of pleasure would shrink with horror and disgust from the history of half the unknown beings on whom they scarcely deign to glance as they glide past them in their faultless equipages; and yet in this history of the busy throng lies the real poetry of life. It is the story of man's solitary struggle with his own passions and the passions of others. It is the great tragedy of which the earth is the theatre, and whose catastrophe will be the end. There is a certain class of elegant exclusives, who consider that princes and nobles, the great and the fashionable, all above themselves, but none beneath, constitute the world. Yet it appears impossible for any reasonable being to watch the tide of life as it rushes through one of the great metropolitan currents, and maintain a prejudice so narrow. No, the moralist must feel that the main ocean of existence is here and around him, struggling, and rushing, and whirling-now in the depths, now in the sunshine; and this is the social world, whose happiness and welfare and moral training, and not that of an exclusive class, ought to be the object of legislation, and whose eternal movement, ever gathering strength with knowledge, has already shaken off the dominion of brute force, is struggling against that of gold and superstition, and tends ever forward to liberty and justice." All Classes," a Novel. REMORSE OF AN OPIUM-EATER. About the year 1814 Coleridge was discovered by his anxious friends to be labouring under the terrible effects of opium, taken originally to relieve bodily pain, and afterwards resorted to for the sake of mental excitement. Immediately on making the discovery, Mr. Cottle addressed to him a letter of earnest advice and entreaty, to which he received the following painful reply : "April 26, 1814. "You have poured oil in the raw and festering wound of an old friend's conscience, Cottle; but it is oil of vitriol! I but barely glanced at the middle of the first page of your letter, and have seen no more of it-not from resentment, God forbid! but from the state of my bodily and mental sufferings, that scarcely permitted human fortitude to let in another visitor of affliction. The object of my present reply is to state the case just as it is-First, that for ten years the anguish of my spirit has been indescribable, the sense of my danger staring, but the consciousness of my GUILT worse-far worse than all! I have prayed, with drops of agony on my brow, trembling, not only before the justice of my Maker, but even before the mercy of my Redeemer. I gave thee so many talents, what hast thou done with them?' Secondly, overwhelmed as I am with a sense of my direful infirmity, I have never attempted to disguise or conceal the cause. On the contrary, not only to friends have I stated the whole case with tears and the very bitterness of shame, but in two instances I have warned young men, mere acquaintances, who had spoken of having taken laudanum, of the direful consequences, by an awful exposition of its tremendous effects on myself. "Thirdly, though before God I cannot lift up my eyelids, and only do not despair of his mercy, because to despair would be adding crime to crime, yet to my fellowmen I may say that I was seduced into the ACCURSED habit ignorantly. I had been almost bedridden for many months, with swellings in my knees. In a medical journal I unhappily met with an account of a cure performed in a similar case, or what appeared to me so, by rubbing in of laudanum, at the same time taking a given dose internally. It acted like a charm, like a miracle! I recovered the use of my limbs, of my appetite, of my spirits, and this continued for near a fortnight. At length the unusual stimulus subsided, the complaint returned, the supposed remedy was recurred to-but I cannot go through the dreary history. Suffice it to say that effects were produced which acted on me by terror and cowardice, of pain and sudden death, not (so help me, God!) by any temptation of pleasure, or expectation or desire of exciting pleasurable sensations. On the very contrary, Mrs. Morgan and her sister will bear witness so far as to say, that the longer I abstained the higher my spirits were, the keener my enjoyments, till the moment, the direful moment, arrived when my pulse began to fluctuate, my heart to palpitate, and such falling abroad, as it were, of my whole frame, such intolerable restlessness and incipient bewilderment, that, in the last of my several attemps to abandon the dire poison, I exclaimed in agony, which I now repeat in seriousness and solemnity, I am too poor to hazard this.' Had I but a few hundred pounds, but £200-half to send to Mrs. Coleridge, and half to place myself in a private madhouse, where I could procure nothing but what a physician thought proper, and where a medical attendant could be constantly with me for two or three months (in less than that time, life or death would be determined) then there might be hope. Now there is none!! 0 God! how willingly would I place myself under Dr. Fox, in his establishment; for my case is a species of madness, only that it is a derangement, an utter impotence of the volition, and not of the intellectual faculties. You bid me rouse myself: go bid a man, paralytic in both arms, to rub them briskly together, and that will cure him. 