erected, which are capable of producing an excellent effect, if consistently treated, and terminated by the natural form of the gable.

"There is no reason in the world why noble cities, combining every possible convenience of drainage, water closets, and conveyance of gas, may not be erected in the most consistent, yet Christian character. Every building that is naturally treated without disguise or concealment, cannot fail to look well. If our present domestic buildings, were only designed in accordance with their actual purposes, they would appear equally picturesque with the old ones. Eich edifice would tell its own tale, and by diversity of character, contribute to the grand effect of the whole."-pp. 37-39.

One word in conclusion as to Ireland by way of suggestion. We cannot but think that, in spite of the disastrous consequences of the civil wars from which Ireland has so long suffered, the domestic architecture of that country might furnish the material for a separate volume. It is true, that for the most part the castles and baronial residences of Ireland, have been erected on a smaller scale than here in England, and that very many of the older edifices have been gutted and destroyed, or so restored as to retain but scanty vestiges of their ancient internal arrangements. Many of these have been thus disfigured in our own times. Kilkenny castle was the most venerable and perfect, perhaps, of all, before it was rebuilt by the late Marquis of Ormonde. Antrim castle is a moated house with a curious antique shrubbery, though it has been rebuilt in a modern style, and so much altered and added to, that although the foundations are of great antiquity, there is no part standing of earlier date than the sixteenth century, if we except the massive vaulting of the basement-story, which may possibly be of the twelfth. Within the memory of persons now living, the moat remained in its original state, and several isolated buildings, such as the prison, still existed within the enceinte. Of small fortalices, towers, &c., there is a great abundance, and of various periods. There are also many fortified abbeys, but these are for the most part in a bad state of preservation. The old parish church of St. Sylvester, now in ruins, adjoining the castle of Malahide, contains the remains of a priest's house on the South side of the chancel: it is entered by a staircase from the exterior, like many fourteenth century examples given by Mr. Parker. Ancient town-houses are very rare Kilmallock, in the county of Limerick, formerly consisted of a curious assemblage of fortified houses be

longing to the different branches of the house of Desmond, but very little of it now remains. Galway has some very curious houses, of a foreign type and character, but they are of the sixteenth century at the furthest. One of the most interesting remains of domestic architecture in Ireland, and most characteristic of the period, is Dowth Castle, near Drogheda, now the residence of a religious community, but formerly one of the seats of the Viscounts Netterville; it must formerly have been one of the finest specimens of an old Irish baronial residence. We cannot but hope that the ancient remains of domestic architecture in Ireland and Scotland may hereafter form the subject of a separate volume. In Mr. Parker's hands the work would be sure to meet with the treatment which it deserves.

ART. III.-The Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist. By ROBERT ISAAC WILBERFORCE, A.M., Archdeacon of the East Riding. Second Edition. London: J. and C. Mozley, 1853.

MOST

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OST of our readers have read-or if not, they ought to read-an amusing and instructive paper on Anglican Church Parties," which has lately excited some amount of public attention, and which its author, Mr. Conybeare, has reprinted from the Edinburgh Review, in which it first appeared. If so, they will be at no loss under what head of division to place Archdeacon Wilberforce, were it only on account of the very active part which he has taken for these many years past in the controversies which have most recently distracted and still distract the English Church; we mean, of course, the "Gorham Case," and the agitation for "Synodal Action." Some of our readers, also, may possibly know something of the Archdeacon from his former treatises on Holy Baptism," and on "the Doctrine of the Incarnation," each of which have already excited much controversy in that communion, as the most bold and venturous efforts hitherto made to build up for it a system

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of theology upon some solid and substantial basis of objective truth. These volumes and the one whose title stands prefixed to these remarks, cannot and ought not to be judged apart; they are, in reality, a three-volumed treatise, whose end is to fix authoritatively the Creed of the Anglican Church, to identify it with primitive antiquity, and to base it upon a strictly Catholic tradition, independent of local and accidental circumstances. It may be remembered that Dr. Newman and his friends made a similar effort in the earlier Tracts for the Times; but they failed in the attempt. And if we venture to think that Archdeacon Wilberforce is destined to experience a similar failure in a like effort of his own, (able and excellent as it is,) we allude to such a thought here as a matter of hopefulness and thankfulness, and only because it is our earnest wish and prayer that he may conquer by failure, and that his labours may be crowned with the same issue and reward that has already fallen to Dr. Newman's lot.

