PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 BX 5098 .M62 1882 v. 2 
 Mozley, T. 1806-1893. 
 Reminiscences chiefly of 
 Oriel College and the 
 
 Shelf 
 
Digitized by the Internet Arcliive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/reminiscenceschi02mozl 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 AND 
 
 THE OXFORD MOVEMENT. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
REMINISCENCES 
 
 CHIEFLY OF 
 
 ORIEL COLLEGE AND THE OXFORD 
 MOVEMENT 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. T.'^MOZLEY, M. A. 
 
 FORMERLY FELLOW OF ORIEL 
 SUCCESSIVELY PERPETUAL CURATE OF MORETON PINCKNEV, NORTHANTS ; 
 RECTOR OF CHOLDERTON, WILTS ; RECTOR OF PLYMTREB, DEVON J 
 AND RURAL DEAN OF PLVMTREE AND OF OTTERY 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. II. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street 
 
 1882 
 
The Riverside Press, Cambridgt: 
 Stereotyped and Printed by II. 0. Iloughton & Co. 
 
CONTENTS OF VOLUME n. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIX. 
 
 AIDS AND SUPPORTS. 
 
 An ambitious generation — The movement to nowhere — Will- 
 iam J. Copeland — Isaac Williams — John F. Christie — 
 Henry Bowden — Oakley and Ward — Robert J. Wilson — 
 Woodgate — Bampton Lectures — Lord Blachford — Samuel 
 Wood — Present Dean of St. Paul's — George D. Ryder — 
 Medley — Thornton — Albany Christie — James Round — 
 Dodsworth 
 
 CHAPTER LXX. 
 
 J. B. MORRIS, EDWARD CASWELL, AND DALGAIBN8. 
 
 " Nature a Parable " — " Pantheistic Tendencies " — Henry 
 Caswell's " Mormons " — The " Art of Pluck " — The 
 Borough of Old Sarum — The Abbesses Ange'lique and 
 Marie des Anges — A goodly company .... 
 
 CHAPTER LXXI. 
 
 WILLIAM FROUDE. 
 
 Chemist and mechanist — Laughing gas — Its various work- 
 ings — A dangerous cruise thought better of — W. Froude's 
 work for the Bristol and Exeter Railway, and for the 
 Admiralty 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIL 
 
 THOMAS STEVENS. 
 
 Naturalist, agriculturalist, Poor Law Commissioner, Rector, 
 and Squire — His ancestor Captain Stevens — " What shall I 
 
n CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 
 
 PA08 
 
 do ? " — Founding St. Andrew's College, Bradfield — Over- 
 'nrhelming competition 19 
 
 CHAPTEK LXXIII. 
 
 WILLIAM SEWELL. 
 
 A read}' writer — Magnificent — The Moral Philosophy Club 
 — Christianity and Mahoramedanism — Jacobson — Trying 
 for Winchester — Professor of Logic — The Unsuccessful 
 candidates — Founder of Kadley College — Medisevalism . 25 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIV. 
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. 
 
 Inviting a controversy — His attitude at Onel College — Inde- 
 pendent, imaginative, and poetic — His father the Archdeacon 
 — His seeing little of his brother Iliurell — Fellow of Exe- 
 ter — His bold line there — A reaction towards Newman — 
 Wanting work — Newman finding it for him — The selection 
 he made — Why ? — What followed ' 30 
 
 CHAPTER LXXV. 
 
 THE SACRIFICE AND THE WORK. 
 
 Giving up the Classics for the Fathers — Predominance of ma- 
 terial work in the outer world — No Biblical criticism — 
 Poole's " Synopsis " — Hartwell Horne — The Revised Ver- 
 sion 38 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVI. 
 
 MARIA GIBERNE. 
 
 Prima donna — Her portraits in chalk — Her enthusiasm — 
 Her residence at Rome, and occupation at the Palazzo Bor- 
 ghese — Cardinal Antonelli — Pio Nono — Her Roman page 
 — His sermon at the Ara Coeli — Mr. Laprimaudaye and 
 other students from the Collegio Pio — Driven from Autun 
 by Garibaldi 44 
 
CONTENTS OF VOLUME H. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVII. 
 
 ARNOLD. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Origin of the Oxford movement 1 — Indecision allowable till 
 thirty; not after — Newman and Arnold never seeing much 
 of one another — Arnold's oracular sayings — His sermons 
 
 — His " Church Reform " and Church and State theory — 
 His disappointments — His provocations and his temper — 
 Mr. Litchfield — " The Oxford Malignants " — Great soften- 
 ing at the last 50 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVni. 
 
 JOSEPH DORNFORD. 
 
 His mother Simeon's tea maker — Mrs. Archdeacon Robinson 
 
 — Macaulay his fellow.pupil — Leaving Trinity College for 
 the Rifle Brigade in the Peninsula — " Marmion " — Fatigues 
 
 — " i"orlorn hope " — At Wadham College and at Queen's ; 
 thence elected to Oriel — Ascent of Mont Blanc — Sad 
 event — Dornford succeeding Keble in the Tutorship — The 
 common-room man also a peninsular hero — The Prince of 
 Orange on the Duke's staff — Oriel wine cellar — Military 
 guests in the common room — Dornford's defiant air pro- 
 voking a swarm of bees — Proctor 57 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIX. 
 
 DORNFORD STILL T0TOR. 
 
 "Corporal" — His romance — An annexation leading to a 
 dire feud with the Wilberforces — His second visit to Spain, 
 and story of the Irish captain — His emancipation of the 
 Bible clerks — At Moreton Pinckney — Women of aU de- 
 grees fascinated by him 64 
 
 CHAPTER LXXX. 
 
 DORNFORD, RECTOR OF PLYMTREE. 
 
 Developing into an admirer of Newman — Unsuccessful at- 
 tempts to improve the Church service — A very sad story — 
 "Undine" — Vestry battles — His admirers in the village 
 — His fast driving and imperious bearing — His popularity 
 
viii 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME II, 
 
 — Why a bachelor so long ■? — His passion for old furniture 
 
 — His Oratory and Reredos — His comfortable marriage 
 and the affectionate remembrance of him . . . . 
 
 CHAPTER LXXXI. 
 
 SAMDEL BICEAKDS AT ULCOMBE. 
 
 His prize poem and essay — His marriage — A double star — 
 Visited by Whately, and the Newman family — " Nature and 
 Art " — Rickards with a college friend working out the 
 science of handwriting — An Oxford professor's handwrit- 
 ing ; the Duke of Wellington's ; Mrs. Fry's — Discovering a 
 brother 
 
 CHAPTER LXXXII. 
 
 SAMUEL RICKARDS AT STOWLANGTOFT. 
 
 His patron, Henry Wilson — His pupil, Lord Maidstone — His 
 parsonage, church, and garden — A Sunday visitor from 
 Bury St. Edmunds — " Lu " and " Minky " — Parting com- 
 pany with the Oxford people — A trial of friendship — 
 Taking the glebe in hand — Strawberries coming and going 
 — Experiments — The village lad sent to the Zoological — 
 A chance shot with a terrible effect — " Stowlangtoft 
 Street — Lucy Rickards — Her life of pain and her Church 
 work 
 
 CHAPTER LXXXIII. 
 
 GEORGE ANTHONT DENISON. 
 
 His " Reminiscences " — His English Essay — His connection 
 with the Rutland family — Rhubarb tart, hot or cold ? — 
 Decoration — " CockfiKhting " — The Athena;um — Glad- 
 stone criticising the Reform Bill on Liberal grounds — The 
 " Conscience Clause " — How to deal with a crusty old land- 
 owner — Denison's fastidiousness and its trials — What he 
 ought to have been 
 
CONTENTS OF VOLUME U. 
 
 is. 
 
 CHAPTEE LXXXIV. 
 
 CHARLES NEATE. 
 
 1PA0I 
 
 The small gentry — Neate bred a hybrid, half English and half 
 French — His prize essay won from all France — His con- 
 stant quarrel with success — How he extinguished bis pros- " 
 pects at the Bar — In Parliament for the city of Oxford — 
 Private Secretary to Sir F. Baring — Clerk of the market — 
 A question of foreshore 100 
 
 CHAPTER LXXXV. 
 
 EDWARD BLENCOWE. 
 
 At Charterhouse — Hlnstrating my copy of Horace — TJstica? 
 — Persuaded to try for Oriel — Elected, but not at home 
 there — His letters from the Mumbles — Marrying and set- 
 tling at Teversal — His early death, and the three volumes 
 of sermons published by his widow 107 
 
 CHAPTER LXXXVI. 
 
 CHARLES PORTALIS GOLIGHTLT. 
 
 His early introduction to the world, on the Continent and at 
 Eton — His ancestors, the " French Prophets " — My obliga- 
 tions to him — A useful and popular undergraduate — His 
 curacies — Settling at Oxford on a wrong understanding, 
 but with remarkable results — Unchanged alone amid uni- 
 versal change — The second volume of the "Life of Wilber- 
 force," and Golightly's letter to the biographer . . .110 
 
 CHAPTER LXXXVn. 
 
 CHAHLE8 LANCELOT LEE BRENTON. 
 
 His royalist ancestors — His father in command of the Spar- 
 tan — Hard lines at college — An early riser — Taking a 
 large parish, falling ill, and returning to Oriel — Painful ex- 
 hibition in the common room — Taking temporary duty at 
 Stedhampton — Refusing to bury a drunkard — Leaving the 
 Church of England, and publishing a sermon to explain his 
 mode of action and his reasons for the step — Starting a sect 
 
X 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUIIE II. 
 
 FASI 
 
 at Bath — Publishing pieces of poetry, and translating the 
 Septuagint — Was this the discharge of an old burden laid 
 on him by an uncle ■? 116 
 
 CHAPTER LXXXVin. 
 
 ANTONY BULLER. 
 
 His first Start at college — In what condition found by the Pro- 
 vost — The scene at Collections ever after — His learned 
 sermons on " Church Authority " 123 
 
 CHAPTER LXXXIX. 
 
 ■WILLIAM HEBERDEN KAESLAKB. 
 
 At Charterhouse — Sir Roger de Coverley — His Oriel friends 
 
 — Position in Devonshire — The Diocesan Conference and 
 the Dilapidations Act — Proposed inquiry into it negatived 
 
 — Sir Stafford Northcote — " Much to be said on both sides" 
 
 — Resolution rescinded — Committee — Report — County 
 testimonial to Karslake — Great gathering at Meshaw — 
 Genial addresses — " The sleep of a laboring man " . . 125 
 
 CHAPTER XC. 
 
 SIR GILBERT SCOTT. 
 
 Rectory of Wappenham given to a son of " Bible Scott " — 
 Dilapidation case ^ " A lad from a builder's ofiice " — His 
 Taluation justified by the result — Another dilapidation case 132 
 
 CHAPTER XCI. 
 
 EDWARD W. L. POPHAM. 
 
 Heir of Littlecote — His favorite subjects — His rooms — Col- 
 lege alarm — Scene in a lecture room — Last appearance 
 in public — Long abeyance of a county position . . . 135 
 
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 
 
 CHAPTER XCII. 
 
 SIR JOHN D. HARDING. 
 
 FAQS 
 
 At Charterhouse — Constitutional ailments — Inequality and 
 want of self-command — Queen's Advocate-General — Amer- 
 ican Civil War — How treated by Her Majesty's Ministers 
 — Escape of the Alabama — Specimen of British administra- 
 tion — Sad consequences — What there is to be said in ex- 
 tenuation 138 
 
 CHAPTER XCm. 
 
 EXAGGERATIONS. 
 
 Chiefs outvied by their followers — Mode of reading in church 
 
 — Prayers to east, west, north, or south ? — Apostolic suc- 
 cession and the Episcopate — Evangelicals 1 — " Peculiars " 
 
 — Ecclesiastical sanctum sanctorum ..... 144 
 
 CHAPTER XCIV. 
 
 puset's sermon on " sin after baptism." 
 
 "Irreparable" the key-note — Fact changed into dogma — 
 S. and R. Wilberforce coming to Newman for an explana- 
 tion — Their request loyally complied with — Aftei-piece in 
 my room — S. Wilberforce quickly wiping his hands of the 
 Oxford party 148 
 
 CHAPTER XCV. 
 
 ST. Luke's, Chelsea. 
 
 Debased Gothic and Italian of the Georgian era — Fonthill 
 Abbey and Eaton Hall — St. Pancras the last mortuary 
 church — Barry's vaulted roof at St. Luke's — Object of 
 speculation and suspicion — Heurtley and Sankey — An 
 evening service and a missionary sermon — Uneasiness fol- 
 lowed by an awkward mistake and consequent panic — The 
 curate's performances and apology to Dr. Gerald Wellesley 
 — Barry's labors, difficulties, disappointments, and reward 
 at ilie Houses of Parliament 151 
 
xii 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME H. 
 
 CHAPTER XCVI. 
 
 ■WILTON CHURCH. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Noblemen and gentlemen commoners at Oiid and at Christ 
 Church — R. Wilberforce's proposition — Sidney Herbert — 
 Thomas H. Wyatt employed by him, by the Bishop, and 
 myself — Sidney Herbert's first idea — His second idea a 
 Romanesque church with Alexandrine mosaics, etc. — These 
 stuck about the walls, otherwise cold and bare, wherever a 
 place could be found for them 157 
 
 CHAPTER XCVn. 
 
 COMMENCEMENT OF CHOLDEETON CHURCH. 
 
 Old church small and mean — Ancient open roof brought 
 from Ipswich, with colony of wood carvers — New church 
 planned to fit it — Incidents of the work — A poacher keep- 
 ing the neighborhood at bay — Operations suspended for 
 years — My own labors nioantime — Singular offer of assist- 
 ance declined — The Bishop's undertakings and troubles — 
 The Chapter House 162 
 
 CHAPTER XCVUL 
 
 COMPLETION OF CHOLDERTON CHURCH. 
 
 Unexpected means — The Queen Anne's Bounty Office — My 
 chief contributors to the church — Its principal features — 
 The carvings — Free Trade — Dr. Cooke Taylor's tour 
 through the manufacturing districts — Andover paupers 
 sucking the horse bones from Tid worth dog- kennels — • 
 Double roof to the church — How a chalk-pit was filled — 
 The eighteen fine days in October — Open roofs — Three 
 testimonies ; the Bishop's coachman — Assheton Smith's 
 successors, and the present Bishop of Manchester — The 
 Bishop of Salisbury challenged to refund Episcopal income 
 
 — My factotum in the village — His accident the only one — 
 Interesting episodes of the work 171 
 
 CHAPTER XCIX. 
 
 EAST GRAFTON CHURCH. 
 
 By Mr. Ward, Vicar of Great Bedwyn — Ferrey his architect 
 
 — Style Norman — A barrel vault intended, and in prepara- 
 
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 
 
 xili 
 
 tion — Was there abutment or loading enough for safety ? 
 — Mr. Ward's two guarantees: thick ribs and low flying 
 buttresses, the latter suggested by a peculiarity of his parish 
 church, itself perhaps suggested by the " roots " of the 
 tower at Salisbury — My objections — The circular vault 
 hazardous — Mr. Ward's previous correspondence with the 
 Incorporated Society — Surveyor's objections — Professor 
 Willis memorializing ; the surveyor overruled and displaced 
 for "scientific gentlemen" — Correspondence with Robert 
 Williams — To no effect — Seeing a hearse pass — Sidney 
 Herbert and Mr. Montgomery going to see the vault, which 
 came down on the centre being lowered, killing Mr. Mont- 
 gomery on the spot — Ferrey's explanation that the experi- 
 ment had not had a fair trial true — W. Froude's opinion of 
 the vault 182 
 
 CHAPTER C. 
 
 MANUEL JOHNSON. 
 
 Coming to Oxford, 1835 — His Catalogue of 606 Stars in 
 the Southern Henn'sphere and gold medal — In charge of 
 Napoleon's tomb ; receiving French visitors and presented 
 with cigars — Smoking them out — Appointed Radcliffe 
 Observer — Nature of his work — Distant results — Stellar 
 parallax — Only nine or twelve stars to be called near — 
 The rest beyond human measurement — Ascertained motion 
 of many stars — Whither'! — Hound what centre"? — Self- 
 recording instruments for various purposes — Terrestrial 
 convulsion — Johnson's various qualities and attainments — 
 Hfs difficulties and troubles — Example of Baily, astronomer 
 and stockbroker — Johnson's Sunday receptions — His col- 
 lection of early Italian engravings, etc. . . . ,190 
 
 CHAPTER CI. 
 James shergold boone. 
 
 A great name at Charterhouse — His prize poems and essay 
 at Oxford — The "Oxford Spy" — Declining to read for 
 honors — Was it a revolt against minute criticism, like 
 mine? — His pitiful exhibition at St. Mary's — The Duke 
 of Newcastle's offer rejected — Lectures on the mutual rela- 
 tions of arts and sciences — "Council of Ten" — Taking 
 
Xiv CONTENTS OF VOLUME H. 
 
 PAOI 
 
 orders — Making mistakes to the end — Editor of the 
 "British Critic" 200 
 
 CHAPTER CII. 
 
 THE " BRITISH CRITIC." 
 
 A private pupil — Beginning; to write for the " British Critic " 
 
 — The exclusively theological character of the new series — 
 Aggravated when iu Newman's hands — Length and same- 
 ness of the articles — Newman too much occupied to write 
 himself, or to edit eflBciently — Callers at Oriel . . . 205 
 
 CHAPTER cm. 
 
 LITTLEMOEE. 
 
 Newman's withdrawal to Littlemore intelligible on ordinary 
 grounds — The special interest of the spot — The Mynchery 
 
 — St. Mary of Littlemore — Church and halls attached to 
 it, and made by Alfred the nucleus of the University — The 
 rude character of the existing buildings to be converted into 
 a MovT) — Newman writing for advice — His simple require- 
 ments — My suggestions not adopted — The Oxford folks 
 prying about the place, and looking in 210 
 
 CHAPTER CIV. 
 
 THE NEW EDITOR OF THE "BRITISH CRITIC." 
 
 Newman proposing that I should take the editorship — Rea- 
 sons pro and con — A mock sun — What did it mean? — 
 Three mock suns and a parhelion I once saw, and nobody 
 else, in Rotten Row — Other phenomena — The existing 
 staff of the "British Critic" carrying themselves on — 
 Some of the writers bowed out — Articles written, and not 
 reviews — How I did the work in Salisbury Plain — A 
 meteor — A "discussion forum" in Bell Yard — Mr. 
 Roworth's account of a really efficient editor . . . 216 
 
 CHAPTER CV. 
 
 THE WRITERS IN THE " BRITISH CRITIC." 
 
 My troubles — My own articles on " Churches and Open 
 Roofs" — Pretty little wood-cuts — How I managed to get 
 
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 
 
 XV 
 
 them done — Two architectural sores healed by time — Am- 
 bustus Phaeton — Oakley and Ward — Ward's handwriting, 
 dilatoriness, and obstinacy — Flying to Newman — Always 
 too sharp for me — A question of two brigands — Oakley's 
 theological essay — His early contemporaries in Baliol com- 
 mon room — " Jack Morris " — John F. Christie's article on 
 " Ridley " — My marks in it 223 
 
 CHAPTER CVI. 
 
 SIR GEORGE BOWTER. 
 
 His father boring for coal — Bowyer himself brought up in 
 Italy — A friend of Charles Albert — His work on our 
 " Constitutional Law " — His article on "Simony" and its 
 serious consequences — His great kindness to a very distant 
 cousin of the old Radley stock — The Order of St. John — 
 His service to me at the public session of the CEcumenical . 231 
 
 CHAPTER CVII. 
 
 MT OWN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE "BRITISH CRITIC." 
 
 Not quite sure about them all — Mr. Osier's " Church and 
 King " — Pugin's " Contrasts " — The study of evidences — 
 Temperance societies — Armed associations for the protec- 
 tion of life and property — Church architecture — Mr. 
 Lister Venables' Letters on " Domestic Life in Russia " — 
 — "The Bible without note or comment" — Ruridecanal 
 chapters or clerical meetings — Religious state of the manu- 
 facturing poor — New churches — Dr. Channing's Works — 
 Advertisements and announcements — " Open Roofs " again 235 
 
 CHAPTER CVin. 
 
 MY OWN CONTRIBUTIONS, CONTINUED. 
 
 Myself editor in July, 1841 — Oakley's article on "Bishop 
 Jewell " considered a new departure — My article on Sir R. 
 Peel's " Address " and the Letters of " Catholicus " — That, 
 too, on the Margaret Professor's "Lecture" — "Growler 
 and Fido " — How I came to write an Apologue — The ar- 
 ticle on "New Poetry" — Kynaston and Lord John Man- 
 ners — Notice of a prize essay by Bercsford Hope — The 
 
xvi 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 
 
 robbery of an alms-box — Sacred Hymns from the German 
 
 — " Hymn to Eternity " — Reserve in communicating re- 
 ligions knowledge — Open Hoofs — Agricultural laborers 
 and wages — "Clodhoppers," how Keble regarded them, 
 and how a London clergyman — Lord John Manners' " Plea 
 for National Ilolydays " — Dr. Doane's Sermons — The 
 "Six Doctora " — A lawless proceeding, but in lawless 
 times 243 
 
 CHAPTER CIX. 
 
 THE CHUECH or ENGLAND. 
 
 The Thirty-nine Articles — Natural religion as fulfilled in 
 Christ — The Almighty without passions'? — Infinite in- 
 termediate agencies 1 — The Seventeenth Article — The 
 Church Catechism — "What dost thou chiefly learn ? " etc. 
 
 — Inspiration of Scripture — R. Wilberforce — The Atha- 
 nasian Creed — Eternal punishment — No use arguing with 
 a toothache — The Creed itself — The Sonship — The Bap- 
 tismal Service — " This child is regenerate " — Daily morn- 
 ing service — The prayers — Miracles? — Thomas Hill and 
 
 his charm for warts — A woman cured by Holy Communion 253 
 
 CHAPTER ex. 
 
 THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND AND OF HOME. 
 
 What were the leading issues between them? — Truth? — 
 People were not so jiarticnlar as to that — Fear of the super- 
 natural ? — All jieoj)Ip had their notions of the supernatural, 
 though they did not like to regard it as in the hands of man 
 
 — The question of spiritual loyalty ? — Yes — A convert to 
 Rome was a traitor and a renegade — At that time he had 
 no future — How was I dealing with these vital questions ? 
 
 — Without the ])ower or the will — Mr. Brown, who could n't 
 find the soul in him — Yet he must have had a soul by his 
 
 own showing — So must I, but making sad work of it . . 265 
 
 CHAPTER CXI. 
 
 HAVRE AND INGOOYILLE. 
 
 A new world — The ((iiay — Notre Dame — The cotton ships 
 with saints for figure-heads — The carts of the country — 
 
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 
 
 xvu 
 
 The burnt-out shell of an opera-house — Ino:ouville — Beauti- 
 ful view — Our apartments and our attendants — The coun- 
 try and the peasantry — French agriculture — The food re- 
 sources of Havre — How to drive in a crowded street — One 
 of the first " Archimedean screw " steamers . . . 272 
 
 CHA'PTER CXII. 
 
 CAEN. 
 
 Like Oxford — Cheap lodgings with historical associations — 
 St. Etienne and the Conqueror — St. Nicholas — A trial of 
 faith — The Hotel-Dieu — Peasant proprietresses "coming ■ 
 out" — The Duke and Duchess de Nemours come to the 
 races — Ceremonies at St. Etienne — Anniversary mass for 
 the Dul;e of Orleans — Mdlle. Tyrrell and Miss Tyrrell — 
 Le Bon Sauveur ; an unlucky disclosure — The quarries and 
 the Cereles d'lTercule — A feast for the Olympians — A 
 cheap trip to Bayeux — The cathedral showing much ex- 
 posure to the elements — The people said to be like the Eng- 
 glish — The Tapestry — An honest glazier — The Octroi . 279 
 
 CHAPTER CXin. 
 
 LANGRUNE. 
 
 A hidden watering-place, the resort of clergy and Legitimists 
 
 — How we went there — Chateau le Henry — Madame 
 Marie — Achille and Hyacinthe Valroger — Taking charge 
 of us — Obliged to talk Latin, and ratlier big iu consequence 
 
 — Why did n't we go to Paris ? — The reason I gave — Call 
 upon an Abbe, a rising man — Caught by him eating his mul- 
 berries, and explaining my conduct in Latin — Interesting 
 souvenirs given us by the Valrogers — Inscriptions — A 
 favorite singer squaring it between the church and the 
 world — The treasures of the deep — Bathing at Langrune 
 
 — Pilgrimages to La Deliverande 287 
 
 CHAPTER CXIV. 
 
 CHATEAU d'oDTRELAISE. 
 
 The Count and Countess de Polignac — Desire to make us 
 good Catholics and Legitirpisfs - luvitation to Outyelaise 
 
xviii 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 
 
 accepted by my wife — Simple country life — The election 
 of the village mayer going against them — Who only can 
 talk French in France — The causes of the fall of the noblesse 
 and the old monarchy — The Parisian season — Once more 
 in Salisbury Plain, " as we were " 297 
 
 CHAPTER CXV. 
 
 "BRITISH CRITIC," NO. LXTIII. 
 
 Meeting a miniature flotilla on the Orne — Special industries 
 — At the " British Critic " again — Reviewing " Nature a 
 Parable " — Formby's " Visit to the East " — Notices — 
 Episcopal Charges — Controversial pamphlets — Reply to 
 inquiries for a good list of theological works — The Irish 
 Church — Freemasonry — My novissima verba, rather sharp 
 too, bestowed on my very dear master and friend Edward 
 Churton 303 
 
 CHAPTER CXVI. 
 
 INQUIRY AND INDECISION. 
 
 An account to be given of all this — It could not be like New- 
 man's account — In what region of my mind was all this labor 
 and speculation ? — Answer not satisfactory — However, I 
 had my reason about me, and I knew what I ought to be and 
 to do — Variously possessed and inhabited — With a leaning 
 towards the Roman Catholics, accepting arguments in their 
 favor, yet coming to sudden hitches and shrinking from the 
 conclusion — Not able to forget the question, or to stamp out 
 doubts — The question daily becoming simply between 
 Roman Catholicism and Infidelity — Myself unable to in- 
 stitute a grand inquiry, to array authorities, compare proofs, 
 and abide by the result — I had been piriled on, or pushed 
 on, by others; and had been moulded simply by communica- 
 tion, or by collision 309 
 
 CHAPTER CXVII. 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ROMAN CATHOLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 All new to me — "This was truly worship" — A rude an- 
 tiquity — The congregation reverential, following the service 
 
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 
 
 xix 
 
 generally as well as ours do — Religion showing itself in the 
 streets — Yet much that must offend the Anglican, and that 
 he finds it hard to understand — Indulgentia, etc. — What 
 can it all be about ? — Holy water — No harm in that — But 
 is there not only one Altar, One Sacrifice 1 — Here are 
 many, sometimes even with no congregation — It looks a 
 mystery and nothing more — The Host carried out, and clos- 
 eted for future use — If there are any number of worshippers, 
 they are generally before an image of Our Lady — Is not 
 this an idol ? — The saints generally neglected, or much ca- 
 price shown — High Mass — At first very unintelligible — 
 Crucifixes — Calvaries — The Host carried to the sick — 
 A scene in the Piazza of St. Peter's — The French soldiers 
 of the line — How put upon at Home — Failure at a soldier's 
 funeral at Caen 317 
 
 CHAPTER CXVm. 
 
 TWO SIDES OF THE QUESTION. 
 
 Was the universal practice of many centuries utter folly ? — 
 " The weightier matters of the law " — There are worse 
 scandals than superstitions — Is our own religion, like our 
 policy, one to win all peoples? — " Who art thou that judg- 
 est another ? " — Our own divisions, such as those on baptis- 
 mal regeneration ? — " His ways past finding out " . . 328 
 
 CHAPTER CXIX. 
 
 THE SACRAMENTAL THEOBIES. 
 
 The " High " and " Low " views — Transubstantiation — The 
 laws of nature and of grace equally Divine commands — 
 The Word only real — Little communion in our Church — 
 Is it only that Christians will not make an entire surrender 
 of themselves 1 — Do ladies and gentlemen, in many churches 
 the only communicants, do this as nobody else can do ? — 
 "High views" past human intelligence; indeed, all views 
 aiming at accurate definition — My own belief in this mat- 
 ter — Luther's doctrine so "high" that Lutheranism is al- 
 most extinct — If we hold any sacramental doctrine at all, 
 the world tells us we are Romanizers 335 
 
XX 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 
 
 CHAPTER CXX. 
 
 THE TRINITY. 
 
 PAOI 
 
 How the form of the doctrine was arrived at — Myself always 
 desirous of the very words as far as possible. — Jesus Christ 
 the " Son of Man " and the " Son of God " — Strange ques- 
 tions haunting Christians through life — Personality — Per- 
 sona same word as Praco and Preacher — Threeuess not in 
 the New Testament, or any sacred number, unless it be for 
 certain lesser purposes — The opening invocations of our 
 Litany — Not as in the Latin — Not as in the French — 
 Causing continual difficulty — People don't seem to care 
 what they believe or what they ask others to believe, so that 
 it runs easy for the moment 343 
 
 CHAPTER CXXI. 
 
 THE SAINTS. 
 
 Above all, the Queen of Heaven — Were it not for the worship 
 paid to her I should not be in Normandy ; indeed, not in this 
 » world at all — Where, and in what state, is the Mother of 
 our Lord ? — Every possible answer is equally presumptuous 
 
 — Do not the saints live and work, as being in Christ ? — 
 Much for, nothing against it — What is the cloud of wit- 
 nesses ■? — A " masculine " Christianity rejects such questions 
 
 — But it rejects everything 349 
 
 CHAPTER CXXn. 
 
 " MARIOLATET." 
 
 The household of Nazareth — Jesus truly Mary's son — Is she 
 less now than she then was, further than she then was, re- 
 pudiated, discarded, laid by, remembered only as one of the 
 innumerable crowd to be gathered before the Judgment 
 Seat? — Impossible — Grant that in her case there is no 
 place or time, then love is paramount in the question — Can 
 Mary hear us ? — What can she do for us? — Does the Al- 
 mighty delegate vast powers to human individuals? — That 
 He certainly does, for it is the most prominent feature in 
 human affairs — The new Trinity of the Gospel narrative 
 made a heavenly vision — The house of Nazareth the first 
 
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. XXI 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Christian school — Belief the child of will — We all admit 
 this by supposing a moral difference with those who differ 
 from us — Foregone conclusions are universal, but they have 
 their day . 354 
 
 CHAPTER CXXIII. 
 
 EOMISH INVENTIONS. 
 
 Testifying to beliefs, not creating them — Fables and works of 
 fiction generally assume and illustrate moral and spiritual 
 truths — " Paradise Lost " and " Pilgrim's Progress " said 
 to have taken the jilace of the Bible in our popular theology * 
 
 — The " Assumption " believed for centuries before the 
 legend — The interventions and appearances founded on cor- 
 responding beliefs — The present age is itself re-writing and 
 re-moulding history to square it with its own notions . . 363 
 
 CHAPTER CXXIV. 
 
 THE FIELD or IMAGINATION. 
 
 Natural and Providential — In "high places," between earth 
 and heaven — A void that must and will be filled — Want 
 of a Hagiology in the Church of England — Driven to bor- 
 row from dissenters — Ward's " Deathbed Scenes " — Robert 
 Nelson in "Tracts for the Times" — A multitude of story 
 ■writers presenting themselves — The Church of England 
 does not gather up the records of humble Christian life — 
 The personages invented by our great novelists are as sub- 
 stantial and potent as if they were believed to have actually 
 existed — Kingsley gave tales instead of history — When 
 Newman began to publish in 1843 the " Lives of the Eng- 
 lish Saints," he had no choice but to produce them entire 
 
 — No practical difference between legends and admitted 
 tales, if the images take the same hold on the mind, and are 
 equally powerful for good or for ill 369 
 
 CHAPTER CXXV. 
 
 HOLT WHIT. 
 
 Traditional interpretations — The appeal to private judgment 
 — The negative tendency of thought and preaching had told 
 
xxii 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 
 
 on the national aocoptance of the Bible — Newman quoting 
 texts as they were, the glistening surface as well as the 
 metal within, made his hearers feel the Bible a reality and a 
 power — He made one feel that the Bible contained much 
 more than the popular interpreters had been allowing . . 377 
 
 CHAPTER CXXVI. 
 
 THE QUESTION OP THE DAT. 
 
 Eoman ways and English ways — Extravagances and defi- 
 ciencies — Order and license — Superstition and unbelief — 
 Impiety signifying nothing ; Popery much .... 382 
 
 CHAPTER CXXVII. 
 
 DISCONTINUANCE OF THE " BRITISH CRITIC." 
 
 Differences between England and Rome infinitesimal in com- 
 parison with what they hold in common, but socially and 
 politically important — Censures rained down on us — The 
 Bishop of Salisbury's censure reminded me of a passage in 
 the "Clouds" of Aristophanes — The four Tutors — Tom 
 Churton — Why did Newman call them "the four gentle- 
 men " ? — Perhaps because Tutors were now losing their 
 quasi-parental character — The ground shaking under us — 
 Newman's own retirement to Littlemore — To be or not to 
 be in the Church of England? — I was advancing — Could 
 I stop? — Could I retreat? — Decided to go forwards — 
 Wrote to Newman — Advised to wait and think well over 
 it — Gave up the " British Critic" — By the light of after 
 years, I was simply seeking rest, nowhere so easy as in the 
 Church of Rome 386 
 
 CHAPTER CXXVIII. 
 
 THE PROPRIETOR OF THE " BRITISH CRITIC." 
 
 Mr. Francis Rivington — His extreme kindness — Dinner at 
 Hampstead in the year of " Uncle Tom's Cabin " — Re- 
 minded of it by one of Dickens' ghastly stories . . . 395 
 
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 
 
 XXlll' 
 
 CHAPTER CXXIX. 
 
 WHERE LANDED. 
 
 FAOX 
 
 Not in my nature to pursue a long and regular inquiry in order 
 to a decision : Jior to wait for " calls " — Newman was in that 
 mood liimself — His account of liis conversion to Rome in 
 his "Apologia" compared with his Paper, 1832, on "Objec- 
 tive and Subjective Religion" — Felt I must decide soon, if 
 at all — My unfinished church — Could I hold the living, or 
 minister, while conscious of considering whether I was right 
 or wrong in so doing ? — Was I competent to the decision 1 
 — The shortcomings of my spiritual nature — I must have 
 a " call " to Rome, but felt sure I should not — In both 
 Churches, necessarily and admittedly, a large amount of pri- 
 vate beliefs and private practices — The argument against 
 Roman beliefs and practices, as Conyers Middleton has 
 treated it, equally cogent against all the Christian faith — 
 The common right of private judgment .... 399 
 
 ADDENDA. 
 
 Newman family acquaintances 403 
 
 William James Copleston — The cheerful and pleasant spirit 
 
 in which he bore a serious infliction ..... 409 
 Dr. Copleston's Pralections in poetry — Reading them with 
 Newman — Were the ancients wanting in the sense of the 
 
 picturesque 1 410 
 
 S. T. Coleridge's expostulations with Dr. Copleston . . 411 
 Dr. Darwin, father of Charles Darwin 412 
 
 "Themes" — Who read them at Oriel — Newman looking 
 over mine — Dr. Copleston sending for me, and asicing a 
 question which I only half answered — The "Spectator " — 
 The " Country Spectator " — Thomas Fanshawe Middleton 
 — His education and associates at Christ's Hospital — Com- 
 ing from Cambridge to Gainsbro', and, with my father, start- 
 ing the " Country Spectator " — My own fondness for the 
 book, and the value I set on it — Not fitting in well to Gains- 
 bro' — Charles Lamb running in our family — Threads of 
 moral and mental influence — My own early recollections — 
 How I was formed for my life's work 413 
 
 Pergussou on " Domes " — The true form of St. Peter's — The 
 
XXIV 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 
 
 PACE 
 
 chiircli at Moiista, in Malta, classed as the third dome in 
 Europe — About to be commenced iu 1833, when Froude was 
 at Malta — "Ideas in the air" — Tbe dome of Mousta an 
 improvement on all tlie older domes, both in construction 
 and effect — Built over the existing church, and without 
 
 scaffolding 419 
 
 The Oxford movement again — At what cost was it purcha'^ed ? 
 
 — Tlieology and literature — Classics have had full scope 
 and opportunity ; and a great development of schools and 
 teaching power — Nevertheless they do not hold their ground 
 
 — Banished from Parliament — Lord Sherbrooke's attempt 
 
 to supply their place with old English ballads . . . 422 
 Celestial phenomena — The great eclipse of 1820 — Singular 
 experience and its lesson — The momentary feeling of a 
 comet coming down on you Actually in the tail of a 
 comet, and noting the appearances — An earthquake at 
 
 Grindehvald 424 
 
 The fate of the Carthusian monks and Sir R. Peel's sympa- 
 thetic notice 428 
 
 The cholera at Oxford 423 
 
 Faith and Science — Buckland's lectures well attended — What 
 it was that provoked Keble, Froude, and Newman to stroug 
 expressions — Dr. Prichard's works read and admired — 
 Bucklaud talked to death at Stoiiehenge by an old woman 
 he had challeni^ed on the question of the Deluge — Edward 
 Deuisou, Strickland, Goodwin-Austen — Mills of Magdalene 
 preaching to the British Association on Science as the School 
 of Humility — Materialism self-annihilated — Requiring a 
 
 God to rescue it from itself 429 
 
 The cliarge of scepticism — Increasing homage and unbounded 
 offers made to Cardinal Newman — But on what conditions? 
 
 — On the condition that it is nothing he has been making all 
 this stir about, and that one faith is really as good as another 
 
 — My own early and constant sense of his deep earnestness 
 
 — He might indeed early in life have found iiimself pursued 
 by unbelief, and might have therefore resolved never to look 
 behind — Always pressing forward — Too occupied to doubt ; 
 or to linger in distractions that might have led to triaLs of 
 faith — Never critical — His activity not, like John Wesley's, 
 destructive and dividing, but uniting and carrying on. His 
 direction. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem — The hand of 
 Providence in the result of the Oxford movement — Shep- 
 herds found for the stray sheep — Two other events that 
 
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 
 
 XXV 
 
 may be found, the one the remedy of the other — The exclu- 
 sion of a religious faith from the education of tlie Kii};lish 
 working ch\ss, and the comparative independence achieved 
 in their own way by the Irish peasantry .... 434 
 Letter from Newman to the author in May, 1832 . . . 445 
 
T Ll Jil L? >-» O 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIX. 
 
 AIDS AND SUPPORTS. 
 
 There can seldom have occurred in the history of 
 the world such an example of many men of high 
 qualities and considerable promise, bringing their re- 
 spective powers and opportunities to a religious cause, 
 not clearly defined, and offering no earthly induce- 
 ment whatever. In those days everybody was to rise. 
 Ambition, whether in the Church or in any secular 
 service, was everywhere urged. The good books of 
 the period, whether for the poor or for the better off, 
 had their differences ; but in one thing they all 
 agreed. You were to rise ; you were to be a great 
 man ; your virtues were to be discovered, proclaimed, 
 and rewarded, and you were to end your days in a 
 blaze of triumph. Every boy whose quietness and 
 steadiness marked him for Holy Orders was reminded 
 by many examples that he might one day be a digni- 
 tary, perhaps even a bishop. Church patronage was 
 generally administered by and for aspirants ; and the 
 (piantity of what profane people called jobbery was, 
 consequently, enormous. 
 
 With all my real love and reverence for Russell, I 
 cannot recall that he once suggested what could be 
 
 VOL. II. 1 
 
2 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 properly called a religious motive, even in the simple 
 form of serving God and furtliering the interests of 
 the Church. The very lowest downfall he could 
 threaten idle boys with was that they would live to 
 be country curates, and even then they would have 
 to keep the accounts of a coal fund. It is only fair 
 to say that Russell devoted all the latter part of his 
 life to parochial duties and church work. When I 
 met him in the streets, he would invariably ask, 
 " What are you doing for us ? " meaning for the So- 
 cieties and occasional movements. It must be con- 
 sidered, too, that if he had ever offered the boys any 
 motive of a distinctly Christian character, it would 
 probably have been made a jest of, and it would have 
 caused holy names to be taken in vain. 
 
 This proves all the more the spirit of those days. 
 It may be pleaded in excuse for this intense earthly 
 greed that rising was then exceedingly difficult, be- 
 cause there were so few openings. There was a great 
 explosive force below, and an immense and compact 
 weight above ; so the ambition of the middle and 
 lower classes could only heave, surge, rumble, and oc- 
 casionally bellow. The instant a path to success or 
 an avenue to pi'omotion showed itself, it was crowded. 
 Greek scholarship, antiquities, and Iambics, every 
 kind of criticism, became the occupation of many 
 hundreds who looked to see what they could get by 
 them. Nobler minds revolted from the vulgarity of 
 such a pursuit, and perhaps excused their idleness or 
 their dreaminess on that score. 
 
 When the ti'umpet of no uncertain sound, as it 
 seemed, was now heard at Oxford, a direction was 
 given and no more. All were to retrace their steps 
 to an age of which they knew nothing, except that it 
 
AIDS AND SUPPORTS. 
 
 3 
 
 was in every respect the very contrary of that we live 
 in. As far as any hope of comfort, luxury, or splen- 
 dor was concerned, it was a march to the North Pole, 
 the Equator, or nowhere at all. That a dozen men 
 with golden futures should abandon them for such an 
 enterprise would be something; but hundreds did so, 
 and if I name a few, many of my readers could easily 
 and immediately double or quadruple the list. 
 
 In tliis place I wish only to enumerate them as I 
 should the candidates for an office, or the gifts laid on 
 the table of a bride ; though one or two may detain 
 me, to be dealt with once for all. 
 
 Copeland was an eminent and still rising man in 
 the University when he contributed to the " Tracts 
 for the Times," and the " Library of the Fathers." 
 Isaac Williams was a very considerable poet, and for 
 his share in the movement was beaten in the contest 
 for the Professorship of Poetry by a man who could 
 not write a line of poetry. Robert and Henry Wil- 
 berforce contributed, not the least part of their sacri- 
 fice, an illustrious name upon which England was 
 just then desirous to heap honors and rewards. The 
 former brought a wide range of reading and much 
 literary power ; the latter his full share in the pre- 
 cious heritage of a bright and sympathetic nature. 
 
 John F. Christie, born to be a poet and a novelist, 
 preached sermons and wrote articles and reviews in 
 the cause, and died comparatively young in the faith- 
 ful and diligent discharge of parochial duties. Long 
 after his death, a very distinguished man, and a very 
 good judge of character, observed to me that he could 
 not conceive Christie doing anything that he knew to 
 be wrong. Indeed he inherited from his Scotch ex- 
 traction a certain excess of scrupulosity, presenting a 
 strong contrast to the poetical side of his character. 
 
4 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Henry Bowden had been Newman's earliest friend 
 at Trinity. Together they revived at Oxford the for- 
 gotten memory of St. Bartholomew's Eve. Bowden 
 went along with his dear friend so far as to write, in 
 anytliing but a Protestant sense, the Life of Gregory 
 the Great, but no further, though his surviving family 
 could not rest wliere he had left them. 
 
 Prominent, if not the foremost of the group that 
 contended round Newman, but fighting battles of 
 their own, were two men, Oakley and Ward, as dif- 
 ferent as can well be imagined, but somehow as much 
 associated as Castor and Pollux, Damon and Pythias, 
 or any two inseparable pairs. The points in common 
 between them were that they were both Baliol men, 
 great names in the University, and very considerable 
 personages to come spontaneously, from a distant part 
 of the sphere, to a centre of attraction which did not 
 invite everybody. Both of them, having received 
 their new impulses, went ahead, disregarded warn- 
 ings, and defied control. As it had been entirely 
 their own choice to come, so they consulted their own 
 choice in going on. The differences between them 
 were great. 
 
 Oakley was a rather brilliant essayist, a poet, and 
 a musician. He was very impressible and impulsive. 
 Years before the movement, a clever but cynical Oriel 
 friend described him as so impressed by worship and 
 devotion, that if he should come upon a temple filled 
 with a multitude prostrate before an idol, he would 
 throw himself down amongst them. Nobody cared 
 less for himself, or took less care of himself. He 
 spent his life eventually serving a poor congregation, 
 chiefly Irish, in the not very attractive region of 
 Islington. He might be seen limping about the 
 
AIDS AND SUPPORTS. 
 
 5 
 
 streets of London — for he was very lame — a mis- 
 shapen fabric of bare bones, upon which hung some 
 very shabby canonicals. Yet his eye was bright, and 
 his voice, though sorrowful, was kind, and he was 
 always glad to greet an old friend. He could some- 
 times be induced to dine quietly at Lambeth and talk 
 over old daj's with the Primate. There was always 
 something aristocratic even in the wreck. 
 
 Ward was the very opposite in most personal 
 respects. He represented the intellectual force, the 
 irrefragable logic, the absolute self-confidence, and 
 the headlong impetuosity of the Rugby school. 
 Whatever he said or did was right. As a philoso- 
 pher and a logician it was hard to deal with him. 
 He had been instantaneously converted to Newman 
 by a single line in an introduction to one of his works, 
 to the effect that Protestantism could never have 
 corrupted into Popery. Instantaneous conversions do 
 not pretend to be amenable to the laws of reason, 
 but it can hardly be thought a necessary note of a 
 true Church, that it shall be easily and rapidly cor- 
 ruptible into something veiy different from its first 
 self. The conditions of the first three centuries, and 
 of the nineteenth, are so different that it is not pos- 
 sible to make a comparison between the Christians 
 of the two periods ; and any one who seriously sets 
 about such a comparison will encounter a few sur- 
 prises. Ward's weight in tlie University was great, 
 and that weight he brought to Newman's cause, 
 though eventually he became a very unaccommodat- 
 ing and unmanageable member of the crew. Ward, 
 I must add, was a great musical critic, knew all the 
 operas, and was an admirable buffo singer. 
 
 Robert J. Wilson, besides some literary power. 
 
6 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 brouglit a large stock of those social qualities which 
 in this country are the readiest means of advance- 
 ment in any walk of private or public life. If he 
 gave way to his humor till it became his leading 
 quality, that measures the sacrifice he had to make 
 when he addressed himself to ecclesiastical and theo- 
 logical questions, and the hard drudgery of transla- 
 tion. 
 
 Oldham was no inconsiderable figure in the group; 
 a man of sure sense, invariable good nature, and solid 
 abilities. He was never young, and promised never 
 to be old, for when I saw him at the age of seventy, 
 he looked scarcely older than he did at nineteen. If 
 Wilson could find so much to amuse him in Oldham's 
 singular staidness of character, he will not be sur- 
 prised to find himself associated with his friend. 
 
 Woodgate, of St. John's, was one of the most im- 
 portant accessions from the outer circle. He was 
 about the most popular man at Oxford, or wherever 
 there were Oxford men, whether in Newman's cause, 
 or when that cause had lost its chief. His popularity, 
 however, depended latterly rather on some special 
 unction or singular grace, beaming and warming 
 through his face and his manner, than on the par- 
 ticular gifts by which it is usually acquired. He 
 could not speak intelligibly, or hear distinctly; nor 
 would he write with couimon care. Yet the very 
 sight of his caput honestum, as he strove to know 
 what was going on, and to say something to the pur- 
 pose, but in vain, moved all hearts to love and accord. 
 It only proves how little reason has to do with the 
 affections, even in the greatest of causes. 
 
 Woodgate was Bampton lecturer about this time. 
 He took the subject everybody was then talking and 
 
AIDS AND SUPPORTS. 
 
 7 
 
 writing about, Scripture and Tradition, and the 
 thesis he maintained was not itself difficult. When 
 there were no Christian Scriptures, there must have 
 been oral teaching, and till that teaching was com- 
 mitted to writing by the teacher it must have re- 
 mained oral tradition. The same circumstances and 
 Ihe same necessity must have continued in greater or 
 less degree, and must still continue. Woodgate was 
 said to afford a prq,ctical illustration of his thesis. 
 Like some other Bampton lecturers, he mounted St. 
 Mary's pulpit every Sunday with his lecture only 
 half written, and after ten minutes, in default of 
 Scripture, his hearers had to be content with oral 
 tradition. Modest as the scope of his argument was, 
 he knew what he was about, which Shuttleworth did 
 not. Baden Powell entered the lists with " Tradition 
 Unveiled," in a way which unveiled Scripture also, 
 and proved, at all events, that they have a common 
 cause. 
 
 Rogers, now Lord Blacliford, a distinguished Eto- 
 nian, member of an old Plymouth family, numbei'ing 
 among its worthies John Rogers, the Marian proto- 
 martyr, and another John Rogers, a not less consistent 
 and obstinate Fifth Monarchy man, brought to New- 
 man's cause a lawyer's career and prospects of office, 
 guaranteed by sound scholarship, practical judgment, 
 and very great industry. 
 
 Samuel Wood, brother of Charles, now Earl of 
 Halifax, with his brother's politics, and, it may be 
 added, his brother's abilities, had great possibilities 
 before him, but he became warmly attached to New- 
 man, and to the cause. I remember a discussion I 
 had with him at Golightly's lodgings, opposite Merton 
 Chapel, on Canning's policy. Warm I was going to 
 
8 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 call it, but tlie warmth was on my side, the coolness 
 on his. He knew much moi'e about the matter than 
 I did, and people seldom come well out of a con- 
 troversy if they are not so well informed as their 
 opponent. I might perhaps have known more of the 
 matter before 1825, but on coming to Oxford I had 
 dropped politics, and only retained some general ideas 
 and personal antipathies or predilections. 
 
 Church, named above, the present Dean of St. 
 Paul's, brought high critical powers, and a large 
 stock of that poetry and philosophy which are never 
 seen so well as together, and which enabled him to 
 invest with a light new to English eyes the career of 
 Anselm, the period and the work of Dante, and the 
 christianizing of the Empire. In this he had to en- 
 counter Gibbon, and to qualify Milman. 
 
 George D. Ryder, one of Newman's early pupils, 
 brought a name then high in the Church as well as 
 in the State, much and deservedly reverenced in the 
 religious world. But he had also qualities that made 
 him valuable as well as dear to a large circle of 
 friends ; kindness, a quaint humor, knowledge of men 
 and things, and the finer perceptions most easily 
 learnt in good society. 
 
 Medley, leader in Burton's private classes, and, 
 after making his mark in Devonshire, Bishop of 
 Newfoundland, undertook a translation of Chr^^sos- 
 tom. Charles Thornton, bearer of a respected name, 
 and in charge of what was then a very dingy chapel 
 in Margaret Street, undertook Cyprian. Hubert 
 Cornish, with the talents and gentle manner of his 
 family, and at that time taking pupils at a curacy, 
 undertook some of Chrysostom's Homilies. Mac- 
 mullen, with a University career before him, joined 
 
AIDS AND SUPPORTS. 
 
 9 
 
 the cause at every risk, and stood the consequences. 
 Cotton, a man of much power and promise, gave his 
 help. 
 
 Albany J. Christie, of the eminent family of auc- 
 tioneers, had come up with special introductions from 
 Blanco White and Whately, and had taken high 
 honors. Becoming Fellow of Oriel, he took a strong 
 line in favor of clerical celibacy, and rendered New- 
 man material assistance in his edition of a selected 
 portion of Fleury's " Ecclesiastical History." He 
 finally entered the Roman Catholic Church, and the 
 medical profession. 
 
 James Round, a Fellow and tutor of Baliol, and 
 father of the Conservative member for Essex, gave a 
 hearty though safe contribution in an edition of the 
 works of the nonjuring Bishop Ken. Dodsworth, first 
 at Margaret Street, then at Christ Church, Albany 
 Street, early gave all he had to bring to the cause, 
 and followed Newman to Rome. 
 
CHAPTER LXX. 
 
 J. B. MORRIS, EDWARD CASWELL, AND DALGAIRNS. 
 
 John Brande Morris, otherwise " Jack Morris," 
 or " Symeon Stylites," when I saw him was occupy- 
 ing the upperiiif)st story of the tower over the gate- 
 way of Exeter College. His room was a chaos of 
 books, out of which rose three or four tall reading- 
 stands, upon each of which were open folios in tiers, 
 the upper resting on the lower. The first produc- 
 tion of his pen that 1 ever saw was " Nature a Par- 
 able." Quaint as it is, and difficult as it is occa- 
 sionally, it was and is to me a very interesting book. 
 Newman has always stood by it most resolutely, pro- 
 nouncing it a beautiful poem. There are beautiful 
 touches and beautiful passages in it, but I have not 
 myself the courage to call the whole beautiful in the 
 face of the very strong expressions I sometimes hear 
 to the contrary effect. You have to understand and 
 accept a certain groundwork, of which this poem is 
 the natural growth. That groundwork is that Nat- 
 ure is much more than a Parable, at least that a true 
 Christian makes it much more. The book excited a 
 storm of indignant criticism when it came out, and 
 from a purely literary point of view it was vulnerable. 
 But where there was so much to be found fault with, 
 it was hardly necessary that a reviewer, finding a 
 line about missionaries ending with " wives that eat," 
 should stop the quotation there and omit the follow- 
 
J. B. MORRIS, E. CASWELL, AND DALGAIRNS. 11 
 
 ing line, signifying that they absorbed too much of 
 their husbands' time and attention. My own opinion 
 is that Morris ought always to have written nothing 
 but poetry, and that in that case he might have be- 
 come a great poet. His line of thought is not one 
 that readily adapts itself to prose. 
 
 When I edited the " British Critic " for two years, 
 I received an article from Morris, I believe the one 
 on " Pantheistic Tendencies," April, 1842. Never 
 in my life did I see such a crabbed, complicated, 
 twisted, uninteUigible piece of English. Though my 
 time was precious, the day of publication approach- 
 ing, MSS. coming in, and myself with much in hand, 
 I sat up one whole night trying to lick the cub into 
 shape ; to make it comprehensible, or at least not 
 wholly unfit to appear. Yet I doubt whether many 
 read the article, or whether I did any good by my 
 pains, except try the writer's admirable temper. 
 
 Morris, I presume, wished to be understood. His 
 "Nature a Parable" is intelligible, even though the 
 meaning lies under the surface, between the lines, 
 and not always in the text. But prose does not gen- 
 erally admit of letting the meaning play about in the 
 air. In the article I am speaking of Morris seemed 
 to aim at bringing as ma^y mysteries as he could 
 into a sentence, leaving them to struggle which would 
 first present themselves to the reader. Morris un- 
 derto k some of Chrysostora's Homilies. Whether 
 he excelled most as a translator or as an original 
 writer I could not say. 
 
 Edward Caswell, also, was one of the quaintest of 
 men, but he was quaint after the manner of men. 
 He was younger brother of Henry Caswell, who, from 
 certain misgivings as to English Orders, and the 
 
12 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 political complications of the English Church, took 
 American Orders, and wrote about the American and 
 Canadian churches. Henry published also an ac- 
 count of Mormonism, for which purpose he visited 
 the " Prophet " in his city. Soon after that he came 
 home to spend the rest of his days in the heart of 
 Salisbury Plain. Edward had a vein of humor all 
 his own. When an undergraduate he wrote the "Art 
 of Pluck." This humor he had to chastise, but it 
 occasionally broke out, and might be detected even 
 in his serious writings. He loved to ho%'er free be- 
 tween the seen and the unseen world. 
 
 He had for some years the charge of Stratford- 
 sub-Castle, near Salisbury, containing the famous 
 borough of Old Sarum, and himself occupying an old 
 mansion full of historical associations. When on a 
 visit at his house, he entertained me with the prob- 
 able meditations of a toad that had been found under 
 the pavement of the church, where it must have 
 been, hearing though not seeing all that passed above, 
 for centuries. As Caswell had to leave early the 
 next morning, I was asked to take the eai-ly daily 
 service for him. The congregation consisted of the 
 clerk, some school children, and a bright-looking old 
 fellow, with a full rubicund face and a profusion of 
 white hair. The service over, the children went to 
 the parsonage for the breakfast they had well earned. 
 The old gentleman hung behind, waiting for me. 
 He expressed his warm approval of the daily service. 
 When people had nothing else to do, they could not 
 do better than say prayers. For his part his work 
 was over, and he was proud of it. He had been the 
 Borough of Old Sarum, and had returned two repre- 
 sentatives to Parliament for forty years, all honest 
 
J. B. MORRIS, E. CASWELL, AND DALGAIRNS. 13 
 
 inen and gentlemen, not tbe sort of fellows they were 
 sending to Parliament " in tliese days." 
 
 Caswell followed Newman to Rome, and was for 
 many years associated with him at Edgbaston. His 
 wife had died young. It was stated that he gave all 
 her fortune to religious uses, — masses for the repose 
 of her soul, so people expressed it, possibly putting 
 their own construction on the matter. 
 
 Dalgairns was a man whose very looks assured suc- 
 cess in whatever he undertook, if only the inner heat, 
 which seemed to burn through his eyes, could be well 
 regulated. His account of the Abbesses Ang^lique 
 and Marie des Anges, two leading figures in the his- 
 tory of Port Royal, deserved the unqualified admi- 
 ration of all sides ; but one side at least made the 
 discovery that these ladies did not patronize the laun- 
 dress, or " tub," quite as often as is now the custom 
 of genteel society, and heavy was the storm of indig- 
 nation that fell on Dalgairns. He went with Newman 
 to Littlemore, and thence to Edgbaston. This, so 
 far as the Church of England is concerned, was the 
 end of a man who, I feel sure, might have taken his 
 place among the most popular and instructive writers 
 of the age, and become a household word in England. 
 
 As I tell these names, and feebly recount their 
 services, other names, and other still pierce through 
 the haze of many years. The constellation grows, and 
 brightens, and surrounds me. Some have gone their 
 way, and I have gone mine. There has been failure 
 and shortcoming ; decaj' of mental power, and diminu- 
 tion of lustre, not without touch of sadder infirmity. 
 There have been mistakes, miscalculations, and ex- 
 travagances, with humbling and mortifying conse- 
 quences. But in no like cause, or like number or 
 
14 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 kind of men, was there ever less to be remembered 
 ■with shame. If I may estimate tliem by the measure 
 of my own feelings, they are all good and true men ; 
 they are a goodly company that will never wholly 
 part, and what they lack of present unity or other 
 fulfilment, they will hereafter enjoy. 
 
CHAPTER LXXI. 
 
 WILLIAM FKOUDE. 
 
 William Froude gave his heart in with his 
 brother's work at Oriel, though his turn even then 
 was for science, and his lot was eventually cast in 
 railway engineering and naval construction. He was 
 the chemist as well as the mechanist of the college. 
 His rooms on the floor over Newman's were easily 
 distinguishable to visitors entering the college, by the 
 stains, of sulphuric acid I think, extending from the 
 window sills to the ground. The Provost must some- 
 times have had to explain this appearance to his 
 inquiring guests, as they could not but observe it 
 from his drawing-room window. 
 
 He made laughing-gas and kept a depot in his 
 rooms. Tliis was freely resorted to with various and 
 ridiculous results. It was about this time that an 
 officer superintending the recruiting service, who used 
 regularly to attend Daubeny's lectures in the base- 
 ment of the Ashmolean, upon taking huighing-gas, 
 attacked the company so vigorously that in half a 
 minute he had the room to himself. One of the 
 sweetest tempered men I ever knew, upon taking the 
 gas, doubled his fists, and made menacing gestures at 
 the company, with a smile which seemed to say that 
 he could soon get the better of us all if he wished 
 it. Cameron, no doubt from the North, imbibed 
 the harmless intoxication, and immediately while 
 
 I 
 
16 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 retaining his sedentary posture, revolved round his 
 seat as far as the back would allow, making a won- 
 derful burring sound. He afterwards explained that 
 he had imagined himself a regiment of cavalry per- 
 forming rapid evolutions. 
 
 I declined to partake of either Daubeny's gas or 
 W. Fronde's. Hurrell Froude asked me vfhy. I 
 said I could not voluntarily put myself beyond my 
 own control. He replied, " Then you must not go to 
 bed." Of course the answer to that is that one must 
 sleep, but one need not take laughing-gas, and that 
 sleep is an ordinance of the Almighty, which laugh- 
 ing-gas cannot be called, excejjt in the same sense that 
 alcohol may be. Froude brought down liis appai'atus 
 one day to Henry Wilberforce's rooms, when Robert 
 happened to be there, myself also. Robert imbibed, 
 and in a minute was pursuing us all about the room 
 with cushions or anything he could lay hold of. 
 While we were all dodging him, James Bliss entered 
 with an old Oriel relative, who had high ideas of col- 
 lege propriety, and was somewhat surprised to find 
 liimself immediately belabored by a tutor he had 
 heard much of, but never seen before. 
 
 William Froude took a small Oxford sailing boat, 
 strengthened its frame, decked it fore and aft, and 
 himself made a pump with which he could discharge 
 the water as fast as a waterman standing in the river 
 could throw it in with a bucket. He gave much 
 study and pains to the work, putting it to severe 
 tests. His intention was to sail down tlie Thames 
 and the Channel, up the Dart, and surprise his father 
 at Dartington. But he wanted a comrade, as he 
 must sleep, and might find himself in difiiculties. He 
 asked me to share the perils of the voyage. I was 
 
WILLIAM FROUDE. 
 
 17 
 
 charmed witli the idea, assented, and made my plans 
 accordingly. The day before oar intended cruise he 
 chanced to make the timely discovery that I had not 
 the least idea of navigation, and that I trusted entirely 
 to mother wit to get me safe through. He did not 
 think this sufficient, and either gave up the scheme 
 or carried it out in a very modified form, the boat 
 making its appearance in the Dart somehow or other. 
 
 William Froude worked some years, under Brunei, 
 in laying out the Bristol and Exeter Railway, and 
 from the way in which I have heard him speak of 
 his master's tendency to grand and costly ideas, I 
 conclude that he did something to check his extrava- 
 gance in this part of the Gx'eat Western system. 
 
 For many years before his death he was labori- 
 ously and anxiously, but successfully employed in 
 experiments upon the respective resistance which 
 various forms of vessels meet with when in motion 
 through water, and also upon flotation and oscilla- 
 tion. The conclusion come to, and mathematically 
 as well as experimentally demonstrated, was that 
 there had been great mistakes. One way of putting 
 it was that whereas it had always been supposed a 
 ship was a fish, it is really a duck. It is one of those 
 truths that have only to be pointed out and one sees 
 the reason. These experiments were conducted in a 
 tank a hundred yards long, under a shed, with an 
 engine at one end. The engine drew the various 
 models through the water at various rates of speed, 
 and there was an apparatus for measuring the tension 
 of the rope, which would of course indicate the force 
 necessary to be employed, which would be according 
 ^ to the resistance of the water in each case. Tliere 
 was also an apparatus for producing a storm. It is 
 
 VOL. II. 2. 
 
18 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 to be feared the work and the extreme delicacy of 
 the experiments, not to speak of tlie elaborate calcu- 
 lations necessary, proved too much for W. Froude. 
 So it appeared to me when I visited him several 
 years before he succumbed. 
 
CHAPTER LXXII. 
 
 THOMAS STEVENS. 
 
 Others there were, men of position, hopes of 
 families, and destined pillars of society or centres of 
 some local woi'ld. Some had extraordinary powers 
 not finding their scope in the beaten track of life, 
 and only to show themselves in something approach- 
 ing to eccentricity. Of these, several contributed to 
 the movement their friendship and their influence, 
 with a sincerity costing their life's work, and all they 
 had in the world. One of the first examples to occur 
 to Oriel men will be Thomas Stevens, the Founder 
 and Warden of Bradfield College. 
 
 It is often said that the child is father of the man, 
 but the child is more easily seen in the man, than the 
 man in the child. To be the founder of a public 
 school, designed to emulate, and in some important 
 respects to surpass, those which are among the glories 
 of England, was about the very last thing that could 
 have been imagined of " Tom Stevens." Nobody 
 so easy, nobody so pleasant to get on with, nobody 
 so full and overflowing with practical matters. But 
 classics and literature did not seem his line. He was 
 a true child of Nature, and of her kindliest mould. 
 There was a homely wit and rural dignity about him 
 that always recalled green fields, water-rights, tim- 
 ber-falling, and harvest time. Such a character was 
 a pleasant contrast to those who had their fortunes 
 
20 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 still to make, or had had large fortunes provided for 
 them. The heir of two or three thousand acres is 
 but a small man compared with the heir of half a 
 county, or better still half a suburb. But there was 
 something free, ready, and wholesome in Stevens' 
 talk, that usually seemed solid ground to rest upon. 
 
 He had a troop of friends about him, always at 
 home there. Like most genial men he had special 
 couimand over nature, as well as the human kind ; 
 though I think it was not he, but his friend John 
 Marriott, who could call a cuckoo and make it perch 
 a few yards from him. Thomas Stevens kept a tame 
 snake in his room, which he could whistle out of its 
 hole in the floor for a saucer of milk at breakfast 
 time. He rented an apartment in the town where 
 he used to employ himself, properly armed and at- 
 tired, for hours in stuffing birds. Going out one 
 morning with his gun to Bagley Wood, he bronght 
 home fifty different species and varieties. But there 
 were arriving also, in various stages of preservation, 
 birds from Norway and other countries. The museum 
 he established at Bradfield soon contained two hun- 
 dred and fifty specimens, all of his own stuffing. 
 Every now and then Stevens had to go home, and 
 sacrifice a term, in looking after his father's property, 
 for his father was squire as well as rector, and in 
 years. When he returned to college it was to talk 
 of saw-mills, crops, wages, and poor-rates. 
 
 Not very long after taking his degree, Stevens 
 formed his own Poor Law Union, and had some 
 very hard fights with the prejudices which prevailed 
 against the new system. The Bradfield Poor Law 
 Union was so well formed, and worked so well, that 
 the department pressed him into its service, and 
 
THOMAS STEVENS. 
 
 21 
 
 made him Assistant Poor Law Commissioner. In 
 that capacity he drove over the country far and wide, 
 wherever there was a bit of rough work to be done, 
 a refractory Board of Guardians, or some old Par- 
 liamentary Union obstinately persisting in its own 
 lines. 
 
 Stevens had at last to take orders and settle. His 
 father's friends told him he must do as his fathers 
 had done, for they had been rectors and squires of 
 Bradfield for two centuries. But Stevens inherited 
 a practical genius which could not find its whole 
 sphere even in this double character. It is not very 
 difficult to hold to one career, but when a man has 
 added a second to it he immediately wants a third. 
 There are " Jacks of all trades," but never of two. 
 
 An ancestor of Stevens had been captain-general 
 of Charles I.'s wagon train, or transport service, and 
 in constant communication with that king and his 
 ministers, at Oxford and elsewhere. He had man- 
 aged to keep them and their horses well supplied 
 with food and other requisites under very difficult 
 circumstances, doing much of his work by night, and 
 making distant forays, with the connivance of the 
 Royalist proprietors, whose corn, hay, and straw he 
 carried off to the Royalist headquarters. 
 
 Stevens was nephew of Tinney, the eminent 
 Chancery lawyer, and had thus legal as well as prac- 
 tical ability in his blood. When, tlierefore, on the 
 death of his father, he finally settled in his double 
 position at Bradfield, it was on the express condition 
 that he was to do "something," Whatever he did 
 grew in his hands. Perhaps the spirit of Oriel, and 
 the contagion of Newman, told in that. He put his 
 hand to his village church, and it became a small 
 
 I 
 
22 
 
 REMIXISCENCES. 
 
 cathedral. The little organ grew into a big one. 
 Two or thi'ee village lads multiplied into a choir. 
 They must have some education, and so there came 
 a good school ; two indeed, one better than the other. 
 The better school grew into a college, with magnifi- 
 cent buildings, on Stevens' own land, a few hundred 
 yards from his front windows. He trained his own 
 artisans. A lad was apprenticed to him to learn the 
 trade of a blacksmith, and became a second Quentin 
 Matsys, and might perhaps have grown into au 
 Apelles. But the founder had to be warden, and to 
 maintain the life of the college as well as its bodily 
 frame. He had to manage schoolmasters, a race that 
 loves its own way, and cannot easily work in harness. 
 
 Who could have expected such a development from 
 the bird-stufTer and land-bailiff? Yet it can be easily 
 traced backwards, especially if we take into account 
 the element of a nobler ambition supplied by a resi- 
 dence in those davs in the circle of Newman's friends 
 at Oriel College. The generous flame caught a rich 
 material, and it burnt well. 
 
 That there was a vast and lamentable intermixture 
 of error in all this outcome is no more than must 
 be admitted of all movements whatever. There was 
 much exaggeration ; there was excessive self-confi- 
 dence ; there was often the disregard of sound advice 
 and the plain dictates of common sense; thei'e was 
 the reading of providence by the light of one's own 
 inclination, and there was even a neglect of the 
 homely maxim, " Be just before you are generous." 
 The fate of Radley I have to tell. The elder of 
 the two Monroes, who were at Oriel about this time, 
 founded a school at Harrow Weald for the trans- 
 mutation of raw ploughboys into sweet choristers and 
 
THOMAS STEVENS. 
 
 23 
 
 good scholars, and he easily obtained the assistance 
 of confiding college friends, philanthropists, and dig- 
 nitaries. It was a forcing-house, and wanted money 
 to keep it going; money, and more money. When 
 that failed, the little paradise collapsed, and Monro 
 found himself and his poor protiges under the iron 
 heel of vulgar necessity. 
 
 Bradfield College survives, but has ruined its 
 founder. He started in that complex and absolute 
 position which Englishmen seem to have a special 
 weakness for, and Aviiich they seem to tolerate in 
 everything and everybody, except the Pope. He 
 was rector, squire, priest, and king. His house was 
 parsonage and mansion, all in one. To this hybrid 
 form he must add the material plant, and the warden- 
 ship of a most magnificent college. It was calculated 
 to flourish and pay its way on 150 scholars, and there 
 really seemed no reason why it should not attain that 
 measure of popularity, and even exceed it. But the 
 competition, both that from the beginning and that 
 which came after, was overwhelming. Marlborough 
 was already in the field, Woodard was now starting 
 his first, second, and third-class schools all over the 
 kingdom. Wellington College rose like a mirage in 
 a summer's day, peopling a waste. Reading devel- 
 oped a public school. All the public schools were 
 putting on steam. Charterhouse went down into the 
 country within a walk of Berkshire, which, with Eton 
 at one end and Oxford at the other, and half a dozen 
 private schools midway, was now the school-ground 
 of England. These rivals had the benefit of ancient 
 foundations, noble and wealthy benefactors, national 
 subscriptions, or Royal patronage ; some had a strong 
 hereditary hold on the best blood of the nation. 
 
24 
 
 REJflNISCENCES. 
 
 Stevens had to do everything himself. Every pound 
 in his pocket, every acre, every brick and stone, in 
 his ancient patrimony, did the Warden of Bi'adfield 
 College throw into the tremendous venture, fighting 
 against such odds as no hero of romance ever en- 
 countered. It was all in vain, and Bradfield College 
 has now that touch of tragic interest which in one 
 way or another is ever to be found in the noblest of 
 human enterprises. 
 
CHAPTER LXXIII. 
 
 WILT J AM SEWELL. 
 
 William Sewell, the founder of Radley College, 
 ■was for a long time one of the most prominent men 
 in the University, and always before the public as the 
 most industx'ious of readers and of writers. Had he 
 thought a little more he might have written to more 
 purpose ; and had he tried for less he might have 
 obtained more. Newman observed that he had a 
 word ready for everything. His words and his ideas 
 thus fitted too quickly, and he never had occasion 
 to see them better mated, or to improve either his 
 conceptions or his expi'essions. Hard tliinkers like 
 Hampden called him namby-pamby, that is, with- 
 out solidity, consistency, and formation. He had an 
 exuberance of style which oddly corresponded to the 
 rotundity of his face and form. However, there was 
 fire within, and he was ambitious and enterprising. 
 His rooms were a show. 
 
 When the Professorship of IVIoral Philosophy was 
 founded or revived, it suggested itself to a good many 
 minds not likely, for one reason or another, to find a 
 vocation in any other professorship. Sewell, to be 
 beforehand, established a Moral Philosophy Club, 
 which was to meet at the members' rooms in succes- 
 sion, to hear papers and to hold discussions. In effect 
 it was he who wrote and he who talked, for the rest 
 were unprepared, and he was always well prepared ; 
 
26 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 indeed, only too happy to make up for everybody's 
 default. This proved a great encouragement to the 
 general idleness. 
 
