by the rising cabal. Daily experience proved that the king meditated Bute's further advancement. Legge was dismissed from office, and that in an uncourteous way. A secret treaty between Spain and France, hostile to England, came to Pitt's knowledge: it was called the Family Compact; and when he prepared to meet it with the vigour required, his counsels were rejected by his colleagues. He would have declared war at once with the Bourbon Charles the Third, have intercepted his fleet returning heavy-laden with treasure from America, and would have made an immediate attack on Havanna and the Philippine Isles: but Bute was foremost in censuring these measures as needless and rash. Lord Temple only, Pitt's brother-in-law, sided with him; and these two wrote to his majesty, advising him to recall the ambassador, Lord Bristol, from Madrid. Their advice was not heeded, and in about a fortnight they both resigned. Pitt would not-to use his own words-be responsible for measures which he was no longer allowed to guide. A pension of 3,000l. a year was assigned him, and it was to be continued during the lifetime of his wife and son. Lady Hester Pitt was made Baroness of Chatham in her own right, with succession of the title to her male heirs. But the very persons who conferred these honours and rewards on Pitt and his family, "in consideration of his great and important services," found means of employing a host of malevolent scribblers to accuse him of every species of political crime. It was soon discovered that their savage invectives were false and foul. The premier was still simple Mr. Pitt. He had declined the governorship of Canada with 5000l. a year, permission to reside in England, and to retain a seat in Parliament. He was more concerned, he said, for his family than for himself. If, as his enemies affirmed, he had sold his country, where was the price paid? If royal gold had bought him, why had the royal pleasure ejected him from power? The lord mayor's day followed soon after his resignation. The king with his young bride passed in state through a dense multitude, but not a shout was raised. Pitt appeared, and the air rung with acclamation. Loud cries of "Pitt for ever!" "No Bute!" "No Newcastle salmon !" pierced the royal carriages, and Lord Bute was only preserved from personal outrage by a guard of boxers who surrounded his coach. But kings are slow to learn lessons from the canaille, and nothing but painful experience taught George III. of how little worth were the counsels of Bute in comparison with those of Pitt. The Spanish vessels laden with rich cargoes of bullion were suffered to cross the seas; all that Pitt had affirmed about the designs of the court of Madrid proved correct; expeditions which he had planned in the West Indies succeeded after

his fall; and Bute himself, who stepped into his place, was compelled to declare war with Spain in January 1762, without having the knowledge or capacity requisite for carrying it on.

In his retirement from office Pitt behaved with dignity. He diminished his household expenses, for he had amassed no savings at the public cost. He advertised his coach-horses for sale; and when a motion was made in the House of Commons for laying on the table all the papers relative to the rupture with Spain, he warmly supported it. He had nothing to conceal, nor could the appearance of these documents have any other effect than that of proving how laudably he had acted. Nor did he take revenge on those who had deserted him by offering any factious opposition to their plans. He approved the supply of one million to the Portuguese, to enable them to make head against Spain, but declared that if the Government should see fit to put an end to the war, he would not be the one to embarrass them with his private views on the subject. But his manly conduct at this crisis did not make the rhymers of Grub Street relent. Their venal lampoons have long since floated down to oblivion in the sewers of literature, while his fame has been sung by Thomson and the stricter censor of Olney. To these Lamartine adds the obscure Hammond, styling him and the author of The Seasons the two greatest court poets! Even in the House of Commons Pitt was virulently assailed; but he bore his sufferings with patience and insults with disdain. He knew that the triumph of those who exulted over his fall must be short; and the boldness with which Bute pushed his pretensions confirmed his opinion. Not content with displacing Pitt, the royal favourite looked with an evil eye on the wide-spread influence of Newcastle: he envied him the title of First Lord of the Treasury, and wished to be premier in name as well as in fact. The reins of government to him were all golden, and frequent doles of from 40,000l. to 95,000l. were paid him for secret service and for the king's privy purse. Such was his compensation for having been hooted and pelted in Cheapside on lord mayor's day. Newcastle endured his affronts with abject meekness; ignored the broadest hints on the necessity of his retirement; and persisted in retaining his high office till he was forced to resign. Forty-five years of power had so wedded him to a life at court, that he forgot entirely the dignity which became his station.

* Biographies and Portraits, vo ii. p. 10.

Peace through the Truth."*

THE interest created some months ago by the publication of Dr. Pusey's Eirenicon has to some extent died away, because it has become sufficiently manifest to all impartial observers that the book contained nothing that could be safely expected to prove a basis for real bonâ-fide action towards the "reunion" of Christendom, and indeed not a little that was diametrically opposed to such a result. The common-sense of Englishmen has in this respect entirely coincided in its verdict with the instincts of Catholics. No wellinformed person could suppose that either the Anglican authorities or the Catholic Church would come to the terms proposed by Dr. Pusey; and it was seen at once that the negotiator had fallen into the fatal error of misrepresenting, however unconsciously, each of the parties whom he was endeavouring to conciliate. The book may have served its purpose, no doubt, in other ways; for some foreign Catholics, with a very natural ignorance of the real position of Dr. Pusey and his party in the Establishment, have, it would seem, taken his account of the Anglican formularies, and of the dispositions of his coreligionists, as sober matter of fact; and, on the other hand, a far greater number of persons in his own communion have accepted-at least, for the moment-his misrepresentations as to Catholic doctrine and Catholic practices as so much gospel-truth. But no one dreams-whatever the Church Union may say that peace will ever be made on the grounds marked out in the Eirenicon. At the same time, that good and wholesome spirit which, we are happy to know, glows in the hearts of thousands in the Anglican communion, the earnest longing for that peace in the true Church which is the birthright of every baptised soul, and the readiness to catch at any hope of reconciliation which it engenders,-these all occasioned in great part the welcome with which the book was hailed before it was read, and these remain still strong, though unsatisfied, now that it has been laid aside and is on the road to oblivion. The title-page of the Eirenicon will not be forgotten; though the day is, we think, near at hand when its author himself will be glad enough if all men

