26 JUNE 1897, Page 12

The Arch - Priest Controversy. Edited from the Petyl MSS. of the

Inner Temple by Thomas Graves Law. Vol. I. (The Camden Society.)—The " Arch-Priest Controversy " was substan. tially a dispute between the political and the non-political parties among the Roman Catholic clergy. The native priests, as they may be called, resisted to the best of their power the foreign contingent, led as this latter was by Jesuits. This volume gives us the original documents, and it also gives some highly interest- ing papers which show how the English Government, which, of course, was keenly interested in the matter, intervened. The subject is one which has more than a merely historical interest. The Papacy took the part of the political element with much emphasis, and the Papacy does not change.