highest, at least the most persistent traditions of the Roman
Curia. He was a master of various arts which the practice of ages
has brought to perfection under the friendly shadow of the triple
tiara. He could mingle together astuteness and holiness without
any difficulty; he could make innuendoes as naturally as an
ordinary man makes statements of fact; he could apply flattery
with so unsparing a hand that even Princes of the Church found it
sufficient; and, on occasion, he could ring the changes of
torture on a human soul with a tact which called forth universal
approbation. With such accomplishments, it could hardly be
expected that Monsignor Talbot should be remarkable either for a
delicate sense of conscientiousness or for an extreme refinement
of feeling, but then it was not for those qualities that Manning
was in search when he went up the winding stair. He was looking
for the man who had the ear of Pio Nono; and, on the other side
of the low-arched door, he found him. Then he put forth all his
efforts; his success was complete; and an alliance began which
was destined to have the profoundest effect upon Manning's
career, and was only dissolved when, many years later, Monsignor
Talbot was unfortunately obliged to exchange his apartment in the
Vatican for a private lunatic asylum at Passy.

It was determined that the coalition should be ratified by the
ruin of Dr. Errington. When the moment of crisis was seen to be
approaching, Wiseman was summoned to Rome, where he began to draw
up an immense scrittura containing his statement of the case. For
months past, the redoubtable energies of the Archbishop of
Trebizond had been absorbed in a similar task. Folio was being
piled upon folio, when a sudden blow threatened to put an end to
the whole proceeding in a summary manner. The Cardinal was seized