es of St. Athanasius was of
course in no sense of a tentative character; it belongs to another order
of thought. This historico-dogmatic work employed me for years. I had
made preparations for following it up with a doctrinal history of the
heresies which succeeded to the Arian.

I should make mention also of the British Critic. I was Editor of it for
three years, from July 1838 to July 1841. My writers belonged to various
schools, some to none at all. The subjects are various,--classical,
academical, political, critical, and artistic, as well as theological,
and upon the Movement none are to be found which do not keep quite clear
of advocating the cause of Rome.

* * * * *

So I went on for years up to 1841. It was, in a human point of view, the
happiest time of my life. I was truly at home. I had in one of my
volumes appropriated to myself the words of Bramhall, "Bees, by the
instinct of nature, do love their hives, and birds their nests." I did
not suppose that such sunshine would last, though I knew not what would
be its termination. It was the time of plenty, and, during its seven
years, I tried to lay up as much as I could for the dearth which was to
follow it. We prospered and spread. I have spoken of the doings of these
years, since I was a Catholic, in a passage, part of which I will here
quote:

"From beginnings so small," I said, "from elements of thought so
fortuitous, with prospects so unpromising, the Anglo-Catholic party
suddenly became a power in the National Church, and an object of alarm
to her rulers and friends. Its originators would have found it difficult
to say what they aimed at of a practical kind: rather, they put forth
views and principles for their own sake, because they were true, as if
they were obliged to say them; and, as they might be themselves
surprised at their earnestness in uttering them, they had as great cause
to be surprised at the success which attended their propagation. And, in
fact, they could only say that those doctrines were in the air; that to
assert was to prove, and that to explain was to persuade; and that the
Movement in which they were taking part was the birth of a crisis rather
than of a place. In a very few years a school of opinion was formed,
fixed in its principles, indefinite and progressive in their range; and
it extended itself into every part of the country. If we inquire what
the world thought of it, we have still more to