phy to music of every description, from Haydn down to the last opera, even more than theology. I ought, however, to except two subjects, history and poetry; he believed as little in history as Sir R. Walpole's famous dictum implies-"Don't read me history, for that I know is false"-and he hated all poetry, except as embodied in the hymns and ritual of the Roman Church. In fact, he was the prince of talkers, perhaps the last of the great conversationalists since Coleridge. This would have been recognised everywhere, though no doubt it was more strongly felt in Balliol than in the rest of the University. It was the few who lived with him familiarly, whether as pupils or afterwards in the common room, who most appreciated his power, though large allow ance was made even by them for his insatiable passion for paradox.-LAKE, WILLIAM CHARLES, 1897-1901, Memorials, ed. his Widow, p. 24.

GENERAL

Since Mr. Ward laid down the office of Editor, he published two volumes of articles selected from his contributions to the [Dublin] Review. To the second of these, which is entitled, "Essays on the Church's Doctrinal Authority," he prefixed a preliminary Essay which may be described as an intellectual history and analysis of the sixteen years of his Editorship. He has traced very accurately the condition of opinion and the tendency of thought among Catholics before the year 1862, and the successive controversies in which he was involved down to the year 1873. The whole Essay is a summing up of his own words and acts, and a calm and candid justification of the whole polemical attitude in which he habitually lived. . . . He was supposed to be full of self-assertion and intolerance; exaggerated and extreme both in thought and language. Perhaps few men have ever been more docile to the Church, to traditionary judgments, and to the authority of theologians; few more fearful of novelties, of his own want of various learning, and of his liability to err. It was with these dangers before him, that Mr. Ward incessantly laboured in three distinct fields. First in Philosophy, without which the intellectual conception of Theology can have no sound and precise foundation; secondly, in the relation between Religion and Politics, including the office of the Civil Power and the Civil Princedom of the Sovereign Pontiff;

Thirdly, on Catholic Education, especially in its higher form. It would be impossible to give any adequate idea of these incessant labours without a history which would fill volumes, and an analysis which would require a full statement of every thesis, together with the objections of opponents and the detailed_answer to each.-MANNING, HENRY EDWARD, 1882, William George Ward, Dublin Review, vol. 91, pp. 266, 268.

He enjoyed argument and paradox, was a remorseless antagonist, with a mischievous delight in making listeners stare. He scorned timidity and half-way opinions. He laid on his colors with the palette knife, and did little to blend the tones afterward. For him, a thing was so, or was not so; and if so, it was very much so, quite absolutely so always. He indulged himself in what has been called "inverted hypocrisy," and showed himself in the worst lights the facts would admit of. So far from putting all his goods in the shop window, he would rather display a bare counter and close his shutters if he had not a complete stock. Always mirthful and genial when most in earnest, he never lost his temper, and would transfix you with a syllogism while retaining an angelic and infantine smile. He cared nothing for facts apart from principles, and ranked meaningless historic details with village gossip.-RICHARDS, C. A. L., 1889, A Hero of the Oxford Movement, The Dial, vol. 10, p. 101.

If we take into account only the necessarily restricted number of men who have taken up a carefully thought out and permanent position in these difficult, complex, still largely problematical questions; and if we pass over among them such men as Father Knox in England, and Drs. Scheeben, and Von Schäzler, and Father Schneemann in Germany, perhaps also Père Ramière in France, of whom at least the first four were, on their own admission, learners on these points from your fatherit will be seen how quite exceptional was the length to which he carried his theory. Take his "De Infallibilitatis Extensione" (1869) and its seventeen Theses. According to his own admission there, the very Theologians and Roman Congregations to whom he wanted to attribute quasi infallible authority, refused to endorse thesis after thesis of his. Take again his attitude on the ex Cathedrâ character of the Syllabus. He

first obliges every Catholic to accept it sub mortali; he next takes off this obligation; he finally re-imposes it. Take, finally, the Vatican definition. He never made any secret of how much he cared for the question as to the Object, the range of Infallibility, and how little comparatively for that as to its Subject, its organ; of how backward he thought, on the first question, the opinions of the large majority of the Bishops of the Council; and how disappointed he was that the Council, whilst giving a most moderate definition as to the Subject, left the question of the Object exactly where it was before your father began insisting that it was the great Catholic question of the age. -HÜGEL, FRIEDRICH VON, 1893, To Wilfrid Ward, William George Ward and the Catholic Revival, p. 373.