 On one occasion, when all were assembled at Sew- 
 ell's own rooms, and nobody had anything to read 
 or to say, Sewell, rose to the rescue. He had been 
 reading a very learned woi'k on the interior history 
 of Mahoraedanism. It presented in all respects the 
 most marvelhms correspondence to the history of 
 the Christian Church ; exactly corresponding schools, 
 sects, divisions, controversies, tendencies, shades of 
 thought, and varieties of practice. Point at anything 
 in the Christian Church, and Sewell could put his 
 finger on the Mahomedan equivalent. Mutato nomine, 
 the two things were the same; that is, the same mor- 
 ally and intellectually, and in what most people hold 
 to be the substance of religion. Sewell gave illustra- 
 tions, and named the Fathers, the Reformers, the 
 leaders of thought, and the founders of schools in 
 Mahomedanism, the very counterpart of our own. In 
 truth, Cffisar was very like Pompey, and as to be like 
 is a feminine and dependent quality, it followed that 
 Mahomedanism was the likest of the two. Sewell 
 was still dilating in this strain, and seemingly on the 
 eve of still more startling disclosures, when the clock 
 told us time was up. The club looked like a club ; 
 it said nothing, asked no questions, and parted, sadder 
 perhaps, but not very much the wiser. There was not 
 much gained by having it made out so satisfactorily 
 that Turk is only another name for Christian, that 
 is, for the Christian corresponding to the Turkish 
 variety. 
 
 At another meeting of the club in Oriel College, 
 Sewell had made a great coup. He had got Jacob- 
 
WILLIAM SEWELL. 
 
 27 
 
 son to come. The discussion was desultoiy ; but 
 Sewell had contributed so ample a share that he 
 could justly claim the honors of the day. Turning 
 round, he rallied some of the members on the small- 
 ness of their contributions to the day's entertainment. 
 They were used to it, and submitted. He felt em- 
 boldened to attack the new member. " Jacobson, I 
 think you 've said nothing to be remembered." "Nor 
 heard," was all the I'eply ; and so began and ended 
 Jacobson 's relations to the club. 
 
 Jacobson cannot be named without a word more. 
 To think of a man being the dear, admired, and 
 trusted friend of two such different and differently 
 circumstanced men as Henry Wilberforce and John 
 Thaddeus Delane, the late and long editor of the 
 " Times " ! Newman, I must say, was a little sur- 
 prised when Jacobson took charge of IfHey, delivered 
 seventeen discourses, published them as Parochial 
 Sermons, and gave up his charge. 
 
 But to return to W. Sewell. He became Professor 
 of Moral Philosophy, and was considered to do New- 
 man good service both as professor and also as a 
 writer of reviews. In 1839 there was a more im- 
 portant professorship, that of Logic, to be filled. The 
 University itself, it should be borne in mind, had lit- 
 tle to give in those days, while the expectants were 
 many. The final list of candidates for this position 
 was Mitchell, Lowe, Vaughan, Wall, Stocker, Lan- 
 caster, Sewell, and Hill of St. Edmund Hall. In the 
 letter from Rogers, now Lord Blachford, containing 
 the list, and dated May 24, 1839, every name is un- 
 derlined to show the extraordinary character of the 
 conjunction. How many more lines might he add 
 now ! Sewell had called on Newman. He had been 
 
28 
 
 REJIINISCENCES. 
 
 a little afraid that by jumping into the candidature 
 he might incur the opposition of Newman, or of his 
 friends. So he came with a sop. This was nothing 
 less than a hope, implying the use of his influence, 
 that upon his own election to the chair of Logic 
 Newman might succeed to his own cast-ofE shoes, 
 that is, the chair of Moral Philosophy. He would 
 use his influence for Newman in that matter, even 
 though it would not be without some sacrifice, for he 
 did apprehend that Newman's treatment of moral 
 philosophy might diverge from his own. However, 
 the word was passed among Newman's friends to 
 support Sewell, and that earnestly. 
 
 Four years before this, in 1835, Sewell had offered 
 himself for the head-mastership of Winchester Col- 
 lege, when Moberly was elected. He was said to 
 be much disappointed. As tutor of his college, he 
 did little else but talk to his pupils, especially those 
 that he thought he could most rely on to benefit by 
 his talking, or who might become men of influence. 
 The result was they got wearied with his talk ; for- 
 got it; didn't get up their books, and lost their 
 honors. 
 
 Sewell stai-ted Radley College, literally squatting, 
 that is, holding by a temporary and precarious tenure, 
 on the estate to which Sir George Bowj'er has now 
 long succeeded. The institution was made the op- 
 portunity of some grand experiments, and of course 
 was over-built, and had to go through the common 
 experience of economical reverses. There ensued a 
 sad deficit, ascribed to a careless and unbusiness-like 
 brother, who had the management of the accounts. 
 
 Henry Wilberforce sent a dear son there, who died 
 at the college, as the parents thought, grossly neg- 
 
WILLIAM SEWELL. 
 
 29 
 
 lected, and without their being prepared for the sad 
 news. Henry hastened to Radley, but instead of 
 being allowed to vent his grief and complaints, he 
 found himself soundly rated by Sewell for sending so 
 delicate a child there, and injuring, by his inevitable 
 death, the good name of the college. 
 
 The system pursued was mediasval, as far as names 
 could go. Sewell himself was warden, and delighted 
 in the exercise of monastic discipline and the use 
 of monastic phraseology. The religious newspapers 
 were appalled to hear that Radley boys went every 
 night to their " cubicles." However, the college holds 
 its gi'ound, and is one outcome of the Oxford move- 
 ment ; so at least its enemies have long been pro- 
 claiming. 
 
CHAPTER LXXIV. 
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FEOUDE. 
 
 Among the Oriel worthies associated with the 
 movement is one who stands in a very different cate- 
 gory from the above. I cannot pass without notice 
 James Anthony Froude, for he has invited a con- 
 troversy as to his relations with Newman and the 
 "Tractarians," and has himself contributed to it with 
 some variety of feeling and expression. It is plainly 
 a matter in which it is allowable, and indeed impor- 
 tant, that I should present my monograph of one 
 who has had a very peculiar and significant part as- 
 signed to him in these discussions, and who has 
 become one of our first essayists, historians, and 
 politicians. 
 
 Besides my long friendship with the two elder 
 brothers, I resided at Oriel during the first year of 
 Anthony's undergraduateship ; I was in the same 
 staircase with him, and had official relations to him. 
 I ceased to be a Fellow in September, 1836, and from 
 that date I resided in Salisbury Plain ; but I had a 
 brother then residing in the college, another brother 
 residing in Oxford, and Newman was then my 
 brother-in-law. With all thesa I was in correspond- 
 ence, and was occasionally seeing them, and visiting 
 Oxford. 
 
 The first thing I heard about Anthony Froude was 
 that immediately upon coming up he showed himself 
 
JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. 
 
 31 
 
 very shy of Newman. It was Newman, probably, who 
 had managed that he should have his brother's old 
 rooms, over his own, and this he objected to. He 
 was not going to be in leading-strings. Newman had 
 parties, chiefly undergraduate, in the common room 
 every Tuesday evening, and he could not fail to in- 
 vite the brother of his two old friends, but I believe 
 I am right in saying that Anthony seldom came. My 
 brother James was engaged in the most ' laborious 
 work of his laborious life, editing the " Remains of 
 Richard Hurrell Froude," but I do not believe he had 
 much, if any, communication with Anthony. All 
 this was quite compatible with a high admiration of 
 I Newman's character, preaching, talking, and writing. 
 That admiration was then shared by many at Oxford, 
 and elsewhere, who after allowing themselves to be 
 carried away by a chain of argument or a flow of 
 eloquence, would suddenly break the spell, as they 
 felt it to be, by a violent protest. Anthony Froude 
 had a great admiration for his father and for his 
 brother, but while he admired he felt oppressed and 
 repelled. The mightier the influence, the more he 
 struggled against it. I believe he felt the same ne- 
 cessity for self-assertion in regard to Newman. He 
 certainly derived much of his style from Newman, 
 for it is hard to say whom else he could have derived 
 it from. It is far more imaginative and poetic ; far 
 more capable of carrying the reader away, and plac- 
 ing him in a new and unexpected position, than tho 
 style of any one else about him. But if, under this 
 fascination, feeling it, and to some extent yielding to 
 it, Anthony kept the party and the movement at 
 arm's length, and did it perhaps rather roughly, there 
 was nothing to blame in it, or even to remark upon. 
 
32 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Why should a young fellow of seventeen or eighteen, 
 coming to Oxford, for study, for society, for amuse- 
 ment, for honors, and for getting on in the world, 
 bother himself about such matters as the Tracts were 
 "written upon ? Whj^ should he busy himself in all 
 the details of Becket's career, commit himself against 
 the Royal Supremacy, and bewilder himself amongst 
 the Early Fathers ? If he had consulted the Provost 
 I am quite sure the Provost would have advised him 
 to leave all these things alone, and devote himself to 
 his college course ; and I am not sure I should not 
 have done the same. 
 
 But this is a question of fact, and the fact is that 
 Anthony Froude kept aloof not only from Newman's 
 friends, but from most Oriel society. Something had 
 happened to him, and he was hardly quite himself 
 most of his undergraduateship. There was a story 
 that he had been disappointed in a love affair, but it 
 was early days for that. He only knew what was in 
 his head, but he was so unapproachable that Oriel is 
 not answerable for it. Everybody knows that a man 
 may live in a college, and yet be no more of the col- 
 lege than he can become a horse by living in a stable. 
 His habits and amusements were solitary. 
 
 This perfectly independent course Anthony Froude 
 pursued till he became Fellow of Exeter. Newman 
 had felt the disappointment, but he had been power- 
 less to prevent it, and had perhaps been too busy to 
 make the attempt. Anthony's own account of him- 
 self, and his early recollections, and not less what all 
 the world may now see in his writings, throw some 
 light on the mystery of his early college life. He 
 combined in a rare degree self-confidence, imagina- 
 tion, and inquiry ; and he very early encountered and 
 
JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. 
 
 33 
 
 felt the antagonism of authority. Parents laid down 
 the law, no matter in what direction, just as peremp- 
 torily, and often as harshly, sixty years ago, as they 
 do now. Youthful divers into the abyss were then 
 pulled up quite as sharply by their less audacious eld- 
 ers as they can be now. 
 
 There was a sort of stoicism about Archdeacon 
 Fronde's character which sometimes surprised those 
 who had only seen him for a day or two, conversing, 
 or sketching, or sight-seeing. He once rather shocked 
 his clergy by .delivering a charge while a ver}' dear 
 daughter was lying dead in his house ; but there was 
 a romantic conception of duty in the act which af- 
 fords some key to Richard Hurrell's character. From 
 his early years Anthony felt chilled, crushed, and fet- 
 tered. So at least say those who are better acquainted 
 Avith his books than I am. 
 
 Any one has only to put the dates together to see 
 that Anthony can have seen very little indeed of his 
 brother Richard Hurrell at an age to derive any im- 
 pression from him, or to be conscious of agreement or 
 disagreement. Public schools and universities sepa- 
 rate men from their families, and brother from brother 
 very much ; Arnold observes in one of his sermons, 
 too much. All regularly meet at Christmas in a 
 round of small festivities ; many meet at Easter for a 
 mere sight of one another ; and during August and 
 the first fortnight of September, young men and boys 
 are commonly on their wanderings. While Hurrell 
 Fronde was at Oriel, Anthony was some years at 
 Westminster. Early in 1832, there were indications 
 of Hurrell's fatal illness, and as soon as it could be 
 mannged, he sailed for the Mediterranean. Anthony 
 was tlien fourteen. If anything can be concluded 
 
 VOL, It. .3. 
 
KEMINISCENCES. 
 
 from Hurrell's published letters about this time to 
 his brother William, he might be advising Anthony 
 to read the Bible, and some work of a theological 
 character, and to beware of Liberalism. Hurrell re- 
 turned from the Mediterranean next summer ; paid 
 as many visits as he could manage in three or four 
 months, and then went to Barbadoes, from which he 
 returned to Oxford in the summer term of 1835. 
 
 Anthony, then seventeen, was summoned from his 
 tutor at the village of Merton to meet him for two or 
 three days. There was then a double bar to commu- 
 nication between them, even if there could have been 
 serious communication in such a bustle, and in so 
 short a time. Hurrell was incessantly talking about 
 all sorts of thincjs, it must be admitted returninoj to 
 the Liberals very often ; and Anthony was in the 
 clouds. Later in that year the two brothers might 
 see more of one another at Dartington, but Hurrell 
 was then a dying man, strong enough to testify, and 
 likely enough to do so, yet not to be accused of tyr- 
 anny, or of making an undue use of his seniority, if 
 he spoke his mind plainly to a brother so much his 
 junior, and in that state of haze which might suggest 
 misgivings. 
 
 Such are the simple facts of the case, and if any 
 one will compare the dates, and consider the circum- 
 stances, he will see that they afford little ground for 
 two misconceptions that have arisen, and which An- 
 thony has himself unfortunately favored. One of 
 these misconceptions is that there was an undue and 
 overpowering pressure on his intellect and belief, 
 by various relatives, elders, and acquaintances ; the 
 other, that under this pressure he became a Trac- 
 tarian, or whatever else the thing is to be called, 
 
JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. 
 
 35 
 
 and had afterwards to extricate himself from this 
 false position by an effort which cost him his faith 
 altogether. 
 
 I am sorry to say I never read Anthony's books 
 embodying these misconceptions, though I might have 
 seen them lying on a table here or there. I was not 
 much in the way of the current literature then, and 
 had not much time or money either. But I was pain- 
 fully aware of the fact that something like a yell of 
 triumph was raised in certain circles — there are 
 examples of it in Whately's and Hampden's corre- 
 spondence — at what was now described as the legit- 
 imate result of excessive demands upon faith. Grave 
 writers began to point out, what is very questiona- 
 ble indeed, that infidelity is the outcome of Roman 
 Catholicism, not of Protestantism, and that its birth- 
 place is not Germany, or England, but France. 
 
 I do not think that a single being in Oriel inter- 
 fered in the slightest dt^gree with Anthony Fronde's 
 religious convictions while he was there. For the 
 time I was at college with him I had relations with 
 him as Censor Theolo(/icus, in which capacity I might 
 be supposed at liberty to make any demands on An- 
 thony's faith or submission. But all I had to do was 
 to look over his sermon notes, and satisfy myself as 
 well as I could that he Iiad been at one of the Uni- 
 versity sermons, and had given some attention to it. 
 In this capacity I can answer for it that nothing re- 
 markable passed between me and Anthony, unless it 
 be that Anthony, having once hurt his knee, begged 
 leave to analyze any sermon I might name instead of 
 walking to St. Mary's. Moreover, the Provost had 
 the ovei'hauling of the "Notes " at the " Collections," 
 and as he turned the leaves rapidly over, he naturally 
 
86 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 availed himself of the Censor's annotations, to dis- 
 cover the questionable passages in the undergradu- 
 ate's text. 
 
 lu 1842 Anthony Froude was elected Fellow of 
 Exeter. If Sewell then made a set at him, it would 
 only amuse Anthony, and moreover it would not be 
 in the lines of the movement, from Avhich Sewell kept 
 almost as clear as he. However, in a year or two, it 
 reached Oriel College that Anthony was very much 
 disturbing the serious members of his new college by 
 the boldness of his speculations, and by the pleasure 
 he seemed to feel in destructive paradoxes. Very sad 
 suspicions were entertained. 
 
 After a time a reaction was reported. Anthony, 
 it was said, wanted employment, and felt that he had 
 no right to expect happiness in religion, if he was not 
 working for it. Such a report reached Newman, and 
 in such a form that he thought the time had come, 
 and indeed that there was a providential opening, for 
 him to invite Anthony's assistance. 
 
 Then comes the question which no man can 
 answer. Why did Newman pick out from all the 
 extraordinary Lives of Saints, the most extraordi- 
 naiy, and the most surpassing belief, for Anthony to 
 shatter what was left of his convictions upon. The 
 story ran in Oxford that Anthony accepted the 
 task, and was very soon discussing it in college with 
 more and more freedom. It was even added that 
 while translating this mass of legends for Newman, 
 he was indulging in a by-play, a bit of inventive 
 hagiography or satire on the work before him. As 
 Baden Powell was distinguishing himself in this 
 line, perhaps Anthony Froude may have got the 
 credit. 
 
JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. 
 
 37 
 
 The result was a sudden snap of the slight and 
 precarious tie. There had never been any real join- 
 ing, and where the old crack had been there was now 
 a complete fracture. But it is a very old story, and 
 a very universal story, to plead an abuse of faith 
 as an extenuation of unbelief. Nor is it a logical 
 process, for it implies that unbelief wants extenua- 
 tion, and that in faith there is a just mean. Hamp- 
 den immediately seized on it as " a valuable evidence 
 of the working of Tractarianism," which he described 
 as a general corruption of moral feeling." 
 
 Anthony P'roude has latterly reviewed the story 
 of his life, and of his own feelings, with more consid- 
 eration, and more knowledge of the world. In the 
 ordinary sense of the word, his career has been a re- 
 action against the movement. The same may be said 
 of the many writers who have only protested against 
 it with increasing animosity and decision from the 
 day it showed itself, and who never had a spark of 
 sympathy with it. But that is very different from 
 the reaction imagined by Newman's opponents for 
 Anthony Froude. 
 
CHAPTER LXXV. 
 
 THE SACRIFICE AND THE WORK. 
 
 ]\Iany of the above, and many more that could be 
 named, had taken high University honors, had won 
 prizes, and were in University offices, then more than 
 now the road to the highest promotion. They sacri- 
 ficed a good deal to what they must have considered 
 the obligation of diity and of truth, exposing that for 
 the time to some degree of obloquy also. They were 
 denounced and abused from pulpits and platforms ; 
 by controversialists and novelists, and by many 
 whose good opinion they could not but grieve to have 
 lost. Most of these volunteers to the standard of 
 truth, as they deemed it, would have been much 
 greater men in their own original lines. Nay, the 
 coast was all the clearer, and the competition the less 
 fierce, for the number of those that were leaving the 
 great highway to eminence, and taking a side path 
 leading to nothing in this world. 
 
 It is true that common action and the spirit of a 
 common cause keep up the fire and light of life, foster 
 many virtues, and bring out unknown powers. But 
 what was the common action to which many of tliese 
 men of mark, of genius, and of high expectations 
 were taking themselves ? INIany of tliem, almost be- 
 fore they knew well what they were about, were giv- 
 ing up the best years of their life and the first fruits 
 of their newly acquired scholarship to the most labo- 
 
THE SACRIFICE AND TOE WORK. 
 
 39 
 
 nous drudgery and most thankless of all works, — 
 Translations of the Fatliei's. They had to give long 
 days and nights for long periods to the study of very 
 indifferent Greek or Latin, — the matter itself often 
 below the level of the language ; and they had to 
 produce an English rendering in which grace, elo- 
 quence, dignity, indeed style of any kind, was out of 
 the\iuestion. 
 
 It is not too mucli to say that few of these transla- 
 tions are readable. Indeed, if anj^body wishes to read 
 the "Fathers," he will find it much the better course 
 to master the difficulty of the language and read the 
 original, instead of laboring through a translation 
 Avhich is neither English nor Greek. Yet nothing 
 else could be attempted, for exact, not to say literal 
 fidelity is the first rule of translation when the sub- 
 ject is Christian truth and morality. Some of these 
 men had to write articles on subjects they knew or 
 cared little about ; to learn as they went on, and per- 
 haps to know just so much at the end as to repent of 
 having ever begun. 
 
 But besides those who enrolled themselves as work- 
 ers and placed themselves under orders, there was a 
 rapidly increasing crowd of other men who would do 
 the like, if not the same. If a man is sufiiciently 
 confident of his own powers, he will naturally rather 
 publish entirely on his own account than take a place 
 in a series, entailing conditions of time and outward 
 form, besides a certain share of the general responsi- 
 bilit3\ So editions and translations of the Fathers 
 were announced at Oxford and Cambridge, and every- 
 where. 
 
 The old editions of the Fathers and great divines 
 that had long been the lumber of old libraries and 
 
40 
 
 / 
 
 REMINISCEXCES. 
 
 second-hand book shops, folios that had been almost 
 on their way to the grocers, or to the pulp-vat, the 
 survivors of many that had gone that way, were now 
 quoted in the market with rising prices. Intending 
 purchasers went to the great booksellers' and the auc- 
 tion rooms, and found themselves outbid by agents 
 from the United States. What had been waste 
 paper a year or two before was now waited for with 
 longing eyes across the Atlantic. To this day pos- 
 sessors will sometimes find, not quite rubbed oat, 7s. 
 GtZ., and in its place five guineas. 
 
 The effect on the immense outer world corresponded 
 to the intensity of the action in the inner circle, but 
 in more material form. The greater part of mankind 
 will accept most readily that which addi'esses itself to 
 the senses, to the ear and to the eye. It is not easy 
 to maintain a life of perpetual devotion, or even to 
 make true charity the rule of one's social habits. 
 It is comparatively easy to build or restore churches, 
 to adorn them, to have new services with an ornate 
 ritual, to establish choirs, and set up new organs. 
 There is much that is religious and even salutary, 
 even though it does not go to the very root of one's 
 nature, and has to be followed up, or be nothing at 
 all. The truth is, people do just what they can do, 
 and with most people simple piety is a labor, and not 
 of love. They crowd round the threshold and re- 
 main there long. Slow as they are to enter, it is hard 
 to drive them away with the old Pagan ban, Proeul, 
 procul este profani. At least the Church of England 
 cannot and will not do it. 
 
 The publications of these men, in whatever rank or 
 degree attached to the cause, whether movers, orig- 
 inal writers, translators ; whether organized, or tak 
 
THE SACBIFICE AND THE WORK, 
 
 41 
 
 ing their own lines, amount to an enormous mass of 
 literature, sufficient to tax students in time to come. 
 Strange to say, the fault most commonly found with 
 it is its deficiencies. So many other things ought to 
 have been done, as well as what was done. 
 
 In the whole mass there is very little Biblical criti- 
 cism — none, it has been said, besides Pusey's " Mi- 
 nor Prophets " and Keble's metrical version of the 
 Psalms — or social philosophy ; no original views of 
 duty, and not much to meet the great problems of the 
 age, though a good deal to impede their solution. 
 With regai'd to absence of Biblical criticism, it is best 
 to state the facts and leave them to themselves. 
 There was hardly such a thing as Biblical criticism in 
 this country at the beginning of this century. Poole's 
 Synopsis contained all that an ordinary clergyman 
 could wish to know. Arnold is described as in all his 
 glory at Rugby, with Poole's Synopsis on one side, 
 and Facciolati on the other. He knew the value of 
 the book ; but at that very time, if a country clergy- 
 man chanced to find that he had two copies of the 
 work, and that therefore he had one to spare, he would 
 liave found it difficult to obtain five shillings for the 
 five volumes. 
 
 Mr. T. Hartwell Horne published his " Introduc- 
 tion " to the Critical Study of the Scriptures in the 
 year 1818, and in the second edition, published three 
 years after, he says he had undertaken the work be- 
 cause he had found the want of it ; and that as soon 
 as he set about it he found that he had to depend en- 
 tirely on foreign Biblical critics, and that had not a 
 good list of them accidentally fallen into his hands 
 and guided his researches, he never could have done 
 the work. He did it well, all things considered, and 
 
42 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 by the date of the Oxford movement he had brought 
 out several more editions. 
 
 The clerg)', and still more the laity, were content to 
 be helped. They did not care to go into that vine- 
 yard themselves, when tliey could get what they 
 wanted in the open market or second-hand. It is hard 
 to deny that they were right, and that little good 
 could possibly have been done by setting them to 
 work on the sacred text. There were indeed already 
 earnest and reiterated complaints tliat while we had 
 an Authorized Version, we had not a Textus Recep- 
 tus, and that it was notorious the Greek basis of our 
 version had been fixed on imperfect data, which could 
 now be largely supplemented. But the critics failed 
 to insjjire interest in their subject. Be the cause or 
 the movement good or bad, it would not have been at 
 all, but would have fallen still-born to the ground, had 
 it gone into such questions as those wliich have very 
 usefully occupied the attention of the Revision com- 
 panies. 
 
 The truth is, movements are always made in one 
 direction, and it is idle to complain that they are not 
 made in all directions at the same time. Certainly 
 Newman was better emploj'ed than in collating texts, 
 and thi'owing upon obscure passages and brief notices 
 the light of historical or topographical discoveries. 
 He could do other t'lings very much better. Very 
 recently, upon an appeal being made to him by the 
 " Revision editor," of a periodical, he replied that 
 " he had never made the text of the New Testament 
 his special study." No doubt he would as soon have 
 sat down to dissect a human body as pull that text 
 to pieces. 
 
 Upon the whole the movement must be credited 
 
THE SACRIFICE AND THE WORK. 
 
 43 
 
 with the increased interest in divine things, the more 
 reverential regard for sacred persons and places, and 
 the freedom from mere traditional interpretation, 
 which mark the present century in comparison with 
 the last. The Oxford movement, unforeseen b}' the 
 chief movers, and to some extent in spite of them, 
 has produced a generation of ecclesiologists, ritualists, 
 and religious poets. Whatever may be said of its 
 priestcraft, it has filled the land with clmrcii crafts of 
 all kinds. Has it not had some share in the restora- 
 tion of Biblical criticism and in the Revision of the 
 Authorized Version ? 
 
CHAPTER LXXVI. 
 
 MARIA GIBERNE. 
 
 In all this goodly arraj^ there was not a grander or 
 more ornamental figure than ]\^aria Rosina Giberne. 
 She was, nay she is, the prima donna of the company. 
 Tall, strong of build, majestic, with aquiline nose, 
 well-formed mouth, dark penetrating eyes, and a 
 luxuriance of glossy black hair, she would command 
 attention anywliere. Like so many others about us, 
 she was of old French Protestant stock, and she had 
 inherited that faith. She was very early the warmest 
 and the most appi'eciative of Newman's admirers, 
 even in his Scott and Newton days, before even his 
 Oriel days I believe. 
 
 She was always a most excellent talker and nar- 
 rator, but her great power lay in the portraits she 
 did in chalks. At a very short sitting, and even from 
 memor}'^, she would draw a portrait which was at 
 least perfectly and undeniably true. I have heard 
 her drawings criticised, and her drapery called con- 
 ventional, but her faces, to my apprehension, were 
 proof against all criticism. Perhaps they are better 
 in .outline then when filled up and tinted. Besides 
 many porti'aits of Newman himself at various periods, 
 she did a most interesting group of the Newman 
 family in 1829, the Rickards, and many others. On 
 a visit at old Mr. Wilberforce's she drew a portrait 
 of him, following a published engi'aving, but using 
 her own eyes too. 
 
MARIA GIBERNE. 
 
 45 
 
 Her interest in the whole circle was insatiable,- 
 and there was hardly anything she would not do and 
 dare for a siglit of one she had not yet seen. With 
 some other ladies she was at a breakfast in Oriel 
 common room. I caught a sight of Keble crossing a 
 corner of the Quad, and unwisely proclaimed the fact. 
 Instantly the table was deserted and the windows 
 manned, if I may so say, with fair faces. They were 
 just in time to see the poet's back as he disappeared 
 into the other Quad. I exclaimed in vain at the im- 
 propriety of the movement. But Keble was a very 
 shy bird, often heard of, little seen. 
 
 One who had loved Maria Giberne, either in vain 
 or without the courage to declare himself, died in 
 India, and left her all he had, which made her com- 
 paratively independent. She joined the Roman com- 
 munion about the same time Newman did. An em- 
 ployment was immediately found for her very much 
 to her taste. She went to Rome, and had the use of 
 a room in tlie gallery of the Palazzo Borghese. There 
 she worked incessantly for near twenty years, copy- 
 ing and adapting the pictures for use in English 
 chapels. How she succeeded I know not, but having 
 always worked in chalks, she must have found herself 
 a novice in oils. She gave her own labor, but had 
 to ask something for the canvas and painting ma- 
 terials, including the gold lavishly laid on the back- 
 ground of some of the pictures. 
 
 Her apartments were at the top of a house be- 
 tween the Quirinal and the Forum of Trajan. She 
 was in her very stately studio, near the Ripetta, at 
 ten every morning, and tliere she worked till four; 
 coming and returning by the steps of the Trinita de' 
 Monti, and the Quirinal, all of it high ground, and 
 
46 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 yerj quiet. She never bad any molestation, or ad- 
 venture, or illness. As for the former exemption one 
 could understand it. She moved along like a divinity. 
 I met her one day in the streets. While we were 
 talking. Dr. Gason, the well-known physician, came 
 up, and Maria Giberne passed on. " Do pray tell 
 me," he said, " who that lady is, for I have seen her 
 hundreds of times, and never could learn. She is the 
 handsomest woman I ever saw in my life." She was 
 then about fifty. Her unfailing health she ascribed 
 to her observance of the fasts, and her general ab- 
 stemiousness. Her diet consisted chiefly of bread 
 and fruit, mostly apples. One apple in the middle 
 of a long day she spoke of as a great refreshment. 
 She had never to complain of the heat. 
 
 A fortnight every year she spent with the Borghese 
 family at their villa in the country, and there she met 
 great people. Here she had sketched Pio Nono on 
 a mule ; and Antonelli had sat to her. Just to 
 quicken him up, she opened a pleasant conversation. 
 " So you are to be the next Pope? If not you, who 
 will it be ? What do you think of the state of 
 things ? " The Cardinal was on his guard, but very 
 pleasant. 
 
 She had made some poor acquaintances ; one of 
 them was a black-ej-ed, thin little woman who had 
 fourteen children, and had been so fortunate as to 
 rear half a dozen of them, the rest having died of 
 hunger. One of the boys, about eleven or twelve, 
 Maria Giberne had taken into her service, and trained 
 as a page. She asked us to an evening entertain- 
 ment, and we were to meet some English students 
 from the Collegio Pio. When the outer door opened, 
 an interesting, black-eyed skeleton stood before us, 
 
MARIA GIBERNE. 
 
 47 
 
 and demanded oar names. There were five of us ; 
 including three patronymics, of which two would 
 present difficulties to most foreign ears and tongues. 
 I was considering whether it would be possible to 
 charge the lad with such a burden, when he repeated 
 the demand, tliis time in Roman fashion, peremptorily. 
 I had to obey, but I was curious to see what work 
 be would make of it. To my surprise, on opening 
 the inner door, he announced us all with perfect 
 accuracy, including two Christian names, without a 
 syllable or a letter wrong. His mistress had spent 
 some time in the morning teaching him to recite all 
 the expected names, till he had done it perfectl}'. 
 
 There were four visitors from the college, one of 
 them a man whose name had been familiar to me for 
 many years, with associations that had made me wish 
 much to see him, and even wonder why I never did. 
 This was Mr. Laprimaudaye. The name itself is 
 not one to be forgotten. I had imagined him young 
 and handsome. He was still handsome, but in 
 years very grey, and a tall, gracious, fatherly figure. 
 The young ladies with me pronounced him by far 
 the pleasantest man of the party. When I had a 
 chance I talked over old times and common acquaint- 
 ances with him, but said to myself I must manage 
 to see more of him. We parted with some ex- 
 pressions to that efi'ect. He was taken ill the next 
 day, and died a week after. I was to see him, and 
 this was my very last chance. 
 
 When the page came in with his tray, we were all 
 talking of what we had been seeing and hearing. 
 This was on tme of the days between Christmas and 
 Epiphany, and we mentioned having been to the 
 Ara Couli Church to hear the children, of all classes, 
 
48 
 
 BEMIXISCEXCES. 
 
 delivering their little sermons from a miniature pulpit 
 bung with blue satin. The church is that in -which 
 Gibbon conceived the idea of his great work. It 
 stands at the top of the immense flight of marble 
 steps, up which Julius Cicsar crawled on his hands 
 and knees to thank Jupiter for his conquest of the 
 world. We noticed that most of the very juvenile, 
 not to say infantine, preachers showed marvellous 
 courage, fluency, and grace. But there had been 
 one failure. A pretty little fellow of six, or less, had 
 burst into tears and retreated to his mother's arms. 
 
 We were immediately told that the page had de- 
 livered a sermon the day before, duly instructed by 
 his mistress. " You shall hear it," she said. " Put 
 down the tray," she added, turning to the page, 
 "and preach your sermon." He laid down his tray 
 on the ground, if I remember right, took his position 
 in the middle of the room, put himself into a graceful 
 attitude, assumed an earnest expression, and delivered 
 with great energy what I thought must be a poem, 
 but it was a sermon, which I was sorry not to be 
 able to follow. The sermon ended he resumed the 
 tray, and impressively urged its contents upon our 
 notice. We talked over the antiquities and the 
 galleries, but Maria Giberne had almost entirely 
 ceased to recognize anything in art that was not 
 Christian. 
 
 At the Achilli trial there was occasional mention 
 of one Rosina Giuberti, who had shepherded a flock 
 of female witnesses from Italy, and who now had 
 charge of them in London. This was our friend. 
 
 She became a nun, and at the time of the Franco- 
 German war was in a nunnerj- at Autun, when 
 Garibaldi came, and turned the nuns out into the 
 
MARIA GIBEENE. 
 
 49 
 
 streets to make way for his rough levies. She is 
 still in a nunnery, but occasionally using the pencil 
 and the brush. She cannot be far from eight}'^, and 
 I am told that she still has the same flowing locks, 
 but that they are white as snow. Her talk and her 
 letters, they say, are as bright as ever. Maria Giberne 
 sent me what for her was a large sum, towards the 
 building of Cholderton church. As they say in 
 Ireland, " May it meet her in heaven ! " 
 
 VOL. II. 4 
 
CHAPTER LXXVII. 
 
 ARNOLD. 
 
 The question has been so frequently asked, kindly 
 or otherwise, when and how, and from what motives 
 and with what ends, Newman began to stir in the 
 direction finally taken, that the reader may have to 
 excuse an occasional recurrence to it as recollections 
 bring it up. The ideas of Nemesis and reaction were 
 deep in Newman's mind, and indeed in his whole 
 nature. With him neither person, nor rightful cause, 
 nor just complaint, ever died. Even when most in- 
 dignant at what he conceived to be the insults offered 
 to the Church of England by the triumphant Liberals, 
 then assisted by the Irish Catholics, he would say 
 every now and then that he feared the blood of the 
 monks and nuns turned out of the religious houses at 
 the Reformation to perish in prisons, or out of doors, 
 was crying from the ground. 
 
 Always waiting for indication, whatever happened, 
 for good or for ill, he acted upon it. It was a provi- 
 dential stepping-stone in a field of uncertainties. No 
 doubt people may deceive themselves by this sort of 
 reckoning, and many have so deceived themselves. 
 But no observer could fail to see that whatever New- 
 man did, it was a I'eaction upon that whicli had been 
 done to him. People in general might not pei'ceive 
 it, for, in truth, there is no matter upon which people 
 in general are so blind, and even stupid, as the force 
 
ARNOLD. 
 
 51 
 
 of inevitable reactions. They do what they please, 
 what squares with tlieir own views, or gratifies their 
 own feelings, and then fondly imagine they have 
 settled a question, and disposed finally of some annoy- 
 ance, unless it be a small unsettled remainder which 
 time will settle for them. They are not aware that 
 every one-sided settlement is only the opening of a 
 new account, which they, of all the world, are most 
 concerned to keep their eyes upon. 
 
 To Newman life was a game, serious indeed, but 
 still a game, in which move must be met by move, 
 and check-mate never acknowledged so long as a 
 move was possible. For everything he did there was 
 this foundation in circumstance, and the secret of his 
 career cannot be discovered, if it is to be discovered, 
 without taking into account everything that happened 
 about him. 
 
 For at least the first nine years of his Oriel life 
 those most about him may now in vain rack tlieir 
 memories for anything he said or did to indicate a 
 movement in any direction whatever, except that 
 vaguely indicated by a return to primitive Chris- 
 tianity. This is vague in the same sense that the 
 Evangelical movement is vague, for Apostolicals and 
 Evangelicals must be equally at a loss to say exactly 
 what it is they want to bring back again, or turn us 
 all round to. 
 
 Newman used indeed to say that a man need not 
 make up his mind till he was thirty, but that he 
 ought then. As to this making up of one's mind, 
 and this set course to be persistently and consistently 
 run, it was one of the favorite ideas of that epoch. 
 Not to speak of the ordinary religious books, Foster's 
 essays on " Decision of Character " was then upon 
 
52 
 
 BEMmSCEXCES. 
 
 every table, and no youth of the least promise could 
 go anj^-where without being set upon by good ladies, 
 urging him instantly to select one grand object, and 
 stick to it through life, whatever the difficulties. 
 
 Arnold is often quoted as having contributed to 
 the impulses and even to the principles resulting in 
 the Oxford movement. His pupils are too dazzled by 
 the lustre of his bright and glowing image in their 
 recollections to see what was anterior to him, and 
 they are too bewitched by their love to think any- 
 body not indebted to him. But the truth is Newman 
 could hardly have met, or even seen, Arnold half a 
 dozen times in his life when the latter, not long be- 
 fore his early death, came to Oxford to deliver his 
 lectures as Professor of Ancient History. Arnold, 
 indeed, was always well represented at Oxford, first 
 by his contemporaries, then by his pupUs as they 
 came up one after another. Bonamy Price led the 
 column, and for four years, from 1825 to 1829, he 
 sounded his tutor's praises, and his tutor's sayings, in 
 every college, and almost every room in the Univer- 
 sity. All who remember that period must still be 
 glad to recall the oracular solemnity with which he 
 pronounced the name of the great man as the author 
 of some grand enunciation or very decided opinion. 
 These utterances had been mostly political, or what 
 in these days are called social. Had I memory, or 
 had I kept a journal, I should now be able to repro- 
 duce hundreds of them. They might be only what 
 everybody knew or thought, but Arnold had made 
 them his own by his vigor and terseness of expression. 
 What I remember most is a prophecy that labor and 
 capital would before long be in collision, and that 
 the struggle would be severe and the issue doubtful. 
 
ARNOLD. 
 
 53 
 
 Having myself lived some years in a manufacturing 
 town, I was sufficiently aware of the collision and the 
 struggle, but what I seemed to learn from Arnold 
 ■was that labor would meet with unexpected reinforce- 
 ment from the philosopher, the philanthropist, and 
 the statesman. Amongst these utterances there was 
 little or nothing to bear on the coming movement, of 
 which Arnold's own college was to be birthplace, 
 and for which the event showed him to be utterly 
 unprepared. 
 
 Arnold's pamphlet on " Church Reform " was part 
 of the vast pile that awaited Newman's return from 
 the Mediterranean in 1833. His volume of " Rugby 
 Sermons " had not been received favorably by New- 
 man and his friends, not so much on account of the 
 Sermons themselves, as on account of a note on 
 Genesis xxii., in which Arnold laid down that the 
 Almighty could not do an immoral thing, and that 
 consequently if we thought anything wrong we were 
 bound to believe that He had not done it. This of 
 course struck at every miracle, and every extraordi- 
 nary act for which is claimed a preternatural sanction, 
 if in any respect whatever it does not accord with our 
 most sentimental, or our most abstract, notions of 
 morality. Rightly or wrongly, the note was fully 
 believed at Oxford to have been written with this 
 comprehensive and destructive design. 
 
 It would, however, be contrary to the whole theory 
 of Newman's life to suppose that Arnold had no share 
 in it. What then was that share ? This was Arnold's 
 intense energy of character ; his deep sense of a calling 
 which he had to obey, and of a work which he had to 
 do. As Arnold's own turn was to speculation and 
 scepticism, he had but scant practical aim. The 
 
54 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 result was that his extraordinary impulsive, not to 
 say explosive, power sent his men in all directions, 
 and while the explosion itself was a contribution to 
 the original springs of the Oxford movement, the dif- 
 ferent results of that explosion variously affected its 
 form. 
 
 Arnold, it is to be observed, could only have had 
 the slightest personal knowledge of Newman, or of 
 his friends ; and he had not even the opportunity of 
 supplementing this want by information through 
 common and impartial acquaintances. While there 
 was a regular stream of informants setting in from 
 Rugby to Oxford, there was no such stream from 
 Oxford to Rngby, unless it were some undercurrent 
 of a tlioroughly prejudiced character. Whether as 
 private tutor, or as head-master of Rugby, Arnold 
 was engaged in the most laborious and engrossing of 
 all occupations, seeking occasional relief from that 
 drudgery by inquiries into the most conjectural re- 
 gions of history, or into the political or religious prob- 
 lems of the future. He thus lived in a world of his 
 own, as despotic at his writing-desk as in his school, 
 and wielding his pen as if it were a ferule. 
 
 At the very time when he was expressing himself 
 with his constitutional warmth and decision about 
 Newman and his colleagues in the movement, he was 
 ignorant, worse than ignorant, of their character and 
 their cause. Better had he never heard of them than 
 acquired so ridiculous a misconception. What else, 
 however, could be expected from a man who in 1832 
 published in successive pamphlets liis full belief that 
 the House of Commons could easily and quickly so 
 modify the Prayer Book that all English churches, 
 sects, and denominations would be found shaking 
 
ARNOLD. 
 
 55 
 
 hands in the closest brotherhood and accord before 
 the end of ten years ? 
 
 Arnold, like many other good and great people, 
 had a temper of his own, and rather a warm one, for 
 he was warm all over it may be said. But from the 
 year 1832 he was, in a certain sense, a disappointed 
 man. His Church Reform, and all the other Church 
 reforms, had been fired off in vain, for neither the 
 Church, nor the dissenters, nor the vast mass who 
 Avere neither, were ready to accept the tlieory that the 
 Church was the people, and the people the Cliurch, 
 and that whatever the people at large wanted must 
 be tlie rule and the creed of tlie Church. His pe- 
 culiar regime at Rugby School, which involved fre- 
 quent expulsions, must have helped to fret liis natural 
 tenderness. 
 
 He was also undergoing some rather rough local 
 baiting. Litchfield, a well-known Tory clergyman, 
 and a recognized chief of the party in the Midlands, 
 devoted himself to the confjenial task of satirizino: 
 the head-master of Rugby at any available public 
 or festive occasion in the town and neighborhood. 
 Arnold could have well afforded to smile at such 
 attacks, but he did not. On the contrary, his imag- 
 ination peopled the world with Litchfields, and he 
 could not hear of the slightest contravention of his 
 opinions without imagining some animal of the same 
 lively species about to spring on him. He seemed to 
 live in a jangle, where every moving of the reeds was 
 fearfully significant. 
 
 Newman's friends had accepted the character of 
 Arnold as an amiable enthusiast, drawn in by Bun- 
 sen, the busy vortex of a wide and absorbing enthu- 
 siasm, but still true to his professions of dove-like 
 
56 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 sweetness and simplicity. They were astonished be- 
 yond measure when Arnold's own friends proclaimed 
 with confidence, and as they felt with just pride, that 
 he was the writer of the article on the Oxford Malig- 
 nants. It expressed more the indignation of a man 
 disappointed of a mighty ambition, than the generous 
 impulses of a still hopeful reformer. But which was 
 the true Arnold, the writer of the pamphlets and of 
 the sermons, or the writer of the article ? Was it the 
 dove assuming for the hour the sombre plumage and 
 shrill screams of the hawk, or the bird of prey that 
 as often as it found convenient, could glisten in the 
 sun and coo like a dove. 
 
 It is too true, however, that very good gentlemen 
 will sometimes denude themselves of their Christian 
 livery when they enter the anonymous arena. Strange 
 to say, the more good people abuse the pi-ess, the 
 worse do they behave when they find themselves 
 taking a part in it. 
 
 Some years after, from one cause or another, there 
 was a great softening in Arnold, and when he came 
 up for his lectures on ancient history, and was thrown 
 into Newman's company at Oriel, they became good 
 friends, and so parted. 
 
CHAPTER LXXVIII. 
 
 JOSEPH DOENFORD. 
 
 Any account of Oriel at that period would be very- 
 defective indeed, if it failed to notice a man who held 
 his place in the college for many years, though sin- 
 gularly out of place there. Joseph Dornford was 
 the son of a well-known Cambridge lady, who, after 
 becoming the mother of Mr. Thomason, and losing 
 her husband, married again, and became the mother 
 of Joseph Dornford, and of his sister, the wife of 
 Archdeacon Robinson. Mrs. Dornford was Simeon's 
 chief lady friend, and poured out the tea for his 
 weekly gatherings. 
 
 Dornford must have been a very engaging child. 
 His lithe, upright figure, his sprightly action, and his 
 ever ready tongue, combined with that self-possession 
 and self-consciousness so often wanting in early years, 
 promised great things from him. At his private 
 tutor's he had Macaulay for a fellow pupil, a lank, 
 shy, awkward, pale-faced boy, he said, with whom he 
 could not get on. He entered young at Trinity, and 
 distinguished himself. 
 
 Suddenly, however, in 1811, he enlisted into the 
 Rifle Brigade and went to the Peninsula. Various 
 were the accounts given of this extraordinary step. 
 He had been disappointed of a scholarship ; or of a 
 pretty girl. He had read in the papers a dreadful 
 story of an outrage by French soldiers, and he burned 
 
58 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 to avenge it. Upon seeing a long list of killed and 
 wounded, he felt it shameful for a strong man to stay 
 at home. The strains of a recruiting band had 
 smitten him Avith martial ardor, and he had at once 
 ruslied out and fallen in. But no one who knew 
 Dornford had to go far for a reason. He would 
 ratber fly to the ends of the earth and seek the com- 
 pany of cannibals or wild beasts than be bound to a 
 life of tea and twaddle. 
 
 So he went to the war, as a rifleman attached to 
 a regiment, with the promise of a commission in two 
 years, if he was found qualified for it. He imme- 
 diately became the pet of his mess. He could not 
 be more than seventeen ; he could tell any number 
 of stories, and recite Scott's poetry by pages. Of 
 course they called him " Marmion." But he had very 
 hard work, coming in for several battles and some 
 tremendous forced marches. 
 
 On one occasion his division had to retrace in one 
 day three days' marches under a burning sun, and 
 finishing with a steep ascent, which left many dying 
 and even dead on the roadside. There were men 
 who pressed halfway up the hill, in order to reach a 
 well-known spring and take water down to their 
 perishing comrades ; and other men relieving their 
 comrades of their heavy firearms. 
 
 He left the army just when the worst was over, 
 and returned home, crossing the commission going 
 out for him. Some said he felt his services were no 
 longer required, inasmuch as the French were in full 
 retreat on the Pyrenees. Others said that, being told 
 out for a " forlorn hope," he found himself so ill that 
 he had to ajjply for sick leave. Henry Wilberforce 
 used to observe on this, " I am sure that if I knevy I 
 
JOSEPH DORNFORD. 
 
 59 
 
 was to be in a forlorn hope to-morrow, I should be 
 very ill indeed." But it was plain his fabric and con- 
 stitution were not equal to such work. The green of 
 his jacket, he used to say, had run into his white 
 trousei's, till they were all of a color. He was never 
 much of a walker. 
 
 However, he came home, entered at Oxford, and 
 became a member of Wadham, to the society of 
 which he was an immense acquisition. They had 
 the fresh of his tales of war, and one summer's night, 
 it was said, he induced half the college to bivouac in 
 the Quad. His tutor, Benjamin Symons, fixed upon 
 his impressible memory many hundred time-honored 
 "construes," a little too heavy, some people said, but 
 all the better for Dornford, who perhaps wanted 
 weight. They made his fortune. He took the 
 highest honors at Easter, 1816, wlien he had not 
 been four years home from the Peninsula. He was 
 elected a Michel Fellow of Queen's, and thence was 
 elected to Oriel. 
 
 But before lie took any active part in his college, 
 he had another experience almost as i"are in those 
 days as his Peninsular episode. He had felt its 
 abrupt conclusion, from wliatever cause, a slur on 
 his military reputation, and he wished to place his 
 courage beyond a doubt. So he went to Chamounix, 
 and in August, 1820, attempted an ascent of Mont 
 Blanc, in company with Dr. Hamel, a Russian gentle- 
 man, well known as an astx'onomer, and in several 
 other branches of science. With another gentleman 
 and the best guides the valley could give, it was a 
 large part}', and had every hope of success. Dr. 
 Hamel published a narrative, which may be found 
 very fully quoted in the " British Critic," monthly 
 series, of the ensuing November. 
 
60 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 It would seem that poor Dornford could not escape 
 a certain line of destiny. Passing carefully in Indian 
 file across a slope of snow only a few hundred yards 
 below the summit, Dornford, who had been near the 
 front, stopped for a minute to adjust his blue veil, 
 when the snow slid down under their feet, and the 
 three guides, then in front, were hurried down into a 
 crevasse, never to appear again till some vestiges were 
 found in the moraine, many miles below, forty years 
 after. The snow only came to a stand when Dorn- 
 ford was on the very edge of the crevasse. 
 
 The surviving guides used to amuse tourists with 
 a story of Dornford's excessive agitation ; but all 
 that they could say positively was that when first 
 seen he was on his knees thanking Heaven for his 
 preservation, and that he seemed horrified at the 
 thought of having contributed to such a catastro- 
 phe. He scarcely ever alluded to it, for he felt he 
 had tempted Providence, and had been suitably re- 
 buked. 
 
 When Keble gave up the tutorship, Dornford took 
 his place. Keble's pupils called it a sad let-down. 
 Cei'tainly you no longer saw befoi'e you one of the 
 most beautifully formed heads in the world, and a 
 pair of most Avonderful black eyes ; and you no 
 longer had diamonds and pearls dropping from that 
 mouth whenever it opened. Yet they who came after, 
 as I did, found Dornford a good lecturer, up to his 
 work, ready, precise, and incisive. He sometimes 
 looked disconcerted, and indeed he had occasion to 
 look so, but a peculiar compression of the lips was all 
 the reprimand he ever bestowed. 
 
 Having passed, not without credit, through two 
 universities and several colleges, and having also 
 
JOSEPH DORNFORD. 
 
 61 
 
 graduated in the great school of honor and of man- 
 ners, as all must allow the array to be, Dornford had 
 a high and peculiar vocation, and he was conscious 
 of it. Becoming dean of the college and of the com- 
 mon room, he made it his business to keep up the 
 talk and the tone of the common room. As what 
 was uppermost came out first, his talk ran much on 
 war, in which of course he was without a competitor 
 at Oxford. 
 
 A rival, in some sort, he had in the common room 
 man. Norris had been body servant to the Prince of 
 Orange when he was at Oxfoi-d under the care of 
 Dr. Bull, and had accompanied him when he joined 
 the Duke's staff in the Peninsula. He had much to 
 say of the operations. He had carried his master on 
 his back across a rapid river. A peculiar twist of 
 his knees, and an uncertainty in his gait, were be- 
 lieved by many undergraduates to be connected with 
 this heroic deed. He always waited at the Duke's 
 table. He said the Duke talked about anything but 
 the fighting, drank a couple of glasses of light wine, 
 and left the table almost immediately after dinner. 
 
 On one occasion, Norris said, the Duke unex- 
 pectedly ordered a movement which was quite un- 
 accountable. It resulted in the loss of three hundred 
 mules laden with tent furniture, crockery, plate, and 
 wardrobes, intercepted by the enemy before they 
 could get under cover. Norris said it was the firm 
 belief of the officers that the Duke had planned the 
 movement for this very purpose, for he was always 
 grumbling about the baggage train. But the officers 
 did not take it kindly. 
 
 Norris had a capital opportunity for telling his 
 stories. Once a fortnight, a Probationer had to go 
 
62 
 
 REMINISCENCES, 
 
 down with bim into the cellar, count tho bottles of 
 wine taken out, and enter the quantities in the wine 
 book. Norris kept his tongue going. The Proba- 
 tioner listened with avidity. I am afraid I must say 
 that I never counted the wine, and that I entei'ed the 
 quantities at Norris's dictation, which it did not 
 occur to me was hardly the check contemplated. 
 
 Dornford took much interest in Napier's " History 
 of the Peninsular War," but Blanco White was for 
 a long time absorbed by it. His friends noticed with 
 pleasure the happy distraction. 
 
 Upon the occasion of some disturbances arising 
 out of the inclosure of Otmoor, a company of soldiers 
 was quartered at Oxford, said to be the first time for 
 a century. Dornford asked the officers, half a dozen 
 of them, to dinner. They came in their uniforms and 
 duly accoutred. Not one of them had heard a shot 
 fired in anger, and proud was Dornford to instruct 
 them in the fell realities of their profession. 
 
 Wherever he was, indoors or out of doors, walking 
 or riding, he was unmistakably the soldier. Canter- 
 ing, for that was his usual pace, on a long-legged 
 horse, with his martial cloak flying from his shoulders, 
 beggars, the veriest strangers, addressed him "■noble 
 captain." There was a sort of defiance in his air 
 which even the creatures appeared to be sensible of. 
 One hot summer's day a swarm of bees flew at him 
 in Nuneham Courtney, and though he galloped all 
 the way to Oxford he had hardly got rid of them 
 when he reached Oriel. 
 
 What would be Dornford's position, and duties, 
 and opportunities as a private in the Rifle Brigade, 
 passes my knowledge. He could talk of the war, of 
 the movements and marches, and of the generals 
 much better than any private soldier could have done, 
 
JOSEPH DORNFORD. 
 
 63 
 
 or indeed than most subalterns ; but of his own par- 
 ticular part he was rather reticent, or had not much 
 to say. The undergraduates, however, were resolved 
 that he must have exchanged shots near enough to 
 be of some purpose, that he had killed his man, or 
 any number of men, and that he might have come to 
 close quarters now and then. They had a story, for 
 which I never heard the authority, that he was once 
 pressed by a gay young partner at a ball to say 
 whether he had killed anybody. If the story be 
 true, it must have been ignorance, or more probably 
 insolence, that prompted such a question. Dornford, 
 so it was said, replied that once when in ambush 
 he saw a young officer galloping across the open 
 ground a long way off, evidently carrying orders. 
 He was bound to take a shot, he did, and felt sure 
 the officer quivered in his saddle ; but as he was im- 
 mediately out of sight, he could not be sure that 
 he fell. 
 
 Dornford was Proctoi", and made a handsome 
 figure in the velvet sleeves. In anticipation of the 
 office, he frequently enlarged on the tone of authority 
 proper to it. A University was not the place for 
 military discipline. The undergraduates were not 
 privates, they were cadets, and young officers. Much 
 must be left to their honor, and they must be taken 
 into friendly confidence. With these excellent ideas, 
 and with a manner to command respect, Dornford 
 ought to have attained a rare success. He did not 
 entirely succeed. To the best of my recollection the 
 only popular Proctors were those who did nothing 
 but walk about in their handsome fcowns, lettin"; the 
 undergraduates do what they pleased. If there was 
 the ' xception of a man doing his duty and not get- 
 ting hated, it was Longley. 
 
CHAPTER LXXIX. 
 
 DORNFOED STILL TUTOR. 
 
 Undergraduates have a perverse way of looking 
 at things the wong side, and they called Dovnford 
 " the Corporal ; " indeed, some would be ready to 
 swear that he had been actually a non-commissioned 
 officer. It was too true that there was a certain 
 flourisli, just an approach to bravado, about him, 
 especially when there was gallantry in the question, 
 as there always was when he approached a woman of 
 any description whatever. Young or old, rich or 
 poor, fine lady or the merest peasant, he was always 
 the gentleman to the fair sex. Possibly he had wit- 
 nessed the havoc done by recruiting sergeants on the 
 hearts of barmaids, and thought he could combine 
 that glory with perfect innocency and high culture. 
 In Spain, too, he must have seen some rough flirta- 
 tion. Even the undergraduates had stories of his 
 buckskins and his gallivanting which were, to say the 
 least, ridiculous. His ideal of matrimony was sub- 
 lime. He repeatedly said he was sure there was only 
 one woman in the world he could marry, and he had 
 yet to make her acquaintance. This made him the 
 more daligerous, for if women could but overlook a 
 few things, he was a very striking and attractive 
 person. 
 
 Dornford's later college life was not happy. 
 Though obliged to take the Provost's side, he really 
 
DORNFORD STILL TUTOR. 
 
 65 
 
 thought the contention needless. It was all because 
 Newman could not play second fiddle. He liked and 
 admired Newman, but did not get on with his sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 Then there was a dire feud, in which Dornford 
 certainly was most to blame, though that did not 
 quite clear the other side. The origin of it was a 
 common instance of the sad mistakes gentlemen of 
 the kindest and best intentions may make from want 
 of consideration, and of readiness to make amends. 
 As the feud lasted two years, and very much affected 
 the comfort of the college, it seems no violation of 
 privacy to state the cause, especially as it was char- 
 acteristic of all the parties. It is needless to premise 
 that a matter so trifling in itself would have been 
 concluded one way or another in a few hours, leaving 
 only a passing sore or a topic for humorous allusion, 
 had there not been some want of congeniality to be- 
 gin with. 
 
 The first quadrangle of the college consisted of 
 rooms alternately large and small. The large rooms 
 looked into the quadrangle, and also away from it, in 
 this case into Merton Lane, with Corpus opposite. 
 Between every two large rooms were two small rooms, 
 each little more than a quarter size, and looking only 
 one way. Thus, on the equal division which pre- 
 vailed, each set would comprise a large room, a bed- 
 room, and a study. This was more than enough for 
 an undergraduate, but not quite enough for a Fellow, 
 who might be tutor, and who must have his table 
 clear for his class ev(!ry day. He might also have 
 some literary occupation requiring books and papers 
 spread out before his eye. He might, too, have pa- 
 rochial duties, besides a large circle of acquaintances. 
 
 vor,. II. 5 
 
66 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 It was all that Newman ever bad, except the bit of 
 lumber room already mentioned, over the chapel 
 door. Henry Wilberforce had the rooms on the same 
 floor between Newman's and Dornford's. 
 
 On returning to college after the Long Vacation, 
 to Henry Wilberforce's great astonishment he saw all 
 his books, and all the furniture of his library, piled 
 in a heap in the middle of his principal sitting-room. 
 He rushed to his library door to see what it could all 
 be about, and found the door locked. Calling the 
 " scout," he was informed tliat Dornford had taken 
 possession of the library, as he had found the want of 
 a fourth room. Henry went straight off to his brother 
 Robert, who was then still one of the tutors. Rob- 
 ert at once wrote a note to Dornford, expostulating 
 on the act altogether, particularly on its being done 
 without notice. Dornford replied that it had been 
 done in the interest of the college, that the tutors 
 had a prior claim to accommodation, and tliat no un- 
 dergraduate really wanted more than a sitting-room 
 and a bedi'oom. Nor had he thought it necessary to 
 write to an undergi-aduate on the matter. Robert 
 rejoined, observing that Dornford might at least have 
 written to his fellow tutor, the undergraduate's 
 brother. The correspondence shortly arrived at that 
 pass beyond which it could not further go. It is 
 scarcely an extenuation of Dornford's rudeness that 
 he had now by seniority acquired the right to two 
 sets of rooms, a right, however, never exercised by 
 actual occupation. The breach was irreconcilable. 
 
 Henry had to attend Dornfoi'd's lectures, and Rob- 
 ert had to meet him in the hall and common room. 
 So it assumed the form of a bitter family jar, more 
 noisy and disagreeable than sullen. For near two 
 
^ DORNFORD STILL TUTOR. 67 
 
 years, so it seems to the memory, though perhaps one 
 year would be nearer the true reckoning, it was im- 
 possible for either Doruford or R. Wilberforce to 
 open his mouth without the other cutting in with 
 something slap the other way. If there were twenty 
 men in the common room, and throe or four distinct 
 conversations going on, each of the two belligerents 
 would have an ear in reserve for what he could catch 
 from the other, even across the room, and would seize 
 the first opportunity of recognizing a point of differ- 
 ence. The challenge was always eagerly and bitterly 
 accepted. They finally left residence within a few 
 months of one another. 
 
 Robert Wilberforce was doing no little injury to 
 his cause by keeping up the quarrel, foi', as it ap- 
 peared by the result, he was only driving away a 
 would-be partisan. Dornford had forsworn Simeon 
 long ago, and now held loose to Symons. He had al- 
 w^ays kept aloof from the synagogue at St. Edmund 
 Hall. He had a great wish to be " High Chui-ch." 
 So he now found himself nowhere in Oxford. 
 
 It was about this time, though I cannot recall the 
 exact date, that Dornford took a tour in Spain, re- 
 visiting his battle-fields. His prevailing idea was 
 great change and oblivion of the past. One incident 
 had made a deep impression on him, and he told it 
 with evident gusto. At Madrid he had met an Irish 
 captain who had been many years in the Spanish ser- 
 vice. He had a great trouble, indeed a grievance. 
 At his death his widow would be entitled to a pen- 
 sion of fifty pounds a year. Not being married, he 
 would not leave a widow, and would thereby lose his 
 rights. But a brother of his in Ireland had several 
 daughters. So he sent to his brother a formal offer 
 
68 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 It 
 
 of marriage to be delivered to the daughters in the 
 order of senioritj^ with the explanation that they 
 need not stick at the relationship, as a dispensation 
 could easily be obtained, and such marriages were 
 common in Spain. They all declined the offer, and 
 the poor captain thought they were not only very un- 
 wise, and rather unkind, but hardly true to their 
 country for not giving it the benefit of the Spanish 
 pension. As it happened, Dornford had not a 
 brother, but a half -nephew, by his father's side, with 
 a numerous family. 
 
 Dornford had done his duty many years at Oriel, 
 and now found himself one of the forlorn hope on 
 the Provost's side in his contest with the tutors. It 
 was a question of authority, and he stuck gallantly 
 to the commanding officer. Nor did he want to have 
 to get up any more books, for he was already tired 
 of it. Liking his position less and less, he was glad 
 to accept a small living in the heart of Devonshire, 
 fondly hoping to find there a calmer and sweeter 
 atmosphere. At his last college meeting he had a 
 favor to ask. He had served the college long; he 
 felt that he had given his day and his strength to it, 
 and that he had a claim. He had always been 
 grieved by the case of the " Bible Clerks." Every 
 day one of them had walked into the hall to say the 
 " grace," and had then walked out again, only to re- 
 turn to say the " grace after meat." Both the Bible 
 Clerks then sat down, and, while the servants were 
 hastily clearing the tables, satisfied their hunger on 
 the leavings. These were the sons of gentlemen, as 
 it happened of clergymen, of as good family as any 
 there, nay related to some of them. 
 
 What Dornford asked was that they should dine 
 
DORNFORD STILL TUTOR. 
 
 69 
 
 with the other undergraduates, and thereby have 
 their social equality recognized. At present they 
 were " cut." They were not asked to meet other 
 undergraduates, and they only consorted with their 
 brother pariahs in the other colleges. Some of these 
 men had distinguished themselves, and had then a 
 sad tale to tell of the college. The question was dis- 
 cussed, for there were two sides to it. There would 
 be no special openings for poor men if the change 
 were made, for a rich man would ask for a Bible 
 clerkship, when there was no longer a social disquali- 
 fication in it. However, there was no resisting the 
 appeal, and Dornford abolished what to all had long 
 been a painful system. 
 
 I succeeded Dornford in the small Northampton- 
 shire living, which he had held with his fellowship, 
 as I did then for four years. From that time I was 
 continually learning fresh instances of the singular 
 fascination which Dornford innocently, and indeed 
 unconsciously, exercised over what, in this matter, I 
 must call the weaker sex. I counted half a dozen 
 victims of whom there could be no doubt. Two I 
 give. 
 
 There were many old soldiers in the place. One 
 of them knew that he was entitled to a considerable 
 sum for arrears of pay, or prize-money, but did not 
 know how to get it. Dornford took the matter in 
 hand, and got the money for him. He had hardly 
 done this when the soldier died, and then the rest of 
 the business had to be done with his dauofhtex", a fine 
 strapping lass, of a fair complexion, honest and sim- 
 ple, but very gipsyfied in her manner and style of 
 dress. She had often to see Dornford ; indeed, there 
 was then nobody else interested for lier. Everybody 
 
70 
 
 REMIXISCENCES. 
 
 told me she was persuaded Dornford meant to marry 
 her. In a year or so I had notice of her marriage, to 
 come off as soon as the banns could be published. 
 Nobody knew anything of the man, and I was anx- 
 ious to see him. The day came, and I was conster- 
 nated to see a mean little fellow, with a bad figure 
 and a worse expression, altogether most unpromis- 
 ing. Only three days after the marriage she sud- 
 denly presented herself : " Can't you unmarry me ? 
 Please, sir, undo it if you can. I cannot live with 
 that man, and I won't." I could only entreat her to 
 make the best of it. They went far away, and I 
 never heard the sequel ; but it was evident she was 
 thoroughly possessed with an ideal she was never 
 likely to find realized in her class of life. 
 
 The other victim had less excuse. She was a mar- 
 ried lady, the wife of a rather distinguished clergy- 
 man, a fine-looking woman, and, as will appear, of 
 free address, occasionally visiting in that neighbor- 
 hood. She got on wonderfully with Dornford when 
 she chanced to meet him. SitliiijT at the drawing- 
 room window of Edgcott parsonage, watching the 
 arrivals at a clerical meeting, she thus freely, unre- 
 servedly, and audibly expressed herself. " You never 
 see a man in these days. I don't call a creature 
 always looking to the ground, ashamed to look you 
 in the face, and with nothing to say for himself, a 
 man. He may be a scholar, and a clergyman, but he 
 is not a man. I don't call my' husband a man, and I 
 tell him so. Now, there 's a man if you like. He 's 
 worth all of them." These last words she said as 
 she saw Dornford opening the gate of the lawn be- 
 fore the parsonage. 
 
 The spiritual affairs of Moreton Pinckney Dorn- 
 
DORNFORD STILL TUTOR. 
 
 71 
 
 ford placed in the hands of his mother, Simeon's 
 chief female friend. She came there from Cam- 
 bridge, held little meetings, and selected the curates 
 in charge, who were of her school. One of them 
 added to the Christian faith a confident belief that 
 by a proper use of the three qualities of Morrison's 
 pills you might live forever. Dornford put a Bap- 
 tist into the glebe farm, whose wife went the round 
 of the parish every Monday morning, distributing 
 tracts. However, they were good sort of people, and 
 paid their rent. When I went to see my parish, the 
 first thing that struck my eye was a lai'ge and hand- 
 some Baptist chapel just completed. 
 
CHAPTER LXXX. 
 
 DORNTOED, BECTOR OF PLYMTREE. 
 
 In Devonshire Dornford felt more at liberty. He 
 devoured Newman's works, and the other publica- 
 tions of the school, as fast as they came out, and by 
 and by ripened into what people in those days called 
 a " Tractarian." His admiration of Newman became 
 warmer and deeper every year, and showed itself in 
 surprising forms at his annual visits to Oxford. He 
 did not observe that while his own development had 
 been rapid. Oriel men could only remember him as 
 he had stood in 1832. He expected his parish to fol- 
 low the leader, but he could not convert them, and 
 they refused to enlist. He tried to press them, but 
 in vain, and there ensued a long and lamentable war, 
 in which both sides behaved about as ill as they 
 could possibly do. 
 
 The failure was not wholly referable to the obsti- 
 nacy of rustic Protestantism. Dornford started with 
 immense natural and acquired advantages. Half the 
 parish he had immediately, and always, and to the 
 bitter end, entirely on his side. That was the weaker 
 sex, with whom he was perfectly irresistible. Had 
 it been left to them, long ere this eveiy child in the 
 parish would have been born with Hymns Ancient 
 and Modern on the tip of its tongue, and with its 
 ears attuned to the new melodies. But it is difficult 
 to be loved too much by one sex, and enough by the 
 
DORNFORD, RECTOR OF PLYMTREE. 
 
 73 
 
 other. The gruff husbands and stern fathers were 
 not indisposed to pick a quarrel with the man whose 
 mere presence seemed to elicit smiles from cai'eworn 
 faces, and wit from, silent tongues. 
 
 The opportunity came when Dornford, after adorn- 
 ing his chancel with much carved woodwork, metal- 
 work, and bits of old painted glass from Wai'dour 
 Street, introduced some alterations in his mode of 
 conducting the service. Amons; other matters the 
 anthem before the sermon had alwaj's tried his tem- 
 per, but when the village choir showed an increasing 
 tendency to encroach on the time allotted for the ser- 
 mon, he one Sunday took the opportunity of a pause, 
 exclaimed in a warm tone, " Enough of that," and 
 began his sermon. The choir walked out of church, 
 and never reentered it in Dornford's lifetime. The 
 candlesticks disappeared from the altar, and all kinds 
 of outrages were committed. The farmers put up 
 some young lads of a degenerate county family to 
 steal into the parsonage grounds and make havoc of 
 the shrubs and the choice pines. But they did worse 
 than that. 
 
 The young, pretty, and better educated wife of a 
 substantial yoeman, with the courage of her sex, 
 avowed and proved her sympathy with the persecuted 
 Rector, calling upon him about the Church music 
 and otlier matters. The enemy waited for her one 
 day, and fired guns over the hedge. She ran home as 
 if for her life, and died a few days after. Her two 
 children followed her, still in their infancy. Dorn- 
 ford's hand appeared in a lofty altar tomb, sur- 
 rounded by iron railings, with a long and touching 
 inscription. The vault had to be opened thirty 
 years afterwards to receive a relative. It had be- 
 
74 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 come a reservoir, and had to be emptied with mucli 
 labor. Water bad performed tlie effects of fire, and 
 nothing remained but some shovelfuls of charred 
 debris^ and a tangled mass which had once been a 
 beautiful head of hair. As tlie widower was to be 
 there next day, a cofiin was hastily made to receive 
 these sad fragments. "Why so large?" I asked 
 when I saw it. The answer was, " To make the old 
 gentleman think there's something left of his wife 
 and children." A drain was then made, and within 
 two years the vault was opened again to receive the 
 widower himself, a kind, grave, business-Uke man. 
 His consolation for many years had been the care of 
 the parish charities, as secretary to the Feoffees, and 
 in the faithful discharge of that responsibility he 
 made me pay, nothing loth, more than twice the very 
 outside value of some wretched hovels that I took 
 down for the improvement of the churchyard and the 
 surrounding communications. 
 
 The vestry meetings were tumults, in which Dorn- 
 ford's sole ambition was not to be beaten in the strife 
 of tongues. He would be as sharp as any of them, 
 and if wounded feelings were to be the measure of 
 defeat, he was always victorious. On one occasion 
 his chief antagonist exclaimed with tragic earnest- 
 ness, " If Mr. Dornford would get a missus of his 
 own it would be better for he and better for we." 
 This was charming. The most abject submission 
 could not have pleased Dornford better. The poor 
 farmer's wish, however, was at last fulfilled, and it 
 did not entirely fail to justify a saying of Newman's, 
 which had in its nature the force of prophecy. He 
 used to compare Dornford to Undine before she had 
 the gift of a soul ; a creature full of good instincts, 
 tastes, and impulses, but in no form or whole. 
 
DORNFORD, RECTOR OF PLYJITREE. 
 
 75 
 
 Dovnford had his admirers in the stronger sex. 
 His tastes were manly, and the poor men of his 
 parish who were not in direct collision with him, and 
 "who could call their souls and their tongues their 
 own, were proud of his figure and bearing, and of 
 the good presentation of the parish he made to the 
 world. These out of the way villages have few 
 things to be proud of, and they think as much of a 
 tall, handsome, well-built parson as of a fine church 
 tower. The great ambition of Dornford's life was to 
 drive a good pair of horses home from Exeter to his 
 parsonage in an hour. As the distance was thirteen 
 miles, and there were some rather stiff ups and downs, 
 besides several miles of bad road, the least detention 
 was fatal. Indeed an hour and two minutes was all 
 ever acliieved. Upon leaving the broad turnpike 
 Dornford would sometimes find the narrow lane 
 blocked by a stout farmer, with a lumbering trap and 
 a poor beast. The farmer would not or could not 
 drive a wheel up into the bank to allow of the Rector 
 driving by without any abatement of speed. On 
 these occasions he would deliver his mind to the big- 
 gest man in his parish with a freedom and plainness 
 of speech which delighted the laborers, not quite so 
 much in the way of rivalry, or collision with the 
 Rector, as their employei-s. Servants, too, have often 
 seen more of the world, and are more men of the 
 world than their masters. 
 
