They are six in number, packed up neatly in
the following doggerel couplet of monks' Latin
for the convenience of Confessors' memories:

Impos, publicitas, oblivio, cessio, fama,
Si reparata fuit, si data nulla fides.

Of which jargon the Manual explains the meaning
as follows: the backbiter is not bound to
make any attempt to undo his work, if—1, it is
impossible; 2, if the evil which he spoke has
subsequently become notorious; 3, if everybody
has forgotten all about it; 4, if the injured man
has forgiven the injury; 5, if the victim has by
some other means recovered his character; and
6, if nobody believed the evil which was spoken.

Again, in how many ways can a man be guilty
of co-operating in evil done to another?

Answer: In nine ways, six positive, and three
negative; all arranged mnemonically in a couple
of hexameters, as follows:

Jussio, consilium, consensus, palpo, recursus,
Participans, mutus, non obstans, non manifestans—

which may be left to the reader's intelligence,
with the note, that "palpo" means inducing a
man to do a thing by flattery or taunts; and
"recursus" refers to the act of affording asylum
or hiding-place to a malefactor.

In various passages of this valuable little
Manual I find a subserviency to the worst
manifestations of worldly meanness and flunkeyism:

For example, the seducer is bound to make
to his victim the reparation of marriage; unless
he be much richer than she is, or of higher
rank; or his family would consider the match a
disgrace. In any of these cases the victim loses
her right to any such reparation.

I have not exhausted a tenth part of the
instruction to be obtained out of my half-
crown's worth of ultramontane theological literature.
I might continue to range "from grave
to gay, from lively to severe," relieving my
examination of the excuses for murder, by
the pleasant and comfortable tidings that
a recent solemn decision of the Church
permits to human frailty the use of "bifteck au
beurre d'anchois," even under circumstances
when a more rigid interpretation of Heaven's
laws would forbid such mixture of flesh and
fish; I might tell how the same supreme authority
has taken into consideration the hard position
of professionally conscientious, but at the
same time scrupulously religious, cooks; and has
by special decision permitted them to taste as
much as may be needful of heretical Friday
dinners, without reference to the serious
consequences of overpassing the half-ounce limit.

But, as the gods will not annihilate either
space or time, to make happy the lovers in poor
Nat Lee's play, or to allow an elderly gentleman
to come to an end of all he wants to say, I
must content myself with having given English
amateurs the foregoing few illustrations of
the "way they manage these things" in
Italy, where the Confessional has thoroughly
become a part of the public mind, and taken
a large share in the formation of the national
character. The English reader, to whom such
matters may be new, will have been surprised
probably, but will easily understand how the cut-
and-dry formalism, of such a system as I have
slightly indicated on recognised printed authority,
substituting, as it does, for the broad eternal laws
of right and wrong which the Creator has written
in our hearts, a network of minute precepts
deduced after the fashion of arithmetical results from
the logical thimble-rigging of a number of
casuistical principles, must have the effect of destroying
all the natural workings of the conscience.
Frank Clifford is a very good fellow; but I
must tell him that I will have none of this, either
for myself or my family. Frank will say, of
course, that he contemplates no such system as
my book describes; that he is not an Italian
priest, nor bound to any such principles, but
would so conduct the Confessional as to make
it a support to the ordinary and well-understood
rules of morality and virtue. But, the
men who have produced the system we have
been peeping into, may have begun with equally
good intentions, and may have been driven by
the force of things, and the natural results of
attempting to submit one mortal mind to another
in a manner contrary to the laws of nature, into
the position taken by the Manual, and the
immoralities and outrages upon common sense
inseparable from it.

No! my dear and reverend sir, no Confessional-
boxes, if you please; we will continue to
confess our sins to our Father which is in
heaven; and will do so, however inartistically
and imperfectly, yet with such contrition and
comfort as we may.

MUTUAL TESTIMONIAL ASSOCIATION.

IT is not often that we step out of our
character as literary journalists to advocate the
claims of a particular club, association, or trading
company; and we are only induced to do so in
the present instance from a conviction that the
society whose title heads this paper is destined
to supply a great and constantly increasing public
want.

Who has not hungered, at some period or
another, for a testimonial and its accompanying
presentation? Indeed, testimonial presentations
are coveted more than the testimonials
themselves. It is so delightful to find yourself the
centre of attraction; to hear yourself addressed
in those unqualified terms of admiration which
are peculiar to testimonials and after-dinner
speeches; to see the box which contains the
plate brought forward, carefully closed, or the
tea-service standing up in the middle of the
table, under an impenetrable cover, as if you
were not at all aware of the form and value of
the approaching gift: finally, to rise up, beaming
over the top of your glittering acquisitions, and
tell the company how utterly unworthy you know
you are of them. This is indeed the proudest
moment of your life—no matter what the
testimonial, or who the presenters. Of course,
it is better to have a diamond ring than a silver
snuff-box; a duke to present it from a company