Page:English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the nineteenth century.djvu/504

 fortunate in England compared with the religious freedom or tolerance enjoyed by Protestants in Catholic countries—in Italy for instance, or in Spain. As for "bigotry," let him look only at Catholic France during the reign of priestcraft there, where an actor of the position of Talma, writing with reference to a proposed monument to his English brother, John Kemble, could add by way of shameful contrast, "Je serai trop heureux ici si les pretres me laissent une tombe dans mon jardin!"

When we first completed this chapter, and while the artist was yet living, we deemed it better to say as little as possible in reference to the conscientious motives which induced him to throw up his lucrative position on Punch, and with it the whole of his splendid prospects in comic art; and this course we had decided to follow after Richard Doyle had been removed from us by death. As, however, the Catholic organ has entered fully into the subject, not only is every cause for further reticence removed, but by being placed in a position to understand causes and motives, we are enabled to do justice to the memory of this most generous and unselfish of men.

The Catholics have cause to feel satisfied with the results of what the benighted Protestants of England are apt to term the "Papal Aggression." The conduct of the latter in relation to this portentous event is thus described by "The Month":—"In 1850 the Catholic Hierarchy was established in England, and the Protestant public raved and stormed and talked bigoted nonsense without end respecting this new invasion. Parliament passed the futile and obsolete Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, and Punch took up the popular cry. Cardinal Wiseman was represented as 'tree'd' by the Papal bull, and comic verses and personal ridicule was lavished on the Pope, the new hierarchy, and Catholics generally.

"Doyle remonstrated, but received answer that, as he had been allowed to turn Exeter Hall and its doings into ridicule, it was only fair that his own opinions should have their turn. But those who used this argument little knew, and could scarcely be expected to know, the difference between the devotion of supernatural faith and