'Alas!' he would reply,' that I cannot move my arms is my complaint and my misery.' May God bless you, and "Your affectionate, but most afflicted, "S. T. COLERIDGE." Southey, with whom he had lived, and who knew him well, addressing Mr. Cottle on the subject, ascribes the indulgence to other than bodily ailments: "Keswick, April, 1814. "My dear Cottle,-You may imagine with what feelings I have read your correspondence with Coleridge. Shocking as his letters are, perhaps the most mournful thing they discover is, that, while acknowledging the guilt of the habit, he imputes it still to morbid bodily causes; whereas, after every possible allowance is made for these, every person who has witnessed his habits knows that for the greater, infinitely the greater, part inclination and indulgence are its motives. It seems dreadful to say this, with his expressions before me, but it is so, and I know it to be so, from my own observation, and that of all with whom he has lived. The Morgans, with great difficulty and perseverance, did break him of the habit, at a time when his ordinary consumption was from two quarts a week to a pint a day! He suffered dreadfully during the first abstinence, so much so as to say it was better for him to die than to endure his present feelings. Mrs. Morgan resolutely replied, it was indeed better that he should die, than that he should continue to live as he had been living. It angered him at the time, but the effort was persevered in. To what, then, was the relapse owing? I believe to this cause-that no use was made of renewed health and spirits; that time passed on in idleness, till the lapse of time brought with it a sense of neglected duties, and then relief was again sought for a selfaccusing mind,-in bodily feelings, which, when the stimulus ceased to act, added only to the load of selfaccusation. This, Cottle, is an insanity which none but the soul's physician can cure. Unquestionably, restraint would do as much for him as it did when the Morgans tried it, but I do not see the slightest reason for be lieving it would be more permanent. This, too, I ought to say, that all the medical men to whom Coleridge has made his confession have uniformly ascribed the evil, not to bodily disease, but indulgence. The restraint which alone could effectually cure is that which no person can impose upon him. Could he be compelled to a certain quantity of labour every day, for his family, the pleasure of having done it would make his heart glad, and the sane mind would make the body whole." -Cottle's "Reminiscences of S. Taylor Coleridge." Rev. George W. Ward, M.A., Fellow and late Tutor. Rev. Frederick Oakley, M.A., Chaplain Fellow and Rev. A. St. John, M.A., Student, and late Curate to the Rev. H. Wilberforce, East Farleigh. Rev. Charles H. Collyns, M.A., Student, and late As sistant Curate to the Rev. R. Coffin, at St. Mary Mag dalen Parish, Oxford. Rev. W. Wingfield, M.A., Student, and brother-inlaw to the author of "The Ideal Church." Rev. Robert Aston Coffin, M.A., Student, and Per late Tutor, Prebendary of Lichfield, and Minister of St.petual Curate of St. Mary Magdalen, Oxford (1844), Margaret's Proprietary Chapel, London. Rev. John J. Plumer, M.A. MERTON. (None.) EXETER. W. Lockhart, Esq. (and Littlemore), Undergraduate. J. D. Dalgairns, Esq., M.A. (and Littlemore). Rev. John Brande Morris, M.A., Fellow, Assistant Hebrew Lecturer to Dr. Pusey, and late Curate of St. Mary the Virgin, author of "Nature a Parable," &c. Rev. Charles Cox, B.A., Curate of Allerton, Somerset. Walter Buckle, Esq., Undergraduate. Rev. George Dudley Ryder, M.A., Rector of Easton, Hants (1836), value £514, author of "A Defence of Tract 90." Patron, Bishop of Winchester, son of the late Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. Rev. J. Simpson, Vicar of Mitcham, Surrey (1845), value £456. Patron, W. Simpson, Esq. Rev. Henry M. Walker, B.A. value £145. Patron, Christ Church, Oxford. Rev. H. George Coope, M.A., late Curate of Bucknell, Salop. Rev. M. Watts Russell, M.A. Rev. J. Melville Glennie, B.A., late Commoner, and Rev. R. Gordon, M.A., Curate to the Rev. J. Dods- Perpetual Curate of Marks, Somerset (1845), value £150. worth, Christchurch, St. Pancras, London. QUEEN'S. (None.) NEW COLLEGE.--(None.) LINCOLN. Robert Walker, Esq., M.A. ALL SOULS'.