The acute collision between the two extreme parties in the eventful years preceding the Vatican Council, the comparative disappearance of both since then, and the subsequent renewal, in a more permanent form, of the combination of Ultramontanism with the endeavour to find a modus vivendi with modern thought and modern political conditions, make undoubtedly a turning-point in the history of contemporary Christian thought. In the events surrounding this crisis Mr. W. G. Ward took, both directly and indirectly, an active share. He represented in politics and theology the unqualified opposition to the extremes of Liberal Catholicism against which Pius IX's pontificate was a constant protest; and in philosophy his tendency was towards the fusion of Ultramontane loyalty, with a sympathetic assimilation of all that is valuable in contemporary thought, as the best means of purging it of what is dangerous. The history, then, of this crisis is

naturally given in the story of his life.WARD, WILFRID, 1893, William George Ward and the Catholic Revival, p. ix.

W. G. Ward, commonly called "Ideal" Ward from his famous, very ill-written, very ill-digested, but important "Ideal of a Christian Church," which was the alarmbell for the flight to Rome, was a curiously constituted person of whom something has been said in reference to Clough. He had little connection with pure letters, and after his secession to Rome and his succession to a large fortune he finally devoted himself to metaphysics of a kind. His acuteness was great, and he had a scholastic subtlety and logical deftness which made him very formidable to the loose thinkers and reasoners of Utilitarianism and antiSupernaturalism.-SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1896, A History of Nineteenth Century Literature, p. 371.

W. G. Ward lived, but only to prove by his "Ideal of a Christian Church" that the power of writing good English was not among his endowments.-WALKER, HUGH, 1897, The Age of Tennyson, p. 146.

His crusade was carried on chiefly in the "Dublin Review," which he raised from decadence and edited with conspicuous success from 1863 to 1878. In its pages he defended the encyclical "Quanta Čura" and "Syllabus Errorum" of 1864, and led the extreme wing of the ultramontane party in the controversy on papal infallibility. He speculated freely on the extent of infallibility, and reduced the interpretative functions of the "schola theologorum" to a minimum. His startling conclusions he enunciated with the serenity of a philosopher and defended with the vehemence of a fanatic.--RIGG, J. M., 1899, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. LIX, p. 346.

the hey-day of his fame and popularity, was one of the four literary dandies of the period-all handsome men, and favorites of the ladies, as well for their personal graces as for their genius. These four were Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, Mr. Edward Lytton Bulwer, Mr. Charles Dickens, and Mr. Harrison Ainsworth. None could deny that Mr. Ainsworth was unquestionably the bestlooking.man of the four-the very Antinous of literature, in the prime of his early manhood, and in a full flush of a popularity that continued unabated until a late period of his life.-MACKAY, CHARLES, 1887,Through the Long Day, vol. I, p. 240.

Refined it first, and show'd its use.' They are both clever books.-SCOTT, SIR WALTER, 1826, Journal, Oct. 17; Life by Lockhart, ch. lxxii.

With regard to the Newgate narrative of "Jack Sheppard" and the extraordinary extensive notoriety it obtained for the writer, upon the residuum of which he founded his popularity, so much just severity has already been administered from criticism and from the opinion of the intellectual portion of the public, and its position has been so fully settled, that we are glad to pass over it without farther animadversion. The present popularity of Mr. Ainsworth could not have risen out of its own materials. His so-called historical romance of "Windsor Castle" is not to be regarded as a work of literature open to serious criticism. It is a picture book, and full of very pretty pictures. Also full of catalogues of numberless suits of clothes. It would be difficult to open it anywhere without the eye falling on such words as cloth of gold, silver tissue, green Jerkin, white plumes. "Old St. Paul's, a tale of the Plague and the Fire," is a diluted imitation of some parts of De Foe's "Plague in London," varied with libertine adventures of Lord Rochester and his associates. It is generally dull, except when it is revolting.-HORNE, RICHARD HENGIST, 1844, A New Spirit of the Age, pp. 314, 315.

It may appear unjust to the genius of Victor Hugo to say so, but to our minds

the romances of Ainsworth possess more resemblance to the particular manner of "Notre Dame de Paris" than any other productions of English Literature. . . . The works of Ainsworth possess much of this fragmentary and convulsive character, and the erudition (often great) which he has lavished on his pictures of past ages, bears, like that of Victor Hugo, a painful air of effort of having been read up for the purpose, and collected for the nonce. The most successful of Ainsworth's romances are "Rookwood" (the first) and "Jack Sheppard:" the former owes its success chiefly to the wonderful hurry and rapid vividness of Turpin's ride from London to York in one day, and in the latter the author has broken up what appeared to the public to be new ground-the adventures of highwaymen, prostitutes, and thieftakers.

