n suspicion that the writer was doing the work of the hated
Puseyites grew darker and spread further. Then in April came Macaulay's
article in the _Edinburgh_, setting out with his own incomparable
directness, pungency, and effect, all the arguments on the side of that
popular antagonism which was rooted far less in specific reasoning than
in a general anti-sacerdotal instinct that lies deep in the hearts of
Englishmen. John Sterling called the famous article the assault of an
equipped and practised sophist against a crude young platonist, who
happens by accident to have been taught the hard and broken dialect of
Aristotle rather than the deep, continuous, and musical flow of his true
and ultimate master. Author and critic exchanged magnanimous letters
worthy of two great and honourable men.[106] Not the least wonderful
thing about Macaulay's review is that he should not have seen how many
of his own most trenchant considerations told no more strongly against
Mr. Gladstone's theory, than they told against that whig theory of
establishment which at the end of his article he himself tried to set up
in its place.

Praise indeed came, and praise that no good man could have treated with
indifference, from men like Keble, and it came from other quarters
whence it was perhaps not quite so welcome, and not much more dangerous.
He heard (March 19) that the Duke of Sussex, at Lord Durham's, had been
strongly condemning the book; and by an odd contrast just after, as he
was standing in conversation with George Sinclair, O'Connell with
evident purpose came up and began to thank him for a most valuable work;
for the doctrine of the authority of the church and infallibility in
essentials--a great approximation to the church of Rome--an excellent
sign in one who if he lived, etc. etc. It did not go far enough for the
Roman catholic Archbishop of Tuan; but Dr. Murray, the Archbishop of
Dublin, was delighted with it; he termed it an honest book, while as to
the charges against romanism Mr. Gladstone was misinformed. 'I merely
said I was very glad to approximate to any one on the ground of _truth_;
_i.e._ rejoiced when truth immediately wrought out, in whatever degree,
its own legitimate result of unity. O'Connell said he claimed half of
me.... Count Montalembert came to me to-day (March 23rd), and sat long,
for the purpose of ingenuously and kindly impugning certain statements
in my book, viz. (1) That the peculiar tendency of the policy