-(None). MAGDALEN. Rev. Waldo Sibthorp, M.A., Fellow, and Minister of St. John's Proprietary Chapel, Ryde, Isle of Wight. Rev. Bernard Smith, M.A., late Fellow, and Rector of Leadenham, Lincoln, value £700. Patron, Mr. J. Smith. Rev. J. G. Wenham, B.A., Demy, and Chaplain to the Forces in Ceylon. BRAZENOSE. Rev. Henry Formby, M.A., Curate of Ruardean. Rev. Joshua Dixon, Curate of Fewston, Yorkshire. Rev. T. Meyrick, M.A., Scholar, First Class, 1838. Rev. J. Spencer Northcote, M.A., First Class, 1839. Rev. Richard Gell Macmullen, B.D., Fellow and late Latin Reader and Dean, Second Class, 1832. Patron, Earl of Harrowby. A SYRIAN COURTSHIP. I told my father the state of my heart, and requested him to take a diamond ring and a fine white handkerchief, the emblem of betrothment, to the father of the damsel, and entreat him to allow me the joy of being betrothed to his daughter Martha. With a view to show that I acted on the impulse of my own heart, and not merely by the guidance of my parents, I followed the example of our Patriarch, "Isaac," in the case of his beloved "Rebekah." (Genesis xxiv. 22.) I therefore sent to my beloved" a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold." Thus, the ancient custom of upwards of three thousand years old is retained by the people; and a Syrian does not inquire what a purse his bride is to have, but whether his Rebekah is such that was brought up in a house like Nahor's Milcali; their popular proverb is this: "Khud alasseil walanah alhassir," "Take the one of good root (i. e., of good parents), though she may be on a mat" (that is, though her parents may have no more furniture in their dwelling than a mat). Poetry. blocks of marble. She was thin and slenderly formed, and looked very young. She looked to me there, and more particularly so afterwards in her own house, as an ON SEEING CHILDREN PLAying before AN image of mourning; as a young girl who has just wept ALTAR. Chide them not, though they laugh gaily; Or dread the presence of their God? Soon shall reason's dawn appear; Beams from out their laughing eyes; Clerkenwell, July 25. GATHERINGS. F. J. M. We often accompany our alms with such hardness towards the unfortunate object in holding out the hand of succour; we show them a countenance so harsh and stern, that a simple refusal would have been less heartrending to them than charity so withering and savage; for pity, which seems to sympathise with their sorrows, consoles almost as much as the liberality which is their succour.-Massillon. To be good is to be happy; angels Are happier than men, because they're better; And find the height of all their heaven is goodness.- Ronce. To be free from desire is money; to be free from the rage of perpetually buying something new is a certain revenue; to be content with what we possess constitutes the greatest and most certain of riches.-Cicero. If a man's ears are closed to truth, and cannot endure it, even from the mouth of a friend, his case is hopeless.-Ib. ALEXANDER DUMAS AND RACHEL. I generally found the jovial Alexander Dumas in bed, even long after midday; here he lay, with paper, pen, and ink, and wrote his newest drama. I found him thus one day; he nodded kindly at me, and said, "Sit down a minute; I have just now a visit from my muse; she will be going directly. He wrote on; spoke aloud; shouted a viva! sprang out of bed, and said, "The third act is finished!" One evening he conducted me round into the various theatres, that I might see the life behind the scenes. We wandered about, arm in arm, along the gay Boulevard. I also have to thank him for my acquaintance with Rachel. I had not seen her act, when Alexander Dumas asked me whether I had the desire to make her acquaintance. One evening, when she was to come out as Phedra, he led me to the stage of the Théâtre Français. The representation had begun, and behind the scenes, where a folding screen had formed a sort of room, in which stood a table with refreshments, and a few ottomans, sate the young girl who, as an author has said, understands how to chisel living statues out of Racine's and Corneille's out her sorrow, and will now let her thoughts repose in quiet. She accosted us kindly in a deep powerful voice. In the course of conversation with Dumas she forgot me. I stood there quite superfluous. Dumas observed it, said something handsome of me, and on that I ventured to take part in the discourse, although I had a depressing feeling that I stood before those who perhaps spoke the most beautiful French in all France. I said that I had truly seen much that was glorious and interesting, but that I never yet had seen a Rachel, and that on her account especially had I devoted the profits of my last work to a journey to Paris; and as, in conclusion, I added an apology on account of my French, she smiled and said, "When you say anything so polite as that which you have just said to me, to a Frenchwoman, she will always think that you speak