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V. Gasquet and the Acton-Simpson Correspondence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

A. Watkin  and
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Extract

In the year 1906, Abbot (later Cardinal) Gasquet published Lord Acton and his Circle, which contained 178 letters of Lord Acton, all of them except fifteen being addressed to Mr Richard Simpson. The bulk of the manuscripts passed into the archives of Downside Abbey, possibly in 1914, when Gasquet left England on becoming a Cardinal; though the fifteen letters addressed to Mr T. F. Wetherell are not there, and it has not been possible to discover whether the originals of these are still in existence. At the request of an American scholar the original holograph letters at Downside were recently re-examined for the first time, for the purpose of discovering whether any material concerning Lord Acton had been left unpublished. The inquiry revealed the fact that the volume was in many respects unsatisfactory as a work of scholarship.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , 1950 , pp. 75 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1950

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References

1 They were given to him by F. G. Simpson, Richard Simpson's son. It is not absolutely certain whether they came in 1914 or 1929, after Gasquet's death. The earlier date, however, seems to be much the, more likely one.

2 In the case of what is printed as paragraph one of Letter XII, 11 July [1858], Gasquet, p. 30, the first sentence is really a postscript to the letter of 6 July, ff. 46–7, in the volume at Downside Abbey; the next two sentences represent all but the final sentence of a letter headed ‘Aldenham, Friday’, f. 52. The next sentence opens the letter of 11 July, ff. 53–4.

Letter XXIII, Gasquet, pp. 48–51, includes under the date 4 Jan. 1859 (a) in its first paragraph, all but the last sentence of Acton's letter of 4 Jan. 1859, f. 130; (b), with no transition save to a new paragraph, practically the whole of Acton's letter of 6 Jan. 1859, ff. 132 and 132 bis.

Letter XXIV, Gasquet, pp. 51–3, comprises under the date 9 Jan. 1859 the first two sentences of the Acton letter of 7 Jan., ff. 133–4, a s well as most of the letter of 9 Jan., ff. 135–6.

Letter XXVI, Gasquet, pp. 54–7, comprises under the date 19 Jan. 1859 (a) in its first eight lines, a section of an Acton letter under that date, ff. 153–5; (b) part of Acton's letter ff. 156–7, dated by Simpson 22 Jan. 1859; (c) most of ff. 158–60, which it assumes to be a postscript to this latter.

Letter XLI, Gasquet, pp. 80–2, begins with a letter which it dates 23 Aug. 1859, and continues with a second letter, dated 24 Aug. In reality only the first eight lines of the latter belong to 24 Aug., which goes on to reproduce in fact a letter dated Thursday [25 Aug.], f. 229; while p. 82 is from a further letter, ff. 231–2, to which the date 26 Aug. has been attached in pencil.

The last paragraph of Letter CVI [8 Dec. 1861], Gasquet, pp. 240–2, is part of the Acton letter ff. 479–80, to which the date 11 Dec. 1861 has been appended.

In the case of Letter LXXX, Gasquet, pp. 183–5, paragraphs one to three are not quite complete transcriptions of an Acton letter lying loose and headed only’ 16 Bruton St. Monday’. The letter to which the date 10 April 1861 has been attached in the manuscript volume, ff. 392–5, only begins three lines from the bottom of Gasquet, p. 183.

Under number CLXXIV, the letter dated by Acton 10 Dec. 1874 is one which runs only to p. 364, 1. 20. Then follows what is really a separate letter, ascribed in pencil to the same date.

The first sentence of Letter CLXXVI, 18 Dec. 1874, Gasquet, pp. 366–7, belongs to a different letter ascribed in pencil to 19 Dec. 1874.

3 A bundle of papers at Downside Abbey, relating to the actual production of Lord Acton and his Circle, includes F. M. Capes to Gasquet, 10 Feb. 1906, and other letters and notes in the same hand, as well as letters from the second Lord Acton to Gasquet, e.g. the one of 12 April 1906 quoted above. Wetherell's notes on Gasquet's transcriptions, and the three pages of the Introduction which were deleted, are also preserved at Downside.