 When I came to Plymtree there was a fine elderly 
 man, a sad cripple, for one of his thighs had been 
 badly broken. He had been Dornford's gardener 
 and groom. He had often said a word to his master 
 about his taking the sharp corners too closely. It is 
 a Devonshire failing. There are more sharp corners 
 
76 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 there than anywhere else in the kingdom, and every- 
 body takes them as close as he can. The result is, no- 
 where else are there so many broken legs, arms, and 
 collar-bones, not to speak of worse casualties. The 
 gardener's warnings were in vain, for one day they 
 were, all upset and the poor man wrecked for life. 
 Neither he nor his wife, also an old servant of Dorn- 
 ford's, could ever speak of him without tears of affec- 
 tion. He left them a trifle, but it did not last long, 
 and then they had to come on the parish. But they 
 did not the less love their master's memory. To an- 
 other couple of old servants was confided the care of 
 his grave, and no grave in the county was kept bet- 
 ter, or so often supplied with new flowers. 
 
 All had stories to tell of the old master's courage 
 and spirit, so deai'ly does that class love freedom, 
 even in its wilder forms. In the eyes of the rustic 
 population the man who had had the last word, or 
 who had done the sauciest thing, was the conqueror, 
 at whatever cost of injured feelings. They would 
 laugh as they related that at a tithe dinner Dornford 
 had suddenly risen from his chair, put his dog in it 
 with the injunction to entertain the company in his 
 " absence, and had not returned till late in the even- 
 ing- 
 
 On one occasion, with the best intentions, he cer- 
 tainly came off the worst. After wrangling with a 
 farmer till his powers of argument failed to reach the 
 understanding, he said rashly and rudely, " I cannot 
 make you see this, for none can see it but gentlemen." 
 " What 's a gentleman ? " said the farmer. Dornford, 
 who had a very well-formed foot, and whose boots al- 
 ways showed it to advantage, stretched out his legs, 
 pointed his toes, and said, " You see that boot ? " — 
 
DORNFORD, RECTOR OF PLYMTREE. 
 
 77 
 
 " Yes, I see it." — " Well, the difference between a 
 gentleman and a man who is not a gentleman, is the 
 same as that between my boot and yours," pointing 
 to the farmer's. On this the farmer said, " I 've got 
 a pair of boots upstairs made by the best bootmaker 
 in Exeter. I 've only to put them on, and I am as 
 good a gentleman as you are ! " 
 
 The rupture with the farmers was complete. They 
 gathei'ed round the single nonconformist family in 
 the parish, built a handsome and capacious chapel, 
 with an educated man for a minister, with an organ, 
 and most of the rebellious choir. 
 
 In the world at large, whether in the University 
 or in Devonshire, Dornford was always and every- 
 where a popuhir man. He was never at a loss for 
 talk, and he could tell any number of stories, not a 
 few with the flavor of the camp. A good representa- 
 tion of the county annually assembled on his lawn to 
 celebrate the anniversary of the chief battle he was 
 engaged in, which the villagers natui'ally understood 
 to be Waterloo. Even the cathedral dignitaries, gen- 
 erally as immovable as the castle in chess, often came 
 where they were sure to meet everybody and hear 
 sometliing new. 
 
 Why was Dornford a bachelor so long ? He was 
 handsome, tall, with a fine figui-e and upright bearing, 
 the readiest of addresses, and a good ringing voice. 
 It was not for want of good intentions that he re- 
 mained so long in that single blessedness which most 
 of. his Tractarian friends so highly extolled and so 
 quickly renounced. An avenue of seventeen cypresses 
 in his garden had been the monuments of as many 
 unsuccessful courtships. I found their places sup- 
 plied by rhododendrons. His mode of address was 
 
78 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 too gallant : there was too much strutting and crow- 
 ing in it. English ladies, accused as they are of be- 
 ing ready to meet advances at least half way, yet ex- 
 pect a little coyness, a little shyness, a little reserve, 
 and Dornford had none. He was all his life, till long 
 past sixty, making up for the fatal omission in his 
 Peninsular service, storming the citadel. The la- 
 dies all laughed at him behind his back, and having 
 laughed at him, could not, or would not, and at all 
 events did not, accept him. So he went on incom- 
 plete till at last he settled into a quiet domestic mar- 
 riage which marvellously composed him and his poor 
 parish, though things had gone too far to be entirely 
 righted in his time. Perhaps this was the soul which 
 Newman had, by implication and certainly without 
 knowing it, prophesied for him. 
 
 One or two things must be added. Henry of Exe- 
 ter was always glad to see Dornford, though he had 
 sometimes to administer a gentle reprimand. " Mr. 
 Dornford, are those white trousers quite clerical ? " 
 " Oh, my lord, they 've washed white," he said, in 
 excuse. " Then I presume," replied he of Exeter, 
 " that your necktie has washed black." I may ven- 
 ture to add that, knowing Dornford .as pupil, as 
 brother Fellow, as successor in his first living, and 
 afterwards frequently meeting him, I had never even 
 a momentary ruffle with him, and never any feeling 
 short of admiration and kindly regard. 
 
 Dornford adorned his parsonage inside and out 
 with old oak carving of all ages and styles. He had 
 a bedroom full of old oak furniture, the wonder and 
 awe of the neighborhood. A passage room he fitted 
 up as an oratory, with a magnificent and costly rere- 
 dos, containing the Passion in five compartments, and 
 
DORNFORD, RECTOR OF PLYMTREE. 
 
 79 
 
 a multitude of figures; pictures, too, not admissible 
 into an Anglican church. As the oratory was con- 
 demned by niy architect, and no other place could 
 be found for the reredos, I had to ask Mrs. Dorn- 
 ford's consent to its presentation to the Albert Mu- 
 seum at Exeter. It might be the genius loci that was 
 moving Dornford in this direction, without his know- 
 ing it. I cannot gather that he was ever awai'e that 
 the parsonage is built within an ancient refectory. 
 He would indeed have been surprised to find that 
 within a yard of his head, as he sat by the dining- 
 room fire, there was hid under lath, plaster, and pa- 
 per-hangings a beautiful oak screen, like those in col- 
 lege halls, which must have seen the Wars of the 
 Roses. 
 
CHAPTER LXXXI. 
 
 SAMUEL RICKAEDS AT ULCOMBE. 
 
 I (X)ULD not say how soon I beard a name that was 
 the object of loving and reverential regard to Oriel 
 men. Samuel Rickards must have matriculated at 
 Oriel in 1813. His pretty poem on the " Temple of 
 Theseus " won the prize in 1815, and is pervaded by 
 a tone of triumphant patriotism suggestive of the 
 period. He took a second class at Easter, 1817, was 
 elected Fellow of his college, and in 1819 won the 
 prize by a thoughtful and interesting essay on the 
 " Characteristic Differences of Greek and Latin Poe- 
 try." 
 
 He married the daughter of a Derbyshire baronet, 
 still living, if this page sees the light as soon as I 
 hope it will. The couple were unequalled, one might 
 confidently say, in the world ; for as he would have 
 been the making of any wife, so she vpould have been 
 the making of any husband. There could not be any 
 other two people combining together so large a share 
 of the sweet and serious elements that make Chris- 
 tian converse. I never heard of any one who was not 
 charmed with Rickards. Ladies sometimes say queer 
 things to one another. A lady who was to be mar- 
 ried the next day confided to Mrs. Rickards her pain- 
 ful misgivings. " My dear," said Mrs. Rickards, 
 " the day before I married I was the happiest of 
 women." " Oh, but you were going to marrj-^ Mr. 
 
SAMUEL RICKARDS AT ULCOMBE. 
 
 81 
 
 Rickards," the expectant bride innocently exclaimed. 
 It was very simple on her part, but I may say I do 
 not know any man whom I could compare as a hus- 
 band with Samuel Rickards. They were as two lights 
 and two flames continually lighting and warming one 
 another. 
 
 Rickards had a full experience of Oriel of the old 
 school. Whately paid him a visit shortly after his 
 marriage. From what transpired, though Whately 
 himself put it in another form, he must then and 
 there have been moved to matrimony. Rickards 
 took the living of Ulcombe, in Kent, not far from 
 Eastwell House, where Lord Winchilsea showed by 
 many marks of attention how much he valued his new 
 neighbors. As in a general sense they were agreed 
 both in religion and politics, this promised a long 
 course of happy cooperation ; but Rickards found 
 himself, after some years, a caged bird. How this 
 came to be I could not say exactly. Lord Winchil- 
 sea's extreme opinions and uncontrollable temper 
 would be likely enough to create embari'assments, 
 for such men expect everybody to go all lengths 
 with them. However, Ulcombe was a very pleasant 
 house, and it was here that Rickards was visited by 
 a succession of Oriel friends. 
 
 It was here that Newman wrote in the Long 
 Vacation, after he had taken Jelf's place in the tutor- 
 ship, upon preparing to return to Oxford, the poem 
 on "Nature and Art," in which, even after describ- 
 ing Oxford, and the material fabrics of the Church of 
 England, under the head of Art, he vowed perpetual 
 allegiance to Nature as the true home and manifest 
 work of Omnipotence. The album in which these 
 
 VOL. II. 6 
 
82 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 verses were written, must have been Mrs, Rickards', 
 and there could not be fitter receptacle. 
 
 Her husband and herself both resembled Ella- 
 combe, of whom I have spoken above, in their univer- 
 sal knowledge of nature. It would be no exagfjeration 
 to apply to them the description of King Solomon's 
 atbiinments in natural history. They noted every- 
 thing, and whatever came within their compass they 
 found a place for in their little domain, which be- 
 came in consequence very crowded. The instant a 
 new specimen arrived it was planted and watered. 
 If it throve it soon acquired fixity of tenure, and 
 had nothing to fear except from its stronger and more 
 aggressive neighbors. 
 
 Long before I knew Rickards, indeed soon after his 
 becoming a Fellow of Oriel, he and a college friend 
 resolved to make some original essay in the region of 
 Inductive Philosophy. They settled on the science 
 of handwriting, if science there should be found in it. 
 They collected some hundreds of specimens of hand- 
 writing that they knew; and first separately, then 
 together, wrote down the characteristics both of the 
 writing and of the writers. When the same char- 
 acteristic running through many handwritings was 
 found to go with some mental characteristic running 
 through every writer, this became a law ; and thus 
 a system was arrived at. Rickards would never di- 
 vulge this system, for he felt that a secret of char- 
 acter, as he found handwriting to be, ought not to be 
 placed in all hands. He really was all but infalli- 
 ble in his application of the system, insomuch that 
 he latterly refused to give an opinion upon hands at 
 once, and would only give one confidentially. The 
 system gave him access to the secrets of the heart, 
 
SAMUEL KICKARDS AT ULCOMBE. 
 
 83 
 
 for he frequently told the writers that which nobody 
 knew but themselves, and which perhaps they then, 
 for the first time recognized. 
 
 In one or two cases, and where I knew the writer, 
 I should have supposed Rickards well acquainted 
 with the man and his history, though it turned out 
 he knew nothing of him but a bit of his handwriting. 
 In some cases he indicated the mental faculties which 
 had still to be shown in action. Of a well-knowu 
 Oxford professor's handwriting which he had never 
 seen before, he said that the writer was both a country 
 gentleman and a University man, that he combined 
 two professions and wore heavy boots. The wi-iter 
 lived at Oxford and was a good scholar, but was 
 never happy except in country occupations ; he had 
 been a tutor and he was a physician ; and he was 
 remarkable for his heavy boots. 
 
 Rickards made mistakes, but they had their sig- 
 nificance. Of the Duke of Wellington's hand he 
 said, " This man will never marry." Certainly the 
 married state was the least developed of the hero's 
 many relations. On being shown Mrs. Fry's hand- 
 writing, he began, " This man," etc. I am bound 
 to add that on my telling this very inconsiderately 
 to Miss Marsh, authoress of "English Hearts and 
 Hands," she immediately related several most touch- 
 ing incidents, bringing out the womanly features of 
 Mrs. Fry's character. 
 
 There is a phase of life which once helped much 
 to vary the monotony of society, which furnished the 
 novelists of the last century with their most surpris- 
 ing incidents, and contributed remarkable experiences 
 to many now living. It was the evening which fre- 
 quently had to be spent at some small country inn, 
 
84 
 
 EEJIINISCENCES. 
 
 sometimes in the only parlor, and in company which, 
 casual as it was, might be agreeable and instructive. 
 That is all of the past. England can now be trav- 
 ersed in anj' direction in a day, so there is no need to 
 put up anywhere for the night. Rickards was once 
 in this case. He was ordering his dinner, wJien the 
 waiter told him another gentleman was about to dine. 
 Perhaps he would not object to join him. Rickards 
 assented. It was a pleasant elderly man of business. 
 They soon got into conversation. As they talked, 
 they seemed to be drawing to a narrower circle. 
 They knew something of the same places and the 
 same names. It was not till late in the evening 
 they discovered they were brothers, that is, on the 
 father's side. The stranger was of the first family, 
 and had been settled out in the world before the 
 father married again and Samuel was born. So 
 they had never seen one another. The only other 
 relative of Rickards I ever heard of was his sister, 
 Mrs. Pearce, who was singularly unlike him in all 
 respects. 
 
 I believe I knew one other instance of a man not 
 having seen his own brother. Edward Blencowe, of 
 W'hom I shall have to speak, had a brother more than 
 thirty years older than himself, still older in frame 
 and in character than in years, in my Northampton- 
 shire neighborhood. 
 
CHAPTER LXXXII. 
 
 SAMUEL RICKARDS AT STOWLANGTOFT. 
 
 At last there came the not undesired opportunity 
 of change. Among Rickards' college friends was 
 Henry Wilson, who, besides excellent abilities and 
 much goodness, in the ordinary sense of that word, 
 was just the most kind-hearted of men. He was the 
 only son of Mr. Wilson, of Highbury, the head of a 
 large house of business in the City. The father had 
 bought the estate of Stowlangtoft, with the living, a 
 few miles from Bury St. Edmund's, and he had placed 
 his son there. The living fell vacant, and Henry 
 Wilson offered it at once to Rickards, hardly taking 
 a denial, even if Rickards had returned one, which 
 he did not. Wilson built for him a handsome and 
 capacious parsonage, of the white brick Suffolk is 
 proud of, and soon, to Lord Winchilsea's great grief, 
 the family was in its new home. 
 
 The scenery was a sad downfall after that pic- 
 tured in " Nature and Art." When Lord Maidstone 
 came to be a pupil there he would stand on a mound 
 in Stowlangtoft churchyard, which the parsonage 
 grounds adjoined, and say, " Now I am on the top of 
 the highest hill in all the county of Suffolk." The 
 site was at least the best in the villacre, known to be 
 the site of a Roman camp by the large white snails 
 surviving there. Yet the place had its charms. The 
 magnificent church was one of forty, built and served 
 
86 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 by the abbey of St. Edinnnd's, and it was -said the 
 architect of them all selected this to be buried in. 
 The county was thoroughly rural and primitive. Stow- 
 langtoft Hall lay at the level of a small stream half 
 a mile from the church. Very soon did the Richards 
 know everything living or growing in the parish, if 
 it could possibly emerge into notice. In a parasitical 
 herb grooving out of the roots of a tree in a roadside 
 bank, Rickards recognized the only plant of Spanish 
 licorice he had ever seen in a wild state, and proud 
 was lie to show it to those he could trust to keep the 
 secret. Whatever could be moved was brought into 
 the rectory garden, which became an interesting 
 wilderness, in which one could roam about, making 
 discoveries every day. Among plants I had never 
 seen or heard of before w-as some sweet-scented vale- 
 rian, grown from seeds enclosed in the cerements of a 
 burial probably as far back as King John. 
 
 Rickards was in his church as he was in his own 
 house ; and there he read and talked to his parish as 
 he did to his family — indeed, to any one separately. 
 It was impossible not to attend, to be interested, and 
 to leai'n. His style was wholly devoid of all that 
 which people put on for preaching and publishing. 
 There was no necessity for garniture or stilted ex- 
 pressions. The man hinjself, his voice and manner, 
 sent every word into his hearers, and when they 
 thought of what he had siiid, the man, the voice, and 
 the manner rose before them. The church — a large 
 one for the parish — was always full, and full, too, of 
 listeners. People came from far to join in such a 
 service. Mr. Bevan, a banker at Bury, came over 
 many years, lunching at the parsonage, till, as must 
 happen at last to every clergyman, Rickards found 
 
SAMUEL, RICKAEDS AT STOWLANGTOFT. 87 
 
 he must reserve all his strength for his day's work, 
 and had none to spare for even one congenial visitor. 
 
 Troubles came, as they come everywhere. The 
 Rickards brought two young daughters, Maria and 
 Lucy, or Minky and Lu, as they were called, from 
 Ulcombe. I saw them both at Stowlungtoft, a loving 
 pair, learning much and doing much. They caught 
 a fever : I think it was at haymaking in the damp 
 meadows about there. Minky died. Lu survived 
 with constitutional injuries which gave her continual 
 trouble and pain. After that it occasionally occurred 
 to Rickards that he ought not to have left Ulcombe, 
 where he was doing a good work, and whei'e he had 
 many kind friends who then missed him much. 
 
 Rickards found very early that he had to part 
 company with the Oxford movement, even if for a 
 day he was heart and soul with it. He wrote in an 
 expostulatory and warning tone to Keble. After a 
 very short interchange of letters the correspondence 
 abruptly ceased. He wrote to Newman with the 
 same result. He was soon outside altogether. The 
 truth was he had taken his ground almost prema- 
 turely on most questions, if not all. I had some long 
 discussions with him in after years, on his challenge, 
 not mine, and I found that he had passed the stage 
 of argument. I maintained that the disputed text 
 (Matthew v. 32) referred only to the case of cause- 
 less, wanton, and capricious divorce, divorce with just 
 cause being expressly excluded ; and that consequent- 
 ly the prohibition applied only to the case of wanton 
 divorce, just divorce being a matter for distinct con- 
 sideration. After much talk Rickards said, " Then 
 you hold that the words ' her that is divorced ' do 
 not include 'her that is justly divorced,' " I refilled 
 
88 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 that I did. Whereupon he closed the books lying 
 open before us and said, " Then there can be no use 
 in talking more about it." 
 
 There came a very serious trial of friendship, 
 which happily passed through tlie trial. Henry 
 Wilson stood for the West division of the county in 
 the Liberal interest. The Conservatives, particularly 
 the clergy, at once inquired whom Rickards was 
 going to vote for. He had promised his vote to the 
 Conservative candidate ; so did all the clergy ; and 
 Wilson lost his election, it was universally believed, 
 through the fact of his own dearest friend voting 
 against him. It did not make the slightest difference 
 in the friendly relation. Wilson was all this time 
 frequently giving Rickai'ds the use of his carriages. 
 The clergy of the neighborhood were then supplying 
 amongst themselves an evening service at the chief 
 church at Bury. Rickards asked me to take his turn, 
 and he went with me. I seem to see now the head of 
 Henry Wilson's magnificent high-stepping brougham 
 horse that took us there and back. 
 
 Rickards felt much for the laborers, who were 
 then in a very restless state and often wanting help. 
 He thought that whatever he gave to help them 
 ought to have come from the farmer or the landlord, 
 not from him, and that the wages ought to be raised 
 to meet the laborers' wants. The employers met 
 this with the simple allegation that they could not 
 afford to pay more. How was Rickards to learn the 
 true state of the case, and be qualified to adjudicate 
 between the laborer and the farmer ? So he took 
 his glebe into his own hands. He had to be out all 
 day ; early and late. He found he had to watch the 
 laborers; to sit up all night with sick cows and sick 
 
SAMUEL RICKARDS AT STOWLANGTOFT. 89 
 
 calves ; to suffer considerable losses ; make some mis- 
 takes ; and finally give up what to him was an im- 
 possible task. 
 
 The truth is, he was not a farmer. In common, 
 too, with nearly all people who are not farmers, he 
 had failed to realize tliat while agriculture is a very 
 precarious business, it is the farmer that takes all its 
 fluctuations and uncertainties. The laborer has his 
 fixed wnges, and the landlord his fixed rent, but the 
 farmer has to take his chance of the weather, the 
 markets, casualties of all kinds, and the many pests 
 to which the cattle and the crops are liable. 
 
 When Rickards entered his parsonage, he found 
 a large kitchen garden, newly laid out and walled. 
 There were also shrubberies, and he had particularly 
 asked for an avenue for meditation. But he also 
 liked strawberries. There must be good beds of 
 them, and the avenue must be lined with them. The 
 crop the first year was magnificent. The school chil- 
 dren were requisitioned to bring large baskets to be 
 filled and sent to neighbors in and out of the parish. 
 The next year the produce was not so overpowering. 
 The third year there was hardly any crop at all. 
 Rickards had forgotten that the garden had been 
 taken out of a wheat field in the best bearing con- 
 dition ; and had now relapsed into its natural state, 
 which was that usually found on the chalk. 
 
 Like many other clergymen, Rickards had a long- 
 ing for royal roads in agriculture, and would occa- 
 sionally try the discoveries announced in the country 
 newspapers. Seeing one day a paragraph stating it 
 as a simple fact that if you mixed up an equal quan- 
 tity of salt, soot, and sulphur, and spread it over a 
 certain surface, you would have wonderful crops of 
 
90 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 everytlahig you might choose to sow, he tried it with 
 the greatest care, sowing garden as well as field seed. 
 He waited for the result with much interest. Not a 
 green thing appeared. The land was a desert and 
 remained so for some years. Rickards believed in 
 Bishop Berkeley's panacea of tar-water. At least he 
 would give it a thorough trial. At one visit I found 
 jars of tar-water all over the house. Rickards him- 
 self drank or sipped it frequently ; sometimes he felt 
 confident it did him good. But he finally gave it up. 
 
 Even as a priest of nature, Rickards had his 
 sorrows. A lad in the school showed an extraor- 
 dinary turn for natural histoiy, especially for the 
 vermin of water, wood, or field. Rickards took much 
 notice of him, and finally got employment for him 
 at the Zoological Gardens. He fancied the reptile 
 house, and was put there. He had to feed the crea- 
 tures, and to change their arrangements. He was 
 often warned of his rashness, but grew familiar with 
 danger. Unhappily, coming from the fresh country 
 air to the reeking metropolis, he acquired the love of 
 drink. One morning, when he had been taking too 
 much, he had to deal with the cobras. One of them 
 bit him. The only remedy in which there was any 
 faith at all was that he should be immediately stupe- 
 fied with brandy. But this required that he should 
 begin sober, and he was now in that stage of intoxica- 
 tion that did not admit of stupefaction. He was 
 shortly dead. 
 
 Every creature had Rickards' sympathy and aid, 
 ineffectual as it might sometimes be, for he could not 
 bear to see anything in distress without an effort to 
 relieve it. In the garden of Stowlangtoft Hall there 
 was an artificial mount, the top of which was reached 
 
SAMUEL RICKABDS AT STOWLANGTOFT. 
 
 91 
 
 by a winding path. Arriving at the top, one hot 
 afternoon, he found a frog that must have wandered 
 there from the fishpond at the foot of the mount. It 
 had been some time out of its element, and could 
 hardly crawl. Rickards stooped, secured it carefully 
 between forefinger and thumb, and carrying it gently 
 down the path, threw it into the pond. It had 
 scarcely touched the water when a pike sprung at it 
 and swallowed it. " Poor froggy ! " was all Rickards 
 could say. 
 
 Rickards spoke slowly, for he never spoke by rote, 
 or ran out in words. There always seemed an exact 
 accord between heart, head, and tongue. I can 
 scarcely imagine anybody, even the veriest rustic, 
 not understanding and feeling whatever he said. His 
 rebukes must have been solemn and awful, except 
 that there would still be love in them. Even the 
 casual force of such a power is terrible. Not long 
 after Rickards' arrival at Stowlangloft, he had a call 
 from a neighboring clergyman, of whom he knew 
 nothing but his name. On his leaving, Rickards 
 offered to accompany him part of his way home. 
 They talked of different people ; at last of one who 
 had laid himself open to censure. It is the way of 
 earnest talkers to come to a stand, and say face to 
 face the most weighty thing they have to say. This 
 is what Rickards did. Turning round to the clergy- 
 man, and raising his hands and his head, he said 
 solemnly, — every word a shot, — "But what can 
 you expect from a man that married his cook ? " It 
 was just what the clei-gyman himself had done. He 
 turned round, and without a word walked away, never 
 to come across Rickards again. 
 
 After the death of old Mr. Wilson, of Highbury 
 
92 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Grove, the extensive grounds were given up to bricks 
 and mortar. Henry Wilson named the cliief thor- 
 oughfare Stowlangtoft Street. In a year or two, 
 when in town, he was told one morning that a deputa- 
 tion had called, and wished to see him. There were 
 half a dozen respectable gentlemen, with a numer- 
 ously signed memorial. It was a request that the 
 name of the street might be changed. Nobody could 
 pronounce it, nobody could spell it. Letters went 
 wrong. If people inquired for the street they were 
 not understood. The street might as well have no 
 name at all. There was no choice, and Henry Wil- 
 son had to give up the sweet country association. 
 
 Lucy Rickards, suffering continually from neural- 
 gia, and a very painful disorder of the gums, found 
 relief in work, in painting and illumination. I believe 
 I am right in saying that she gradually filled with 
 painted glass every window in her father's church. 
 The windows were very large and very lofty, rising 
 thirty feet from the floor of the church. But Lucy 
 Rickards did everything. She made the designs, she 
 cut the glass that had to be cut to form, she painted 
 it, burnt in the colors, put the glass together, doing all 
 the soldering herself, and finally she fixed the com- 
 plete frame into the window, requiring no assistance 
 whatever, except that a man had to be employed in 
 the little scaffolding necessary. This was before the 
 days of the South Kensington Museum, and she had 
 to pay daily visits for a long time to the British Mu- 
 seum to copy from the illuminated works, to which 
 she had access through Mr. Forshall and Mr. Richards 
 of Margaret Street Chapel. 
 
CHAPTER LXXXIIL 
 
 GEORGE ANTHONY DENISON. 
 
 Most ungrateful would it be to pass without due 
 honor two men who contributed much to the life and 
 brightness of the common room in my time. George 
 Anthony Denison and Charles Neate were elected, to- 
 gether with Trovver, the year before my own election, 
 but when I had been a member of the college three 
 years. They were really as different men as could 
 be, though paired by force of circumstance, and to 
 some extent of character. They were Arcades amho. 
 They could talk and chaff about anything, never at a 
 loss, and never piercing to the quick. They were 
 both good scholars, rather above the Oxford run. 
 
 Denison has forgotten Oriel College. It is now 
 some time since he took his name off the books. In 
 his published " Reminiscences " he gives not quite a 
 page to Oriel, and it is such a jumble of inaccuracies, 
 absurdities, and apparent forgets, that one can only 
 suppose it an ingenious way of showing how little he 
 cares for the college. He speaks of Senior, Arnold, 
 and Keble as frequenting Oriel common room, in 
 1828, and describes their conversation as dull and con- 
 strained. The fact is they were never there, except 
 possibly on a " Gaudy Day," when Denison, as a Pro- 
 bationer, would hardly come within bearing of them. 
 If Denison has really forgotten all about the college, 
 what I have to say will be news to him. 
 
94 
 
 BEMIXISCEXCES. 
 
 How could I ever forget bis handsome figure, his 
 pleasant smile, his musical Yoice, and his ever ready 
 wit! Coming from Christchurch, and from a family 
 which had acquired a good county position in Notts, 
 he had advantages over most of us. He knew the 
 social theory- of jjolitics, and a good deal about politi- 
 cal men. 1 have often wondered that his exceedingly 
 able and interesting prize essay, 1829, on the Power 
 and Stability of Federative Governments," was never 
 referred to during the American Civil War. 
 
 His eldest brother had just married a daughter of 
 the Duke of Rutland, which was of course a great lift 
 for a family of Leeds clothiers. It opened au indefi- 
 nite vista, but in one direction only, that is, Whig- 
 gism. Liberalism, and Reform. All the time I knew 
 G. A. D. at Oriel he was in harness which did not fit 
 him at all. The Whig bit was in his mouth, and he 
 champed, and frothed, and made play, but it was not 
 his line. There was an incessant struggle between 
 the inner and the outer man. The fire within had to 
 find vent in something vei-y like scoflBng at things 
 generally, and occasionally in an extraordinary flare 
 out upon trivial occasions. 
 
 At Hall dinner one day Denison, sitting at the 
 head of the high table, broke out into a sudden rage 
 at the rhubarb tart having been sent up hot instead 
 of cold, as he had ordered, he said, and as was the 
 uniform custom, he added in good society. He or- 
 dered up the cook. Mr. King, a most respectable 
 man, father of a large family, including a son at 
 Magdalen College, came up and took his station at a 
 respectful distance to receive the merited castigation. 
 Of course there was silence in the hall, dinner was 
 suspended, and all listened attentively. Denison ha- 
 
GEORGE ANTHONY DENISON. 
 
 95 
 
 rangued the poor man in a set speech : " Was there 
 ever such a barbarism heard of as serving rhubarb 
 tart hot ? Where could Mr. King have lived to 
 know no better than that? So he went on for ten 
 minutes. 
 
 I felt myself smitten by these reproaches, for I 
 think I rather sided with Mr. King in this momentous 
 question ; but I now saw clearly that it was because I 
 had not been in high society. No doubt dukes and 
 that sort of people eat their rhubarb tarts cold. In 
 later years it has frequently occurred to me to inquire 
 whether tliere be not some occult relation between 
 hot rhubarb tarts and the conscience clause. I have 
 not found a clue to it, so I hand over the investiga- 
 tion to our material philosophers, who can associ- 
 ate the highest with the lowest developments, and 
 who may be able to construct a system on it in tliirty 
 octavo volumes. 
 
 Denison took us all in hand. He made the Fel- 
 lows furnish and decorate the common i-oom in good 
 taste, as far as I remember, but of course in the taste 
 of that period. In his laudable desire to civilize us^ 
 he introduced aristocratic amusements ; in particular 
 "cock-fighting." Startle not, reader. The playerj 
 sat on the ground, trussed like fowls, facing one 
 another. They had to make fight with their toes, 
 each trying to trip up and overthrow his antagonist. 
 It was supposed that they who had early learnt to 
 point their toes would have the advantage, but this 
 was not always the case. Another game, said to be 
 common in palaces, was done with broomsticks, and 
 severely taxed the natural balance of the human 
 frame. It was about this time that ladies had frog 
 quadrilles, in which they made themselves wonder- 
 
90 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 fully like frogs, and hopped about like the creatures 
 in the fountain of Ceres at Versailles. How Denison 
 would have enjoyed to see that done in Oriel common 
 room ! Denison was one of the first body of mem- 
 bers of the Athenaeum, a thousand, I think. They 
 wanted two hundred more members to meet their ex- 
 penditure, and Denison canvassed Oriel, me with the 
 rest. As I expected to live all my days in the coun- 
 try, I was not likely, I thought, to want a club. 
 Denison can hardly have found the faith of the 
 Church of England in better hands at the Athenteum 
 than in the University of Oxford. Has he renounced 
 his club as well as his college ? 
 
 It was very seldom that I walked into the Oxford 
 Union. Coming into the common room one evening, 
 Denison said, in my hearing, "I have just heard the 
 best speech I ever heard in my life, by Gladstone, 
 against the Reform Bill. But mark my woi'ds. 
 That man will one day be a Liberal, for he argued 
 against the Bill on Liberal grounds." No doubt 
 Denison's own distracted political state had qualified 
 him for entering into another man's mental compli- 
 cations. Possessed as he was by several spirits, he 
 could understand the inconsistent utterances of one 
 tormented in like fashion. 
 
 I had one day a warm argument with Denison, 
 originating in my applying hai'sh expressions to some 
 Whig minister or Whig measure. Denison said that 
 motives could not be recognized in political discus- 
 sions, which could not be carried on at all if they 
 were. I maintained that it was impossible to ex- 
 clude thein, for they existed in fact, and were actually 
 inseparable. I should think we neither of us knew 
 quite what we were talking about. 
 
GEORGE AXTHONY DENISON. 
 
 97 
 
 I cannot help thinking that thp very divided state 
 of Denison's convictions upon all the great questions 
 of the day for many years, that is, for the best years 
 of life, or rather the difficulty he found in settling 
 into any conviction at all, operated injuriously on his 
 reasoning powers. It was many years before he 
 could feel himself personally disengaged from the 
 family compact, and quite clear of it. By that time 
 he bad arrived at the age when opinions are taken in 
 the gross and in their concrete form, without the 
 power of modification. 
 
 This is not the place to discuss the conscience 
 clause, on the rejection of which Denison staked his 
 name and himself, body and soul, it may almost be 
 said. But this much I will say : If that conscience 
 clause had been fairly accepted by the Church of 
 England twenty years since, we should not have had 
 the Elementary Education Act. 
 
 Though it took Denison a very long time to break 
 through the obstacles in the way of High Church- 
 manship, he never wanted for decision in action. 
 When he was curate at Cuddesdon, and living in a 
 cottage there, he had occasion for some turf for his 
 garden, and accordingly wrote a civil note to the old 
 gentleman then possessed of Shotover House, asking 
 leave to cut some turf from the rough open ground 
 at the top of the hill. The answer came back, " I 
 will not allow anybody to take turf from my hill of 
 Shotover." Without a minute's delay Denison sent 
 carts and horses and drew as much turf as he wanted, 
 judging rightly that after so curt a refusal the writer 
 would think himself and his turf safe for some time. 
 
 At Cuddesdon Denison was curate to Saunders, 
 whom I think he afterwards succeeded, but tliat 
 
 vol. II. 7 
 
98 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 matters not. Saunders — " Black Saunders " he was 
 called, to distinguish him from " White Sanders," 
 now Archdeacon of Exeter — was a good scholar and 
 a good man. He became master of Charterhouse 
 School, and afterwards Dean of Peterborough. He 
 was about the last man to take a leading part in a 
 crusade or a party, and his constant companionship 
 with G. A. D. is one of the many mysteries of friend- 
 ship. 
 
 Denison's fastidiousness was often tried, sometimes 
 severely. He did his best to make the society of the 
 common room such as even a Samuel Wilberforce or 
 a Lord Dudley could have walked into fi'esh from a 
 West End drawing-room without offence to his taste. 
 But it was impossible not to recognize exceptional 
 abilities and merit, and these qualities must be taken 
 as we find them. Poor Denison had one special 
 aversion. Wary as he was, he had the extreme im- 
 prudence to get into an argument with Saunders in a 
 full common room. What it was about, and what 
 had been Denison's last move I know not, but it was 
 instantly replied to, loudly and not very sweetl}', " I 
 thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word." Though 
 Denison was, I think, a born Tory and High Church- 
 man, only doomed to suffer a long and cruel bondage 
 to the worst of all tyraiinies, family convenience, he 
 must be set down among the number of those upon 
 whom Newman was long making a continual and 
 silent impression, undetected or suppressed at the 
 time, but destined to show itself all the stronger 
 afterwards. 
 
 Everybody must regret that Denison has not had 
 a larger and more suitable sphere for the full exercise 
 of his great powers and his really beneficent nature. 
 
GEORGE ANTHONY DENISON. 
 
 99 
 
 With his schohirship, his knowledge of law, his ready 
 wit, his promptitude of action, his agreeable address, 
 and his taste for material improvements, he would 
 have made a first-rate medieeval Chancellor, Arch- 
 bishop, and Cardinal. Disposing of several hundred 
 thousand a year, and commanding several thousand 
 men, he would ere this have reduced to convenient 
 bounds and regular control the waste of waters which 
 from his own hills he sees submerging half his county. 
 He would have practically solved other problems, 
 and set other examples to the rest of England. It is 
 stated that in his own parish he has spent .£1,500 in 
 the formation of hill reservoirs, conduits, and foun- 
 tains, and in disclosing and utilizing springs. Many 
 a clergyman has desired, to do this, and has seen how 
 it could be done ; but chill penury repressed the noble 
 rage, and even if there were the means, there were 
 other and more exigent demands. 
 
CHAPTER LXXXIV. 
 
 CHARLES NEATE. 
 
 Charles Neate was a very interesting and very- 
 lovable man. I miss him sadly in my thoughts of 
 Oxford. He was always entertaining and sufficiently 
 original, for talking at least. You felt it was a man's 
 heart before you, but he had just cynicism enough to 
 sharpen the flavor of his natural humor and ready 
 wit. He had a peculiar nature, inherited I believe. 
 Near forty years ago I heard one who was well ac- 
 quainted with his father, and who had had dealings 
 with him, describe him kindly and respectfully, but 
 as a little — what shall I say ? Well, the word was 
 cracked. Cracks, crazes, crotchets, are words gener- 
 ally used to denote some unexpectedly hard or sharp 
 resistance in the composition of any one you have to 
 deal with. You expected to find him yielding and 
 elastic, but suddenly you came on a bone, perhaps 
 a backbone, and, in regard to your expectation and 
 plan, it is a craze. You may be right and you may 
 be wrong in giving an ill name to that which does 
 not suit your ends. 
 
 Denison and Neate must have had much in com- 
 mon, otherwise they would not have got on so capi- 
 tally together; but the differences were more obvious. 
 Neate came of that middle-class gentry that has acted 
 so important a part in the maintenance of this State, 
 and also in its revolutions and lesser perturbations. 
 
CHARLES NEATE. 
 
 101 
 
 Keeping their place pretty well, and without exorbi- 
 tant ambition, tliey have generally been frondeurs, 
 content to grumble at their little difficulties and their 
 want of openings. They have coveted the prizes 
 without the risks of public life. Now and then they 
 have been roused, I'allied, and marshalled by such 
 spirits as Cromwell, to this day the patron saint of 
 tl«3 class, and continually invoked to reappear and do 
 some little job for them. But it is very much of an 
 accident what are their political opinions, for during 
 most of last century the class had Jacobite tendencies. 
 Its rule is to be against the Court party, whatever 
 that may be. It is continually strengthened by its 
 alliances with the town manufacturers, bankers, deal- 
 ers, and brewers. The higher gentry may possess 
 much of the soil of our towns and their neighborhood, 
 but the smaller gentry have had the pull on their 
 more valuable industry. Nevertheless they are a 
 complaining race, never knowing quite what to be at, 
 as is the case with all half-casts. 
 
 The Denisons, on the other hand, come of that 
 robuster, bolder, more independent, and more ener- 
 getic northern stock that has created Lancashire and 
 the West Riding. Ambitious, and with a good deal 
 of woi'ldly wisdom, they fight their own battles, in- 
 stead of harboring their discontents or venting their 
 grievances. They are rich and have the gloss of a 
 high civilization. They wear kid gloves and deal 
 heavy blows ; they smile as sweet as lords, but have 
 no mercy even to tlie fallen. G. A. D. was the very 
 type of the class. Nature and education framed him 
 for a very great man, but he was robbed of his career 
 and degraded into a troublesome and unsuccessful 
 agitator by a grand family alliance, and, it must be 
 
102 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 added, by the fell necessity of keeping the electors of 
 Liverpool drunk for fourteen days on a memorable 
 occasion. 
 
 With a genial temperament, a fair inheritance of 
 natural gifts, and a great amount of goodness, Charles 
 Neate had an education specially calculated to de- 
 velop him up to a certain point, and utterly disqualify 
 him for anything beyond. He was purposely made 
 hybrid, half an Englishman and half a Frenchman — 
 French to begin with. His early education was at 
 the College Bourbon at Paris, where he obtained a 
 vei-y great prize for French composition, open to all 
 the schools of France. How that was it is hard to 
 conceive, but it appears to have been the fact. An 
 Englishman made half French can hardly fail to let 
 his political and social ideas run in half a dozen di- 
 verging directions, for he can rarely have so strong 
 a predisposition as to be thoroughly Legitimist, or 
 thoroughly Republican, or thoroughly of any section 
 or party. Nor can he take things in a regular 
 course. He is likely enough to become the senti- 
 mental adherent of a party or a school existing only 
 in the sad retrospect, or in the visionary future, or in 
 the mere background of a picture. Neate lost half 
 his English nature, and acquired only the fragments 
 of various French natures. 
 
 It appeared to me that he was always, by choice, 
 behindhand altogether in his political conclusions. 
 There are people who are behindhand because they 
 are indecisive and dilatory. They wait to be led by 
 the event, because they are simply idle and slow. 
 They resolve and act just when it is too late. But 
 Neate looked about him, and seeing which was the 
 side then quite hopeless, a thing of the past, proper 
 
CHARLES NEATE. 
 
 103 
 
 subject for monodies, elegies, and monumental in- 
 scriptions, closed with it as best suiting liis nature. 
 
 Thus he early forswore the worship of success, 
 and pinned his colors to defeat. He professed to 
 take the popular side of Liberalism, and he delivered 
 and published lectures on Political Economy ; but 
 when the Corn Laws had been some time repealed, 
 and Free Trade was an established and stubborn 
 fact, then he found out that it was all a mistake, and 
 England had been doing very foolishly. My impres- 
 sion is that whenever I met him I found him still 
 harking back to some point of the almost forgotten 
 past, or taking his side with the incurable and the 
 irreversible. He must have had a hard time of it at 
 Oxford, except that it has latterly yielded him a con- 
 tinual harvest of things to be wished back again. 
 One continual regret he had, and it drove him to the 
 unwonted exertion of illustrating it in a small book. 
 He felt the disappearance of style in English litera- 
 ture and public speaking. Writers and talkers are 
 so full of matter, so hurried, so much in the habit of 
 addressing themselves to people without tastes and 
 ideas, that they run into one dull level of verbiage, 
 often quite as empty as the most sentimental and im- 
 aginative utterances could be. So Neate publislied a 
 fascimlus of translations into Latin verse and prose, 
 and original compositions in Latin and French. \n 
 this he lets out rather than avows his preference for 
 the Roraanistic languages to the Greek, and its Gei- 
 man satellite. Upon tlie whole, there can be little 
 doubt that the Latin school is the best for that elo- 
 quence which is to please and persuade as well as 
 teach and inform. Following up his schoolboy suc- 
 cesses, he had j^wblished in French a Dialogue be- 
 
104 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 tween Guizot and Louis Blanc on the merits of Louis 
 Philippe's government. From this he now appended 
 extracts, indicating that he still clave to that idea of 
 constitutional monarchy which somehow has never 
 taken root on French soil. 
 
 Keate was the same in public as in private life. 
 Strange as it may seem, there was a time when it was 
 hardly possible to open a newspaper without seeing 
 his name a dozen times in the Pai-liaraentary debates. 
 He made good little speeches, but what they were 
 about, or what was their general line, or whether 
 they were on anj line at all, it now passes me to say. 
 It was much the same with his conversation, as far as 
 I remember ; very pleasant, very companionable, very 
 recreative, good for heart, mind, and soul, not over- 
 taxing the intellect or overcharging the memory. It 
 rarely left much more trace than the sea breaking 
 gently on a soft shelving shove. Is there any one 
 who can record Charles Neate's sayings ? They must 
 be innumerable, for he was always saying something, 
 and it was always something witty, good, and, in a 
 sense, true. 
 
 Early in life he cut short a rather promising legal 
 career by an act which showed his utterly unprac- 
 tical nature. He was engaged on the same side as 
 Bethell, and rather in his usual way was offering 
 frequent suggestions, which somewhat disturbed his 
 leader. In a moment of irritation Bethell said, in 
 the hearing of the court, " Hold j'our tongue, you 
 fool ! " Neate waj^laid him as he was leaving the 
 court, and laid hands on him in some insulting fash- 
 ion. English courts of law allow full play to the 
 tongue, but not to the hands, and it was now all over 
 with Charles Neate in his profession. 
 
CHARLES NEATE. 
 
 105 
 
 After being private secretary for some tiine to Sir 
 F. Baring, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, and 
 after representing the city of Oxford very respectably 
 for some years, Neate devoted himself to Oxford in 
 his academic and also his municipal character. One 
 of his offices was clerk of the market, a post of some 
 importance at Oxford, and of great antiquarian in- 
 terest. I do not know whether in that capacity he 
 had to perform the ancient duty of amercing re- 
 graters and forestallers, but it would have suited his 
 taste admii'ably. 
 
 As we passed through the market with him one 
 day, everybody gave him a warm greeting, and many 
 had something to say. The women came up to him 
 offering little bouquets, and he could have decorated 
 his "weird" figure, as the Bishop of Manchester 
 called it, with as many of them as he pleased. One 
 woman was very importunate, but it was a wife, not 
 a widow, and a widow was the aggressor. The wife 
 was most energetic in her demand for redress, and 
 she extracted from Neate a promise that he would 
 bring her case before the next court of commissioners 
 — I think that was the phrase. Her husband had a 
 shop, with the use of the foreshore, that is the irreg- 
 ular space between the foot pavement and the road. 
 But the shop was at the corner, and there was a 
 small space of foreshore not directly before it. The 
 commissioners had allowed a poor young widow to 
 ensconce herself on this odd bit. But it was not 
 enough for her little polity of hampers and baskets, 
 and for the proper display of her fruits and vege- 
 tables, so she had kept up a steady encroachment 
 into the adjacent foreshore, and actually had estab- 
 lished a position between the adjacent shop and the 
 
106 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 road. The aggrieved wife was furious and implaca- 
 ble. The husband sat by looking stupidly indiffer- 
 ent. How it all ended I know not. 
 
 The last time I saw Neate he was pacing up and 
 down on the pavement before the town-hall. He 
 looked very wild, pale, and thin. He had a bundle 
 of memoranda in his hand, to which he kept look- 
 ing. He had to take the train in a few minutes for 
 town, where he intended to make a speech for some 
 nationality, I foi'get what. Its cause must have been 
 utterly hopeless to put him in that excitement. I 
 trust he was too late for the train, and that he spent 
 the evening with his sister and went to bed in good 
 time, for the meeting was daly held, and his name 
 did not appear in the proceedings. Not long after 
 that his virtues were solemnly and touchingly pro- 
 nounced from the pulpit of St. Mary's, and the Uni- 
 versity and the city followed him to his grave. 
 
CHAPTER LXXXV. 
 
 EDWARD BLENCOWE. 
 
 Edward Blencowe is only a name in the annals 
 of Oriel College, but his case will go some way to 
 prove that there was no attempt to form the college 
 on any school or type of character. He had been 
 with me at Charterhouse, but, not being in the same 
 house, was a pleasant acquaintance rather than an 
 associate. He went to that school at the age of ten, 
 and left before me. I was, however, with him for 
 some time in the first form, as it was there called. 
 We were going through the Odes of Horace with 
 Russell's usual minuteness of criticism, from which 
 the attention of even the best drilled boys would 
 sometimes mercifully wander. Blencowe one day 
 quietly exchanged books with me, and, taking out 
 his pencil, illustrated with a beautiful coast scene the 
 words : 
 
 Utcunque dulci, Tyndari, fistula 
 Valles, et Usticis cubantis 
 Levia personuere saxa. 
 
 The illustration, however, represented rather Blen- 
 cowe's own longings than the locality named in the 
 ode, which is a village on a mountain slope, down 
 the valleys of which rush many streams, smoothing 
 the rocks as they dash over them. Blencowe's pic- 
 ture seemed to make the rocks those of the seashore, 
 and the smoothing done by the waves. 
 
108 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 When I came up to Oxford I found Blencowe had 
 been some time scholar of Wadham, and we renewed 
 our friendship. He lived, however, veiy much in a 
 little world of his own. He took a first class at Easter, 
 1828, and when I became Fellow I saw still more of 
 him, but with my notion of Wadham he seemed to 
 me lost in that college. It was at least a separation. 
 So I persuaded him to stand for Oriel, and spoke 
 much of his merits to Newman, Froude, and Wilber- 
 force. He was elected. It was an utter failure. 
 Blencowe divided his time between his new and his 
 old college, and had all his heart in the old one. This 
 would not necessarily imply any distaste for his new 
 companions. Wadham College is far superior to 
 Oriel in its buildings, its garden, and even its situa- 
 tion, though a little out of the way. But, in matter 
 of fact, BlencoAve did not feel at home in Oriel so- 
 ciety, and did not even make the attempt. I soon, 
 and for some time, got a good deal twitted on the ill 
 success of my I'ecommendations. How anybody could 
 cleave in his heart to Symons is a thing I cannot 
 understand, but when one sees the husbands some 
 wives are found to dote upon, one cannot be surprised 
 at anything. 
 
 Blencowe gave up residence as soon as he could, 
 took Orders, and had charge of a parish some years 
 on the coast of Glamorganshire. I had, and still 
 possess, many letters from him. They abounded in 
 descriptions of the Mumbles, reminding me often of 
 his Horatian vignette, and they told me much I had 
 not known of the Flemish settlement of the Gower. 
 Blencowe married, and till his death, at the age of 
 thirty-eight, had the curacy of Teversali, in Notts. 
 His widow published a volume of his sermons. 
 
EDWARD BLENCOWE. 
 
 109 
 
 wi'itten without a thought of publication ; and upon 
 the great encouragement she received she published 
 a second and then a third volume. For all I know, 
 these sermons have been preached from more pulpits 
 than any other sermons of this century, and they 
 certainly bear much preaching. None could be 
 simpler, plainer, more earnest, or more kindly. Well, 
 I suppose I must set him down as a feather in old 
 Syraons' cap, much as I grudge him that ornament. 
 The sermons, however, are described as by the late 
 Rev. Edward Blencowe, formerly Fellow of Oriel 
 College. 
 
CHAPTER LXXXVL 
 
 CHARLES PORTALIS GOLIGHTLY. 
 
 In any picture of Oriel society, as bearing on 
 the "movement," there are other characters than 
 those already noticed that would be certainly looked 
 for. What shall be said of the most unchangeable 
 member of Oriel, not to say Oxford society; the 
 iron bridge striding right over the movement, and 
 stretching from the Oriel school of Coplestone's days 
 to who shall say what new Oriel school of the latter 
 days of this changeful century? 
 
 Oriel men of almost any standing will anticipate 
 who this must be. Golightly came to Oriel with 
 some great advantages. He was an Etonian, and 
 was thus known, and a public character,' from his 
 boyhood. His friends, moving about, had lived in 
 various pleasant places, forming many acquaintances. 
 He had been some time at Rome, seeing a good deal 
 of certain Cardinals, and entering into their charac- 
 ters and their politics. One result was a lurking 
 tenderness for Cardinals, and Golightly was not a 
 little pleased to find some years ago that his house 
 stood in the old books of Merton College as the 
 Cardinal's Head. He had a pretty little Cardinal's 
 hat painted on the lintel of his front door. No doubt 
 he has felt it an honor to his University to have 
 contributed two living members of the Sacred 
 College. 
 
CHARLES PORTALIS GOLIGHTLY. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Goligbtly's second Christian name indicates his 
 descent from a Protestant branch of the very numer- 
 ous Portalis family, which, variously spelt, has per- 
 formed distinguished parts in French and Swiss 
 politics, and has a good position in this country. 
 Golightly used to produce some interesting family 
 relics and traditions of the French prophets, who 
 about the beginning of last century anticipated clair- 
 voyance, spiritual mediums, and all the rest of it, 
 lately much in vogue and not quite exploded yet. 
 
 He had early formed strong religious convictions. 
 An early formation of chai-acter brings its advantages 
 and also its disadvantages. Society has the benefit of 
 both. I have to acknowledge the greatest of obliga- 
 tions. Golightly was the first human being to talk 
 to me, directly and plainly, for my soul's good, and 
 that is a debt that no time, no distance, no vicissi- 
 tudes, no differences can elface, no not eternity itself, 
 if one may venture to name that which is incom- 
 prehensible. His religion was that of Scott, and 
 Newton, and Cecil, and Baxter, and Owen, and cer- 
 tain select Puritans, not without a little High Church 
 seasoning, when not quite too high. 
 
 He had abundance of means, of general informa- 
 tion and anecdote, and of self-confidence, invaluable 
 at a University. Most freshmen are so overwhelmed 
 by the new world they are brought into, and the 
 bright vision opened to their eyes, that they spend 
 sevei'al terms in recovering self-possession and learn- 
 ing to feel at home. They are leaning upon old school 
 acquaintances, timidly courting new ones, nervous 
 about etiquette, suspicious of the outer world, and 
 sometimes even beginning to wrap themselves up in 
 a sullen independence. Golightly must have been as 
 
112 
 
 KEfflNISCENCES, 
 
 much at home and master of a certain position the 
 day he arrived at Oxford, fifty-eight years ago, as he 
 is to-day. 
 
 He was always accessible, companionable, and 
 hospitable, and his own kindness and frankness were 
 diffused among those that met in his rooms and 
 made a social circle. He could criticise the Univer- 
 sity sermons freely, raise theological questions, and 
 occasionally lay down the law, — a very useful thing 
 to be done in the mass of wild sentiment, random 
 utterances, and general feeling of irresponsibility con- 
 stituting undergraduate conversation. At a very 
 early period his decision upon Newman was that he 
 wanted judgment. Of bis genius he doubted not, but 
 he felt that to be a dangerous element in the Church. 
 
 I used to meet good men of other colleges at Go- 
 lightly's rooms, and I am under a great though in- 
 definite obligation to him on that account. But the 
 truth is, v^hen people are good, but all in much the 
 same way, and in the same phrases, a few types are 
 all that the memory' will carry long. I retain and 
 love the memory of Salisbury Everard. The last 
 time I met him was at Golightly's rooms, when I 
 was on the point of taking Orders. His farewell 
 words to me were, " I hope that when your people ask 
 for bi"ead, you will not give them a stone." The 
 words have recurred to me ten thousand times, not 
 without a misgiving that I was doing the very thing 
 deprecated. I have given my successive parishioners 
 plenty of stone, in church building, school building, 
 and church and village improvements. In that and 
 other ways I have given plenty of the bread that 
 perisheth. As to that other bread, who will be bold 
 to answer for himself ? 
 
CHARLES POBTALIS GOLIGHTLY. 113 
 
 Upon taking his degree, and being told that his 
 private income would disqualify him for a Fellowship, 
 Golightly was ordained, and held curacies at Godal- 
 ming and elsewhere, acquiring varied experiences of 
 Evangelical incumbents, I fear I should spoil some of 
 his stories if I were to try to repeat them. Where 
 was it that he took the sole charge of a large parish, 
 the Evangelical incumbent of which was to be absent 
 for two years on a continental tour ? He had imme- 
 diately to start down the gutter a large stock of small 
 beer he had had to pay for. The Vicar had left a 
 servant in the house to take care not only of it, but 
 also of his own babe in arms ; and had very thought- 
 fully left minute directions what was to be done with 
 the hapless innocent in case it caught the small-pox, 
 and where it was to be buried if it died. 
 
 In 1836, when Littlemore chapel was nearly fin- 
 ished, it occurred to me and some others that it would 
 be a very nice arrangement for Golightly to return to 
 Oxford and take the charge of the chapel and district, 
 which then had no endowment. Of course we ought 
 to have thought a little more about his theological 
 views, and his rather determined expression of them. 
 Golightly entered into the plan with real enthusiasm, 
 bought a good house in Holywell Street, and settled 
 there. A single sermon dispelled the pleasant illusion. 
 It was evidently impossible that he and the Vicar of 
 St. Mary's could get on together. So there was Go- 
 lightly cajoled, betrayed, and cast adrift. It was a 
 case of downright folly all round. 
 
 But many a wise, carefully considered, and well 
 digested scheme has led to less permanent and less 
 important results. Golightly was satisfied with his 
 position. He had a constant succL'ssion of new under- 
 
 VOL. II. 8 
 
114 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 gi'aduate friends, including Frederick Faber and 
 others, afterwards distinguished as members of the 
 new school. He added to his house and his gardens, 
 and became a considerable personage, exercising in 
 due time a quasi-patriarchal jurisdiction over the 
 University and the Diocese of Oxford, and the Church 
 of England. But while all is change around him, and 
 nowhere is change so rapid and so revolutionary as at 
 Oxford, Golightly has remained as fixed as the rock 
 against which Virgil describes the winds and waves 
 beating in vain. Generations of undergraduates, of 
 tutors, and even of heads of houses, have passed by 
 him, and he remains. Oaths, subscriptions, clerical 
 Fellows, lay Fellows, tutors, halls, have passed away, 
 but Golightly still lives to tell of Oxford, and of 
 Rome too, as they were in the first quarter of this 
 century. 
 
 Ordinary natures might succumb under the sense 
 of an ineffectual struggle against the law of change, 
 not to say deterioration. Fortunately, a fact so 
 painful and depressing seems almost out of Golightly's 
 ken, or it has operated like a tonic on his healthy 
 physical and moral constitution. He has fulfilled 
 the particular duty impressed on the tender con- 
 science of his infancy, protesting against everything 
 that in his judgment savors of superstition and 
 sacerdotalism. The Power that allots us our several 
 parts has given him that to do, so he believed, and so 
 he has done. Let others find their work in other 
 lines. 
 
 Since the above was written, Golightly has pub- 
 lished an indignant but not the less interesting 
 Letter on many passages reflecting on himself in the 
 second volume of the " Life of Bishop Wilberforce." 
 
CHARLES PORTALIS GOLIGHTLY. 
 
 115 
 
 The editor of that Life has committed an offence, 
 amounting to a positive outrage, against the common 
 rules of obituary record. The first of those rules is 
 not to say anything but good of the newly departed. 
 Their virtues are to be brought out, their good deeds 
 told, all the rest softened, and even veiled. The 
 second rule is a corollary. It is that the opportunity 
 is not to be used to rake up controversies, to fling 
 stones right and left, or to vamp up an ideal per- 
 fection by depreciating and satirizing others all 
 round ; in a word, to convert what really is a pious 
 service into a vulgar broil. This second rule must 
 be observed, or the biographer will find the rule 
 De mortuis nil nisi bonum very soon disregarded. 
 Golightly, with most other people, was evidently 
 willing to merge old feuds and long reckonings in 
 the more agreeable sentiment of a loving admiration 
 for Samuel Wilberforce's genial nature and many 
 useful qualities. But he was not allowed to do this. 
 The biographer as it were diverted the funeral train 
 from its proper course that the mourners might 
 break Golightly's windows as they passed. Of course 
 he has resented this abuse of a sacred solemnity, and 
 stood on his defence. So far as I have read he has 
 not said a word that is not justified by the occasion, 
 though for one I much regret that the occasion has 
 occurred. 
 
CHAPTER LXXXVII. 
 
 CHAKLES LAKCELOT LEE BKENTON. 
 
 Brenton supplies but a fleeting image and a sad 
 retrospect. He was the very child of misfortune 
 and hardship. His ancestors had been loyal to the 
 British cause in the American War of Independence, 
 and' had lost all their property, which was consider- 
 able. His father had become celebrated as captain 
 of the Spartan frigate, that by continually keeping 
 just ahead of the French fleet in the Mediterranean 
 warned British vessels of its approach. He was 
 rewarded with a baronetcy, but not with the means 
 to support it. The general notion in those days was 
 that if a man had a title he could take it to market 
 and buy a fortune with it. Brenton's uncle wrote, or 
 compiled, a copious history of our naval wars, de- 
 signed to supersede that by James, and he fondly 
 •hoped that the nephew at Oriel would one day devote 
 himself to prepare it for the press. 
 
 The family were in straitened circumstances. Bren- 
 ton, it was said, came up with an allowance of £150 
 a 3'ear to cover all expenses. It can be done, but 
 only as Brenton did it. As far as appearances went 
 be raifiht have worn the same clothes all the time he 
 was at college, and his rooms were not inviting. But 
 there was something like a quarrel with the world in 
 Brenton's disposition. In one way or another he had 
 suffered persecution, but had not learnt mercy, for he 
 
CHARLES LANCELOT LEE BRENTON. 
 
 117 
 
 had but scant share of the graces that sweeten life 
 and reconcile men. He had hardly a good word for 
 anybody, least of all for the tutors and college offi- 
 cers, sorely taxed and sorely vexed, and yet doing 
 their best to accomplish their arduous and not very 
 thankful duties ; at all events vastly his superiors. 
 There was a harshness and cynicism about him which 
 did small honor to his religious professions. 
 
 A ready sympathy with the many various forms of 
 goodness and of greatness checkering the landscape 
 of this world even to the very foreground is a con- 
 stant source of happiness to draw upon in dull or sor- 
 rowful times. It is good to love and admire as much 
 as possible ; deadly to love and admire none. Sym- 
 pathy, too, is tlie chief outwork of truth and duty, 
 for we naturally think longer and deeper over a mat- 
 ter when the heart is interested. 
 
 Brenton was always ready to take the chair of au- 
 thority and deliver the law. Of course he was an 
 early riser, and in this matter he regarded the com- 
 fort of his neighbors as little as he did his own. His 
 rooms were a couple of stories over Tyler's. " Mr. 
 Brenton," said the Dean one day, with kindly expos- 
 tulation, " what is that I hear every morning about 
 five o'clock come down with a thump over ray head ? " 
 Brenton had adopted the hideous device by which a 
 great weight is released at the appointed hour and 
 drags off your bed-clothes. It had hardly occurred to 
 him that he was waking the whole staircase at the 
 same time. 
 
 There was a presentiment of unhappiness when he 
 left the college, for he carried a gloom with him. He 
 took Orders, and in a year or two it was rumored 
 that he had been overworked with the care of a large 
 
118 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 parish, and that he lay ill of a bad fever. After a 
 time he was reported well again, but unable to take 
 duty. He presented himself at the college, and of 
 coui'se was invited to the common room. It was im- 
 mediately evident that he was not quite recovered of 
 his fever, and that Oxford was not the place to com- 
 plete his recovery. He took the lead of the conver- 
 sation, and conducted arguments in a voice that shook 
 the building. In vain did the other talkers lower 
 and soften their tones to set the key ; he only vocif- 
 erated louder and louder. 
 
 This was startling in a man who had been an un- 
 dergraduate a few months before. But this was one 
 of the institutions of the period, at least of the school 
 to which Brenton had attached himself. The great 
 and good man of that school had a message to deliver 
 and an opportunity to use. He could not do this 
 without silencing common voices and stopping frivo- 
 lous conversation. I remember Cunningham of Har- 
 row, at an unusually large party in the common 
 room, seated near one end of the room. At the first 
 pause he raised his voice and addressed himself to 
 some one at the other end, and delivered a series of 
 addresses in a key which scarcely allowed of inter- 
 ruption or response. Mrs. Archdeacon Robinson, 
 Dornford's sister, did the same, so I heard, for I was 
 not present at the Pi-ovost's table. In the country I 
 not unfrequently found myself at parties where the 
 understanding was that after a five minutes' inter- 
 change of greetings, conversation was to falter, and 
 the big gun to open fire. 
 
 It was a great relief, though with some misgiving 
 for the results, when it was known that Brenton 
 had taken charge'of Stadhampton, seven miles from 
 
CHARLES LANCELOT LEE BRENTON. 
 
 119 
 
 Oxford, in the temporary absence of Mr. Peers, it 
 might be for a couple of months. Before the expira- 
 tion of that time it was rumored that he had refused 
 to bury a drunkard, and that he had preached a vio- 
 lent sermon, declaring liis intention to quit the 
 Church of England. He might soon be expected 
 back at Oxford. He came, and he published his ser- 
 mon. 
 
 In reply to the anxious inquiries of his old friends, 
 he gave some curious explanations of his conduct. 
 * He had long had his doubts about the Church of Eng- 
 land. It was only a sort of Popery. A man was not 
 the better for belonging to it. He had taken a pop- 
 ulous parish in order to stifle these doubts in incessant 
 work. The struggle between working and doubting 
 had cost him his health and nearly his life. He had 
 already made up his mind to leave the Church when, 
 after his illness, he returned to Oxford, but had 
 thought it his duty to hear what the college had to 
 say in defence of the Church. The college had said 
 nothing to alter his intention. In point of fact he had 
 not allowed the college to say anything, for wherever 
 he was he talked and would let nobody else talk. He 
 had thereupon wanted an opportunity to renounce 
 the Church, and a clergyman off duty has no oppor- 
 tunity. So he gladly availed himself of Mr. Peers' 
 offer to take charge of his parish, as it would be sure 
 speedily to supply him with the desired occasion. 
 The death of the drunkard was all that he wanted, 
 and on that text he had preached and acted. It did 
 not occur to him for a moment that there was some 
 dishonesty and hypocrisy in undertaking a solemn 
 charge, on the plain understanding that he would ac- 
 cept the ordinary conditions of the work, but with a 
 
120 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 secret intention to throw np the engagement and 
 leave his friend in the lurch, as tlie readiest way of 
 protesting against these ordinary conditions. 
 
 Indeed, it was evident the poor man was mad when 
 he came back to college, and was mad even now. 
 While Brenton was still rushing about Oxford in an 
 excited state, I was under examination for Deacon's 
 Orders. The day before the ordination I had re- 
 ceived the usual suggestion to supply m3^self with a 
 copy of the Ordination Service, published separately 
 in square black covei's. Coming out of Parker's shop 
 with one of these in my hand, 1 met Brenton striding 
 along. He was familiar with the look of the book. 
 " So 3'ou 're going in just as I 'm going out," he hal- 
 loed at the pitch of his voice, and passed on without 
 a word more. 
 
 Before long it was known that Brenton and some 
 equally distempered friend had taken a small chapel 
 at Bath, and set up a new sect, of no very peculiar 
 or distinctive character. At intervals I and his other 
 old Oxford acquaintances received from him English 
 and Latin verses of a sentimental character, not with- 
 out merit, but affording no cue to the separation. 
 The congregation was said to be small and intermit- 
 tent, and the sect appears to have died out with the 
 founders. 
 
 It was in December, 1831, that Brenton seceded 
 from the Church of England, one of many fugitives 
 upon one ground or another. 
 
 The unfortunate officer who left the Prince Impe- 
 rial to his fate was a blood relation, a nephew ; and 
 it has occurred to me that a touch of insanity is the 
 best account that can be given of his extraordinary 
 behavior in that lamentable affair. 
 
CHARLES LANCELOT LEE BRENTON. 
 
 121 
 
 Poor Brenton's interruption of Tyler's " beauty's 
 sleep " reminds me of my having once been the 
 means of shortening his rest at the other end. I was 
 occupying the garret at the top of the buttery stair- 
 case. Danvers Clarke, whom I had known as a pu- 
 pil of Mi: Wayland in Lincolnshire, and who was 
 now at Exeter College, dropped in to tea. Towards 
 eleven he observed a small door in the wainscot. 
 "What's that ? " he said. It was the door to the bell 
 turret. Opening it, he sprung into the turret, and 
 mounting a few steps, laid hold of the rope and rang 
 the bell several times. It is about the most alarming 
 sound that can be heard at Oxford, for if it means 
 anything it is a college on fire. The porter was up 
 immediately, and had to go and report to the Dean. 
 Next morning Tyler sent for me. 
 
 " Mr. Mozley, I was just falling aslee,) last night 
 when I heard the bell. I could not suppose it was 
 you ringing it, and could not think what had hap- 
 pened." 
 
 I explained, and was advised to be careful in the 
 choice of acquaintance. 
 
 The prospect of editing his uncle's " Naval His- 
 tory " was an incubus that weighed heavily on poor 
 Brenton. There was an immense mass of MSS. to 
 be arranged, reduced to convenient bulk, and a good 
 deal rewritten. Tlie details were new to Brenton. 
 He left me in doubt whether he was likely to under- 
 take it, but I understood that the uncle had sent him 
 to school and college for the purpose. The idea of a 
 big work to be done must have become fixed in his 
 mind, for on the last page of a small collection of 
 pieces he sent me in 1858, I see among other publi- 
 cations by Sir C. Brenton, " The Septuagint Version 
 
122 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 of the Old Testament, according to the Vatican text, 
 ti'anslated into English, with the principal various 
 readings of the Alexandrine copy, and a Table of 
 Comparative Chronology. Bagster, Paternoster Row. 
 Price one guinea." 
 
CHAPTER LXXXVIII. 
 
 ANTOZSTY BULLEK. 
 
 Devonshiee was strong at Oriel in these days, for 
 Coplestone was proud of his county and of his line- 
 age, and he used to acquaint everybody with the an- 
 tiquities of his own family and the origin of his 
 name. Among the most genuine sons of Devon was 
 " Tony BuUer," then a very unpretending and. very 
 warm-hearted friend of the Froudes. He was rather 
 disposed to hide his talent under a bushel, a common 
 fault of good men, but a fault for all that. 
 
 In his very first term 'he had an unlucky mishap. 
 He was asked to a supper, and having no excuse for 
 declining, he felt himself bound to go. The company 
 smoked and drank, talked and sang songs louder and 
 louder, as is the way of such people, tliinking of no- 
 body but themselves. Poor Tony felt crushed and 
 humiliated; he could not open his mouth, and had 
 not the courage to rise from his chair and bid his 
 friends good-night. It might be bad manners to 
 break up so pleasant a party. Towards midnight 
 the door opened and Hawkins, now Provost, pre- 
 sented himself in his academicals. As he was look- 
 ing round for some one whom he might hope to find 
 sensible of his rebuke, his eye lighted on Tony Bul- 
 ler, the picture of misery, though the Provost might 
 easily put another construction on the blank exprea- 
 Bion of his face. " Mr. BuUer," he immediately be- 
 
124 
 
 REMINISCENCES.- 
 
 gaii, " I am astonished to see you," etc., etc. He 
 said wliatever might be properly addressed to a 
 young country gentleman suddenly revealing himself 
 as a monster of juvenile depravity. 
 
 Buller told his story the next morning to Froude 
 and R. Wilberforce, to their infinite amusement. 
 During the whole of BuUer's undergraduateship, 
 whenever he presented himself in the Tower, at the 
 end of term, for the " Collections," or terminal exam- 
 ination, the Provost invariably began, " Mr. Buller, I 
 hope you 've not been again guilty of those disorderly 
 proceedings in which I found you engaged so soon 
 after becoming member of the college," etc., etc. 
 
 The tutors were always prepared for the scene, 
 and two of them, sitting a little further back than 
 the Provost, exchanged glances with poor Tony as 
 he sat, the very picture of guilt, receiving his period- 
 ical castigation. I think it not unlikely that were 
 poor Tony to find himself in the presence of the Pro- 
 vost to-morrow he would look as guilty as ever. 
 
 So I wrote ; but since I wrote it I see that the 
 Antony Buller, the simple child I remember at col- 
 lege, and who was still as simple as a child when I 
 last saw him on a visit to his aunt, Mrs. Clive, of 
 Barkham, in Berkshire, has passed away at the age 
 of seventy-one. He preached and published various 
 occasional sermons that were thoughtful, learned, and 
 interesting, Four of these, in a series, were on the 
 Constitution of the Church, and Church Authority, 
 as well as I can remember, though, after much 
 searching, I cannot lay my hand on them. 
 
CHAPTER LXXXIX. 
 
 WILLIAM HEBERDEN KABSLAKE. 
 
 William Heberden Karslake I remember an 
 inoffensive little fellow at Cliai'terliouse, with a round 
 brown face, in a very quiet little circle, holding his 
 own, a little gentleman, and to be respected. Even 
 then, at twelve or thereabout, he looked prematurely 
 wise. He followed me to Oriel, and there found him- 
 self in a very lively circle, containing some Devon- 
 shire men who think much of the name of Karslake. 
 They must have been attracted, too, by the grave 
 simplicity of his expression. With him there came 
 to Oriel several Charterhouse friends, among whom 
 were the two very good sons of Mr. Joseph Parker, 
 of Oxford. 
 
 William Froude, perhaps Hurrell himself occasion- 
 ally, Henry Wilberforce, John Dorney Harding, John 
 Marriott, Wilson, George Ryder, and others, would 
 set at him and torture him to extract distincter and 
 more decisive opinions on the great questions of the 
 day than suited his disposition. No doubt more than 
 once or twice he heard " Under which king ? Bezo- 
 nian, speak or die." After much baiting he would 
 take refuge in the old conclusion that there is much 
 to be said on both sides. He had often occasion to 
 do this, and of course got nicknamed Sir Roger de 
 Coverley. He spoke slowly and in set forms. " Are 
 you partial to beef, ma'am ? " he said to the Provost's 
 
126 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 lady, as he sat by me at one of the Provost's dinner 
 parties. I was rather tickled by the expression, but 
 long after found it not unusual in Devonshire. 
 
