Mr Kingsley has just afforded, at his own expense, a genuine literary pleasure to all who can find intellectual pleasure in the play of great powers of sarcasm, by bringing Father Newman from his retirement, and showing not only one of the great of English writers, but, perhaps, the very greatest master of delicate and polished sarcasm in the English language, still in full possession of all the powers which contributed to the wonderful mastery of that subtle and dangerous weapon. Mr Kingsley is a choice though, perhaps, too helpless victim for the full exercise of Father Newman's powers. But he has high feeling and generous courage enough to make us feel that the sacrifice is no ordinary one; yet the title of one of his books, "Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers," represents too closely the character of his rough but manly intellect, so that a more opportune Protestant ram for Father Newman's sacrificial knife could scarcely have been found; and, finally, the thicket in which he caught himself was, as it were, without proper consideration of the force and significance of his own words. My Kingsley is really without any case at all in the little personal controversy we are about to notice; and we think he drew down upon himself fairly the last keen blow of the sacrificial knife by what we must consider a very inadequate apology for his rash statement.
