Lord Cairns has been snubbed by the University of Dublin,
of which he is Chancellor, for proposing to it for honorary degrees, Lord Belmore, who had joined in the suggestion that the Divinity School should be separated from Trinity College ; and the Rev. Neville Sherbrooke, ex-Naval officer, who is a popular preacher, and Lord Cairns' son-in-law. The Senior Master, Mr. Barlow, vetoed both, as he has the power to do,—the former for the indignity of recommending the separation of the iDivinity School from the control of the Board of Trinity Col- lege, and the second because the Rev; Neville Sherbrooke was an undistinguished man, whose decoration with ah. honorary degree would throw a slur on all honorary degrees. Lord Belmore has been Governor of New South Wales, and will. probably understand rough ways of showing feeling, .even though lie may not have expected them from a great school of learning ; but the blow is severest to the Rev. Neville Sherbrooke, who is a popular preacher, and will not like being called undistinguished, though he has probably often taken credit for that very "foolishness of preaching" which the University of Dublin thinks it proper to treat as foolishness, and•uothing more. Perhaps, after all, a great man had better not propose his own son-in-law for an honorary degree, only because he had had no time to earn one that was not honorary. Why should a man ever claim what in some way or other he has not attempted to earn ?
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