. Yet, on
the other hand, if the letter really _had_ been addressed to the Primate
(as in all reason it would have been, if thoroughly in earnest), that
change must have consummated the false step, diplomatically valued,
which Lord John Russell has taken. Mark, reader! We are told, and so
often that the very echoes of Killarney and Windermere will be
permanently diseased by this endless iteration of lies, that His
Holiness has been insulting us. Ancient Father of Christendom, under
whose sheltering shadow once slept in peace for near a thousand years
the now storm-tossed nations of Western and Central Christendom, couldst
thou indeed, when turned out a houseless[47] fugitive like Lear upon a
night of tempest, still retain aught of thy ancient prestige, and
through the might of belief rule over those who have exiled thee?

EDITOR'S NOTE.

The famous Durham Letter which excited so much controversy, and
re-opened what can only be called so many old sores, was addressed by
Lord John Russell, the Prime Minister, to Dr. Maltby, in November, 1850.
At first it was received with great approbation, as presenting a
decisive front against Papal assumption; the Pope having recently issued
a Bull, dividing England into twelve Sees, and appointing Dr. Wiseman,
who was made a Cardinal, Archbishop of Westminster. But some expressions
in Lord John's letter, especially the expression 'unworthy sons,'
applied to High Churchmen, aroused the active opposition of a class,
with whom, he never had much sympathy, looking on the attitude and
spirit of Drs. Pusey and Newman with unaffected dislike. Catholics, of
course, and with them many moderate Roman Catholics, set up an
agitation, and soon the Durham Letter was in everybody's mouth. De
Quincey, of course, writes from his own peculiar philosophic point of
view; and when he somewhat sarcastically alludes to the informality of
addressing such a letter to the Bishop of Durham, and not to one or
other of the Archbishops, he was either ignorant of, or of set purpose
ignored, the exceptionally intimate relations in which Lord John had for
many years stood to Dr. Maltby, such relations as might well have been
accepted as explaining, if not justifying, such a departure from strict
formal propriety. Lord Russell's biographer writes:

'Dr. Maltby, who in 1850 held the See of Durham, to which he had been
promoted on Lord John's own recommendation in 1836, was one of Lord
John's oldest and closest fri