Defoe had done this before, and with astonishing power and invention and probability; but that great moralist has never confounded good and evil, and has shown his squalid ragamuffins as miserable in their lives as they were contemptible and odious in their crimes. Ainsworth, however, has looked upon the romantic side of the picture, and has represented his ruffian hero as a model of gallantry and courage. This, we know, is contrary to universal experience and probability; and while we read with breathless interest the escape of Jack from prison, we forget the monstrous inconsistencies of the story, and the mean and wolfish character of the real criminal, who is here elevated into a hero of romance. To the ignorant and uneducated, who are charmed, like everybody else, with the boldness, dexterity, and perseverance so often exhibited by the worst characters, and which are here dignified with all the artifices of description, but who cannot distinguish between the good and the evil which are mixed up even in the basest characters, this kind of reading is capable of doing, and has done, the greatest mischief; and the very talent-often undeniable-of such works, only renders them the more seductive and insidious.-SHAW, THOMAS B., 1847, Outlines of English Literature, pp. 375, 376.

In the interest and rapidity of his scenes and adventures, Mr. Ainsworth evinced at dramatic power and art, but no originality or felicity of humour or character. . . There are rich, copious and brilliant descriptions in some of these works, but their

tendency must be reprobated. To portray scenes of low successful villainy, and to paint ghastly and hideous details of human suffering, can be no elevating task for a man of genius, nor one likely to promote among novel-readers a healthy tone of moral feeling or sentiment. The story of "Jack Sheppard," illustrated by the pencil of Cruikshank, had immense success, and was dramatised.-CHAMBERS, ROBERT, 1876, Cyclopædia of English Literature, ed. Car

ruthers.

His novels, though readers have now turned to tales of another fashion, have never been without the merit of great skill in the shaping of a story from historical material well studied and understood. Ainsworth's strength has lain in the union of good, honest antiquarian scholarship with art in the weaving of romance that is enlivened and not burdened by his knowledge of the past.-MORLEY, HENRY, 1881, Of English Literature in the Reign of Victoria, With a Glance at the Past, p. 340.

...

It is deeply to be lamented that Cruikshank's connection with Harrison Ainsworth-a connection in which the artist found some of his finer inspirations-was marred by quarrels, and was sundered finally with a controversy, which is the counterpart of that he engaged in with the biographer and the friends of Charles Dickens. I suspect that Thackeray involuntarily led Cruikshank to claim more than his proper share in the successes he and Harrison Ainsworth had together... Thackeray, let it be said, was always unjust to Harrison Ainsworth. He caricatured him unmercifully in Punch, and never lost an opportunity of being amusing at his expense. His reasoning in regard to "Jack Sheppard" is manifestly unjust and unsound. "Jack Sheppard" was the natural sequence to "Rookwood" which, in popular parlance, had taken the town by storm, and had suddenly made the young author famous. "Dick Turpin's Ride to York" became the talk of all England. Colnaghi published a separate set of illustrations, by Hall, of the principal scenes described by Ainsworth. Cruikshank was called in only to furnish some illustrations to the second edition. The success of "Rookwood” directed the mind of "Paul Clifford," and probably suggested to Dickens "Oliver Twist." Even Cruikshank himself admits that "Jack Sheppard" was "originated"

by the author. A fashion for highwaymen and burglars as heroes of romance had been set by Ainsworth; and Bulwer and Dickens dived into the haunts of thieves to get at their argot, or "patter flash," and their ways of thinking and acting. Both made great hits. "Paul Clifford" and "Oliver Twist" were the two books of the day. Mr. Ainsworth, irritated by the unceremonious manner in which his ground had been invaded, put forth "Jack Sheppard" (1839), on assuming the editorship of "Bentley's Miscellany." It was as natural a step from "Rookwood," especially after "Paul Clifford" and "Oliver Twist," as chapter two is from chapter one. Mr. Ainsworth had his revenge upon the trespassers, for "Jack" threw "Oliver," for the moment, into the background.-JERROLD, BLANCHARD, 1882, The Life of George Cruikshank, vol. I, pp. 241, 245.

The charm of Ainsworth's novels is not at all dependent upon the analysis of motives or subtle description of character. Of this he has little or nothing, but he realises vividly a scene or an incident, and conveys the impression with great force and directness to the reader's mind.-AXON, WILLIAM E. A., 1885, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. I, p. 198.

Equally fertile in production, but by no means comparable to Bulwer in ability.

In 1834 he made his first success with the novel of "Rookwood," in which the praises of Dick Turpin, the highwayman, are sung with an ardour worthy of a better cause. It sprang at once into a popularity which was perhaps above its merits; it had, however, the advantage of being condemned by moralists as tending to the encouragement of vice. We are not tempted to join in the chorus of admiration, but will admit that there is some power in the description of the famous ride to York. A few years later, Ainsworth returned to the safer path of historical romance with the somewhat tedious novel of "Crichton," but in 1839 again shocked the world with the history of "Jack Sheppard," a work much inferior to "Rookwood" in literary merit. -OLIPHANT, MARGARET O. W., 1892, The Victorian Age of English Literature, p. 286.

In the long succession of successful novels and romances that flowed for years from Mr. Ainsworth's pen, there was an abundance of the "properties" of the historic past, but little of what is properly known as