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as yet been put forth in her name-a legend which confirms by the most wonderful of miracles the holiness of the Order of Jesus and the guilt of Ganganelli in dissolving it. The act of beatification bears that 'S. Alfonso remained at one time of his life in a trance in his room for two days, and that on his recovery he announced that he had been officiating at the death-bed of Clement XIV., who was now absolved from the mortal sin he had committed, and was gone to Paradise. This bilocation,'* as it is called, thus saves the honour of both parties, the Pope and the order of St. Ignatius, whom hitherto it had been impossible to defend but at the expense of each other. But probably Gregory could hardly decline to complete the work of his predecessors; and further it is remarkable, as an indication of his real sentiments or of his prudence, that in the Historico-Ecclesiastical Dictionary,' which undoubtedly was planned and superintended by him, and the first volume of which probably had an unusual share of his attention, under the article Alfonso, no allusion is made to the miracle. A matter-of-fact list of the theological works of the saint and the dates of his celestial promotions are given, with the methodical brevity of the Army List; but care is taken not to lower the character of the work or provoke the ridicule of Protestants by the insertion of such absurdities.

Gregory was not perhaps of an elevated character; but in less troubled times his good intentions and benevolence would have made him a popular ruler. In all his difficulties he showed constancy and moral courage. His love of justice was strong. He was as little inclined to make the innocent suffer, as to let the guilty escape. In his eyes, to conspire against his government was a crime, which it was his duty to punish. By many it was reputed a merit, and in their judgment of course the prisons were full of innocent victims.' Though his habits were regular and industrious, he is said to have been indolent in business, to which he was not accustomed. He seems, from an early period of his reign, to have withdrawn himself from the secular administration and contented himself with the direc

* This power of being in two places seems to have been exerted by this saint on the most ordinary occasions. He would hear confessions in his study while he was preaching in the cathedral. One of his flock called on him at sermontime, and, to his surprise, found him at home. He confessed to him, and on leaving the confessional, which was immediately occupied by another penitent, he went straight to the cathedral, where he found the confessor far advanced in his sermon. Moreover, this power has been exercised by S. Francis di Girolamo, aud by many other saints, p. 103 (Lives of Five Saints'). It is quite a common thing. And this is gravely told us by Cardinal Wiseman in the book just quoted, which was printed in the year 1846. Can the Irish Hagiology of the dark ages produce anything so extravagant?

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tion of ecclesiastical affairs. He even declined granting audiences, except on condition that no question of business should be introduced. He was self-indulgent in trifles. He loved good cheer; the state of his health probably made the fasts of the Church extremely painful to him; and the resource of the scrupulous Catholic in such cases is wine. The stories of his intemperance we believe to be utterly unfounded; they were invented by malice, and they gained strength from an affection of the nature of a polypus (subsequently cured) which disfigured his nose. He was charged with the claustral love of hoarding; but it is a matter of praise that in his own personal expenses he was parsimonious, and in the calamities which, beyond the usual average, afflicted the Roman States during his pontificate, the earthquakes, the floods, and the pestilences, he proved himself active, benevolent, and charitable. His views on this subject were more practical and statesmanlike than those of Leo. The latter, in imitation of his great patron Leo I., used to feed twelve paupers daily at the Vatican. If this was meant as a symbolical lesson on the duties of charity, it was too cumbrous an expedient for such a purpose; if it was intended really to diminish the pauperism of Rome, nothing could be more injudicious. No such superstitious observances are charged against Gregory. The matter of accusation most vehemently urged during his life was the ascendency which it was believed his valet-de-chambre possessed over him, and abused for his own corrupt purposes. The origin of that influence dated far back. It is said that when Padre Cappellari was about to be raised to the purple, he saw with affright the necessity of forming an establishment, and of getting together horses, carriages, footmen, and all the paraphernalia of pomp, which he knew not where to procure, or how to maintain. He bemoaned his fate to the barber's boy who was in the habit of coming to shave him, but he, a quick intelligent youth, of superior education, felt none of the helplessness of the cardinal elect, and offered to take the whole burden on himself, if he were duly commissioned. From this time forth he became the most influential member of the Cardinal's establishment. When Gregory was raised to the throne the Sior Gaetanino, now become the Cavalier Moroni, enjoyed not less of his patron's favour. But the extent of his influence must have been much exaggerated, or the use he made of it was misrepresented, for, on the death of his patron, he retired into the strictest privacy, and the modesty of his style of living, and the smallness of his fortune, effectually refuted the slander of common report. He was the nominal author, or rather editor, of the Dictionary' to which we have before referred as having unquestionably been planned and set on foot by Gregory him

self;

self; but it is perhaps a proof of the Pope's wish not to connect himself directly with the publication, that the title-page bears the date of Venice. The papal patronage made it necessary for public bodies, and all aspirants to favour, to become subscribers. But this can hardly be counted a grievance. The work appears to be ably executed, and contains a great deal of information which it would cost not a little trouble to find elsewhere; but it has the fault of diffuseness and prolixity; it has already exceeded the 80th volume, and is not yet brought to a close.

Gregory's reign was protracted for fifteen years without any change of system on the part of the Government, and with an accumulating mass of discontent on the part of the people. The barrier which he toiled to maintain might keep the waters of bitterness within limits for a space, perhaps for his lifetime, but the outbreak was inevitable: if the barrier was weakened by concessions, the crisis would be precipitated; if it were strengthened for further resistance, the overflow was not less certain, and might be more destructive. When Gregory, after a short illness, breathed his last, on the 1st of June, 1846, it required no great political wisdom to see that little was left for his successor but a choice of faults. Whether it might have been possible to steer so dexterously a middle course as to grant administrative reform without risking organic change, must remain a matter of speculation. If such a via media existed, the unhappy Pius IX. failed to find it.

