in commendation of this really golden work. For those who read French more easily than Latin, this is a very good edition to possess.

Conférences sur l'Histoire Evangélique, prêchées à Rome par le P. Finetti, S. J. (2 vols. 8vo, price 10s. 6d. Lyon, Pelagaud). F. Finetti was born in 1762, and died in 1842. In 1814, when the Company of Jesus was restored, he was one of the first to enter the novitiate, and from 1819 to his death was one of the most favourite preachers of the order. These "Conferences" form a kind of running paraphrase on the Diatessaron, a Gospel history compiled from the narrative of the four Evangelists, put into modern language, and illustrated with apposite reflections; they are quite models of this kind of lecture, and as such, are highly recommended to priests in a pastoral of the Bishop of Viviers prefixed to these volumes.

La Mère de Dieu, ou le Culte de Marie présenté à l'Esprit et au Cœur, d'après les saints Pères, par M. l'Abbé Turquais. (Paris, Gaume. 1 vol. price 2s.) This is just the kind of book we like; its title well describes its contents, for in it the devotion to Mary is made as acceptable to the intellect as it is to the feelings. The author founds his arguments on the passages of Scripture which are usually applied to the Blessed Virgin, and explains them by quotations from the Fathers and comments of his own. The arrangement is good, and the book seems to us worthy of high praise.

De la Liberté de la Charité en Belgique, par l'Évèque de Bruges. (Bruxelles, H. Goemaere. 1 vol. price 2s. 6d.) An unanswerable argument against the system of the Belgian government, which takes the administration of charitable funds out of the hands of the religious bodies to which they were intrusted, and vests them in a central commission of civilians,-giving rise to endless jobbery and waste, and effectually discouraging the practice of charity on a large scale.

Obituary.

Of your charity pray for the repose of the soul of the Reverend Adam Laing Meason, S.J., Professor of Logic at the Seminary, Stonyhurst, who died suddenly on the morning of Wed. nesday, July 5th. R. I. P.

THE RAMBLER.

VOL. II. New Series. SEPTEMBER 1854.

PART IX.

THE

QUEEN'S GOVERNMENT AND THE UNIVERSITY.

THE third of next November will be the commencement of a new era in the history of the Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland. What our forefathers did for this country in Oxford and Cambridge, is about to be repeated for the advantage of the present generation in Dublin. From those ancient seats of learning we, the children of their founders, have for three centuries been expelled. At Cambridge, indeed, Catholic students have long been admitted, but they have not been permitted to take a degree; and Oxford, under compulsion, is about to grant us the same favour." For ourselves, however, we most heartily trust that no Catholics will be found to avail themselves of the permission thus accorded. It would be a most pernicious thing for any young Catholic to receive his education at Protestant hands, whether those hands were High-Church, Low-Church, Latitudinarian, Nonconformist, or Infidel. Education can no more be dissevered from religion than matter from its properties of form and colour. We had better remain as we are, exiles from our natural homes, till England ceases to be a kingdom, than barter our faith, our honour, our manliness, our self-respect, our character among our fellow-countrymen, for the questionable advantages of such a teaching as Oxford and Cambridge can give, and that worldly position which the distinctions of those Universities confer on those who share them.

We therefore trust that, notwithstanding the "opening" made for us by acts of the legislature or the English Universities themselves, our gentry and aristocracy will hold themselves aloof from the seducing bait, and will prefer the advantages of Catholic learning and the honours of a Catholic seminary to that fictitious knowledge and that tarnished reputation which are all that Oxford and Cambridge could confer

VOL. II.-NEW SERIES.

on us. We do not say that all the knowledge is fictitious, and all the reputation tarnished, which they confer on their Protestant sons: far from it. It is for us only that they have nothing to give, without the forfeiture on our part of all that is most honourable in this life and most precious in the next. They cannot be purely Catholic seminaries, therefore let them be purely Protestant. We ask no admission into their walls, no share in their splendid possessions. We are content to visit those venerable halls, to tread those antique cloisters, to wander amidst those shadowy groves and blooming gardens, as strangers, as exiles, as men from whom the present possessors turn away with gloomy frowns and looks askance; ourselves content to learn, not envy, not repining, not uncharitable bigotry, but an emulation of the great men who, centuries before Protestantism was born, reared churches, schools, libraries, and colleges, in the service of that faith which still is ours, while all else is lost. Emulating, therefore, the wisdom and works of our ancestors, and not envying those who have so long enjoyed the fruit of their labours, the Irish episcopate, under the direction of the Pope, have laid the foundation of another Catholic University, which will commence active work on the 3d of next November.

