263 This temper and attitude of Manning is instructive. A cat does not squeal and claw unless its tail has been pinched ; and Manning was doubly nipped. He was disappointed at the slender effect his own secession had produced among the clergy and laity. Those who Verted did so not because of him, but because of the Gorham judgment, whereas Newman had drawn a train of devoted men after him. In the second place, he was disappointed at the small way the Roman Communion was making in England. He was one of the first to perceive that as the Church of England put off her rags of Protestantism, and put on the queenly vesture of Catholic Faith and Worship, the leakage towards Rome would cease, and, in fact, was already on the decline. He saw that the English Church could satisfy, and did satisfy, Christian souls, and thereby cut off the attractions of the Papal Church. To my mind, Manning had not an attractive character. I gravely doubt his possessing any governing principle other than self-glorification. Unquestionably, he cared much for the Truth, for God and for His Church, but in a secondary place, after Henry Edward Manning. This was characteristic of him from childhood. Bishop Oxenden says of him : " There was, even in those early days, a little self-assertion in his character. On one occasion he was invited to dinner at Mr. Cunningham's, the vicar of the parish. On his return at night one of his friends questioned him whether he had enjoyed his evening. He answered that he had said but little, and indeed had been almost silent, for there were two or three superior persons present; he added, * You know that my motto is, Aut Ccesar aut nullus' " Bishop Oxenden adds : " This was characteristic of the after man." His biographer, E. S. Purcell, is obliged to admit: " No one ought to take it much amiss if the aroma of a refined and subtle self-love might seem more or less to pervade Cardinal Manning's Reminiscences." But it is not an aroma, but a fetor, by no means refined or subtle. At Oxford, Mr. Purcell says : " Manning ever wore a look of self-consciousness ; he seemed to fancy as he walked through the halls and corridors, or sat in the common room, that every eye regarded him either with admiration or in envy ; oblivious that there were great men at Oxford, or at the Union even, before Agamemnon." His inclinations had been to push himself forward as a Radical,
