."

THE "PAPAL AGGRESSION."

Macaulay, writing in 1840,[141] referred to the progress of what he
happily termed "The Catholic Revival of the Nineteenth Century." This
revival was never more clearly exemplified than at the very time the
temporal power was most seriously endangered. Such of the temporal
power, indeed, as was left to it has gone, probably for ever; while the
spiritual power of the Papacy, at least in Protestant England, as must
be patent to any one who has given the subject the smallest attention,
has unostentatiously but enormously increased, especially within the
last twenty years. The year 1850 was remarkable for what was then known
among us as the "Papal Aggression," and _Punch_ and his "right-hand man"
were exceedingly angry. Among the cartoons which they fulminated on the
occasion were the following: _The Guy Fawkes of 1850_ [_i.e._ the Pope]
_Preparing to Blow up all England_; _The Thin End of the Wedge_ [the
Pope trying with his jemmy, labelled "Roman Archbishopric of
Westminster," to force the doors of the English Church]. It is both a
singular and significant circumstance, that at this time the Ritualists,
or rather Puseyites, were helping on the work of Rome by promoting, if
not schism, at least dissension in the Church of England by advocating
the strictest attention to the letter instead of the spirit of the
rubric and liturgy. We find, in special reference to the assistance
thus, in some cases we believe unconsciously, rendered to the Romish
Church, _The Puseyite Moth_ flying into the Roman Catholic candle; and
_Fashion in 1850, or a Page for the Puseyites_, in which we see the
Bishops of Lincoln, Oxford, and Exeter dropping the hot poker of
Puseyism, and the Pope, as monkey, making a _catspaw_ of _poor
Pus(s)ey_ [the Doctor lately deceased]; again, in vol. xx., Punch (a
boy) inquires of an episcopal showman, who holds the model of a church
on his stand, "Please, Mr. Bishop, which is Popery and which is
Puseyism?" To which the episcopal showman replies, "Whichever you like,
my little dear"; another cartoon represents a Puseyite parson who has
received "warning" from his cook. Inquiring the reason of her
dissatisfaction, he receives the following reply: "Well, sir, the fact
is I aint equal to them Fast days; for what with a hegg here, and a hegg
there, and little bits of fish for breakfastes, and little bits of fish
for dinners, and the sweet omelicks, and the fried and stewed hoysters,