Life of William Walshe.

His face was radiant with

enthusiasm as he held the book up and asked me if I

had read it and thought "It is the most glorious

knew it. I answered that I it a splendid piece of work. book that has come out for years," he said, and went on breathlessly to tell of the man's wonderful spiritual experiences, of his ecstasies, of the graces he had had from Heaven-and then I knew. Speaking half to himself he continued, "And he came from Manchester; his father was the head of a Manchester firm-strange I was Bishop there for twenty years and never even heard the name." It was hateful work, but he had to be told. I asked him whether he was sure the book had reference to real persons. He looked at me a moment as though not understanding the question, and then said slowly, "Do you mean that the whole thing is a forgery?" I could only say, "Well, yes in the sense that Robinson Crusoe and An Englishwoman's Love Letters are forgeries." He asked whether I was certain, and then said simply, "I have recommended the book for spiritual reading to several people as the life of a Saint." It was a bad disappointment, but of one thing I am very sure-in that moment of disillusionment no thought that he might perhaps cut a foolish figure in the eyes of the friends to whom he had so recommended the book ever so much as crossed his mind. To have pleaded that the book had still its own value as a fine piece of imaginative literature, that its sympathetic insight into spiritual problems assuredly was the result of experiences that must have been very real, would at that moment have seemed only a mockery.

People of our generation do not need to be reminded

that Cardinal Vaughan was one of the handsomest men of his time. His clear-cut features, his tall figure, and his splendid presence would have served to distinguish him in any assembly. We have seen how Aubrey de Vere, when he first saw Herbert Vaughan in his student days in Rome, was so struck by his appearance that he exclaimed to himself, "If you are so beautiful, what must your sister be?" The impression which the first sight of him, when he had just been made Bishop, made upon those two Paray pilgrims, Mrs. Meynell and Lady Butler, has already been noted. Another instance of the way in which he impressed strangers, and this time in later life, is given by Mr. Wilfrid Ward. Speaking of an occasion when Cardinal Vaughan was staying in the Isle of Wight as the guest of Dr. W. G. Ward, he tells how one day Tennyson, Aubrey de Vere, and a neighbour, Mrs. Cameron, the famous amateur photographer, came over to afternoon-tea at Weston Manor: "Mrs. Cameron was at that time photographing various persons to represent the characters in the Idylls, and I had heard her grumble at not being satisfied with her attempt at a representation of Lancelot. Face, figure, age, or expression was wrong in every candidate. As Mrs. Cameron and Tennyson entered the drawing-room together, Bishop Vaughan was standing in the glow of the winter fire, looking, as he ever did, the most knightly of priests, and Mrs. Cameron stood for a moment transfixed as Aubrey de Vere had done twenty years earlier in Rome. Then she cried out, pointing to him,' Alfred, I have found Sir Lancelot!' Tennyson's bad sight prevented him from seeing to whom she was pointing, and he replied in loud and deep tones, 'I want a face that is well worn with human passion.' The Bishop

smiled, and the general laughter could not be suppressed."

But the Cardinal's appearance will soon be a tradition -it has left no permanent record in the art of the time. In this respect he was less fortunate than either Manning or Newman, each of whom sat to some of the greatest portrait painters of the Victorian age. There are portraits of Manning by Watts, Legros, Long, Richmond, and Ouless; and of Newman by Richmond, Millais, Ouless, and Pettie. It is difficult to imagine Cardinal Vaughan giving serious sittings for a portrait-certainly he never did. On the other hand, struggling artists or young relatives fresh from the schools were often welcome to set up an easel in his room and sketch or paint him as he worked. He knew he was doing a kindness-and if portraits done under such conditions were sometimes curious, to Herbert Vaughan that mattered very little.

CHAPTER XII

INNER LIFE

T was only towards the end of his life that Cardinal Vaughan had a spiritual director.

sidered the question and anxiously weighed the pros and cons. There was the example of many saints who had sought spiritual direction, and he knew that ascetical writers generally laid stress upon its advantages; on the other hand, he felt no practical need for it himself. When in Rome he used to consult in an informal way an old Redemptorist Father, now dead, but not till 1901 had he any regular spiritual adviser. In the summer of that year he invited a Jesuit, Father Considine, to come and see him. After stating the case and saying that his one wish in the matter was to do whatever was most pleasing to God and likely to fit him for his work, and to promote the growth of personal holiness, the Cardinal asked for advice.

Premising that it was a question not of strict duty but of striving after perfection, Father Considine replied, in effect, that the weight of authority was altogether on the side of some guidance in the spiritual life, not only because we are all too near to ourselves to see our souls in the right perspective, but also because God blesses the humility which makes us have recourse to another's aid. After some further discussion the Cardinal suddenly asked Father Considine if he himself would accept the position

of which they had been speaking, and undertake the direction of his spiritual life. He explained that it was guidance outside of the Confessional that he wantedhe had already an excellent confessor and had no wish to change. In the end Father Considine consented, and it was arranged that they should meet at intervals of not less than a month. When his health allowed the Cardinal would drive down to the Jesuit House at Roehampton, and at other times Father Considine would see him at Archbishop's House.

Father Considine has put on record, for the purpose of this biography, the following impressions of the man he learned to know with such unusual intimacy. After telling in general terms of the frankness and simplicity with which the Cardinal would bare his soul, Father Considine says: "I propose with the help of the opportunities above described to attempt some sketch of the spiritual character of the Cardinal. It need not be said that I come to the subject with no slight hesitation, and after a good deal of anxious thought; indeed, I could not bring myself to approach it at all if I did not regard it as a duty not to withhold what I believe will make for God's glory and the good of His Church. I never was his confessor, and although I considered our intercourse as strictly confidential while he lived, he would not himself, I think, have sought to close my lips after his death. In any case I am about to speak of matters which were necessarily known, at least in outline, to many. And perhaps the most striking of them, his temptations against Faith in his last illness, having their origin no doubt in part in his state of bodily weakness, and having their parallel in the deathbeds of Saints, were disclosed to