Lord Acton and his Circle
been made to explain the psychology of its attitude towards authority by the statement that Mr Richard Simpson took up the post of editor very shortly after his conversion to the Catholic faith in 1845. Such misapprehensions may easily lead to an entire misunderstanding of the inner history of English Catholicity of the last century in its most critical period.[1] It will be useful therefore first to state the facts.
The Rambler was first started as a weekly journal in January, 1848, by John Moore Capes, who was its proprietor for the first ten years of its existence. During most of that time he was its editor and contributed extensively to its pages. It is only just to the memory of this distinguished convert that his connexion with the magazine should be recorded at some length, as his part in the undertaking seems to have been strangely overlooked. Mr Capes was born in 1812, and, having passed through Westminster School, he graduated at Balliol College, Oxford. In course of time he became incumbent of St John's, Bridgewater, where his close connexion with Dr Northcote, which subsequently continued in regard to the management of the Rambler, first began. Mr Capes was mainly
- ↑ Mr Herbert Paul (Letters of Lord Acton to Mary Gladstone, Introd. xxvii) says: "The editor of the Rambler was the greatest of converts, John Henry Newman. In 1859 an article of Newman's on consulting the laity in matters of doctrine was condemned by authority of Rome, and Newman withdrew from the editorial chair. He was succeeded by Sir John Acton, and no better choice could have been made. He edited the Rambler till 1862, when it became merged in the Home and Foreign Review." It will be seen subsequently that every statement here made is inaccurate or altogether wrong.
Liberalism were being disputed, and Mr Simpson, still a very young man, while treating these subjects, gradually lost touch with Cardinal Wiseman and the English Bishops."
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