The new Oratory was placed by Papal brief at Birmingham. The first members of it were his friends who had left the English Church with him. Recruits soon came in, and branch houses were talked of. But for many years Newman had reason to complain of neglect and want of sympathy. He even found empty churches when he preached in London. In conjunction with Faber, he next started a series of 'Lives of the Saints,' in which the most absurd 'miracles' were accepted without question as true. The 'Old Catholics,' who had no stomach for such food, protested; and Newman, this time thoroughly irritated, had to admit another failure. The Oratory, however, and its London offshoot under Faber were prosperous, and the churches where Newman preached were not long empty. In 1850 we find him in better spirits. He employed his energies in a series of clever lectures on 'Anglican Difficulties,' in which he ridiculed the Church of his earlier vows with all the refined cruelty of which he was a master. But he was soon in trouble again. One Dr. Giacinto Achilli, formerly a Dominican friar, gave lectures in London upon the scandals of the Roman Inquisition, which had imprisoned him for attacking the Catholic faith and fomenting sedition. The temper of the British public at this time made it ready to believe anything to the discredit of the Roman Church, and Achilli became a popular hero. Wiseman published a libellous article upon him in the _Dublin Review_, which passed unnoticed. But when Newman repeated the charges of profligacy in a public lecture, Achilli brought an action for libel, which in costs and expenses cost Newman L12,000. The money however was paid, and much more than paid, by his co-religionists. This trial was quickly followed by the inauguration of a scheme for founding a Catholic University in Ireland, the avowed object of which was to withdraw young Catholics from the liberalising influences of mixed education. This scheme was sure to appeal strongly to Newman. Liberalism had come in with a rush at Oxford, after the dissipation of the 'long nightmare' (as Mark Pattison calls it) while the University was dominated by religious medievalism. The Oxford of Newman had become the Oxford of Jowett. The ablest of Newman's young friends and disciples, such as Mark Pattison and J.A. Froude, were now in the opposite camp, full of anger and disgust at the seductive influences from which they had just escaped. Newman, as might be expected, was anxious to protect Catholic students from similar dangers, and accepted the post of Rector of the proposed Catholic University. He intended it to provide 'philosophical defences of Catholicity and Revelation, and create a Catholic literature.' The lectures in which he expounded his ideals at Dublin were a great success, and he returned to England full of hope. With a curious inability to read the character of one who was to be his worst enemy, he offered Manning the post of Vice-Rector. Manning's refusal was followed