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library and to Monsieur E. Miller, who has a post in the same department, and is the editor of several classical works and also of a valuable review, (Revue de Bibliographie Analytique,) which gives a short analysis of the most important publications which appear in France and foreign countries.

Nothing can exceed the facility afforded to students for the consultation of MSS. in this magnificent collection, and one is almost tempted to forget that it has been formed in a great measure from the spoils of the Benedictine and other abbeys confiscated at the great revolution. The MSS. library is open every day except Sundays and the four great feast days, from ten to three o'clock, and it is an agreeable sight to see so much quiet study as is presented here, after the din of the Parisian streets.

Wednesday, August 7.-Walked to 13 bis, Rue Monsieur, to call upon the head of the Benedictine order, Dom Guéranger, abbé de Solesmes; found him in a house which they have taken provisionally as a step to the new settlement of the order at Paris. The members of the monastic orders are here like sailors after a shipwreck, endeavouring to collect their scattered freight, and to embark afresh, should circumstances prove favourable. Dom Guéranger is the successor and representative of the great Benedictines, the Montfaucons, Mabillons, Martianays, Sabatiers, and Delarues, of the 17th and 18th centuries, and is said to fill very worthily the place

which he holds. He is the author of a work on Christian liturgies (Institutions Liturgiques), which has received very favourable notice in the "British Critic," with which he was much pleased. He was sitting in his Benedictine robe of black cloth or stuff, with a hood (for the head), with an array of books before him. He received us very courteously; the address of these higher religieux is very prepossessing, but I have been struck with the sad and downcast countenances of the inferior members: no doubt they have had much to suffer, and have little to hope, from this world. They rarely leave their monastic houses in their conventual dress; indeed, they are not protected, and hardly tolerated by the law. The Jesuits, as such, are positively prohibited. While we were conversing, one of the brotherhood silently entered the room, and knelt down on the right hand of the superior, with his arms crossed over his breast, but without saying anything. Dom Guéranger put out his right hand and gave his benediction to the kneeling monk, by making upon him the sign of the cross, saying at the same time:-" Vous sortez, n'est-ce pas ?" To which the other replied in the affirmative, and left the room as quietly as he had entered it. It is well known that to the three common monastic vows, the Benedictines add a profession of literary study. I spoke to the Superior of the communication which had formerly been carried on between England, especially Cambridge through

Dr. Bentley, and the Benedictines of the congregation of St. Maur in the 18th century, and inquired whether they had the means of cultivating theological studies in the same manner as their predecessors at that period? He said that they had great difficulties to contend with, from the loss of their libraries and destruction of their monastic buildings; but he referred to the new French edition of Tertullian, mentioned above, which is due to the Benedictines. France generally, he said, is doing much for the promotion of sacred literature. Two Parisian publishers, Gaume and the abbé Migne, have done more than all the booksellers in Europe in this century, for the advancement of patristic learning. Migne's Thesaurus theologiæ completus, in twentyseven large octavo volumes, at five francs a volume, has had a most extensive sale: Monsieur Bonnetty says there were 15,000 printed.

Visited a French Ecclesiastic Regular of great learning and reputation. He seemed much interested in the condition of Church affairs in England, and appeared to entertain some hopes of the religious union of France and England. Unhappily the tendency towards Rome, and the renunciation of every thing that is national in ecclesiastical jurisdiction 3, is becoming every day more and more visible in

5 La France n'a jamais eu de juridiction ecclésiastique nationale, ou, plutôt, la nation a accepté celle de l'Eglise universelle.

France among the clergy; and this will be an insuperable obstacle to such a union. This was evident from the language he held with respect to the Gallican Church, and its conduct towards the papacy at the council of Trent, and in the age of Bossuet, and of the four articles of the Gallican liberties; and later still, with respect to the communications between Dupin and Archbishop Wake. He made no scruple of asserting, that the so-called Gallican liberties were nothing but secular encroachments on the spiritualities of the Roman see on the part of the crown and parliaments of France; and he renounced the opinions of Dupin, and of the other Gallicans, as schismatical, and injurious to the Divine claims of the Pope as the centre of unity. He allowed that the Gallican Church, as such, had ceased to exist, and he did not seem to regret that such was the case. When I stated one or two of the common objections to Rome being, jure divino, the centre of unity, the arguments by which he met them were, I was surprised to find, almost purely theoretical. For instance, when I referred to our Lord's words, concerning the twelve apostolic thrones, and I might have added, the twelve apostolic stones of the Revelation, as showing a parity among the apostles, and no superiority in any one individual member of the college, he replied, that this was prophetic of the triumphant state of the Church only, and had no reference to its condition in this world.

Again, when I alluded to the words, "the kings of the Gentiles, &c.; but it shall not be so with you, but let him that is greatest among you be as he that serveth. One is your master, and all ye are brethren;" he replied, that the inference from this was, that there was to be one 'greatest' among them. Also on my referring to the presidency of St. James, and not of St. Peter, in the council of Jerusalem, he answered, that the decree of the council was made in accordance with the language of St. Peter. Further, when I instanced the fact of St. Paul rebuking St. Peter publicly, and asked whether this could be reconciled with the theory of St. Peter's supremacy? he replied, that the case of St. Paul, as an apostle, was a very peculiar one; and that his conduct might, perhaps, be explained on the principles of the great duty of fraternal correption; besides, he added, that some difference of opinion, alluding to St. Jerome's notion that St. Paul was not in earnest, had been entertained concerning this point. I reminded him that the Benedictines in their recent edition of St. Augustine, had given up St. Jerome's opinion, and shown that he (St. Jerome) himself had retracted it.

When I next referred to the case of St. Cyprian, excommunicated by Pope Stephanus, and asked whether it could be supposed that St. Cyprian ceased to be in the Church when out of communion with Rome? he alleged, first, that Stephanus maintained the true