When I said that the Roman Church concedes the epithet Christians to Protestants, I did not mean that all its adherents do the same. There is, or was, a Roman newspaper, the _Tablet_, which, seven or eight years ago, was one of the most virulent of the party journals. In it I read, referring to some complaint of grievance about mixed marriages, that if _Christians_ would marry _Protestants_ they must take the consequences. My memory notes this well; because I recollected, when I saw it, that there was in the stable a horse fit to run in the curricle with this one. About seventeen years ago an Oxford M. A., who hated { 28} mathematics like a genuine Oxonian of the last century, was writing on education, and was compelled to give some countenance to the nasty subject. He got out cleverly; for he gave as his reason for the permission, that man is an arithmetical, geometrical, and mechanical _animal_, as well as a rational _soul_.
The _Tablet_ was founded by an old pupil of mine, Mr. Frederic Lucas,[57] who availed himself of his knowledge of me to write some severe articles--even abusive, I was told, but I never saw them--against me, for contributing to the _Dublin Review_, and poking my heretic nose into orthodox places. Dr. Wiseman, the editor, came in for his share, and ought to have got all. Who ever blamed the pig for intruding himself into the cabin when the door was left open? When Mr. Lucas was my pupil, he was of the Society of Friends--in any article but this I should say _Quaker_--and was quiet and gentlemanly, as members of that Church--in any article but this I should, from mere habit, say _sect_--usually are. This is due to his memory; for, by all I heard, when he changed his religion he ceased to be Lucas couchant, and became Lucas rampant, fanged and langued gules. (I looked into Guillim[58] to see if my terms were right: I could not find them; but to prove I have been there, I notice that he calls a violin a _violent_. How comes the word to take this form?) I met with several Roman Christians, born and bred, who were very much annoyed at Mr. Lucas and his doings; and said some severe things about new converts needing kicking-straps.
The mention of Dr. Wiseman reminds me of another word, appropriated by Christians to themselves: _fides_;[59] the Roman faith is _fides_, and nothing else; and the adherents are _fideles_.[60] Hereby hangs a retort. When Dr. Wiseman was first in England, he gave a course of lectures in defence of his creed, which were thought very convincing by those who were already convinced. They determined to give him a medal, and there was a very serious discussion about the legend. Dr. Wiseman told me himself that he had answered to his subscribers that he would not have the medal at all unless--(naming some Italian authority, whom I forget) approved of the legend. At last _pro fide vindicata_[61] was chosen: this may be read either in a Popish or heretical sense. The feminine substantive _fides_ means confidence, trust, (it is made to mean _belief_), but _fidis_, with the same ablative, _fide_, and also feminine, is a _fiddle-string_.[62] If a Latin writer had had to make a legend signifying "For the defence of the fiddle-string," he could not have done it otherwise, in the terseness of a legend, than by writing _pro fide vindicata_. Accordingly, when a Roman Christian talks to you of the _faith_, as a thing which is his and not yours, you may say _fiddle_. I have searched Bonaventura Piscator in vain for notice of this ambiguity. But the Greeks said fiddle; according to Suidas,[63] [Greek: skindapsos][64]--a word meaning a four stringed instrument played with a quill--was an exclamation of contemptuous dissent. How the wits of different races jump!