4 The omission at the end of Letter CLXX, p. 357, is unimportant. Letter CLXXI, p. 358, should be marked Most Private. Letter CLXXII, p. 359, begins: ‘I was so very sorry to be nervous and ill the other day at your house and hope you will not remember it against me.

Your drops did me great good.’ After 1. 11 on p. 360 it continues: ‘Please see Renouf, if possible, and telegraph to me your answer as early as you can. I must reply tomorrow.’ Letter CLXXIII, p. 362, should have been dated 3 December [1874], and should have the postcript:’ I have not time to write to Renouf. See him if you can.’ Line 3 of Letter CLXXIV, p. 363, should run: ‘Please to consider this formula and all we said to Case.’ This letter only runs to p. 364, 1. 20. The first sentence of Letter CLXXVI, p. 366, belongs to another letter of 19 Dec. Letter CLXXVII, p. 368, runs from ‘morning’ on 1. 19: ‘But you can hardly get Ws communication in time for that, and then I hope.’ To Letter CLXXVIII, p. 370, should be added: ‘The ground is much cleared, at any rate, by this, and by the discovery that Pius V is at the bottom of it. I fear I am too late for post, and so send by hand-hoping to have your united and matured opinion on Monday morning.’

5 Gasquet, on the other hand, does sometimes insert square brackets, as on p. 23, Letter IX, when Acton, f. 31, had given the date in full.

6 Lord Edward Fitzmaurice, Life of Lord Granville, 1, 363.

7 After a letter headed ‘Aldenham, Friday’, ff. 57–8, which is unfinished, part of a letter has been inserted f. 59 as though it were a continuation. A certain analogy made it plausible to connect the two, but in reality f. 59 does not verbally complete f. 58, and it discusses Raymundus, whereas f. 58 is discussing Pascal.

A letter by J. W. Roberts, dated 27 Aug. and bound up as ff. 76–8 (i.e. with the letters of August 1858) refers to the Home and Foreign Review and therefore cannot either belong to the year 1858 or be the Roberts letter referred to by Acton on f. 74.

8 Thomas William Allies (1813–1903), converted to Roman Catholicism 1850, appointed Professor of Modern History in the Catholic University of Ireland, 1855.

9 On the subject of this letter see further Gasquet, pp. 30–2, where Acton's letter of 11 July [1858] should begin only at 1. 4, while on p. 31,1. 5, the name of Newman should be preceded by ‘that foolish old man’, 1. 11 should end with ‘animus’ instead of ‘mind’, and after ‘Dublin’ on 1. 23 the following lines have been omitted: ‘I have written to the Cardinal on a totally different question, and though I have not mentioned these matters I expect to elicit some remarks or other about them which may show how the wind lies.’ On 23 July Acton wrote further on this subject, but Gasquet, p. 33, 1. 3, omits the following: ‘speaking. It is a slightly difficult game to play, especially for the next few months, but I am pretty confident we shall be driving our team next January. A good reason too to make any formal change we may contemplate in the Rambler just then.’ After the last sentence of this letter, on the exclusion of short notices from the Dublin, there should be added: ‘We cannot get up two such well, and cannot help noticing the same books, and can neither say the same about them twice over, nor anything else. And it is better to have the notices in our own review besides wh. a monthly notice of new books is more effective than a quarterly. I have not spoken your name to anybody yet, not even to Burns.’ Then follows the letter of 25 July printed below.

10 On 29 July Acton wrote further: ‘I have had a long and unsatisfactory letter from Bagshawe who wishes to remain editor, with me, to keep Richardson, and to have a censor &c &c &c. My answer was that I would agree to no conditions whatever, and that I could not act with him or Richardson. My letter is so clear and explicit that I can go away in peace without any danger of being misunderstood. Ward's suggestions are substantially what I should have considered necessary myself. There is stock and copyright to be bought of Richardson. Such a contingency as you suggest, of Burns & Co. throwing me over, must of course be provided for, and can be without obliging me to have any pecuniary connection whatever with it. There must be a paper from the Cardinal and one from Burns.…’

The next letter, however, is of 25 August and announces the collapse of the whole negotiation. Gasquet omits various passages, e.g. after 'sanguine’ on 1. 6: ‘I have little doubt we shall have another chance soon’; 1. 14: ‘.…, I do not feel sure that there has not been treachery somewhere’; p. 34, 1. 4: ‘Shall we be able to [?] the R[ambler] in Jany to oppose the D.R. better, or think you we had better not?’ When Newman accepted the editorship of the Rambler in February 1859 it was decided to suspend the Dublin Review.

