The Express.
London, England, 1851-11-17 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17.

A CASE has presented itself to the Court of Queen's
Beach deserving in every respect of public attention.
On the second day of term Sir F. TiII:SIGEL on the
part of Dr. ACHILL!, moved for and obtained a rule
to show cause why a criminal information should not
he filed against Blesses. BURNS and LAMBERT, book-
sellers, for the publication of a libel on Dr. ACHILL',
contained in • pamphlet, "Lectures on the Present
Position of Cathol ra is England," purporting to
have been preached and printed by Dr. NEWMAN.
With the cause that Messrs. BCRNS and LAMBERT
may hereafter show, we can have nothing at present
to do; but of Dr. NewitaN, who is not affected
legally by this application, something must be said.
Dr. ACHILL! is a convert from popery to protes-
tantism. He was successively monk, priest, and
doctor of divinity in the Itomish church. Ills doubts,
and a free utterance of censures on the lives led in
some of the Neapolitan monasteries, led to his arrest
by the Inquisition. After three months' confinement
for his sours health, he was released ; went to Corfu,
and, there renouncing the communion of Rome, has
subsequently acquired great notoriety, by ex-
posing the practices of the church which he quitted,
and the system of the Inqiiisition which he suffered
from. lie has consequently, made himself obnoxious
to Roman catliolics, particularly to the ultra-montane

part r.
Of the champions which Rome could call upon for
help, none pos.-4...t0i more zeal, a keener intellect, or
more acute dialectics than the counter-convert Itr.
Ni.um.ts. It was natural that he should endea-
vour to parry Or. ACIIILLI'S assaults. Like NArn-
LEoN, the course be took was to invade the enemy's
territory; and no inroad of the great captain was
ever mote furious than Dr. NEWNAN'S outburst on
Dr. Al 1111.1.1'M character. He began thus:
- •

You are • prie.t, you have hers a friar. Yon are, it is
unelviiiahle, the sandal of catholieiant and the calenary ar-
gunient of protestant, by your ttraordinary deprurity.
You hare been, it is tree, a profligate, an unbeliever, and a
hypocrite.
• ••

And this he followed up by charging I tr. Aeittl.ti with
fire cases of seduction, some committed in the
most sacred places, and on the holiest days; two
of adultery, and others too infamous to bear
description.
So fur, it might seem that this was nothing hut
angry recrimination between two contentious priests ;
that the matter hail no public interest, and might
safely be left to the parties affected, and to their
personal friends. But a new feature now made
its appearance. Dr. Al fiti.t.t chooses to spinal
to the English law for protection ; and lie
selects the remedy most congenial to the
feelings of an honourable and innocent man. lie
demands that his assailant should be treated as a
calumniator; and to entitle him to do so, he was
prepared to deny specifically on oath the truth of
the chargss. 11r. A 411111.1.1 could do no more. Nei-
ther, considering the enormity of the accusation, and
the emins nee of the accuser, could he do less. lie

• • .
summons his defamer to substoutage his statements
he time the highest tribunal in the realm; and instead
of throwing on him the hurJen of at first proving
his charges, Dr. Arnim volunteers an emphatic de-
nial of thene on oath. And what does Nswm ot?
lie refuses to meet before his country the man whom
he leas nut scruples' to charge with the most infa-
1110los crimes, and leaves his publishers to sustain the
criminal responsibility of his words.
This is conduct which society must take notice of;
and, if to adequate justification eau be produced,
mast visit with its severest reprehension. The law
is unable to afford the protection which is required:
for it cannot reach an offender without evidence;
and l)r. NEWMAN refuses to furnish the merely tech-
nical and legal proof of utterance which can bring
Aim into court. Society alone in such cases can de-
fend the sanctity of character, and by the stern con-
demnation of public opinion reprises a license of
falsehood and cal yof which all, and especially
those most distinguished fur goodness, might become
victims.
We are not assuming l)r. Aeletitrie innocence of
these charges. It is within the bounds of possibility
that Dr. NEWMAN Call verify every particular of his
statement, and that the interests of his church impe-
riously demanded the exposure. These arc matters
fur tho determination of &ell CAMPBELL and a Bri-
tish jury. But the most spotless reputation would
not be safe, if conduct such sue Dr. Nt;w3ISN'S might
be practised with impunity ; if each of us might
have his good name dishonoured and his accuser
evade responsibility.
Dr. New it Yt's accusation was voluntary ; it was
made under circumstances of the highest solemnity
and sacredness; it was uttered from the pulpit, in the
name of reigion, in avowed defence of the Roman
catholic church. Dr. Aentiti was assailed, not
simply as an individual, as a base and vicious impos-
tor, practising on the world by a semblance of piety ;
but as a recognised champion of Protestantism ; as a
man " whose extraordinary depravity " rendered him
the " palmary argument" of protestants. The
purity of the protestantism of England was im-
pugned in the person of Dr. ACHILL'. The exposure
of his imputed vices was to show that he left the
society of catholic', because that of protestants har-
monised better with his habits and tastes.

The accuser is a man of the widest celebrity ; once
the fondest hope and the brightest ornament of the
English church, now the most illustrious convert won
by Home; her most indefatigable champion, one of
the greatest masters of language iclitaialand. Charges
utmost personal t involving the utmost brought
forward with minute details of and locality,
spoken to a religious assembly, and by a represents-
Uvc of that body to which the accuser had belonged,
and %Lich might be presumed to be thoroughly ac
quainted with his life and character, could not help
falling heavily from such lips. Surely, then, respect
for his own honour as a clergyman and an English
gentleman justice towards a fellow being whom he
was wounding so terribly—right feeling of what is
due to the meanest of mankind—and regard for
public opinion, ought to have deterred Dr. NEWMAN
from the discreditable and mean subterfuge of send-
ing another to verify his allegations if true, or to
bear the infamy and the punishment of his statement
if false.

Whilst standing shivering on the brink of Roma-
nism, NEWM tN made the non-natural sense in
the interpretation of words famous. Perhaps, with
audacious reliance on the vast resources of his
subtlety, he means to triumphantly demonstrate, to
an amazed world, that it is non-natural for him to be
accountable for the truth or falsehood of what he
says of others; but most natural that so distinguished
a catholic doctor should remain unrelated and infal-
lible; and that Messrs. Butts and LAMBERT should
illustrate. fur the instruction of divines, the difficult
theory of vicarious suffering'
Suppose those two gentlemen should be found
guilty and sent to Newgate, the justification of be-
ing himself at large, in person, and incarcerated by
deputy, would be • task too arduous even for Dr.
NawtAN's huge abilities; and a convicted calum-
niator inviting Englishmen, with fervid eloquence,
to exchange the selfishness of protestaritism for the
aerated morality of popery, whilst her unhappy
agents in the propagation of slander were paying
the atonement due to violated law, would indeed be
a confounding, if not an edifying, spectacle in the
19th century.
Dr. NEWMAN has chosen to connect his attack cm
Dr. ACHILLI with the battle between the two reli-
gious; he has thereby constituted himself the repre-
sentative of his own. Are we then to accept his
retreat from his own volunteered socumtiesa as con-
formable with the standard of Roman catholic mo-
rality ? Dr. NEWMAN'S fellow-religionists would do
well to recollect that what he does, if unnoticed by
his superiors, cannot be set down to tbe peculiarities'
of his temper and disposition. He le the accredited
expositor of catholic doctrine and • praetiec. The

people of F.ogland cannot forget that so recently u'wreguL
last year he thus stated the issue between the two greater
churches: though
Protestants mangler that faith and love are Inseparable. verted
Whirs there ls faith, there, they think, is lots sad obe- extent