independent of the artist himself, of
which we as Protestants must always remain ignorant. There are grounds
on which Protestant and Catholic writers may meet one another even in
connection with religious questions; and although a "bigoted"
Protestant, I am glad to admit that the writer's clear and lucid
statement has removed an impression that was absolutely without
foundation.

With respect, however, to the ultimate consequences of this decisive
step, the Catholic writer and ourselves are wholly at variance. "We are
inclined to believe," continues the former, "that apart from the respect
he earned by his noble sacrifice, Mr. Doyle achieved a higher reputation
in consequence of his retirement from comic journalism, than if he had
continued to employ his pencil in its services all his life through. It
is true that his name was not, towards the end of his life, so familiar
to the popular mind of England as was that of John Leech at the end of
his career, and as that of Du Maurier at the present time, but the work
which he did in his later life was more lasting and more world-wide.
_Punch_ is an English periodical; you must be an Englishman to
understand the allusions. The humour is essentially and almost
exclusively English; it would never attain any great popularity in other
English-speaking nations, in spite of its undoubted claim to be the
first comic journal in the world. If Doyle had confined himself to the
pages of _Punch_, or directed his energies mainly to the weekly issue of
some design in its numerous columns, the limnings of his pencil would
scarcely be known outside of England, whereas all over the continent of
America, and in the English colonies, the old Colonel Newcome, and the
Marquis of Farintosh, Lady Kew, and Trotty Veck meet us with their
familiar faces as we turn over the Transatlantic editions of Thackeray
and Dickens, not to mention the exquisite paintings, of which we shall
have more to say presently, exhibited in the Grosvenor Gallery, and to
be found in many a country mansion as a lasting memorial of Dicky
Doyle." Does the writer seriously mean to tell us that Doyle could not
illustrate Thackeray and Dickens at the same time and side by side with
his illustrations for _Punch_ or any other serial of a satirical
character? Granted that _Punch_ is a periodical appealing to English
tastes and sympathies, yet it was through the introduction obtained by
means of its pages that the artist probably obta