the Parochial Ministers, quarterly by the Rural Dean, half-yearly by the Archdeacon, yearly by the Bishop.' I fear there would be many masters.' Will the reader be so good as to imagine monasteries in the parish, rural deanery, archdeaconry, and diocese, in which he lives, and some three or four others which he may happen to know, to consider the probabilities, and charitably keep them to himself?

"But let us look at the matter on a broader scale. It must be obvious to every one who has reflected on the subject, that the progress of modern society-particularly English society-has been most decidedly against the possibility of reviving an institution in which men should live together in common. The way of living in this country has long been receding more and more from anything like cœnobitic life; and has been characterised by an increasing tendency to independence, individualisation, and (to use the words in a mild sense) the dissociation and disconnection of men. It will be remembered that I am not speaking of parties political or religious, or of joint-stock companies, but of the habits of domestic life. How will these prepare men for the Refectory? There is now no such thing as the Meeting of Gallants at the Ordinarye,' although such common tables were long the universal resort of gentlemen;' and indeed of all classes of society in England, as they still are in other countries of Europe. But the most striking illus tration is furnished by the principal clubs which have been instituted in London within about twenty years. Most of them have some distinguishing character; the Athenæum, for instance, as a literary club, the Carlton a political one, and in same others the name is a sufficient indication, as the United Service, the Junior United Service, the Travellers', the United University, the Oxford and Cambridge, the Reform. We may in all these cases imagine some degree of sympathy and congruity among the members of each club. At least, we may safely say, what is still more to our purpose, that an immense majority of members have at some time or other been used to eat what are significantly called 'commons,' in the hall of a College, or an Inn of Court, or at a Naval and Military mess-table. And yet I am informed that in only one of the institutions which I have mentioned is there anything in the nature of a table d'hôte; and that in that one it is only a recent experiment, of which it still remains to be seen whether it will succeed, or whether, like similar attempts in other clubs, it must be abandoned. So totally different is the usual course of things, that half a dozen gentlemen, it may be, are sitting together until the moment at which each has put down his name to dine on a particular joint; when it is ready, they go into another room, separate to six different tables, and the ambulatory joint seeks them out in their independent establishments, while each is not supposed to know of even the existence of the other five. Perhaps it would not be too much to say, that, in the clubs which I have named, nearly a hundred thousand dinners (to say nothing of other meals) are annually served; and to add, that, though eaten (as it regards each club) in the same room, and in company, yet nine out of ten are single, not to say solitary meals.

"I am not finding fault with this. I shall probably be told that it is much the best way; that it does not arise from any want of good feeling, but that it is found to be, on the whole, much more pleasant- you are more independent.' I really do not mean to contradict this, or to argue about the comparative merits of the present and any former system. I am only stating a fact, and that only as an illustration; but I say that such fact, or its cause, whatever that may be, is something much in the way of any attempt to revive cœnobitic life. And if the habits in which the present generation have been educated, have drifted them so far away from the refectory, is it worth while to waste a word about the dormitory? I will, therefore, here only ask the reader to reflect on these two very important points, and to draw out, for his own consideration, the details respecting them; unless, indeed, he should feel that he cannot do that until he knows from what class of society, or whether from all indiscriminately, the monks are to be taken; and on this point I am not at present able to give him any satisfactory information, being extremely puzzled about it myself."

We are spared the necessity of proceeding further on this subject, by the receipt of a letter, which we prefer inserting in this place instead of our Correspondence department, and which takes up the whole question in an able manner. In points wherein we may differ from the writer, we permit him the Protestant's right of private judgement :

