hand-writing of Fenelon; an ancient manuscript of Homer; and Petrarch's manuscript of Virgil. This magnificent library is open to the world gratuitously; tables are laid in each saloon for the accommodation of those who want to read; and if you should wish to take notes or extracts, to any extent, you are supplied gra tuitously, also, with pens, ink, &c.a grant of money being made annually by the Government for this purpose. In each saloon are servants in the king's livery, regularly stationed, and ready to hand you in a moment any work in the entire building you may wish to call for. To the public in general, or to those who go merely to look and lounge through the saloons, it is open only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; but to those who wish to read, and to foreigners, it is open every day (Sundays excepted), and crowded with persons of every rank and class in life, from the highest to the lowest, following and cultivating the peculiar bent of their genius-many of them, perhaps, destined to enrich, by their future productions, the very fountain from which they are now so freely and so abundantly permitted to draw. This is not, however, the only library open gratuitously in Paris; there are several others, of which the principal are "The Royal Library of the Arsenal," containing about a hundred and eighty thousand volumes, rich in historians and poets, chiefly Italian; "The Library of the Pantheon of St. Genevieve," one hundred and twenty thousand volumes; "The Mazarin Library," one hundred thousand volumes; "The Library of the City of Paris," about fifty thousand volumes; besides several others, attached to particular institutions. NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE FRIENDLY SOCIETY. ON Monday, Sept. 10th, 1827, this society held its fourth Anniversary Meeting, at the house of Mr. William Hall, the Black Horse Inn, Pilgrim Street, in that town; being the first Monday after the 8th Sept., (The In the course of the afternoon many appropriate toasts were drank, and several excellent songs and glees were sung by a part of the choir of the chapel, who attended on the occasion. By a statement laid before the meeting, by the president, it appeared, the society has expended, during the last year, to indigent and sick members, and in legacies on the death of members and their wives and children, &c. £138: 11s., and that it now possessed a capital of £200, invested in the Newcastleupon-Tyne Savings Bank, having increased upwards of £20 during the last year. The company separated highly satisfied with the flourishing state of the society, and which has fully realized the expectation of its promoters. Taking the scale it is upon, this is considered to be one of the best Catholic Benefit Societies in England. ON Saturday, the 22d of Sept., the Right Rev. Dr. Smith, V.A.N.D., held an ordination at Ushaw College, when the Rev. Nicholas Brown, brother of the President to the English College at Valladolid, and the Rev. Thomas Middlehurst, brother to the Rev.Charles Middlehurst of St. Mary's Chapel, Wigan, were ordained priests; two were ordained deacons, and four sub-deacons; all students of Ushaw College and the Rev. Mr. Ryan, of Ampleforth College, was ordained priest, at the same time, with the above. FUNERAL OF THE REV. MR. KENRICK. An eye-witness writes as follows: "Never did I see, or perhaps ever shall again, grief so universal for the death of a man. His death was sudden; and no sooner was it publicly known, than a feeling was universally excited in every place, and among all ranks, as if each one had lost a friend, loved and respected with enthusiasm. "On Thursday I had the sad satisfaction of beholding him in his coffin, in St. Nicholas's Chapel, where he lay in state, vested as a priest when saying mass; I had a distinct view of his features, which were fair and comely; his countenance as serene as if he were in a sweet sleep. Though I, as a stranger, and indeed had never heard of him till the shock caused by his death met me in every direction, I could not restrain myself from joining in the sobs and tears of the majority, who then, for the last time, beheld him on earth. Next morning I visited the chapel; the coffin was nailed up, but the poor especially, from all parts, flocked round it, to kiss his stole and cap, which all were permitted to do. I verily believe that the poor would have continued this affectionate expression of their love for this most charitable of pastors (who would take off his shirt to clothe the naked, or cover with his coat or waistcoat him who was shivering with cold) up to this hour. "On Friday a solemn office was performed, at which most of the clergy in Dublin were present. I was present; Dr. Murray officiated at The Librea. The voice of his grace is eminently pathetic; and it was evident that he was, when he recited the prayer, so affected as to find a difficulty in utterance. "On Friday, by placards all over the parish, and in various parts of the town, the hours of the removal of his remains, and the course they would take to the Metropolitan Church, in Marlborough Street, were announced. Every window, and the railing of Carlisle Bridge, were filled with spectators, and the streets were crowd ed to excess. The Cavalry assisted in preventing mischief from pressure, and to prevent the church being filled, before the multitude in white scarfs and hat-bands, and white wands and ribbands, as mourners, could find their places. An intelligent person calculated that the scarfs and hat-bands of the parishioners in attendance would cost between £200 and £300. Every man found his own. In a death like this heaven and earth sympathised! The poor essayed a funeral elegy, in which the heart was better displayed than the head. Angels, I believe, received him at his death." DARING SACRILEGE.