It cannot be denied that the last four Popes,' who have filled with their reigns nearly the first half of this century, are men who had the great merit of acting up to their principles. They have succeeded in extending the authority of the Roman see, in diffusing ultra-montane opinions, and in fostering a spirit of superstition which had been banished from the educated classes of Europe. That all this is unfavourable to the progress of Christianity we do not doubt: how soon in the inevitable reaction it will be prejudicial to Rome herself, we do not venture to predict. It is not our fault that in putting together these biographical sketches we have been unable to make more use of the Cardinal's materials. His volume is more deficient in facts and in details, more utterly meagre and barren, than could have been supposed possible, when it is remembered that the author was actually resident on the spot during the greater part of the reigns he celebrates. It may be that he writes without the aid of contemporary notes. It may be that the times were so critical for the papacy, and the subjects to be handled are so dangerous, that a man of the Cardinal's rank in the Church can scarcely treat them at all, except in the most general manner; or it may be

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that he knows only just enough of the feelings of the Protestant public to see danger and controversy in all he can say. Had he fearlessly and fully given utterance to his own impressions; had he told us the events of the day and the fears and the hopes they excited in the Collegio Inglese, his book would not have been without value and interest. And had he spoken of his Protestant country with less bitterness, he would have disarmed the hostile criticism he appears to dread. When we consider the aggressive position which the Cardinal assumed in this country some years ago, and which he still thinks proper to maintain by every means in his power, it is idle to appeal to his charity or love of peace. Peace, he makes us feel, is not to be purchased by fresh concessions, or by the toleration of further encroachments. Peace may be hoped for when the Roman Catholic priesthood have learned that nothing is to be got by further agitation, that toleration must be reciprocal, and that they have reached the utmost limit which in justice the English law can allow, or a Protestant people endure.

ART. V.-PUBLICATIONS OF THE HONOURABLE THE COMMISSIONERS OF PATENTS, published at the Great Seal Patent Office, 1852, 1853, 1854, 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858 :—

a. Specifications describing the Inventions for which Letters Patent have been granted from the reign of James I. down to that of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.

b. Chronological, Alphabetical, Subject Matter, and Reference Indices to Letters Patent and Specifications.

c. Abridgments of Specifications, arranged Chronologically according to the subject matter of the Inventions, with separate Indices. d. The Commissioners of Patents' Journal, published twice a week. e. Annual Reports of the Commissioners of Patents.

VERYBODY is interested in the improvements affecting

the industrial products of the country. It is therefore impossible lightly to regard the remarkable series of works of which the titles stand at the head of this article. They have issued from the Great Seal during the last six years, in a copious stream, which, under the direction of the Commissioners of Patents, has been drawn off in a multitude of channels, penetrating the country in all directions, and irrigating it with fertilizing information. These Commissioners were appointed under the Patent Law Amendment Act of 1852, to organise the new plan then introduced. The Lord Chancellor, the Master of the

Rolls,

Rolls, the Attorney-General, and the Solicitor-General, are exofficio members, and it so happens that the persons who at the present moment fill the first three of these posts-Lord Chelmsford, Sir John Romilly, and Sir Fitzroy Kelly-are the very men who are entitled to the merit of having inaugurated the amended system.

The propriety of granting patents, if questioned at all, must be questioned on the ground of expediency, not of justice. No one can deny that the man who produces anything is entitled to a property of some kind in the product. If the crude material be abstracted from what may be considered the common possession of mankind, as a pebble from the sea-shore, the labour of the lapidary gives him a special title to the polished article. It is therefore impossible to contend that when a man, by the mere exercise of his intellect, taking nothing from, but on the contrary adding to, the common stock, compiles a book or contrives an invention, he is to have no property in what is just as much a product of his brains, as the polished pebble is of the lapidary's hands. Common honesty demands that he should be allowed to derive some benefit from his own work, and the extent of his interest is determined in this country by our system of copy and patent right.

But while the justice and expediency of a copyright in literature are recognised, prejudices still exist against patents, as if they were a remnant of the old abuse of monopolies by which an individual obtained from the crown the right to the exclusive exercise of some particular trade. Elizabeth, 'moved thereunto by divers good considerations,' did not hesitate to grant to Bryan Amersley the sole right to buy and provide steel within her realm; to John Spilman the power of buying linen rags and making paper; to Schets and his assignees the privilege of buying and transporting ashes and old shoes, to the manifest hurt and detriment of all other dustmen and old clothes collectors. In fact the list of commodities for which exclusive monopolies were granted by the iron-willed virgin Queen' is almost interminable. The sale of salt, currants, starch, leather, paper, tin, lead, iron, steel, sulphur, oils, bones, powder, and of a hundred other things, was restricted to favoured persons, who were so rapacious as to feel no scruple in raising the price of their articles 1000 per cent. and upwards. The price of salt, for instance, was raised from 16d. per bushel to 14s. or 15s. The monopolists were armed by royal authority with arbitrary power to oppress the people at their pleasure, to enter houses and search them, and to exact heavy penalties from all who interfered with their prerogative. Monopolies were in truth an excise not fixed by

law,

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