11 There is an earlier reference to this subject (of September 1858) in Gasquet, pp. 34–5; but in the sentence ‘Döllinger, who is here, is fattening with laughter at the ignorance of our divines betrayed in the Augustinian dispute’, Gasquet has deleted the words italicized; and where Acton wrote ‘I do most deliberately hold that errors condemned by the Church are to be found in the works of the Doctor Gratiae’, Gasquet made a serious misreading and put ‘I do not deliberately hold.….’. Apart from various omissions Gasquet altered ‘that narrow and invincible ignorance with which our theologians judge the writings of other people’ into ‘that narrow and invincible ignorance with which our writings are judged’. In a footnote to this letter on p. 34 he ascribes the controversy about ‘the father of Jansenism’ to the article on ‘Bossuet’ in the Rambler for June 1858, but the quarrel arose from the repetition of the assertion in Acton's review of Che’ruel, Marie Stuart et Catherine de Medici in the August number. The succeeding footnote on p. 35 increases the danger of misconception by quoting an explanatory note in the Rambler as printed in the August issue, when it really came in September.

12 The story of Döllinger and the Augustinian controversy is continued in Gasquet, pp. 37–40, where there is reference to a corresponding letter from Simpson to the Cardinal, partly printed at p. 39 n. Acton wrote further, f. 95 : ‘I am in spirits about Döllinger's letter because I never had one moment's misgiving about the propriety of the phrase I used.’ In a letter, f. 109, possibly of 12 Dec. he wrote further:’ I do not think on the whole that the eminent divines who attack Döllinger in the last Register are worth answering, for they offer nothing tangible to answer.’ At f. 112 he writes: ‘I have sent Döllinger's letter to all the bishops, and to all the colleges, and to all the divines I could think of. I sent it “with my compliments ” to Todd, because I suppose he is the divine who wishes there were some authority to stop our impudent voices….’ On ff. 120–1 he reports that his bishop replied with ‘a friendly warning about the dangerous ways of converts’.

13 See further, Gasquet, pp. 46 et seq.

14 On 30 Dec. 1858, W. Weathers had written to Simpson asking permission to insert in the Rambler a reply to Döllinger's letter on the Paternity of Jansenism. The letter is bound into the volume of Acton-Simpson correspondence, f. 138, as also (ff. 144–5) his letter of 14 Jan. [1859], when permission had been refused.

15 The unprinted portion of this letter refers to a letter by Capes which is at Downside and is dated 25 May 1863. See also Gasquet, pp. 283–5, where there are references to Simpson's paper on’ Conservative Reaction’, which Acton says that neither he nor Wetherell’ altogether like’.

16 On 5 Aug. 1862 Cardinal Wiseman issued in Rome and the Catholic Episcopate a protest against some remarks directed against himself in the new Home and Foreign Review. In October the English bishops with one exception made a similar protest against the editorial policy of Simpson and Acton. In the same month W. G. Ward consented to revive the Dublin Review as a counter-weight to the Home and Foreign Review and it reappeared in July 1863.

17 Gasquet's transcription of this letter, which was prepared for publication, omits the first two sentences arid contains some minor slips.

18 Joseph Stevenson (1806–95) had been engaged on the public records since 1834, had become a Roman Catholic in 1863, edited works for the Rolls series and undertook work of calendaring at the Public Record Office. He was later deputed by government to make a detailed examination of the Vatican archives, and produced 13 folio volumes of transcripts for the Public Record Office.