would affect the freedom of any assembly of human beings outside a nursery or an infant school. But, before proceeding farther, we must first give our readers some account of the character of this book, and of its title to be accepted as, what it distinctly claims to be, not only an authority, but "the best authority for the history of the Vatican Council" (p. vi.). The exposures of Janus have been, as already intimated, complete and decisive. No act of similar justice has yet been done to Quirinus, at least, so far as we know, in our language. We therefore the more readily undertake the task-which, however, as being but a part, an incidental part too, of our general design, must be executed within a much more limited compass. The authors introduce themselves in their preface thus :"These letters on the Council originated in the following way. Three friends in Rome were in the habit of communicating to one another what they learnt from persons intimately acquainted with the proceedings of the Council. Belonging as they did to different nations and different classes of life, and having already become familiar, before the opening of the Council, through long residence in Rome, with the state of things and with persons there, and being in free and daily intercourse with some members of the Council, they were very favourably situated for giving a true, report as well of the proceedings as of the views of those who took part in it. Their letters were addressed to a friend in Germany, who added now and then historical explanations to elucidate the course of events, and then forwarded them to the 'Allgemeine Zeitung"" (p. v.). The writers and their German supplementer are from first to last anonymous; nor has any one of them up to the present day made an avowal of his name. This, of course, adds to the weight of their "best authority."* They profess to be Catholics; * Since the above was written, we lighted accidentally on the following passage in the eighth edition of "Men of the Time," published in the June or July of the present year :-" ACTON, LORD was born at Naples in 1834. For a few years he was a student in the Catholic College of St. Mary's, Oscott, at the time when Dr. (afterwards Cardinal) Wiseman was at the head of that institution; but his education was mainly due to the renowned ecclesiastical historian, Dr. Döllinger of Munich, with whom he lived for a considerable time. In the latter year [1865] he stood as a candidate for the borough of Bridgnorth, when he announced, in a speech delivered to the electors, that he represented not the body, but the spirit, of the Catholic Church. In 1869 he repaired to Rome, on the assembling of the Ecumenical Council, and while there rendered himself conspicuous by his hostility to the doctrine of Papal infallibility, and by the activity and and the translator takes special care to admonish his readers that the contents of the volume "are exclusively the work of Catholics" (p. vii. note). For the sake of simplicity we shall henceforth speak of the book, as if it were, what the letters themselves uniformly represent it to be, the production of a single pen. We say then that Quirinus, whether formerly a Catholic and educated in the Catholic faith or not, exhibits from beginning to end a thoroughly anti-Catholic spirit to a great extent Protestant, but Jansenist out and out, to the very backbone; with all that is worst and most odious in the worst and most odious form of that protean heresy. From beginning to end the letters breathe the spirit of that heresy, and reek with its noisome odour. Then, having taken his stand on the Döllinger stump, it is incredible, on one hand, with what persistent and unwearied malignity of vituperation he pursues every person and institution opposed to the stump ticket; and, on the other hand, with what almost indiscriminate uniformity of panegyric he exalts those who are, even to a degree, for that ticket. We believe that, since the day when S. Peter first announced the gospel in Jerusalem, there never was a Pope whose name has been so often and so widely mentioned during his own lifetime as that of our present Holy Father; whose character and acts have been so often and so widely canvassed in the records of contemporary literature. Passing over volumes and isolated pamphlets, we doubt if there be a single newspaper in all Europe, we might say in the whole world, a single magazine or review of a miscellaneous character, which, during the last quarter of a century, has not had from time to time something to say, in praise or blame or simple narrative, of Pio Nono. In the anti-Catholic press he has been often assailed, sometimes with great bitterness, and not seldom for acts which all true Catholics would consider as deserving of pure eulogy. He has been represented in his official capacity as imprudent, rash; filled with an extravagant idea of his own authority; pushing that authority to the extreme limit, and without regard to the consequences ensuing from long-established prejudices and opinions; consumed with a passion for defining questions hitherto undefined. All this, and more of a similar import, has been said of him over and over again. But, until we opened Quirinus, we had never seen, not even in the most rabid invec secrecy with which he rallied, combined, and urged on those who appeared to be favourable to the views entertained by Dr. Döllinger. It is believed that he was in relation with the 'Allgemeine Zeitung,' and that much of the news published by that journal on the subject of the Council was communicated by his lordship. Lord Acton may be regarded as the leader of the self-styled 'liberal Catholics,' &c., &c." tives, any representation of him, in his private and personal bearing, as other than a model of meekness and suavity. The hundreds upon hundreds of reports that have reached us directly or indirectly from those who had personal interviews with him, all, without a single exception, bear the same testimony. Of all men and women, Catholic and non-Catholic, to Quirinus and to Quirinus alone it has been reserved to exhibit him to the world with the manners of a churl, the temper of a hornet, and the tongue of a fishwoman. So violently incredible does this statement of ours appear at first sight, that, if any one of our readers would be disposed to believe it without proof, we can only say that we envy not his credulity. Here then are our proofs in Quirinus's own words. One of the bishops,* on a certain occasion, "found the Pope in a state of violent excitement, trembling with passion" (p. 174).