1857 265 By his tergiversation he forfeited the trust of the Catholic party ; by his former hard hits he had wounded the Protestant party past forgiveness. None could trust him ; his own relatives, the Austens and the Anderdons, alone held the key of his action. With him there was no principle other than self-interest or ambition. It was in vain for him to recover ground with either faction. This he felt, and saw that for him advancement in the Established Church was unattainable. He must be aut Ccesar aut nullus, and to be nobody was to a man of his temper of mind intolerable. When he joined the Roman Communion, it was with the deliberate intention of pushing himself forward. He entertained the chimerical notion that he might be elected Pope on the death of Pius IX, as if the Cardinals would ever choose any but an Italian ! There had once been an English Pope, Nicholas Break-speare, why not another, Henry Edward Manning ? And in ability he was far ahead of his fellow Cardinals. Pio Nono died in 1878, and Manning did not obtain the Sessorial chair. It was with his eye on this end that Manning had become an Ultramontane, to the disgust of many of the old Romanist families in England. He was a weathercock turning with the wind. In politics he had ever been a Liberal, even to Radicalism, not perhaps out of principle, but because he thought it would pay him best; but for the Church he desired an autocracy, a despotism, not out of principle, but because he hoped vainly that he might himself some day become autocrat, and an infallible despot.1 A study of the two faces, those of Newman and Manning, was most instructive. In the strong, rugged countenance of the former was sincerity, truth and force. Sanctity streamed forth from it, as the light from a lantern. On the other hand the face of Manning was as much made-up as that of an actress. There was not, indeed, any external application of grease paints, but there was the moulding of the muscles, and the setting of the expression that were entirely artificial, practised, not before a glass, but before some pictures of ascetic saints. The face was 1 Neither Canons Oakeley and Searle of Westminster Cathedral nor Cardinal Newman trusted him after he became a Romanist : they detected his insincerity.