 When I went there in 1868 I found Karslake, now 
 Rector of Meshaw, a very considerable personage. 
 Chairman of Quarter Sessions, Vice-chairman of the 
 Board of Guardians, great in committees and public 
 business, enjoying everybody's confidence, besides be- 
 ing a hunting, shooting, and yachting man, Rui"al 
 Dean, and soon after a Prebendary. About ten years 
 ago Parliament provided for him a subject peculiarly 
 fitted for him, in the Dihipidations Act. It brought 
 before the clergy their responsibilities in that matter 
 much more distinctly and urgetitly than they were 
 quite prepared for. But it seemed to put them in a 
 vise, at the mercy of a surveyor, who was to visit on 
 various occasions, give orders, demand raonej'', and 
 exact fees. The l ural clergy get very few fees, and 
 don't like paying them. Nor do they like lay officials 
 over their heads, or red tape as they call it. Many 
 hardly seemed to be aware that the old law of dilap- 
 idation was very precarious, and often very severe in 
 its incidence and working. 
 
 Karslake, whose own preferment was of trifling 
 value, and whose partrimony was but moderate, took 
 up the cause of the oppressed, and gave notice of a 
 motion at the Diocesan Conference, now five years 
 ago, for a Committee of inquiry into the operation of 
 the Act, with a view to moving Parliament for its 
 amendment. Neither he nor any of the speakers on 
 his side could point out any defect, or hardship, or 
 danger in the Act which was not inseparable from 
 the custom of dilajDidations. Instances of seeming 
 hardship were adduced, but they were just such as 
 
WILLIAM HEBERDEN KARSLAKE. 
 
 127 
 
 had occurred thousands of times in the old system. 
 I could have matched any of tliem from my own ex- 
 perience. There was, too, the absurdity of supposing 
 that Parliament, after giving a good deal of time to 
 a not very popular or interesting subject, would be 
 likely within five or six years to reopen it and begin 
 all the work again. The Conference, consisting 
 equally of lay and clerical gentleman, and repi'esent- 
 ing patrons as well as incumbents, voted in favor of 
 leaving the question alone for the present. 
 
 Karslake, however, had had his second turn of 
 speaking, and had touched the old chord that there 
 was much to be said on both sides. Sir Stafford 
 Northcote was there. He afterwards confessed to 
 have been very much bored by the discussion. Speak- 
 ing and hearing speeches, he said, always did bore 
 him. He must have been occasionally tantalized by 
 the vision of a glass of sherry, for he added that Con- 
 ferences, in his opinion, tended to the consumption of 
 strong drink, and so defeated their own wishes in the 
 temperance direction. But while not quite up to the 
 mark, he had been basking under the mild wisdom of 
 his native county, listening to the dear old'strain that 
 there is much to be said on both sides. It seemed to 
 take possession of his whole nature. At the lunch he 
 confided to the Bishop that while he admired the de- 
 bate, and could not quarrel with the decision, yet he 
 felt that there was much to be said on both sides. 
 He thought both sides ouglit to be heard again, and 
 that Conference and Parliament ought to have the 
 opportunity of reconsidering the whole matter. 
 Would the Bishop, on the reassembling of the Con 
 ference in the afternoon, propose to rescind the morn- 
 ing's vote and appoint the Committee asked for ? 
 
128 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 The Bishop, usually decided, and very adverse to 
 third courses, was on this occasion immediately con- 
 verted to the doctrine that there is much to be said 
 on both sides. He agreed to put Sir Stafford's pro- 
 posal to the Conference. It was a little surprised, 
 but acquiesced at once. 
 
 The Committee was appointed, Karslake in the 
 chair. It met often, was very painstaking and mi- 
 nute. In due time it brought out and circulated 
 a Report with numerous suggestions for the amend- 
 ment of the Act. They would have made no sub- 
 stantial, or even perceptible, difference in the opera- 
 tion of the Act, if that were at all desirable, and they 
 certainly did not amount to a case for reopening the 
 whole question in Parliament. The Report only 
 exists as a monument of Karslake's all-persuasive 
 eloquence, to which even a statesman and a most 
 business-like prelate had succumbed. 
 
 The next Conference, I sat by Karslake, enjoying 
 what some one has truly styled Dean Boyd's princely 
 hospitalities, and talking over old times and old peo- 
 ple with my Carthusian and Oriel contemporary. I 
 found he had not much to learn from me, and I had 
 something to learn from him. I should add that he 
 had been that day speaking at the Conference, and 
 that it was strongly in favor of working by the exist- 
 ing organization of the Church, instead of attempting 
 new formations, necessarily dependent on the charac- 
 ter and circumstances of individuals, for whom the 
 Church could not be answerable. 
 
 The day after the Conference there was held the 
 largest and most distinguished meeting ever known 
 in that part of Devonshire, to present a testimonial 
 to the Rector of Meshaw, on his retirement from one 
 
WILLIAM HEBERDEN KAESLAKE. 129 
 
 of his public offices, and in recognition of laborious 
 services now extending to near half a century. It 
 might be said that everybody in Devonshire was 
 there, or would have been there if he could. Kars- 
 lake had been consulted as to the form of the testi- 
 monial. A service of plate he did not want. It 
 would hardly suit the moderate scale of his position, 
 and upon an exactly similar occasion, and after a very 
 similar career, his father had been presented with a 
 testimonial of that sort, and had handed it down to 
 him. Excepting that he would like a " Georgian " 
 silver bowl as an emblem of good companionship, he 
 asked that the bulk of the sum subscribed should 
 be devoted to his church, particularly to the tower. 
 It had been left out at the restoration of the edifice 
 in 1836, partly for want of funds, partly owing to 
 " immaturity of taste " in the architecture of that 
 date. 
 
 The presentation was such a ceremony as Devon- 
 shire rejoices in. There was something almost 
 Chinese in the continual reference to ancestries, and 
 to friendships that had lasted for many generations. 
 Karslake, Lord Fortescue said, had been the soul of 
 business, the rule of good order, and the bond of 
 peace. He had been patient and weighty, giving all 
 sides an equal hearing, and winning everybody's good 
 woi'd. He had acted for the Bishop as Inspector of 
 Education for twenty years, and hud built schools in 
 his own parish, not quite so smart as the schools of 
 this date, but sufficient. For many years no boy or 
 girl had grown up in his parish without learning to 
 read and write fairly, and cipher a little. He had 
 been one of the founders of the Devon County School 
 for the middle classes. He had hunted, and, upon 
 
130 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 giving it up, he had observed to Lord Fortescue, 
 " Well, I 've enjoyed it for fifty yeai's, but I can lay 
 my hand on my heart and say with truth that I never 
 sacrificed either public or parish duty to a day's sport, 
 though 1 won't say that I have never taken some pains 
 to combine the tAvo together." Devonshire, Lord 
 Fortescue added, was showing that day that it was 
 not necessary to have very high rank, or very large 
 possessions, or dazzling eloquence, or exceptionally 
 brilliant abilities, to acquire power and do good in 
 our generation. 
 
 Karslake's reply was simple indeed, and modest. 
 Probably like most Charterhouse, and Oriel men too, 
 he hated themes, verses, and original composition of 
 all kinds ; but now there was something to say, and 
 his fate was strong upon him, so he said it as no 
 essay writer could ever have done. It might be some 
 good had resulted to that neighborhood, and even to 
 the county, during the many years it had pleased 
 God to allow him to live and work in it. He thanked 
 the company for allowing him to dedicate the greater 
 part of the testimonial to the improvement of the 
 church, in which now for over fifty years he had been 
 permitted to minister, unremittingly, or with very 
 few exceptions. He could claim for himself but a 
 very small part of the thanks. What ability he had 
 was a deposit to be rendered an account of. His 
 living amongst them he had always considered the 
 work of Providence, and not his own will, as his 
 father placed him in the Rectory of Meshaw because 
 he thought he would be of some use there. He 
 could not either forget the deep debt of gratitude 
 which he owed to his excellent mother for her train- 
 ing and her prayers ; nor could he forget his father's 
 
WILLUM HEBERDEN KAESLAKE. 
 
 131 
 
 liberality in giving him opportunities for advancing 
 las education by sending him first to a public school, 
 and afterwards to one of the best and most esteemed 
 colleges at Oxford. All these were circumstances 
 for which they were not to thank him, but for which 
 they had to thank others. 
 
 Three or four days after this Karslake was not 
 lieard moving about at his usual early hour. He was 
 found in bed, as if asleep, but not to wake to this 
 world. It was a strangely different visitation that 
 founded his branch of the family, and no doubt 
 tinged its religious sentiment. In 1749 Henry Kars- 
 lake, his wife, and two sons were burnt to death in 
 their own house. A nurse jumped out of the win- 
 dow, with a babe in her arms. This was the grand- 
 father of my school and college contemporary. 
 
CHAPTER XC. 
 
 SIK GILBERT SCOTT. 
 
 Why Karslake took up the question of dilapida- 
 tions so warmly I know not, but lie could not fail to 
 know of hard cases, and like all old residents he 
 would be pretty sure to sympathize rather with the 
 old people than with the new. Yet it is a matter of 
 all others in which there is much to be said on both 
 sides. 
 
 When I was in Northamptonshire, in 1833, the 
 neigli boring living of Wappenham fell vacant. I had 
 already heard of the incumbent, and of the dilapida- 
 tion case he was likely to leave. He was a very aged 
 man, and for twenty j^ears or more he had made a 
 practice of letting everything go down, or, as he 
 said, to be settled in the dilapidations. The rectory 
 buildings were all but ruinous. The wife had en- 
 tered into the plan, with what expectations I know 
 not. 
 
 The patron gave the living to a son of " Bible 
 Scott," an elderly man with a family, but with small 
 means. Very shortly there was a great outcry in the 
 neighborhood. It rallied round the widow, whose 
 case was indeed deplorable. The new Rector had 
 sent for his son, " a lad in a builder's office." He 
 had come down with hammers and axes, and had 
 half knocked to pieces what was left of the old 
 buildings to find out the cracks. He had laid the 
 
SIR GILBERT SCOTT. 
 
 133 
 
 dilapidations at <£1,800, such a sum as had never 
 been heard of. The widow was advised to make a 
 liberal offer, <£ 1,200. It was finally settled at 
 X 1,500, but even that was thought a monstrous ex- 
 tortion. Mr. Scott had to build a new parsonage. It 
 did not seem to me at all an excessive building ; 
 indeed, to my fancy too economically compact. But 
 it cost him £2,500, and ,£1,000 of it he had to pay 
 out of his own pocket. In two years he died, and 
 the patron very reasonably and humanely departed 
 from the universal rule of patrons, and gave the 
 living to his son. 
 
 The lad who did such justice to his father, and 
 who was then twenty -two years of age, became Sir Gil- 
 bert Scott, the great church architect of his age. It 
 might be ten years after this that I was asked to meet 
 hiin at Magdalen. I was much impressed by the 
 great extent, variety, and accuracy of his knowledge, 
 which presented some contrast to the ordinary review 
 style with which I had been lately familiar. Already 
 in 1844 his name was up as one of the Oxford school, 
 and intending church builders wei"e solemnly warned 
 that if they employed him they would find them- 
 selves in for the offertory, the surplice, and much 
 more to follow. They who regarded the warning had 
 to rue it afterwards, so quickly did the " Scott and 
 Moffatty " style supersede those it found in fashion. 
 
 At the same time, that is in 1834, and in the same 
 neighborhood, there was a still more extraordinary di- 
 lapidation case. One of the best livings in the dio- 
 cese was going a begging. It was worth £700 a 
 year ; that is, it ought to have been worth that ; but 
 the dilapidations were estimated at £7,000, and there 
 was no one from whotn they could be recovered. A 
 
134 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 new incumbent, however, would be liable for that 
 amount to his successor. A long time ago somebody- 
 had left an estate in the parish for the endowment of 
 a school. No attempts were ever made to raise the 
 school to a higher class, and the result was that last 
 century found the endowment of the school rather 
 better than the endowment of the living, while it re- 
 mained a mere village school. As the incumbent ap- 
 pointed the master, he would have no difficulty in 
 arranging the matter to his own convenience. How- 
 ever, in the last century, an Act of Parliament was ob- 
 tained for the union of the two endowments in the 
 person of the incumbent, on the condition of his keep- 
 ing up tlie school. This involved a double liability to 
 dilapidations. The incumbent had to maintain in 
 proper order parsonage, chancel, glebe buildings, 
 school, schoolmaster's house, school farm buildings, 
 gates, fences, etc., etc. At the time I speak of, that 
 is in 1838-1835, the recently deceased incumbent had 
 let everything go to ruin, and it was said the very- 
 large sum I have named would be barely sufficient to 
 put them in order, and rebuild them where necessary. 
 What became of the unfortunate living I know not. 
 The name I have forgotten, but any old incumbent 
 of that part of the county lying west of Northamp- 
 ton would remember it. I must add that similar 
 cases, though not on so grand a scale, were of frequent 
 occurrence in those days. 
 
CHAPTER XCL 
 
 EDWAED W. L. POPHAM. 
 
 There are careers that leave a deep impression by 
 their sadness and their brevity ; like one dreadful 
 scene, or a passing funeral pomp. A youth rises to 
 notice witli bright expectations and with the world 
 before him. He realizes it himself, and stretches out 
 his hand to receive his rightful share of whatever he 
 may most value. He is suddenly struck down with 
 one form of calamity or another. When he is down 
 then it is found out that he has his place in story or 
 tradition, and that it is a long history of which we 
 have been witnessing a single episode. 
 
 Every Oriel man of that date must have a sad rec- 
 ollection of poor Popham — Edward William Ley- 
 bourne Popham, as he appears in the Calendar. He 
 w;is heir of Littlecote House, on the Kennet, near 
 Hungerford, the scene of the dreadful story told vari- 
 ously in " Rokeby," and in the notes to that jjoern. 
 The alleged period was Queen Elizabeth's, and Pop- 
 ham was descended from the judge said to have pur- 
 chased Littlecote with the reward of his iniquity. 
 
 He came up, I believe, from Harrow, as a gentle- 
 man commoner ; somewhat short in stature, with fine 
 massive features, dark complexion, and an expression 
 of much spirit and intelligence. He looked like a 
 man who was to make his mark in the world. He 
 was, I think, rather shy of the gentleman commoners, 
 
136 
 
 BEMINISCENCES. 
 
 or they of him, and he went along rather with those 
 who made hterary pretensions. He had had a great 
 craze for Byron. " Don Juan " was then as much to 
 be seen everywhere as Dickens' last novel afterwards. 
 When I knew him he was possessed with Napoleon. 
 His walls were hung with large, dark engravings of 
 the Emperor, his marshals and his battles. He could 
 tui'n to any passage of that wonderful history. Some- 
 how I associated this passion with Arnold's extrava- 
 gant estimate of the French military character, but I 
 cannot recall anything in support of this impression. 
 
 There came up a feeling in the college that Pop- 
 ham was becoming strange ; that he talked too much, 
 and had an absent manner, as if finding it easier to 
 talk than to listen. I called once or twice, at the sug- 
 gestion of friends, who thought he wanted the relief of 
 new faces and topics. Bonamy Price, I think it was, 
 particularly, who came to me with a look of alarm, 
 and asked me to see a little more of Popham. He 
 found his rooms very dull and gloomy. They were in 
 fact the dullest and gloomiest in the whole college, 
 and it was a wonder whj', in a college where there 
 was so much delicate consideration of circumstances, 
 a gentleman commoner coming from a public school 
 had not better rooms assigned to him. They were 
 those on the ground floor, between the inner Quad 
 and Oriel Lane ; and a quarter of the room looking 
 into the lane had been cut off for the use of the Pro- 
 vost's house. Popham declared that the heavy tread 
 of some one passing up and down this passage, which 
 was really pait of his own rightful floor, fixed upon 
 his mind and oppressed him. He was always expect- 
 ing it, and thinking of it. Of course any other trifle 
 would have fixed on his mind as easily, for these 
 
EDWARD W. L. POPHAM. 
 
 137 
 
 things are but parasites attacking an unhealthy 
 frame. 
 
 Matters began to look serious, and the question 
 was what they were going to do with Pophara. He 
 settled that question himself. I went to a lecture at 
 Tyler's. After all had assembled, his chair remained 
 vacant. When the lecture had been going on about 
 ten minutes very heavy treads were heard on the 
 staircase, the door was flung wide open, Popham 
 strode in, without shutting the door, or taking off 
 his cap, or offering Tyler any salutation, and sat down 
 in his chair at right angles to the table and not very 
 near it. Opening his book upside down, he sat lost 
 in thought. Tyler expostulated, " Mr. Popham, could 
 you not sit to the table ? " " Mr. Popham, have you 
 found the place ? " " Mr. Popham, are you aware 
 that your cap is on?" In five minutes more the 
 poor man burst into a violent fit of laughter that 
 stopped the lecture. As he went on laughing, Tyler 
 had to say, " 1 think, Mr. Popham, you had better 
 retii'e till you can compose yourself." Popham 
 rushed out of the room, still laughing, and of course 
 leaving others to shut the door. Lord Mahnesbury 
 would, I think, be able to verify my recollections of 
 this very sad scene. 
 
 That same afternoon he left the college, after 
 writing on a slip of paper — a three-cornered note I 
 heard — a rather incoherent and uncivil message to 
 his tutor, or the Dean. It was his last appearance 
 in the college, or indeed in society. He remained a 
 lunatic till his death, a few years ago, and for half a 
 century a high county position was in abeyance. 
 Such was the fate of a youth for whom everything 
 had been made to his hand, and who might have 
 achieved any greatness, as far as man could see. 
 
CHAPTER XCII. 
 
 SIR JOHN D. HARDING. 
 
 John Dorney Harding came to the house in 
 which I was at Charterhouse, himself hardly twelve, 
 and three years my junior. He was an interesting, 
 excitable, and talkative fellow, precocious and weakly, 
 evidently conscious that his tongue would have to 
 make up for the want of bodily strength. He could 
 smite with his only weapon, and was not always on 
 the defensive. He suffered much from scrofulous 
 swellings in the neck. He had ali'eady travelled in 
 Italy and elsewhere, and had kept a journal which 
 he brought to school. I got hold of it one day, and 
 read portions of it aloud, in his pi'esence, with a little 
 envy perhaps, and with some emphasis on the lan- 
 guage, if childish or stilted. We came to like one 
 another, and Kingsley told me that in the long and 
 frequent fits of delirium which preceded his death 
 he often mentioned my name, and always kindly. 
 
 I very early said that Harding would alternately 
 surprise and disappoint, and yet he surprised and 
 disappointed to a greater extent than I could even 
 have conceived. His physical frame was unequal to 
 sustain the flights of his mind and the elations of his 
 mercurial temperament. This was but a poor prepa- 
 ration for the regular wear and tear of English life, 
 and the grinding work of professional and public- 
 business in these days. He was always above him- 
 
SIR JOHN D. HARDING. 
 
 139 
 
 self one day or one minute, and unequal to himself 
 the next. He followed me to Oriel, and I soon heard 
 that he was making a great figure at the Union, which 
 I then little frequented myself. His appearance was 
 much in his favor ; his voice was agreeable and his 
 fluency inexhaustible ; but there came the misgiving, 
 " How long will they keep hira up ? " In due time 
 I was told of his failure, not in brilliancy but in 
 argument and sense. Then I heard of great recover- 
 ies, really able speeches, and Harding's position im- 
 proved on the whole. 
 
 He admired Newman much, but he had his way 
 to make in the world, and, as he thought, to amuse 
 himself besides. In town I soon heard that he had 
 much to do, and was a favorite in society. We met 
 occasionally. I always felt a little nervous as to the 
 next thing he would say or do ; sometimes on his 
 account, sometimes on mine. At a Founder's Day 
 dinner at Charterhouse he had to make a speech, 
 and he took the opportunity of introducing his father, 
 who was present, a fine-looking gentleman of sixty, 
 an old Carthusian too. " He had thrashed Russell ! " 
 " Think of that ! " he exclaimed, " a man that had 
 thrashed Russell ! " It was the fact that they had 
 been contemporaries at the scliool, and that Harding 
 senior, who was a very big fellow, had had a fight 
 with Russell and had beaten him. Russell was sitting 
 there, and did not dispute it. I doubt whether any- 
 body likes to be reminded of a thrashing, received 
 even ever so long ago, wliatever the rights of the 
 quari'el or the odds of the contest. But Harding's 
 taste and feeling were overmastered by the idea, and 
 lie could not but out with it. Perhaps, too, it was 
 something like a retaliation for having quailed so 
 long in the terrible presence now before him. 
 
140 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Lord Derby made Harding Queen's Advocate- 
 General, and he was so far equal to the position that 
 he took an early opportunity to assert precedence 
 over the Attorney-General. But it must have been 
 clear to his friends that he was overworking himself. 
 I several times met him late in the afternoon, as his 
 anxious wife was leading him into the quieter paths 
 of Green Park for a half-hour's peace and quiet, 
 when I felt ashamed of myself for coming across 
 them, but could not pass without a word or two. 
 
 The American Civil War took Harding, like every- 
 body else, unawares. He was about as little prepared 
 for its complications as the British Constitution itself, 
 at least its administrators and interpreters were found 
 to be. He was very soon in difficulties. There arose 
 the question of the detention of the Alabama. I had 
 heard on very good authority that Government com- 
 plained that Harding would not give them an opinion. 
 Meeting Harding in the streets, I mentioned this. 
 " They won't send me a case," he replied. As I was 
 unacquainted with, the etiquette and customs of the 
 office, I could say nothing; but it certainly did occur 
 to me that the very critical character of the circum- 
 stances might not allow of time to be lost in drawing 
 up a case, which must be the work of either a lawyer 
 or a politician, that is, either a professional or an 
 unprofessional person, both open to objection. Per- 
 haps Harding meant that they did not even send him 
 a question to be answered. He was, moreover, at 
 that time very busy with some private business, par- 
 ticularly with a suit of the kind more usually associ- 
 ated with Doctors' Commons. 
 
 I met him again very shortly after the Alabama 
 had got away. He told me that he had been ex- 
 
SIB JOHN D. HARDING. 
 
 141 
 
 pecting a communication from Government anxiously 
 the whole week before ; that the expectation had 
 unsettled and unnerved him for other business ; and 
 that he had stayed in his chambers rather later than 
 usual on Saturday for the chance of hearing at last 
 from them. He had then gone to his house in the 
 country. Returning on Monday, when he was engaged 
 to appear in court, he found a large bundle of docu- 
 ments in a big envelope, without even an accompany- 
 ing note, that had been dropped into his letter-box 
 on Saturday evening. To all appearance, every letter, 
 and every remonstrance, and every affidavit, as fast 
 as it had arrived from Liverjjool, had been piled in a 
 pigeon-hole till four or five o'clock on Saturday, when 
 the minister, on taking his own departure for the 
 country, had directed a clerk to tie up the whole 
 heap and carry it to Doctors' Commons. 
 
 The people of the Alabama and their confederates 
 among the authorities of Liverpool knew very well 
 the ways of Her Majesty's ministers, and the ship 
 sailed accordingly early on Sunday, when nothing 
 could be done to stop it till the middle of the next 
 day. The Alabama was now in the Atlantic, but 
 there was just a chance of catching her or of stopping 
 her at some port. There were other possibilities. 
 So here was the old question, aggravated by fresh 
 complications. 
 
 Harding's defence was, of course, not complete. 
 At such a crisis he ought to have had a man ready 
 to receive the papers and bring them down to the 
 counti-y. Yet the mere chance of their following 
 him might have prevented him from recruiting his 
 strength and nerve in the two nights' rest. 
 
 But what a specimen of British administration ! 
 
142 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Here was a matter intimately and most critically 
 affecting the integrity of a great and friendly re- 
 public, the destinies of a whole continent, the rela- 
 tions of the New and the Old World, the peace of 
 the sea as well as of the land, and the character of 
 this country ; really, such a question as had never 
 been exceeded in importance in all history, and is 
 not likely to be exceeded, flung aside contemptuously 
 by ministers to their clerks, resting a week in a 
 pigeon-hole, then a couple of days on the floor of 
 some city chambers, and not so much as looked at 
 till the occasion had gone by. Considered as mere 
 slovenliness and indifference, not to assign motives, 
 this could not be surpassed by the administration 
 of Turkey, or Egypt, or any other country ever 
 heard of. 
 
 The wretched excuse made by Government was 
 that it was bound by the constitutional forms and 
 usiiges of this country. It is almost needless to ob- 
 serve, England has never once admitted that excuse, 
 — indeed, it could not possibly admit it, in the case 
 of any injury it might conceive itself to have suffered 
 from another country. It has always said in effect, 
 " We 've nothing to do with your internal institu- 
 tions, and don't care a straw, for them ; but we will 
 have justice from you." In a few weeks Harding 
 was out of his mind, and never recovered his reason 
 till he died. 
 
 I have seen it solemnly stated, and, in company 
 with many other lies, passing into history, that the 
 action of Government was unfortunately and unavoid- 
 ably hampered and delayed by the illness — that is, 
 the insanity — of the Queen's Advocate-General. 
 The fact is there was not one of Her Majesty's min- 
 
SIR JOHN D. HARDING. 
 
 143 
 
 isters who was not ready to jump out of his skin for 
 joy when he heard of the escape of the Alabama, 
 and it was they who drove poor Harding out of his 
 mind, not he that hampered them. 
 
 But there is something on the otlier side that has 
 to be admitted. I am quite sure that I am within 
 bounds when I say that, during all the pei-iod in 
 which I had had occasion to observe political affairs, 
 every American candidate for popular favor, and 
 every American official having to keep his place, had 
 found it necessary to promise to observe neither 
 friendship nor common justice with the British peo- 
 ple. American public men were bound to demand 
 more than their due in every negotiation, to over- 
 reach in every settlement, and always to secure that 
 there should still be something to quarrel about even 
 after our greatest surrender. They had to make ib 
 distinctly known to all Americans that they had 
 robbed us, insulted us, and left a nest-egg for another 
 quarrel. This, however, does not justify so gross an 
 international crime as that told in the story of the 
 Alabama. 
 
CHAPTER XCIII. 
 
 EXAGGERATIONS. 
 
 It is almost universal that the leaders of a move- 
 ment are pursued by a spirit of exaggeration, which 
 reacts upon themselves, and perhaps even takes their 
 place. The exaggerations are chiefly in the material 
 direction. The fii'e kindled in a great variety of 
 natures takes the form most natural to them, and yet 
 is so loyal to the original fire as to justify the claim 
 to identity. Very early in the movement contrasts 
 were made between the calm and gentle demeanor 
 of the chiefs and the acrimonious violence of the 
 subalterns. In theology, what the chiefs hinted at or 
 left to the awakened conscience and quickened imag- 
 ination was embodied and paraded. If there was but 
 a slight leaning one way or another it was sure to be 
 made more of by some imitator. Great men ought 
 to remember, but are apt to forget, that they will 
 have imitators. 
 
 Newman left Seager in charge of St. Mary's oc- 
 casionally and for some time. He was a man of sad 
 aspect, with a deep, hollow voice, and he preached so 
 continually on hell and all its horrors that the Prin- 
 cipal of Brasenose, whose family attended the church, 
 was obliged to protest and threaten withdrawal. He 
 could not answer for the consequences on the weaker 
 members of his household. 
 
 Newman read the daily prayers and the lessons 
 
EXAGGERATIONS. 
 
 145 
 
 a little more quickly than in the Sunday service. It 
 did not matter, with so clear a voice, such distinct 
 articulation, and such true emphasis. Lewis, I think 
 it was, parodied this rapidity of utterance to an 
 extreme which shocked strangers, and pained even 
 friends. It was broadly stated that the new school 
 regarded prayer as opus ojjeratum, that needed not to 
 be felt or understood, so as it was done. Yet Lewis 
 was a serious man. 
 
 Fronde very early used to talk of those who 
 preached the j^rayers, as if edification was their first 
 object, and not that which we pray for. From my 
 recollection I cannot help thinking that Froude him- 
 self fell into a perfunctory style by a too violent 
 protest against exaggerated emphasis. He read in a 
 solemn and very penitential tone, but it was a mono- 
 tone. Whatever he did, others did more. 
 
 Early in the movement I was consulted from time 
 to time on plans for the restoration of churches. 
 Newman passed these matters sometimes to me. 
 The main question always was whether the reader of 
 the prayers should face east, west, north, or south. 
 One winter day I walked into Norbury church, in 
 Derbyshire, then in the process of restoration. Be- 
 sides other beautiful features, there was an ancient 
 chancel screen. Workpeople were busy all over. 
 The Rector, a handsome young man, had in his 
 hands a slab of wood to represent a reading-desk. 
 This he inserted at a proper slope between tlie mull- 
 ions of the screen, first standing in the nave and 
 looking into the chancel, then standing in the cliancel 
 and looking into the nave, then ti'ying the other plan 
 again, evidently not likely to satisfy himself with 
 either alternative. Yet these matters were treated 
 
 VOL. II. 10 
 
146 
 
 BEMIXISCENCES. 
 
 as rigorously and peremptorily in these days as if all 
 depended on them. 
 
 Apostolic succession became the matter of very 
 strange treatment and great exaggeration. As stated 
 above, it was almost the first point of divergence from 
 the "Evangelical" party, and the first indication of 
 the line to be taken in this leap into the dark. The 
 Low Church, particularly as represented by the 
 Church Missionary Society, and by its complications 
 with Presbyterians and Dissenters, had utterly dis- 
 carded the idea of Bishops being in any sense the 
 special successors of the Apostles, and necessary to a 
 Church. The first " Tract for the Times " rallied 
 the threatened, scattered, and discomfited Church of 
 England round the Episcopate as far above the other 
 orders, and necessary to the full enjoyment of spirit- 
 ual gifts and privileges. It claimed for the Bishops 
 distinctively the rank of Apostles. The clergy every- 
 where took the cue, and the party ran the narrowest 
 chance of being called, indeed of calling itself, that 
 of the Apostolicals. 
 
 Newman himself probably saved it from this de- 
 nomination by his own resolute protest against the 
 use of the term " Evangelicals ; " a word which I 
 certainly never heard pass his lips. One device for 
 escaping the use of the word I have mentioned, 
 namely, the substitution of the algebraic term x ; but, 
 in fact, the party was almost always referred to as 
 " Peculiars." 
 
 Before Temple became master of Rugby I met him 
 at Dr. John Ogle's. After dinner the talk ran on 
 Church subjects ; at last on Apostolic succession. 
 Ogle, seeing Temple silent, thought to draw hira out. 
 " What have you to saj^ on Apostolic succession. 
 
EXAGGERATIONS. 
 
 147 
 
 Temple ? " The reply was, " Nothing ; " meaning, I 
 suppose, that he had not given such thought to it as 
 would justify an expression of opinion. The Bishop 
 now observes, " There is no denying the fact of 
 Apostolic succession." The Bishops generally ac- 
 cepted this new homage in wise silence. Their posi- 
 tion is so strong and so unchallenged that they need 
 no minute inquiry into their pedigree. There they 
 are, and their clergy must acknowledge them or rue 
 it. Certainly it was an exaggeration to preach Epis- 
 copacy, and not to preach the Presbytery pari passu, 
 as Dean Hook had occasion to discover before long. 
 
 Very soon there were strange reports of what men 
 were doing in the way of literal compliance with the 
 new principles. They were forbidding laymen, for 
 any purpose whatever, to enter within the commun- 
 ion rail, or even approach it, except on solemn occa- 
 sions. They were soon going much further than 
 that. It must strike anybody who travels how much 
 less particuhir Roman Catholics are, outside a certain 
 doctrinal line, than we are. I have seen Milan Ca- 
 thedral filled with an immense multitude of the sim- 
 plest and roughest country folk, surrounding the altar 
 and in contact with it, so close indeed that it required 
 force to enable the ministering clergy to make their 
 way to it. Roman Catholics generally agree with 
 our dissenters in telling us that we worship our 
 churches ; that is, in their estimate, fabrics of wood, 
 brick, and stone. They know what they worship, 
 they tell us, and we don't. 
 
CHAPTER XCIV. 
 pusey's sermon on sin after baptism. 
 
 I HEARD Pusey's great sermon on Hebrews vi. 4, 
 5, 6. It was at Christ Church, and every corner of 
 the church was filled. One might have heard a pin 
 drop, as they say. Every word told. The key-note 
 was the word " irreparable," pronounced every now 
 and then with the force of a judgment. Not a soul 
 could have left that church without deep and painful 
 feelings. Stunned for a time, tliey afterwards came 
 to themselves and thought more about it. I have not 
 read the sermon, nor have I read the explanatory 
 " Tract for the Times " on the subject. I have only 
 my recollections. How came I to be so painfully 
 impressed with the fearful key-note of the sermon, in 
 the face of the plain difference between our own 
 infant baptism and the baptism described by the 
 writer of the Epistle, which followed a careful prep- 
 aration, a solemn engagement, and for some time a 
 consistent Christian life ? How came I to overlook 
 the rhetorical rather than doctrinal tone of the text, 
 and, even more, of the context ? How came I now 
 to think of the passage what I had never thought 
 before, familiar as it had been to me ? 
 
 It seems to me that the word irreparable, with 
 which Pusey every now and then smote the listening 
 crowd, as with a scourge, is both the argument of the 
 sermon and the reply to it. There can be no doubt 
 
PUSEY'S SERMON ON SIN AFTER BAPTISM. 149 
 
 that all sin is irreparable ; any act of sin whatever. 
 It leaves its consequences in heart, mind, body, and 
 soul, and in those who share it or sutfer from it. This 
 is not a truth of revelation, but of natural fact. The 
 sinner — and vvlio is not a sinner? — who imagines 
 upon any ground whatever that by contrition, faith, 
 and renewed obedience he makes things just as they 
 ■were before he sinned must be an idiot, or a wretched 
 self-deceiver, as the very heathens may tell him. 
 That he now repents and obeys he may well be 
 thankful for, for that is the state of grace. But he 
 cannot help the universal order of things from taking 
 its course : he has done mischief to himself and to 
 others: he has defiled, robbed, injured, and more or 
 less destroyed himself and others, and he can no 
 more bring back things as they were than by any 
 spiritual act he can restore a broken limb, bring back 
 a squandered estate, recover a blasted reputation, or 
 efface from memory his vicious and blasphemous 
 utterances. Pusey would not say just this, but it 
 was the actually irreparable character of sin that he 
 worked on. But then he did more. He invested 
 that with a doctrinal character, and made out that 
 the writer of the Epistle tells us more than we know 
 already. He made it a revelation. That, no doubt, 
 is a common course, and if Pusey did it with terrible 
 effect, that was the accident of his wonderful power. 
 
 Reports of the sermon, probably exaggerated, 
 spread all over the kingdom. Pusey, it was said, 
 left all sinners, if they had ever been baptized, to the 
 uncovenanted mercies of God ; and in that case, it 
 was said, it would be better to follow the example of 
 Constantine, and put off baptism to the last hour. 
 
 Samuel Wilberforce came up suddenly, about a fort- 
 
150 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 night after the sermon, to ask for an explanation. 
 For this he came to his brother Robert, and they 
 went together to Newman. In my humble opinion, 
 if they were to go to anybody about the sermon, they 
 ought to have gone to Pusey himself. Pusey had his 
 own style, as Newman had ; and neither of them 
 could be or would be answerable for the other, unless 
 upon a sudden appeal to their mutual loyalty as 
 friends. The sermon was not a " Tract for the 
 Times," though even that would not have made one 
 writer answerable for another, and it was veiy char- 
 acteristic of Pusey. But it was S. Wilberforce's 
 way to take the course most easy and convenient to 
 himself, without considering much what was due to 
 others. 
 
 I was then on the same landing, and heard a very 
 animated conversation going on till very late in the 
 evening. When the brothers had bade Newman 
 good-night, they came into my room, and then I 
 learnt what they had been tallcing about ; but all that 
 Samuel let out was his great admiration of Newman. 
 However, they remained talking, perhaps resting from 
 the severer discussions of the next room. After a 
 while the door opened, and Newman walked in. It 
 was to make some further explanation ; some things 
 he had forgotten, or which might not have been 
 understood. He left. A minute after, the brothers 
 left, Samuel observing what a theologian I ought to 
 be in such an atmosphere, and Robert, with a smile, 
 adding a reminder tluit a fish might be long in the sea 
 without becoming salt. I don't know how Newman 
 felt it, but to myself it was a very great surprise 
 when Samuel, a fortnight after, made a public and 
 very energetic protest against Pusey's sermon, and 
 the teaching supposed to be associated with it. 
 
CHAPTER XCV. 
 ST. Luke's, chelsea. 
 
 Few changes in our history can have been more 
 sudden, more rapid, and more complete than that 
 from the Greek and Roman styles in church building 
 to the whole range of the media3val or so-called Gothic 
 styles. At Charterhouse I remember Hale, after- 
 ward Archdeacon, ascribing the unexampled peace 
 and prosperity of George IV.'s reign to the Parlia- 
 mentary grant of a million for new churches. Many 
 of the churches thus built were in the suburbs of the 
 metropolis, and most of these I saw building. They 
 are all in debased Greek or Italian, and nothing can 
 be uglier. I had for a long time in my keeping a 
 handsome volume, with engravings of all the Surrey 
 chui'ches. Meeting Samuel Wilberforce, then newly 
 Archdeacon of Surrey, I congratulated him on having 
 the ugliest lot of churches in England to look after. 
 He corrected me, as he generally managed to do. 
 Hampshire was worse. Ugliness in flint, however, is 
 not so bad as ugliness in Bath stone. 
 
 The culminating feat of the classic style in this 
 country is St. Pancras, in the New Road, the prog- 
 ress of which I used to watch with intense interest. 
 Canon Moore devoted himself to this work, and for 
 the sake of it commuted into a Parliamentary rate for 
 its execution an old church i-ate much contested, and 
 levied with difficulty. Everything is there sacrificed 
 
152 
 
 BEMINTSCENCES. 
 
 to the exterior, which is sadly too monumental. In- 
 deed, the church, with its imposing entrances to the 
 sepulchral crj'pt, is a curious memorial of the chief 
 idea of church endowment prevailing at that time — 
 burial fees. 
 
 Before the days of the movement, " Gothic," that 
 is Perpendicular and Tudor, were becoming favorite 
 styles for country seats of the more ambitious sort ; 
 Fonthill Abbey, for example, and Eaton Hall. The 
 latter I went over in 1829. There were pointed 
 arches and mullioned windows everywhere ; every- 
 where Gothic niches, containing generally classic 
 vases, some of them gilt ; a library copied from the 
 Lady Chapel at SalisbLir}^ and towers, turrets, pin- 
 nacles, and battlements ad libitum. The papers tell 
 us that all this has been cleared away for a return to 
 the more picturesque " Decorated." 
 
 To pass over less important or less successful build- 
 ings, if St. Pancras is to be regarded as the climax of 
 the classic style of church building, to St. Luke's, 
 Chelsea, must be assigned the honor of heading the 
 Gothic revival. In 1829, Heurtley, the present Mar- 
 garet Professor of Divinity, became assistant master 
 at a newly established Proprietary School at Bromp- 
 ton. Not long after I was some days with him. 
 There was to be evening service at St. Luke's, Chel- 
 sea, and a missionary sermon. In those days evening 
 services were not in favor with the higher sort of 
 clergy. The dissenters liked them, so the clergy did 
 not. They promoted flirtations, and they helped the 
 pickpockets. That gigantic institution, the metro- 
 politan police, was then in its infancy. But Dr. 
 Gerald Wellesley had been prevailed upon to try the 
 experiment. Sanke}*, the head master of the above 
 school, was to preach, 
 
ST. Luke's, chelsea. 
 
 153 
 
 I was very desirous to see the interior of the church, 
 on account of its vaulted roof, one of Barry's earliest 
 and boldest achievements. There had been much 
 controversy about it. The architects generally were 
 cautious in what they said, but the world in general 
 prophesied ill of the roof. They called the whole 
 building a pasteboard structure, utterly wanting the 
 massiveness associated with vaulting. Where were 
 the thick walls, and the huge buttresses, and the 
 evident counterpoises ? Moreover, it was generally 
 believed that the art of constructing vaulted roofs 
 was lost, never to be found ; and there were stories 
 of some saying of Wren about the roof of King's Col- 
 lege Chapel. The apprehension that a gust of wind 
 might one day blow down the house of cards told on 
 the congregations at St. Luke's, which were thin at 
 first. Everybody who went there had roof " on the 
 brain," as they say. 
 
 This evening there was a large congregation. But 
 the service was restless. Something seemed amiss. 
 Sankey, with some slight defects of utterance, preached 
 a very good and impressive sermon. But there was 
 an intermittent scuffle going on somewhere, and once 
 or twice Sankey had to pause. The fact was the 
 police had caught a vigorous young pickpocket, and 
 they were trying to drag him down the gallery stairs. 
 The wretch clutched the iron banisters, and the police 
 pounded his knuckles to make him relax his hold ; 
 "whereupon he squealed. 
 
 At the conclusion of the service a hymn was sung 
 for a collection. Unfortunately, this part of the ar- 
 rangement had not been duly communicated to the 
 men in the roof, whose business it was to let down 
 the half dozen large chandeliers low enough for the 
 
154 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 lights to be put out. So at the end of the first stave 
 the people in the aisles felt the chandeliers coming 
 down on their heads, and jumped out of the way. In 
 so doing they upset the benches. The congregation 
 all looked that way, and saw the chandeliers low 
 down, and people moving to and fro. Heurtley had 
 taken his place in the organ-loft, and now, looking 
 down, saw unmistakably huge stones lying all about 
 the centre gangway. As he could not hope to escape 
 by the stairs, his first impulse was to jump down to 
 the ground, which he was then active enough to have 
 done with a bare chance of success. Happily second 
 thoughts prevailed. Down-stairs the whole congrega- 
 tion sprang, not to the pew doors, but across the 
 backs of the seats, bounding with amazing activity 
 from one back to another. I don't think any one of 
 them could have done in cold blood what all did now. 
 They flew like fallen leaves in autumn suddenly 
 caught by a wind. It was only when they could not 
 get nearer the doors that they stopped, and found 
 there was nothing the matter. They then slowly re- 
 tired to their seats, looking rather foolish. 
 
 The curate who had said prayers was still in the 
 reading-desk, which was in fact a sister pulpit, the 
 same in all respects as the other. This, it must be 
 remembered, was several years before the Oxford 
 movement, and already there was a strong feeling 
 that preaching had been unduly elevated in compari- 
 son with the prayers and the reading of the Script- 
 ures. The curate thus raised to an equality with the 
 preacher was a very tall young man, of course in the 
 long and ample surplice of tliose days, and with an 
 Oxford hood. He first tried to open the door, but 
 could not ; the beadle had shut him in too well. So 
 
ST. LUKE'S, CHELSEA. 
 
 155 
 
 he put his hand on the side of the reading-desk and 
 vaulted over, surplice, hood, and all, to the highest 
 step outside. 
 
 I was in the pew which had been assigned to the 
 preacher's family, and Mrs. Sankey was in an inter- 
 esting condition. Seeing me looking on quietly, and 
 her husband also standing unmoved in the pulpit, 
 she turned to me for an explanation of it alL As I 
 had been watching the chandeliers from the time 
 they began to descend, I could tell her it was a false 
 alarm, and I would n't be sure I did n't smile. The 
 hymn was resumed, a collection made, and all ended 
 quietly. 
 
 The poor gentleman who distinguished himself in 
 the reading-desk sent Dr. Wellesley next morning a 
 humble apology for the feat. Many years after, I 
 related these particulars to old Mr. Kingsley, who 
 had heard of them, but was glad to have them from 
 an eye-witness. Either he or the present Margaret 
 Professor told me, what I had missed at the time, 
 that when the curate saw there was no danger, and 
 wished to resume his place in the reading-desk, again 
 he found the lock too much for him. So he repeated 
 the performance. Putting his hand on the side, he 
 vaulted in again. 
 
 Poor Barry ! What a life he led, and what a thing 
 it is to be a great architect ! With some friends, I 
 went with him over the unfinished Houses of Parlia- 
 ment. How meekly did he allude to his troubles, 
 his difficulties, and his vain requests ! What a deep 
 sigh did he heave when some one inconsiderately ob- 
 served it was a pity the basement line was not a 
 couple of yards higher out of the mud, and out of the 
 Thames ! There was Westminster Hall in the way, 
 
156 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 one of the things that Englishmen still worship. Yet 
 nothing would have been easier than to screw, or 
 jDumjj up, the whole concern any number of yards; 
 and thus the hall might have been on a level with 
 the principal floor. Then there was the biggest 
 sewer in the metropolis, next to Fleet Ditch, passing 
 directly under the House of Lords. Worse than all, 
 there was that impostor Reid, with his miles of ven- 
 tilating tubes piercing everywhere Barry's masonry, 
 wood, and iron, costing .£100,000, and unintelligible 
 to everybody, — it was believed to Reid himself. 
 Last of all there was the Select Committee. 
 
 It appears to be now utterly forgotten that Bai-ry 
 fought hard for space, airiness, height, capacity, and 
 all that people aye now crying out for. He wanted 
 to make the House of Commons accommodate com- 
 fortably all the members, and two or three hundred 
 privileged hearers besides. He wanted to make it, 
 nay he did make it, sixty feet high. The fear of the 
 " Mountain " oppressed tlie House of Commons. The 
 ghost of the jealous, exclusive, unreformed House 
 still haunted the site and possessed the officials. 
 Wren, with all his troubles, had better luck with his 
 employers than Barry. 
 
 And what was Barry's reward ? All that I ever 
 saw of it was the flag hoisted half-mast high, the first 
 time it ever was hoisted, the day after his death, on 
 the " Victoria Tower." Yet even that much, I must 
 admit, was worth a life of toil and pain. 
 
CHAPTER XCVI. 
 
 WILTON CHURCH. 
 
 When I became Fellow, and for some years after, 
 there sat by our side at high table the grandest and 
 most interesting historic figure then at Oxford. 
 None could ever forget Sidney Herbert, a head and 
 shoulders taller than any of us, with large soft eyes, 
 a gentle expression, and an unmistakable family like- 
 ness to the sainted poet of Bemerton. His voice and 
 address were as winning as his looks. I do not think 
 that at that time I should have thought him the man 
 to perform an important part in the administration 
 of a great war a long way off, and beset with unusual 
 difficulties. I should not have credited him with the 
 concentration of mind and singleness of purpose nec- 
 essary for such a work. 
 
 There were other gentleman commoners at the 
 time quite comparable to him in family, or in man- 
 ners, or in abilities, and, upon the whole, the set was 
 a considerable improvement on that which I found 
 on my first coming to Oxford. Some of my readers 
 may think to themselves. What an advantage, what 
 an opportunity, what a pleasure, what a school of 
 manners, was provided in this association of young 
 men of the middle classes with the uppcn- and high- 
 est of all ! The privilege is often enumerated among 
 the coveted monopolies of the old English Church 
 universities. Let others tell how the arrangement 
 
158 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 worked at other colleges. At Christcliurch there 
 was the ingenious fiction that the noblemen and gen- 
 tleman commoners dined with the Dean and Chap- 
 ter ; but as that sublime body was never there, they 
 had the upper table to themselves. The students, 
 comprising the Censor, Tutors, and college officers, 
 swallowed the affront comfortably at a lower table. 
 
 The working of the enforced companionship at 
 Oriel was that the Fellows sat together at the top of 
 the table, and had their own talk to themselves. The 
 gentleman commoners sat below them, without an 
 interval, and had also their own talk. Now and 
 then the two groups would interchange a question, 
 or a remark, or a piece of news, with civility. Each 
 group must have felt the other a restraint on perfect 
 freedom of conversation. Listeners who are not talkers 
 are generally a nuisance, and are more or less open 
 to suspicion. To most of the Fellows, I will not say 
 to all, the association on such terms was most dis- 
 agreeable. Robert Wilberforce suggested our taking 
 a big saw and cutting the high table in two. I should 
 conclude that Coplestone had positively liked the 
 arrangement, and that Hawkins saw no reason why 
 it should be given up, but I cannot remember who 
 got on well with ihe gentleman commoners. The 
 Dean and senior Fellows had a comparatively slight 
 share of the infliction, sitting as they did quite at the 
 head of the table. The burden of the day fell on the 
 poor probationers, or last elected Fellows, sitting in 
 the immediate neighborhood of these scions of nobility. 
 
 It is true that conversation is never more agree- 
 able than when there is some difference of character, 
 education, and experience ; but in this case the gulf 
 was immense, and there might be no bridge over it. 
 
WILTON CHURCH. 
 
 159 
 
 A young nobleman would have his head full of 
 country sports, the fashionable world and its amuse- 
 ments, county families, and the last great aristocratic 
 scandal. There was nothing here in common with 
 the youth who had spent several years over his books, 
 and whose outdoor amusement had been his daily 
 constitutional. The arts and the sciences make the 
 bridge between the classes, and they are to be recom- 
 mended for this purpose, if for this purpose only ; 
 but I cannot remember that they were so utilized, to 
 any effect, at Oriel. 
 
 For reasons I was never quite informed of, and 
 on which Newman never dropped a word to me, 
 there ensued a great coolness, and more than cool- 
 ness, between him and Sidney Herbert. I never 
 heard anybody express surprise at that fact, or hint 
 that Newman was to blame for it. Indeed, if New- 
 man had been on very friendly terms with Sidney 
 Herbert, the college would have thought liim much 
 duped or very easy-going. I do not think tliat on 
 the strength of dining at the same table I ever ex- 
 changed recognition with Sidney Herbert, out of 
 hall, at Oxford ; and I am certain I never did after- 
 wards. In town I frequently met him in the streets, 
 and not unfrequently when I was walking with a 
 common acquaintance, with whom Sidney Herbert 
 made a point of having some talk; but even then, 
 though I had to stand by, our eyes never met. 
 
 We were fated, however, to run in parallel lines, 
 and not to be quite clear of one another. When I 
 went, in 1836, to the very small village of Cholderton, 
 in Salisbury Plain, I was but a walk from Wilton 
 Abbey, the seat of the Pembroke family'. Wilton 
 itself is a little manufacturing town. Sidney Herbert 
 
160 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 and I conceived at the same time the idea of building 
 new churches. We both chose for our architect Mr. 
 T. H. Wyatt, who had recently been appointed 
 Diocesan Architect ; that is, adviser of a Church 
 Building Board. He was also about that time en- 
 gaged by Bishop Denison to restore the cloisters and 
 the Chapter House, the latter of which had suffered 
 much by old storms and modern neglect. Sidney 
 Herbert and I had both, probably, the same reasons 
 for our choice. We both intended to have our own 
 way as much as possible, and make a convenience 
 of the poor architect. We both expected to invite 
 criticism, perhaps rebuke, and thought that a man so 
 well placed as Mr. T. H. Wyatt would be able to 
 smooth matters for us, and carry us through little 
 difficulties. Then he was very neutral and eclectic 
 in his style, condescending sometimes to no style at 
 all when his patrons were so inclined. Of course I 
 now see that the calculation was as foolish as it 
 proved unsuccessful, not to say disastrous. Perhaps 
 I suspected as much then, but I would have my own 
 waJ^ 
 
 Sidney Herbert's first idea — indeed I think it was 
 that which put church building into his head — was 
 suggested by seeing in Portugal a beautiful church 
 in the gorgeous Peninsular style, which was about to 
 be demolished as no longer wanted. His notion was 
 to take it down carefully, and rebuild it stone by 
 stone at Wilton. Wyatt had the good sense and 
 resolution to put his veto on that project. 
 
 The next idea was a Romanesque church, with 
 an Italian campanile. But as the general plan was 
 to be that of an old English church, nave, aisles, 
 clerestory, and chancel, the Romanesque character of 
 
WILTON CHURCH. 
 
 161 
 
 the edifice was to appear in the details, the very 
 point in which Romanesque is rather deficient. So 
 now was a fresh chance for foreign importation. 
 Sidney Herbert brought from South Italy an im- 
 mense quantity of Alexandrine mosaics, a whole 
 altar of it, many fine twisted columns of it, and some 
 beautiful large columns of richly colored marble. 
 The Bishop at once forbade the stone altar, so the 
 mosaics had to be worked into a pulpit. The twisted 
 pillars, and the surplus panels, and numerous orna- 
 ments, had to be utilized for the decoration of side 
 doors, and wherever a use for them could be found. 
 
 I never knew the full moaning of that horrid 
 word " bedizen " till I visited the church a few years 
 since, so utterly incongruous are all these details 
 with the otherwise dull and colorless .interior. The 
 Bishop had rather rigorously forbidden color in the 
 ceiling, and I think too on the walls. As for the cam- 
 panile it was unfortunate that every Wiltshire person 
 saw, on his arrival at Nine Elms Station, a much 
 handsomer one attached to some manufactory. Sid- 
 ney Herbert was a long time about the church, and 
 it was said to cost him and his mother near i£ 30,000. 
 
 I need not say that he did better things than 
 that church, and that upon the whole he has left a 
 good mark on the annals of his country ; but every 
 Oriel man, without a moment's hesitation, sets down 
 the redeeming features of his unhappily brief career 
 to the influence of Newman, surrounding him and 
 penetrating him, in spite of a wilful and stubborn 
 resistance, and asserting possession of him in due 
 time. 
 
 VOL. II. 11 
 
CHAPTER XCVIL 
 
 COMIMENCEMENT OF CHOLDEKTON CHURCH. 
 
 The church I found at Cholderton in 1836 is cor- 
 rectly described in Sir Richai'd Colt Hoare's mag- 
 nificent work on the county of Wilts as very small 
 and mean. The dimensions were forty by sixteen ; 
 the slab of the communion table was a foot below 
 the surface of the ground outside ; the walls were very 
 shaky, and eastwards quite green ; the lighting was 
 bad and supplemented by a skylight. People sat 
 during the sermon not only on the communion rail 
 and the step before it, but on the table itself, and said 
 they had no other place to go to. Mj predecessor, 
 Walter Blunt, was a hunting and shooting man, and, 
 like all hunting men, " drew." As the butcher's wife 
 at my former living, the good-looking mother of four 
 handsome daughters, once observed to me, country 
 parishes want men, not angels, to preach to them. 
 Half-filled pews occupied half the church, though 
 there existed an award, made in the Commonwealth, 
 putting the men on one side, the women on the 
 other, and their servants lower down, thei'o being at 
 that time enough space for all. 
 
 My visitors chaffed me on my church, and made 
 invidious comparisons between it and the new rectory, 
 which I had enlarged for pupils. All the foolish 
 things I had ever said or listened to about smug 
 parsons and snug parsonages were now visited upon 
 
COMMENCEMENT OF CHOLDERTON CHURCH. 163 
 
 me. Something must be done, and when I had 
 pupils I could not say I wanted the means. More- 
 over, the churches all about were in a bad state, and 
 I -was there to set an example. I can honestly say it 
 was not a spontaneous act. I have been an incum- 
 bent altogether twenty-eight years, and I never yet 
 had any of the luxuries of worship. I never had 
 a vesti-y, or a stove, or a candle, or an organ, or a 
 painted window. I have always " robed," as I have 
 often seen the Pope do, in the sight of the congi-ega- 
 tion. I was quite content with the church as it was, 
 if only the congregation themselves would manage 
 to make th(^ poor little barn really available, and my 
 own very kind friends would be so good as to leave 
 me alone. Having once begun, I was as wild as any 
 of them. 
 
 Like my magnificent neighbor, so near and yet 
 so far, so different in most respects, I too began with 
 the idea of bringing across the seas not indeed a 
 whole church, but the entire roof of an ancient church. 
 This too I actually did. 
 
 It must have been early in 1839 that Samuel 
 Rickards, happening to meet Chevallier Cobbold, 
 M. P. for Suffolk, heard him mention an ancient oak 
 roof of a highly ornamental character, then lying on 
 the quay at Ipswich, and to be got cheap. It had 
 been over a municipal building belonging to the 
 corporation, but had probably been originally over 
 the clerestory of some conventual church destroyed 
 at the Reformation. I caught at the opportunity. 
 Coming by sea, by canal, and by turnpike road, it 
 arrived at Cholderton one very hot day, perfuming 
 the pure air with mediaeval fustiness, and eliciting 
 from the workmen on the spot, " Old work and new 
 
164 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 work never agree." With it there came a little colony 
 of Ipswich wood-carvers and carpenters, one of whom 
 shortly set about to disabuse my parishioners of 
 what faith they had in Holy Writ. Possibly my 
 bringing this huge idol so far and building a tem- 
 ple for it, did not raise his estimate of sacred tradi- 
 tion. 
 
 I built a large working-shed for the colony. The 
 profane people who three hundred years before liad 
 removed the roof from a church to a less solid 
 building — banqueting hall or storehouse none could 
 say — replaced with vulgar tie-beams every alternate 
 pair of hammer-beams and spandrils. We must have 
 no tie-beams ; and we must have spandrils as good as 
 the old ones, each carved out of one piece of oak. 
 So my chief Suffolk wood-carver went to the New 
 Forest and brought back a monarch of the woods, 
 who, I had afterwards reason to suspect, had been 
 rejected by the Portsmouth dock-yard authorities, 
 and had lain a long time waiting for a less critical 
 purchaser. We found him very " foxy " when we cut 
 through him, but he had cost me more than thirty 
 pounds. 
 
 The roof fixed the proportions of the church. It 
 was 80 feet long, and of course I could sacrifice 
 nothing of it. Though we coaxed out of it a few 
 inches more breadth, we could not get more than 
 20 feet, 6 inches. What did I not sacrifice to this 
 dumb idol ! It was in ten lengths, very proper for 
 small clerestory windows, but not to be adjusted to 
 any reasonable number of moderate-sized windows 
 proper for a village church. So we had to raise the 
 roof and its deep spandrils to a height clear of the 
 windows altogether. 
 
COMMENCEMENT OF CHOLDEETON CHURCH, 165 
 
 It then became a serious question what kind of 
 windows we should have under these rigorous, self- 
 imposed conditions. I searched through all my 
 architectural library, to which I had added a good 
 deal since W. J. Coplestone's fatal gift, and I scoured 
 the country far and wide. At last I found what I 
 wanted in the windows of Old Basing church, where 
 I spent two days taking drawings and dimensions. 
 As they stood there, with a very graceful open roof 
 over them, I thought myself safe as to the period, 
 but Mr. Parker, of Oxford, maintains that my roof 
 required "Decorated" windows. My windows, in 
 regard to their breadth, I hoped might be considered 
 Transitional, but he does not admit that they are. It 
 is very much the question, " Is Westminster Hall, 
 1399, Decox'ated or Perpendicular ? " 
 
 I forget at what exact stage of the affair I put the 
 case before Oriel College and asked for aid, but I 
 was pretty deep in it. As the Provost's line is espe- 
 cially common sense, fitness, justness, and proportion, 
 one can hardly conceive a greater outrage than ask- 
 ing him to sanction so monstrous a design. He 
 wrote imploring me to get rid of my roof and be- 
 gin de novo. He might as well have talked to Stone- 
 henge. The college behaved handsomely, and so did 
 many other people. 
 
 I am forced to omit several long chapters of 
 troubles, sufficient to fill a volume, and not perti- 
 nent to the comparison I have ventured to make be- 
 tween my own work and Sidney Herbert's. In three 
 years all my own money, with the subscriptions, was 
 gone; the roof, which had now cost near ,£1,000, 
 was finished and shedded ; the walls were up to 
 half the height of the windows, and tiled to keep 
 
166 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 them dry ; and there I stood, penniless, but, as it 
 were, with my back to the wall, ready to face all ad- 
 versities. 
 
 Adversities had come and were coming, some seri- 
 ous, others of the sort that frighten rather than hurt. 
 For two months a notorious poacher held us all at 
 bay. He had been turned out of cottage after cot- 
 tage, and driven from village to village, rieither farm- 
 ers nor landlords wanting in their neighborhood a 
 man who made as free with poultry as with game. 
 He had induced a very simple shepherd to give him 
 and his family shelter, but had received notice to 
 quit. One morning, on our going to the usual week- 
 day service at the church, we found Job Phillijjs, his 
 wife, and four children in possession of the church 
 porch. He had heard the old saying that if a man 
 cannot get shelter elsewhere in his own parish, he has 
 a right to it in the church. With sail-cloth he had 
 made the small porch really a very comfortable apart- 
 ment, though it was very cold weather. On Sun- 
 day he left a very sufficient gangway. I went to the 
 churchwarden. He declined to interfere, for he had 
 many hundreds of pounds' worth of property lying 
 about, that a match would destroy in an hour. The 
 policeman said I must give the man in charge. In 
 that case, woe to my roof, then within a few yards, 
 and already jeopardized by the man's arrangements 
 for boiling his kettle. After many talks with him, I 
 convinced him that he had no chance here, and had 
 better emigrate. We raised £20 or £S0, and sent 
 them off to Canada. A child died on the voyage 
 from a cold caught in the church porch. From time 
 to time we had letters from the man, thanking us all 
 for being the making of him. He carried his gun 
 
COMMENCEMENT OF CHOLDERTON CHURCH. 167 
 
 always with bim ; lie had shot several bears ; and he 
 had met no — policeman. 
 
 What tales may be told of the churches then be- 
 ginning to rise everywhere over the land, or to show 
 a new face ! Some of these stories are far sadder 
 than mine, for at least I live to tell it. In April, 
 May, and June, 1843, I was here, at a place where 
 Sydney Smith would have perished of isolation in a 
 week. My wife was in ill health, and was visiting 
 kind friends far away. My only servant was the 
 gardener, who had come into the parsonage. I was 
 in debt on the church account, most of all to the vil- 
 lage blacksmith, poor, good man, who told me twenty 
 years after that he would have died befoi-e he asked 
 me for the money. I was living on bread, butter, 
 cheese, and garden stuff for a quarter of a year. 
 Under these circumstances and on this diet, I wrote 
 the article on the Six Doctors, in the " British 
 Critic," seventy pages long, actually beating Ward's 
 that number. To this day I am confident that the 
 article was a true exposition of the law, and that the 
 suspension of Pusey as a preacher was an illegal and 
 violent act. I have to admit, however, that I might 
 have qualified some expressions had I known at the 
 time that Pusey had been for a long period absenting 
 himself from the University sermons, excusable as 
 that course might be in his case. 
 
 But to proceed with the labors of that weary 
 time. Looking through Wai'd's articles to see that 
 he was not sending us all quite into space was itself 
 an anxious affair. I had also to get up what spirit I 
 had for the " Notices." Not to add to my troubles, I 
 resolved to be kind to everybody, and consequently 
 had a little bill presented to me for having misled a 
 
168 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 clergyman into purchasing Moultrie's " Poems " on a 
 very exaggerated representation of their merits. But 
 the clergyman himself, I should say, was a not very 
 successful ^Yriter of verses. How is it, by the bye, 
 that while great poets can recognize the divine gift in 
 the humblest of their race, mediocre poets are always 
 very sharp on one another? Is it that poetry is only 
 a form of love ? 
 
 The Bishops were now firing off their charges. 
 My own Bishop had fired his, and I was on my good 
 behavior. 
 
 But for my unfinished church, with walls half high 
 and roof laid up in a shed, I had an offer of assist- 
 ance. By the pathway to the church lived the chief 
 mouser and rat-killer in the county, a man who was 
 sent for forty miles in every direction to clear wheat 
 ricks and farmyards of vermin. He had amassed 
 j£l,200, and he offered me half on my personal secu- 
 rity. But he was a loose fellow and a bit of a black- 
 guard, even in the village estimation, and I declined. 
 My workmen at the church had had their jokes about 
 him, and he had to keep a little out of their way. 
 Being a big fellow, and carrj-ing his own height well, 
 he was critical as to presence and the want of it. 
 Though a married man, he had been overheard ad- 
 dressing a 3'oung woman, then a near neiglibor, 
 " Thee 'd be a good-looking lass, if thee was but 
 straight," which was true enough, for she was in all 
 respects a poor limp thing. But he never heard the 
 end of it. 
 
 All this time I had a companion in trouble in the 
 Bishop himself. On the strength of the episcopal 
 revenue turning out better than he had been led to 
 expect, he embarked in the restoration of the Clois- 
 
COMMENCEMENT OF CHOLDEETON CHURCH. 169 
 
 ters and of the Chapter House. By the time the 
 latter was full of scaffolding, and much expense had 
 been incurred, he began to have qualms about the 
 undertaking and misgivings as to his architect. With 
 much em})liasis he asked me one day my opinion of 
 Mr. Wyatt. Any number of answers passed rapidly 
 through my mind. I had no call to give any answer 
 at all, for I was employing Wyatt, and was in confi- 
 dential relations with him. I had not used him well. 
 I had employed him, not because I trusted him, but 
 because I trusted myself. I had not given him a 
 chance. I was making him my scapegoat and both- 
 ering him a good deal too. I believe I replied that I 
 thought Wyatt a good and safe arcliitect, and that 
 would be suflBciently true. I heard not long after 
 that the Bishop had called in Salvin, and from that I 
 concluded that Salvin would finish the work. But I 
 do not find it in the very full and particular account 
 of Salvin's works published in the " Builder " soon 
 after his death. 
 
 The character of that work illustrates the difficul- 
 ties bequeathed to us by our venturesome forefathers. 
 The Chapter House, lightly framed, all windows, in- 
 adequately buttressed, and originally surmounted by 
 a tall extinguisher roof, had yielded to the wind and 
 gone quite half a yard out of the perpendicular. 
 More than a third of the weight of the vaulting, not 
 far from a hundred tons, rested on the central pillar, 
 and a plumb line dropped from the capital of that 
 pillar fell half a yard from its base. It looked very 
 ill, and could not be called quite safe. The original 
 architect, knowing the extreme weakness of his walls 
 and his want of lateral supports, had cunningly de- 
 vised the vaulting so as to throw as much of the 
 
170 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 weight as possible on tliis pillar, which now looked 
 the very emblem of weakness. The only thing to 
 be done was to support the vaulting with wood- 
 work, and rebuild the pillar from a new foundation 
 directly under the capital. This was done in the 
 end. 
 
CHAPTER XCVIIL 
 
 COMPLETION OF CHOLDERTON CHURCH. 
 
 At last the means came in an unexpected way and 
 from an unexpected quarter, and the church was 
 finished and consecrated in 1850. I had then given 
 up tlie living three years. I had spent on the new 
 church more than £5,000 of my own earnings, every 
 pound of it spent before it was earned, never really in 
 my possession, but not the less paying income-tax for 
 it. My temper I know is not perfect, and therefore 
 I do not wonder that it was a little tried when, after 
 I had made out my case, with a full statement of 
 quantities, properly signed, for remission of the duties 
 on the brick, timber, and glass, the official at the 
 Queen Anne's Bounty Office, through which it had 
 to pass, replied shortly that I had been too long about 
 the church, and they could not recommend the case to 
 the Treasury. 
 
 The college, my own friends, and Newman's, in- 
 cluding the present Lord Chancellor, subscribed very 
 liberally. Several of the writers for the " British 
 Critic " sent to the church the cliecks they received 
 from the publisher. But the total so raised, though 
 suffit;ient for a church in proportion to the village, 
 was a trifle compared with the actual expenditure, 
 which was over £6,000. But I must have everything 
 in keeping with my roof, after all stilted so high that 
 its ornaments and even its framework are hardly dis- 
 
172 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 cernible. There must be a handsome stone plinth 
 outside, and an elaborate cornice. The seats, done 
 by my Suffolk carvers, are of solid oak, everj^ one 
 with its own ornamentation. They cost more than 
 five guineas a sitting. The encaustic tiling was so 
 carefully designed and so costly that Minton exhib- 
 ited a full-sized plan of it at the Hyde Park Exhibi- 
 tion. My wood-carvers were very desirous to have 
 a chancel screen and roodloft, which would have 
 relieved the inordinate length of the building, and 
 made a chancel, which was not otherwise distin- 
 guished in the plan. But the Bishop had early 
 declared against a chancel screen, as also against a 
 stone altar, a piscina, and a credence table. I had 
 been earl}^ forewarned that the Uist would not be 
 allowed, and had therefore thought no more about it. 
 When, thei-efore, the Bishop asked me one day what 
 I understood by a credence table, or prothesis, I was 
 taken aback, and had nothing to say, except that I 
 was not going to have one. To console the stone- 
 masons, we had a stone screen separating the west 
 end of the interior into a vestibule, and adorned with 
 tracery, armorial bearings, and initials. The whole 
 of the stonework of the church came ready cut from 
 Tisbury, twenty-seven miles off, except the bosses, 
 corbels, and other ornaments, which were done by 
 stone-carvers from Wilton church. 
 
 Of the numerous carvings, including some creatures 
 on the standards supporting the benches, possibly by 
 this time credited with a mystic significance, I have 
 a story to tell. Early in 1843 I had written to New- 
 man asking him what he would say if he found an 
 article in favor of Free Trade in the ."British Critic." 
 His reply was that it was a matter to which he had 
 
COMPLETION OF CHOLDERTON CHURCH. 173 
 
 given no attention, and he must leave it to me. I 
 had been reading Dr. Cooke Taylor's " Tour through 
 the Manufacturing Towns of Lancashire," beginning 
 with a faint prejudice in favor of protection and end- 
 ing with strong convictions against it. 
 
 Perhaps other feelings contributed to this change. 
 My old illusions of a paternal system had been tested 
 by facts, and had now vanislied away. Under the 
 New Poor Law, with which the landowners were well 
 content, some of my poor parishioners, in spite of my 
 remonstrances, were hurried off to Andover Union, 
 there quickly to rot and die. It was the workhouse 
 in which the aged paupers, set to break the horse- 
 bones from Mr. Assheton Smith's dog-kennels, first 
 gnawed and sucked them. The flavor of the bones I 
 know, for I often passed them on their way to 
 Andover. It was not pleasant. Then for the church. 
 Here I was in the greatest difficulties with a work 
 which none could deny to be necessary, even though 
 I might be overdoing it. Two landowners divided 
 my parish, and not one would give me the least help. 
 More I will not now say, for one of them contributed 
 to the Church of England one of its warmest and 
 most active friends, the present Earl Nelson. It is 
 of my feelings at that time that I am speaking, and I 
 did then feel a deep grievance with the British land- 
 ocracy. What are they made for, I said, and why 
 are they to be favored and supported at the cost of 
 all other classes, if they are to do nothing for it, and 
 be just as stingy and selfish as the rest ? 
 
 Before the year was ended a cliange had come over 
 my scene, and I was now fighting in the ranks of 
 philanthropy and common sense. I was soon able to 
 speak for Free Trade to more effect than I could have 
 
174 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 done in the " British Critic ; " I had my saj^ and I 
 said it. As that cause, in a way, contributed to the 
 completion of the edifice, so I -wished it to be a mon- 
 ument of its success. The fruits of the earth are 
 there along the cornice outside, and in other places. 
 Two large bosses at the west entrance were left to the 
 last. I wished one to be carved into a mass of divers 
 kinds of grain and pulse, and the other into a ship, to 
 denote the repeal of the Navigation Laws. Wyatt 
 dissuaded me from this, and they are simply masses of 
 conventional foliage. He had no confidence in the 
 old roof, and made me bind every " truss " with iron 
 bolts bonding the woodwork. I also was a little 
 afraid that the walls, albeit a yard thick, might bulge 
 here and there, as may be seen in many Suffolk 
 churches. Accordingly I had thick bars of iron 
 hooked into one another, buried in the masonry over 
 the windows from end to end. 
 
 Open roofs are liable to one of two defects. If the 
 angle is sharp enough to please the eye outside, the 
 valley is too deep and dark inside. On the other 
 hand, if the angle is not so sharp, say a right angle, 
 or less, while the interior is brought more within 
 reach of the eye, the exterior is not pleasing. The 
 roof in my case was neither high nor low, which is 
 like water neither hot nor cold. Outside, therefore, 
 my Suffolk roof I had a light fir roof rising to a 
 higher pitch. At St. Paul's there are two domes, one 
 for outer effect, the other for inside. They are of dif- 
 ferent shapes as well as sizes. 
 
 As the additional churchyard required for the new 
 building was most of it a chalk pit, I had to obtain, 
 as well as I could, fifteen hundred loads of material to 
 fill it. This I could not get near at hand. So, " to 
 
COJIPLETION OF CHOLDERTON CHURCH. 175 
 
 kill two birds with one stone," I reduced the decliv- 
 ity of a road leading out of Wiltshire into Hamp- 
 shire, half a mile off. Such were the conditions of 
 that remote place that all this time I was obliged to 
 have my own horses, carts, and other appliances. 
 
 Very early after assenting to the plans, the Bishop 
 had observed to me that I was about to leave my mon- 
 ument in the diocese. I felt it rather as a rebuke. 
 In that sense it was half deserved, but I was carried 
 away by an enthusiasm I could not control. The 
 Bishop, I must say, watched my operations in every 
 stage with a kindly interest, and, like the rest of the 
 world, wished to see them completed. It must have 
 been rather late in 1846 that he asked me when I pro- 
 posed to roof in my church. " In October," I said. 
 " Is not that apt to be an unsettled month ? " he re- 
 joined. To this I replied that it was usually said 
 there were eighteen fine days in October, or eighteen 
 days in which one could do without a fire. " But how 
 do you interpret that saying ? " he asked ; adding, " I 
 interpret it to mean that the month is genei'ally rainy, 
 but that you may manage to pick out eighteen sun- 
 shiny days." I believe he was right. 
 
