Cardinal Vaughan, Archbishop of Westminster and head of the Roman
Catholic Communion in England, died at Mill Hill on Friday week at the age of seventy-one. Sprung from an ancient Welsh family which had never become Protestant, he was from early years destined for the priesthood, he spent much of his youth as a missionary in South America, and it was not till he was forty that he accepted the Roman Catholic Bishopric of Salford. He there, however, made a reputation for energy, administrative ability, and effective, though not brilliant, oratory which marked him out as the next Arch- bishop of Westminster. He was accordingly appointed on, Cardinal Manning's death, and thenceforward he ruled his co-religionists with a strong hand. In all controversies he maintained the position of his Church with something of hauteur, never flinching, as we have had repeated occasion to remark, from the defence of doctrines least acceptable to Protestants. He had little of the democratic sympathies pro- fessed by his predecessor, holding, indeed, the Conservative opinions of the English squirearchy ; but he gave great offence to Roman Catholics as well as Protestants by his attitude on the death of Queen Victoria. He was not, we think, very popular in his own Communion; but he was a brave man, who acted in a straight way upon such light as he had. He was very successful in raising money for ecclesiastical objects, and his successor, who it is said will probably be Dr. Gasquet, head of the English Benedictines, will find it difficult to carry on
all his work. •
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