"SIR-Having perused your Magazine, which has so boldly come forward as the champion of Protestantism, and therefore the opponent of Tractarianism, I see that you have briefly touched upon some of the doctrines which those whose utmost endeavour it is to " unprotestantise" the Established Church hold, and endeavour, by every means in their power, and with too fatal a success, to propagate. There is one subject which I am anxious to bring before you, having seen, both in the University and elsewhere, that many well-educated persons have embraced an erroneous view upon it, from the specious arguments adduced in its favour, and from the sort of romantic halo with which it is surrounded-I allude to the effect the monastic institutions of the middle ages had upon learning. It is the fashion at present, especially amongst the younger members of society, to uphold and laud these institutions as having been the great preservatives of religion, learning, and literature; whilst they forget the deep and even now unhealed wounds, which the gross ignorance of their members, and their still grosser immorality, inflicted upon both. We might as well imagine a usurer had claims upon our praise, who first impoverished a district, and then built almshouses for the poor whom he had made. At the commencement of the dark ages, a sort of mystical philosophy-half fanaticism, half imposture-pervaded the literature of the day; the public mind was sunk in indolence, from which such works had little power to arouse it. At that time the admiration of heathen literature was considered a sin: by the Fourth Council of Carthage, a bishop was prohibited from reading it; St. Jerome condemned the study of it; St. Anthony would not be instructed in it; and the greater number of the ecclesiastics were too illiterate to have enjoyed it, even had they read it. Gregory, by courtesy, the Great, boasted that he had burned the magnificent library of the Palatine (a library replete with heathen literature), and, first discovering the antithesis between learning and religion, declared that he held it most unworthy to put the heavenly oracles under the restriction of a grammarian.' Ât the end of the fourth, and during the fifth century, the gross superstition of the monks proved more inimical to learning than anything that had preceded it. In Egypt alone there were 76,000 monks-men whose ascetic enthusiasm and fanatical mortification could only be equalled by the superstition of those who imagined them worthy of reverence. It was then supposed that there could be no medium between the dissipated voluptuary of the crowded city, and the melancholy recluses of the barren wilderness.

From which of these two classes could literature be patronised? At all events, not by the last. We are told that the monks established schools. True; but it was only for the clergy; the laity were not admitted. And again, that they composed devotional treatises of great beauty; while the fact is, that they only appear bright, from the impenetrable darkness which shrouded everything else. Again: we hear of the zeal and activity of the early monks, 'in converting our own and other countries to the Christian faith.' They who tell us this, forget that, in order to render themselves capable of diffusing these blessings among the nations, they must have laid aside the habits of the cloister, and that, whatever merit they possessed as missionaries, was not because they were monks, but notwithstanding it. Often, alas! were the exquisite productions of antiquity erased from the skin on which they were written, to make way for some absurd account of the religious gymnastics of a saint, or some blasphemous legend of the Virgin, or other ecclesiastical rubbish. The singular polytheism which existed under the monks, was greatly supported by these miraculous stories. It was as difficult to trace the true religion of the Gospel in the belief of those ages, as the history of King Arthur in the romances of Normandy. How often is one inclined to picture to one's self the delight with which the oppressed victim of some haughty lord would turn his eyes from the frowning battlements of the baronial hall to the peaceful cloisters of the monastery-where, apart from the noisy tumult of life, and the oppression of those in power, he might listen undisturbed to the swelling of the organ as it rolled along the vaulted roof, and chant in peace his praises at God's holy altar. But is such a faithful picture of the times? We fear not. Too often was it the asylum of the murderer and robber-the receptacle for those whose conduct had exiled them from society, and the hotbed of the grossest licentiousness and hypocrisy. But, for argument's sake, let us for a moment suppose that its inmates were men of excellence and piety even then the institution would prove injurious to the world, by depriving it of the little leaven it possessed, and leaving the mass of human vice unmixed.

