TABLE OF CONTENTS.

RELIGION AND POLITICS

The Elections—Parties.. The London Catholics .. Phil-pot v. Flowei’-pot • Thoughts on the Present Prospects of

Art .. .. ...................... Puse.vism in its Results...................... Lord Shrewsbury’s Memorial on Edu­

cation Notices to Correspondents REVIEWS :—

Three Years’s Wanderings in the

Northern Provinces of China. By Robert Fortune—The Bristol Protestant — Happy Ignorance; or, Church and State. A Religious Adventure, &c... .. .. ARTS :-

Portrait of the Rev. Mr. Furlong, Missionary Apostolic. By Miss

Errington —Mr. Mordaunt’s Pictures, &c. .................................

Page

401 401 402 402 403 404 410

CATHOLIC INTELLIGENCE:—

Subscriptions for the Relief of Irish

Distress, and Letters from the Subscribers •• London :—

Catholic Polish Benevolent Society —Opening of the Ne.v Chapel for the Saffron-hill Mission — St. George’s : -Fever in the Borough .. PROVINCIAL :—

Cress'velI, Staffordshire—Osbaldeston : Sc Marie’s—North Shields: The Catholic Church —Preston : St. Augustine’s—St. Alban’s—Wi.sbeacb, &c. Scotland : — Wales

Death of the Rev. J . Carroll Ireland

Death of the Rev. Dominick O’Connor—The Vacant See of Clonfert— Latest Intelligence from Ireland ..

Page

407

TABLET. TABLE OF CONTENTS.

FOREIGN &COLONIAL INTELLIGENCE;—

Italy—Bom:—France—Spain—South America—Overland Mail—China,

&c............................................. 408 NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS:— SECOND EDITION:—

Exhibition and Distribution of Prizes al St. Edmund’s College—A Catholic Meeting in Westminster — Imperial Parliament of Friday :— Public Business—Royal Commission —Thames Conservancy Bill—Captain Warner’s Invention-National Schools—Latest Intelligence from Ireland, &c. .. ...................... 410 IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT: —

Public Business—The Amnesty in

Portugal—The Andover Case—The Poor Law Amendment Bill—The Bishopric of Manchester —Tho Waste Lands in Ireland—Railway Accidents, &c................................... 410

DOMESTIC NEWS

C ourt and F ashionable L i f e :—

The Queen at the Italian Opera .. PERSONAL:—

The Arctie Expedition .. POLITICAL :—

The Elections .. .. ^ . PUSEYTSM :— MISCELLANEOUS — LAW AND

POLICE — ACCIDENTS AND OFFENCES, &c. IRELAND- POLITICAL: —

Obsequies of the late Mr. O’Connell —Loyal National Repeal Association—State of tho Country—Progress of the Famine, &c., &e. NAVAL AND MILITARY NEWS:— g a z e t t e s r a il w a y in t e l l ig e n c e MONEY MARKET AND CITY NEWS MARKETS ................................. ADVERTISEMENTS......................

414 415 416 417

Vol. VIII, No. 373.

SATURDAY,

JUNE 26. 1847.

P rice 6d.

tence, th a t the whole universe might see how much of statesmanship there is in the W h ig party.

j as vve have a t haud the case seems la r from pleas­

T H E E L E C T IO N S—P A R T I E S T h e approaching dissolution o f Parliam ent— expected to take place about the lo th J u l y — quickens th e interest of the elections, which a t th e best is not very lively. The t r u th is, all things, a ll men, and all parties, are in a state of collapse. I n Ireland, in Scotland, and in England, it is p re tty much th e same in this respect. O f old things all are over old ; o f good things none are good enough. P a rty cries have had th e ir d a y ; party connections are wearing, or worn, out ; party principles are found to be hollow, rotten, and unserviceable. We have been going on for many j'ears upon a cant which the leaders did not believe on either s id e ; a t length i t has become so generally incredible to followers as well as to leaders th a t it has become u tte r ly unendurable; and by a sort of common, unspoken consent a new speech has to be learnl, a new language spoken by the politicians o f every side.

This time, a t all events, there is not much prestige in th e ir favour. H ere and there a hungry politician pins his faith on th e ir sleeve, but on the whole there is very little belief in them. This, so far, ;s creditable to th e discernment o f the times, The elections are impending; every voter has to put forward his gift in the way of choosing his rulers ; every candidate has to put forward his gift also in the way of enlightening- his constituents ; great problems remain unsolved ; great tasks have yet to be performed ; Ireland has to be governed or alienated, fed or starved ; England has to be guided, life breathed into her desolate places, and her disorder reduced to ru le ; but no candidate, no journal, no public exposition of any kind is hardy enough to proclaim to us th a t the Whigs have any special gift for the accomplishment of this work, or th a t they know any better than their- neighbours whither the ocean currents are drifting us.