well." When I told her that her fame had resounded to the North, she declared that it was her intention to go to Petersburg and Copenhagen;" and when I come to your city," she said, 66 you must be my defender, as you are the only one there whom I know; and in order that we may become acquainted, and as you, as you say, are come to Paris especially on my account, we must see one another frequently. You will be welcome to me. I see my friends at my house every Thursday. But duty calls," said she, and offering us her hand, she nodded kindly, and then stood a few paces from us on the stage, taller, quite different, and with the expression of the tragic muse herself. Joyous acclamations ascended to where we sate. -Andersen's "Story of My Life." REMAINS OF MR. O'CONNELL.-The remains of the Liberator, which arrived at the Nine Elms station of the South-Western Railway on Sunday last, from Southampton, were immediately removed in the bier to the Euston-square Hotel, where they remained until Monday morning, when, attended by Mr. Daniel O'Connell, the Very Rev. Dr. Miley, and about eight Irish gentlemen, they were placed upon one of the carriage trucks of the eleven o'clock train for Liverpool, where it was expected the City of Dublin Steam-Packet Comvice of Mr. O'Connell's family to convey the remains pany would place one of the first-class boats at the seracross the Channel to Dublin. A TURK'S OPINION OF ENGLISHMEN.-The English seemed to me grave and melancholy. Every one appeared absorbed in the endeavour to amass wealth, as the means of subsistence. I was amazed at once hearing a gentleman say, that the great luxury of Loudon consisted in not knowing one's next-door neighbour; but to me this artificial mode of life appeared a great interruption to their happiness. These observations apply more especially to the middle classes, for their nobles live like kings, and their rich merchants like princes. The ladies are very beautiful and highly accomplished; and although it struck me as most extraordinary that they should be so much in society, and possess so much influence, yet a few months' residence convinced me that it was quite a mercy for Englishmen to have such superior wives, otherwise, I believe, many would go mad. An Englishman, though very reserved, is a faithful friend if you once succeed in obtaining his confidence. He is a jewel, but it is a long time before you can get at the inside of the casket which contains this jewel. He does not speak much, but he means well. The higher and the lower classes are in nothing more different than their mode of speech; unlike the people in the East, where a peasant or a Bedouin speaks as correctly as a grandee.-Voice from Lebanon. Printed and published for the Proprietor, by A. J. BOAK, at the Office, 2, Crane-court, Fleet-street; and sold by all Booksellers, Stationers, and Newsvenders in the United Kingdom. All communications for the Editor to be addressed to the Office, 2, Crane-court, Fleet-street. THE NEW WEEKLY CATHOLIC MAGAZINE. No. 20.] SATURDAY, AUGUST 7, 1847. [PRICE 1d. THE BISHOP OF OXFORD'S SERMON. which pride may also be a hindrance to true PRIDE A HINDRANCE TO TRUE KNOWLEDGE."* We have had our attention attracted to this sermon by its subject, and by the fact that it was addressed to many of the members of the Association for the Promotion of Science, whose sitting at Oxford this year was coincident with the delivery of this annual lecture. "" It struck us as something strange that a Protestant prelate should have selected as the subject of a discourse to a Protestant audience such a subject as Pride a hindrance to true knowledge." For Protestantism itself began in pride, and pride has nursed and conducted it from its birth to its present stage of existence. Surely a more delicate or more dangerous subject could not have been fixed upon by a Protestant dignitary for a lecture to a Protestant audience! An assault upon pride was an injury to the ground which he and his hearers had chosen, on the great questions of Christian faith, Christian observances, and Christian morals. Most naturally, therefore, was our curiosity awakened to see how Dr. Wilberforce should deal with the subject, and avoid the difficulties which the proposition must at once have suggested to a Protestant about to maintain it. These difficulties, and their name is Legion, Dr. W. has avoided, and kept out of the view of his hearers, by considering his proposition of "Pride a hindrance to true knowledge" under one simple point of view alone, viz., in reference to human knowledge, such as the physical and inductive sciences. Under this head it may be admitted that his lordship has proved his proposition, though, from the Platonism of his style and language, we retain no strong impressions of his considerations and arguments. But how very narrow is this view of the