d in conscience to throw away a good income and congenial work,
because there were expressed opinions different from his own in a paper
in which, republic though it was, solidarity was scarcely possible? Who
would expect that in a comic journal each and all of the contributors
should agree with each and every sentiment expressed? Never mind;
whatever Richard Doyle might have been strictly bound to do, generosity
at least urged him to make the sacrifice--the sacrifice of his career,
of his future success it may be. At least he could show that Catholic
belief was no empty superstition, no set of mere traditional
observances, which sat lightly on the man of culture, even if in his
heart he accepted them at all. So he wrote to resign his connection
with _Punch_, stating the reasons plainly and simply. This was in 1850,
after he had been contributing for more than six years. Now he must
simply start afresh, in consequence of what his Protestant friends
regarded as an ecclesiastical crotchet. He must turn aside from the path
of worldly success; he must give up all for conscience' sake. But as the
_Daily Telegraph_ remarks, in an article respecting him that does it
honour, 'He made a wise and prudent choice. The loss was ours, not his;
and, apart from the claims of his genius to admiration, such conduct at
the critical moment of a career will never cease to command respect.'"

Passing by (as we may afford to do) the assertion that we Protestants
"raved and stormed and talked bigoted nonsense without end respecting
this new invasion," and the somewhat unnecessary boast that Lord John
Russell's Ecclesiastical Titles Bill has been suffered to become a
"futile and obsolete" measure, we would recognise the value of the
writer's remarks as establishing in the clearest possible manner the
perfect honesty and unselfishness of the motives which induced the
artist to resign his connection with _Punch_, and to throw up the
chances of an assured and brilliant future. We think however, that the
value of his statement does not end here. We may here acknowledge that,
while admitting the perfect purity and disinterestedness of Doyle's
motives, we ourselves never thoroughly understood them until we had read
the article from which we have quoted. We had taken into consideration
the fact that when he took this decided step he was but twenty-five
years of age, and we suspected (let us honestly own it) that other
influences might have been at work