 I wrote long articles in the " British Critic," illus- 
 trated with a great number of cuts of open roofs, with 
 their proper mouldings. I had drawings made of 
 thirty or forty Suffolk roofs in particular, and what I 
 wrote had probably a great share in setting the fash- 
 ion since become universal, for no one thinks of a flat 
 ceiled roof in these days. Open roofs are not with- 
 out their disadvantages, but few people now care to 
 be told what they are. They tell, however, in the 
 church accounts. A church with a lofty open roof 
 cannot be so quickly or so easily warmed as one with 
 
176 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 a ceiling at a low level, and cannot retain the heat so 
 long. Fortunately, we have now better methods of 
 warming, and coals are generally cheaper than they 
 used to be. 
 
 Church architects have now greatly improved on 
 the Westminster Hall roof, or rather they have con- 
 fined themselves to some other forms of equal antiq- 
 uity, and to be found in the above articles of the 
 " British Critic." They have either abandoned the 
 " hammer-beam " as it is called, altogether, or they 
 have used it just sufficiently to stiffen the wooden 
 arch. The arch itself, if it be fairly stout and prop- 
 erly stayed, and if it spring sufficiently low, is at once 
 the strength and the beauty of the open roof. 
 
 I may mention three very flattering testimonies to 
 my church, with all its manifold imperfections. The 
 Bishop's coachman said he had been with his master 
 at many consecrations, and had never seen a new 
 church he liked so much as this. I was succeeded at 
 Cholderton by the present Bishop of Manchester, who 
 took such interest in the church as to fill it with 
 painted glass, adding much to its beauty, and produc- 
 ing an almost magical effect. The painted glass of 
 the west window is reflected down upon the plate 
 glass of the screen, and from it to the eyes as one 
 enters the church. What you see is really the window 
 over your head, but it has the effect of a glorious vis- 
 ion among the timbers of the dark roof far in advance 
 of you. 
 
 The third testimony is even more remarkable. I 
 was but three miles from Tidworth, where was the 
 famous house of the " Tidworth drummer," and im- 
 mense stables and kennels. The old church had been 
 taken down, and a very homely chapel-like structure 
 
COMPLETION OF CHOLDERTON CHURCH. 177 
 
 built, less in the way. During Assheton Smith's life- 
 time I met with no admirution in that quai'ter. In- 
 deed my big, pretentious, unfinished church was a 
 standing joke in the hunting field. But immediately 
 on his death his widow set about building a church 
 which might not be so far behind Cholderton. She 
 died in a very few months, when there happened the 
 very rare event of a church begun, not completed, 
 and the unfinished building, with the collected mate- 
 rials, sold by auction. The executors had no funds, 
 they said, for the work. This was, however, in the 
 order of Providence only a recoil for a rebound. 
 There has lately been erected on a better site, 
 nearer Tidworth House, one of the most beautiful 
 churches in the country, sharing, I fear, with my 
 church, the fault, for such it is, of being out of pro- 
 portion to the parish and to the rustic congregation. 
 
 Some of the Bisliop's ti'oubles began when mine 
 were well over. He had been encouraged to begin 
 his works at the Chapter House, the Cloisters, and 
 the Palace, besides being generally open-handed, by 
 finding the receipts of the see for several years much 
 more than he had been led to expect. To myself it 
 "was a very painful matter. During the debates on 
 the Bill for regulating Episcopal Incomes, a great 
 fight had been made by Conservative Churchmen that 
 the income should not be paid in money by the Com- 
 missioners, but should be the rent of such a portion 
 of the episcopal estates as might be safely expected 
 to produce that sum. They carried their point. Ac- 
 cordingly, when Denison went to Salisbury he found 
 certain estates already reserved for the source of his 
 income. He was immediately beset by officials, sur- 
 vej^ors, Chapter folks, and all the good people of 
 
 VOL. II. * .12 
 
178 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Salisbury, who assured him the estates were not ade- 
 quate to that purpose, and that the episcopal revenue 
 would fall below the mark. They were all on the 
 spot ; they knew the property and its vicissitudes. 
 It was a matter in which the city and diocese, more 
 than he, were concerned. So he allowed himself to 
 fight their battle. In leases upon lives there must 
 always be uncertaint^^ It so happened that before 
 long several years produced seven or eight thousand 
 pounds instead of the regulation five. The excess, 
 however, was speedily absorbed by the costly works 
 I have mentioned, and might itself give place to a 
 deficiency in future years. However, the Whigs and 
 Church reformers, remembering the battle about the 
 settlement of the incomes, pounced on the scandal, as 
 they called it. The Bishop, they said, hiid lent him- 
 self to an organized depreciation of the episcopal 
 estates in order to obtain a better income, and was 
 now profiting by a species of fraud. He ought to 
 refund. 
 
 At that time, I believe, Denison would not have 
 found it easy to I'efund. Knowing, as I did, the 
 pressui-e put upon him, I cannot doubt he had acted 
 simply in the whole matter. There was, too, by this 
 time, another consideration presenting itself with 
 daily increasing force. All the arrangements made 
 at that period more or less cut away the resources for 
 the maintenance of the cathedral, as well as other 
 episcopal or capitular buildings. At the period I am 
 now speaking of there prevailed a not groundless 
 apprehension that these immense piles would fall 
 into decay, past repair. So far as regards Salisbury, 
 if a mistake had been made on one side, a far more 
 serious mistake had been made on the othei". If one 
 was to be rectified, why not the other also ? 
 
COMPLETION OF CHOLDERTON CHURCH. 179 
 
 Any great work is sure to have various episodes, 
 sharing its character and its scale, always interesting 
 to those who believe in a present and continual Prov- 
 idence, most of all when the work itself has a relig- 
 ious aim. My gardener, the one whom I have men- 
 tioned above as driving Newman to Salisbury and 
 keeping his tongue going all the way, from the first 
 commencement of the new church to its completion 
 — eleven years — thought, worked, and talked in- 
 cessantly about it, and, as I was very much my own 
 builder and clerk of the works, was of the greatest 
 use to me, managing all my earthworks, haulage, 
 gathering of flints from the hills and sand from the 
 roadsides, lodging the workpeople, and countless 
 other matters. He got me into trouble occasionally, 
 for he could not see a big stone anj' where without 
 coveting it, and the surveyor of the " Duke of 
 Queensberry's road " from Andover to Amesbmy 
 complained much of our pouncing too quickly on the 
 accumulations of sand on tlie roadside after a storm. 
 My chief farmer, who had taken my original appro- 
 priation of poor Meacher with much indifference, 
 when he saw him in this new character would say I 
 had taken from him his best man. 
 
 We never had a serious accident daring the work, 
 though the scaffolding was high and adventurous. A 
 young man fell to the ground from the height of 
 twenty-five feet, but his fall was fortunately bnjken, 
 and in half an hour he was at his work again. For 
 the putting together of the open roof I planned a 
 graduated stage moving along the wall plate. 
 
 A sad accident came at last. My own intention 
 had been to retain the old Norman or Saxon font, 
 as a relic of the old building, which was originally 
 
180 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Norman or Saxon. But Fraser, now Bishop of Man- 
 chester, thought its rudeness of design and execution 
 would be too mucli of a contrast with the highly- 
 finished character of the surroundings, and he gave a 
 new font in the style of the new church. It was an 
 elaborate affair, and was long in the sculptor's yard, 
 but was just finished the day before the consecration. 
 Fraser had his own horse put into the cart, and the 
 poor beast, not understanding the occasion, did not 
 like it. After a troublesome journey the font arrived 
 at the church gates, which the horse was impatient 
 to enter. Before Meacher could govern its move- 
 ments, or get out of the way, he was so seriously in- 
 jured that, instead of being present at the consecra- 
 tion he had looked forward to so long, he had to lie 
 in bed many weeks. 
 
 His only child married the Ipswich wood-carver's 
 'prentice, and of her children — children of the roof, 
 as they might be called — one is certificated mistress 
 of a large school at Islington, and the other certifi- 
 cated master of an important school in Wales, be- 
 sides passing successfully through several of the 
 Oxford local examinations. 
 
 Such was one episode. Here is another. A girl 
 of very little figure applied for a place, and had no 
 reference to give except to her clergyman, a good 
 neighbor, with whom I had had many battles on his 
 Millennium views. On my writing to him he replied 
 rather favorably, but added below two lines from a 
 Greek play, to the effect that though he had spoken 
 of this giri in a complimentary way, it was a bad lot 
 that she came from, and we must beware. By the 
 time she had been in our service a year, the Ipswich 
 wood-carvers were wanting a lad to assist in holding 
 
COMPLETION OF CHOLDERTON CHURCH. 181 
 
 the pieces, in sharpening the tools, and looking to 
 the glue-pot, and she spoke a word for her younger 
 brother, then earning low wages with a farmer. He 
 came, and I thought him a very rough fellow indeed, 
 but he looked good, and had intelligent eyes. 
 
 In a fortnight the wood -carvers declared them- 
 selves quite satisfied with him; he improved; and 
 when they left they took him to Suffolk. Thei'e I 
 heard of him first as placed over the other workmen ; 
 then as conducting church restorations for his mas- 
 ter ; finally as a church builder and restorer on his 
 own account. Many years afterwards I noticed from 
 the South- Western Railway that a large church 
 which I had seen built was being enlarged and much 
 improved. I went purposely from town to see it, and 
 found that the whole work was being executed by the 
 hero of this little tale. 
 
CHAPTER XCIX. 
 
 BAST GRAFTON CHUBCH. 
 
 I HAVE said that I had to leave some chapters un- 
 told ; but oue I must tell. It brings me back to Sid- 
 ney Herbert. 
 
 In July, 1842, I paid a visit to a pupil's brother, 
 near Great Bedwyn, bordering on Savernake Forest, 
 and I believe mostly the property of the Marquis of 
 Ailesbury. We went to see a church then building 
 at East Grafton. Ferrey was the architect employed 
 by Mr. Ward, Vicar of Great Bedwyn, and one of 
 the chief promoters of Marlborough College. The 
 design is an instance of the adventurous and experi- 
 mental character of that period, when it was reason 
 enough for any proposal that it was a restoration, or 
 that it had a precedent. 
 
 The style was to be Norman ; that is, in the de- 
 tails. But there were to be aisles, and over them a 
 clerestory four feet high, lighted with very small 
 apertures. But now came the novelty, that is the an- 
 tiquitj'. There was to be a cylindrical or barrel- 
 shaped stone roof, interior and exterior one mass of 
 masonry. The spring of this vault would of course 
 be quite above the summit of the nave arches. 
 
 Now a cylindrical or semicircular arch is one pe- 
 culiarly incapable of standing by itself. The upper 
 part is nearly as flat as a floor, and it gravitates di- 
 rectly downwards, easily blowing up the shoulders or 
 
EAST GRAFTON CHURCH. 
 
 183 
 
 haunches of the arch ; that is the portion of it mid- 
 way between the spring and the crown. If the 
 haunches can be kept in their place, then the vault 
 is safe enough. There are two admissible ways of 
 doing this ; for the third way, iron bars tying the 
 two haunches, cannot be called admissible. The 
 haunches may be secured in their place by a properl}^ 
 directed lateral pressure in the form of buttresses, or 
 they may be so loaded that the balance of gravita- 
 tion will be in favor of the crown remaining where it 
 is, and not coming down. 
 
 In this case, by the design, loading was the secu- 
 rity to be applied. All depended then on the weight 
 and compactness of the mass of material laid on the 
 part of the vault midway between the spring and the 
 crown. It did not seem to me adequate. I had had 
 many expei'iences of arches, whether of wood or of 
 stone, bulging out and losing form, if nothing worse. 
 A wooden structure can lose form with comparative 
 immunity from danger, but not so a stone vault. 
 
 It might be supposed that a semicircular arch 
 would be easily and safely constructed in iron, which 
 supplies at once the greatest tenacity, and the great- 
 est I'esistance to pressure. But, as a matter of fact, 
 the chief bridge disasters in this century have been 
 with iron semicircular arches, such as that at New- 
 castle, and that over the Tees at Stockton. Tlie 
 truth is, people are deceived by appearances. A 
 semicircular arch is so natural and beautiful, that it 
 looks as if it ought to stand. Unfortunately its du- 
 ties are not aesthetic or moral, but simply physical, 
 and in obedience to the laws of nature it persists in 
 falling at the crown and rising at the shoulders, un- 
 less the latter tendency be obviated. In the case of 
 
184 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 the experiment to be tried at East Grafton, if the 
 whole was one hard concreted mass,, then the danger 
 might be veiy little. But country masonry must al- 
 ways be regarded with suspicion, and it takes long to 
 set and harden. The clerestory walls, I must add, 
 were to be very solid ; a yard thick, and rising four 
 feet above the spring of the vault. 
 
 But Mr. "Ward, who was a great archaeologist, and 
 had a fine collection of models, had provided two ad- 
 ditional guarantees, as he deemed them, for the safety 
 of his stone vault. The first was an exceedingly 
 strong stone rib, half a yard deep, springing from a 
 corbel over every pillar, a little below the spring of the 
 vaulting. It occurred to me that if these ribs could 
 be made diagonal, instead of straight across, and if 
 the vaulting could be made to spring from them, this 
 would mend matters : but, as Mr. Ward explained 
 afterwards, this could not be done without raising the 
 vault considerably. I did not much like the look of 
 the heavy ribs, projecting a foot from the surface of 
 the vault. 
 
 The second additional guarantee was more extraor- 
 dinary, indeed inconceivable, only to be accounted 
 for by one of those prepossessions sometimes found to 
 occupy the mind, and disorder reason itself, in the 
 comparative seclusion of a country parsonage. Mr. 
 Ward had at Great Bedwyn a handsome and very in- 
 teresting church. At some remote period, very likely 
 soon after the building of the church, the wooden roof 
 of the nave, not being properly tied or trussed, had 
 pushed out the arcades on both sides, not only the 
 clerestory, but the arches and the pillars themselves. 
 The people then in chai'ge of the church adopted an 
 expedient which might be the best under the circum- 
 
EAST GRAFTON CHURCH. 
 
 185 
 
 stances. They carried solid and well-built flying 
 stone buttresses from the walls of the aisles to the ar- 
 cades^ as high as they could, so as not to interfere 
 with the roof of the aisles. Every architect will 
 smile at this description, and say to himself that if it 
 answered it was a "• fluke." It did answer, but it cer- 
 tainly was not a precedent to be followed, unless on 
 a like necessity. 
 
 It is forty years since I saw this interior, and I 
 write from memory. I have lately seen a very good 
 water-color drawing of the interior, only showing the 
 roof of one aisle, and that without these " flying " 
 buttresses. Whether it is an oversight of the artist, 
 or the buttresses are confined to one aisle, I cannot 
 say. 
 
 It has occurred to me that the mediaeval vicar, or 
 architect, who built these singular flying buttresses, 
 had a very striking precedent for them, likely enough 
 to fascinate an amateur. The tower and spire of 
 Salisbury Cathedral, rising to 400 feet, all rests on 
 four pillars, which have yielded seriously to the im- 
 mense weight. As the tower and spire rose in suces- 
 sive generations and even centuries, these settlements 
 were closely watched, and, in order to obviate them 
 as much as possible, the architects made more than a 
 hundred flying buttresses running through the per- 
 pendicular and horizontal lines of the clerestory 
 under the roof on all sides. They are not very no- 
 ticeable ; but there they are. Any Vicar of Great 
 Bedwyn who was a frequenter of the cathedral could 
 not fail to be familiar with them. In that edifice 
 they are indispensable, which is all that can be said 
 for them. 
 
 4- similfir prepossession has spoilt our St. Paul's. 
 
186 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Wren, while a mathematical prodigy and no architect, 
 had an early acquaintance with Cathedral, of 
 which his uncle was bishop. In that case the failure 
 of the central tower and four supporting pillars had 
 suggested, if not necessitated, the wooden octagon 
 which to all Cambridge men is to this day the object 
 of an almost idolatrous admiration. This expedient, 
 for such it Avas, disguised as it may be, Wren imjjorted 
 into his design for St. Paul's, abandoning the tradi- 
 tional four piers of the Italian dome. He thereby 
 got a larger area for his dome as well as aisles seen 
 from end to end, but it was at the serious cost of nar- 
 rowing his nave, choir, and transepts. 
 
 To Mr. Ward the interior flying buttresses were 
 the most interesting and picturesque features in his 
 parish church, and he availed himself of this opportu- 
 nity to reproduce them. Following the precedent 
 of his own church, they arrived at the nave walls 
 below the aisle roof, and consequently quite below 
 the spring of the vault. The abutment afforded by 
 them fell several feet below the haunch of the vault- 
 ing, where it was really wanted. I insisted on these 
 points, and some others which were more matters of 
 style, to Mr. Ward's friend, expressing strong mis- 
 givings as to the safety of the structure. 
 
 Mr. Ward wrote to me early in August, proposing 
 an appointment to come and see the church with him 
 and Mr. Parker of Oxford. The meeting, however, 
 could not be managed till the end of that month. 
 At that date the whole of the vaulting lay on the 
 ground, beautifully shaped, ready to be put up. I 
 persisted in my objections, but Mr. Ward was not to 
 be shaken. 
 
 It now appeared that he had already had a battle 
 
EAST GRAFTON CHURCH. 
 
 187 
 
 for his stone roof. It was contrary to the express 
 requirements of the Incorporated Society, but had 
 yet been passed by their Board. Their surveyor, 
 however, would not sanction a vault under any mod- 
 ification. Ferrey, nothing daunted, submitted his 
 plan to Professor Willis, who at once pronounced it 
 good and safe, and wrote a memorial to the Board to 
 that effect, after which the surveyor's opinion was 
 set aside. The Board also then and there appointed 
 a sub-comraittee of " scientific gentlemen," before 
 whom all plans were thenceforth to be presented 
 before they could reach the Boai-d, thus in a great 
 measure superseding the surveyors. 
 
 Mr. Ward, however, now wrote to Ferrey, with 
 my objections, and Ferrey, whose hands no doubt 
 were full, referred me to Robert Williams, one of my 
 Oriel contemporaries and friends. The vault had 
 been suggested, it now appeared, by that of St. 
 Catherine's chapel, Abbotsbury, a desecrated ruin on 
 the coast, not far from Dorchester. The roof there 
 is one mass of masonry, the same stones showing in- 
 side and outside ; and, up to tliis date, it had stood 
 all the storms of the Atlantic. It had no abutment, 
 only rising from a good thick wall, and had no 
 loading. 
 
 But the resemblance between this roof and Mr. 
 Ward's was nominal and illusory. The drawing 
 which Robert Williams sent me showed that the 
 vault there had completed a large part of its cur- 
 vature, indeed all the dangerous part, before it had 
 left the solid walls, and that the vault being equi- 
 lateral, the pitch was so high that no further abut- 
 ment was required, and that in fact the vault ap- 
 proached very near to that catenary curve which is, 
 
188 
 
 EEMI^'ISCE^XES. 
 
 theoretically, the perfection of safety in vaulting. 
 Robert Williams recognized the differences between 
 the two vaults, but did not think them material. His 
 letter to this effect was on October 13. 
 
 On one of the fix'st days of December I saw a 
 hearse pass my parsonage towards Salisbury. There 
 were few people to die between me and Marlborough, 
 and I had not heard of any one likely to die. I 
 immediately thought of East Grafton Church. As 
 they would be sure to stop in the village, I sent my 
 servant to make inquiries. The hearse had stopped 
 a minute and gone on. It was a clergyman who had 
 been killed by the fall of a church. I could not say 
 how soon and how quickly every part of the catas- 
 trophe presented itself to my mind, even to the 
 victim. 
 
 Sidney Herbert had wished to see the new church, 
 in which the Marquis of Ailesbury and his people 
 were much interested. So he had appointed a day. 
 It was earlier than was wished, and the weather did 
 not mend matters. Ferrey was written to. He 
 urged expedition in loading the haunches of the 
 vault, and gave his permission for the centre, that is 
 the wooden frame upon which the vault had been 
 built, to be lowered a few inches. There came, 
 however, more rainy days, and the loading could have 
 been little better than mud. 
 
 Sidney Herbert came, bringing with him Mr. 
 Montgomery, a sort of cousin, whom I had frequently 
 heard of as an amiable and excellent man, of great 
 taste, and fond of church architecture. They took 
 their position within the church. The " centre " had 
 been lowei-ed some inches, and the vault stood. It 
 was no longer deriving any support from its cradle, 
 
EAST GRAFTON CHURCH. 
 
 189 
 
 as the centre might be called. So orders were given 
 to lower it ; it was lowered, some said two feet, some 
 said four. All at once it came down, and a large 
 stone of one of the massive ribs, rebounding from a 
 scaffold pole, struck Mr. Montgomery dead on the 
 spot. I saw the other day in the papers the death 
 of Mrs. Montgomery, after a widowhood of thirty- 
 eight years. 
 
 Upon hearing the sad news Ferrey went of? to T. 
 H. Wyatt, and got him to write to me. He could 
 only say what I knew already, and what was quite 
 suflBcient to prove the downfall of the vault no con- 
 clusive proof of its vicious construction. The new- 
 ness of the work, its wetness, and the want of load- 
 ing wei-e enough to account for the result. Nor had 
 Ferrey's order been properly obeyed. Nevertheless, 
 poor Ward felt he must abandon his stone vault. 
 Indeed he would.never have got a congregation to 
 sit under it. He had to substitute a wooden im- 
 itative vault, no doubt better for comfort and for 
 hearing. 
 
 After the event I sent the drawings Ward had 
 kindly given me to W. Froude for his scientific 
 judgment on them. He said the calculation was 
 curiously exact, but there was no spare strength. If 
 the masonry was good the vault would stand ; not 
 otherwise. 
 
CHAPTER C. 
 
 MANUEL JOHNSON. 
 
 On returning to residence in 1835, I found a 
 visitor from another world, as he seemed to me, and 
 strangely out of place at Oxford. Manuel J. John- 
 son was the son of an Indian officer, and was, I think, 
 a ward of Bowden, Newman's chief college friend. 
 He had entered the University, and was in lodgings 
 in Broad Street, opposite Baliol. My first impres- 
 sion was that he was simply making use of the Uni- 
 versity in order to pass through it as easily and 
 quickly as possible to some profession — the Church, 
 possibly. But it was soon evident he was no bird of 
 passage. To face a public classical examination at 
 the age of thirty-five, after some length of military 
 services in various parts of the world, implied cour- 
 age, and it was rewarded with success. 
 
 Excepting in his actual years, and in his varied 
 experiences, Johnson was still youthful, not to say 
 boyish. But he had already done and seen much. 
 Stationed at the Cape of Good Hope and at St. 
 Helena, he had employed his leisure in making, from 
 actual observation, a new and much-wanted map of 
 the stars of the Southern Hemisphere. It appeared 
 in the form of a Catalogue of 606 Southern Stars, 
 published by the East India Company. Herschel 
 waived his own claim to the gold medal of the As- 
 tronomical Society in favor of this young and private 
 adventurer in that very arduous field. 
 
MANUEL JOHNSON. 
 
 191 
 
 For a considerable time Johnson had had the duty 
 of guarding Napoleon's tomb, and of receiving the 
 officers and crew of every French ship stopping at 
 St. Helena, and invariably marching up in solemn 
 procession. The officers wished to make some recog- 
 nition of his kindness, and they generally hit on a 
 box of the best qigars. Johnson was no smoker up 
 to that date ; but by the time these boxes had accu- 
 mulated, it occurred to him to smoke them through, 
 which, with his wonted perseverance, he effected. 
 
 Very soon after he had taken his degi-ee, the place 
 of Observer at the Radcliffe Observatory fell vacant 
 by the death of tlie tender and gentle Rigaud ; and, 
 through Sir R. Peel chiefly, I believe, Johnson was 
 appointed to fill it. For twenty years he pursued 
 with unremitting industry and care a work which 
 has in its nature very little of the reward of this 
 world, scarcely an appreciable field, and no present 
 results whatever. He had not to look out for beau- 
 tiful or startling objects. The moon and the planets 
 exhibit varieties of surface which justly excite our 
 curiosity as neighbors, not without a direct interest 
 in the fortunes of our whole system. We are indeed 
 actually sensible of their perturbing forces. Comets 
 come and go, making a temporary sensation, and 
 leaving strange problems. Celestial geography, so 
 to speak, is quite as full of marvels as terrestrial. 
 An amateur may spend a fortune and a life, and still 
 waste himself upon ever-multiplying stars and nebulas 
 disclosing the strangest and most fanciful caprices of 
 form. A great observer has to avert his gaze from 
 these fascinating objects, and to leave even the 
 numerous and still-increasing family of planetoids to 
 his subordinates, naturally eager for such small prey. 
 
192 
 
 REMINISCKNCES. 
 
 Whenever the state of the atmosphere allowed, 
 Johnson had to observe all the stars large enough 
 and convenient enough for observation, as they passed 
 the meridian. I remember his telling me that every 
 observation required two hundred reductions and cor- 
 rections, many of them, of course, constant, or in 
 groups. He w"as dealing with exact facts, but with 
 inexact instruments, and in a deceptive medium. He 
 "was a terrestrial conversing with celestials. Happily 
 for poor human nature, there are not many nights in 
 the British year in which observation is possible, 
 AVhen the clouds draw their curtains round him the 
 astronomer may go to bed, to be waked up possibly. 
 Practically this work is carried on in the open air, 
 and without artificial warmth. Even Johnson's singu- 
 larly robust frame could not have stood it, but for 
 the kind Providence that heaped up cigars about him 
 till he was compelled to smoke them, for it was this 
 tliat enabled him to endure his long night-watchings. 
 His loving wife sat up with him many nights entei- 
 ing figures at his dictation, no doubt to the perma- 
 nent injury of her health and strength. 
 
 Some of these fixed stars — few they may be called 
 in comparison with what, to us, is an infinite num- 
 ber — have either " proper " motions, or appearances 
 of motion, that instruments can reach. If the exact 
 position of some six thousand is recorded and pub- 
 lished every year, it is with the hope that changes 
 of position will be ascertained. The first object is to 
 obtain the parallax of these remote bodies. Even in 
 these davs, when Ladies' Colleges give the best of 
 their hours to mathematics, it is not every lady who 
 knows what this parallax is. She will understand, 
 however, that when she changes her place in a room 
 
MANUEL JOHNSON. 
 
 193 
 
 by a couple of yards, she thereby changes her bear- 
 ings to the rest of the company, so that those people 
 who were in front of her, or behind her, may be 
 now by her side. She might reasonably expect, 
 therefore, that if she changed her place near two 
 hundred millions of miles, which in fact she does 
 every six months, she would thereby change her 
 bearings to all objects within sight, and see their 
 apparent places changed also. In fact, however, 
 there is no such manifest change in the place of the 
 fixed stars, and it requires the best instruments, the 
 closest observation, and much calculation, to make 
 out that there is any change at all. The change, 
 when ascertained, is the measure of our distance 
 from the star. 
 
 The total number of fixed stars of which the 
 pai'allax, and consequently the distance, has been 
 ascertained, I find stated in one recent publication to 
 be twelve, in another only nine. We have, then, 
 very few neighbors, and even they cannot be called 
 near. Of the twelve the nearest is almost twenty 
 billions of miles from us, the farthest twenty times 
 as far. It is impossible, humanly speaking, to 
 ascertain the distances of more, and, so far as regards 
 this expectation, astronomers are only hoping against 
 hope, without the most remote chance of satisfaction. 
 
 These nearest stars in the whole universe have 
 been brought within measurement by observations it 
 is almost painful to tliink of. On the surface of the 
 earth it is possible to see an object — say the chief 
 mountain of Corsica — from the Maritime Alps, at 
 the distance of 160 miles. What a problem it seems 
 to measure the length of a man at that distance to an 
 inch ! but that is the problem believed to have been 
 
 VOL. II. 13 
 
194 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 successfully accomplished in the case of these very 
 few fixed stars. So it must be deemed certain that 
 farther we cannot go. The greatest parallax yet 
 ascei'tained, that is of the nearest fixed star, does not 
 come to a "second" of the great circle, and the in- 
 evitable errors attendant on any observation gener- 
 ally amount to as much. 
 
 The natural organs of sight make this double 
 observation continually, and for the same purpose, to 
 estimate the distance of an object. The two eyes 
 are two observers, that at the interval of three inches 
 notice an object, in this case simultaneously, and 
 compare the angles made by the lines of vision. 
 What they ascertain is the parallax of the object. 
 They who have the misfortune to lose an eye im- 
 mediately find that this measure of distance, and 
 of size too, is much impaired. But the degeneration 
 of the surviving eye, by the creation of different 
 foci, sometimes comes to the aid of vision by afford- 
 ing an irregular basis for the indispensable calculation. 
 When people begin to see half a dozen moons they 
 may be thankful to know that this confusion is itself 
 a measure of distance. 
 
 But there is even a grander and more awful question 
 than our distance from some dozen or two stars. It is 
 the constitution, the movement, and the destiny of 
 the universe. Whither are all these stars moving? 
 What are they tending to? What is their centre, if 
 there be any, which is very presumable ? As many 
 as 270 stars have been ascertained to have " proper " 
 motions, that is actual motions through space ; but 
 the probability is that all the stars are changing their 
 places, though it will take, may be, a thousand years 
 of observation to ascertain the speed, or the direction, 
 or the curves of their motion. 
 
MANUEL JOHNSON. 
 
 195 
 
 It is a question, indeed a very new one, whether 
 the sun moves in space at all ; but there is also a 
 fair probability that it moves a hundred and fifty 
 millions of miles in a year, which is but a quarter 
 of the earth's speed in its orbit. That this direct 
 movement carried on for thousands of years should 
 make no palpable difference in the apparent place of 
 tlie stars is inconceivable. So also that the stars we 
 call " fixed " should be continually moving right 
 across the field of view with inconceivable rapidity, 
 and without changing their apparent position to us, 
 or to one another, may seem incredible. But it is a 
 matter of easy calculation. If a star be at the distance 
 of the number of miles represented by sixteen 
 numerals, then it may have been rushing through 
 the universe ever since the Creation at the rate of 
 our own earth in its revolution round the sun, that is 
 over two millions of miles in twenty-four hours, 
 without greater total change in its apparent position 
 than would follow from a walk of twenty yards across 
 the surface of the moon. As our instruments have 
 hitherto failed to ascertain the moon's diameter to a 
 mile, a very conceivable and intelligible statement, 
 no one need be staggered at the thought of the 
 "fixed" stars shooting across space at the speed of 
 our own planet for thousands of years without any 
 apparent change of position. 
 
 These observations are duly calculated, recorded, 
 and printed, and interchanged between the world's 
 observatories, for comparison and correction if need 
 be. The great secrets contained in them are to be 
 unravelled a thousand years hence. Even a million 
 years would hardly suffice " to loose the bands of 
 Orion." It is a bare hope that there will still be 
 
196 
 
 BEMmiSCENCES. 
 
 astronomers ten centuries hence, that science will 
 still be in honor, and that no wave of human progress 
 will have swept away all the knowledge that does 
 not directly minister to our first or coarsest wants. 
 
 I am painfully aware of being out of my province, 
 perhaps out of my depth, in this attempt to describe 
 Johnson's astronomical labors. He is chiefly re- 
 membered at Oxford as a very good fellow, a man of 
 fine taste and varied attainments, as a warm-hearted 
 friend and a true Christian. The special work of his 
 life should not be left untold. Moreover, I will confess 
 to be often painfully struck by the ignorance, and 
 apparent indifference, of young ladies and gentlemen 
 even upon such matters as the constitution and order 
 of the universe. On this and other matters there 
 will be books on the shelves, and very good books 
 too, while there is not a fact, or an idea, or the least 
 wish to leai'n, in the young people sitting below. I will 
 run the risk of blunders, and perhaps ridicule, rather 
 than omit the opportunity of calling the blind and 
 the stupid to grand and ennobling considerations, 
 happily requiring nothing but the conception of 
 numbers and space, and a very little arithmetic. 
 
 But besides watching the stars, which some think 
 may be left to take care of themselves, as not appre- 
 ciable concerning us, Johnson undertook terrestrial 
 observations not less delicate and curious and inter- 
 esting. He had automatic instruments for noting 
 and registering the direction and force of the winds, 
 the rainfall, the temperature, and the variations of the 
 needle. Most mysterious indeed are these latter vari- 
 ations, — even that regular oscillation east and west of 
 the north pole, and the regular diurnal variations, — 
 but it was something more than mysterious, it was 
 
MANUEL JOHNSON. 
 
 197 
 
 awful, to find that in the middle of one night, without 
 any cause that could be suggested, all the Observa- 
 tories in the world recorded the fact of a strong 
 galvanic thrill passing through the solid mass of this 
 huge globe. After twenty years of this work Johnson 
 began to feel the need of rest ; but the heavens are 
 never weary. They never cease to sing His praise, 
 and the observer died at his post. Twenty octavo 
 volumes record his observations ; but they were 
 summed up after his death in a Catalogue of 6,317 
 Circumpolar and other Stars observed at Oxford, 
 and reduced to one date. 
 
 Such a career was in itself remarkable, but it was 
 still more so in the character of the man, and in the 
 qualities he combined with a pursuit so absorbing 
 and so insulating. If Johnson had been nothing, 
 and had known nothing, more than the least am- 
 bitious of the academic crowd, his originality, his 
 geniality, his humor, would have distinguished him 
 in the University. His ever beaming, almost jovial 
 countenance, his laughing eye, his ready wit, seemed 
 hardly those of a man whose nights were spent in 
 piercing through the mystery of the univei'se, and 
 calculating the mazes of a dance, each step of Avhich 
 is a thousand years. None can forget the mirth with 
 which he could relieve the dullest hour, or the kind- 
 ness with which he would explain the operation of 
 the mighty machines about him, and the manifold 
 contrivances necessary to meet a thousand difficulties. 
 
 He had his troubles and grievances. The trustees 
 had a good deal to do with their money, and John- 
 son's demands no doubt were large and exigent. He 
 naturally assumed his to be, next to the Royal Obser- 
 vatory, the first in the world. An important instru- 
 
198 
 
 KEMIXISCENCES. 
 
 ment, to cost a thousand pounds or two, was refused 
 or postponed because some farm buildings on tlie trust 
 property had to be rebuilt on a grand scale. An 
 instrument made at Hamburgh, I think, by the best 
 maker in Europe, and carefully packed and screwed 
 down for the passage in thirty cases, arrived at the 
 English port. Johnson hastened to speed it through 
 the Customs. In spite of his assui'ances and entreaties 
 every case was torn open, and the delicate contents 
 pulled about by rough hands to ascertain whether 
 any tobacco or kid gloves were concealed under them. 
 
 A less serious but still unpleasant mishap seemed 
 to mark a destiny among bodies moving in space. In 
 his best holiday suit Johnson was slowly ascending 
 the hill in Greenwich Park to attend the annual vis- 
 itation of the Royal Observatory, when a random 
 stone flung by a boy at play knocked in one of his 
 front teeth — a slight thing, but an epoch in any life. 
 
 The trustees had so little appreciation of Johnson's 
 services, that at one time, with a large family grow- 
 ing up around him, he seriously contemplated taking 
 to stock broking. It would be easier and more profit- 
 able, besides being much shorter work, to forecast 
 the sublunary vicissitudes of currency and credit than 
 those of the universe. For this he had the encourage- 
 ment of Baily, who was making his fortune on the 
 Stock Exchange, and at the same time weighing the 
 earth in a small back parlor near Tavistock Square. 
 
 Considering the one idea that could not but pre- 
 dominate and dwarf all lesser things, the material 
 universe to be measured and surveyed, it was marvel- 
 lous how Johnson could feel a warm and "exciting 
 interest in all human affairs, including the politics of 
 the country and of the University, the progress of the 
 
MANUEL JOHNSON. 
 
 199 
 
 Oxford movement, and the discoveries of science. 
 Everybody who attended his weekly receptions, be- 
 sides hearing many a hearty laugh, would be sure to 
 carry away some definite addition to his stock of 
 knowledge, so freshly and incisively did Johnson tell 
 what he had to say. Besides this, the visitor saw on 
 the walls, on the table, and in portfolios, the best, 
 if not then the only, collection of early drawings and 
 first-class engravings at Oxford, and one of the best 
 in England. Strange as it might seem, Johnson knew 
 all the stages of a Marc Antonio or any other earl}'^ 
 Italian masterpiece as well as if that had been his 
 profession, and not the formless, unchanging stars. 
 I know not whether extreme delicacy of apprehen- 
 sion and refinement of taste be often combined with 
 patience of observation and mathematical accuracy, 
 but certainly Manuel Johnson's example encourages 
 the belief that the most abstract science is compatible 
 with a fine taste, a capacious mind, and a heart full 
 of kindly affections. He and my brother James, the 
 Canon and Professor, married twin daughters of Dr. 
 Ogle, Regius Professor of Medicine, a pleasant little 
 companionship now no more. 
 
CHAPTER CI. 
 
 JAMES SHERGOLD BOONE. 
 
 The exact time when Newman undertook to sup- 
 ply four sheets to the " British Critic," as well as the 
 exact duration of that impossible arrangement, has 
 escaped my recollection. I had even been under 
 the impression for many years that Le Bas was the 
 editor with whom this arrangement was made. I 
 am reminded, however, that it was Boone. Le Bas 
 wrote so much and so brilliantly that he had almost 
 eclipsed Boone from my memory, aware as I am that 
 the latter had had to do with the " British Critic." 
 
 Should anybody care to take up that interesting 
 and instructive question. How do so many men of 
 great promise make egregious failures ? he may ad- 
 vantageously study the career of James Shergold 
 Boone, one of Dr. Russell's many and great disap- 
 pointments. He was at Charterhouse from 1812 to 
 1816, and got the gold medal for Latin verse. He 
 then became a student at Christchurch, in those days 
 a piece of high favor, and about the best position an 
 undergraduate could have in the University. He 
 was very early known as the most promising man at 
 Oxford. When I went to Charterhouse, in 1820, 
 there were many who remembered Boone as the 
 giant of a former age, the like of whom would never 
 be seen again. He could do everything and carry 
 evei-ything before him. There was a halo of glory 
 about his name. 
 
JAMES SHERGOLD BOONE. 
 
 201 
 
 But either already, or soon after, there was a 
 cloud, a temporary cloud only, on that name. We 
 were told that Boone, for some reason or other, had 
 quarrelled with the college authorities, and that with 
 the amiable and sensible design of spiting them he 
 had resolved not to go in for honors. He had got 
 the " Newdigate " on the Farnese Hercules in 1817, 
 and in the same year the prize for Latin verse on 
 the Foundation of the Persian Empire ; and in 1820 
 he had the prize for a Latin essay on the Constitu- 
 tion and Working of the Amphictyonic Council. So 
 the absence of his name from the Honor List is not 
 very intelligible. He had been employing his time 
 better, as he thought, in writing and publishing a 
 now forgotten series of lampoons in verse, called the 
 " Oxford Spy." I saw it once, and once only. It 
 was clever, dull, and hateful ; a thing to read for 
 two minutes and throw into the fire. 
 
 What induced Boone to tie himself to that stake 
 and nail himself to that pillory I can hardly imagine. 
 Putting aside his temper, which must have been de- 
 testable, he might possibly be indulging in a recoil 
 from the extreme drudgery of the Charterhouse 
 routine, of which he was the principal victim for 
 four or five years. The truth is that, devoting him- 
 self entirely to critical scholarship, Russell did not 
 inspire one single scholar with an enthusiasm, or 
 even a taste, in that direction. Some were in open 
 revolt against the system for years, and Russell had 
 to tolerate it. 
 
 Not only they but many others rendering an os- 
 tensible obedience were indulging in their own fan- 
 cies and their own lines of speculation all the time. 
 Knowing it to be wrong, they did not entirely lose 
 
202 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 their conscience or their temper with a master whom 
 they felt it impossible not to respect and reverence. 
 In some, as in Boone, the rebellion was smothered 
 for a time, to burst out afterwai'ds. In my own case 
 the worst had arrived long before I left school, and 
 Russell could hope no more. " Mozley," he said, 
 at parting, with tears in his eyes, "you're born to 
 create hope and to disappoint it." Russell told my 
 father, when he called on him, that I was "dreamy," 
 and he would sometimes exclaim, " What green fields 
 are you rambling over ? " He hit the mark nearer 
 when he said once or twice that they who were not 
 doing what they ought to be doing were generally 
 doing what they ought not. As a fact, however, 
 every line that I realized in the school work, every 
 word of import, or of beaut}', or of quaintness, had 
 to me a centrifugal force, and sent me off upon a 
 fresh aberration. 
 
 Boone I only saw once. He preached at St. Mary's 
 in his turn, and there was a large congi'egation to 
 hear one who had left a name and a story at Oxford. 
 A man of high moral quality or of real genius would 
 have flung aside his antecedents altogether, and car- 
 ried his hearers with him into very different ground. 
 Boone had bound his future to his past, and he 
 preached a penitential sermon. Had he appeared 
 in sackcloth and ashes he could not have made a 
 more doleful or a more despicable figure. He al- 
 luded to his past career in terras which led me to 
 suppose at the time that he had been really worse 
 than he was in fact, and he hoped it might be for- 
 given. His voice faltered once or twice, and tears 
 came into his eyes. 
 
 After all, it was a dull and not very intelligible 
 
JAMES SHEEGOLD BOONE. 
 
 203 
 
 sermon, and the public act of penance stood out as 
 its chief feature. Before whom was it performed? 
 Very few of the undei'graduates by that time had 
 ever heard of the " Oxford Spy," or would care to 
 know about it. The Heads of Houses might remem- 
 ber it. But as well shed tears before Rhadamanthus 
 as before that inexorable board. So nothing came 
 of this singular exhibition. 
 
 At this time Boone had already gone through a 
 rather remarkable career in the London world. He 
 had been a ready speaker as well as writer. Very 
 soon after his leaving Oxford, the Duke of New- 
 castle, or some other great boroughmonger, had 
 offered him a seat in Parliament, and £500 a year, 
 it was said, for his personal needs. Boone found 
 he would have to support, not his own opinions, but 
 his patron's, and he declined. 
 
 The next thing one heard was that he was de- 
 livering lectures in the city of London upon the 
 union and mutual relation of the arts and sciences, 
 to small but discerning audiences. The hearers, 
 however, went away saying it was very clever and 
 very true, and did not come again. Boone then 
 started a Review, and called it the " Council of Ten," 
 again as unfortunate in his title as when he described 
 himself as the " Oxford Spy." The historic Council 
 of Ten, whatever its necessity or its functions at 
 Venice, is not an agreeable idea to Englishmen. The 
 title was a satire on the press, not a just description 
 of any respectable organ. The Review was very 
 clever indeed, and very dull indeed. It heavily 
 taxed the understanding, and did not repay in in- 
 terest. 
 
 It was only when other things failed that Boone 
 
204 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 took Orders, and became finally incumbent of St. 
 John's, Paddington. He was no great success there. 
 I see that S. Wilberforce went to hear him, and pro- 
 nounced his sermon an essay. It was not likely to 
 be anything else, but when so many educated men 
 can write nothing but essays, it is to be hoped they 
 are not all unprofitable. 
 
 Boone went on making mistakes, from an old way 
 of pleasing himself, come what will of it. He had 
 a long affair with a young lady, a member of his 
 congregation, who with her friends did not doubt, 
 and had no reason to doubt, that it was a positive 
 engagement. A country relative of hers, who had 
 been in the Army and was now in the Church, was 
 not satisfied with what he heard. He came up to 
 town, went straight to Boone, and demanded his in- 
 tentions. Boone replied that he had not had the 
 least idea of marriage. The country clergyman was 
 veiy near giving him a sound thrashing on the spot, 
 but contented himself with some very strong lan- 
 guage, and there the affair ended. 
 
 His share in the " British Critic " I must leave to 
 those who are better informed or better furnished 
 with documents, and who have the eyes and the 
 time to make use of them. 
 
CHAPTER CII. 
 
 THE " BRITISH CRITIC." 
 
 In the year 1839 I was tied very close to my little 
 parish in Salisbury Plain. I had a pupil who took 
 much of my time, and who sorely taxed my patience 
 and my powers. He was a lad of lai'ge fortune and 
 expectations, but born under unfortunate circum- 
 stances, and either neglected from infancy or natu- 
 rally incapable. Mr. W. Short, of Chippenham, 
 brother of the Bishop, had tried his hand upon him 
 for two years, and had had to give him up. He 
 was then sent to Winchester, and before very long 
 Moberly passed him on to me. The poor boy had 
 natural affection, religious sentiment, a strong sense 
 of truth, justice, and purity, but he was wholly with- 
 out tlie power of learning. If he went through a line 
 of Virgil a dozen times, and had every word con- 
 strued and explained to him, the thirteenth time 
 would find him as ignorant as ever. But I had to 
 persevere. His fixed ideas of people and things 
 were too grotesque to be mentioned, and I had to 
 give him better if I could. Looking back, I feel 
 that I might have done more by addressing myself 
 more directly to the higher part of his nature, which 
 he had, and which he also knew that he had. At a 
 solemn parting he told me I might have done more 
 with him in that way. He read chapters of the 
 Bible with me every day, but wanted more of the 
 " milk for babes." 
 
206 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 I had to prepare him for Oxford, and in the first 
 place to get him admitted. Collis, of Worcester Col- 
 lege, kindly managed this for me. The poor lad 
 went to that college under a friendly arrangement 
 that he was not to be examined, or called upon 
 in lecture, and that he was to leave in two years. 
 He acquitted himself there, and in after life, better 
 than might have been expected. He married not 
 imprudently. I met him and his wife several times, 
 and the manners and conversation of the couple 
 were quite passable. But he died young, leaving a 
 daughter whose immense fortune has not contributed 
 to her happiness. 
 
 Besides this pupil, I was at that time preparing 
 to build my new church. 
 
 It was under these circumstances that I began to 
 write for the " British Critic." Any one who cares 
 to turn to that periodical for the year 1839 must be 
 surprised to find how quickly a very large portion of 
 the Church of England had changed its tone in a few 
 years. Tory and Conservative sentiment was ex- 
 tinct. " Put not your trust in princes " was the uni- 
 versal cry. The measures passed, and the measures 
 threatened ; and, more than all, the notorious fact 
 that the majority of our Liberal rulers believed 
 neither in miracle, nor revelation, nor in a personal 
 Deity, drove the Church out of its quiet old moor- 
 ings into the open and troubled seas. It was repul- 
 sion, not attraction, that effected the change, for 
 none knew what they or human affairs were tending 
 to. The crisis necessarily made people practical, just 
 as a man who has been living an idle and meditative 
 life for months on shipboard, is all at once found 
 full of energy and resources,. and indeed possessed of 
 
THE " BRITISH CRITIC." 
 
 207 
 
 singularly inventive powers, when his vessel has gone 
 down and he is floating amongst the wreckage. 
 
 The " British Critic," always theological and con- 
 troversial, now became more polemic, and also more 
 political. Its writers were men who could expect 
 nothing from either party alternately governing the 
 country and distributing its patronage. Perhaps 
 they spoke and wrote all the more freely because they 
 knew they were not read by the people they talked 
 at, but rather by country clergy, burying their griefs 
 in their own bosoms, and by a select class of devout 
 laymen. 
 
 My own wish, from the day I heard that the " Brit- 
 ish Critic " was entirely in Newman's hands, was 
 that it should insist more on its first title and chief 
 character, indeed that by which it was known, the 
 British Critic." The monthly series of the " British 
 Critic," begun in 1814, had no other name on its title 
 page, and was in fact a very general, very miscel- 
 laneous, and, I must add, a very interesting peri- 
 odical. But the " Edinburgh " and the " Quarterly " 
 were in the field, commanding the ablest and best 
 informed writers of the day, and the " British Critic " 
 had no chance with them. It fell under the general 
 law of the subdivision of industry, and accordingly 
 the new series had to claim a separate character. 
 
 This alone would tell much against the interest of 
 the publication, but when Newman took it up there 
 seemed still more sameness and tediousness. He was 
 too much occupied to contribute largely himself, 
 and when he did write, he did not give himself over 
 much time. He desired to make the Review the 
 means of introducing his friends and supporters, and 
 of giving them the opportunity to try their hands and 
 
208 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 acquire confidence. He let them have too much of 
 their own way. Some of them would go on forever 
 and ever ; and even they who could say or write a 
 short thing very well indeed, wrote a long thing, not 
 ill perhaps, but so as no human being was ever likely 
 to read it through. 
 
 Let it be borne in mind that there was now issuing 
 from Oxford (indeed, then from other centres also) 
 a deluge of theological literature, and that the writers 
 were really beating the readers. At such a time the 
 " British Critic " arrives at a country parsonage or a 
 town reading-room. People are agitated by daily 
 news from Oxford, which they credit with a porten- 
 tous significance. Newman is giving up St. Mary's 
 and founding a convent at Littlemore. He confesses, 
 so it is alleged, that he can no longer remain in the 
 ministry of Enghmd, or indeed in ordinary inter- 
 course with good Anglican Churchpeople. Ward 
 alone was enough to fill the world with alarms. A 
 nervous Churchman, who wishes to go some way 
 ahead, but not to take a leap in the dark, seizes the 
 Review and tears it open. It is the number for 
 July, 1840. The first ninety-two pages are on the 
 " Courts and the Kirk ; " the last sixty-three on 
 Pauperism and Almsgiving, the two together being 
 just three-fifths of the whole number. 
 
 Both the articles were worth reading, if people 
 could and would give time to them, though it would 
 not be easy to say what the writer of the first wished 
 as regards tlie Kirk, or what the writer of the last 
 advised as to Christian benevolence. In this number 
 I am myself at once a successful offender and an 
 aggrieved party, for Newman squeezed in an article 
 of mine between these two leviathans, and put off 
 another. 
 
THE "BRITISH CRITIC." 
 
 209 
 
 Yet how could it be otherwise ? Newman was 
 contemplating an entire change of position, plan, and 
 direction ; indeed, satisfying himself that he was 
 forced thereto. He was engaged in the most laborious 
 works and keeping up an immense correspondence. 
 A small bundle of his letters, written about this time, 
 remains by accident in my hands, and from one of 
 them, written twenty days before the publication of 
 this very number, Newman was carefully considering 
 every detail of his intended Littlemore Retreat, and 
 intending to commence building at once ; and he was 
 receiving, and no doubt having long talks with, two 
 old pupils, Samuel Wood and Robert Williams ; a 
 Presbyterian clergyman, a Trinity College, Dublin, 
 man, a French ecclesiastico-political friend of La 
 Mennais, a distant relative, and two Ashantee 
 princes. 
 
 VOL. II. 14 
 
CHAPTER cm. 
 
 LITTLEMOEE. 
 
 In the " Apologia " are stated at length the reasons 
 which induced Newman to withdraw to Littlemore. 
 As a considerable part of the public had now made 
 up their mind that he was deliberately and steadily 
 retreating to Rome, they very natui'ally, and indeed 
 not without some reason, accepted this as a half-way 
 house in that direction. In itself, as a matter of 
 simple convenience, nothing could be more natural 
 than a retirement to Littlemore, and had Newman 
 given ordinary reasons, nobody need have wondered 
 at the step or criticised it. He could no longer do at 
 Oxford the work he had to do. There were people 
 in and out the whole day ; there were mountains of 
 work to be done ; there were Fathers and other 
 authors to be read with continuous and vigilant at- 
 tention, and foes always at hand to pounce down on 
 a misquotation or a mistake, even if they could not, 
 or would not, do anj'thing else. There was nobody 
 to bear the brunt of a heavy visitor ; no secretary, no 
 younger friend. Newman was cribbed and cabined 
 in rooms no better than might be assigned to an 
 undergraduate with twenty school books and as many 
 pictures of horses and ballet-dancers. He was less 
 and less at home in the college, where undergrad- 
 uates. Fellows, and tutors were rapidly succeeding 
 one another. 
 
LITTLEMOEE. 
 
 211 
 
 On the other hand, Littlemore he had always loved, 
 and it remained much the same, the only novelty at 
 that time being the church he had himself built there. 
 It was his country parish, a goal that Oxford men 
 used to look forward to. For many years he had 
 walked there two or three times a week. He had 
 become intimate with every household, every living 
 and growing thing, and every stone in the place. 
 From ancient times it had the reputation of being the 
 best air and the healthiest spot near Oxford. Why 
 should not Newman exercise the liberty claimed by 
 everybody in these days? A clergyman is not sus- 
 pected of sinister intentions if he changes his living 
 for one where he will have less to do, or will be able 
 to get others to do it, or where he will have less or 
 more society, or society more to his taste. Nay, 
 nothing is now thought of an incumbent who resides 
 a mile or two away from his church and his people, or 
 gets leave of absence altogether, if he can only give 
 excuse enough to save appearances. But this was the 
 proverbial case in which one man may open a gate, 
 walk into the field, bridle the horse, and ride away 
 with him, while another may not even look over the 
 hedge without suspicion. Newman must have some 
 important and mysterious reason for what he did. 
 
 It would be much in Newman's eyes that this site, 
 to which he had devoted so much of his youthful 
 interest and strength, was one of immemorial sanc- 
 tity, connected with the remotest antiquities and the 
 earliest developments of the University of Oxford. 
 The very interesting story of the place is summed up 
 in an article on Ingram's " Memorials of Oxford," 
 in the "British Critic," July, 1838, and I cannot do 
 better than quote it : — 
 
212 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 " The history of the adjacent church (of St. Mary's) 
 which has belonged to Oriel College for above 500 
 years introduces to our notice a sort of repetition of 
 the history of St. Frideswide. A Nunnery, as we 
 have seen, formed the first rudiments of the Univer- 
 sity, and of a church of St. Mary's, on the banks of 
 the Thames ; and a Nunnery some little way from it 
 was closely associated with the later secular schools 
 out of which the present colleges have arisen, and 
 with the second St. Mary's cliurch in the heart of the 
 city. 
 
 " The liberty of Littlemore lies on an elevated 
 plain, between two and three miles to the south of 
 Oxford, towards London. It was in former times 
 covered with woods, and is bounded by a brook 
 which joins the Thames. Situated upon this brook, 
 even in the Saxon days, was a convent, which was 
 rebuilt soon after the Conquest, and the ruins of 
 which still remain, beai'ing the original Saxon name 
 of Mynchery. It belonged to nuns of the Benedic- 
 tine order, whose devotion to the advancement of 
 learning showed itself worthy of the ancient I'ule 
 which they professed. 
 
 " What was its first connection with Oxford does 
 not clearly appear, but so much we know, that the 
 church which Alfred is said to have built on the site 
 of ' the present University church is incidentally 
 spoken of as St. Mary's even as early as the Dooms- 
 day Survey, and is also known to be dedicated to 
 " Our Lady of Littlemore." This church Alfred 
 seems, according to the general current of history and 
 tradition, to have made the nucleus of his assembled 
 scholffi or places of education of which a religious 
 idea and sanction must ever be the binding principle. 
 
LITTLEMORE. 
 
 213 
 
 From the west end of his church, passing along his 
 palace, the King's Hall of Brasinhuse, ran in later 
 times a long street, called School Street, up to the 
 north wall of the city, and this was quickly tenanted 
 and peopled by schools, both claustral and especially 
 secular. These schools were originally attached to 
 the halls there situated, being commonly the largest 
 rooms in them, though others were dependencies of 
 the monastic bodies in the neighborhood, and were 
 but rooms over the tradesmen's shops. 
 
 "Among these monastic bodies the convent of 
 Littlemore is especially to be noticed. Besides being 
 possessed of the ancient hall, now called St. Alban's 
 and then Nun Hall, south of the church, it possessed 
 schools in the street just mentioned, which were 
 called after the name of St. Mary's of Littlemore.'^ 
 
 The building in which Newman had now made up 
 his mind to resume the broken thread of these noble 
 traditions was a disused range of stabling at the cor- 
 ner of two village roads. Nothing could be more 
 unpromising, not to say depressing. But Newman 
 had ascertained what he really wanted, and he would 
 have no more. He sent me a list of his requirements, 
 and the only one of a sentimental or superfluous 
 cliaracter was that he wished to be able to see from 
 his window the ruins of the Mynchery, and the village 
 of Garsington. 
 
 There must be a library, some " cells," that is 
 studies, and a cloister in which one or two might 
 turn out and walk up and down, of course all on the 
 ground-floor. The oratory or chapel was to be a 
 matter altogether for future consideration. The 
 library was the first thing to be considered, for it 
 was the nucleus of the whole establishment. It was 
 
214 
 
 BEMINISCENCES. 
 
 to contain a large and valuable librarj-, and it was to 
 be the common work room. The cells, some of them, 
 were to open into it ; and in that case the library 
 would have to be lighted with upper windows. But 
 I had deprecated a library on the ground-floor, so 
 Newman suggested that it might be placed over the 
 kitchen or the refectory, or might itself be the re- 
 fectory, in which case it would be sure of sufficient 
 airing and warming. Each " cell " was to contain a 
 sitting-room, say 12 by 9 ; a bedroom 6 by 6, and a 
 cold bath-room 6 by 3, and to be nine or ten feet 
 high. The librar}' might be a separate building, at 
 right angles, showing promise of a future quadrangle. 
 
 Newman had bought nine acres, which he would 
 begin to plant with firs ; and he would build bit by 
 bit, as the money came, or the inmates. I contribu- 
 ted my suggestions in a number of ground-plans, 
 sections, elevations, and even petty details. But 
 Newman's invariable rule was to do no more than 
 the occasion required, and he kept to it now. He 
 must then have contemplated a very long stay at 
 Littlemore, with a great development, yet there was 
 no affectation of a grand beginning, like the enor- 
 mous chancels now to be seen all over the country, 
 promising cathedrals that are to be. 
 
 When I visited Newman and his two or three 
 friends there, the place looked outside what I had 
 always knoAvn it, a range of stables and nothing 
 more. I told Newman that had I not been otherwise 
 engaged I should have liked very much to join him. 
 It is scarcely worth while to ask how far I was sin- 
 cere in this at the time, but I now feel ver}^ sure I 
 could not have endured it long, though some, appar- 
 ently as wayward as myself, seem to have bowed 
 
LITTLEMORE. 
 
 215 
 
 their stubborn or flighty wills to this sort of yoke for 
 a whole lifetime. 
 
 Newman remarks upon the Oxford folks coming 
 to Littlemore, peeping and prying about the Movrj, 
 and even making their way into it, for mere curiosity. 
 This, however, is what English people do with every 
 convent tliey come across all over the world. It is a 
 sort of unconscious homage to the religious and cath- 
 olic character of such institutions. Perhaps, too, 
 knowing what private life is in this country. English- 
 men wish to see a little of public life. Life by rule, 
 and for a high purpose, they regard as public, and 
 therefore open to all comers. 
 
CHAPTER CIV. 
 
 THE NEW EDITOR OF THE " BEITISH CEITIC." 
 
 It must have been early in 1841 that I received a 
 letter from Newman proposing that I should take his 
 place on the " British Critic." He had written, or 
 was going to write, to Rivington, absolutely resigning 
 the editorship, and naming me as one of the writers 
 who might be ready to undertake it. It was a very 
 great surprise to me. I had been freely criticising 
 the Review for some time, the inordinate length of 
 the articles, the same writers returning again and 
 again with the same subject under a new name, the 
 hard work which the Review imposed on the reader, 
 and a certain amount of unreality in some of the 
 writers. But if it was easy to criticise, it would be 
 so much the less easy to do the work myself. I 
 should have the same writers, and if Newman did 
 not keep them within due bounds, I could not myself 
 expect to do better. Then there was the remoteness 
 of my position, in Salisbury Plain, far away from 
 good libraries ; indeed, without a reference library 
 nearer than London. I was, too, a very bad reader 
 of books, and had always found it heavy work to 
 read and write at the same time, glancing right and 
 left alternately to the printed volume and the MS. 
 On the other hand, it would take me to Oxford some- 
 times, and to London sometimes, and it would pay 
 my expenses, I then thought and intended, besides 
 
THE NEW EDITOR OF THE "BRITISH CRITIC." 217 
 
 helping me to build my church, now beginning to 
 show itself above ground. 
 
 I think I had just braced up my courage to accept 
 the proposal, when our gardener ran up to the window 
 to call my attention to a mock sun. I stepped out 
 into the garden, and there it was, sure enough. It 
 has always been regarded as an augury, but how was 
 I to interpret it ? A mock sun may be curious, but 
 it is a very poor thing, mere magician's work, a phan- 
 tom of the misty atmosphere, neither heat nor light, 
 which as you look at it fades away. But here again 
 came a new question. Granting it a worthless thing, 
 how did that tell on the question before me ? It 
 might warn me not to try the part of an unreal, 
 unequal, and fugitive imitator. On the other hand, 
 if the thing was worthless, it was not worth my at- 
 tention. Vanity decided the day. I was fighting 
 for my Church and my country, and what better 
 omen did I want than that ? I wrote, accepting the 
 proposal, and soon had a very pleasant, confiding 
 letter from Mr. Francis Rivington. 
 
 I have frequently seen mock suns since, and still 
 more wonderful and beautiful atmospheric phenom- 
 ena. Why it is I know not, English people, nay, for 
 aught I know, all people, fail to notice such appear- 
 ances. They seldom turn their eyes to the sky ex- 
 cept to gather some weather forecast. I have men- 
 tioned above that Newman's eyes, and if I did not 
 add the Provost's I ought to have done so, often 
 found a home and a consolation in the visible heav- 
 ens above. Many years ago I was riding in Rotten 
 Row, on a day of watery brightness and illuminated 
 shade, wind rising, and storm not far, when I saw a 
 splendid parhelion with three mock suns, the middle 
 
218 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 one, tbat is the one over the true sun, nearlj' as dis- 
 tinct and bright as the sun itself. There must have 
 been at that time a thousand gentlemen and ladies 
 riding up and down, half of them with the sun right 
 in their ej^es, and as I rode the whole length of the 
 Row, I did not see one individual apparently aware 
 of the rare and interesting phenomenon. 
 
 Not many years since I watched for half an hour 
 a brilliant column of solid crimson light following the 
 sun which had already set. As I walked through 
 fields and hamlets, I stopped several fellows to point 
 it out to them. " Yes, sir, I see," was all I got out 
 of them. The greatest wonders have to be brought 
 home to most people with a mechanical foi'ce. When 
 a tremendous storm salted all our windows at Plym- 
 tree four years since, thirteen miles from the sea, I 
 made the twenty eldest boys and girls in the school 
 rub their fingers on the windows, and then put their 
 fingers into their mouths. They then tasted as well 
 as saw what had come to pass. 
 
 But I must return to the " British Critic." Soon 
 did I find that editing a Review is a very different 
 thing from criticising it. Newman had not said a 
 word that I remember about the existing staff, but I 
 took for granted they were to go on writing. They 
 had taken it for granted themselves. I wished to go 
 on writing myself, indeed I had a list of forty sub- 
 jects I wished to write about, on the basis of some 
 slight stock of matter. Other writers were recom- 
 mended. Others recommended themselves. I had 
 to deny several. In about a year I told the gentle- 
 man wlio wrote about quaint or striking epitaphs, 
 and who evidently wished to go the round of all the 
 churchj'ards in England, that we had had as much 
 
THE NEW EDITOR OF THE "BRITISH CRITIC." 219 
 
 of that as we could stand for the present. Then 
 there was the writer on the Church and Almsgiving, 
 the Age of Unbelief, and other topics, the same 
 though not the same, making out our ancestors at 
 any period of history a good deal better than our- 
 selves, without pointing out clearly what we were to 
 do, unless it were to give away everything we had 
 and join the great mendicant army. I expressed to 
 him freely, and I hope tenderly, ray opinion of his 
 article. He replied in good taste, and there it ended. 
 
 Sewell had now retired. Henry Wilberforce ceased 
 to make an appearance. Other writers were becom- 
 ing too busy, the lawyers especially. Keble had 
 written, but not in my time. There remained ^yard, 
 Oakley, Rogers, John Christie, my brother James, 
 Bowyer, Church, J. B. Morris, and some others. A 
 gentleman, I believe of Jewish extraction, introduced 
 to me by Rivington, wrote an article full of Hebrew 
 scholarship, which I sent to C. Marriott, who assured 
 me it was good and sound. So it went in, but I 
 should doubt whether anybody read it. 
 
 The pervading fault of these writers, not exclud- 
 ing myself, was that they wrote articles, not reviews. 
 This produced a want of variety and novelty. It 
 was not, however, a fault that told so much with 
 the ecclesiastical world as it would have done in 
 the political or the literary. The great length of 
 the articles was the most serious fault, for it kept 
 out what would have lightened the Review. For 
 many years my idea of Ward has been as of a huge 
 young cuckoo, growing bigger and biggei% elbowing 
 the legitimate progeny over the side of the little 
 nest. But on reverting to the volumes I see that I 
 have wronged him. He was following the precedent 
 
220 
 
 BEIIINISCENCES. 
 
 of greater offenders, tbough rather like tlie crowd 
 rushing in at the open breach. The immense diffi- 
 culty of mastering or attempting to master his arti- 
 cles within a week of publication, with a world of 
 other things to do, made me exaggerate his bulk and 
 confound quality with, quantity. 
 
 Some people may be curious to know how a great 
 organ of the religious world, certainly at that time 
 commanding many thousand readers, could be worked 
 from the heart of Salisbury Plain, at a time when 
 the nearest railway station was at Micheldever, 
 twenty miles off. Several London coaches passed 
 through my parish, one of them about an hour or 
 two after midnight, changing horses a mile off. 
 Night after night I took my parcel to the change 
 house, and had sometimes to wait a long time. My 
 practised ears became quick and sensitive. I could 
 always hear the coach emerging out of a depression 
 and passing Stonehenge, seven miles off; then rat- 
 tling past Vespasian's Camp into Amesbury ; and 
 after changing horses, toiling up Beacon Hill, down 
 which it then came at a hand gallop. Sound travels 
 easy and far on the Plain. In a frost I have heard 
 a gig rattling on for two hours, that is for twenty 
 miles. I have stood on Beacon Hill at Whitsuntide 
 and heard the bands of seven or eight villages, and 
 have frequently heard the voices of the children in 
 Amesbury market-place, four miles off. 
 
 One night I was ready to drop with terror. The 
 whole Plain was suddenly light as day. It was a 
 meteor I just caught a sight of as I turned round. 
 That omen, too, I tried to decipher, as I had done 
 the mock sun, to as little purpose. I thought over 
 the contents of the parcel I was sending up to town, 
 but I sent it on. 
 
THE NEW EDITOR OF THE "BRITISH CRITIC." 221 
 
 When it became necessary to have some days in 
 town, I went up by the mail, arriving about half-past 
 five. I had nothing then to do but walk up and 
 down Fleet Street till working hours. On one occa- 
 sion I took my station on the steps of Mr. Roworth's 
 office soon after six, for the chance of an early 
 arrival, to whom I could deliver my MSS. and proofs, 
 and then get away to breakfast. 
 
 Two men came up, one a big, red-faced, rather 
 jolly fellow, the other young, thin, and not good- 
 natured looking. They drew up at once. " Why, 
 if that isn't a parson! Who ever saw a parson out 
 so early as that before ? What was I doing there ? " 
 I explained that I had some work for the office, and 
 was waiting for some one to deliver it to. I should 
 have to wait till seven, they said, for they passed that 
 door every morning. " But now that we've got a 
 parson, we should like to ask some questions." I 
 said I would do my best to answer them. " Now do 
 you really believe that God Almighty commanded 
 Joshua to kill all the Canaanites ? " Yes, I did believe, 
 I said, and saw nothing better to believe about it. 
 " What," the red-faced fellow asked, " the women and 
 children too ? What harm had they done ? " I said 
 you might ask the same question about all deaths, all 
 calamities, and all punishments in the order of nature. 
 They all affect women and children even more than 
 men, and they all fall on the innocent as well as the 
 guilty. They tried to establish a difference. " The 
 commands of God must be moral : the order of 
 nature need not be. It is the order of nature and 
 nothing more." But, I said, the order of nature is 
 the law of God, and nature is but a form and opera- 
 tion of the Divine presence. " But in nature," they 
 
222 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 said, "there were no massacres, no cruelty, no re- 
 venges." What, not in earthquakes and pestilences? 
 If a man lives a bad life, or lives ill for only a short 
 time in his youth, he leaves his wife and children 
 poor, wretched, disgraced, and in many ways the 
 ■worse for what he has done. Much more passed, for 
 it was seven o'clock before one of Mr. Roworth's men 
 came up, and was surprised to find a "discussion 
 foium " established in Bell Yard. The big fellow 
 gave me his card — he was a journeyman tailor — 
 and asked me to call on him if I could find time. 
 Alas, I never did, and am still sorry for it. But I 
 had very little time or money, and was afraid of 
 fresh demands on them. 
 
 Mr. Roworth had had the printing of one of the 
 great quarterlies. He mentioned to me several times 
 the very slashing style of editorship he had been 
 accustomed to see. The editor would cut down the 
 article to half its bulk ; one writer in particular, and 
 that a man of note, was systematically pruned of 
 every word or sentence too much. The periodical, 
 the editor, and the chief victim recur to me, but I 
 name them not lest I should be making a mistake. 
 Since those days I have often thought Roworth 
 meant this as a hint to mj'self, but it did not occur 
 to me at the time. 
 
CHAPTER CV. 
 
 THE WRITERS IN THE " BRITISH CRITIC." 
 
 Very early did my troubles begin. I immediately 
 made a programme for the next number, as well as I 
 could, for there were one or two existing engagements. 
 I suggested rational limits to the writers, indeed with- 
 out this a programme was impossible. In those days 
 every quarter produced an ecclesiastical event or an 
 important publication, and for these I must reserve 
 space. I had, too, my own hobbies, many indeed ; 
 and while all ray hobbies struggled to emerge, the 
 more material ones, according to the law of my poor 
 nature, got the precedence. 
 
 I was full of churches and open timber roofs. 
 Newman had very kindly appreciated these articles, 
 and Rivington had endured with his wonted equa- 
 nimity an invasion of pretty little woodcuts into his 
 otherwise very serious and intellectual quarterly. 
 I entertain a fond belief that he became attached 
 to these interesting little Teraphim, for when a Suf- 
 folk ecclesiologist, some years after the daj's of the 
 " British Critic," asked the use of them for a pub- 
 lication, he was unwilling to grant it. Criticisms on 
 architecture are unreadable unless the reader knows 
 the building or has a drawing before his eyes, so 
 these cuts were really indispensable. I coidd not 
 have afforded them but for a providential aid. My 
 good surviving eldest sister drew them on the wood, 
 
224 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 and a youth in my father's employment cut them, 
 improving very much as he went on, indeed learning 
 to be an engraver on wood. 
 
 Turning these illustrated articles over, I find my 
 comments on the churches were what I should now 
 call saucy, captious, and occasionally wanting rev- 
 erence most while affecting it. That, however, was 
 then the prevailing tone of church builders and re- 
 storers. They were the Young England of the day, 
 always a saucy and rather foolish creature. 
 
 I had absolutely forgotten till just now, that, as 
 much as forty-one years ago, I presented the public 
 with two very pretty cuts of churches within a mile of 
 me as I write at Cheltenham. One of these is Christ 
 Church, in which I have worshipped now for a year 
 without ever remembering that it was once the object 
 of my most cutting sarcasms. The other, then just 
 completed, has succumbed, after a brief existence of 
 forty years, to the architectural storm I helped to 
 raise, and has been taken down to give place to a 
 magnificent edifice on the now approved principles. 
 I have been watchmg its progress almost every day 
 for a year, vnthout once remembering the ill greet- 
 ing I bestowed on its newly born predecessor. How 
 do these things pass away, when one thing remains! 
 
 Some months ago, before I had been reminded, 
 that this church, St. Philip and St. James, was one 
 on which I had bestowed a sort of malediction, I 
 paid one of my early morning visits to its rising 
 successor, and found the masons laying the very last 
 cornice stone over the centre window of the south 
 aisle. It would be the last stone on that side of the 
 building. When the mallet had been struck the last 
 time, I felt my spirit strongly moved to call the at- 
 
THE WRITERS IN THE "BRITISH CRITIC." 225 
 
 tention of the masons while I blessed the stone. My 
 courage failed to do this audibly. 
 