question! It is not in physical science only that pride hinders men from attaining to true knowledge. There is a higher knowledge than that which regards the laws of material nature and the motions of the heavenly bodies the knowledge of truth in morals. And as true morals can have no other foundation than truth in belief, then arises a second point in A Sermon preached in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, before the University, on Sunday, June 27, 1847. knowledge. True knowledge in morals, and of necessity true knowledge in faith, are points of much higher import to the immortal mind of man than true knowledge in human science, which has reference only to perishable life and matter ;— hence the Bishop of Oxford has left out of his account the most essential heads of his subject, and treated it under the solitary one which was least essential. As he seems to be a mild, amiable, and sincere man, and a lover of the truth, this omission of treating the question on its most important grounds must have occasioned him some uneasiness. But these grounds He was himself one of he dared not approach. the main pillars of a fabric founded on human pride, and on human passions of a baser kind; and his audience would have taken up their hats and walked out, had he ventured to apply to the revealed truth the general principles and considerations which he offered to their understandings in reference to human science. And in the very same painful position must every sincere Christian preacher who happens to have been reared in communion with Protestantism be placed. He dares not announce the whole truth, lest he appear to contradict principles in which, as a Protestant, he is supposed to believe-in which apprehension his lordship will see there lurks one of the characters of human pride—or lest he offend the pride of his auditors. Often must these thoughts have occurred to the right reverend preacher in the preparation of this quiet sermon which now lies before us. If humility be a virtue in human affairs, and in mere human philosophy, more, much more, must it be a virtue in things above human comIn the former case it can only be prehension. praiseworthy as a human precept, but in the latter it must be essential as a divine virtue. God attaches no penalty to pride in rejecting human science, but in the science of salvation it is a condition so essential that our blessed Redeemer came down from heaven to teach us by his own example to be meek and humble of heart. There is no sin in the pride that should deny a mathematical truth; it is the pride that rejects religious truth which corrupts the inward and then demoralizes the outward man. This is With IRELAND. the pen of an eminent Italian, purporting to be a proWe have lately perused a publication, evidently from gramme, or the project of a programme, to be adopted by the party of moderate Liberals in that country. The main idea which runs through the work is, that the coarse, violent, and purely physical means of old resorted to both by the people and by governments-by the one for flinging off their yoke, and by the other for rivetting it on the people's necks-have of late years gradually fallen into disuse and disrepute, and that moderate principles, with rational and moral means of action, are alone worthy of being adopted. that pride against which a true Christian bishop OLD AND YOUNG ITALY.-OLD AND YOUNG would have felt it his duty to make war. the other, in his episcopal character, he had no concern. Such are the heads on which a Christian bishop should have lectured a Christian assembly on the virtue of humility. Humility, in mere physical science, was never insisted on by God, or by any school of theology; but without humility in morals and religion, which includes obedience, salvation through Christ is imperilled, if not impossible. Natural science will end with nature, and its place will no longer be found, and the virtues that were limited to it will perish along with it; but they who humbly cleave to truth in faith and morals, contented to know no other reason, for their faith and conduct, than that such is the will of God, will be rewarded for ever in His heavenly kingdom. Multitudes of the working and manufacturing people, all over the kingdom, are concerned in benefit societies; and the number is daily increasing. It is of the utmost importance to them, both individually and through their several bodies, to know what the law is in reference to them, and they have a manual of it in the work whose title stands above. It is indexed, so that, by a glance through the several heads, one can find at once the law in reference to any particular point. We cannot do better than quote Mr. Egan's preface, which briefly states the design of the work :— 66 PREFACE. "This little work is intended, chiefly, as a manual for parties interested