-On the night of Thursday, the 28th of August last, a daring and atrocious sacrilege was committed in the the chapel belonging to the Right Hon. Lord Petre, at Thorndon Hall. The thieves effected an entrance by forcing the chapel door, and having burst open the tabernacle, they stole a large silver ciborium, and a silver crucifix; they then broke open the door of the sa cristy, and took away three large gold chalices, three gold patens, a silver thurible, with a rich gold enamelledvestment, &c. A large silver lamp, which is kept constantly burning, was left untouched, no doubt through ignorance of its value. The nominal value of the plate stolen is £300; but to his Lordship (who was in the north at the time) the articles were inestimable, most of them being very splendid relics of antiquity. Some of them were made four or five centuries back; and others had been presented to the family, by various monarchs, as marks of royal esteem. The thieves, it appears, escaped through a private door of the sacristy, leaving behind them a great coat. Every exertion has been used to trace the property, but, hitherto, we believe, without success. The sacrilege is supposed to have been perpetrated by some persons acquainted with the premises, as the chapel is immediately contiguous to the mansion. THIS Cathedral is a splendid monument of the piety, skill, and munificence of our Catholic ancestors, in those days, which the sages of modern times affect to call the ages of ignorance and superstition."-But, if every other evidence of the utter folly and falsehood of such an assertion were wanting, a most convincing proof may be seen in all our cathedrals, that have outlived the destructive ravages of time, and the more destructive hand of our first reformers. The episcopal see of Lichfield was founded by Oswio, king of Northumberland, and conqueror of Mercia; and St. Ceadda or Chad, the fifth bishop of the Mercians, was the first who fixed his See at Lichfield. The church which Oswio built stood upon the same site as the present cathedral; and as this is upon the declivity of a hill, and inconvenient for such an edifice, no other reason can, at present, be assigned for this choice of the king, than its being the spot on which a great number of martyrs were slain and buried, under Maximianus Herculeus, in the Dioclesian persecution. For a distance of thirty yards more to the north would have placed the building on the summit of the hill, where the great labour of levelling the ground might have been spared, and where the edifice might have been carried duly east and west, as was the direction in which our ancestors generally built their churches. But this has not been done here, nor could it, without great inconvenience, have been *Note.-The following description is taken principally from Dr. Harwood's History of Lichfield; and from a Short Account of its Cathedral. accomplished in its present situation.-It declines not less than twenty-seven degrees from the points of east and west; the east end declining so much to the north, and the west end to the south.— This is a remarkable circumstance, and affords an additional proof of the truth of the above tradition respecting the Christian martyrs of Lichfield. The name, too, is generally supposed to signify the Field of Carcases, and the city bears for its arms a landscape covered with dead bodies. In 1128, Roger de Clinton succeeded to the See of Lichfield, and governed it till 1153. He was a munificent benefactor of the church. He took down the Mercian, and built great part of the present cathedral. The architecture employed in churches, in his days, was the Saxon or Norman; and so far as the building then proceeded, it was in this style. This is still to be traced in some parts of the edifice; for on the outside of the transept are some Norman buttresses and mouldings; and the windows have apparently been altered from the circular to the pointed arch. And in the north aisle adjoining the choir; and in the northern and southern portals; and about the building now used for the Bishop's Consistory Court, are ornaments belonging to the Norman architecture. Early in the thirteenth century, the pointed arch, commonly called the Gothic, was substituted for the Norman; and the parts of this fabric, already erected, seem generally at that time to have been altered for the Gothic, and the additional buildings to have been carried up entirely in the same character. From these evidences, and from comparing the various parts of Lichfield cathedral with the progressive architecture of that age, it seems probable that this work, begun about the middle of the twelfth century, was not completed before the middle of the thirteenth. In 1296, Walter de Langton succeeded to the See of Lichfield, and may well be called another founder of this church. He built the cloisters, and expended two thousand pounds upon a monument for St. Chad. He began St. Mary's Chapel at the east end of the choir, an edifice of uncommon beauty, but dying before it was finished, he bequeathed what was necessary to complete it. The shrine of St. Chad separated this chapel from the choir, and formed part of the high altar. This was enriched with jewels and other valuable ornaments, which, in the days of Reformation-pillage, were given by Henry VIII., at the request of bishop Lee, for the necessary uses of the cathedral. Bishop Langton also ordered an arched roof to be placed over the transept, which, before his time, is said |