To some of our Protestant fellow-countrymen such an undertaking may seem peculiarly inappropriate and uncalled-for, at the very time when the rigour of Anglican exclusion is being relaxed at Oxford, and a change taking place in popular ideas which must end, sooner or later, in the abolition of all religious tests at the national Universities. They will exclaim with angry amazement at the perversity and waste of money involved in a proceeding which, as they consider it, is now perfectly needless, and which can never issue in the creation of institutions rivalling the old Universities in learning and character. If they do not laugh at the whole affair as a piece of what they call Irish braggadocio, to begin in speechifying and end in smoke, they will in all probability set it down as a fresh device of a priesthood which finds its power slipping from its hands, for checking the wheels of civilisation and retaining the minds of the laity in slavish subservience to its ignorant dictates; or they will treat it as a fresh manifestation of a stupid, blinded, anti-national spirit, which will never adopt the same conduct as other Englishmen, and must needs throw every gift that the nation offers in the face of the munificent giver.

As for the fiery band of zealots who identify Catholicism with every thing that is ungodly, immoral, and un-English, they are puzzled which to fear and hate the most, our en

trance into Oxford and Cambridge, or the erection of a Catholic University by Catholic hands and paid for by Catholic money. If these prophets are to be believed, we are only waiting for the abolition of tests to rush in hundreds to Oxford, to found Popish colleges with splendid revenues, to take all the highest honours, gain all the prizes, oust the heads of houses from their comfortable posts, and finally by a coup d'état to declare Oxford a Popish University, and denounce Queen Victoria from the University pulpit as a heretic, a usurper, and the lawful subject for the assassin's dagger. The only doubt is whether this consummation is to take place during our own lives or those of our children. If any such should venture on the perilous experiment of reading a Popish journal, we trust that their alarm may be a little quieted by our explanation of our reasons why we cannot send our youth to Oxford and Cambridge at all; that is, unless they set down our remarks as so much Jesuitical lying, which can deceive no sound-hearted Protestant for a single moment. At any rate, we should be glad that they should learn that for once we and they are in accord. We shall accomplish a twofold end, if we can calm the fears of unreasonable Protestants by the same statements with which we endeavour to convince reasonable men that we are neither Quixotic, bigoted, nor perverse, in devoting ourselves to the establishment of a new University at the present juncture.

It will be readily granted, then, by all who hold that Catholicism is to be tolerated in this kingdom, that it is better that Catholics should be an educated rather than an uneducated race. If the professions of liberal Protestants be not the most audacious of mockeries, they are bound to regard with gratification every effort we make to raise the standard of intellectual culture in our own body. According to their own theory, that a progress in enlightenment must issue in the progress of Protestantism, they ought to hail the establishment of a Catholic University for the teaching of every branch of secular learning, as a step of the utmost importance towards the final extinction of our superstitious creed. And setting aside the theological aspect of the subject, it is self-evident that the nation, as a whole, must gain by the increased cultivation and acquirements of so large a portion of its population. On the simplest philanthropic and patriotic grounds, it is desirable that our nobles, our gentry, our middle-classes, and our poor, should be behind no other division of the people in all that refines and elevates the mind and character. It passes all ordinary limits of folly and inconsistency to attack us for being behind the age in knowledge and intelligence,

and then to denounce the most effectual efforts we make to remedy the deficiencies arising from our past sufferings. If men are jealous of our learning, if they are afraid that we shall rival or outstrip them in the intellectual race, if they desire that ignorance shall be the penalty paid for our Catholicism, let them speak the truth, and avow their shameful wishes. But let us not be first condemned as votaries of ignorance, and then punished for desiring to learn. Treat us on one system or on the other. Either take advantage of the fact that we are the minority, rob us of our rights as citizens, and drive us from our native land; or rise above the silly terrors of prejudice, and assist rather than annoy us when we put forth our energies to assume our fitting positions in the social fabric. Rely on it, you, our non-Catholic fellowcountrymen, will be gainers as well as ourselves. The parliamentary, the forensic, the literary, the military glory of the United Kingdom will be none the less for our participation in all the advantages which a flourishing University can bestow. If you cannot share our reputation as Catholics, you can share it as Englishmen and Irishmen. Rest assured, we shall be none the worse citizens or members of private society because we know more Latin and Greek, more German and Italian, more history and political economy, more mathematics and physical science.

Why, then, it is next asked, cannot we be content to gain these advantages from existing seminaries? Why must we needs have a University all to ourselves? Why will we not meet the government and the popular feeling half way, enter Oxford and Cambridge the moment we can, and in the mean time send our sons to the London University and to the Queen's Colleges in Ireland; or at any rate be satisfied with our own colleges in England and the sister country? We shall endeavour to meet the question, as it refers to all these seminaries separately. And first, as to the London University.

This institution is a university only in name. It is no more a place of education than the College of Physicians, or any board of examiners, is a place of education; it is a corporation, with a power of granting certificates of merit. It does not teach, it does not form the mind; except so far as it requires certain books to be read, and examines in certain branches of knowledge. Of course, if we choose, we can call such an institution a University," or any other name we please, however ridiculously inappropriate and deceptive. But the nature of the institution is not altered by conferring on it a title which belongs to something essentially different. And by a "University," the world means, and we mean, something