in building societies; and, although circumscribed in compass, it is hoped that the most important points connected with the law relative to those associations will be found embraced in the publication. If we consider the vast number of persons who are daily becoming more and more interested in building societies; the increasing number of questions of deep importance to which the existence of these societies give rise; and the comparatively limited means that the public in general have of enlightening themselves upon strictly legal matters; this attempt to elucidate the acts of Parliament applying to such prudential unions, and the decisions of erudite and eminent judges, and opinions of learned counsel given thereon, will, I am sati-fied, be regarded as a boon to those classes whose interests may be identified with the success of benefit building associations. "CHARLES EGAN, Serle's Chambers, THE WORLD HATES PRETENCE, NOT PIETY.-It is not true, as this bad writer [Dr. Styles] is perpetually saying, that the world hates piety. The modest and unobtrusive piety which fills the heart with all human charities, and makes a man gentle to others and severe to himself, is an object of universal love and veneration. But mankind hate the lust of power, when it is veiled under the garb of piety; they hate canting and hypocrisy; they hate advertisers and quacks in piety; they do not choose to be insulted; they love to tear folly and impudence from the altar, which should only be a sanctuary for the wretched and the good.-Sydney Smith, There is, no doubt, a great deal of truth in the fact here alleged, with respect even to despotic governments, and a great deal of wisdom in the advice here given to popular parties. The Austrian Government itself has violent mode of repression and intimidation. To be sure, shown every symptom of a desire to abandon its old so despotic a Government has not been able to adopt many ways, purely moral, of affecting the population. But it has consulted their material interests, opened roads, founded manufactories, and given impulse to education. Italian Governments, so loug behind Austria, have now taken steps in advance of it. Pope Pius IX. boldly led the way, and not only Tuscany, but the monarchs of Piedmont and Naples, have shown manifest desires to follow the Pontiff's example. The recommendations of the author of the programme are, therefore, for the people and middle class to second this movement, not disturb it by exigencies or extravagancies, but to trust their princes, and enable them by popular moderation to progress in a liberal policy, without being affrighted themselves, or without alarming either priesthood or aristocracy at home, or foreign courts beyond the frontier. The writer then proceeds to recommend the Italian princes to form a national league to resist the encroachments and dictation of Austria, or of any foreign power, and to put trust in their people, in order that their people may put trust in them. To the Italian people and Liberals this programme recommends the complete abandonment of all the old ideas of a secret or open appeal to physical force, to revolation, to conspiracies, or secret societies. Every effort, it recommends, should be made publicly, every idea proclaimed through the press, and public opinion always relied on more than private energy. Such recommendations are in accordance with the feelings of the Italians themselves, who have witnessed the repeatedly fruitless efforts of "Young Italy" to acheive, no matter with how much individual bravery, anything of importance. There is thus in Italy, as in Ireland, an Old and a Young Italy, a moral-force party and a physical-force party Old Italy and Old Ireland trusting to the progress and enlightenment and intellectual aims of the age: Young Italy and Young Ireland desirous of recurring to the ideas and the licence and the violence of the last century. Young Italy for the present is in much discredit and in a manifest minority. Such was the state of things when we learned that the ex-functionary party, the Orangemen of Rome, those who cannot reconcile themselves to the loss of ascendancy and place, recurred to the old, exploded mode of violence, and got up a conspiracy, of which we cannot doubt the truth, although the entire plans and details seem a mass of complicated and incredible absurdity. The plot seems to have had for its aim to get up a row between the soldiers and the people, exasperate both to mutual destruction, practise wholesale assassination, perhaps upon the Pope, in the confusion, and throw the blame of all this upon liberal ideas and the Liberal party, Cardinal Lambruschini, head of the Austrian and retrograde faction in Rome, is said to have consented to this scheme, of which Grasselini, governor of Rome, was to be the director. Those implicated have all fled, and |