*Peace through the Truth. Essays on Subjects connected with Dr. Pusey's Eirenicon. First Series. By the Rev. F. Harper, S.J., Professor of Theology in St. Beuno's College. London, 1866.

could forget a large part of its contents. Though Dr. Pusey has failed so entirely himself, he has yet opened the way to others who may be more successful, because their principles are more sound and their statements more accurate than his.

The service rendered by Dr. Pusey to the cause of peace and truth is twofold, and no Catholic writer can be at all indisposed to give him full credit for it. In the first place, as Dr. Newman has pointed out, the mere fact that a man in his position has declared that "reconciliation with Rome" is possible and desirable, under certain conditions, is an immense step gained,-even though he may be sadly at sea as to his conditions. In the second place, his book has created an appetite among Anglicans for a greater acquaintance with Catholic matters than they at present possess, and given to Catholic writers an opportunity of stating their doctrines for themselves, and so dispelling a vast amount of ignorance and prejudice. Dr. Pusey has brought the case into court, and Englishmen are surely too candid and too honest not to listen to both sides. "It is not the custom of the Romans," said Festus to Agrippa, "to condemn any man before that he who is accused have his accusers present, and have liberty to make his answer." We are afraid that this has been too much "the custom of the English." Let us trust that it may be so no longer. Let us hope that the prevalence of the spirit of inquiry, which made some book, such as the Eirenicon might have been, a necessity to many Anglicans, will increase in force and practical influence, and lead a multitude of honest and upright minds among them to make their own investigations into the matters of controversy between the two communions; and, above all, to go to Catholic authors for information about Catholic doctrines with as much confidence as they go to Lutherans about Lutheranism, or Greeks and Russians about Oriental Christianity. Dr. Pusey, at all events, cannot any longer oppose himself-if, as is said, he has ever done so to the free study of the Catholic system, and to the giving a fair hearing to Catholic arguments. He has done homage to the craving for peace which is a growing power among his countrymen; and he has done something-rather awkwardly, perhaps-towards ministering to its correlative and companion craving-that for light. Moreover, as he has made himself, unluckily, a party in the contest as well as a mediator, he can only be anxious that the controversy, as far as he is concerned, should be conducted with the utmost publicity, and attract the attention of all who are to profit by its results. The matters at issue are far too important for those who have them really at heart to think much about their own reputation. Dr. Pusey may have to lose a great deal of his prestige in the course

of the discussion.

He has unlocked the door of the house and let in the wind and air; and he may, perhaps, be swept off his footing by the blast as it rushes in. He will surely find his consolation in the benefits that will result to others.

Our readers are well aware that we have always considered it a very great mistake on the part of the author of the Eirenicon, to encumber a proposal for peace with so much of unnecessary attack upon Catholic doctrines and practices, so much that could at once be stigmatised as unfair and ill-informed, so much that was certain to irritate the very best and tenderest feelings of those whom he was endeavouring to make his friends. We imagine that by this time he is well enough convinced of the impolicy of "discharging his olive-branch from a catapult." We are sorry to find that this great blunder will necessarily have its effect even upon those parts of the discussion which we might wish to be most free from all traces of personal and occasional controversy. One of the great fruits to which we have long been looking as likely to result from the publication of the Eirenicon is the calm and positive statement of Catholic doctrine, on some of the chief points at issue, on the part of trained and practised theologians, whose works might take their place among the permanent treasures of our literature, at the same time that they satisfied the just demands of the inquirer of the present day. In ordinary cases, the doctrine of the Church may be stated in this positive form with the best possible result, without any very detailed examination of the writings of opponents. Their objections may be answered by the way; but there is not so much need for discussion as to the faithfulness of their quotations or the correctness of individual assertions they may chance to have made. It is a sincere matter of regret to us, as it is, we do not doubt, to the author whose essays we are now about to notice, that it has been impossible in the present case to leave untouched questions of this kind in dealing with Dr. Pusey. The work before us―a first instalment, as we hope, to be followed by other essays from authors of the same calibre-is indeed, in idea and partly in execution, a plain, straightforward, and dogmatic statement of the teaching of the Catholic Church on three distinct and most important heads— the Unity of the Church, Transubstantiation, and the Immaculate Conception of our Blessed Lady. But, under the circumstances, it was unavoidably incumbent on the author to notice Dr. Pusey's statements as to these matters of doctrine. The necessity has been created by no one but by Dr. Pusey himself.

Surely, there was no special need in an Eirenicon, as such, to propound a novel theory of unity as opposed to that of the Catholic