"The monks themselves have never been the patrons of literature; the narrow bigotry of their theology, and the intellectual garbage of their philosophy, have ever proved the most powerful bands for confining the human intellect. Let us look for a moment at those kingdoms which have been most under the power of the monastic orders: I think we shall agree that no country has been so subject to them as Spain, and probably there is no kingdom we could select where talent has been rendered so abortive; from 500 to 1200, no eminent man appears; during the thirteenth century one-the poet Berceo! At

*On this and some other points, it is but justice to refer our Correspondent to Mr. Maitland's "Dark Ages."

the present day, the fatal effect it has had upon literature, is but too evident. In Italy, the immense restraint over the press is visible, by its ponderous volume, entitled, Index of Index of Prohibited Works.' Amongst English books, the writings of Bacon, Locke, Milton; and amongst modern divines, of Burgess, Milner, Blunt; are all condemned as works fatal to the salvation of man. Now, let us for a moment turn our attention to the work of which they are indeed the patronsa work, the omission of any of whose eight services, is declared to be a mortal sin-we mean The Roman Breviary.' We remember the delight with which, in our childhood, we read of the miraculous escape of Tom Thumb, and the marvellous exploits of Jack the Giant-killer; but they sink into insignificance, when compared with what is there told us of some of the saints. We select a few. Of St. Cecilia, we are told that neither fire could burn her, nor the lictor's axe decapitate her; of St. Avellini, whose countenance was so bright that it served as a lantern to illumine him on his road, one dark night, when returning from administering the Eucharist (die X Novembris); of St. Dionysius, who walked with his own head in his hands from Paris to the site of the present Abbey of St. Denis (die X Octobris); of St. Januarius, whom fire burnt not-at whose presence the wild beasts in the amphitheatre became tame, and who quenched the flames of Vesuvius (Vesuvio flammarum globos extinxit); of Paul, the first hermit, who was fed by the birds of the forest, and whose grave was dug by two polite lions, whose cave was near his own (Januarii, die XV); of P. Neri, whose chest, being too contracted for the expansive ardour of his charity, was, by the Lord, wonderfully enlarged by the fracture of two ribs (die XXVI Maii); and many others, equally absurd, but more disgusting. Yet this is the work which these patrons of literature commend and enforce; degrading faith into credulity, and devotion into sentimentality, disfiguring the sublimity of Christian worship by the mawkish piety of superstitious devotion and the drivelling imbecility of their degraded Church, quenching the light in the darkest corruptions of the heart, and blasting the Gospel by the cravings of idolatry.

February, 1844."

"A MEMBER OF THE A. T. C.

THE LAY ADDRESS, THE CHANCELLOR'S ANSWER, AND THE DECLARATION OF THE CLERGY.

WE prefer printing in this place the Answer of the Noble Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford to the Lay Address, against the attempts and pretensions of Tractarianism, forwarded to them by Lord Ashley, the Duke of Marlborough, and Sir John Easthope, on behalf of themselves and their commemorialists :

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ANSWER OF THE CHANCELLOR, THE VICE-CHANCELLOR, AND THE HEADS OF HOUSES, TO THE LAY ADDRESS AGAINST THE TRACTARIAN PARTY.

"To the Right Honourable Lord Ashley, and other Lay Members of the United Church of England and Ireland.

"We have received, and have had for some time under our consideration, the Letter addressed to us by your Lordship and other gentlemen, in our character as the responsible Governors of the University of Oxford, on the subject of sentiments diffused by means of various publications, sent forth within the last few years by several distinguished members of the University; the tendency of which, it has grieved you to observe, has been to excite dissatisfaction with the principles of our Reformed Church, as embodied in the Book of Common Prayer, and especially in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion.

"After stating the opinion of your Lordship, and of the gentlemen who with your Lordship have signed this letter, of the great national evils which will be the result of any deviation from the Protestant character of the Church of England, and the alarm with which you have observed symptoms of such deviation, which have appeared in the opinions avowed by some whose station in the University gives them extensive influence over the younger portion of the academical body:

"Your Lordship, and the gentlemen who, with your Lordship, have signed this declaration, call upon us, the authorities of the University, to take such steps as are open to us for protecting the youth committed to our superintending care from the dangerous influence referred to, and for securing to them, for the future, such tuition as is in strict accordance with the Protestant Church of England and the constitution of these realms.

"It is undoubtedly true, that within the last few years certain tracts or pamphlets have been published by several distinguished members of the University, containing opinions and sentiments considered by many to be not conformable to, or consistent with, the doctrines of the