† What an unruly, mischievous lad the Pope must have been in his schoolboy days; what a terrible fellow as a grown-up, bearded man-how peppery and pugnacious, when, now in his extreme old age, with the awful weight of Sovereign Pontiff pressing on his shoulders, he indulges himself in "biting reproaches" (p. 420) and "outbreaks of bitterness" (p. 480) to such a degree, that at length "it is certain that his excitement has reached fever heat"! (p. 578). Nay his comments, says Quirinus, "if rightly reported here [that if], are so irritable and bitter that I scruple to mention them" (p. 737). Quirinus is so shocked by the language of the Pope on one occasion, that he says, "I should consider it a sin to publish it" (p. 743). Such snow-white purity of conscience! What a sweet, precious, blessed babe of grace Quirinus must be, compared with that hectoring, hoary old sinner of the Vatican! A little story of long-past days rises in our memory, and, as we think it in point, we shall trouble our readers with it. In a small but flourishing town, in a certain quarter of the British empire, there lived many years ago a shopkeeper, whom we shall call J. It was universally supposed that he drove a very thriving business. Great therefore was the surprise of everybody, when one fine morning the rumour got abroad that he *This bishop was the Chaldean Patriarch, who knew neither Latin nor any other language intelligible to the Pope. Only a third party was present at the interview, to act as interpreter. This third person Quirinus represents as "one of the most devoted courtiers of the Vatican." Did Quirinus get this bit of scientific history from the "devoted courtier," or from the patriarch, between whom and him there was no common language? Was it really three black crows, or only something as black as a crow? The figures subjoined to the extracts given in this and succeeding paragraphs indicate the pages of the book. had closed his shop, and was about to compound with his merchant creditors. And he did compound with them, paying a few shillings in the pound. Not many years after, the same catastrophe, with the same finale, occurred a second time; and then, after a decent interval, a third time. Very ugly surmises were all along whispered about pretty freely; but the mystery was at length fully cleared up. Some time after the third composition J. purchased a fine estate in the country, built a superb mansion on it, retired from business, lived a pleasant life in that mansion, and died there in green old age, about twelve years ago. We forgot to say that he was throughout a strict Methodist, and, especially after his retirement from business, an assiduous frequenter of their meetings. Now, it so happened that in the same town there lived another shopkeeper, whom we shall call M., to whom J., while engaged in business, owed a few pounds. One Sunday morning the former sent his eldest son, then a mere child, for the sum. As the boy stammered out his message, J. listened with perfect composure; then, lifting up his hands and eyes, and immediately lowering them again, exclaimed in a low and slow tone, and with a solemn and pitying expression on his face, "My child, I never touch money on the Sabbath." This is a true story. The writer of this article was the tiny messenger on the occasion, and, though now more than fifty years have passed away since that Sunday morning, remembers the whole incident, the voice, the words, the gestures, as if they were but of yesterday. J. was a man of quite a delicate conscience: he scrupled even to touch money on the "Sabbath," and thought it a sin to do so. But there were certain other money-touchings which he did not scruple or think a sin. Quirinus's delicacy of conscience, which he so trumpets forth to the world, does it not marvellously resemble that of our sanctimonious Methodist ? Out on these whited sepulchres, that hold But dead men's bones in them, like those of old. Than steal the cloak of God to hide the devil. But it is not only in moral qualities that the Pope is so grossly deficient; he is equally deficient in intellectual. He is not only a testy old bully, but he is also an ignorant old blockhead : It is merely repeating what is notorious in Rome to say that Pius IX. is beneath comparison with any one of his predecessors for the last 350 years in theological knowledge and intellectual cultivation generally. It is known here that, small as are the intellectual requisites for ordination in the Roman States, it was only out of special regard to his family that Giovanni Maria Mastai could get ordained priest. His subsequent career offered no opportunity or means for supplying this neglect, and thus he became Pope with the feeling of his entire deficiency in the necessary acquirements. This unpleasant consciousness naturally produced the idea that the defect would be remedied without effort on his part by enlightenment from above, and divine inspiration would supply the absence of human knowledge (502). We beg to direct the attention of our readers specially to the words which we have put in italics. We say a fact is notorious in any community, when its existence is known and manifest to the mass of that community. It may or may not be true that the Pope has not given any decisive proofs of profound theological knowledge or general intellectual cultivation; but how can it be notorious that he is in these respects beneath comparison with any one of his predecessors for three centuries and a half? Are the elements for such a comparison sufficiently copious and clear to justify so grave and sweeping a charge? It is certain that he speaks the Latin and French languages with as much ease and accuracy as he speaks his own Italian. This is, in itself, no slight amount of culture, and furnishes besides no slight presumption of something more. Why, the short discourses which he has addressed to the numerous deputations that have waited on him, of late years, are of themselves decisive evidences of high culture. To say nothing of the sacred wisdom aud unction that pervade them, they are, in a purely literary view, quite gems in their way-so pregnant, so terse, so simple, and yet so pointed. Put beside them the leaden pages of Quirinus! But worse, far worse, are the remaining sentences of the paragraph, as well in what they clearly imply as in what they clearly affirm. Let us see distinctly what they affirm. First, the Pope's intellectual qualifications for the priesthood were beneath even a low standard. Secondly, he nevertheless got ordained, and the Bishop who ordained him did so, not on account of his virtues or other qualities which might in a measure make up for his intellectual deficiencies, but only out of special regard to his family. Thirdly, from the day of his ordination as priest to the day of his elevation to the papacy, he had no opportunity or means of supplying the neglect of his early years, and therefore did not supply it, and therefore was as great an ignoramus on the latter day as on the former. Fourthly, on the day of his elevation to the papacy, he was truly conscious "of his entire deficiency in the necessary acquirements" for that office. He was conscious, not only of his deficiency, (who should not be ?) but of his entire deficiency. |