history were shut out from the National University course; they might be taught in the colleges, but were to be no part of University learning. And the National University, like the Queen's Colleges, was to be 'non-religious;' its system of education was to be secular and united, that is its students were to be examined together in secular learning, but in religious matters they were to stand apart; religion, indeed, might be a subject of college teaching, but it was not to be heard of within the University walls; in fact, it was probably to be left to the students and their clergy. This complicated measure, not easy thoroughly to understand, was sustained, for a few days, by the glamour of Mr. Gladstone's rhetoric. But ere long it arrayed against it an immense preponderance of opinion in Ireland, and was assailed with fatal effect in the House of Commons. The Heads of Trinity College took the initiative in declaring against it; in debates, wise, patriotic, and just alike, they recognised the claims of Catholic Ireland; but they protested against the wrong being done to the great and ancient foundation they represented, and especially against the degradation to which it was subjected by the Bill. Trinity College was to be deprived for no reason of a large part of its revenue; it was to be placed under a governing body, in which nominees of the Castle would be all-powerful--an influence pernicious to its independence and self-government; above all, the National University was to supplant it, and was to exclude from its teaching the noblest studies of the intellect of man. The Platonism which had inspired Berkeley, the records which had animated the genius of Burke, and had been fostered in the Alma mater of these great worthies, were to be banished from a foundation which was to be made the head of University life in Ireland. These sentiments were fully shared by enlightened Irishmen: that moral and metaphysical science and modern history should be virtually proscribed in the University about to be set up, was, as it were, putting out one of the eyes of the intellect, effacing what was best in the map of knowledge. But the most decisive condemnation of the scheme was that pronounced by the Irish Catholic bishops. Like their predecessors of nearly thirty years before, and the Anglican High Church party of that day, they asserted that the project was really 'godless;' it was irreligion in the mask of non-religion; its liberalism was in the highest degree illiberal, for it offered their flocks a system of education it was known they would reject; and it was flagrantly, nay, basely, unjust, for while Trinity College, and the Queen's Colleges, and the Queen's University, were to remain endowed, the Catholic University and all Catholic colleges were to get nothing from the State. These arguments made their way into the House of Commons, and were vindicated in speeches of great ability. Disraeli dwelt especially on