Oh, pitiable difficulty 1 Oh, hard necessity! Who shall fathom the infinite perplexity of the men for whom this labour of Hercules is reserved ? Before speech must come th o u g h t ; before language, purpose : and the politicians we speak of have neither thought nor purpose. They have been so long u tte rin g falsities and acting falsities th a t they have forgotten the existence of t r u th ; and when th e old falsity becomes, as it now has become, a well-nigh unmarketable commodity, th ey are a t their wit’s end for some sounder material wherewith to supply its place. The purpose of Government, h ith erto has been to balance party against party ; to resist popular c lam our; to swell popular clam our; to succumb to popular clamour. A t length the time comes when neither party nor clamour exists any longer; when the whole field of politics is laid b a re ; when nothing has to be achieved but th a t small problem called “ Govern“ m e n t ;” nothing done but furnish ru le and guidance to the millions under your sway ; and then the discovery is made th a t the men potent for faction are impotent for ru le ; th a t party adroitness is not statesm anship; th a t those whom the game of faction has elevated to supremacy over their fellows and over us, have yet to serve an apprenticeship to the trade th ey have so long been pretending to practise.

N o r is it the Whigs only who are thus deficient. Unless M r.D israeli’sBuckingham shireinspirations are to be excepted, on whatever side we tu rn , there is no sign amongst us, and no prophet to teach the people. We advance, not knowing whither ; we float along as the tide bears ns. We make choice of our representatives we hardly know why, and tru s t them to do we hardly know what ; they, on their side, exhibit an equal intelligence, and seem prepared to use their delegation very much in the spirit in which we confer it.

The few questions of interest th a t are evolved in the preparatory discussions before polling, are mainly of the smallest kind. The “ No-Popery” policy—dead, buried, rotten, stinking, and unreviveable—by a sort of magical a r t is made to exhibit its ghostly and ghastly form in antic dance on two or th ree political stages. Whereever the gibbering shadow appears, there is, for a few moments, a bustle and a tum u lt in the crowd, and some small semblance of life begins to animate the languid constituency. Where this is the case, there is some discussion of principles, some ta lk of pledges, some evanescent appearance of political hostility.

Once before—after the Reform B ill—the Whig party has stood before the country in circumstances not wholly dissimilar to th e present. By desperate eftorts a revolution had been accomplished ; Parliam ent had been rem odelled; and a full tide of popular gratitude raised the Whigs before the country on the highest political scaffolding ever raised since the peace—namely, a majority of above three hundred votes. The country expected wonders from them . Their powers were g igantic; the confidence in their skill and honesty very g r e a t ; and i f th ey had been really statesmen, a most glorious opportunity was indeed theirs. Being what they were, they accomplished very l i t t l e ; they turned their omnipotence to a very miserable account; they were found to be neither gods nor guides, b u t idols of a very ill-tempered and worthless in e ta l ; not seeing with their eyes, nor hearing with th e ir ears, nor walking with th e ir feet; and exhibiting only th is symptom of life, th a t th ey were able to cry out lustily through their throat. Soon they fell down from their high place o f worship ; their huge majority dwindled to a measuring c a s t ; and after ten years o f an in term itten t tenure o f office, th ey passed into a sort of political annihilation, and ended one phase more of their unloved, unlovely, and unhonoured career.

I n the revolutions of the whirligig of Time these same inane politicians are again raised aloft. By no merit, by no effort, for no service of theirs ; hut, as it were, in a fit of caprice Fate snatches them from the d a rk corner in which they had been ignominiously huddled away as things out of date, and after furbishing up a little their tattered finery and tarnished apparel, seats them once more in the Council Chamber, places in their hand once more the sceptre, and covers th e ir disordered locks with th e round of sovereignty, Again we see them almost as before. They have gained, it is true, no victory ; but rivals have melted from before their path, adverse hosts have disappeared, the wranglings of faction have been hushed, and thus a second time within less th an tw enty years Providence has lent them, as it were, His omnipo

In a few other districts, th e difference between High and Low Church produces the semblance of a contest ; and the difference between Liberalism joined to indifference about the Establishment, and Liberalism joined to zeal for the Establishment, makes the ground-work for a few more popgun duels. But, on the whole, the main feature of the present elections is, th a t Ministers do not so much as pretend to have any guidance to offer us ; th a t no opposition exists to denounce, or even to discern the existence of, this gap in the great feast; th a t no public sentiment betrays a consciousness of any striking deficiency in this re spect; and th a t all are wonJeriully at their ease about a fu tu re the exigencies o f which no provision has been made to meet and satisfy.