 Yet in my heart, standing there and looking on, 
 I blessed the stone, the men that laid it, the people 
 that paid for it, the ministers and the work of the 
 church, the congregations, and all that ever came to 
 worship there or to hear. And this I hei'eby put on 
 record, to make up for the omission of what I might 
 have" done more boldly at the time. 
 
 My first troubles were with Oakley and Ward. I 
 will not say that I hesitated much as to the truth of 
 ■what they wrote, for in that matter I was inclined to 
 go very far, at least in the way of toleration. Yet it 
 appeared to me quite impossible either that any great 
 number of English Churchmen would ever go so far, 
 or that the persons possessing authority in the Church 
 Avould fail to protest, not to say more. The cases of 
 the two writers were very different. Oakley was out 
 of my reach altogether in Liturgies and Ritual. I 
 could only put my finger on a salient point of his 
 articles here and there. This I did, and he submitted, 
 evidently intending, however, to persevere and come 
 round me in the end. It was otherwise with Wax'd, 
 I did but touch a filament or two in one of his mon- 
 strous cobwebs, and off ran he instantly to Newman 
 to complain of my gratuitous impertinence. Many 
 years after I was forcibly reminded of him by a pretty 
 I roup of a plump little Cui)id flying to his mother to 
 show a wasp sting he had just received. Newman 
 was then in this difficulty. He did not disagree with 
 what Ward had written ; but, on the other hand, he 
 had given neitlier me nor Ward to understand that 
 he was likely to step in between us. In fact he 
 wished to be entirely clear of the editorship. This, 
 
 VOL. II. 15 
 
226 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 however, was a thing that Ward could not or would 
 not understand. 
 
 The practical difficulties which Ward threw in the 
 way of an editorial revision were great. His hand- 
 writing was minute and detestable. It defied cor- 
 rection. The MS. consisted of bundles of irregu- 
 lar scraps of paper, which I had to despatch to the 
 printer crying out for copy. 
 
 My own feeling about Ward's articles was that 
 they were witliin comprehension and mastery ; and 
 that if I made the required effort I sliould probably 
 go very far with them, but that I should find myself 
 thereby embarked in an adventure beyond my con- 
 trol ; in a word, that the terminus of the articles was 
 outside the Church of England. 
 
 Strange to say, and certainly much to my surprise, 
 a considerable portion of the readers looked forward 
 to Wai'd's article as the gem of the number. • In the 
 very letter in which Robert Williams declined to 
 accept my warning as to the dangerous character of 
 the vaulted roof then building, as it was alleged, on 
 one of his favorite models, he adds in a P. S., " Many 
 thanks for . . . , as also for Ward's and Dalgairns' 
 articles ; the formei", Ward's, surely the most intrin- 
 sically valuable that has hitherto appeared. It is 
 really surprisingly beautiful." Think of that from a 
 country gentleman and a banker ! 
 
 I continued to read Ward's articles as fast as they 
 came from the press, not only from duty, but with a 
 certain pleasurable excitement akin to that some 
 children have in playing on the edge of a precipice ; 
 but I felt it would be idle to attempt to bring them 
 within safer lines. As for cutting them short, where 
 was one to commence that operation when they were 
 already without beg-inninor or end? 
 
THE WRITERS IN THE "BRITISH CRITIC." 227 
 
 From the time Ward rolled in to a breakfast party 
 at Christie's a few days after his coming up to Oxford 
 till my occasionally coming across him in town, I 
 never had much to call conversation with him. Nor 
 could it ever have been of the slightest use. He was 
 a vast deal too sharp for me. I had a good answer 
 ready for him in time — that is, half an hour too late. 
 Coming out of the old chapel in Margaret Street, 
 I tliink about 1844, I found myself between him, 
 Oakley, and one or two others. We were soon in 
 the thick of the great question. How we arrived at 
 the particular point I remember not, but I adduced it 
 as an argument against the system before us that in 
 Roman Catholic countries bandits went out on their 
 expeditions fortified with prayers to the Madonna, 
 and with her pictures or her medals suspended from 
 their necks. Ward promptly replied, " Catch two 
 thieves or two murderers and search them. One has 
 nothing about him but his weapons, the other has a 
 Madonna tied to his neck. Which is there the most 
 hope of? There is no ground of hope for one ; there 
 is some ground of hope — something to work upon — 
 in the othei'." 
 
 Of course I might have replied that one knew 
 nothing about the first, but that as to the second, one 
 knew that he had forraulized religion into a thing not 
 merely worthless but even wicked, an aid to robbery 
 and murder. You were positively cut off from hope 
 there. Ward will no doubt have a reply to this, 
 should it ever meet his eyes. 
 
 The question, however, is not peculiarly Roman 
 Catholic, for there is a too familiar Protestant paral- 
 lel. Of two ordinary Englishmen one never names 
 the name of God or recognizes Him, or even seems to 
 
228 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 be aware of His being and power. Tlie other takes 
 His name in vain every five minutes or oftener. 
 Which is there the most hope of ? Certainly there 
 is a basis to proceed upon when a man has continually 
 invoked the Almighty to judge between you and 
 Him, which is really all that is meant by £he most 
 common form of profaneness. You may say, if you 
 please, that it 's a grand theology in a nutshell. Yet 
 it is certain that the persons and the classes most ad- 
 dicted to this profaneness and most frequently found 
 with the name of God on their lips are, speaking 
 generally, the least religious, the least moral, and 
 altogether the least hopeful. They have formulized 
 their religion into those two monosyllables, and taken 
 their final stand on that worship and that creed. 
 
 There could hardly be imagined a greater apparent 
 change of character than that between the Oakley of 
 my earliest Oxford recollections, and as he came to 
 have relations with me. An elegant and rather 
 dilettante scholar, translating Lucretius into English 
 verse, much at his piano, and avowedly sentimental 
 rather than decisive in his religious views, he seemed 
 in a fair way to settle into a very common type of 
 English Churchman. What was it that drove or 
 seduced him out of those pleasant, easy lines ? 
 
 The trustees of the EUerton Theological Prize may 
 fairly be charged with a share in this strange trans- 
 formation. As early as 1826 they put the question, 
 " What was the object of the Reformers in maintain- 
 ing the following proposition, and by what arguments 
 did they establish it ? Holy Scripture is the only 
 sure foundation of any article of faith." The question 
 was answered and the prize won by Oakley. But at 
 a very early date there were other causes at work in 
 
THE WRITERS IN THE "BRITISH CRITIC." 229 
 
 the whole University, and specially at Baliol, tending 
 to unsettle minds and drive them in one direction or 
 another. Frank Newman was elected Fellow of Ba- 
 liol in 1826, Oakley in 1827, and Herman Merivale 
 in 1828. The discussions in the common room, where 
 Ogilvie still ruled, were already becoming unpleas- 
 antly warm, ending in some of the Fellows almost 
 regularly absenting themselves. Disjsutants who pull 
 violently in one direction are seldom aware how much 
 they compel their opponents to pull in the other ; and 
 though Oakley did not like controversy, still his sen- 
 timental nature disposed him to resent the violence of 
 logical, or rather mathematical arguments, and seek 
 rest in reaction. 
 
 But I must pass to the other writers. My suffer- 
 ings at the hands of "Jack Morris" I have already 
 described. But people love those most they have 
 taken most pains with. What would I give to have 
 a day with him now, and hear his searchings and 
 ramblings into the region of the supernatural ! not 
 but that all nature was supernatural in his eyes. 
 
 John F. Christie, dear good man, whose reward 
 was not to be in this world, and who spent himself in 
 serving the Church and his friends, wrote an article 
 on Ridley. Somehow he felt a real liking and admi- 
 ration for the man. I have to own that, in spite of 
 the telling illustrations of Mrs. Trimmer's " History 
 of England," I never yet succeeded in getting up an 
 atom of affection or respect for the three gentlemen 
 canonized in the " Martyrs' Memorial " at Oxford. 
 As Lord Blachford once observed to me, " Cranmer 
 burnt well," and that is all the good I know about 
 him. It never was my way to like those who per- 
 secuted, turned out of doors, and hunted to death 
 
230 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 either those they did n't agree with or those that an 
 arbitrary monarch might hound them upon. Like 
 Newman, I am disposed to believe that the blood of 
 these martyrs still cries from the ground. Christie, 
 however, like many good Christians, did admire and 
 like Ridley, and, following the dictates of his honest 
 and simple nature, made him not only a saint but an 
 authority. Saint he might be after his fashion and 
 opportunities, but if the "British Critic" was to be 
 an authority, Ridley was not. I did what I could to 
 soften and tone down the most repugnant features of 
 Christie's article, but I fear the only perceptible result 
 was a number of smudges ; and if anybody will take 
 the trouble to read what is really worth reading, and 
 finds himself occasionally floundering in a sentence 
 he cannot make head or tail of, the likelihood is that 
 these are the traces of my editorial revision. Poor 
 Christie was grieved and indignant, but his deep fund 
 of goodness might be drawn upon to any amount, and 
 he forgave, and I will hope forgot, what men, vastly 
 his inferiors, would have resented to their graves. 
 
CHAPTER CVI. 
 
 SIR GEORGE BOWYER. 
 
 To one of my contributors I owe a separate chap- 
 ter. In my early Oxford days one used to hear of 
 Sir George Bowyer, of Radley, who was ruining him- 
 self by boring for coal, and making a canal for the 
 traffic there was to be. It was, I believe, at one of 
 his borings that Buckland, having been invited witli 
 some others to witness what was confidentlj^ expected 
 would be a great encouragement, managed to drop 
 some bread and cheese into the bore, when it re- 
 appeared in the boring tube, mixed up with some 
 loose coal. Sir George soon found it more agreeable 
 to reside in Italy, and his sons had an Italian educa- 
 tion, — the eldest son not so much as the second. 
 
 The eldest son was early befriended by Henry, 
 Bishop of Exeter, and I believe he brought a letter 
 of introduction from him to Newman, for whom he 
 contributed to the " British Critic." He also pub- 
 lished pamphlets. He had seen a good deal of Charles 
 Albert, whose reverses paved the way for Victor 
 Emmanuel's successes, and he had become a strong 
 adherent of the Sardinian cause. At that date, in- 
 deed till long after, as late as 1848, he was taking 
 the civil side of political questions, as opposed to the 
 Papal. But an all-embracing policy was the funda- 
 mental law of his mind. 
 
 It would be very presumptuous for one who is not 
 
232 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 a lawyer to express any opinion upon his " Com- 
 mentaries on the Constitutional Law of England." 
 But I may be allowed to say that I have often found 
 it a book not only to be referred to, but to be read 
 steadily, a chapter at a time. There are few things 
 of which an ordinary Englishman is more ignorant 
 than the Constitution he is so proud of — its origin, 
 its history, and its existing form. Not to speak of 
 the more ignoble class of lawbreakers, I cannot help 
 thinking that country gentlemen, clergy, and other 
 persons blessed, or cursed, with the possession of 
 power, would not be so proud to override the law, to 
 stretch or disregard it altogether, if they knew its 
 true majesty and its awful claims to their regard. I 
 believe I found myself at issue with Bowyer as to his 
 Imperial predilections, but I forget whether it came 
 to anything he is likely to remember. 
 
 He wrote an article on "Simony," which I agreed 
 with in the main, but regretted. It was likely to 
 wound weak consciences, and have no effect on the 
 great majority of the case-hardened. It is the gen- 
 eral fault of the Church of England that it tyrannizes 
 over the good, and leaves the bad to do what they 
 please, the unevitable result of which is that the bad 
 get the upper hand. Bowyer's article seemed to me 
 in this vicious line, not in its principles, but in its 
 practical working. 
 
 A most excellent friend of mine in Hampshire held 
 a next presentation bought for him by an aunt, and 
 he was serving the parish as curate in charge. He 
 had built a new parsonage, and spent a large sum on 
 the church. Upon reading Bowyer's article he be- 
 came painfully convinced that he was in a wrong 
 position as regarded his living, and, under the cir- 
 
SIR GEORGE BOWYER. 
 
 233 
 
 cumstances, he felt that he would be party to a simo- 
 niacal act in presenting himself to it. I could not 
 remove his scruples. He wrote to Bishop Sumner, 
 asking leave to place the next presentation in his 
 hands. In doing this he did not consider that he was 
 asking the Bishop to recognize scruples in advance of 
 the law, and of his own general practice. That would 
 amount to the Bishop condemning the state of the 
 law, and his own practice also in not going further 
 than the requirements of the law. As a rule, people 
 with tender consciences must satisfy them at home. 
 They must not try to drag in their more business-like 
 neighbors. 
 
 But there was another consideration. Under the 
 circumstances, public opinion would expect his lord- 
 ship to present the living to the man whose conscience 
 had moved him to place it in the Bishop's hands ; 
 but the clergyman was a High Churchman, and the 
 Bishop had a conscience of his own against promot- 
 ing any but Low Churchmen. There ensued a long 
 correspondence. How it was settled I know not, but 
 the Rev. Donald Baynes is still the patron. 
 
 In town, three or four years after the days of the 
 " British Critic," I saw much of Bowyer. Coming 
 into our drawing-room one day, he saw for the first 
 time a Miss Stonhouse. She was more than twenty 
 years his junior, but the likeness was that between 
 brother and sister, or father and daughter, indeed 
 very much closer than is often found in those cases, 
 and comprising some remarkable features. The man- 
 ner and the voice were as much the same as the dif- 
 ference of age and sex would allow. An ancestor of 
 Bowyer's had married a Miss Stonhouse, and had 
 thus drawn into the Bowyer family the Radley estate 
 
234 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 and the bulk of the Stonhouse property. So these 
 were cousins in a very remote degree, the common 
 ancestor being a Sir George Stonhouse, who lived in 
 the reign of Charles I. However, nature spoke for 
 itself, and these were undoubtedly cousins in blood, 
 as they seemed at once to feel themselves. Bowyer 
 could not have been very well off himself, but finding 
 the young lady who thus repi'esented tlie old house 
 of Radley was the daughter of a clergyman with a 
 small living and a very large family, he sent her to 
 school for several years, and thereby qualified her for 
 superintending the education of her brothers and sis- 
 ters, for nursing her invalid mother, and assisting in 
 his parish work a father whose lameness much limited 
 his powers of locomotion. 
 
 Sir George Bowyer has chosen a career of romance 
 and of conscientious self-sacrifice, not without its hon- 
 orable distinctions and its useful results. He has not 
 been able to go all lengths with the Liberals, or witli 
 his Irish friends. He has contributed much to I'aise 
 into life, efficiency, and prominence the ancient Order 
 of St. John of Jerusalem, and in that capacity to 
 establish and maintain a hospital and chapel in New 
 Ormond Street. At Rome he and his comrades di- 
 vided with tlie Guardia Nobile the honorable office 
 of protecting the QScumenical Council from violent 
 or impertinent intrusions ; and in that capacity he 
 was able to be of some service, at its second public 
 session, to her Majesty's present Secretary of State 
 for the War Department, and, at the same time, to 
 the writer of these lines. 
 
CHAPTER CVII. 
 
 MY OWN CONTKIBUTIONS TO THE " BRITISH CRITIC." 
 
 Even if my memory fail me as to other writers, I 
 ought to be able to say what I wrote myself. Yet I 
 find I have to read sentence after sentence till I come 
 upon something which nobody else was likely to say 
 or to know. This is not creditable, for style ought 
 to be one's own, and matter ought to be deep in the 
 mind. The precious memoi-andum-book in which I 
 carefully noted evei-y change in the programme of 
 the quarter, and in which one quarter ended with 
 every writer and every subject different from those 
 entered at the beginning, has long since gone from 
 my gaze. 
 
 In 1839, Mr. Osier, a Conservative, and yet a good 
 Churchman, had been recommended to Newman, and 
 I wrote for the April number a friendly review of his 
 " Church and King." I see nothing to object to in 
 it, except some twaddle here and there, and I could 
 even read it through, if I had nothing better to do. 
 In the same number I reviewed Pugin's " Contrasts." 
 It was easy work, for the " Contrasts " are most un- 
 fair. I think I can detect in the review a lurking 
 tenderness for the Roman Catholic side, even while 
 ostensibly abusing them. The Martyrs' Memorial 
 ■was in preparation while this article was written, and 
 Pugiu had made a rude attack on the originators and 
 subscribers. The architectural part of the challenge 
 
236 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 was fully met, for the Memorial itself is worthy of 
 any age of the Church. 
 
 For July, 1889, I wrote on the " Study of the Evi- 
 dences," moved thereto by the great and still increas- 
 ing mass of publications obstructing, as it were, the 
 very beginning of Christian life. Turning over the 
 leaves, I see illustrations that I wish I had passed my 
 pen through, or put in some better form. The article 
 is also too long. Yet I am proud to have written it. 
 Most deeply do I regret to see this plague of Evi- 
 dences increasing rather than diminishing. The num- 
 ber of foundations conferring a name, and money, 
 too, I suppose, for lectures, has a pernicious effect in 
 multiplying books on Evidences, one like another, 
 only generally one worse than another, read by no- 
 body, even though trumpeted by friendly reviews 
 which perhaps also are read by nobody. Not one in 
 ten thousand could ever have been really converted, 
 or at all affected, by this sort of literature, except so 
 far as it might help to satisfy a mau who has already 
 made his choice. He learns that he is justified in it, 
 and is not so utterly foolish as some people would 
 have him. 
 
 The article on " Temperance Societies " in this 
 number is mine. I hardly know whether I could 
 recommend it to the perusal of the Bishop of Exe- 
 ter, who lately urged me in common with the other 
 clergy in his diocese to establish a Temperance So- 
 ciety in my parish. Nor could I even conjecture 
 whether the article has done good or harm. But 
 the same doubt hangs over the Temperance Societies 
 themselves. This was forty-two years ago, and both 
 intemperance in its worst forms and the general con- 
 sumption of strong drink have immensely increased. 
 
MY OWN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE " BRITISH CRITIC. 237 
 
 Since I have named the Bishop of Exeter, I must 
 add that he does the work of ten ordinary men, and 
 certainly maintains a wonderful temper and cheer- 
 fulness upon no stronger stimulant than tea. This 
 he likes made " straight," as he told me in answer to 
 my inquiries, that is, not allowed to stand and soak, 
 as some make tea. I must say that if the choice 
 is to lie between never touching wine, and drinking, 
 say, three or four glasses a day, the former is the 
 best for health, sense, and goodness, not to speak of 
 the saving of £25 a year per head for some better 
 purpose. 
 
 It costs me some diving into the forgotten past to 
 find out why I wrote in this number an article more 
 than forty pages long on " Armed Associations for 
 the Protection of Life and Property." How came I 
 ever to think of such a subject ? What occasion 
 could there be for it ? What place could it have in a 
 theological quarterly ? It will be equally a sui-prise 
 to most of my present readers to be told that in 1839 
 Lord John Russell was advising loi'd-lieutenants, mag- 
 istrates, and mayors to form such associations. This 
 was for the better classes to take up arms against 
 the lower, and so divide England into two hostile 
 camps, "capital" the watchword of one, "labor" 
 of the other. I suppose a recollection of the part 
 uniformly played by the French " National Guard " 
 made me distrust the loyalty or the courage of citizen 
 soldiers. A few months before this, I had published 
 a " Dissection " of the " Queries on Education " cir- 
 culated by Lord John Russell. These new circulars 
 seemed to me equally insidious. Considering the 
 subject, the article is much too long, and evidently 
 written currente calamo ; but, the reader will admit, 
 not without a cause. 
 
238 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 In this number, too, October, 1839, appeared the 
 first of my illustrated articles on "Church Archi- 
 tecture." I see it is successively headed " New 
 Churches ; " " Mr. Carus Wilson's Helps to the 
 Building of Churches;" " Applications of the Lom- 
 bard Style ; " " New Churches in the Borough of 
 Stroud;" and "Designs for Rural Churches." The 
 object of the review was to recommend simplicity of 
 plan, and of style, as at once the cheapest and the 
 least liable to mistakes. Among other churches no- 
 ticed with this intention are Littlemore Chapel, in 
 its original state, George Herbert's church at Bemer- 
 ton, and the pretty church just then completed by 
 Keble at Otterbourne, in the parish of Hursley. 
 
 In the January' number of 1840, under the title 
 " Russian Manners and Morals," I reviewed and 
 largely quoted Mr. Lister Venables' Letters, describ- 
 ing a year's residence in that country. I wished 
 to do full justice to a most interesting work, for I 
 thought then, and still think, that I have never read 
 a book giving so good an account of the inner life of 
 a strange country. I had remembered with much 
 respect the author and his younger brother, or broth- 
 ers, at Charterhouse, and was predisposed in his favor. 
 
 The article on the second part of " Fronde's Re- 
 mains," vol. i., otherwise headed " The Bible without 
 Note or Comment," has very much puzzled me. 
 Dipping into almost every page, I first arrived at 
 the conclusion that it was not mine. A second 
 perusal brings before me some anecdotes and allu- 
 sions in which I read myself. On the whole, the 
 weak points of the article, rather than its strong 
 points, make me the author. I think, too, that I 
 remember Newman observing that there was too 
 
MY OWN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE "BRITISH CRITIC." 239 
 
 mucli of my own, but too little about Froude, and 
 that after largely quoting him, I went off to some 
 other subject. 
 
 In the July number, 1840, room was found with 
 difficulty for a not very lengthy article on " Rui'i- 
 decanal Chapters," which Mr. Dansey had taken the 
 lead in reviving, and had made the subject of some 
 learned works. I contrasted them with the " clerical 
 meetings " of that period, of a partly theological, 
 partly social character, to the disadvantage of the 
 clerical meetings. It was at least a most ungracious 
 act on my part, for while I then knew nothing of the 
 working of " Chapters," I had certainly received very 
 much pleasure, and instruction too, from " clerical 
 meetings." But the right form, the true form, the 
 old form, was now the overruling idea, and even one's 
 own experience was to go for nothing. Accordingly 
 I expatiated on the lax tendencies of the clerical 
 meetings, the prominence liable to be given to un- 
 practical topics, the intrusion of gossip, and the nat- 
 ural exhilaration of old acquaintances meeting one 
 another after a ride of many miles in the cold air. 
 Of two things I have a painful recollection. One of 
 these was some very warm discussions with a very 
 good and kind neighbor who firmly believed the 
 Temple would be rebuilt at Jerusalem, and the daily 
 sacrifice restored and kept up for a thousand years. 
 The other was the habit of some of the clergy to 
 pour into the ears of their fellow clergy their griev- 
 ances and quarrels with their own parishi'mers. My 
 own impression is that they might be right on the 
 particular questions at issue, but that it was their 
 fault the questions came up at all, at least in the form 
 they took. 
 
240 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 I recently have been Rural Dean for seven years, 
 elected by my neighbors of the Deanery, according 
 to the custom of the diocese of Exeter, I was the 
 last Rural Dean of Plymtree, and the first of Ottery. 
 In the act of taking an oath, I had to abolish the 
 ancient Deanery and institute the modern one. It 
 may be expected of me that I should say how far the 
 R. D. Chapter supplies the place of the clerical meet- 
 ing. Thus far it does not, nor could one venture 
 to say how or when it is likely to do so. There are 
 only four Chapters in the year, nor is it possible to 
 increase the number of Chapters, or to fix any regu- 
 lar times that shall not clash with other regularly 
 recurrent engagements. With all the deductions to 
 be made, including a church service and long journeys 
 to and fro, the residuum of time is only two or three 
 hours. If, therefore, the clergy wish to meet for the 
 study of the Scriptures, or for devotional purposes, 
 or for social purposes, — the last really as much a 
 necessity of human life as the two others, — they find 
 themselves obliged to supplement the Chapter with 
 clerical meetings of one kind or another, and in that 
 case they also find the attendance at the clerical 
 meetings more convenient and more profitable than 
 attendance at the Chapter. It is very desirable there 
 should be some system of clerical association and co- 
 operation, especially where most wanted, in our rural 
 districts. It can be no good to anybody that a cler- 
 gyman should be so tied to his parish as never to see 
 a clerical neighbor, except for a few minutes at long 
 intervals. So with the experience of a life I should 
 write that article on Dansey's books very differently 
 now, when I may think less of the theory and more 
 of the actual working. 
 
MY OWN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE " BRITISH CRITIC." 241 
 
 With much difficulty, and after turning over every 
 page, I have satisfied myself that the article on the 
 " Religious State of the Manufacturing Poor," in 
 October, 1840, is mine ; but if the friends or sur- 
 vivors of any other writer can establish a better 
 claim, they are welcome to it. 
 
 In this number, too, came out the second of my 
 articles on " New Churches." With this, as a whole, 
 I should probably still agree, with some reserves. 
 One little matter I have already referred to. At 
 pages 494 and 495 are the pretty wood-cuts of two 
 new Cheltenham churches, with needlessly strong, if 
 not offensive, comments. I have now attended the 
 more important church a year, and for the same 
 period paid daily visits to the site of the other, on 
 which a magnificent church has now taken its place. 
 Not till I turned to this article did I recognize in 
 these churches the objects of my early vilification, 
 or remember that I had ever seen them before. 
 
 To the January number, 1841, I contributed a Re- 
 view of Dr. Channing's works, such as I might now 
 write, though perhaps now I may be allowed to hope 
 with a truer appreciation of that agreeable but very 
 shallow writer. 
 
 Did I, or did I not, write " Advertisements and 
 Announcements " in April, 1841 ? None but myself 
 could have been so courageous as to transfer "bodily 
 whole pages of queer advertisements to a Review. 
 Somebody told me I was rendering the publishers 
 liable to a heavy demand for advertisement duty. 
 Ecclesiastical advertisers are a little less impudent 
 now than they used to be. There may not be much 
 to choose between one man who proclaims himself 
 spiritually minded, and another who informs the 
 
 VOL. II. 16 
 
242' 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 world he prefers a high ritual and can intone ; but 
 the assumption is larger in the former case than in 
 the latter. An allusion to the singular name of a 
 religious secretary, one Mr. Stabb, leaves no doubt 
 on my mind that I was the writer. Bold as the 
 experiment was, it has answered, for an old Review 
 has rather more chance of a permanent place in a 
 library than an old newspaper, and these advertise- 
 ments and announcements are now curiosities, not 
 quite to be equalled in our own times, when personal 
 pretension does not pass without criticism. 
 
 In that number (April, 1841) came out my first 
 article on " Open Roofs." It may, I believe, be 
 regarded as a beginning in modern church archi- 
 tecture. There were then already some open tim- 
 ber roofs of recent construction, but they generally 
 showed neither science nor grace, being simply a 
 slight departure from the application of the tie-beam, 
 by raising it a few feet above the wall plate. There 
 were plenty of ancient examples still extant and open 
 to view, though even in the last century many had 
 been destroyed and still more had been hidden by 
 ceilings. But architects and builders recoiled from 
 them, and had to be taught that they were not only 
 picturesque but quite practicable, and that they need 
 not be very expensive. 
 
CHAPTER CVIII. 
 
 MY OWN CONTEIBUTIONS, CONTUnJED. 
 
 In July, 1841, I was editor. The first article, 
 on " Bishop Jewell ; his Character, Correspondence, 
 and Apologetic Treatises," is by Oakley, and is 
 considered itself to mark a change in the " British 
 Critic." Newman had declined to be answerable 
 for it. I have no doubt that he duly warned me of 
 the risks I should be incurring by inserting it. I 
 knew very little indeed of Jewell, and what I knew 
 of him I did not like. Oakley was a singularly gen- 
 tle, modest, humble-minded man, and, so far, there 
 was a sort of personal security that the article would 
 not go too far. Certainly some passages I light upon 
 now, after not seeing them for forty years, look 
 rather impudent. The chances are that I did not 
 read the article carefully, except here and there. I 
 shall not, in this place, say how far I agree with the 
 writer. Neither the agreement nor the disagree- 
 ment of one who utterly disclaims the character of a 
 theologian would be worth much, and all the world 
 will now interpret the article by the light which 
 the writer himself threw upon it by his secession 
 to Rome. 
 
 Then follows an article on an Address delivered 
 by Sir R. Peel, on the establishment of a reading- 
 room at Tamworth, and on letters written thereupon 
 by " Catholicus," in the " Times." I had utterly 
 
244 
 
 KEMINISCENCES. 
 
 forgotten the article and the address for a whole 
 generation, till just now reminded by opening the 
 number of the Review. I did not at the time know, 
 though I half suspected, that Newman was " Ca- 
 tholicus," but was informed of the fact some years 
 after by one who covild not but know, and who could 
 hardly understand my ignorance on the point. But 
 I have always made it a rule to avoid secrets. I can- 
 not keep them, except by immediately forgetting 
 them ; and the communicators of secrets never in- 
 tend them to be kept, thus putting the persons con- 
 fided with them into a false position. The article 
 labors under the incurable disadvantage of being a 
 comment upon a comment, the weak echo of a vigor- 
 ous original. However, I introduced " Catholicus " 
 to speak for himself. 
 
 The last article in this nuinber, July, 1841, is also 
 mine. On June 3 the Margaret Professor had dis- 
 charged in the Divinity School a " Lecture " in his 
 customary style against No. 90 in the " Tracts for the 
 Times." My article was on that lecture, and also on 
 his University sermon three years before, republished 
 with much additional matter, and entitled the " Re- 
 vival of Popery." I had barely a fortnight to write 
 the article, and near a hundred notices, besides read- 
 ing with some care the other contributions. The 
 apologue of " Growler and Fido" was hardly in place 
 in the Review. I have several times been told that if 
 I ever expected or desired promotion, this settled that 
 matter. Reading it, however, after the lapse of so 
 many years, when I had nearly quite forgotten it, I 
 must confess myself amused, and what is more, I 
 must say that I now see no reason to regret having 
 written either the " Apologue," or anything else 
 catching my eye in the article. 
 
MY OWN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE " BRITISH CRITIC." 245 
 
 If any apology is needed for this peculiar style of 
 illustration, I must plead a singular incident in my 
 early education. From five to seven I went every 
 day, " down town," at Gainsbro', to a boys and girls' 
 school, kept by a dissenting brother and sister, as- 
 sisted by the elderly widow of an Independent min- 
 ister. Upstairs, in the girls' school, I had to sit 
 under the lady's three-legged work table, receiving 
 "thimble pie," that is a sharp rap with a thimble 
 on the crown of my head, whenever any restless- 
 ness on my part disturbed' the rickety table. Going 
 down-stairs in my turn, I went through all ^sop's 
 Fables — the "application " in small type — with the 
 widow. Her mode of steadying me, and wai-ning me 
 of mistakes, was to thump me on the back. I never 
 got up a book so thoroughly in mj life. The rude 
 woodcuts, the text and the commentary, remained 
 at the top of all I had ever learnt, or tried to learn, 
 for many years. iEsop's Fables became my Bible, 
 my history, my literature, my art gallery, and my 
 natural history. They burnt themselves out at last 
 in the apologue of " Growler and Fido." 
 
 In October, 1841, editor though I was, it cannot 
 have been quite spontaneous on my part that I wrote 
 an article on "New Poetry," reviewing, among other 
 poets, Herbert Kynaston, and " the youthful scion of 
 the House of Rutland," Lord John Manners. In 
 neither theology nor poetry did I ever feel otherwise 
 than the angels that fear to tread on holy ground. 
 Compelled as I was sometimes to put my foot on 
 that ground, it was always as a martyr thrust into 
 an arena to do battle with a wild beast. The task 
 must have been forced on me by the increasing pile 
 of small poetry books. There was a difficulty on the 
 
246 
 
 BEMINISCENCES. 
 
 point. I did not like to hand poetry to some one 
 who was no more a poet than myself ; and, on the 
 other hand, I had found poets, that is small poets, a 
 jealous, critical, snappish tribe, over-anxious to thrust 
 out one another. So I wrote this review possibly to 
 keep the queen's peace amongst them. 
 
 Glancing at the notices in this number, I find my- 
 self patting on the back the author of a prize essay 
 vindicating the notion of punishment, or retributive 
 justice, as a right instinct of the human mind, and 
 an attribute of the Deity. The promising young gen- 
 tleman was Beresford Hope. 
 
 By this time the offertory and the alms-box had 
 both been revived, the latter adding a picturesque 
 feature to the church. Staying at Canon Hamilton's, 
 he showed me a pretty woodcut, as I supposed it was, 
 which he wished to copy in an alms-box for some 
 church or for his private chapel. I asked the loan of 
 it, and gave it to my own woodcutter, who reproduced 
 it, and there it is, with a proper notice, on the last 
 page of the number. It turned out to be a bad case 
 of robbery, and rather a provoking one. What 
 Hamilton had lent me was not a cut, but a drawing, 
 which he had paid a professional artist two guineas 
 for, intending a sort of monopoly in a unique and 
 beautiful object. I had made it the property of the 
 public, some of whom in fact copied it. Hamilton, I 
 need not say, took it kindly ; and it must have been 
 some years after this that I spent a long time with 
 him in the "vast basement of his Canon's house, trying 
 to find whether any part of it would make a domestic 
 chapel. 
 
 In January, 1842, I conclude that I was making 
 up for an oversight in a previous number by a short 
 
MY OWN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE " BRITISH CRITIC." 247 
 
 and favorable notice of Miss F. E. Cox's " Sacred 
 Hymns from the German." Her translation of 
 Wiilffer's " Hymn to Eternity " I have read many 
 times with increasing admiration, and I hope it has 
 left some fruit in my mind ; but I see more and more 
 reason to disagree with the idea. It dues not pass 
 out of time, or land us in eternity. Neither reason 
 nor revelation warrants the notion of eternity as a 
 perpetual prolongation of time. It is one of the at- 
 tributes of Him who is incomprehensible, and we are 
 invading His presence when we attempt to measure 
 His being. At the last stroke of time with ourselves, 
 or the world, we shall find ourselves in the Divine 
 presence, seeing things as they really are, which we 
 cannot do now. So the terrible images forming the 
 subjects of the successive stanzas in this grand com- 
 position, I cannot but class with the hideous concep- 
 tions of death, hell, the devil, in which a basis of 
 truth is grotesquely exhibited. 
 
 In this number I am answex'able for the article on 
 " Reserve in communicating Religious Knowledge." 
 From the opening sentence it betrays an apologetic 
 tone, dealing with the allowable and proper practice 
 of reserve on ordinary occasions, with the meaning of 
 the word and its derivatives, and with the fact that 
 the very people who objected to its use did them- 
 selves practise all sorts of reserves, including the sup- 
 pression of doctrines that the Apostle Paul thought 
 it necessary to proclaim in every opening speech. 
 There had already appeared an article on the subject 
 in April, 1839, I am now told by R. J. Wilson, but 
 this is manifestly in a different tone. Mine was 
 written in the thick of the contest for the Poetry 
 Professorship. But writing Reviews to appease con- 
 
248 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 troversial antagonists is a very bootless toil. Those 
 antagonists generally knew nothing of the tract ex- 
 cept the single word Reserve, and it was necessary, 
 or at least respectful, to give them the opportunity 
 of seeing that . reserve was not always false, fraudu- 
 lent and vicious. 
 
 The next month, April, 1842, 1 returned to " Open 
 Roofs," and certainly produced a very pretty article, 
 as far as illustrations could do it. They were indis- 
 pensable, and they have contributed to a great archi- 
 tectural restoration. Except I suppose a majority of 
 the notices, I cannot find that I contributed anything 
 to the July number this year. On looking over 
 the October number I see I allowed the " Develop- 
 ment of the Church in the Seventeenth Century and 
 Extracts from its Divines," to run to 89 pages. I 
 am myself answerable for a long, but long demanded 
 and long promised article on " Pews," a subject on 
 which I had done for my father, at Derby, a consider- 
 able work in 1831. 
 
 For the ensuing January number, 1843, 1 wrote the 
 article on " Agricultural Labor and Wages," very 
 much the old story, but to me ever new. I had early 
 cast in my lot with rural populations, lavishing upon 
 them all I had of heart, mind, and worldly gear. 
 Here I was on Salisbury Plain, now for seven years, 
 with no other companions, neighbors, or friends 
 within five miles. They were the only people I saw 
 and talked with, and visited in their homes, seeing 
 and hearing their troubles. Whatever had to be done 
 for them beyond their scanty means and opportuni- 
 ties, the parsonage had to do. It so happened that, 
 as I had been the first resident incumbent within the 
 memory of man at Moreton Pinckney, so, too, was I 
 
MY OWN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE "BRITISH CRITIC," 249 
 
 now at Cholderton, and up to this time I went on tbe 
 simple and certain calculation that here I was to end 
 my days, and see perhaps the children's children of 
 those whom we were teaching in the school. As a 
 description of the state of the Wiltshire agricultural 
 population at that date, the article, I feel sure, is a 
 true, just, and valuable record. 
 
 Within my experience no one ever lived and did 
 his duty for a long period among the agricultural 
 poor without acquiring much love and loyalty to 
 them. Some one, I think it must have been Froude, 
 was expostulating with Keble on the shortness of one 
 of his rare visits to Oxford, and said, rather ofF-hand, 
 " Cannot your clodhoppers spare you one more 
 day ? " Keble immediately replied, playfully but 
 decidedly, " I won't have my poor fellows laughed 
 at." 
 
 Of this I was reminded many years after. A 
 London incumbent had got the ofYer of a Chancellor's 
 living in a very desirable part of the country. It did 
 not, however, answer his purpose financially to accept 
 the living unless he could obtain from his former 
 patron succession to his living for his son. He wrote 
 accordingly in a free and easy way to his vei'y good- 
 natured patron, saying that if he could not get the 
 living he then had for his son, he was not going to 
 bury himself amongst clodhoppers. But if any one 
 could but have seen the two men, — Keble, who 
 loved and honored his " clodhoppers," and this 
 fellow, who was preparing to hate and despise them ! 
 
 In the notices of that number, "Views and Details 
 of St. John's Church, Oxford," remind me of three 
 days I once spent in that church with Froude, assist- 
 ing him in drawings and measurements. I remember 
 
250 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 I was cold enough. But how these three days must 
 have told on Froude's attenuated and susceptible 
 frame ! 
 
 For April, 1843, I must have written on Lord 
 John Manners' " Plea for National Holy Days," but 
 I can only put it in the form of a likelihood, and shall 
 not take it amiss if it turns out to have been by an- 
 other hand. If that should be the case, it proves 
 how much we were all borrowing from one another. 
 The question of national holidays has undergone a 
 remarkable change since this article was written. 
 The Bank holiday is a thoroughly national holiday in 
 being observed by the whole of the town populations. 
 Had it come down to us from the middle ages in its 
 present form, it would not now go on without much 
 criticism. Of course it causes an immense additional 
 pressure on all the means of locomotion, and the per- 
 sons employed in them, the very class already most 
 requiring rest, and least able to obtain it. A large 
 part of the holiday makers go to other towns, which 
 they do not see in their usual and natural state be- 
 cause the people there also are holiday making. 
 They don't see the shops, for they are closed ; 
 they don't see the people, for they have gone else- 
 where. 
 
 In this number I must have written the Review of 
 a volume of sermons by Dr. Doane, Bishop of New 
 Jersey. The book had been urged upon my notice, 
 but as I had not time to look into more than a few 
 pages, I would rather have passed it to some other 
 hand. I have been always rather too keenly sen- 
 sitive of the difference between the American style 
 and the English, even on subjects that should 
 harmonize all nations and languages. I feel sure I 
 
MY OWN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE " BRITISH CRITIC." 251 
 
 accepted the burden, though my shoulders have long 
 forgotten it. 
 
 For July, 1843, I wrote the " Six Doctors." The 
 article is not on the famous sermon, which had not 
 then been published, but on the very remarkable pro- 
 ceeding which resulted in the Vice-Chancellor, really 
 upon his sole authority, suspending Pusey from his 
 legal turns of preaching for two years. There had 
 been no trial ; and if there had been even an exami- 
 nation of the sermon, that was a matter of indiffer- 
 ence, for the Six Doctors were neither willing nor 
 in any sense competent to do justice to the sermon. 
 None of them, to the best of my recollection, ever 
 made any objection to the sermon, or gave any reason 
 why the preacher should be suspended, unless it were 
 that this kind of preaching and writing excited the 
 University and diverted it from classical and mathe- 
 matical studies. I feel very sure that the suspension 
 was as gross an illegality as any ever alleged against 
 the Stuart kings and their advisers, or indeed against 
 any despot or pope whatever, any Inquisition, or any 
 other secret tribunal. 
 
 The excuse is that there was a good deal of lawless- 
 ness in those days, and that all sides were taking the 
 law into their own hands, going as far as they 
 thought they could with safety. The whole proceed- 
 ing receives a remarkable comment from the present 
 state of things in the University. Has Dr. Pusey 
 been silenced, or has his doctrinal system been pre- 
 vented from gaining ground ? On the other hand, 
 has the suspension saved Oxford orthodoxy ? How 
 stands Pusey now, and hows tands the University 
 of Oxford ? I am very far from advocating or even 
 desiring this kind of preaching myself, but I don't 
 
252 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 expect to like every sermon I hear, and I should cer- 
 tainly be often disappointed if I did. Diversity of 
 utterance is unavoidable in this country, and one's 
 only comfort is to believe that underneath apparent 
 antagonisms and contradictions there is a greater con- 
 cord and unity than the speakers themselves even 
 wish to imagine. 
 
CHAPTER CIX. 
 
 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 The July number, 1843, miglit almost be called 
 the last of the " Bi'itish Critic," as far as I was con- 
 cerned. Already, before it appeared, most of the 
 writers and of the subjects for the October number 
 had been settled ; the subjects were such as would be 
 left to the writers, and the writers such as to take 
 their own way about them. I was not likely to 
 interfere with Ecclesiastical Music, or with Mill's 
 Logic, or with Pusey's Sermon, the one made the 
 pretence of his " suspension." 
 
 But how was I standing myself at that time ? That 
 question had costume many anxious days. It was a 
 question to be worked out in the higher regions of 
 the mind ; in the calm atmosphere of devotion, or at 
 least meditation, at the very shrine of truth, as secure 
 as might be from impulses or passions, and from the 
 sway of vulgar interests. It was, I say, to be worked 
 out in this fashion, but I cannot honestly say that I 
 did work it out as I knew it ought to be worked out. 
 My article on the " Six Doctors," sound and true as 
 I still think it substantially, was written as some 
 people talk, in order that I might think the less. 
 Besides being very angry with the Six Doctors I was 
 now running away from a far more momentous ques- 
 tion. Upon that question I had satisfied myself after 
 a fashion, and did not wish my satisfaction to be dis- 
 
254 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 turbed. Taking first one extreme uttei-ance, then 
 another, in the article I had to pass, I had asked 
 mj'self, Do I agree with this? The inner response 
 was that I could not say I disagreed with it even 
 though its adjustment with the Thirty-nine Articles, 
 and with my general duty to the Church of England, 
 might cost more ingenuity than I should be willing 
 or able to apply. 
 
 But I cannot remember the time wlien I liked the 
 Thirty-nine Articles, or thought them anything else 
 than articles of peace, and worth about as much as 
 articles of peace generally are. I do not think that 
 anybody does like the Thirty-nine Articles. Even as 
 a pagan, brought up in the faith of paganism, as we 
 all were at the great schools of those days, I had a 
 vast mass of traditionary beliefs, for which I found 
 much more encouragement than discouragement in 
 the Bible. 
 
 I cannot dispel the belief that the great and good 
 of all ages are now taking their part in Imman affairs. 
 The Christian revelation I cannot understand to for- 
 bid or exclude such a belief. It rather tells us the 
 form and manner and medium of this spiritual coop- 
 eration. They that are in Christ never cease to be in 
 Christ ; they are where He is ; they are doing what 
 He does. He is God of the living, not of the dead. 
 Who can venture to circumscribe life, and to say 
 what it is not? Life is action here. Will it not be 
 action always and everywhere, and in fact continu- 
 ously from the earlier stage ? True, we are not told 
 much about the next stage of Christian life, but if 
 that consideration is to rule us, it tells quite as much 
 against a negative doctrine as against a positive. 
 
 I never could understand why in the first Article 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 255 
 
 the Almighty is said to be " without passions." In 
 the Bible lie is described as loving, and hating ; as 
 being jealous, and indignant ; and admiring his own 
 works. Church of England writers tell us that these 
 words mean nothing, inasmuch as it is inconceivable, 
 and therefore impossible, that an Infinite Being should 
 be so affected. But if we know nothing at all of 
 the nature of God except what is revealed, we have 
 no basis for denying that which is plainly revealed, 
 and certainly it is no argument against an alleged 
 fact that it is inconceivable. It is inconceivable how 
 the Almighty performs all the operations of nature, 
 say within our own bodies, or under the surface of the 
 ground, yet as Christians we cannot deny the fact. 
 The instant we go beyond the range of our senses we 
 step into the inconceivable. The human mind breaks 
 down tlie moment it attempts to imagine the Maker 
 and Sustainer of the universe following our own secret 
 thoughts, and keeping a record of all that we ever 
 did, said, or thougiit. As Christians we are bound to 
 believe it. 
 
 I used to try to bridge over the tremendous abyss 
 by the conception of innumerable beings, in infinite 
 gradation and offices, working out the great drama 
 of Eternity and Infinity all around us and in us. 
 This involved an infinite number of beings, who in 
 comparison with us would be gods, just as we are 
 gods in the apprehension of brutes. That such be- 
 ings should condescend to our rank, and share our 
 joys and griefs, and have to us the sympathies of 
 parents, kings, and great statesmen, is conceivable, 
 just as the human sympathies of Homer's deities are 
 conceivable, and indeed take the imagination by 
 force. 
 
256 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 The seventeenth Article I always regarded as a 
 piece of rigmarole, and nothing more. It is really 
 put in the form of an interrogatory. A solemn dec- 
 laration that such or such a doctrine is questionable 
 is a ridiculous and irreverent act. Scripture certainly 
 declares men to have been sent into the world, raised, 
 educated, provoked, and hardened to do wicked deeds; 
 but if that seem very shocking, it must be considered 
 that men may do wicked things innocently and even 
 virtuously, as they can also do good things worth- 
 lessly and sinfully, as indeed they often do. 
 
 Speaking generally of the Articles, of the Cate- 
 chism, and of large portions of the Prayer Book, I 
 used to suspect them the work of men without knowl- 
 edge of human nature, without bowels of compassion, 
 working for promotion, and getting it. 
 
 The Church Catechism has been the sorest trial 
 of my long life. From youth to age it is the wheel 
 on which I have been racked and tortured. To me 
 it is a millstone tied to the neck of the Church of 
 England. 
 
 This I say with some considerable exceptions. The 
 explanation of the Lord's Prayer was the only form 
 of private devotion, in addition to the prayer itself, I 
 used for many years of my early life, including all my 
 school days. Any Christian might repeat witli ad- 
 vantage every day of his life the explanation of his 
 duty to God, and to his neighbor. All the rest seems 
 to me a vulgar attempt to reduce the Gospel to port- 
 able and negotiable form. It cannot be the natural 
 instinct of any true pastor to make such a string of 
 abstractions the basis of a child's religious education. 
 I could not help liking Charles Kingsley, and greatly 
 admiring most of his works, but I will confess I never 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 257 
 
 quite felt the same respect for his moral qualities 
 after I heard him preach at Whitehall a most ful- 
 some eulogy of the Church Catechism as the best 
 possible basis of Christian teaching. 
 
 These objections related not so much to the matter 
 as to the form of the Catechism. One objection, how- 
 ever, I had always felt as I should a knot, a tangle, 
 or a jar. It was not a difficulty to carry me to Rome, 
 yet it tended to discontent with my actual position. 
 The triple answer to the awful question, "What 
 dost thou chiefly learn in these articles of thy be- 
 lief?" had long raised, in my mind painful difficul- 
 ties. The Apostles' Creed I thought I understood ; 
 not so the interpretations. My general indolence, or 
 rather deadness, as to spiritual matters from my 
 childhood had led. to dogmatic statements lying on 
 the surface of my mind, neither accepted nor rejected, 
 neither understood nor questioned, as stones, and not 
 things that lived and grew. They were to me as 
 precious yet antiquated and cumbersome heirlooms or 
 family relics, things kept because people cannot make 
 up their minds to throw them away. 
 
 It was with me a passion and a pride to be ortho- 
 dox ; a loyal son of the English Church, and the 
 sharer of her noble patrimony. Tliere are many 
 forms and shades of loyalty, and I could not claim a 
 high one for myself; but it certainly was not the 
 loyalty of interest, in the common sense, for I early 
 conceived an utter contempt for monej', promotion, 
 or rank. I always felt that the understanding must 
 be subordinated to belief, and that the nature and 
 operation of the Deity must pass understanding. So, 
 as I could not understand, I let the matters of faith 
 alone, instead of laboring after that degree of ap- 
 
 VOL. II. 17 
 
258 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 proachment which it is doubtless part of our work 
 here to acquire. Learning my Catechism and Scrip- 
 ture proofs as soon as I was eight, and taking it all 
 for granted, I do not remember that either at school 
 or at college I ever entered upon any serious doctrinal 
 inquiry. Holding the truth as I did, it might not 
 much matter whether I doubted or not. Yet upon 
 an appeal to my loyalty, I should always have been 
 ready to repel the imputation of either bigotry or in- 
 sincerity. 
 
 There was then the inspiration of Scripture, literal 
 as I always took it to be, and as it was always 
 preached in those days, and which I still held after a 
 fashion, even though I had repeatedly found myself 
 in hopeless chronological and historical difficulties. I 
 tliink I was more startled than comforted when Rob- 
 ert Wilberforce once said he did not believe in literal 
 inspiration. 
 
 Then there was the Athanasian Creed. I could 
 not describe the chaotic medley of notions and sensa- 
 tions that document always raised in me, to a very 
 late date. I used to be seriously distressed, indeed 
 depressed, at the sad but inevitable fate of the many 
 myriads of poor creatures who for want of natural 
 capacity or educational advantages would never be 
 able to understand and accept the Creed, and who 
 would therefore be burnt alive to all eternity. Could 
 I say that I understood it myself? 
 
 That is a monstrous conception of the Creed of 
 course, but paradox is the very element of this ex- 
 traordinary composition, wliich the Western Churches 
 forced on the Church of Rome after a long and even 
 stubboi'n resistance on her part. Reverence long pre- 
 vented rae from saying anything about the Creed, but 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 259 
 
 the less I said the more I felt. The notion of an 
 eternal and hideous punishment, not for one's" own 
 sins alone, but for the misfortune of being descended 
 from Adam, lay for at least half my life as an incubus 
 on my soul. To say that I quite believed it would 
 be too much, but I could not quite disbelieve it. I 
 was asleep, and it was a dream. I could no more 
 argue against it than I could argue against a tooth- 
 ache. I might reason and talk, but th^re it was still. 
 
 As to the Articles of the Creed itself, I never re- 
 considered them without a fresh sense of difficulty. 
 The Sonship of Jesus Christ appears most strongly, 
 definitely and tenderly on the very face of tlie Gos- 
 pels, and indeed the whole of the New Testament. 
 Not to speak now of the other Creeds, that Sonship 
 becomes merely titular in the Athanasian Creed. 
 Where the place arrives for the definition or setting 
 forth of this unquestionable article of faith, all we are 
 told is that the Son is inferior to the Father (only) 
 as touching His manhood. This would certainly 
 seem to imply that all the acts of dependence, sub- 
 mission, prayer, and praise done by our Blessed Lord, 
 were human only, not divine ; not only done "in the 
 days of His flesh," but belonging to them. Again, I 
 coidd not see the propriety of the parallel between 
 the union of the body and soul in man, and the union 
 of God and man in Christ. I once mentioned my 
 difficulty to Newman, and he made some remark on 
 the point. As far as my memory can recall, it was 
 that some one had very early made tlie clause a loop- 
 hole for the intrusion of heresy. 
 
 My natural reliance upon tlie very letter, and my 
 fear lest any sifting of it might lead me further than 
 I desired, always led me to attach real and substan- 
 
260 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 tial significance to the words of our Lord adopted in 
 the Communion Service, and also to the statement in 
 the Baptismal Service, " this child is regenerate." I 
 never could, I never can, come to the conclusion that 
 they are only figurative or only conditional. I have 
 earned the contempt and indignation, temporary I 
 hope, of some that I loved and admired, by confes- 
 sions to this effect. I have been told at once that 
 such ideas are not spiritual but anti-spiritual, for tliat 
 they are materialistic. What I fall back on is this, 
 we really know nothing of spiritual things. When 
 we make, as we are sometimes bound to make, a state- 
 ment in spiritual matters, we have nothing to do but 
 to take the very words of our Lord and the inspired 
 writers. These words we are bound to take in their 
 simplest and most natural sense, whether we iniiigine 
 we understand their whole meaning or not; and we 
 are certainly not ourselves competent to say there is 
 no spiritual or real change because we cannot our- 
 selves conceive it or understand it, seeing that it is 
 in a matter beyond our understanding. 
 
 At this date, that is. Midsummer, 1843, I had had 
 Morning Prayer in my little church for six years, 
 with the usual result. Some of my friends repre- 
 sented that I was inconsistent in not having more 
 frequent Communions. I had often spoken of it from 
 the pulpit as a duty and a privilege that we were 
 disregarding and losing, but I could not doubt what 
 some of my parishioners told me, that I should not 
 increase the number of my communicants by more 
 frequent Communions, and that I should run the I'isk 
 of finding none but myself and the clerk. It con- 
 tinually occurred to me, Could there not be lighter, 
 more attractive, and more varied services ? But 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 261 
 
 wliere were these to be found, and who was there to 
 draw them up ? I will own that I still think many 
 of the prayers and other forms incm-ably wordy and 
 tedious. Any man who in private life persisted in 
 using two words for one, and in repeating himself 
 continually, would be avoided as a nuisance, and 
 thought an empty-headed, cold-hearted man. On 
 what ground can stupidities intolerable to man be 
 thought the language fittest for the presence of God ? 
 
 When I came to compare our formulas with those 
 of antiquity, from which they are in fact derived, I 
 found the earlier forms much simpler, shorter, and 
 more natural. It appeared to me that everybody who 
 had to do with the composition of the Prayer Book, 
 from Henry VIII. to Ciiarles II., addressed himself 
 to a select literary circle, and to the intellect rather 
 than the heart. A great deal had been discarded be- 
 cause it appealed to the feelings and the imagination, 
 and a more solid and rational foundation had now to 
 be substituted. This foundation was believed to be 
 found in an abundance of good language — the admi- 
 ration of scholars, gentlemen, and ladies to this day. 
 But the people somehow have never taken to it, and 
 it is only a small proportion of religious households 
 that prefers the Prayer Book to all other devotional 
 utterances. 
 
 Again, though the Articles are silent on the point, 
 yet, generally speaking, it is the Roman Catholic 
 doctrine that miracles have not ceased ; the Protes- 
 tant, or Church of England opinion, that they have 
 ceased, unless possibly on extraordinary occasions. It 
 is but the other day that, on a Hospital Sunday, I 
 found myself invited by the hymn we were bidden 
 to sing to inform the Almighty that He no longer 
 
262 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 cures by word or by touch, but compels us to study 
 the laws of nature in nature's book for the cure of 
 diseases. The writer of a very moderate and neutral 
 hymn-book assumes that to be the doctrine of the 
 Church of England. Now I should think that thei-e 
 are few religious people who are not under a strong 
 and reasonable conviction that if they have not actu- 
 ally worked miracles themselves, they have witnessed 
 them, and have even contributed. There is a kind 
 of miracle which is not called a miracle, for no other 
 reason than that it seems only a succession of provi- 
 dential interferences. But many Christians must 
 know of miracles that may be projjerly so called. 
 
 When I was only eleven or twelve years old, I 
 was much impressed with an occurrence which at a 
 later age I might have disposed of in some easy fash- 
 ion. My father had an old man in his employment, 
 old enough to have taken him to school when he was 
 nine years old. Thomas Hill had attended John 
 Wesley in one of his peregrinations for three weeks, 
 taking care of his horse. In that service he was 
 likely to pick up some sj^ecial beliefs. However that 
 might be, he had a confident belief that he could 
 charm warts away. My chief friend at my Derby 
 school was Edward Greaves, a handsome, well-gi'own, 
 healthy lad, but with one hand, the right I think, 
 covered and deformed with warts. I talked to him 
 of Thomas Hill and his charm. He consented to try 
 it. The old man required an assurance from me, 
 and from my school-fellow, that we were not trifling, 
 and that we had some faith in his power. He did 
 not wish to see my school-fellow. I had to remember 
 and describe the warts, and whereabouts they were. 
 They were thirty-seven. In a fortnight they were all 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, 
 
 263 
 
 gone. What tlie old man had done I know not, but 
 wlien I told him the result he showed no surprise. It 
 was a matter of course. I could never hear it boldly 
 asserted that miracles had ceased without remember- 
 ing this incident. 
 
 Another instance I give, occurring as it did at the 
 very time I am writing of. In an unfinished and 
 j^artly ruinous mansion, not half a mile from Cholder- 
 ton parsonage, but in another parish, county, and dio- 
 cese, lay for a long time the mother of a large young 
 family, some time at death's door. The family came 
 to our church and school, their own being four miles 
 off. The woman, I cannot conceive why, became 
 quite sure she would recover if she received the Sac- 
 rament, and die if she did not. She naturally ex- 
 pected me to administer it, for she had never seen the 
 Vicar of her own parish. Neither had I, but I knew 
 him to be a hard cut-and-dried " Evangelical," and I 
 felt sure that if I had written to him he would have 
 given the poor woman talk and no more.. He would 
 certainly have prohibited me from administering. 
 So, with due notice, I administered to her and some 
 of her neighbors. She immediately recovered, and 
 was at church again in a few weeks. The Vicar 
 heard of it, and wrote to me that if the people there 
 wanted spiritual aid, he was ready to give it. He 
 came over and made arrangements for a fortnightly 
 evening meeting in the unfinished mansion. He had 
 a meeting once, and never again, — true son of an 
 Established Church, good to stop a work and nothing 
 else. 
 
 I should not be bold to mention such experiences 
 had I not frequently heard the like. Indeed, among 
 the religious ideas that come up naturally and spon- 
 
264 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 taneously, apart from cburches, schools, forms of doc- 
 trine, and controversies, none are so common as those 
 which testify to a deep and universal belief in the 
 interference of the Almighty in human affairs, con- 
 tinual, and occasionally manifest. Such a belief may 
 and does dwindle into superstition, and it is all the 
 more likely to do so if it be not recognized, and if 
 it be even denounced, and so driven into the dark 
 corners of individual minds as little fanaticisms. It 
 is very commonly observed by objectors that you 
 don't hear such incidents first hand, and that second- 
 hand reports are good for nothing. But it takes more 
 than ordinary courage for any one to tell anything of 
 the soi't first hand, for in the very act of telling it he 
 is held by many to forfeit all claim to respect and 
 even belief. 
 
CHAPTER ex. 
 
 THE CHUKCHES OE ENGLAND AND OF ROME. 
 
 What were tlie leading issues between the Church 
 of England and the Church of Rome, as I had been 
 early taught to regard them ? Most Englishmen 
 would exclaim at once that truth was the first point. 
 The Church of Rome, they would say, is a fabric of 
 lies. But already, forty years ago, all the party of 
 progress, all the leaders of thought, all the philosoph- 
 ical institutions, and most of the Liberal statesmen, 
 believed the Bible also to be a fabric of lies. The 
 sacred history, the sacred canon, and the sacred text 
 were now in the same categoi-y with the most astound- 
 ing Roman legends and the most flagrant forgeries. 
 The uncompromising enemies of Rome were on peace- 
 ful and friendly terms with those who believed the 
 Bible a string of fables and the Church of England a 
 usurpation. But if I go farther back, indeed now 
 twice as far, I find that actnal, indeed inevitable, 
 Liberalism was the rule of English societv. In the 
 all-important matter of edncation there was no help 
 for it. For two years, from 1811, I went to the only 
 good day school at Gainsbro'. It was kept by a 
 Socinian brother and sister, assisted by the widow of 
 an Independent ministei-, for whose son my father 
 had raised a subscription to send him to Rotherliam 
 College. One of my godfathers was a Socinian. We 
 were on the most intimate terms with the Socinian 
 
266 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 minister, and his cliildren were our chief nursery- 
 friends. The Evangelical curate was found one day 
 standing in the vestibule of the Unitarian chapel to 
 pick up strange utterances, and great was the storm 
 that fell on hiui. In the year 1817, I and my brother 
 were going to the only classical scliool at Derby, 
 kept by a scoffing, clever, and idle Unitarian minis- 
 ter, a friend of Tom Moore, and the prophet, teacher, 
 and guide of the Strutt family. Towards the end of 
 the week he used to be for hours at his desk copying 
 Blair's Sermons in shorthand. Good sermons they 
 are, though one thing they lack. 
 
 Most of the young people in Derby or the neigh- 
 borhood, if their parents could afford it, had lessons 
 in mathematics, penmanship, and cipliering from 
 George Spencer, mentioned above, a strenuous up- 
 holder of truth, justice, and purity, but witliont any 
 faith or religion whatever, as far as one could see. 
 It was generally complained that he talked more 
 than he taught, and in fact made his lessons the 
 vehicle of his opinions. It was borne because he was 
 a very interesting talker, and still more because there 
 Avas nobody else to have in his place. He was a 
 necessity, and an agreeable one. Truth was not in 
 those days the supreme object of contention between 
 any two churches, or between the Church of England 
 and the dissenters generally. 
 
 The next reply would possibly be the English jeal- 
 ousy and fear of the supernatural, especiallj'^ when 
 supposed or pretended to be in the hands of liuman 
 authorities. The Roman Church jDeopled the air 
 with spiritual existences and powers, by whose con- 
 verse and assistance it could overcome all secular 
 opposition. This fear was and is universal, but with 
 
THE CIIUrCHES OF ENGLAND AND OF ROME. 267 
 
 strange inconsistencies. People of all classes believe 
 in pveternatiiral interference, though of the most 
 unaccountable, casual, and even ridiculous kinds. 
 Absurd ideas of luck are universal. As I myself do 
 believe in a Providence working in the midst of us, so 
 I trace threads of special causation ever working to 
 worthy ends. But such a belief is not confined to 
 the superstitious. It creeps out in the speculations of 
 the wisest, unless indeed they are sitting down to 
 write a book showing that there is no such thing. 
 The terror of the supernatural culminates when the 
 awful element is placed in authorized hands and 
 directly associated with material means and forms. 
 
 A woman whom I had often to see as a parish cler- 
 gyman had excused or overlooked in her favorite son 
 crimes and abominations that it would take pages to 
 enumerate, and had just been helping him to bully 
 his poor deserted wife into giving up some baby 
 things she fondly cherished, and a sum of money that 
 had come to her after her desertion, for the benefit of 
 his paramour. More I could say, and worse. But 
 this woman shuddered with unaffected horror at the 
 discovery that the minister blesses the water in the 
 font previous to baptism. 
 
 The exact nature of this horror it is not easy to 
 state, but no doubt it has to do with the extreme 
 repugnance felt to attaching significance to certain 
 awful words in Scripture. It may be the flesh 
 shrinking from the thought of the Almighty being so 
 near and working by mysterious ways; but I suppose 
 it will be ascribed more to David's fear of being 
 placed in the hands of man. For myself, I never 
 could put bounds to supernatural agency ; and while 
 I could not commit myself to positive statements ex- 
 
268 
 
 REMINISCENCES, 
 
 eluding many good meu from the very pale of Chris- 
 tian belief, on the other hand I could not go along 
 with those who were as absolute and dictatorial in 
 their negative definitions. If I should ever be com- 
 pelled to decide, I would not be negative at all 
 events. 
 
 Another issue there was between the two churches, 
 which I suppose to be, with much change of form, 
 the same that there has always been in this country. 
 It is the question of spiritual loj^alty. Will you be 
 loyal to the Pope or to the King ? The latter alter- 
 native has come to mean loyalty to the Constitution, 
 the traditional character, and the customs of this 
 countrJ^ Till several thousand of the best men and 
 women in England had gone over to Rome, any indi- 
 vidual venturing on that step was a deserter, a rene- 
 gade, a turncoat, and everything that was bad, odious, 
 and contemptible. The feeling in its intense form 
 had come down from the Reformation, when any- 
 body who disputed the royal supremacy in spiritual 
 causes was hung, drawn, and quartered, and his 
 head and quarters stuck up over the chief gate of the 
 town. The feeling was renewed and embittered 
 from time to time by fresh outbreaks of Irish an- 
 archy. 
 
 This loyalty, even if it were darkness, was felt. 
 Of all sentiments loyalty is that which most endures 
 changes, not only in circumstances, but in the object 
 of its regard. In the questions between us and Rome, 
 on neither side is it easy to define and describe the 
 object of loyalty. All who protest against Rome in 
 this country are devotedly loyal to something, which 
 they believe to be common among themselves, though 
 no two agree what it is. The sentiment is indeed all 
 
THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND AND OF ROME. 269 
 
 the stronger because it cannot explain itself, and is 
 pi'oof against the assaults of reason. 
 
 Forty years ago, even more than now, a convert 
 to Romanism had no future in this world. That 
 showed the dire character of the issue at stake. The 
 event proved that to the great multitude who had 
 joined the Oxford movement, this was no terror. It 
 was plainly disregarded by the thousands that went 
 over, many not knowing how they were to earn their 
 daily bread, and it was never imputed to those that 
 did not go over that they were deterred by this ap- 
 prehension. 
 
 If I hesitate to recall more of the workings of my 
 mind at tliat critical epoch, if I even feel I have not 
 done justice to those which I have now confessed to, 
 I must remind my readers that over those strange 
 searchings and misgivings there have now ebbed and 
 flowed for near forty years the tides of a great ocean, 
 and there have rolled to and fro the sands of a great 
 desert. People may perhaps remember what they 
 saw and heard forty years ago. But they cannot so 
 easily remember what they were themselves, unless 
 indeed they take greater pains to preserve intact and 
 unchanged a grand individuality than I have done. 
 
 But why did I go so far, and why did I not go 
 farther? Why enter upon arguments, and not accept 
 their conclusions ? Why advance to stand still, and 
 in doing so commit myself to a final retreat? The 
 reasons of this lame and impotent conclusion lay 
 within myself, wide apart from the great controversy 
 in which I was but an intruder. I was never really 
 serious, in a sober, business-like fasliion. I had 
 neither the power nor the will to enter into any great 
 argument with the resolution to accept the legitimate 
 
270 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 conclusion. Even when I was sacrificing my days, 
 my strength, my means, my prospects, my peace and 
 quiet, all I had, to the cause, it was an earthly con- 
 test, not a spiritual one. It occupied me, it excited 
 me, it gratified my vanity, it soothed my self-com- 
 placency, it identified me with what I honestly be- 
 lieved to be a very grand crusade, it offered me the 
 hopes of contributing to gi-eat achievements. But 
 good as the cause might be, and considerable as my 
 part might be in it, I was never the better man 
 for it, and, not being the better, I never was the 
 wiser. In fact it was to me, all or most of it, an out- 
 side affair. 
 
 I sometimes felt a sort of parallelism in the case 
 of the Rev. Mr. Brown, described by one of the 
 essayists of the last century. Though a good, kind, 
 and useful man, an excellent preacher, dutiful in all 
 his relations, he was all his life under the miserable 
 impression that he had no soul. He had searched 
 and probed and found it not. What he did was by 
 impulse, necessity, law, attraction and resolution of 
 surrounding forces, not by any independent, judicial, 
 and controlling volition. He was the very thing our 
 evolutionists delight to imagine themselves; but Mr. 
 Brown, who had no philosophical system to support, 
 could not be reconciled to the want of a personal 
 identity. One may justly ask what part of his nature 
 it was that felt this life-long misery. It could not be 
 his body, for the body is found to be c;ipable of 
 getting on very contentedly without a soul, or, what 
 is the same thing, without recognizing it. It must 
 have been the soul, and by that proof one is happy 
 to feel certain that Mr. Brown had a soul, though 
 smitten, probably from early years, with some pain- 
 ful, though not fatal, infirmity. 
 
THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND AND OF ROME. 271 
 
 My case was really worse than Mr. Bro^vn's, for 
 he must have been half mad, and I, say, only a 
 quarter mad, which made me more responsible. I 
 never doubted I had a soul, and on that account, 
 perhaps, left it to take care of itself. I was before 
 the world ; I had enjoyed many special favors of 
 Providence ; I was acting a considerable part ; I was 
 the companion of many noble personages ; I was 
 moving, writing, doing, and satisfying myself with 
 the work of my own hands ; I was seeing a great 
 work going on all around me ; I was fighting giants 
 with my sling and stone ; I was exercising functions 
 important and appreciated in the literary and relig- 
 ious world; I had always more contempt than I 
 could express for inferior understandings, even when 
 combined with sterling moral and religious qualities. 
 But Mr. Brown might have been and done all this 
 without a soul, and without even discerning the want 
 of it. 
 
 The commanding faculty, however, the real con- 
 science, the true master of the house, that is the soul, 
 I certainly had, as I still have ; but I then let it, 
 that is myself, alone, while I was pothering about all 
 the world. The result is, all I did, or said, or wrote, 
 was under inevitable misguidance, haphazard work ; 
 excesses, shortcomings, needless things done, needful 
 things left undone ; wild sallies, sad collapses, melan- 
 choly breakdowns, driving the chariot of the sun in 
 the morning, wallowing in a bog before noon. Even 
 a child that said its prayers regularly, and examined 
 itself, and repented of what was amiss, would be 
 stronger and wiser than I. 
 
CHAPTER CXI. 
 
 HAVEE AND INGOUVELLE. 
 
 By the second week of July, 1843, my wife had re- 
 turned from a course of visits, in which she had sought 
 for sleep, but in vain. She desired to try more thor- 
 ough change. Neither she nor I had ever been out 
 of England. I provided for my duty, borrowed j£50 
 from my principal tithe-payer on the Micliaelmas ac- 
 count, and drove to Southampton, whence we crossed 
 to Havre. In the passage I recognized Mr. Evans, 
 the Vicar of Pusey, whose acquaintance I had made 
 eleven years before this. He was returning to his 
 family, settled for a time at Caen, for cheapness, and 
 for the language. On our landing, most of the pas- 
 sengers accepted the invitation of Mr. Wheeler to his 
 English hotel. There we had a wholesome early din- 
 ner for two francs a head, Mr. Wheeler himself pre- 
 siding. 
 
 I then walked up and down the quay. No words 
 can express the exhilaration I felt in the sights and 
 sounds of a new world. The air seemed clearer, the 
 sky brighter, the pace of life quicker, the voices 
 sweeter, the manners and gestures those of ladies and 
 gentlemen. The women, very simply and neatly 
 dressed without shawls, with light caps and light 
 shoes, looked as if they went in and out of their 
 houses without change. There was no costume to be 
 seen here. The quay was lined with shops full of 
 
HAVRE AND INGOUVILLE. 
 
 273 
 
 the things brought home by sailors ; every variety of 
 caged birds, monkeys, shells, corals, and the garments, 
 ornaments, and weapons of natives. The town is not 
 ancient. Its chief antiquity is a large round tower 
 flanking the mouth of the harbor, built, I think, by 
 Francis I. The general look of things is modern ; 
 the imposing fortifications — since levelled — were 
 of course by Vauban. Notre Dame is comparatively 
 modern and disappointing. I entered and found 
 groups of worshippers all over, on their knees at this 
 altar, or that picture or image, as it might be. The 
 streets were noisy, close, and hot. The church was 
 cool and quiet. The worshippers came and went, 
 sprinkling themselves, or one another, with holy 
 water, and crossing themselves. 
 
 Going up the harbor I came to a large dock crowded 
 with ships, most of them with sacred names, one of 
 them St. Augustine, of whom I was soon to hear so 
 much. The full figures of the saints, in many-colored 
 vestments, adorned the prows. Crowds of men were 
 busy unlading immense bales of cotton. The town, 
 as I soon found, was full and overflowing with cotton. 
 Every coach-house and stable, every shed, was filled 
 with cotton bales. Long trains of carts were convey- 
 ing it to mills in the interior, each cart made with two 
 poles, thirty feet long, across the axle-tree of two enor- 
 mous wheels, forming at once the body and the shafts. 
 There was always a long-legged horse in the shafts, a 
 stronger horse before him, and a clever little horse in 
 front. Whenever these carts had surmounted a hill, 
 and were to descend the other side, the leading horse 
 and even the second also, if necessary, were detached 
 from the front and attached to the rear. The remain- 
 ing horse or horses in front were then made to ad- 
 
 VOL. II. 18 
 
274 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 vance, dragging the others backwards. If the down- 
 ward pace became dangerously rapid, the horse or 
 horses in the rear were flogged to excite them to 
 greater resistance. In one or two windows were 
 plans of a contemplated railway from Havre to Paris. 
 This surprised me more than anything else I saw, 
 for, living in the country so many years, I had settled 
 into the idea that railways were peculiarly English, 
 and that Frenchmen could not be trusted with such 
 tremendous devices. I had scarcely believed my 
 senses when I heard some of the engine-men on board 
 our steamer talk French. Yet I was gratified to ob- 
 serve that the world generally was learning. 
 