Archdeacon Wilberforce, then, is, in a word, the leader of theological enquiry, and the most philosophical exponent of the views of the High Church Anglican school in its purest and best development, just as Dr. Pusey is of its devotional phase. The Scriptural and Patristic learning exhibited in the Archdeacon's two former treatises, (though accompanied with many defects when viewed from a Catholic point of sight,) won for him golden opinions and the warmest gratitude of his party, at the time when theological strife was running at its highest on the Baptismal question; and we feel justified in saying that with all their shortcomings and defects," (for which, not the Archdeacon, of course, but his Church's system is responsible,)--they contain a vast fund of ancient learning, which beautifully illustrates some of the most important

* We allude, more especially, of course, to the fact, that in a Theological treatise on the Incarnation, there is no chapter devoted to a consideration of the share which our Blessed Lady took in bringing about that chief of all mysteries. This fact, however, may be explained by a passage in the present treatise on the Holy Eucharist, where the Archdeacon strangely says, "In the Incarnation manhood was purely passive, and the Godhead the sole actor. The union of the two natures was brought about, not by both, but by the Deity alone."-p. 148, Second Edition. (We may observe that we refer to this Edition throughout.)

doctrines of the Catholic Church, and at the same time crushes the whole Protestant system into atoms, by showing how infidel are its tendencies, results, and consequences. In this sense, we may say, as Catholics, that the Archdeacon's Treatises on the Incarnation, and on Holy Baptism, have been productive of the greatest service in preparing the minds of Anglican theologians to accept a fuller and more consistent statement of the Catholic Faith.

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It is a remark of Mr. Conybeare in the essay above quoted, that the two principles of Apostolical succession and of Church authority, which are involved in the teaching of the Anglo-Catholic party, may be made after all to mean but little," and that, when "veiled in a graceful mist of words, they may even become an ornamental and dignified appendage to a system essentially Protestant." However, this assertion may be true of some individuals, even of the extreme party, it is most unfounded as regards Mr. Wilberforce. On the contrary, though he is far from writing polemically, and though a harsh and bitter expression against individuals never escapes his pen, the definite dogmatic element is continually peeping out; and yet there is no reserve or misty equivocation about him; he is not disposed to mince matters or to soften down truths to a palatable consistency; he seems for ever reaching after a system of objective truth on which he can in confidence repose, but which for ever keeps eluding his eager grasp, just as the shores of Italy seemed for ever distant to Eneas and his companions of old:

"Italiæ fugientes prendimus oras."

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With these few remarks by way of preface, we will at once proceed to the book itself, which forms the subject of our present remarks, and which is somewhat satirically designated by the Guardian newspaper as "a work very much needed in the English Church." Whether such be the case or no, will be incidentally shown to our readers before we bring our remarks to a close.

The following extract from the "Introduction," will explain the scope and tendency of the work itself better than any words of our own.

"The present work is the sequel of a treatise on the Doctrine of the Incarnation,' which was published four years ago. It was

there asserted that 'Sacraments are the extension of the Incarnation,' and a chapter was devoted to their consideration. But their relation to that great mystery was felt from the first to require more detailed consideration. The Doctrine of the Incarnation, therefore, was followed after a year by a work on the Doctrine of Holy Baptism; and the present treatise completes my design. In treating on Baptism, little reference was made to any authorities except Holy Scripture, and the formularies and divines of our own Church......In the present instance, a different course has been adopted. The greater intricacy of the subject, and the confusion in which it has been involved by the adoption of an ambiguous phraseology, has made it necessary to mount up to the fountain head, and to enquire what was that interpretation of our Lord's words which was received among His first followers......Such is the principle which is adopted in the present volume. The authority of Holy Scripture is just referred to, and its infallible decision set forth. When its meaning is disputed, reference is made to the primitive Fathers, as providing the best means of settling the dispute."

Now, although, as Catholics, we are bound to hold that where Holy Scripture is undecided or apparently ambiguous, the appeal lies not to the dead past, but to the living present--to the Church of the day in which God has been pleased to cast our lot, and not the Church of the first, or the fourth, or the seventh century,-or of whatever other period we choose to take as our standard of ideal excellence, still we cannot but rejoice to find Mr. Wilberforce establishing the whole system of Catholic doctrine with respect to the Holy Eucharist as at present received by the Church in communion with the see of Rome, by an appeal to the testimony of the earliest ages of the Church -to times anterior to the unhappy schism of Photius, which rent the fair provinces of the East from the unity of Christendom. And we may rejoice for this reason: not because it adds everything to the firmness of that faith with which we, as Catholics, repose on the present decisions of a living infallible guide,-but because the results at which the Archdeacon has arrived by patient research and dispassionate enquiry, cut away from under the feet of ordinary High Church Anglicans, the common ground of assault against us, and the strong point of their own defence; viz, that while we have departed from the simplicity of the early ages, and the purity of their faith, they have themselves retained, or rather have regained, the faith as it was held by the immediate successors of the