As to r Mr. Disraeli, what shall we say ? W ith thought, industry, insignt, acuteness, aye, and occasionally even depth enough to furnish out a statesman of no ordinary pretensions—why will he ever be a quack ? W ith shrewdness and originality quite sufficient to enable him to walk with distinction in the regions o f common sense, why will he perpetually aim at renown through g ro tesque eccentricities and absurd paradoxes ? With more reflection under his brows than all the Ministers and Opposition to boot, one of th e very few Parliam entary speakers who now and then rises to the dignity of thinking, what a pity that he wastes this invaluable power in splenetic personalities, varnishing over part}'’ tricks, and pu tting forth sham creeds for the mystification of booby constituents !

In Ireland the collapse is almost as great as, perhaps greater than, with us. There too the old party names, connections, principles, and tactics, have undergone a g reat change. The Power th a t filled the public eye for so many a year has passed away, and those who remain behind seem labouring a t the somewhat ungrateful task of making bricks w ithout straw. Irish politics are at this ju nctu re not very easy to read or un derstand. We touch them un willingly and with hesitation. I t needs personal inspection and personal^ intercourse to learn with any accuracy the meaning of those outward appearances th a t $hift before the eye a t this season. Using such evidence ing. Leaving out of account the famine and the fever, scourges which however severe are but temporary in their operation, the political horizon seems tolerably gloomy. On th e one side torpor, inactivity, want of hope ; on the o ther false fire, false activity, false hope. Efforts on a great scale that can lead to no immediate result—the practi cable practically neglected. Enthusiasm against England increasing, whi e the rents and divisions amon£ Irishm en are increasing also. The zeal for independence waxing hotter, while the power to achieve independence is on the decline. Bursts o f ’eloquence, columns o f encouragement, tons of elaborate speculation, but no practical result to correspond. One hole in the political pot mended and ten new holes driven th rough in the tinkering, while even the hole th a t was mended is not made water-tight. Two parties of Repealers pitted against each other in increasing hostility ; both of them made of lasting materials and deeply rooted in the so i l; one defying and the other labouring to convert an unconvertible Irish en em y ; and both threatened, in addition to the Irish enemy, by th a t gigantic and untractable English one. Within, Irish politics a t present seem to threaten an endless trian gular d u e l ; and without is—England !

Meanwhile famine and fever keep down electioneering vigour as effectually on the other side of the Channel as other causes do with us. The immediate fu tu re is very dark and w ithout sign cr token. The hope is th a t an improving social and economical condition may develope new forms aivl j ^ ^ ^ i t i e s of health and strength and lead to of more tangible results.

t h e L o n d o n c a t h o l i c s . We are very happy to say th a t a movement is being commenced in London which promises fair for the fu tu re. The details are not yet quite adjusted, and therefore we cannot speak of it in detail as we hope to be able to do next week. In the main, however, the object and intention are to carry into effect the suggestions thrown out in the Marylebone Meeting—that is, to labour to place the London Catholics in a state of efficiency, and to make them put out their own s trength to the utmost before either looking for help from the country, or affecting to lead the country.

There is no part of Great Britain in which the Catholics have so much available strength as in London ; there is no part in which, practically, they have been so wTeak. This must not be allowed to continue. We understand th a t on Tuesday evening it is intended to hold a second Catholic Metropolitan Meeting in Westminster. There, doubtless, fu r th e r explanations will be given. Meanwhile, we publish a letter from a re spectable Dissenter, callejl out by some remarks unfavourable to the Dissenters made a t the late meeting. I t seems to be a mistake on both sides. The allusions of the speaker were, according to our recollection, addressed to the VVesleyans, and these Dissenters our correspondent admits to he blameworthy.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TABLET. Sir—If was wifh some degree of pain and disappointment I perused the report in the T ablet of the meeting h-Id last week in connection with -he foriheoming election of Marjdabone. Wi h the protest there entered against tho gross injustice recently perpetrated against the Catholic body in excluding them by enactment from a participation in the division of the Educational Grant, to which they are compelled by taxation to contribute, I fully and heartily agree. With most of the sentiments expressed by »he gentlemen who took part in the meeting, more especially those referring in indignant language to that insulting injustice, and with the avowed determination to follow up redress, I cordially sympathise; but from one or two erroneous and unjust statements, calculated t create a moa». undesirable impression, I am compelled entirely todifsent.

In the report I find it was affirmed by the mover of one of the resolutions that through the assistance of the Catholics it was that the emancipation of the Dissenters had been accomplished, hur^that the latter, so far from evincing a spirit of thankfulness towards their generous liberators, had rewa»ded them with black and base ingratbude ; and he theuce argued that henceforward Catholic-; should nlace no relia ce on the co-operation or assistance of Dissenters to effect their own religious freedom.