 At the upper end of the dock was the shell of a 
 splendid opera house burnt a few weeks before, imme- 
 diately after the performance of Roherto il Diavolo. 
 The manager, who had just gone to bed, found the 
 flames outside his chamber door, and got out of the 
 window upon the broad cornice. There he stood, or 
 paced, imploring aid, which was impossible. After 
 being half burnt he threw himself down and was 
 killed. It did not seem to me a proper place for a 
 theatre, but of course the object was to catch the poor 
 sailors. 
 
 After a night at Mr. Wheeler's we crossed the forti- 
 fications, and went up a very steep, narrow street into 
 Ingouville, looking out for desirable lodgings. We 
 soon closed with some a good way up, next door to 
 a house occupied by an English clergyman, his wife, 
 and a clever and pretty daughter. From our windows 
 we commanded the most beautiful view I had then 
 seen in the world. Since that I have seen many of 
 the grand panoramas people travel a thousand miles 
 to see, if haply the sky favors them, but this still 
 
HAVRE AND INGOUVILLE. 
 
 275 
 
 holds its own in my memory. Havre with its docks 
 and fortifications lay at our feet, but far below ; be- 
 yond lay the ocean and the broad estuary of the Seine, 
 all alive with small craft, and beyond the latter Hon- 
 fleur, backed by a range of hills, and a famous sailor's 
 church crowning one of the summits. 
 
 We had almost a superfluity of attendance, for the 
 wife and three daughters of the ship's captain, to 
 whom the house belonged, competed for the honor and 
 pleasure of waiting on us. Adele, Celeste — I wish 
 I could remember the other name — were good-look- 
 ing, good-natured, and sprightly girls, whom we set 
 down as fair specimens of the country. Later expe- 
 riences lead me to suspect that they would have 
 amused a Parisian as much as they did us. They 
 were always in and out, always running up and down 
 the stairs, like the angels in a picture of Jacob's lad- 
 der. If we asked a question it was sure to involve an 
 immediate appeal to the room below, answered as 
 quick and shrill. While waiting on us one of them 
 suddenly uttered a thrilling scream. It was to call tlie 
 attention of the family below to the feu d' artifice — a 
 sky-rocket rising from the town. Our maid from Sal- 
 isbury Plain, who lived below with the family, and 
 could not speak or understand a word of French, was 
 in a maze of enchantment. Our clerical neighbor had 
 been in his house for some time, and he told us our 
 people were honest and good, but that the education 
 of the three young ladies had been neglected. How 
 they did stare at us, and, I must confess it, how we 
 did stare at them ! I found it impossible to keep my 
 eyes off. 
 
 Mr. Bowles very kindly took ray wife and child 
 several drives, while I walked ahead into " the bowels 
 
276 
 
 BEMINISCENCES. 
 
 of the land." The Tillage roads were of a black, 
 friable earth, which the least rain turned into deep 
 mud. The fences were everywhere bad. Every 
 quarter of a mile one came to a pair of immense 
 stone gateposts, with cornice and carvings, to indicate 
 the gentility of the proprietor, seldom with a gate or 
 even a passable road between them. All the village 
 women had short petticoats, bare legs, big sabots, 
 or nalied feet, and a coarse variety of the common 
 Englishman's nightcap, jauntily placed a little on 
 one side. I was told they were got for three-pence 
 apiece at the shops. As the women had good legs, 
 held themselves up well, and looked you in the face, 
 I could not have wished to improve their costume, 
 but it was not what I had expected. 
 
 In the outskirts of a village I came on a sight 
 which might serve to allay the prevailing panic of 
 France flooding us with cheap corn. In a triangular 
 bit of ground, may be an acre, not more, an old man, 
 his wife, and a lad, were in difficulties with a plough, 
 furnished with two wheels as big as those of a coster- 
 mongei-'s cart, and drawn by a lean horse, a cow, and 
 an ass. Not only at the end of every furrow, but in 
 the middle of it, the whole apparatus fell out of gear, 
 and a council of war was held to consider what under 
 the circumstances was best to be done. The two 
 farmers I had left in Salisbury Plain had, one a 
 thousand acres, the other six hundred ; with I am 
 afraid to say how many good horses. Here was 
 the bugbear our knavish politicians were frightening 
 them with. I tried to work out the problem before 
 me to its economical results, but did not succeed in 
 making it out quite so absurd as I expected. If these 
 people had no money, or not enough to run any risks 
 
HAVRE AND INGOUVILLE. 
 
 277 
 
 with, they could only do their best with the materials 
 on hand, namely, their three selves, the three ani- 
 mals, the rickety old plough, and fodder enough to 
 keep the cow in milk and the other creatures on 
 their legs. The interior of the plateau over Havre 
 was not picturesque, and even France I found could 
 be dull. 
 
 Our cooking at Ingouville was of course oily, and 
 my invalid wife could not touch it. She soon felt a 
 craving for English fare. Was there such ji thing as 
 an English ham in Havre ? Failing that, she must 
 have some English cheese. I spent some hours in 
 investigating the food resources of this populous town. 
 As to the ham, I started with a misgiving, for I had 
 not seen a fat pig since we had landed. There were 
 hams in the shops that looked like hard brown stones 
 picked up from the seashore. I expressly asked for 
 an English ham. There had never been such a 
 thing in Havre, they assured me. Why send to 
 England for hams, when they had too many pigs at 
 home ? 
 
 I had to fall back on cheese. I walked twice up 
 and down the chief street, and several streets inter- 
 secting it, and could not see anything an Englishman 
 would admit to be cheese, or could mistake for it. 
 When I asked for cheese I was referred to the 
 market women, who exhibited in their barrows what 
 looked like crumpets. Venturing to ask one of them 
 what sort of cheese it was, she instantly, without 
 giving me time to get out- of the way, cut one in two, 
 when there came out a stench which even now, at the 
 remembrance, comes up to my nose. At last some- 
 thing in a glass case caught my eye. It might be a 
 very ancient piece of cheese. So it was. It scarcely 
 
278 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 held together. There was a pound of it. I asked 
 the price. Had it been fresh, the price would have 
 been three francs, that is half-a-crown. But I might 
 have it for two francs, that is one and eight-pence. I 
 declined, and had to return home empty-handed. 
 
 Mr. Bowles had brought with him to France an 
 open carriage and a good horse. He soon found 
 himself in a gi'eat difficulty. The pedestrians occu- 
 pied the whole of the narrow streets, whether moving 
 or standing in groups. They got out of the way for 
 the public cabs, but not for the foreigner, — so he im- 
 agined. Complaining of this to a French gentleman, 
 he was told that if he drove as fast as the cabmen 
 he would find the course as clear as they did. The 
 fact was he had been creeping along at a snail's pace 
 for fear of accidents, and they were not used to it. 
 After that he rattled down the descent into Havre, 
 and never hurt anybody or had an angry word. 
 
 This will remind many of my readers of the horse 
 races, as they are called, in the Roman Carnival, 
 The horses, without riders, and infuriated by squibs 
 and crackers going off all about them, gallop the 
 length of the Corso, so closely packed with people 
 as to seem incapable of holding anything more. As 
 the horses' hoofs and the shouts of the crowd draw 
 nearer, the people jump right and left, just in time, 
 and immediately close again when the animals have 
 gone by. 
 
 Passing through M. Normand's shipbuilding yard, 
 I noticed something queer in the framework of a 
 small ship on the stocks. It was an experimental 
 screw steamer ; one of the first. 
 
CHAPTER CXIL 
 
 CAEN. 
 
 After a foi-tnight at Ingouville we went by sea to 
 Caen. Crossing the mouth of the Seine, and steam- 
 ing up the Orne, we saw by the way the little chance 
 Napoleon had of making Caen a considerable port. 
 The general view of the city is justly compared by 
 tourists to that of Oxford. There are even more 
 church towers and fipe buildings of all ages. The 
 stone, properly selected and managed, is about the 
 best in the world, at least for a pure atmosphere. 
 The old town is built upon a rock ; the new town on 
 a bog, the result being that, as at Pisa, thei'e is hardly 
 a perpendicular or horizontal line in it. 
 
 It was taken for granted that we were come to see 
 the races, to be run in the hippodrome, a mile course, 
 if so much, on a meadow close to the new town. We 
 looked out for lodgings cheap and picturesque, and 
 were prepared to pay for it " by the nose." These we 
 found at M. Marie's, a plumber and glazier, in Place 
 de Vancienne Boucherie, just opposite the famous Ab- 
 haye aux hommes, and a pile of buildings which we 
 understood to be the remains of the old ducal palace. 
 M. Marie's wife was Marie, and his only child Marie, 
 seven or eight years old, still wearing her Confirma- 
 tion dress. Every room in the house was floored with 
 tiles, and the circular stone staircase was encrusted 
 an inch thick with the dirt of many centuries, and, 
 where not so preserved , the steps were worn away. 
 
280 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Having long been acquainted with Pugln's " Nor- 
 mandy," I quickly went the round of the originals. 
 The interior of St. Etienne, or the Ahhaye aux 
 hommes, a church of cathedral dimensions, is much 
 lighter than that of our own Norman churches of 
 even a later date. Upon an immense slab in the 
 choir is deep engraved, Guillaume le Conque- 
 KANT. Our dear friends the Huguenots, nay our 
 revered ancestors many of us may say, did their best 
 to scatter the bones of the giant ; though the Revolu- 
 tionists seem to have found something left to wreak 
 their fury on. St. Pierre, with its wonderful per- 
 forated spire, is placed so low and is so beset with 
 nuisances, that we might pass it with little notice. 
 But it shows afar. Some of the" churches are lamen- 
 table ruins. The older St. Etienne, I think the one 
 with a large relief of the Conqueror on horseback, is 
 a store for firewood and for rags. 
 
 The picturesque tower of St. Nicholas has been 
 gutted for a shot tower, and it has been found even 
 necessary to cut away about a quarter of the spiral 
 staircase the whole height. At every round you have 
 to stride over a yawning abyss, and receive at the 
 same time a shower of molten metal on your hat and 
 clothes. It is one of the things one does on faith ; 
 you are told to do it, and you see somebody else doing 
 it ; then you do it yourself, and think no more about 
 it. The shower is not to be compared to a discharge 
 of confetti, or even to an ordinary hailstorm. 
 
 Of the original church, now called the Ahhaye 
 aux dames, founded by IMatilda, the great mother of 
 a thousand kings, there remain extensive ruins, and a 
 portion kept up for the Nuns, or Sisters of Charity, 
 and the patients of the Hdtel-JDieu. The nunnery 
 
CAEN. 
 
 281 
 
 is said to have been restricted to tlie noblesse. The 
 present buildings date from early last century, and 
 are magnificent. They make a hospital far surpassing 
 anything I had seen before, though I knew well the 
 infirmaries of Derby, Northampton, and Salisbury, 
 each said to have singular claims. The wards were 
 spacious and lofty ; every bed had its little table, its 
 books and its ornaments ; with a sacred picture or 
 image over head, and whatever one may expect in 
 a well-appointed bedroom. The Sisters of Charity 
 were moving about gently and silently. I had nut 
 seen anything to compare with the culinary arrange- 
 ments. Walking into the country I soon came on a 
 vast mass of ruins, apparently fresh from the hands 
 of the mason and the sculptor. It was a religious 
 house, interrupted and then destroyed at the great 
 Revolution. 
 
 Everything here indicated that we were in France, 
 and in the Normandy of history and of travel. The 
 men wore blouses, the vehicles were rude and anti- 
 quated ; the little children called out Le petit coehon ! 
 at the child with us, and threw stones at us on the 
 sly. Handsome women, old and young, were walking 
 about with magnificent fabrics of, lace towering over 
 their heads half a yard or more, with lace streamers 
 descending below their shoulders. One of these girls 
 was attracting the attention of the whole town by her 
 stature, her beauty, and her stately bearing. They 
 were coming out, and this was their introduction 
 to such society as was open to them. They were 
 peasant proprietors, with some land and plenty of 
 money. We were told the framework of their tall 
 caps was sometimes several centuries old, and that 
 the lace itself might sometimes be two centuries ; 
 
282 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 indeed, that some of these caps were worth several 
 hundred pounds apiece. Of course the wearers had 
 chaperons, who seemed proud of their charges, and 
 with their eyes well about them. 
 
 The Duke and Duchess de Nemours had come to 
 spend the race week at Caen. The Orleanists there 
 were said to be between two fires, the Legitimists and 
 the Republicans, and they wanted encouragement. 
 There were two grand functions at the Cathedral, and 
 the Duke and Duchess appeared in state. The occa- 
 sion of the first I forget, but it was ill attended, and 
 this 1 was told was an intended slight. 
 
 The next occasion was the first anniversary of the 
 death of the Duke of Orleans, and the solemn mass 
 for the repose of his soul. It appeai'ed to me that 
 besides the military, all Caen was there, the greater 
 part in robes of office, order, or guild. Talk of the 
 trappings of monai'chy ! I have seldom seen such 
 a display of robes as at the funeral of a hospital 
 physician at Paris three years ago. The most im- 
 posing feature of the ceremony at Caen was a semi- 
 circle of sappers, big fellows, with tall fur caps, black 
 beards, white aprons, and burnished axes, behind the 
 altar. In the open^gpace before the altar were the 
 Duke and Duchess on their knees, the former just a 
 foot or two from the slab of the Conqueror. With 
 a very small coin I induced a cotintrywoman to sell 
 me her gripe on the railing round the choir, and then, 
 mounted two or three steps, I could survey the whole 
 scene. At the usual time in the service, for I was 
 now beginning to be familiar with it, a priest so I 
 supjjosed him to be, came round with a plate, collect- 
 ing alms pour le mort ; that is, so I interpreted it, for 
 the repose of the Duke of Orleans' soul. He held his 
 
CAEN. 
 
 283 
 
 plate resolutely to the Duke de Nemours for not less 
 than a minute, the Duke remaining immovable. At 
 last an equerry, I suppose it was, advanced from the 
 circle and said a word to the priest, who withdrew. 
 Several times we met the Duke and Duchess driving 
 through the streets. No hats were taken off, as I was 
 told they would have been to any princes of the older 
 house. 
 
 Mr. Evans, the Pusey clergyman, -who had invited 
 us to call on him, was very hospitable and very 
 serviceable to us, and through him we made acquaint- 
 ances who called and left their cards at the glazier's 
 shop for us. Of Dr. Webber, Dean of Ilipon, and 
 one or two receptions at his handsome apartments, 
 occasionally occupied by the first Emperor I believe, 
 in the new town, I have a most agreeable remem- 
 brance. 
 
 I cannot remember how we became acquainted 
 with Mdlle. Tyrrell, The moment I saw her and 
 heard her name, I recognized her unmistakable like- 
 ness to a Miss Tyrrell I knew in Salisbury Plain, 
 since better known for her cottage hospital and other 
 good deeds at Ilfracombe. Figure, eyes, hair, fea- 
 tures, expression, and manner all the same ; the 
 character too. Mademoiselle told us these were the 
 characteristics of the whole family. They had all 
 dark brown eyes, and they were all blunt, truthful, 
 and good. She was very kind, and would do any- 
 thing for us, occasionally putting my courage to the 
 proof and my shyness to confusion. 
 
 She must take us over Le Bon Sauveur. It was a 
 grand establishment, covering a large area, but with 
 irregular and homely buildings, in which Nuns or 
 Sisters took charge of schools, orphans, deaf and 
 
284 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 dumb, idiots, sick people, and it seemed to me, all 
 that wanted help. For these multifarious purposes 
 there were four sources of support, — the city, the 
 department, the state, and charitable people. We 
 were in the heart of this universal I'efage when it was 
 explained to the Nuns that I was a priest, and that 
 the lady with me was my wife. They shrugged their 
 shoulders, exclaimed 3Ion Dieu ! uplifted their hands 
 and exchanged glances one with another. Our visit 
 proved unwelcome and fruitless, and I was a little 
 put out with my well-intentioned guide. 
 
 Mdlle. Tj'rrell it proved was really a cousin of our 
 English ]\Iiss Tyrrell, but in a very remote degree. 
 Tyrrell, whose glancing arrow killed Rufus, fled to 
 Normandy, and was never allowed to return. His 
 eldest son had to share his banishment. The second 
 son, having no pretence to the inheritance, was al- 
 lowed to settle in England. Mademoiselle was de- 
 scended from the older son, Miss from the younger. 
 Unless, what is not unlikely, there were intermar- 
 riages, the ladies were only related in the twenty- 
 fourth degree of consanguinity. That they should 
 have a strong family resemblance will not surprise 
 any student of genealogies. 
 
 In the cornfields, all about the upper town of Caen, 
 we saw immense wheels, of a very light construc- 
 tion, rising twenty feet above the ground. These are 
 called cerdes cTHercule. Every now and then, half 
 a dozen men clamber up the circumference and set 
 the wheel revolving. In this simple way blocks of 
 stone, each weighing as much as seven or eight tons, 
 are drawn along the galleries of the quarries seventy 
 feet below the surface, and up the shafts. 
 
 Our good friend Mr. Evans asked us to partake of 
 
CAEN. 
 
 285 
 
 a great treat his children were looking forward to. I 
 think we became as absorbed in the prospect as his 
 children were. He had received from home a real 
 English ham. A ham with peas and boiled potatoes 
 was a banquet for the Olympian deities. Perhaps one 
 of our party would have thought the menu improved 
 with bitter ale ; but nothing could be better than the 
 vin ordinaire, straight from Bordeaux, in the tun, and 
 bottled by Mr. Evans himself, costing him only two- 
 pence or threepence the bottle. 
 
 We wished to go to Bayeux to see the Cathedral 
 and the Tapestry, but, as our resources were limited, 
 I dreaded any enlargement of our plans. Mr. Evans 
 told us how to do it easily and cheaply. Early in 
 the morning he took us to a cab-stand where he was 
 known, and made an agreement with the driver of a 
 very rough hooded vehicle, with horse to match, tliat 
 I was to have the use of it a whole day for ten francs. 
 Dismissing the driver, who seemed right glad of a 
 holiday, I mounted and drove to Bayeux, seventeen 
 miles off. The country assumed an English charac- 
 ter, good farm buildings, large green fields, fine cattle, 
 and hedgerows. At Bayeux we had been told to ex- 
 pect an English-looking population, for it was a Saxon 
 tribe the Normans had made terms with. The peo- 
 ple I thought handsome, solid and well built, but not 
 pei'ceptibly Saxon. The interior of the cathedral is 
 beautiful ; all diaper work, as in Westminster Abbey. 
 It was a reminder of my poor unfinished church at 
 Cholderton, for it was evident the nave had been 
 built to half its height, and then left to the elements 
 for a century. The tapestry, in a large room built 
 for the purpose, we examined very closely. It is 
 a wonderful combination of simplicity and vigor ; 
 
286 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 all alive with great ideas struggling for expression 
 through a very rude medium. I held up the child to 
 see the work closely. As its wont was when held up 
 in that fashion, it kicked a foot through one of the 
 panes of glass. There 's my cheap journey to Bay- 
 eux ! I said to myself, thinking the damage would be 
 twenty francs or more. The custodian, a remarkably 
 fine specimen of the Norman womankind, went off, at 
 our request, to a glazier. He came, looking very 
 grave. Carefully measuring the broken pane, which 
 was not less than twenty inches square, he said the 
 new pane would be two francs, and the cost of put- 
 ting it in half a franc, altogether two and a penny of 
 our money. I drew breath again, and have ever since 
 believed Bayeux the most simple and honest city in 
 the civilized world. A few years after I had occasion 
 to consider the glass duties, and my principle through 
 that question was that England should be made as 
 like as possible to Bayeux. 
 
 It was quite dark before we got back to Caen. At 
 the entrance of the town the usual officer of the octroi 
 stopped us, and presented himself at the side with a 
 lamp, and something vei-y like a long sword. " Any 
 wine, or fruit? " he asked, and was proceeding, so it 
 seemed, to run his sword through a bundle lying on 
 the seat. Happily he was stopped in time, for it was 
 the child. 
 
CHAPTER CXIII. 
 
 LAJSTGRUNE. 
 
 Caen has a great secret, which it keeps to itself, at 
 least from foreigners. It is Langrnne. I cannot find 
 it in any map or handbook. I never heard of it be- 
 fore I went to Caen, and I have never heard of it 
 since. It is one of a long string of villages lining the 
 coast of Calvados ; the one nearest to Caen. The 
 coast is ironbonnd, as they say. Nothing bigger than 
 a small boat can approach it. For thirty miles of 
 coast the Caen stone stretches into the sea, forming 
 a rocky bottom for at least four miles from the shore. 
 A line of lofty perforated church spires warns strange 
 vessels off the shore. The coast people are primitive 
 and religious. Mdlle. Tyrrell and Mr. Evans agreed 
 that we must not leave Caen without a week or more 
 at Langrune. The clergy and the old noblesse went 
 there to be out of the way. People lived quietly and 
 sociably at Langrune. 
 
 So we went thei'e in a crowded omnibus. The 
 springs were light, and every now and then the body 
 of the vehicle came down with a frightful bump on 
 the solid axletrees. Half a mile out of the town the 
 driver alighted, took two blocks of wood, evidently 
 prepared for the emergency, forced them into the 
 springs, and stopped their play altogether. Under 
 these circumstances I had a distant and not very com- 
 fortable view of Chlteau le Henri, largely imitated in 
 
288 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 modeini English mansions. At length we found our- 
 selves on a low seashore, no scenery, no shipping, not 
 much in the way of buildings, no hotel, no bathing- 
 machines, or other outward signs of a watering-place. 
 
 We found shelter with another Madame Marie, 
 patronized by the English clergy. One of them, a 
 chaplain, she would be always talking about. He 
 would drop in late from Caen, knock at the door, and 
 throw lumps of earth at her window : " You bite, 
 why don't you come down ? Why don't you open 
 the door, you hete ? " You may call a Frenchwoman 
 a lete a hundred times, but not stujnde once. That 's 
 an eternal sepai'ation. 
 
 Mdlle. Tyrrell had secured for us the earliest atten- 
 tion of two priests, who with their sister, a young lady 
 in some employment at Caen, were taking their holi- 
 day at Langrune. There were many clergy there, and 
 some apparently studying for Orders, but these two 
 were evidently distinguished among them, and were 
 of a higher type. M. Achille Valroger had large, 
 dark, flashing eyes, fine features, a mouth combining 
 sweetness and power, and a good figure as well. 
 His brother Hyacinthe had a strong family likeness, 
 but his expression was more that of tenderness and 
 of mild humor, and he was a lame, misshapen dwarf.. 
 
 They were most agreeable talkers, and they re- 
 minded me of my old Oxford friends, in spite of the 
 difficulty of communication. For our sake they la- 
 bored to express every syllable slowly and distinctly, 
 and generally succeeded. They had heard much of 
 what was going on in England and at Oxford, and 
 they were familiar with the names of Newman and 
 Pusey ; indeed they knew some bits of their writings 
 better than I did. They took it for granted that 
 
LANGEUNE. 
 
 289 
 
 Newman would join their communion, and that he 
 was only lingering in order to bring more with him 
 in the end. This they seemed to think a natural and 
 proper proceeding, and I should doubt whether there 
 exists a Frenchman capable of thinking otherwise. 
 
 It may seem unwarrantable to attribute to a great 
 and gallant nation a moral code which few English- 
 men would be found to tolerate ; but France is a mil- 
 itary nation, and has also ever been divided into par- 
 ties practically at war, and observing the old maxim 
 that all is fair in love and in war. We Englishmen 
 hardly know what a great blessing we enjoy in being 
 able upon the whole to observe the code of honor, 
 even while we disagree. 
 
 How the Valrogers came to know the lady was 
 Newman's sister I cannot remember. My case was 
 plain in their eyes. It was that of the young Augus- 
 tine, and through a course of St. Augustine, chapter 
 and verse, they proceeded to take me. I walked with 
 them every day, and, strange to say, talked. My 
 readers will ask in what language. Though I wrote 
 a good French letter the year of the battle of Wa- 
 terloo, I have never been able to talk in French. I 
 have never even attempted. On the other hand my 
 clerical friends could not talk or understand a word of 
 English. There was nothing else to be done. I 
 talked Latin. Nobody knows what he can do till he 
 tries. Every time it was my " neck verse ; " I must 
 reply, and make myself understood. My Latin was 
 certainly neither colloquial, nor theological, nor phil- 
 osophical. Newman used to tell me it was hardly 
 prose at all, but made up of scraps of Virgil and 
 Ovid. However, I was understood. 
 
 My friends were very much interested in Oxford, 
 
 VOL. n. 19 
 
290 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 which was evidently something quite beyond their 
 conceptions. Of the theological course pursued there 
 I could give no account. As they answered my ques- 
 tions by rule, they expected me to do the same. They 
 would tell me their own system, why could not I tell 
 them ours? On one point I had the advantage. My 
 little Oxford Greek Testament must have been lying 
 about, for they were told I could read the original 
 into English. They could hardly believe it possible, 
 unless I were a most accomplished scholar whose fame 
 would go before him. But they evidently thought it 
 a superfluous accomplishment. The cumulated strain 
 upon me I found considerable, especially as there 
 were two of them, and when one ceased the other be- 
 gan. But happily they could change the subject, and 
 be very amusing. 
 
 Subsequent reflection satisfied me that besides mis- 
 takes of a more palpable character, the use of Latin 
 had one general ill tendency. It is the language of 
 grand sentiments and big things. I was in the case 
 of a common shopkeeper, not a bit better than his 
 neighbors, talking Bible. The medium itself involved 
 hypocrisy and a baseless assumption. This was our 
 first visit to a foreign soil, and we did not appear to 
 be in want of means in comparison with ordinary 
 Frenchmen. So our friends asked why wo had not 
 gone to Paris, instead of wasting our time at Caen 
 and Langrune. No Frenchman would hesitate for a 
 moment where to go. He, or she, would rather be at 
 Paris, with a bloody Revolution imaging all round, than 
 enjoying peace and safety in the provinces. So the 
 question was natural. 
 
 The answer I gave fills me with shame as I write 
 it, but yet was not wholly unreal. I said I did not 
 
LANGRUNE. 
 
 291 
 
 care to go to a city which had been the scene of such 
 terrible events. I wished to see France, not Paris ; 
 France as she used to be. This was a sentiment 
 above the scale of my friends, and they looked on me 
 as a sublime character indeed, and a great prize, if 
 the)' could secure me. As a fact, the horrors of the 
 great Revolution were fresh in my boyhood. I had 
 also felt extreme indignation at the then recent tri- 
 umph of the long Orleanist intrigues. So I was more 
 than satisfied to take our holiday at Caen, of which 
 my architectural books had told me so much. Several 
 of my Oxford friends had taken £20 or £S0 in their 
 pockets, and spent a month pleasantly in Normandy 
 and Brittany. Yet, as I think over the matter, I am 
 sure that with a hundred pounds to do what I liked 
 with, I should have preferred a visit to the city of 
 Revolutions, even if one Revolution more was raging 
 there, — perhaps the more for that. 
 
 The Valrogers invited me one day to walk with 
 them to call on an abbd, a great man, who was to bo 
 a dignitary, perhaps a bishop, some day. They were 
 disposed to quiz him, and, as we walked on, they 
 dwelt on the very respectful demeanor we should all 
 have to observe, and the attention we should have 
 to pay to the great man's utterances. It was plain 
 they did not like him much. I suspect he was an 
 Orleanist, or a trimmer. We arrived at a good house, 
 in a large walled garden, with broad green walks and 
 rows of trees and shrubs. The great man was not at 
 home. Well, we might as well take a turn in the 
 garden. 
 
 As we walked on, the brothers seemed to be en- 
 gaged in some topic of their own. We came to a 
 fine mulberry tree, under which lay a great quantity 
 
292 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 of ripe fruit. I stooped down to pick up some of it. 
 While I was so engaged my friends had turned a 
 corner and were out of sight, and the great man him- 
 self had suddenly appeared on the scene. He looked 
 at me graciously but inquiringly ; and he certainly 
 had a right to know how a stranger came to be in 
 his garden eating his mulberries. So out with ray 
 Latin. "Veni hue cum amicis quibusdam tuis, qui 
 cum te domi non inveniebant, volebant monstrare 
 mihi hortum tuum. Illi progressi sunt. Ego resta- 
 bam hie breviter ut fruges tuas consumerem — ut 
 vides." G. A. D. will blush for his country at the 
 thought of such Latinity being exhibited even to a 
 French abbe, but I should like to see him in the same 
 situation. The great man accepted the explanation 
 courteously, if not intelligently, and, walking on with 
 me, soon overtook the brothers. The fact was, on 
 coming home he had been informed that they, with 
 a friend, had gone into the garden, and he had fol- 
 lowed them. 
 
 My Latin I remember did not always avail me. I 
 went into Caen for letters, and took the opportunity 
 to get some bottles of ale. But what was I to get 
 them into? What is French for a small hamper? I 
 tried first one word, then another, and at each word 
 the good woman in the shop produced something 
 quite unsuitable. She called in all her neighbors, 
 who greatly enjoyed my perplexity. I succeeded at 
 last by signs, which I frequently found my only re- 
 source. 
 
 The Valrogers took for granted that I was consid- 
 ering the great question, and they daily impressed 
 upon me that no time was to be lost in the answer. 
 They gave us souvenirs, which lie before me, too 
 
LANGRUNE. 
 
 293 
 
 new, too little used. I cannot resist enumerating 
 them, and transcribing tlie inscriptions. To me they 
 gave, " M^thode courte et facile pour se convaincre 
 de la v^rit^ de la Religion Catholique," selected from 
 the writings of Bossuet, Fenelon, Pascal, and Bullet. 
 The inscription is " a M. Mozley, gage d'affectueus 
 devoument. H. de Valroger, chanoine honoraire de 
 Bayeux, et professeur de philosophie au S^minaire de 
 Sommervieu pres Bayeux (Calvados). Occurramus 
 omnes in unitatem fidei, Ephes 4." Under this is 
 written in another hand, "A. de Valroger, professeur 
 de theologie au Sdminaire de Nantes." From an in- 
 scription in "Oraisons Funebres de Bossuet," given 
 to my wife, I gather that Achille de Valroger had the 
 title of Abb^. The sister gave my wife " La Journde 
 du Chrdtien," compiled by M. I'Abbe Diipanloup 
 from Bossuet. It is neatly inscribed in her hand, 
 "a Madame Mozley, gage d'affectlon respectueuse et 
 ddvoude. Adele de Valroger." 
 
 The Valrogers wished to hear news from me, de- 
 cisive or at least favorable. The length of time that 
 has elapsed forbids a hope that those two men still 
 live to this world, or that if living they are still the 
 bright figures they then were. But they dwell un- 
 changed in my memory, and I fondly trust will never 
 die there, whatever else in the way of communion 
 may be the order and will of the Almighty. 
 
 We were, I think, two Sundays at Langrune. I 
 attended the services in the parish church, joining in 
 them witli certain reserves. The church was crowded 
 with men in blouses. In the adjoining parish the 
 fishermen had subscribed amongst themselves enough 
 to build a handsome and capacious church. The 
 people who say that Frenchmen never go to church 
 must confine their observations to the great towns. 
 
294 
 
 BEirmiSCENCES. 
 
 At one morning service, suddenly everybody was 
 seated, and there was a deep silence. A figure rose 
 up in the midst, upright, with marked features, and in 
 a splendid vestment, the name of which many of my 
 readers will know better than I do. He sang a song 
 to the Blessed Virgin with the brilliancy and fluency 
 of a glorious bird. The congregation was evidently 
 enthralled as much as I was. In the afternoon, as I 
 was roaming about the village, I heard the same voice 
 in the distance and followed it. A crowd of men 
 were sitting in and about a public house, and my 
 morning's friend was singing a comic song, at the 
 close of which he was greeted with loud applause. It 
 a little impaired the morning's illusion, and I did not 
 wait to hear more. Yet in all human affairs, in all 
 religions and classes, among the very best people, 
 there must and will be compromises. 
 
 On a day of unusual brilliancy, as we poured out 
 of the church, I noticed that the congregation, in- 
 stead of parting into different directions, moved in 
 one unbroken column, man, woman, child, rich and 
 poor, toward the sea-shore. I went with them, ig- 
 norant of the reason. To my amazement the sea had 
 disappeared, and in its place was a pavement of rock 
 stretching a mile from the shore, and right and left 
 further than I could see. Already there were groups 
 of people, and even carts far out. The congregation 
 immediately spread itself over tliis new world. It 
 was intersected everywhere by channels and lakelets, 
 full of sea life, in forms then quite new to me. The 
 water was so still and so clear that but for the crea- 
 tures movinof about one could hardlv see there was 
 any water at all. People with baskets were collect- 
 ing whatever might be worth the trouble. I walked 
 
LANGRUNE. 
 
 295 
 
 on and on, sometimes stepping deep in the still and 
 colorless pools, till it occurred to me to turn round. 
 I could no longer distinguish Langrune from half 
 a dozen other villages, which had all poured out 
 their populations into the deserted sea-bed. Lan- 
 grune, however, had a fine perforated church spire ; 
 the new church I have mentioned had not one to show 
 much. So I found my way back, with a handlierchief 
 full of curious starfish, sea-urchins, sea-anemones, 
 small polypuses, and other creatures. On getting 
 home I put them all into sea water, but they soon 
 languished and died. 
 
 The system of bathing at I;angrune was simple 
 enough. The bathers dressed for the sea in their 
 own houses, and walked half a mile, it might be, be- 
 fore they reached the shore. There they found 
 acquaintances with whom they walked into the 
 water, frolicked and danced for a time, and then 
 they returned home dripping like Newfoundland 
 dogs all the way. By this time tlieir feet were cold 
 and covered with mud or dust. But they were sure 
 to find foot-pans of hot water ready for them, both 
 for cleanliness, and to secure a wholesome reaction. 
 
 One of the roads from Langrune to Caen passed 
 by La Deltverande, a famous centime of pilgrimages. 
 If I remember rightly, the object of special venera- 
 tion was a miraculous image of the Blessed Virerin 
 that had survived various casualties. The chapel was 
 always open. Pilgrims were always arriving, some 
 in long procession from a distance. They were of 
 all ages, with one or more priests at tlieir head. One 
 of these processions I saw at Caen on its return. 
 The day was very hot and the general fatigue was 
 great, but they seemed to bear it easily. Once or 
 
296 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 twice I found the priests looked at us rather fiercely, 
 presuming us to be unsympathetic spectators. But 
 they had been walking many miles in a hot sun, a 
 dusty road, and in a crowd. The instincts of pil- 
 grimage and of processions are strong, and will 
 develop themselves in one form or another. The 
 Americans are eminently given to processions, to 
 anniversaries, to celebrations linked with places and 
 epochs. Yet they are beyond a doubt a sensible 
 nation. 
 
CHAPTER CXIV. 
 
 CHATEAU d'OUTEELAISE. 
 
 The Valrogers had early introduced us to a Count 
 and Countess de Polignac, and their rehitive the 
 Countess de Ste. Aldegonde. He was first cousin, so 
 I understood, of the minister whose eloquent but vain 
 protest on the eve of the July Revolution had so 
 much moved me. There was also a charming little 
 fellow, who might now be the head of the family. 
 They seemed to be doing it as cheaply and quietly as 
 anybody there, walking through the village in their 
 bathing costume, ducking and splashing, and dancing 
 in circles, like the rest, going home like drowned 
 rats, and shortly returning to the sands to walk and 
 talk. 
 
 The Valrogers had told them all about us, and 
 they no doubt desired our conversion, which they 
 understood to be in progress, but perhaps they even 
 more desired to impart to us their intense hatred of 
 Louis Philippe. It was not pleasant to us to hear a 
 reigning sovereign spoken of as they spoke of him, 
 especially as our Queen was about to pay him a visit, 
 which he was to return. "Would that he might 
 never get back again ! " they said, for, going and re- 
 turning, there were two chances of his going to the 
 bottom. They hated England also, but liked the 
 English individually. They had a skit at our Quoen 
 which of course applied not only to the whole 
 
298 
 
 REMnflSCENCES. 
 
 dynasty, from tlie Conqueror downwards, but to the 
 old French and most other European dynasties: 
 "She 's descended from one of our country girls." 
 
 The ladies talked English well, and knew many 
 English people, whom they expected us also to know, 
 not perceiving the difference between London and 
 Salisbury Plain. They had a great curiosity to 
 know more about England, which seemed to have pre- 
 sented itself to them in quite a new light now that it 
 was the field of a religious movement in the direction 
 of Rome. Movements usually meant destruction in 
 their eyes, but this was for union and for order, that 
 is for the proper subordination of classes and recog- 
 nition of authorities. But could any good thing 
 come out of England? In the emergency which 
 they contemplated, they invited us to take refuge in 
 France. So many people would be glad to make our 
 acquaintance. They found that I was myself bound 
 to return soon, for I had appointed to be home by 
 September for the work of the " British Critic." 
 Was my wife obliged to return with me ? I had 
 already pressed her to remain a month longer in 
 Normandy. So she gladly accepted an invitation 
 to Chateau d'Outrelaise, par Langannerie, Calvados. 
 
 Three weeks after my return home, she went there 
 with the child and the maid, and was very pleasantly 
 entertained for a fortnight. It was a grand liouse, 
 with lofty roofs, tall chimneystacks, a courtyard, a 
 fine gateway, and handsome suites of rooms. The 
 Polignacs were the old family of the place, and the 
 style was that of our own straitened and old-fashioned 
 gentry. They and the neighbors dropped in one 
 upon another. The French are really early lasers, 
 and their eleven or twelve o'clock breakfast is equiv- 
 
CHATEAU D'OUTRELAISE. 
 
 299 
 
 alent to our lunch. Any lady might choose that time 
 for a call. If it was fine, the company then walked 
 in the park, or looked at the poultry. I suspect 
 there were fighting cocks at Outrelaise. If it was 
 wet they played at billiards or had games. It was 
 now past the equinox, and the evenings were chill. 
 Once or twice in the evening, the Countess rose and 
 said, " Let 's make a tour d la roclie^' and then they 
 all went and warmed themselves at the kitchen fire, 
 talking with the old servants. 
 
 A contested election for the mayoralty of the vil- 
 lage was going on, and the family was indulging in a 
 faint hope that a friend might be elected. On the 
 contrary it was their worst enemy, and the success- 
 ful party came at the close of the election, which was 
 on Sunday, with banners and music, and kept hurrah- 
 ing for half an hour at the gate within hearing of the 
 chateau. The new mayor they described as a mon- 
 ster of depravity and low cunning. 
 
 My wife was very desirous to make use of the op- 
 portunity to acquire the best idiom, pronunciation, and 
 accent. These the Polignacs told her are confined to 
 the best society, and could not be communicated to 
 the mass of the French people, much less to foreign- 
 ers. As for the people of Normand}^, they all talked 
 broad ; they were too near England. " But the 
 clergy? Don't they talk good French, and pronounce 
 it properly?" They smiled at the idea. " tlow 
 should they speak French ? sons of peasants and epi- 
 ciers ? " "Now don't the Valrogers talk good French 
 and speak it well ? " " Tliey talk the language cor- 
 rectly, but it is not the language or the pronunciation 
 of the salons. Very few even of the bishops can talk 
 and pronounce as they should. You can tell them to 
 
300 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 be a class of their own." As they illustrated these 
 criticisms with examples of the right phrase and the 
 right tone, and the wrong ones to be naturally ex- 
 pected in a pai-ish priest, and even a bishop, it seemed 
 to be too evident that the fastidiousness of excessive 
 civilization had created a bar between the noblesse and 
 the clergy themselves, now that the latter were more 
 than ever from the bourgeois and peasant classes. 
 An unapproachable excellence was its own down- 
 fall. 
 
 But poverty came in as a mitigation of pride. The 
 dinners and the menage were as simple as those of an 
 English parsonage. These good people relished a po- 
 tage that here would have been put out for the dogs. 
 The ladies, as I saw at Langrune, dressed as simply 
 as shopkeepers, though with a little more taste. They 
 were ready to discuss freely the downfall of the old 
 French noblesse and their exclusion from the political 
 and the larger social circle. Generally speaking it 
 was owing to their poverty, the immense burdens 
 that lay upon them, the complicated state of the 
 land, the clergy, the religious houses, the poor retain- 
 ers and dependents, the old servants, and above all 
 the younger sons to be provided for, in the first, sec- 
 ond, and third degree, there being but few openings 
 for regular enterprise. 
 
 When these people could hardly pay their way in 
 the country, in the heart of their own belongings, 
 they could scarcely hope to make an appearance at 
 Paris. However, they had to make great efforts, to 
 borrow money, and attempt now and then a Parisian 
 season. But here was the great pinch of all. To 
 bankers, farmers of the revenue, and successful spec- 
 ulators, Paris was in season all the year. They were 
 
CHATEAU D'OUTRELAISE. 
 
 301 
 
 at home at Paris. The country noblesse could only 
 afford to come up late in spring or early in summer. 
 The wasteful wood fires of a roomy and windy chS.- 
 teau were ruinous at Paris. A good fire was esti- 
 mated to cost twenty francs a day. The whole scale 
 of expenditure was impossible to a country gentle- 
 man. He became more and more a stranger and a 
 foreigner at Paris, and meanwhile the object of in- 
 creasing envy, jealousy, and aversion. Other reasons 
 I know can be given for the lamentable fate of the 
 French nobility, involving as it did the fall of the 
 monarchy ; but it was the social question that these 
 ladies dwelt upon. 
 
 Some years ago an announcement in the papers 
 suggested that the pretty little fellow I saw with his 
 mother at Langrune might have been listening to 
 these and the like discussions to some practical pur- 
 pose. M. Polignac, it ran, had just married the 
 daughter of a fashionable and wealthy modiste. How 
 I wish I could ever be sure that he had not fulfilled 
 the common saying that a young French lad is an 
 angel, but grows up into something else ! The Polig- 
 nacs corresponded with my wife, I think, as long as 
 she lived. Tlieir letters were always interesting and 
 amusing, but also very bitter. They lie buried in ac- 
 cumulation a few yards from me, but I shall never see 
 them. For what remains of my eyesight and of my 
 wits has other work to do. 
 
 It was the last week of September, 1843, and the 
 first of October that my wife spent at the Chateau 
 d'Outrelaise. In a few days, and after a very stormy 
 passage, I met her again at Southampton, and brought 
 her home to Cholderton. Everything she had heard 
 or seen abroad had fixed her more where she stood ; 
 
302 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 and I also by that time had come to the conclusion 
 to leave theological questions to those who are more 
 capable or more worthy of them, and to confine my- 
 self practically to the lines of the Church of England, 
 as far as I could discern them. 
 
CHAPTER CXV. 
 
 "BRITISH CRITIC," NO. LXVIH. 
 
 I LEFT Langrune on the last day of August. As 
 we steamed down the Orne the tide had some hours 
 still to flow, and as the waters expanded we met 
 scores of little canoes, each with a tiny square sail, 
 and a single occupant steering rather than propelling 
 with his paddle. Each canoe had what appeared a 
 dangerously large freight of sand. It looked as if the 
 smallest wave would swamp it, and the men kept a 
 sharp look-out on our little steamer. Their practice 
 is to drop down with the ebb, and to allow themselves 
 to take the ground all over the sandbanks at the 
 mouth of the Orne. The receding waters leave them 
 high and dry. They then with their paddles scrape 
 together all the sand within reach, fill their canoes, 
 and quietly await the returning tide which floats them 
 back to Caen. Nothing is more remarkable in indus- 
 try than its many singular specialities. Passing along 
 the quay at Havre to my packet I saw a regiment 
 embarking in two small steamers for the Ch§,teau 
 d'Eu, where Louis Phillipe was expecting Queen Vic- 
 toria, on a short visit to the soil of France. The 
 spectacle was new and strange to me, the soldiers 
 having to pass rapidly along the plank, heavily ac- 
 coutred as they were, and form themselves into coils 
 all over the deck, where there could be barely stand- 
 ing room. 
 
304 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 On the first of September I was again in Salisbury 
 Plain. Before my eyes, in more senses than one — 
 Pendent opera interrupta, minseque 
 Muronim ingentes. 
 
 There was my huge unfinished church before my 
 ■windows, and the work of the " British Critic " to be 
 resumed. There was also the parish and the school ; 
 every house to be visited, and some visits to be re- 
 ceived. But there was not much remaining to be done 
 with the forthcoming number of the "British Critic." 
 I should now be glad to be quite certain that I wrote 
 the very favorable review of that most extraordi- 
 nary yet most interesting poem, " Nature a Parable." 
 The writer entered this earth, as it were from another 
 sphere, burdened with a deep treasure of feeling and 
 thought, speaking almost a foreign language, and de- 
 livering his message in strange, stammering, not to say 
 uncouth enunciations. I am thankful to have been 
 one of those who could converse with him in his writ- 
 ings, and feel his great value. It must have been I, 
 too, who wrote the review of Formby's " Visit to the 
 East," for I cannot think of any alter ego likely to do 
 it. The notices I had always taken great pains with, 
 from a deep sense of the presumption I was guilty of 
 in writing them at all. On this occasion, when I 
 fully believed I should never have to review a book 
 again, I took more than usual pains. The notices of 
 this, the last number, marked the epoch. Huber's 
 " English Universities" had just been translated and 
 published by Frank Newman. The author of " Nature 
 a Parable " had published his Essay towards the Con- 
 version of learned and philosophical Hindoos. Mr. 
 E. W. Grinfield had published his very useful Hellen- 
 istic edition of the New Testament. Albany Christie 
 
"BRITISH CRITIC," NO. LXVIII. 
 
 305 
 
 had written on " Holy Virginity." Toovey was now 
 publishing devotional works of the new school ; a 
 " Manual for the Holy Communion," and extracts 
 from Thomas a Kempis for the use of the poor in St. 
 Giles' workhouse. Edward Blencowe, to whom I have 
 given a chapter, had gone to his rest, and here was 
 his funeral sermon : " The blessedness of the dead 
 which die in the Lord." There was also a funeral 
 sermon on the death of Robert Anderson, of Brighton. 
 
 A comprehensive paragraph rapidly and summarily 
 dispenses various meeds of honorable mention to 
 many writers of Sermons and Chai'ges ; among them 
 the Bishop of Salisbury, Robert Wilberforce, and 
 Archdeacon Manning, also Archdeacon Sir Herbert 
 Oakley, Bart., Mr. Dodsworth, Mr. Gresley, and Dr. 
 C. Wordsworth, and many others. This reminds me 
 that in some former number I had commented, as I 
 thouglit in the proper line of the Review, on Dr. 
 Wordsworth's new edition of his " Ecclesiastical Bi- 
 ography." He had struck out a good deal of matter 
 to make way for some of a decidedly Protestant char- 
 acter; so at least I remember it. I had intimated, in 
 I forget what terms, that the book was not the better 
 for the substitution. Not long after that a single line 
 in a note from Newman informed me that "the young 
 Wordsworths " were by no means gratified by my 
 remarks. They were not likely. One of these touchy 
 young gentlemen now presides over the diocese of 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Mr. J. E. Reade had published what he was 
 pleased to call " Sacred Poems on Subjects from the 
 Old Testament." Calling Jael a " fiend," he pro- 
 nounces a tremendous imprecation upon her. This 
 is quoted and observed upon, I forget by whom. 
 
 VOL. II. 20 
 
306 
 
 RKMINISCENCES. 
 
 Palmer of Worcester and Dr. Wiseman were at 
 issue, the former charging the latter with quoting 
 spurious and heretical writings ; and somebody had 
 stept in between them. Mr. ¥. D. Maurice had been 
 writing to Lord Asliley a monitory letter on " Right 
 and Wrong Methods of supporting Protestantism," 
 the right method being, in his opinion, to let anybody 
 say what he pleased. The writer of the " notice " ob- 
 serves in effect that this is sound doctrine, inasmuch 
 as an absolute and universal license of the tongue and 
 the pen must destroy authority, which, it is presumed, 
 is the object of Protestantism. The " Rationale Offi- 
 ciorum Divinorum," by Durandus, had now been 
 translated and published by J. M. Neale and B. 
 Webb. A " Tract upon Tombstones," by Mr. Paget, 
 elicited from me some of my newly acquired conti- 
 nental experiences. The Temple Church had just 
 been restored by Mr. Burges. Baptismal fonts, orna- 
 mental needlework, and encaustic tiles, the " Ecclesi- 
 ologist," and an Architectural Magazine are treated 
 raoi'e at length, perhaps, than they would have been 
 a few years before. Various poems, tales and biog- 
 raphies of the new school have all the help the last 
 words of the "British Critic" can give them. A 
 kindly word is bestowed on a speech by Lord John 
 IManners on the Laws of Mortmain, with a protest 
 against posthumous charity. 
 
 I must confess to a certain tremor as I turn over 
 the leaves to the very last words of the " British 
 Critic ; " and this tremor is not set at rest as one 
 observes the increasing confidence, not to say de- 
 pendence, of a large and increasing section of the 
 Anglican Church on its only periodical organ. Vari- 
 ous readers, I was reminded, had been desirous to see 
 
"BRITISH CRITIC," NO. LXVIII. 
 
 307 
 
 within a moderate compass the catalogue of the little 
 library, like an Examining Chaplain's list, which they 
 would have to read before they could be considered 
 graduates of the new Oxford school. Who were the 
 Oxford divines, and where could their views be found 
 comprehensively stated ? These inquirers were re- 
 ferred to some lists on the backs of the " Tracts for 
 the Times." 
 
 Another question then came athwart the whole 
 course of the English controversy. How about the 
 Established Church of Ireland ? Was it not united 
 by Act of Parliament vpith the English Church ? 
 What duty did we owe to it ? In a word, what had 
 we to do with it ? The writer of the notices appears 
 to have felt no more difficulty in answering these 
 questions than Mr. Gladstone has since lound in 
 extinguishing them altogether. 
 
 There was then much talk about a book occupying 
 a large and mysterious position on the skirts of the 
 Oxford movement. This was Mr. Kenelm Digby's 
 " Mores Catholici," the first volume of which had 
 been published by Dolman in 1880, and this, with 
 other volumes, was out of print, and could not be ob- 
 tained. 
 
 After satisfying some inquiries after this work, I, 
 the writer of these lines, did solemnly anathematize 
 Freemasonry as necessarily Antichristian. Being now 
 more than twice the age I was then, I feel I should 
 be disposed to think an anathema above the occasion, 
 and to agree with Cardinal Manning, who is said to 
 have told Pio Nono that English Freemasonry was 
 nothing more than a Goose Club. 
 
 Would that I had stopped there. My own last 
 breath, and it is a very long drawn one, as British 
 
308 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 Critic and Theological Reviewer, is a rather fierce at- 
 tack on my very dear master and friend, Edward 
 Churton, on the occasion of a letter written by him 
 to an Irish ecclesiastical journal. It is true the letter 
 was not a wise one, and certainly was not kind to the 
 Oxford writers, and poor Edward Churton must have 
 been fairly beside himself when he wrote it. How 
 otherwise could he have imagined there was any 
 chance of conciliating Irish Protestantism ? Had he 
 been in the full possession of his calm and clear intel- 
 lect he would have known that no sacrifice he could 
 make, no sop he could administer, would propitiate 
 that animal. It might have accepted the Oxford 
 writers as an instalment, but it would have opened 
 its maw speedily to devour him as well. Edward 
 Churton must have forgotten his learning, too, when 
 he appealed to Bishop Horne and Jones of Nayland 
 as men who never had an idea not fully warranted by 
 the Prayer Book and the Thirty-nine Articles. How- 
 ever, I am very sorry indeed that such were my last 
 words, and such the man they were spoken of. On 
 the opposite page is announced as preparing for pub- 
 lication, "Lives of the English Saints," edited by the 
 Rev. John Henry Newman B. D., Fellow of Oriel 
 College. 
 
CHAPTER CXVI. 
 
 INQUIRY AND INDECISION. 
 
 A WRITER wlio edited the penultimate number of 
 the "British Critic," went into a Roman Catholic 
 country, spent weeks in confidential communication 
 with Seminary priests, and returned to edit the ulti- 
 mate number, giving notice, at the same time, of his 
 retirement, may be supposed to have some account to 
 give of himself. I cannot, however, say that this ac- 
 count was ever asked of me. The interest of the re- 
 ligious and theological world was then drawn in an- 
 other direction, — other directions indeed, for there 
 were others besides the chief, then occupying much 
 more attention than I had ever wished to occupy. 
 They were at Oxford and London ; they were before 
 the world, and they gave their names. They wrote 
 what they spoke, and tliey spoke what they wrote, 
 instead of the cold shadowy impersonality of the anon- 
 ymous writer. Newman, always turning his face to 
 his assailants, had retreated from the visible battle- 
 field of the University, battered and buffeted by Ser- 
 mons, Charges, and Censures ; by sudden assaults 
 from the right hand and from the left, by strange for- 
 mations in which all differences were merged to gain 
 a momentary advantage over a common enemj', as he 
 seemed to be believed. He was now at Littlemore, 
 and " What next ? " was the question of the day. 
 On the other hand, his Oxford allies were the more 
 
310 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 prominent, and not the less courageous, for his ab- 
 sence from the front of action. They bad Oxford to 
 themselves. I might drop off as a rotten branch if I 
 pleased. 
 
 I have, however, an account to give, fcjr I had al- 
 ways kept an account in my mind, if nowhere else. 
 It was a very different account from that which New- 
 man has given to the woi'ld. He was at once the cen- 
 tre of a grand history, and, in his own inner being, 
 of a great spiritual development. Any account I 
 could render would be not so much the workings of 
 a spiritual life, or even of an ordinary well regulated 
 conscience, as of prepossessions, and sentiments, and 
 reasonings, and imaginations ; of likings and dislik- 
 ings ; of old prejudices, of sudden impulses, and of 
 other such stuff as this world is mostly made of. 
 Such as it was, however, all this account was before 
 me, as if I stood before a tribunal. The matter of ifc 
 was not in my inner being. I had only the percep- 
 tion of it. I had considered over and over again, 
 " How far does this commit me? " Where I gave in 
 I noted it as if I had passed a landmark. Was it 
 necessary I should so commit myself ? I came to the 
 conclusion that it was necessary, for not to advance 
 was to recede, and to recede I was not prepared yet. 
 In the works of all these writers whom I made my- 
 self answerable for, I can recall but little that did not 
 seem to be in mj^ mind already, only waiting till I 
 had the power of expressing it, or of recognizing it 
 as expressed by otliers. In the fearful irresponsibil- 
 ity of one's own thoughts, I had already gone very 
 far. 
 
 But in what region had I gone far ? Was it in the 
 region of a living, or even of a positive faith ? It was 
 
INQUIRY AND INDECISION. 
 
 311 
 
 not. It was in the region in which I liad accepted 
 the creations of poets, the vagaries of philosophers, 
 the systems of dreamers, and the almost equally fan- 
 ciful conceptions of historians. It was the region in 
 which I had long before been fumbling at a mad phi- 
 losophy of ray own. For many years of my life, my 
 chief relipcious conclusions had been of a negative 
 character, one continual revolt against the hoUowness, 
 flirasiness, and stupidity of " Evangelical " teaching. 
 That could do one no good. Better close with any 
 heresy, not very extravagant, than be only learning 
 to believe nothing at all. It was some years before 
 that I was spending a day in a mixed company of the 
 new school and the old. The former freely criticised 
 some score or two popular preachers and writers. A 
 hitherto silent listener took advantage of an opening 
 to ask, " What preacher is there that you do like ? " 
 
 I suppose the truest as well as the most compre- 
 hensive account to be given of niy early religious 
 career is that I was simply following my own sweet 
 will and my own idle fancies, and that such being the 
 case, I had no call to find fault with any preaching 
 or any system. Reason, however, had some voice in 
 the matter. Though we read the awful warning, 
 "Beware of hypocrisy," the "good people," in the 
 common estimate of that period, seemed to think 
 hypocrisy the last thing to be afraid of. I knew well 
 I must be spiritually changed, and so regenerate. 
 I knew well that Christ must dwell in me, and I in 
 Him ; and that I must be holy even as He is holy. 
 But if I listened to these good people I was bound, 
 immediately upon any suddenly increaocd conviction 
 of these truths, to begin preaching to all about me, 
 and proclaiming a conversion, which in truth I be- 
 
312 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 lieved must be a life's work, and a thing to be demon- 
 strated in deeds not in words. 
 
 Yet, was I true to my own sober and judicious con- 
 victions, thus carefully adapted to personal conven- 
 ience and to social exigencies ? That I was not. I 
 might be wise, that is I might be forming wise opin- 
 ions upon pei'sons and things, and schools of preach- 
 ing, but that was all the wisdom I had. I was wise 
 and foolish at once, and I knew it. I was all things, 
 not to all persons, but to myself. So heterogeneous 
 and conflicting did I feel the constituents of my men- 
 tal being that, taught by my own experience, I never 
 had the least difliculty in conceiving a person pos- 
 sessed of any number of evil spirits. To me it was 
 the same thing as a waste or a ruin being occupied 
 by all sorts of bad chai'acters or strange vermin. My 
 difficulty rather was the complete inhabitation and 
 dominion of one Spirit, commanding all the posts, 
 and throwing the light of truth everywhere. I lived 
 in a rebellion, and could only conceive warfare. 
 Often have I said to myself, " To be a good master 
 you must first be a good servant, and a good servant 
 I have never been." 
 
 This confusion, which was in my own nature, 
 affected all my vain, desultory, fruitless essays in the 
 field of theological inquiry. At every return to them 
 I felt as a man resuming a calculation or rearranging 
 the papers on his table. I was conscious of a tacit 
 reproof when I found so many men had clear, defi- 
 nite, and absolutely certain convictions. It would, 
 however, be possible, I said to myself, to produce any 
 number of such men, utterly disagreeing with one 
 another ; so that their happy confidence must be in 
 the temperament, and therefore not at command, or 
 
INQUIRY AND INDECISION. 
 
 313 
 
 necessarily associated with one belief in comparison 
 with all other beliefs. 
 
 I have mentioned the question of assent or dissent, 
 as arising every now and then ; and upon a passage 
 here or there. This had always been the case as to 
 the writings of Roman Catholics. Conscious as I 
 was of a difference of tone, yet they had generally 
 carried me along with them, and a hundred times had 
 I said that if I had been born and bred a Roman 
 Catholic, I should so have remained in spite of any 
 earthly terrors or inducements. Only, every now 
 and then I came on a passage which both my relig- 
 ious engagements and my acquired habit compelled 
 me to object to. This was a common remark among 
 all our Oxford friends, that is all that had any part 
 in the movement; I suspect, too, in some who had 
 no part. One I will not name, because in truth he 
 lived much more in what he cordially accepted tlian 
 in what he could not quite accept, for he never liked 
 criticism. His expression was that in reading a great 
 Roman Catholic author you might wish to pass your 
 pen through a word, or a line, in the course of many 
 pages ; while, as to another class of writers, you 
 might not be able to do that, but, after a page or 
 two, you put the book down and did not open it 
 again. 
 
 I had now for many years, latterly with pressure 
 and exigency, been compelled to consider various 
 points of the controversy between England and the 
 great Church, which for I know not how many cent- 
 uries has claimed to be the Mother Church of all 
 Christendom. I had been compelled to use not only 
 my own jiulgment, but the judgment of men resolute 
 to incjuire and unflinching as to results. The ir- 
 
814 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 refragable logic of this or that writer did not quite 
 convince me. I might allow myself to be whirled in 
 a dizzy maze by Ward for several pages, and find my- 
 self able to stand on my own legs. But the atmos- 
 phere of reasonable discussion had been telling on 
 me. Samuel Wilberforce, in one of the most famous 
 of his sermons, urged Oxford undergraduates to en- 
 tertain no doubt, to stamp it out as they would a 
 spark in a magazine, and recoil from it with horror. 
 Such advice is useless. It is vain to dissuade men 
 from an inquiry by telling them that it will probably 
 lead them away from their present belief. They will 
 be sure to rush into the forbidden ground. Whoever 
 prohibits doubts starts an inquiry. 
 
 But there was more than this. The great contro- 
 versy was being pressed with equal vigor in both 
 directions. Already, fifty years ago, the question lay 
 between more belief and less belief, widening every 
 day to much belief and none at all. From the East 
 and from the South a portentous cloud of infidelity 
 was rolling upon this land. The vast superiority of 
 Germany and France was in many Oxford mouths. 
 As critics and scholars, as linguists and Orientalists, 
 as thinkei's and philosophers, as historians, and even 
 as theologians in the " undenominational " sense, we 
 could not compare with them, and could not hope to 
 rise to an equality without first sitting at their feet. 
 This was an appeal to reason, even with the probable 
 consequence of an entire abandonment of our most 
 cherislied convictions 
 
 At that time, as in all times, and not without a 
 cause, there was a cry against those who halt between 
 two opinions ; who either will not decide, or will not 
 declare themselves. Certainly life is too short for 
 
INQUIRY AND INDECISION. 
 
 315 
 
 indecision, whether of thought or of deed. But what 
 were the great facts of that period ? On the one 
 hand there were many men whose piety and truthful- 
 ness I should not be permitted to question were I so 
 disposed, who to all appearance were prosecuting the 
 most vital inquiries with the aid of rationalist and 
 even atheistical writers ; knit together in one partner- 
 ship and bound to the same conclusions. Speaking 
 for myself, and with more knowledge of Hampden's 
 Lectures than I then had, as well as a higher esti- 
 mate of their ability, I look in vain for anything in 
 them to save the writer from the last fatal plunge. 
 Hampden, however, was but one of many. 
 
 On the other hand there were men of at least 
 equal piety and trutlifulness who were pursuing an- 
 other inquiry in the direction of faith by the aid of 
 authority. The intermediate mass that did not move 
 and did not inquire was daily diminishing, and did 
 not even command respect. The great majority 
 were inquiring, that is to say inquiring honestly, and 
 not merely beating about for arguments to support 
 a foregone conclusion. Thus the Oxford world was 
 steadily resolving itself into two opposite schools of 
 sentiment and opinion, however we may please to 
 regard that mental process. 
 
 The common idea of a theological inquiry is grand 
 and heroic. It is assumed to be entered upon delib- 
 erately, leisurely, and in due order. The inquirer is 
 supposed to possess the moral requisites, at least in 
 the negative sense of freedom from vicious prejudice, 
 and to have laid down his first principles. He then 
 attacks the whole question, addresses himself to tlie 
 several parts of it in turn, and gathers the light they 
 throw on one another. He is under no compulsion 
 
316 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 to hasten the process and decide precipitately. The 
 truth will wait for him, and if he is sufficiently loyal 
 to it, and honestly seeks it, he must finally attain 
 to it. 
 
 My case was the very contrary. If I had not pos- 
 itively I'ecoiled from the great question, I had never 
 dreamt of facing it. The lesser questions, whether 
 of principle or of detail, had been successively forced 
 on me, often without warning. I had then not to 
 decide, but to accept. Some of the writers, indeed, 
 allowed me scant time for deliberation, and truth 
 compels me to admit that I must have passed a sen- 
 tence here and there without a mental decision, flat- 
 tering myself at the time perhaps that the mood was 
 that of controversy, and the surrender hypothetical. 
 I was never stretched on the wheel, but one by one 
 the harder points of my weak and ill-compacted moral 
 f]'ame were torn from me. Perhaps they were like a 
 child's first set of teeth, hardly worth the keeping. 
 My own unwarrantable self-confidence had put me in 
 that position, not to speak of the levity which im- 
 pelled me into a struggle I was not fit for. Whatever 
 the issue might be, such a process was not honorable, 
 and no honor have I ever claimed for it. I have even 
 been ready to accept its penalties. In so doing I 
 render tribute both to the Divine government, and to 
 the voice that whispers within. 
 
CHAPTER CXVII. 
 
 FIEST IMPRESSIONS OF ROMAN CATHOLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 I HAD not gone to Normandy with any idea of be- 
 ing helped thereby in my path through the contro- 
 versy to ■which I had committed myself, and in which 
 I had been borne along. All I expected was an 
 agreeable change, rest and amusement, foreign man- 
 ners and customs, picturesque architecture, with 
 scarcely even the hope of a good French acquaint- 
 ance. The choice was in fact made for me, and was 
 perhaps owing to a mere personal consideration. We 
 had been told that my wife's Huguenot ancestors 
 were from the neighborhood of Caen. 
 
 Either on principle or for lack of oppm-tunity, I 
 had never before entered a Roman Catholic chapel, 
 since some friends took me to Moorfields Chapel the 
 second Sunday after its opening, in 1821 I think. So 
 what I now saw would come upon me with all the 
 force of novelty, and it immediately had a great fasci- 
 nation for me. This was truly worship I There was 
 the sense of a Divine presence. All hearts were 
 moved as one. The music seemed to me so much more 
 expressive than our own pretty chants and singsong 
 melodies. There was a charm in the very roughness 
 of the voices, the monotony of the big ophicleides or 
 gigantic bassoons, the rush-bottomed chairs, and the 
 freedom with which the people seated themselves 
 here and there, which seemed to speak of a rude 
 
318 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 antiquity. This I saw in tlie midst of our own 
 grandest historical associations. I had been pre- 
 pared to be disappointed. I had repeatedly read and 
 had partly believed that Roman Catholic worship 
 was without reverence, unreal, and wholly beyond 
 the understanding of all but a few scholars; that the 
 clergy set the example of ill-behavior, whether in 
 church or out of it ; that they talked, laughed, and 
 took snuff at the most solemn parts of the service ; 
 that hardly ever was a man to be seen in church, cer- 
 tainly never a man of education ; that the morals of 
 Roman Catholic populations were flagitiously and 
 shamefully bad. 
 
 I can only say that what I saw was the contrary 
 of all this. This I say, knowing that no single 
 testimony is sufficient to decide such a question, 
 and that in matter of fact, thousands of tourists have 
 gone about France seeing only what their pet 
 preachers and writers had told them to see, and 
 what accordingly they had made up their minds to 
 see, an exceedingly bad state of things. The French 
 appeared to me in the main a religious and orderly 
 people, honest and polite, and, as all know, frugal, 
 independent, and industrious. Their worship seemed 
 to me hearty and intelligent. It was perhaps a 
 childish remark, but I frequently made it to myself, 
 that this was worship. That is to all appearance the 
 one thing often sadly wanting in an English congre- 
 gation. Some inquiry led me to believe that the 
 majority of a French congregation followed the 
 Psalms, and such parts of the service as are audibly 
 said or sung as the act of the congregation, quite as 
 well as the English generally follow the Prayer Book. 
 Out of service-time there were always people in the 
 
ROMAN CATHOLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 319 
 
 churches, saying their own prayers, whatever they 
 were. In the streets there were numbers of little 
 girls going about in their white Confirmation dresses. 
 They had a serious air, and they seemed the objects 
 of a tender interest. At all hours, early and late, the 
 church bells announced that something was going on. 
 All these things, and other incidents of daily occur- 
 rence, conduced to a favorable impression of the peo- 
 ple, and of the system. 
 
 But then came points which the unaccustomed 
 English mind cannot but be startled and offended at. 
 Let me treat these matters as they come, and as they 
 must come to the English visitor. I approach a 
 church door. Upon it, or over it, I see printed or 
 painted in large letters, Indulgentia, plenaria, per- 
 petua, quotidiana. The printed papers offer this act 
 of the Divine mercy, whatever it may be, on the 
 condition of certain devotions, endowed apparently 
 with a traditionary or authoritative value. What 
 does all this mean ? Where, and of what nature, 
 is this indulgence ? I often tried to understand it ; 
 often was it explained to me, I fear in vain. Gen- 
 erally it seemed a promise of ease and relief to the 
 soul, and the soul certainly often wants that. Such 
 relief cannot be reasonably expected without some 
 acts of faith on our part, for we must believe, and we 
 must show our belief, before we can be helped and 
 comforted. The calculation seemed natural, but the 
 whole matter remained very nebulous. Does the 
 Almighty run up accounts with us in this business- 
 like fashion ? But he who believes anything is on his 
 way to believe a good deal more, for faith is not an 
 operation that takes its stand and says, " Thus far 
 and no farther." Its natural movement is forward, 
 
320 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 and it is even too apt to think small difficulties of no 
 account. 
 
 Inside the church door is the holy water stoup. 
 The natives put their fingers into it, sprinkle them- 
 selves, and cross themselves. There is always some 
 privileged beggar who scrutinizes every arrival. He 
 offers to the native a brush just dipped in the holy 
 water, but lowers his brush and asks alms from the 
 foreigner. It is natural, but not pious, that he is 
 better pleased with the heretical sous than with the 
 act of Catholic intercommunion, friendly and pictur- 
 esque though it be. 
 
 But what is going on in the church ? We look in 
 the direction of the altar, and soon perceive that 
 there is more than one altar, several indeed, nay 
 many in a large church. What can this mean ? 
 There is but one true Altar, one Sacrifice, one Vic- 
 tim, one Propitiation. I have always been advanced 
 enough to believe in a priesthood, and that I am my- 
 self a priest, in a representative character, and with 
 derivative functions ; but this multitude and even 
 variety of altars was a new experience to me. It 
 is not new as a matter of knowledge, historj', and 
 architecture, for everybody who has dabbled in the 
 latter subject knows that St. Paul's Cathedral is ex- 
 pressly built for a dozen or more altars, and that in 
 our own village churches there is often found, perhaps 
 in some comfortable family pew, the piscina, and even 
 marks in the masonry indicating an altar. But that 
 is ever new which is seen for the first time. 
 
 A priest in a vestment, which to the unaccustomed 
 English eye looks gorgeous, but which to the native 
 apprehension is old, faded, dirty, and threadbare, is 
 doing what? This is the very crisis of the whole 
 
ROMAN CATHOLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 321 
 
 question dividing nations, languages, woi'lds, — hap- 
 pily no longer with burning and bloodshed. What 
 can he be doing ? There is not a soul there besides 
 himself, except a little boy, of Standard IV., V., or 
 VI., as may be, also in what an ordinary Englishman 
 would call priestly attire. He has a surplice, very 
 short, transparent, embroidered, and fitting close to a 
 colored vestment below. The only Church of Eng- 
 land service at which this kind of thing could then be 
 seen was at the Chapel Royal, St. James's, much fre- 
 quented by Lord Ashley. These two — but before I 
 can concentrate my attention upon these mysterious 
 beings I observe that there are several such pairs 
 seemingly doing the like at other altars. These two 
 are performing in dumb show. The priest is stand- 
 ing, kneeling, passing to and fro, crossing himself, 
 frequently bowing or bending his knees. Hardly a 
 murmur reaches you, but a bell is tinkled several 
 times, and after some specially solemn stage the priest 
 turns round and holds up something. Abruptly, be- 
 cause unexpectedly and unaccountably, the perform- 
 ance closes, the work is done ; the priest covers up 
 something and walks away, attended by the boy, 
 whom by this time you have recovered enough to call 
 an acolyte, and to think possibly is of one of the seven 
 orders of Roman Catholic clergy. 
 
 But here is the wonder of all. There is no con- 
 gregation. There might be, for, as you look about, 
 you see that there are a few worshippers, one, two, 
 or three, at the other altars. So there may or may 
 not be a congregation for this service, or whatever 
 else is its proper name. That is an indifferent mat- 
 ter. The priest alone is sufficient, for the boy can 
 only be regarded as an official appendage or technicnl 
 
 VOL. II. 21 
 
322 
 
 REMINISCEXCES. 
 
 complement. This is mass. It is a low mass. It is 
 for some special benefit. It has been demanded. By 
 and by other priests have finished their work, and are 
 passing along tlie floor of the church, to this or that 
 door, carrying something with them. 
 
