our own times; but to assert absolutely that either Gothic or Italian, or any other style, is the only architecture, betrays surely bigotry of the very narrowest type, and at the same time great ignorance of the beautiful, and even of the nature of man himself.

In the number of this Review for last April the cause of Gothic architecture was most ably, although at the same time. modestly and temperately, defended in a communicated article. In his very opening words the writer declares that "most works which have been written upon the vexed question of the 'Revival of Gothic Architecture' are so narrow-minded, so bitter and acrimonious in their tone, and so obstinately insist upon regarding 'Gothic' as the only Christian architecture, that it is difficult to read them without the loss of one's temper." The writer, however, is of opinion that Gothic architecture is the best adapted for our modern English churches. He is also careful to state that he is not writing against Italian architecture, for he "can conceive no more glorious temple erected to the honour of Almighty God than a great Italian church, with its sublime dome reared high above a sumptuous baldacchino, with its marble-faced walls and brilliantly reflective pavement, its splendid pictures and costly altars, its bronze capitals, and its gilded vault." It is therefore chiefly because he thinks that there is no chance of such a church ever being built in England that he advocates the use of Gothic as the one existing style suited to our wants, adding, at the same time, his hope that the future will invent or develop a style of its own.

It is the intention of the writer of the present article to take the opposite view, and to endeavour to defend the cause of Italian ecclesiastical architecture as quite as suitable, if not

more suitable, to the wants of the Church of our own days; although he trusts that the same moderation will be found in his remarks as is to be met with in the article to which reference has been made.

First of all, it may be well to state that I believe no style of Church architecture is in itself anti-Roman; nor do I think that Gothic churches need be so cut up with columns as to be wanting in spaciousness; or that they are necessarily dark or cold; or that the high altar must always be hidden in such churches from a great part of the congregation. In all this, therefore, I agree with the writer in the April number. To say that Gothic architecture is anti-Roman is simply absurd, for nothing is more striking, or offers a greater contrast to the narrow-mindedness of too many supporters of both the Gothic and Italian styles, than the liberality with which the Holy See has tolerated almost every kind of architecture. No doubt every ecclesiastical building-no matter in what style it is built ought to be so constructed as to enable the Church's ritual to be carried out as perfectly as possible; and although those who are best acquainted with the Italian style may think that of existing styles it offers greater facilities for this purpose than any other, yet not on this account ought they to consider the Gothic incapable of improvement. Every style of architecture can, I believe, in the hands of a gifted and conscientious architect, be brought into harmony with the requirements of the Church of our own day. As, however, to the choice of any particular style for ecclesiastical buildings, the Holy See may be said to be almost indifferent, leaving this to the feelings and tastes of different countries, and to the wants of different ages. When the Church rose from the Catacombs -where, by the way, she had not scrupled to decorate her secret hiding-places with Pagan designs, and sometimes even with representations borrowed from Pagan Mythology, if only they served to help forward the truth which had been committed unto her-she was content to avail herself of the form of the Basilicas as the best adapted of existing buildings for the worship of the triumphal Cross, without inventing any new style of her own. The Basilicas, therefore, of old Rome became the cradles of the Church's public worship-for her worship in the Catacombs could hardly have been called public-and they will be found, upon examination, to have profoundly influenced every succeeding style of ecclesiastical architecture, whether Byzantine, Gothic, or Renaissance. The church of S. Agnese fuori le mure, built by Constantine, may be taken as a specimen of the ancient halls of justice, from which the idea of the Christian basilica was borrowed.