Now, Sir, the first, of these statements may be quite correct; the o her is untrue. True it is »hat the Catholics aided in the liberation of the Dissenters; but it is also true that the Dissenters have likewise aided to accomplish the liberation of Catholic?. Referring back uo later thau the recent division in the Commons on

Air. An rey’s oill tor »he more pomple e emauc p.tr on of Catholics, and the previous bill carried, for the removal of cer ain pains and penalties, on which side were found th few Dissenters that -he House coutaios ? True it is the Dissenters opposed the endowment of Maynooth. Bur why? Because they denied the right of Catholics to pai icipate iu any just expenditure of public money ? 1 apprehend not; nut because they altogether demurred to the principle of religious endowment. It was on (he fame principle they uni ed wi*h Catholics in opposing *he Factories B'U of Mr J. Graham, and compelling him to withdraw i t ; and recently, on the same principle, they manifested by ten thousand petitions to the Senate their abhorrence of all State interference in matters of conscience True it is that Dissenters haveonpised all proposals of the S’a'e to patronise Catholicism ; but they have also opposed and •e*used all such patronage for themselv, s. I say the Dissenters have thus acted; and I say truly, for I except iwally a distinct body, large in numbers, but straitened and pitiful in spirit, which has always been in secret a species of State Church-hanger-on, and on a late occasion was content to be bought with »he bigot’s bribe, and so openly strike hands wih it. But surely. Sir, it is a great act of injusice to charge Dissenters as a whole with ingiati udeon this account. It should be remembered thst they are not responsible for this most disrepu able conduct, and had no share in iis enactment, bur thar, equally with Catholics themselves, »hey stigmatise and despise it. Why, Sir, even in farfamed Exeter Hall itself, a spot not. usually prolific in charitable sentiments towards Catholics, I heard the voice of nearly five thousand Dissemers upraised as the voice of one man, in execra»ion of the vile prohibition ! And, Sir. it was only natural »hat such should be t'>e spirit manifested; for however much Catholics and Dissenters are at variance as regards Articles of Faith, in matters of his description they have assuredly a common cause; and any insult offered to either is, if pro. perly understood, equally an insult to both. Both through the existence and encroachments ot the Eccle statical Es'ablishment are oppressed with heavy burthens grievous to be borne; both are alike subjec» to iniquitous penalties, for conscience sake; both, therefore, must be interested in accomplishing a mutual emanetpa ion. I confess, Sir, I felt some degree of anxiety in attempting to realise the re.^u't which must necessarily ensue, supposing the recomm ndationa of »he gentlemen I have quoted ro be carried into prac'ice, for it is manifest to me that only» in proportion as Catholics and Dissenters unite together, and merging for the time ail other difference?, cordial'v meet upon this common ground, can the object so dear to both be effee’ed. Single-handed, i t is palpable neither par y has at present the requisite influence to act successfully, and cannot have for gome cotsiderable time yet to come ; but united together in a determined and zealous body 'hey must be effectual. Certain it is, Sir, that had this been d ne before, we should not now have been sa died as we are; but while we still continue divided and estranged,so long shall we impart additional strength to the mutual enemy, and must continue to endure the yoke.

Let us fake, Sir, a lesson from the past. The feuds and contentions between Athens and Spar'a were, as we know, many and hitter in »he extreme ; on but few points of motals or polity were they agreed ; but all these contentions were simultaneously thrown into the shade as soon as a common enemy appeared, and both were promptly united in one patriotic and dauntless hand, to protect and defend the ltber'ies, not alone of Athens, or of Sparta,but of Greece! And »bus it must be now, if we would achieve our independence Distinctions of faith must be f >r the time forgotten, mutual recriminations hushed, and each take the other by the hand who will aid and assist in the struggle.

The present is emphatically the propitious time for exertion, and bo h Ca'holics and Dissenters must be alive to, and active in the work. Let the latter be careful how they heed the disgusting and bigotred admonition, emanating doubtlessly from the recesses of some snug Rectory, and lately so zealously placarded throughout the Ci»y, beseeching electors only to support those candidaies who will uphold "our glorious” (?) " in8'itutions,” and won’t, "vote money for th« endowment of Popery,” and on the contrary, countenance only the men who will he content, not to meddle with things too eaered for legislauve handling, but will adhere to their rightful province, and leave the mind of man as free and unfettered as the atmosphere of heaven itself. And let »he former adopt -he language of one of the most talented of their order, and well consider, before they suppoit any candidate, the “ pithy questions—Is he honest? What has he done ? What will he do?” Then, Sir, may we well anticipate a glorious result. We want but a few such men as Anstey, Urquhart, Lucas, and Thompson, in our Parliament—men who, conten» to disagree on many important topic*, are., on one point at least, bound and knit together in solemn and compact brotherhood—men, who will again propound to our lawgivers the contemned, and long since unheeded, doctrine of senatorial accountability—who will teach our legislators the momentous truth they have yet. to learn: tha*all law must he based, not upon expediency, hut upon sound and righteous principles of justice—who will labour not f

231 June, 1847.