It appears that this affair was under consideration for several years, and even in the reign of Catherine II. And in fact Hupel, in a note of the manuscript in which we found the opening passage of this essay, mentions the rumors read by the newspapers that a complete (pollige) reunion of the Russian with the Catholic Church was about to be accomplished, and attributed these same rumors to the ex-Jesuits. Hupel wrote in 1736. See op. cit. p. 88, note.
Note from the Author.
Curragh Chase, Adare, Ireland, Nov. 24, 1874.
Rev. and Dear Sir: The public has taken recently such deserved interest in the Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge that it has struck me that the last of the letters which I wrote to her before making my submission to the Catholic Church, in which I stated fully my reasons for taking that step, might be of use to many enquirers.
Readers of Sara Coleridge's Letters have often asked me, “But where is your part of the correspondence?” They may perhaps be glad to read at least one of those letters, to which many of hers were replies.
That letter I send you, with some preliminary remarks, this day, by book-post. It is quite at your service, if you think it worth publishing in The Catholic World....
I remain very truly yours,
Aubrey de Vere.
The History of New South Wales. With an account of Van Diemen's Land, New Zealand, Port Phillip, Moreton Bay, and other Australasian settlements. By Roderick Flanagan. 2 vols. London: Sampson Low. 1862.
Reminiscences of Thirty Years' Residence in New South Wales and Victoria. With a supplementary chapter on transportation and the ticket-of-leave system. By R. Therry, Esq., late one of the judges of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. London: Sampson Low. 1863.
It is not without reason that we insist upon this circumstance of being in contact with the people. If indeed the Russian Church were to unite herself to the Catholic Church, and the latter, following the toleration granted to the united Greeks, allowed the secular Russian clergy liberty to marry, the inconveniences we have noticed would be less felt, for the reason that, besides the fact that the Catholic Church would merely permit—never, either directly or indirectly, compel—priests to marry, there would always be a regular and celibate clergy side by side with the secular and married priests, and equally with them in contact with the people.