 You know enough of the matter to recognize in this 
 the Host, the Body of Him who was once offered, 
 once for all, for our sins. So the Body of Christ can 
 be repeatedly and simultaneously offered at different 
 altars in the same church, and exhibited and carried 
 about and reserved, — that is closeted in darkness, to 
 be brought out again when there slrall be need of it. 
 The stranger may have heard of all this, and read 
 of all this, and may have racked his brains about 
 it to consider whether it comes within any reasona- 
 ble comprehension. But there is a very old saying 
 about the eyes doing their work quicker and more 
 thoroughly than the ears, and now you see it all. 
 If the stranger has had to subscribe the Thirty-nine 
 Articles, he has pronounced a very decided judgment 
 on all this, and may justly have misgivings whether 
 he has any right to be there, looking quietly upon 
 what some of his neighbors at home call blasphemous 
 mummery, etc., etc. 
 
 But as the stranger ventures to creep about the 
 church, he comes on something which is quite intelli- 
 gible, which requires no racking of brains, no divid- 
 ing of unities, no assumption that one is many and 
 many one, no feat of metaphysics whatever, not even 
 a civilized intellect. Before what the stranger — 
 certainly the little girl at his side — will pronounce 
 a large gayly-dressed doll, the very counterpart of 
 which she has seen in many a London shop window, 
 a crowd of women and children are on their knees, 
 
ROMAN CATHOLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 823 
 
 saying their prayers. It is the Virgin Mother, with 
 or without the Babe. Many candles are burning 
 before her. This is no solitary performance. Christ 
 Diay have been offered a dozen times in that church 
 since early sunrise, without one beloved disciple or 
 one Mary at the foot of His cross, or at the opened 
 tomb ; but the Mother never lacks attendance or 
 worship. What she has to give all are eager for. 
 She is here, to the stranger's eyes at least, " the 
 Way, the Truth, and the Life." It is she that has 
 overcome sin and death, and opened the way to eter- 
 nal life, with many an earnest of that gift, and many 
 a consolation of present misery, to be poured down 
 on those that ask for it. If they do but seek she may 
 be found. She does not even impose importunity as 
 the condition of success. Surely this is an idol, the 
 stranger says. If this be not an idol, what is ? Such 
 indeed were my own reflections. 
 
 The stranger is soon made aware of a good deal of 
 caprice and favoritism, as it seems to him. The al- 
 tars of the Saints, such at least he conceives them to 
 be from the pictures, are generally neglected. It is 
 not even every altar of the Virgin that is equally 
 popular and equally nccredited, so to speak. A title, 
 an attribute, an incident, a tradition makes all the 
 difference. Even an hour spent, profanely as some 
 would say, in going in and out of churches, reveals 
 mysteries which never can be fathomed. 
 
 The stranger suspends his judgment till Sunday 
 comes, when he will attend high mnss and see a full 
 congregation. He is greatly impressed with the fixed 
 and. concentrated attention of the multitude, vast in 
 a cathedral or a large church ; with their instanta- 
 neous dropping on their knees, and other tokens of 
 
324 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 joint-worship. But the performance at tlie altar as- 
 sumes still more the look of a grand pantomime, at 
 first quite unintelligible. A plate comes round and 
 is impressively urged upon the stranger's notice ; by 
 and by another pliite ; then a third. They are for 
 the poor, for the church, and for the dead. Immense 
 baskets of sweet cake, in good sized lumps, were 
 handed round at the time whereof I am writing, and 
 many of the congregation, especially the young peo- 
 ple, almost scrambled for it. What a travesty of 
 communion, thought I to myself ; but I seemed to 
 have no clioice ; I took some of the cake and ate it, 
 making a note to ask some one what it signified, and 
 what I had been doing. I believe it to be actually a 
 tradition of the Communion cake or loaf, as it vpas in 
 Apostolic times. Some say it is the primitive Agapse. 
 
 What more was there to strike the stranger as he 
 walked about town or country ? There were the co- 
 lossal crucifixes, painted to life, at the cross roads 
 and other conspicuous points. There wei'e representa- 
 tions of purgatory, in the rudest elemental form. Any 
 one with a particle of Paganism in his nature — and 
 1 have more than a particle — understands purga- 
 tory, and is disposed to accept the general idea. 
 But general ideas are incapable of representation, 
 and do not affect the majority, which uses sense more 
 than reason. So if purgatory is to be set forth at all, 
 it must be in some concrete form. 
 
 I have said little of the appearance the Roman 
 Catholic system made in the streets. Monks and 
 nuns were evidently reduced to the modest conditions 
 of common utility and appreciable service. Such 
 nuns as one saw were Sisters of Mercy or teachers. 
 I cannot recall seeing in Normandy any one that I 
 should call simply a monk. 
 
ROMAN CATHOLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 325 
 
 One appearance I did see more than once. You 
 hear a small bell, which makes a momentary sensa- 
 tion. Turning to the direction of the sound, you see 
 a little procession ; a priest in vestments carrying 
 something under a small canopy ; an acolyte, a beadle 
 or two, one of them perhaps carrying a tall staff sur- 
 mounted by an ornamental lantern, such as one may 
 see in the attics and lumber-rooms of our old country 
 houses. As the procession passes the people stop a 
 moment, take off their hats, and then walk on. 
 
 This is the Host. It is the consecrated wafer, now 
 become by Roman reckoning the very Body of our 
 Lord. It is on its way to a sick or dying bed. The 
 procession appeals alike to reverence, to the common 
 sympathy with suffering, and to that sense of mortal- 
 ity which no profaneness can dispel or wholly deprive 
 of its seriousness. Death is near, and the opportu- 
 nity is taken to proclaim that here is Life. 
 
 But upon the whole the appearance made in Nor- 
 mandy was far less than what I afterwards saw even 
 in Belgium, and of course far less than what I have 
 since witnessed often at Rome. The Belgian clergy 
 are evidently resolved not to lose by want of self-as- 
 sertion. 
 
 At Rome I was once watching, from the steps of 
 St. Peter's, the evolutions of a body of 400 French 
 soldiers. In a moment they all went down on their 
 knees. So my memory tells me, but if any one is 
 prepared to show that this is impossible, and that 
 they only grounded their arms, I submit. Looking 
 about I saw that the Host, under a high canopy, had 
 entered from the Borgo, and was passing into the 
 long street running along the south side of the Tiber. 
 It occurred to me there could be no necessity for en- 
 
326 
 
 KEMIXISCENCES. 
 
 tering the piazza, and I was told that this route had 
 probabl}^ been taken with the express purpose of 
 "winning this recognition from the French soldiers. 
 
 Poor fellows ! they are a simple race, and much 
 put upon. In the 5-ear 1848 Paris was filled with 
 regiments fresh from the. provinces, mere lads from 
 home and school. They were filling the churches and 
 doing their devotions at the altars, while the Gardes 
 Mobiles were gambling in the worst female company 
 on the steps before the entrance. The soldiers of the 
 line were then receiving, I was told, three sous a day 
 pocket money, while the daily pay of the Garde Mo- 
 bile was a franc and a half. These poor fellows had 
 been accustomed to be drilled by the clergy. At 
 Rome they had to bear more. Coming one day out of 
 St. Peter's with four English ladies, we got into a 
 fiacre^ and gave our orders. A line of French soldiers 
 
 — for a parade then was a matter of daily occurrence 
 
 — was advancing towards St. Peter's. To our utter 
 consternation the driver lashed his horses and drove 
 right into them. The line was already bx-eaking 
 when the ofRcer shouted a " halt," and as loudly de- 
 livered a " sacr^," responded to with a loud laugh by 
 our driver. No doubt the latter was presuming on 
 the nationality, and perhaps the sex, of his freight. 
 
 At Caen I witnessed the slovenly performance of 
 a solemn rite, for which the military, not the clergy, 
 were answerable. Noticing before a house in a poor 
 quarter of the town the usual indications of a funeral 
 
 — the black curtain, the mutes, the table, and the 
 plate — with a soldier or two standing by, I resolved 
 to see it out. A company of soldiers, about twenty, 
 made their appearance, and the funeral began. I fol- 
 lowed to the cemetery. At the end of a short service 
 
ROMAN CATHOLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 327 
 
 tlie soldiers fired, that is they were to fire, three vol- 
 leys. Not half of the pieces went off. The mute 
 guns wore tried again and again, with variable suc- 
 cess, and the flint and steel again and again adjusted, 
 with some violence as it seemed to me. They were 
 so long about it that I gave it up, and walked into 
 the country. Returning the same way I found five 
 or six of the soldiers still making vain attempts to 
 discharge their pieces, the orders being that every- 
 one must do it three times. Were these some of 
 the guns that the English Government sent Louis 
 Philippe out of the old stock in the Tower of 
 London ? 
 
CHAPTER CXVIII. 
 
 TWO SIDES OF THE QUESTION. 
 
 Some of my readers will liave begun to ask, pages 
 back, how I could Lave patience with all this non- 
 sense. Why did I not run out of these idol temples, 
 and never enter them again? What was my religion 
 worth, if it did not instantly reject such utter folly ? 
 That, however, was not my present mood ; indeed it 
 had not been my mood now for many years ; and 
 though I may now reject things more quickly and 
 more thoroughly than I once did, still I can try all 
 things, or at least many things ; and I possess some 
 powers of assimilation. I will, too, ask the reader to 
 take into account that I had long been engaged upon 
 the grand argument, and upon the princijjles that 
 necessarily involve details and reduce them to minor 
 account. The greater questions were those of Catho- 
 licity, unity, antiquity, primitive practice. Apostolic 
 sanction, the supremacy of the See of St. Peter, the 
 authority of Councils, the testimony of Fathers and 
 Doctors of the Church, and, comprehending all these 
 questions, the just inference to be drawn from the 
 concurrence of many myriads of good, wise, and 
 learned men in these very practices. There is some 
 excuse for my not instantly, then and there, abomi- 
 nating and execrating what all Christians — for in 
 the matter of customs there is not much to choose 
 between the East and tlie West — had done for a 
 thousand years before the Reformation. 
 
TWO SIDES OF THE QUESTION. 
 
 329 
 
 I had come to believe, nay I still believe, indeed 
 all believe, in the indifferency of customs, so long as 
 they do not make void the Divine word, whether of 
 truth or of command. We have no choice but to 
 make light of customs not absolutely incompatible 
 with faith, hope, and charity. We know hardly any- 
 thing about the religious practices of the first Chris- 
 tians ; and what we do know, or have some inkling 
 of, was very different from the religious practice of 
 any Christian community of these days. 
 
 We have to interpret freely the promise that the 
 hour Cometh and now is when the true worshipper 
 shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Does 
 it exclude any who so worship Him, yet retain the 
 traditions of olden time ? There is no body of Chris- 
 tians that has not reason to ask for a charitable 
 construction. 
 
 The charge most commonly brought against all 
 these customs is that they are superstitious, foolish, 
 trifling, and ridiculous, unworthy of a man of sense. 
 But which is the weightier matter of the law — a 
 protest against such alleged trifles and nonentities, or 
 — the bond of peace ? Grant that these trifles ai'e 
 a thicket and hiding-place for all sorts of scandals, 
 what scandal can be greater than that two neighbor- 
 ing nations, of kindred race, and with many common 
 interests, should have no communion in Christ? A 
 scandal, indeed, there is greater, and that is that the 
 people of these isles, speaking generally one lan- 
 guage, and under the same rule, are divided into 
 countless communions, reprobating and excluding one 
 another. 
 
 With whom lies the responsibility ? Who began 
 the quarrel, and thus divided Christ ? Nay, England 
 
330 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 has never had the courage to give back as much as 
 she has had to take ; for while her own Orders are 
 nothing in the eyes of Rome, she respects Roman 
 Catholic Orders as the foundation and channel of her 
 own. Whether we look to ourselves or to those about 
 us and amongst us, to Christians abroad or at home, 
 not of our own communion, we have to bear all 
 things, it may be said, and to ask mutual forbear- 
 ance. 
 
 In the abstract, and without prejudice, what is to 
 be said of a Church professedly claiming the alle- 
 giance of millions, who in fact have nothing to do 
 with it, and who live in irreligion or dissent ? What 
 is to be said of a Church whose professed members 
 have, for the most part, no other visible observance 
 but to jDut on their best clothes and sit for an hour 
 and a half once a week hearing oratorical prayers, 
 choir music, and a well-written discourse. No Ang- 
 lican layman or divine was ever so wildly enthusi- 
 astic for his church as to set it up as a model for 
 general imitation. The men who composed or com- 
 ])iled the English ritual cannot possibly have had 
 the least inkling of the future of the British Empire. 
 Even the double-minded son of Beor, even the Pagan 
 sibyls, priests, and poets, had more of the prophet in 
 them. When rivalry, or a wish to keep up appear- 
 ances, or some vague idea of duty, compels the Ang- 
 lican Church to offer its peculiar form of the Gospel 
 to the large section of the heathen world included in 
 a common political bond, it has nothing to bestow 
 on them as the means of their conversion and their 
 spiritual sustenance but that which the vast majority 
 of its fellow-citizens at home will have nothing to do 
 with, and abominate from one quarter or another of 
 the theological compass. 
 
TWO SIDES TO THE QUESTION. 
 
 331 
 
 It may be easy to repel the question altogether 
 and refuse to hold an argument, either in the seci-et 
 council of one's own mind, or with any one so weak 
 or SQ bad as not to hold everything that we do our- 
 selves. Wlien the argument is once opened, and it 
 is understood that both sides are to be Iieard, then 
 we soon find ourselves having to choose between two 
 conclusions, neither of which is quite as we shoidd 
 wish it to be. We may object to confession, abso- 
 lution, and penance in the Roman form, but we can- 
 not weigh against it a few fleeting words and an im- 
 palpable shade. We may say, if we please, that the 
 ideas of relative holiness and continual purification in 
 the Roman system are Jewish, materialistic, or what- 
 ever wit may suggest ; but yet we can hardly feel 
 that to be the whole of Christian sanctification which 
 is confined in space to a building and the ground it 
 stands on ; in time to one day in seven ; and in the 
 spiritual world to ourselves and a few select acquaint- 
 ances. 
 
 We may dislike and be unable to understand pui"- 
 gatory, and the practices associated with it, but we 
 cannot certainly banish purgatory from our system 
 without passing the pen through a good many texts, 
 and whole passages. Even then, if we have a con- 
 science, we shall be haunted by the thought of a 
 reckoning running up between ourselves and the 
 Omniscient who rewardetli all men according to 
 their works. We may believe, if we have that con- 
 ceit of ourselves, that we are truly sanctified, and 
 need no ceremonial purifications, but we can never re- 
 member without some misgiving that none but the 
 pure in heart will ever see God. 
 
 When we come to the great doctrines which are 
 
332 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 the very hinges of the Roman system, Roman bap- 
 tism and communion, we have to start with the ad- 
 mission that we have two distinct doctrines among 
 ourselves ; unless indeed our domestic animosities 
 come to the aid of our insular pretensions, and we 
 shut out of the account our own most learned school 
 of divines, and the best men of our acquaintance. 
 We may, if we please, read and even write works as 
 pleasant as a popular tale, to show that regeneration 
 means nothing more than moral goodness ; but we 
 cannot prevent the words " this child is regenerated " 
 from blazing high in theolog}^, confronting us in the 
 Prayer Book, and lying deep in the hearts of our 
 simple working poor. 
 
 The words, with their apparent significance, re- 
 main unaltered by time. I m«st have heard from 
 my youth many hundreds of sermons blared against 
 them, but they stand, and the only result of these 
 attacks has been to drive the people into dissent, 
 where they are allowed to believe what they read, 
 and to think there is something in the Chi-istian pro- 
 fession. They who believed there was any doctrine 
 at all in bajitism heard their sentences as long as 
 I can remember from some thousand pulpits in the 
 land. They were Papists already at heart, and the 
 best they could do was to go over to Rome and sail 
 under true colors. Yet what was the wonderful sight 
 that the Baptist testified to ? Was it only an in- 
 structive show ? Had it only a future significance? 
 If it is inconceivable there should be a spiritual 
 change in a new-boi-n babe, is it less so that there 
 should be one in the Eternal and only-begotten Son 
 of God, baptized in the thirtieth year of His humilia- 
 tion ? 
 
TWO SIDES TO THE QUESTION. 
 
 333 
 
 I recognize material things and spiritual things ; 
 the immutable laws of nature, the moral government 
 of God, and the kingdom of grace. Where they 
 begin and end I know not. I cannot say of matter 
 that it is, and of spirit that it is not. I do not be- 
 lieve that the soul of man grows and develops only 
 by human will and circumstances. I feel a mystery 
 everywhere, and mastei-ed by it I cannot say that 
 there is no more in baptismal regeneration than fools 
 and philosophers may be ready to allow. 
 
 Even the material forces wielded by the Omnip- 
 otent utterly transcend our powers of analysis or 
 detection. Every bar on the solar spectroscope in- 
 dicatf'S an influence coming direct fi'om the sun, and, 
 on a fair presumption, doing its work amongst us. 
 More than twenty years ago, six thousand had been 
 ascertained and described. Grant that science in 
 another century may tell the functions of a tenth of 
 them, it is quite as likely that by that time our ob- 
 servers will have ascertained six thousand more bars, 
 many of them not coming under the evidence of the 
 .senses, not to be seen or felt, but discoverable only in 
 their chemical or other relations. Is this to suggest 
 a material hypothesis for baptismal regeneration ? 
 No. It is not. It is to suggest that when matter 
 itself is so utterly beyond human comprehension, we 
 may as well speak more modestly of that which we 
 believe to be not matter, but God. 
 
CHAPTER CXIX. 
 
 THE SACRAMENTAL THEOBIES. 
 
 The dogma, or definition, of Transubstantiation 
 has been universally selected as the one sufficient and 
 insuperable obstacle to communion with Rome. From 
 very early years I had heard that Roman Catholics 
 made their god ; that they worshipped a wafer, and 
 bowed down to that which they had kneaded and 
 baked, and which they shut up in a box, and carried 
 to and fro. But the people who most abhorred the 
 mass did not like our own Communion Service either. 
 They would have preferred sitting to kneeling, tables 
 to a rail, and the linen cloth laid before the communi- 
 cants. To the words of the Service they objected, 
 not that any force was put upon their own convic- 
 tions, but that no force was put upon convictions dif- 
 ferent from their own. The Service admitted of 
 various understandings of it, more or less mysterious, 
 from Transubstantiation to the Eucharistic Sacrifice 
 and the Real Presence of Anglican High Church, 
 They held themselves that it was no more than a 
 commemorative, instructive, and edifying rite. The 
 service is so considerately and cautiously composed 
 that it is hard to see who the composers were favor- 
 ing in their own hearts. It is a pity that tliis neu- 
 trality has been at the cost of so many words, partic- 
 ularly when brevity, or rather no words at all, would 
 have been becter. As a fact, " high " and "low" 
 
THE SACRAMENTAL THEORIES. 
 
 335 
 
 meet on equal terms at the Auglican altar or table, 
 whatever it is to be called. English ideals are gen- 
 erally practical, for in this island at least we are 
 averse to mutual extermination. 
 
 The operation of the Body and Blood of our Lord 
 on the body of the recipient is declared in the words 
 of administration and in the Praj^er before the Con- 
 secration, though some emphatic passages to the 
 same effect in the Service of the Mass are omitted. 
 The Exhortation, now passing out of use, certainly 
 suggests that while the elements, properly received, 
 are medicine to body and soul, they are in effect poi- 
 son to those that j^artake of them unworthily and un- 
 preparedly. 
 
 Whether in boyhood or in manhood, whether in 
 the stage of unconscious or careless acceptance, or of 
 enforced investigation, I had always inclined to the 
 " high " view, though tolerant of the " low " view, if 
 its holders would only leave me alone. The truth 
 was that when I came to consider what people said 
 and did in this matter, I arrived at the conclusion 
 that no two people exactly agreed upon it, but that 
 each had his own interpretation. 
 
 It had long appeared to me that our Blessed Lord 
 Himself, in mercy to the great variety of human un- 
 derstandings, had used words allowing of a very 
 great latitude. They who can only regard the feast 
 as a remembrance are welcome to that board, so too 
 they who conceive it to be very much more. 
 
 They who believe in a Divine Creation must be- 
 lieve that all the laws of matter are the commands 
 of God, and that, so far, there is no substantial differ- 
 ence between the kingdom of nature and the kingdom 
 of grace. Bishop Berkeley's opinion of the non-exis- 
 
336 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 tence of matter, which Fronde was often returning 
 to in the face of Dr. Johnson's rough confutation, is 
 only a way of stating what Christians are bound to 
 admit to be virtually true. The power is in the com- 
 mand, not in the thing, for it really is not tlie bullet 
 that kills you, but the human will employing the laws 
 of motion and gravitation. Of course this may seem 
 a, refinement, and likely to mislead when applied to 
 Christian ordinances. But in truth the saying, Mate- 
 riam superahat opus, pervades all human affairs. Of 
 matter, as of the letter, it must be said that it killeth, 
 and the spirit giveth life. Speaking generally, all 
 opinions as to the relations of matter and spirit are 
 equally presumptuous. Yet there are plain moral re- 
 lations, and, it may be said, relations that are re- 
 vealed. Matter, if indeed it can be said to exist at 
 all, is always undergoing mutation, corruption, and 
 destruction. The Word only is real and eternal. 
 The consecrated bread has the assurance that it is the 
 Body of Christ, and the promise that it will save body 
 and soul. Therein is its true substance and reality. 
 Yet it requires a very hardy faith, or a very idle and 
 acquiescent faith, to accept all the practices built 
 upon this doctrine. The Roman Catholics have their 
 replies. If the people won't communicate, let them 
 at least gaze and adore. If they won't come to the 
 altar, let the Victim be carried to them. If they will 
 not eagerly seize a privilege every day, let them be 
 daily reminded of it. Let them be taught that there 
 is a presence, a power, and a glory, in the midst of 
 them, and at their doors. 
 
 I had always felt perplexed and pained at the con- 
 trast between the practice of Communion in the 
 Primitive Church, and in our own. In those early 
 
THE SACRAMENTAL THEORIES. 
 
 337 
 
 days there was no need to invite, for all pressed in, 
 and the trouble was to weed and sift the multitude. 
 But in these days what a work it is ! What canvas- 
 sing round ! what entreaties ! what urgent and reit- 
 erated reminders ! Yet how scant, how precarious 
 the results ! Is our interpretation of Communion 
 answerable for this, or the mode and manner of our 
 Communion ? 
 
 I had long felt, indeed most people feel, that our 
 service is much too repulsive. The result was and is, 
 that while the Catechism, certainly in accordance 
 with the Scripture, declares Communion necessary to 
 salvation, we go on assuming and actually pronounc- 
 ing the salvation of millions who never communicated, 
 or having done so once or twice, never did again. I 
 had much desired that all professing Christians should 
 communicate regularly and frequently, and that for 
 this end, communicating should be rendered less ter- 
 rible and less difficult ; for it is actually difficult, not 
 to say impossible, under many circumstances. There 
 are invalids and aged people, who cannot be even half 
 an hour in a church without suffering and inconven- 
 ience, and perhaps annoyance to the congregation. 
 It was a point on which I differed from some friends 
 who did not think it an objection that the service 
 is long, tedious, repulsive, and minatory. Froude al- 
 ways took the severest view of preparation, and even 
 performance. The body must have its full share in 
 the work. This view he once humorously illustrated 
 in a suggestion that every member of Parliament 
 should receive a good whipping before every sitting of 
 the House, to make him feel it a serious business and 
 bring down his self-conceit. From different quarters 
 was often heard the wish that church-people might 
 
 VOL. II. 22 
 
338 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 be attracted to the table instead of being warned 
 off by terrors such as those that once girt Mount 
 Sinai ; and that Communion should be made less a 
 trial of human endurance, which it often is. The 
 invariable reply to these wishes had too much truth 
 in it. The real difficulty is the general unwillingness 
 to make a complete surrender to the service of our 
 Lord. In this matter, as I was merciful to myself I 
 was merciful to others. Practically I don't believe in 
 complete surrenders. I don't believe that the three 
 hundred ladies and gentlemen attending a fashionable 
 Communion have made a complete surrender of them- 
 selves, and that it is this that makes the difference 
 between them and the whole of the working classes 
 inhabiting the same area, and more or less working 
 for them. I might not object to a little more repul- 
 sion being shown to those who come to the altar, but 
 I wish there was less of it towards those who do not. 
 
 But I had also always desired that communicants 
 might be left perfectly free, to put their own sense 
 on the consecration of the elements. Each man's 
 sense we shall never get at. It is certain that many 
 who pi'ofess the " low " view, that is the purely em- 
 blematic sense, are the most reverential, and appar- 
 ently the most deeply impressed and edified; while it 
 is lamentable to notice how communicants professing 
 the " high " view can immediately betray, by their 
 frivolity or worldliness, how little hold it really has 
 upon them. 
 
 Whenever I attempted to ascertain for my guid- 
 ance, either as a writer, or as a humble Christian, 
 with just a soul to be saved, what this " high " view 
 was, I have to make the sad confession that I never 
 succeeded. Whether they were the friends of the 
 
THE SACRAMENTAL THEORIES. 
 
 339 
 
 "high" view or its foes, controversialists seemed 
 equally to envelop their meaning, if meaning they 
 had, in that haze which is the medium of exaggera- 
 tion. The phrase " real presence " I never could at- 
 tach a distinct meaning to, nor can I think it neces- 
 sary, as neither the word nor any expression corre- 
 sponding to it can be found in the New Testament. 
 But the accusation continually repeated was that the 
 " high " doctrine led to Transubstantiation, and was 
 indeed the same in disguise. 
 
 The more I have read of our English theologians, 
 old or new, the more am I satisfied that when they 
 come to treat of these matters, they cease to know 
 what they are talking about. I find no difficulty in 
 accepting the words of Scripture ; indeed, who does ? 
 what child does ? But I do find insuperable difficulty 
 in understanding the strong positive, and not less 
 the strong negative, propositions of polemical writers. 
 It is not because I can pronounce them wrong, but 
 because I can pronounce nothing at all upon them. 
 In the Church at least we have a common basis. It 
 is that the Sacrament is the supreme occasion and 
 mode and form of a mysterious communication be- 
 tween God and His people. Polemical writers 
 require that I shall say what this is, and what it is 
 not ; in other words that I shall define the action 
 and being of the Incomprehensible. I believe that 
 in the Sacrament there is the Father, and the Son, 
 and the Spirit, in the way proper to a true partici- 
 pation. 
 
 But how this is I know not, and feel certain I 
 never shall know in this world. I feel certain that 
 none know, and that no purpose could be answered 
 by any one knowing much more than others in a 
 
340 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 matter in wtich, indisputably, faith, hope, and char- 
 ity are infinitely more important than scientific defi- 
 nitions. 
 
 Luther, with whom I cannot say I have over much 
 sympathy, indeed of whom I have very little knowl- 
 edge, had evidently found himself in the like perplex- 
 ities, and had never extricated himself from them. 
 He maintained with much zeal and heat, and much 
 loss of popularity, an opinion which most modern 
 writers declare to be substantiallj'^, as they express it, 
 the same as Transubstantiation. But he was a 
 scholastic philosopher, and by the time I was in 
 priest's orders, Oxford had been told that scholastic 
 philosophy was at the bottom of all our troubles and 
 all our blunders. I was ever but a listener at the 
 door of the school thus denounced and contemned, 
 without even a foot within its threshold ; yet I can- 
 not bring myself to believe that the succession of 
 great men who formed the backbone of human 
 thought, and of faith too, for many centuries, were 
 quite the fools which a school of modern authors, gen- 
 erally unbelieving, would try to persuade us. 
 
 Since words fail to fathom or to describe the mys- 
 tery believed to be hidden in an apparently simple 
 rite, and the outer world has to be dealt with, the 
 controversy has become one of ceremonies and cus- 
 toms. Both at the altar, and in the streets, and in 
 private houses, and wherever reverence allows it, 
 Roman Catholics exhibit the once consecrated bread 
 as an object of such awe and worship as we should 
 give to a Divine Presence suddenly visible amongst 
 us, if our self-possession were not utterly overpowered ■ 
 by the sight. The Church of England disapproves 
 of these usages on the simple ground that they have 
 
THE SACRAMENTAL THEORIES. 
 
 341 
 
 no direct justification in Scripture ; and that such 
 few statements as there are bearing on the question 
 stop very far short of any public or private worship 
 to be given to the consecrated elements. Yet an 
 abundance of writers and talkers within our Church, 
 and still more out of it, tell us we are really as 
 superstitious as Rome, and that what our greatest 
 divines believe is equally beyond all rational appre- 
 hension. 
 
CHAPTER CXX. 
 
 THE TRINITY. 
 
 The doctrine of Transubstantiation, it has always 
 to be borne in mind, has ever been inseparably asso- 
 ciated with that of the Trinity. The Church of the 
 Middle Ages spoke as awfully and as definitely of the 
 consecrated bread as of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Spirit. The same controversy, and the same argu- 
 ments, the same play of words, it may be said, 
 touched the altar in our midst, and the throne in the 
 Heaven of Heavens. 
 
 These schoolmen brought together from Holy Writ 
 all that we may say, or do, or think, or feel, as re- 
 gards the Blessed Son ; and all that we may say, or 
 do, or think, or feel, as regards the Holy Spirit. 
 They then said : These, of whom we may saj'', and do, 
 and think, and feel such things must be God. But 
 God is One ; so these are Three in one God. The 
 argument is Scriptural ; it is admitted to be Scrip- 
 tural, and is necessarily Scriptural. Nor would any 
 one venture in these days to teach a doctrinal form 
 of words on the simple authority of the Church. 
 When I was barely eight I was learning the Cate- 
 chism, confirmed by " Scripture proofs." An ordi- 
 narily intelligent and right-minded person will find 
 no difficulty in putting together and bearing in mind 
 what we read in Scripture of the Son, and of the 
 Spirit, and in arriving at large, exalted, and awful 
 
THE TRINITY. 
 
 343 
 
 conceptions. But when the single-minded, well- 
 taught, and well-directed Christian has done his best, 
 theology proposes to carry him at one huge bound 
 into another order of intelligence, not to say exist- 
 ence altogether, by dogmatic statements admitted to 
 embrace" the inconceivable and incomprehensible. 
 
 Always wisliing to believe as much as was believed 
 by the best and most faithful Christian, yet always 
 exercising a reason of my own, I have again and again 
 entered on this great question with an ever-increasing 
 wish to see the Church contenting itself as much as 
 possible with the very words of Scripture, and stop- 
 ping short of definitions in matter beyond human 
 comprehension. I say, "as much as possible," for after 
 all the " very words " are themselves partly beyond 
 our reach, and partly to be extricated from surround- 
 ings of a local or temporal character. The Church, 
 too, in all ages has had to meet the teaching, and to 
 follow up the arguments, of men employing their own 
 terms, and Imposing upon the multitude by the pomp 
 and the subtlety of their demonstrations. 
 
 Jesus Christ is the Son of Man and the Son of God. 
 Why are we not content with titles so endearing, so 
 elevating? Yet people are not content. Even the 
 expression " God the Son " is not the same thing as 
 the " Son of God." What warrant is therefor set 
 prayers and hymns addressed to the Son simply as 
 God, frequently without even a reference to the 
 Father? I know that many Christians have been 
 tortured in childhood, haunted through life, and pur- 
 sued to old age with such questions as how could the 
 Babe in Mary's arms be carrying on the work of the 
 Universe — nay, of an Infinity beyond our Universe 
 — entering into the hearts of all men, into the nature 
 
344 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 of all living things, and into the secrets of this solid 
 globe ? Such a question is of course utterly childish 
 and ridiculous. But is the Church of England quite 
 blameless in the matter? 
 
 More than fifty years ago a dear friend confided to 
 me his difficulties as to the Personality of the Holy 
 Spirit. I was grieved to see him in a condition which 
 seemed to impair his powers of activity, and threat- 
 ened to delay the period of usefulness. So I tried to 
 talk down his doubts, and I may have contributed to 
 that result. After applying as well as I could the 
 texts ascribing to the Spirit divine attributes and dis- 
 tinct operations, I fear my more general argument 
 was that we were bound to accept the teaching of the 
 Church, and that in so doing we were in no danger of 
 guiltiness. While I talked in this strain I was fixing 
 a deep disquiet in my own mind, which remained, 
 and indeed still remains, all the more because I have 
 never seriously addressed myself to its removal. 
 
 A thousand times have I wished, and then resolved 
 never again to let myself be plagued with the wish, 
 that the word " Person " could be banished from our 
 Symbols and Formularies. I shall shock many of 
 my readers when I say that the word has often sug- 
 gested to me that the evil being who has certainly 
 much to do in the affairs of the Church has intruded 
 this word as the most effectual difficulty language and 
 thought could supply to the simple and pi-oper recep- 
 tion of divine truth. At the time of this evil impor- 
 tation Persona was a term in law and in trade, in as 
 familiar use as the word " party " in our courts and 
 exchanges. It is the old nominative of Prceco, a herald 
 or preacher, and is identical with the word " preach- 
 er," only with a different termination and a different 
 
THE TRINITY. 
 
 345 
 
 flow of the liquid and vowel in the first syllable. It 
 was adopted as the best equivalent of a logicial term 
 in the Greek, denoting that to which the qualities 
 under discussion might be applied. If the object be 
 to bring a stupendous mystery as much as possible 
 within reach of a mathematical intelligence, the word, 
 for aught I know, maybe as good as any other. But 
 for any practical purpose, it must defeat its own ob- 
 ject. We should set down any one as either a mad- 
 man or a very vulgar jester who should address either 
 Father, Son, or Spirit by the name of Person, or 
 should so refer to Him. 
 
 I can only hope that Heaven in good time will send 
 us s me s mple intelligible form, saving the divine 
 agency of Father, Son, and Spirit, and the divine 
 Unity also. 
 
 Again. I ask with all humbleness where the idea 
 of Threeness is expressed in the New Testament with 
 a doctrinal sense and force. Where is the Triune 
 God held up to be worshipped, loved, and obeyed ? 
 Where is He preached and proclaimed in that three- 
 fold character ? We read " God is one ; " as, too, " I 
 and the Father are one ; " but nowhere do we read 
 that Three are one, unless it be in a text long since 
 known to be interpolated. Nowhere in Scripture is 
 there the idea of numerical vii'tue or mystic number. 
 The number " seven " indeed is often found invested 
 with sacredness, such as in its application to the di- 
 vision of time, and the gifts of the Spirit ; but that 
 is very different from the introduction of number as 
 an attribute into the Supreme Object of worship. 
 
 To me the whole matter is most painful and per- 
 plexing, and I should not even speak as I now do, did 
 not I feel on the threshold of the grave, soon to ap- 
 pear before the Throne of all truth. 
 
346 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 I may be censured for these confessions, but let me 
 not be misunderstood, for I wish to agree with our 
 best divines, and have no wish to be thought a single 
 step on the way to Arianism. 
 
 Is not that which I confess to have been a lifelong 
 trouble to me a comparative novelty ? The Apostles' 
 Creed is old. I can say it with all my heart and mind. 
 The Nicene Creed is old. I can say it also with all 
 my heart and mind, though I may doubt whether 
 filioque be the right expression. But in neither of 
 these Creeds, and certainly not in Scripture, do we 
 find the expression " God the Son ; " or " God the 
 Holy Ghost." Whenever I pronounce the name of 
 God simply and first, I mean God the Father, and I 
 cannot help meaning that if I am meaning anything. 
 When, therefore, I immediately add " the Son," or 
 " the Holy Ghost," I am conscious of a departure from 
 the sense I opened my mouth with. The first invoca- 
 tion, namely, that to " God the Father," is to me intel- 
 ligible and clear, for the words bear finite senses with 
 infinite enlargement. But, as the words stand, and in 
 the order in which they stand, the other invocations 
 are not to me intelligible. When I pronounce them 
 I feel in a momentary maze, as if a dizziness had 
 come on me, or as if I had slipped and were twisted 
 round. I have had to execute a performance, and I 
 have always done it ill. 
 
 I venture to ask, When did this order of words 
 come in ? The four invocations in the Litany are 
 mediaeval rather than primitive, and are peculiar to 
 the Western Church. But the old Latin words there 
 are Fill redemptor mundi Deus, which I take to be 
 a very different way of speaking from " O God the 
 Son ; " and Spiritus Sancte Deus, which seems to 
 
THE TRINITY. 
 
 347 
 
 me very different from " God the Holy Ghost." To 
 confess the honest truth, when I say the words of our 
 invocations with the least attempt to understand them, 
 I feel balancing myself upon the finest of edges be- 
 tween Tritheisni on one side, and Sabellianism, if I 
 know what that is, on the other. I may confidently 
 say I feel no such straitness and peril in using the 
 Latin forms. 
 
 In the French manual of devotion referred to above, 
 compiled by Diipanloup from Bossuet, I find the in- 
 vocations running : — 
 
 Pere celeste, qui etes Dieu, ayez pitie' de nous. 
 
 Fils Re'dempteur du monde, qui fitcs Dieu, ayez pitie de nous. 
 
 Saint-Esprit, qui etes Dieu, ayez pitie de nous. 
 
 Sainte Triuit^, qui etes un scul Dieu, ayez pitie' de nous. 
 
 I use the words "• God the Son " and " God the 
 Holy Ghost " both in public and in private. I have 
 used them in private the very day I write this. I 
 should not hesitate to perform the Marriage Service, 
 though the words are there, the Church of England 
 having taken tliat opportunity of inculcating its very 
 " highest," that is, its most unintelligible doctrine. I 
 have continually, up to the present time, used the 
 Catechism for children, though I must say that if the 
 question, " What dost thou chiefly learn in these arti- 
 cles of thy belief," could be put for the first time to 
 the entire Anglo-Saxon race, I 'feel quite sure that not 
 one of them, young or old, would return the second 
 and third answers, or answers even like unto thein. 
 
 The truth is that in religious matters everybody 
 expects to be called on to say what he does not 
 understand ; and they who impose the words evi- 
 dently are the last to wish them to be intelligible. 
 The writers of our Hj-mn Books adapt their theory of 
 
348 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 the Divine Being and operations to the exigencies of 
 the metre and the rhyme. They invoke whatever 
 they please and find convenient, and they abandon 
 their theology at a moment's notice for the sake of a 
 happy fourth line. The sentences of a sermon suc- 
 ceed one another too rapidly to make sense strictly 
 necessary. So religious people are habituated to be 
 random in their expressions. They speak in unknown 
 tongues, for others to interpret if they can. 
 
CHAPTER CXXL 
 
 THE SAINTS. 
 
 Most Anglicans will agree that the one Roman 
 practice that I'ises above all the rest in the strange 
 and startling character it presents to their unaccus- 
 tomed eyes is the worship of the Virgin. To me it 
 was the greatest difficulty, and what I could least 
 turn round, or get over, or smooth away. Walking 
 as I was, nay almost running, towards Rome, I yet 
 seemed to find all my work begin again when there 
 rose before me this Queen of Heaven who seemed to 
 occupy the place of all else that was Divine — of 
 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — of Holy Scripture, of 
 Sacraments, and of the Catholic Church itself. Is it 
 possible that this can be right and true ? Does the 
 Scripture give any warrant for it ? Is the mother of 
 our Lord so prominent a figure in the Gospel narra- 
 tives, or are the few passages relating to her so ex- 
 plicit, so peremptory, and so tremendous ? When 
 the Bridegroom had gone, the mother might be the 
 consolation for His absence. But does she emerge in 
 the Acts, and shine brighter as the night darkened 
 while the Epistles were written ? True, all must ad- 
 mit the Revelation of St. John the Divine to occupy 
 a debatable place in this matter, but yet most will 
 think it to be interpreted by comparison with the 
 other Scriptures of the New Testament, especially 
 those by the same writer, and nearest to it in time. 
 
350 
 
 BEinXISCESCES. 
 
 Of course most Protestants feel that hundreds of 
 worshippers on their knees before a gaudily dressed 
 female figure, nay sometimes before a perfectly black 
 and scarcely human physiognomy, traditionally held 
 to be an image of the Virgin, from some preternatural 
 source, constitute a spectacle that they must recoil 
 from with horror. There is not even room for doubt 
 here, they will say, and there can be no occasion to 
 search the Scriptures to see if these things be so. 
 
 But I was now a traveller in search of truth, and 
 it was mv duty to throw nothing aside till I had 
 looked at it, and considered what was to be said for 
 it. In the first place, for more than a thousand years, 
 saints, theologians, martyrs, the salt of the earth, the 
 men that had held fast the faith and preserved it 
 for us, and that had continually rescued the civilized 
 world from relapsing into prehistoric savagery, had 
 done what these simple folk were doing. They had 
 undoubtedly worshipped and invoked the Virgin, 
 and bound themselves in special devotion to her ser- 
 vice. But for the place long held by the Blessed 
 Virgin in the heart and mind of man, I should not 
 have been a Fellow of Oriel, for Oriel would never 
 have been : and I should not have gone to Normandy, 
 nay, I am very sure I should never have been at all. 
 All these good men, who so marvellously combined 
 the faculties of thought and belief found incompatible 
 in our times, must have had something to say for the 
 worship of the Virgin, and for her great exaltation ; 
 indeed, as it strikes us, her super-eminence. 
 
 Let us handle the matter in a rational, cold-blooded 
 manner, not shrinking from the consequences. " Is 
 the Mother of our Lord now existing ? " Yes. I be- 
 lieve that all fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters 
 
THE SAINTS. 
 
 351 
 
 are now existing. Nature, speaking generally, has 
 disposed of their bodies, so far as we can trace her 
 work ; but their souls remain. So I read in Homer, 
 in Virgil, and in the New Testament, though not 
 quite so certainly in tlie Old. I even find this fond 
 belief struggling against counter-influences and phi- 
 losophies in Horace, and blazing into deification in the 
 great Pagan Emjjire. Tliis existence I am permitted 
 to believe is a conscious and active existence; I say 
 not in all cases, for many poor creatures can hardly 
 be said to have a conscious and active existence in 
 this life, and if they are kept like chrysalises for a 
 few thousand years before they emerge in a winged 
 state, it might conceivably be no great loss, either to 
 themselves, or to the world from which they have 
 disappeared. 
 
 The next step of the inquiry is a larger one, for it 
 introduces not only sentience, but free will and moral 
 government, into the limbo of cold shades, as we deem 
 them. Is there indeed a great cloud of witnesses all 
 about us ? Do our forefathers commune with our 
 thoughts in our own houses? Do the old saints assist 
 at our worship, our old statesmen in our cabinets and 
 councils ? Do our long line of sovereigns still sit on 
 thrones over us ; indeed are we ourselves but the vis- 
 ible ranks of a vast army, resembling the armies of 
 modern warfare, that never show themselves, but do 
 their work without being seen ? 
 
 It is very true that in the New Testament there is 
 next to nothing as to the state of the departed, and 
 their cooperation in human affairs. It seems there to 
 be regarded as an accidental or exceptional matter 
 that Christians died at all, so much was the mind of 
 the Church engrossed in the speedy coming of the 
 
352 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Lord. It is impossible to find anything positive as to 
 the state of the departed ; equally impossible to find 
 anything negative. Is it a case in which natui-e is 
 left to take its course ? The tendency of nature has 
 always been positive, for wherever men have had 
 proper affections and high intelligence, they have al- 
 most invariably believed the souls of the great and 
 good to be interested in human affairs, accessible to 
 human approaches, and potent for good, indeed occa- 
 sionally for ill. The epithet of " fond " applied by 
 the 22d Article to this and other doctrines can only 
 mean that they are the teaching of nature. 
 
 But is nature no authority in this matter ? How 
 often have I read touching epitaphs, not only in 
 churchyards, where there are "fond " things enough 
 to be found everywhere, but on the marble tablets in- 
 side, expressing the belief that the departed wife will 
 still aid the lonely husband, and the departed daugh- 
 ter still comfort the parents' weeping eyes I 
 
 Thei'e necessarily then arises the question of hu- 
 man relations. Will fathers still be fathers, mothers 
 still mothers, sons and daughters still sons and daugh- 
 ters ? Will the greater virtues and faculties and po- 
 sitions be glorified and perpetuated ? I had myself 
 at this time ever thought it must be so, for it was 
 inconceivable that they should be suddenly deter- 
 mined like the compact between our poor material 
 elements, or our common earthl}-^ engagements. Are 
 not our relations parts of our identit}', and how can a 
 man be the same if not only everything about him and 
 his tabernacle of clay, but the whole matter of spirit- 
 ual identity is to be changed, nothing surviving but 
 a " character," whatever that may be ? 
 
 I am aware that what is called a vigorous under- 
 
THE SAINTS. 
 
 353 
 
 standing and a " masculine " Christianity will on 
 English soil reject all such speculations ; but I could 
 never be sure they would not reject everything be- 
 yond the range of the senses. Doubters are very apt 
 to stay just where they are, doubting forever, cer- 
 tainly in this world, possibly, to their great loss, in 
 the next. Believers are apt to believe too much, and 
 to end in the lesser beliefs that undermine the greater 
 and neutralize their proper effect. But they that are 
 resolute to disbelieve, whenever they think they may, 
 go on believing less and less and less, till they believe 
 nothing at all. 
 
 VOL. II. 23 
 
CHAPTER CXXII. 
 
 " MAEIOLATRY." 
 
 But I must return to that wliicli is the great rock 
 of offence, the one thing which innumerable Chris- 
 tians not unfavorably disposed to the Church of Rome 
 say they cannot get over ; the worship of the Blessed 
 Virgin, and, as they add, the substitution of her wor- 
 ship for all other Christianity. Of Scriptural warrant, 
 or even guiding landmark, they say there is hardly 
 any. Instead thereof, visions and traditions have had 
 to be alleged to make a case, that is, when a case is 
 demanded. As before, I ask what is the teaching of 
 nature, which I presume to be not wholly out of court 
 in this matter? What became of the household of 
 Nazareth, when death finally released it from its 
 earthly ties ? For thirty years was Jesus living there, 
 in the completest obedience, and in the most loving 
 interchange of kindnesses, and even benefits. 
 
 It was a real and true companionship. It was an 
 actual family. Jesus was no shadow. He was not a 
 piece of Divine mechanism. He was not deceiving 
 Mary and Joseph with a show of goodness. He was 
 not acting the part of a son. We cannot doubt that 
 He loved Mary to the fulhiess of his nature, which 
 was Divine. It would be a very idle refinement to 
 say that He loved her as man only, for in Him the 
 human and Divine nature were united. That nature, 
 human and Divine, he bore with him to heaven. 
 
" MARIOLATRY." 
 
 355 
 
 But what is human nature without its objects and be- 
 longings ? What, indeed, do we think of the man 
 who has no sooner risen a step, than he begins to be 
 ashamed of his humble relatives ? We despise him 
 as a traitor to the dignity of true human nature, a 
 hollow counterfeit, a thing formed by vulgar fashion, 
 the circumstances of the hour. 
 
 The love of Mary and of Joseph could not be bound 
 by conditions of space or time. We may think it a 
 terrible presumption to place Mary, and Joseph the 
 carpenter, whose very name and profession were a 
 reproach to Jesus, near the throne of the universe. 
 But it would be a far more terrible presumption to 
 place them anywhere else. Can we possibly sup- 
 pose them to be laid deep in the dull catacombs of 
 an intermediate state, waiting the solemnity of the 
 trumpet call ? Can we suppose them somewhere, 
 walking sadly and pensively in laurel groves ? Can 
 we suppose them enjoying that mere rest which is of 
 all things the most wearisome ? Can we imagine 
 them relegated for ages to some corner of the uni- 
 verse, out of sight, and out of mind ? Would the Son 
 intermit His love, and stop the flow of His affection 
 for thousands of years, till the time arrived for the 
 reappearance of Joseph and Mary in the innumerable 
 crowd to be then gathered, and separated right and 
 left ? In a word, is there any one positive conception 
 of the present state of Joseph and Mary so natural 
 and so reasonable as tliat they are now with Christ, 
 and where He is, at the right hand of the Father. 
 Grant that this last expression is only a way of stat- 
 ing that which is really past our understanding, there 
 is nothing inconceivable in Joseph and Mary being 
 now with Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
356 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 It is true that all that we ever imagine of these 
 supremel}^ favored personages, of Christ, and of the 
 saints, and indeed of all departed spirits, must be 
 under the correction that in their case time and space 
 are no more. They are in the presence of God, and 
 that is all the account we can give of their habitation, 
 their ways, and their mode of being. But this leaves 
 the Love that never faileth, and that knows no dif- 
 ference between time and eternity, the finite and the 
 infinite, the only guide of our speculations, destroy- 
 ing thereby all the barriers which human jealousy 
 may choose to place between the Son of God and the 
 daughter of man. 
 
 Then with another long step we come to the ques- 
 tions, Can Mary hear us? What can she do for us ? 
 Why should she do anything for us when Christ is 
 all-sufficient, ready to hear, and ready to save? Is 
 not this to make Marj' ubiquitous, omniscient, all- 
 powerful, and Divine ? Such questions are often 
 asked as if they were quite conclusive, and as if no 
 satisfactory answer were possible. But the greatest 
 power that the human mind can conceive stops short 
 of the infinite and the Divine. With the mechanical 
 agencies wielded by modern civilization there is noth- 
 ing inconceivable, or even difficult, in the idea of the 
 whole human race being put in loving accord and in- 
 tellectual relation with one person. Surely the great 
 Artificer of the universe, wielding forces far surpass- 
 ing our knowledge, could delegate to whomsoever He 
 will what He pleases of His sovei'eignty. 
 
 It would only correspond to the greater part of the 
 work done here below. Vicarious agency is the rule 
 of human life. Nearly all mankind find themselves 
 greatly beholden to others for their spiritual comfort 
 
"MARIOLATRY." 
 
 357 
 
 and progress. Everybody wants help of some sort or 
 other. The most confident and independent have to 
 admit, as regards themselves, that they are occupying 
 a mediatorial position, and that they are the ordained 
 receivers and dispensers of mercy, truth, and grace. 
 But whatever is done on earth can undoubtedly be 
 done more easily as well as better in heaven. If Christ 
 tolerates such poor rulers and such poor teachers as 
 we find below, why may He not have good servants 
 above, doing His work better ? 
 
 But what proof, what sign is there of all this ? 
 some will say. The answer is, that proofs and signs 
 are not always necessary, and certainly are not al- 
 ways insisted on. We frequently shape and color 
 the unknown from the known. What guide have we 
 for the future except the past ? We cannot help 
 imagining heaven in some fashion or other. The 
 vulgar conception is rest, freedom from earthly pains 
 and cares, singing hymns and shining bright in glori- 
 ous apparel, with crowns on our heads and palms in 
 our hands. Can we really believe that to be the fit 
 consummation and meet reward of a Christian states- 
 man, theologian, or philosopher? If these ideas are 
 founded on texts addressed to the common under- 
 standing, may not even more be built upon such 
 texts as that which describes the Disciples as gov- 
 erning the twelve tribes of Israel, and that which 
 promises ten cities to him that has done his duty by 
 one ? But the attempt to reach the skies by heap- 
 ing one idea upon another, the probable upon the 
 probable, the possible on the possible, the conceiv- 
 able on the conceivable, is in truth heaping Pelion on 
 Ossa. 
 
 That in some way and in truth Christ governs the 
 
358 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 world, we daily say, and, it is to be hoped, we be- 
 lieve. So are we told ; so has it been handed down 
 to us ; we cannot question the propriety, and we 
 have accepted the probability so long and so fully 
 that it is easier now to believe than not to believe. 
 But Englishmen have not been born and bred to 
 believe in the Syrian household, the inmates of the 
 carpenter's shop, assisted by cousins, brothers, or 
 neighbors, doing this mighty work ; the gentle Ma- 
 tron now as prominent a figure, -as specially loved 
 and as immediately obeyed by all the powers of earth 
 and lieaven, as when the Babe sat on her lap, or the 
 Son helped in the household offices. Where are we 
 to stop, if indeed it is wished we should stop any- 
 where, when we read the title, " The Mother of God," 
 won by generations of controversy, and still resolutely 
 claimed for Mary of Nazareth ? 
 
 There is no disguising the matter. The new 
 Trinity has displaced the old in Roman Catholic 
 countries. The Chui'ch of England has long consti- 
 tuted itself the Protector of the Trinity, as Trinita- 
 rians understand it, and it fights with national pug- 
 nacity for that di'iest and quaintest of all formulas, 
 the Athanasian Creed ; but the new Trinity is most 
 intelligible, most agreeable to behold, and most easy 
 to approach. Instead of the rustic worshipper having 
 to repeat, with stammering accents and intellect lag- 
 ging far, far behind, a long jingling rhapsody playing 
 on logical terms, he now sees his own dear household 
 in its sweetest earthly form, with its hopes still to be 
 fulfilled, all as it should be, and as it ought to be for 
 ever. 
 
 Was it not Mary that bore the Babe, that nursed 
 the Babe, that fed Him, and that taught Him to say 
 
" MARIOLATRY." 
 
 359 
 
 His prayers to His Heavenly Father, and to sing 
 hymns to Him, and to make proper obeisances, and 
 be a good and dutiful and very gentle child ? Was 
 is not she that introduced the Babe to His own in- 
 heritance. His own kingdom, and His own subjects, 
 to the flowers, and the creatures, to the budding trees 
 and the changing skies, to the Temple, and to the 
 crowded shores of the Lake of Gennesaret ? Was 
 it not she that taught the Babe to pity all, even the 
 unpitying and unpitiable, showing more by look 
 than by word what she felt as Priest and Levite 
 passed her humble door on their ways to and fro 
 between synagogues, public places, and well-to-do 
 houses ? Was not her house the early school of Him 
 who was to be the Teacher of the world ? What is 
 a Revelation for if it is not to reveal something in- 
 telligible ? Who brings a light in order to leave us 
 still groping about in darkness, and falling one upon 
 another ? 
 
 The largest and at the same time the dearest 
 foreshadowing of the Christian future is, that as we 
 believe ourselves to be now in Him and He in us, 
 so we may confidently trust that wherever He is, 
 there we shall be, and that this indwelling will not 
 be anything passive or dormant, but the sharing of 
 a mighty work in our respective capacities. To no 
 one among all that God has made can this promise 
 apply so directly and closely as to Mary of Nazareth. 
 Whatever we hope and believe of ourselves we must 
 hope and believe of her, and believe it, too, in the 
 sense appertaining only to her. 
 
 Putting together the argument, if argument there 
 be, we can conceive this glimpse of heaven, this re- 
 union of the family of Nazareth. It is probable, and 
 
360 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 it has as much Scriptural authority as can be found 
 for any other doctrine. 
 
 But we all of us know that with the vast majority 
 of mankind there is no such thing as argument, and 
 there can be no such thing. They walk in the lines 
 of habit, custom, and tradition, doing as those before 
 them did, and those around are still doing. The 
 wise tell us this is generally the best thing people can 
 do, for, resting upon custom, when the custom is 
 gone and the habit interrupted, they know not what 
 to do or think, and become nothing at all. In these 
 days, however, it is not everybody tluit is permitted 
 to live that life of unthinking and unconscious duty 
 and observance, which even George Herbert pined 
 for, but could not obtain. We are not all allowed to 
 graze in sweet pastures, to quench our thirst at the 
 pure stream, or to be as trees waving their foliage 
 in the soft western breeze. We find ourselves com- 
 pelled to defend our own beliefs, and to attack as 
 well as defend. 
 
 What, then, becomes our rule, that is, our actual 
 rule ? The answer is easy, too easy indeed. The 
 generation of belief is soon told. It is the child of 
 will. People believe what they wish to believe, and 
 they wish to believe that which suits their interests, 
 their tastes, or their prejudices. Other views, other 
 arguments, may be implanted in them to-day, but 
 only to be found dead to-morrow. Whatever finds its 
 way into them requires food, and if the food be not 
 there, the ungenial aud really unwelcome intruder 
 dies for lack of it. Faith is a living, and therefore a 
 dying thing. It is not a stone cut to shape, insoluble, 
 imperishable, and holding its ground because indi- 
 gestible. It must grow and develop, or disappear; 
 
" MARIOLATRY." 
 
 361 
 
 and its growth must be by the accretion of kindred 
 elements. 
 
 People do not like to be told they believe what 
 they wish to believe, and what suits their temper or 
 their cards, but they are nevertheless often angry 
 at the beliefs of those about them, and such anger 
 recognizes the prevalence of will and the suprem- 
 acy of the moral nature in the decision of religious 
 questions. We are not angry with the man who is 
 simply a member of some unchangeable order, one 
 herring in a shoal, one worm in a coral reef, one leaf 
 on a tree. We are angry with the man who appears 
 to have a will and a taste, and whose will and taste 
 clash with our own will and our taste. 
 
 That belief is a matter of taste and of will appears 
 on the face of history, and in no historical records 
 more plainly than our own. There we find argu- 
 ments, authorities, records, texts, becoming at once 
 as the chaff of the floor or the dust of the earth before 
 the strong will of a man, or a woman, bending the 
 nation to her own fancies or her own purposes. As a 
 rule the English parent assumes that nothing in the 
 head or in the heart of the child ought to prevail, in 
 the matter of religious belief, against the parental 
 authority. The parent insists on the child adopting 
 the hereditary belief, and would seldom condescend 
 to argument as having any place in the question. 
 What is this but to admit that all arguments, all 
 authorities, all Scriptural proofs and analogies, are 
 but material to be played with in sight of a foregone 
 conclusion? But foregone conclusions have their day. 
 They betray the violence of will. They provoke 
 counter obstinacies. They who have been compelled 
 for years to believe or not believe, to reason or not 
 
362 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 to reason, at the word of command, find themselves 
 one day their own masters, and though they may 
 repeat the tyranny they resent, and dictate as impe- 
 riously as their fathers did before them, it will gen- 
 erally be in a somewhat different direction. 
 
CHAPTER CXXIII. 
 
 ROMISH INVENTIONS. 
 
 But what healthy taste, and what will that is 
 not rathei" wilfulness than free will, can accept the 
 enormous lies, fables, pretended miracles, and alleged 
 revelations of the Church of Rome ? Such is the in- 
 dignant cry of Protestant writers, who seem to have 
 discovered for the first time the large part played 
 by the imagination in human affairs when they hear 
 this or that marvellous Church story. 
 
 It is a comfort to be assured by these bursts of 
 outraged reason, that the sense, or at least the- pro- 
 fession, of truth survives, and is not afraid to declare 
 itself. Yet any one who knows anything of human 
 affairs must be aware that lying performs a large, and 
 not wholly injurious or discreditable part in them. 
 The same Almighty who has created us without a 
 window in our foreheads or in our breasts, and who 
 has given every one of us a council chamber for the 
 management of our little affairs of state, has also 
 ordained an infinite number of circumstances, the 
 whole truth of which it is unnecessary to bestow on 
 the world. With regard to all these matters, it is 
 held to be sufficient to give the world just as much as 
 it has a right to ask, and no more. If upon finding 
 his natural defences suddenly forced, a man happens, 
 from an unreadiness, to say that which is not literally 
 true, he throws the blame on those that practised on 
 his weakness or his simplicity. 
 
364 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 But it is quite impossible to communicate the real 
 state of things, in any matter of religion, morality, or 
 politics without an intermixture of error. We may 
 flatter ourselves that the utterance proceeds from us 
 without distortion or alloy, but it has to pass through 
 other media, and receive their refraction or their hue. 
 
 But will this account for the enormous circumstan- 
 tial inventions and forgeries of Rome ? Grant that 
 it will not. Grant that some of these inventions — 
 to be content with one of them, the Assumption of 
 the Blessed Virgin — is simply a forgery and. nothing 
 more, let us consider what these inventions come to. 
 
 As a rule inventions are made, or adopted, in con- 
 firmation or illustration of existing probabilities. A 
 fable is a fictitious representation of a truth, and the 
 more popular, the more ancient, and the more wide- 
 spread the fable, the more strongly does it testify to 
 the universality of the truth. Baseless itself, a pure 
 invention indeed, and utterly incredible, it fills the 
 imagination with a scene, and the mind with a moral 
 belief. 
 
 Nobody ever yet supposed that any dog had 
 dropped a bit of meat while snapping at its shadow, 
 or that any lion had ever invited an ass to share his 
 sport and divide the game* or that any porcupine had 
 ever sought refuge from a shower in a snake's hole 
 and their declined to quit it, or that any tortoise had 
 run a race with a hare and won ; but these stories 
 were both picturesque, and they also illustrated what 
 frequently occurred in human life. Every attempt 
 to teach the ways of human life with real and prac- 
 tical illustration labors under great disadvantages, 
 as must be immediately apparent to any one who 
 makes it. 
 
ROMISH INVENTIONS. 
 
 365 
 
 This, of course, is specially the case in dealing 
 ■with the young and the uninformed. They cannot 
 take in the ideas or the facts of real life ; they cannot 
 follow moral consequences or estimate moral proba- 
 bilities. They will dispute every allegation, and in- 
 sist on reducing all human affairs to their own imper- 
 fect reflex and puny proportions. They as quickly 
 reject the details necessary to establish any case, and 
 are then worse than they were before, for they have 
 triumphed over truth, and made facts contemptible. 
 But if you tell them of all the beasts once choosing an 
 ape for their king, or of all the trees of the forest elect- 
 ing a bramble bush, or if you tell them of a fox and 
 a crane exchanging hospitalities, and the former put- 
 ting his fare in a plate, and the latter into a long- 
 necked pitcher, you make no demands on their faith 
 or their experience, but you leave a highly suggestive 
 and indelible picture, which may be said to be sub- 
 stantially true. 
 
 The prevalence of such fables does not in the 
 slightest degree militate against the probability of the 
 moral truths represented ; on the contrary it testifies 
 thereto. Nobody could ever say he was certain there 
 were no people capable of " blowing hot and cold," 
 because he was certain that no satyr had ever kicked 
 out a traveller who seemed to do so ; indeed that 
 there never was such a being as a satyr. 
 
 Bunyan palmed a prodigious revelation on the 
 Christian world. But he disarmed criticism by the 
 candid avowal that it was a lie from beginning to 
 end, so far as all the particulars were concerned. Yet 
 his wonderful power enabled him to give this fiction 
 all the force of truth, and it is frequently said that 
 the " Pilgrim's Progress" and " Paradise Lost" have 
 
366 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 done more to form the religious faitli of this country 
 than the Bible. 
 
 In the course of a controversy raging within and 
 without on every point of the Christian faith, and 
 making a continual defence against injurious objec- 
 tions, the Church arrived at various beliefs, amongst 
 them the exaltation of the family of Nazareth to the 
 court of heaven, and the restoration of the desolate 
 Mother to her true Son. Filling up first one void, 
 then another, in the vast conception, it imagined such 
 a Mother as such a Son would have, the almost neces- 
 sary companion of His glorified humanity. This 
 might be incr(?dible, but it is not inconceivable, that 
 is if we are at liberty to conceive anything at all of 
 what is, and what passes in heaven. It is as con- 
 ceivable, for example, as anything in the Revelation 
 of John the Divine. It is far more conceivable than 
 what Milton tells us of the conversations in heaven. 
 
 But there were still more voids to be filled, each 
 successive supplement drawing still more boldly on 
 the stock of probability. How did Mary pass through 
 the grave and gate of death, and how did she rise to 
 heaven ? It could not be as a common mortal. She 
 who, for aught we read, had never left her Son, but 
 for some brief absences, from the cradle to the Cross, 
 must, like Him, rise in glorified humanity to His 
 throne in heaven. 
 
 Hence the story of the Assumption. The belief 
 was never founded on that story. The story was 
 founded on the belief, and testifies to the fact of that 
 belief. The belief which was universal required a 
 defined shape, and that shape at length it found. It 
 was, then, equally probable, but equally wanting cir- 
 cumstantial record and doctrinal form, that this per- 
 
ROMISH INVENTIONS. 
 
 367 
 
 sonage, all but Divine, if indeed not Divine, should 
 have liei- sluire in the Divine government, and Jiave 
 rights of worship. The saints already had this on a 
 lesser scale. There must be testimony and particu- 
 lars for this. 
 
 Hence the thousands of legends of the Blessed 
 Virgin's appearance and interposition. It was a com- 
 mon belief, taking various local forms. The im- 
 mense variety, and almost evidently fictitious charac- 
 ter of those legends, only testify to a belief which in 
 itself is scarcely less conceivable than the universal 
 reign of the risen Saviour, and only less probable. Of 
 those professing Christians who utterly reject the one 
 belief, a very large proportion as utterly reject the 
 other. But no amount of error, of imposture, of ab- 
 solute nonsense, can affect the probabilities upon 
 which both are founded. 
 
 Truth and goodness always will be preyed on and 
 counterfeited. But even if the representation of a 
 truth be false in its particulars, it may not be mate- 
 rially and substantially false. We tolerate too readily 
 much substantial untruth. We tolerate historians that 
 give all the virtues to one party, and all the vices to 
 the other. We tolerate one-sided biographies of 
 heroes or saints, who could have told us a very 
 different story of one another. We have all our 
 history written backwards, in order to square it with 
 modern ideas. We see no dishonesty in this. Yet 
 the people who thus invent history and poison the 
 wells of knowledge are most piously indignant at 
 stories that only pictured old beliefs and invested 
 them with proper circumstances. 
 
 What, then, is the moral to be drawn from a gen- 
 eral view of all this questionable matter ? We aro 
 
368 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 driven back to the conceivable and the probable, as 
 far as it runs in the lines of Scripture and of the 
 Church and has the adequate guarantee of general 
 agreement. But now comes the greater question. 
 This probability any one who is not born and bred 
 and tied and wedded to a system has to measure for 
 himself ; and, as I have said above, his measure will 
 be very much what he likes, and what therefore he 
 wills. 
 
CHAPTER CXXIV. 
 
 THE FIELD OF IMAGINATION. 
 
 There is no faculty so universal as that of conceiv- 
 ing beings out of our knowledge, and circumstances out 
 of our experience. When the philosopher laid down 
 that novelties can only be tested by experience, he 
 put on it a burden it has always refused to bear. 
 The result is that there is no public propertj' so uni- 
 versal, so vast, so fertile, so unfailing, as that region 
 of fancy in which the mind creates or accepts cre- 
 ations. What they profess to be signifies little. They 
 may have gained admittance as possible verities, or 
 as plausible fictions ; they may have claimed to instruct 
 or to amuse ; they may have demanded entrance or 
 insinuated themselves. Once in, they hold their 
 ground and become part of our existence. One thing 
 they are not. They are not matter-of-fact, probable, 
 reasonable creatures. They are above human nature, 
 or below it, or beside it altogether. They are incar- 
 nations. They occupy the mind and monopolize it. 
 We may say that they are inventions, and that they 
 are indeed nothing at all; but they possess us, influ- 
 ence us, master us, and are our lords. The historian 
 is always hampered with the difficulties of circum- 
 stances, the conflict of authorities, and the obligations 
 of truth. The novelist, the poet, or the dramatist 
 soars over mundane obstacles. He creates personages, 
 principalities, and powers, in the air. 
 
 VOL. II. 24 
 
370 
 
 KEMINISCENCES. 
 
 The art of giving life and form to names and sense- 
 less things is envied alike by historians, philosophers, 
 and naturalists. They are forced to bring poetry and 
 invention to their aid, investing men with angelic 
 natures, brute creatures with reason, and matter with 
 far-seeing aspirations and concerted action. We boast 
 that this is a matter-of-fact age, and that nothing is 
 taught, sanctioned, or upheld that cannot be mathe- 
 matically demonstrated. Yet nevei" before did fiction 
 in a thousand forms occupy so large a part of the 
 current literature. Never before were inventions of 
 the most monstrous and irrational character a regular 
 part of education. In the presence of so great a fact 
 we must assume this to be the order of Providence 
 and the constitution of our nature. We cannot know 
 everything, or more than a very little. What we do 
 know we cannot know rightly. We must see fact 
 itself through a medium of fiction. But of pure fiction 
 itself we can all take in a considerable quantity, a 
 whole world of it indeed. 
 
 Yet this fiction necessarily, and certainly in fact, 
 occupies a rank midway between earth and heaven, 
 between experience and imagination, between our 
 sufferings and our aspirations, between our own short 
 tether and the illimitable range of higher powers. 
 Here is a whole firmament to be filled just as we 
 choose to fill it. May we not at least suspect that all 
 this is a lost and ruined realm, made to be furnished 
 with better stuff, and peopled with nobler beings 
 than the creations of men avowedly disdaining the 
 higher in comparison with the lower affinities ? It 
 may be impossible to repair the vast and inveterate 
 injuries of time. A true and wholesome hagiology 
 may be now as imoossible as unity or other primitive 
 
THE FIELD OF IJIAGINATION. 
 
 371 
 
 grace. Yet may not that be laraentetl, and may we 
 not dwell on that which might have been ? The 
 Church of England has swept out of all recollection 
 fifteen centuries of great, good, and holy men, with 
 all their works, whatever they were. What does it 
 show instead ? In its own lines it can show some 
 learned and exemplary divines, one or two Christian 
 poets, and a few ladies of rank and piety. When it 
 wants to produce a cloud of witnesses, it has to look 
 out of its own lines, and borrow for a momentary dis- 
 play the names of men who spent their whole lives in 
 one long protest against it. 
 
 When the Church of England had done its best 
 to destroy the traces and the very memory of thou- 
 sands of saints, by a singular retribution it became 
 barren. The very idea of the man or woman favored 
 with extraordinary grace and living a Divine life is 
 extinct, except in forms specially adapted to our aris- 
 tocratic or literary preferences. The Wesleyans and 
 some other dissenters have a copious hagiology, in 
 which the humbler classes have their proportion of 
 numbers and honor. The Church of England seems 
 to show a positive jealousy of the saint " from the 
 ranks." Mj Oxford friends very early noted and 
 lamented the void, and caught eagerly at new books 
 that seemed to offer Christian experiences in the 
 humbler class of life. Wood's " Death-bed Scenes 
 and Pastoral Conversations " was hailed as a promis- 
 ing novelty, and widely recommended to young clergv- 
 men. The book at once interested and disappointed 
 me. I felt it clever and instructive, but very uni-eal, 
 as if out of the writer's own head. When the " Tracts 
 for the Times " were started, Thomas Keble, I be- 
 lieve it was, either described or conjured up one Rob- 
 
372 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 ert Nelson, a humble and pious inquirer after the 
 Anglican fashion. I am not in a condition to say 
 how far he succeeded. Very soon after there ap- 
 peared right and left of the movement a vast cloud 
 of auxiliaries in- still brighter array. Samuel and 
 Robert Wilberforce, Adams, Paget, Gresley, Parkin- 
 son, Neale, E. Monro, and a host of writers ushered 
 to the world by Mr. Burns, were now writing for the 
 young fictions more or less founded on fact. Actual 
 religious biography came in but slowly. Since those 
 days I have occasionally heard of exceptional Chris- 
 tians in cottages who received the testimony of a ser- 
 mon or a tract. They emerge and sink again out of 
 notice ; known for a time in a neighborhood, never 
 at all in the country at large. A collection of such 
 memorials would be a valuable addition to our scanty 
 Anglican records. 
 
 Though Newman was himself one example amongst 
 many of a man as well read in all the best works of 
 imagination as in those of history or philosophy, and 
 therefore proving the compatibility of the three, 
 nevertheless it is evident that imagination is always 
 covering new ground and displacing serious thought 
 and study. It dominates in our nurseries, in our 
 drawing-rooms, in our elementary schools, as well as 
 in our theatres. It holds its ground with a tenacity 
 out of all proportion to its reasonable claims. In 
 most memories its characters survive conquerors, 
 kings, and statesmen ; its most trifling or impossible 
 incidents are remembered with accuracy when revolu- 
 tions and civil wars are forgotten ; its moral lessons 
 are still recognized amid the wreck of decalogues, 
 constitutions, and creeds. In an interval of sober 
 reason a man asks himself the value of this immense 
 
THE FIELD OF IMAGINATION. 
 
 373 
 
 visionary world. He answers quickly that in matter 
 of fact it is nothing at all, but that it is all substan- 
 tially true, inasmuch as the sentiment is genuine, the 
 moralit)'^ good, and the philosophy sound. 
 
 Forty years ago we had arrived at the question, 
 Was the Church alone to be shut out of this fairy- 
 land ? Was it not to be allowed to dredge in the 
 deep sea of medigeval tradition, to bring up all that 
 came into its net, for people to deal with as they 
 please? Here were the actual records. They were 
 written, it is true, by monks who had to please their 
 masters or their readers. The tales, novels, and still 
 larger class of books combining imagination with fact 
 are also written for masters and readers. The " Cal- 
 endar " and " Lives of the English Saints," advertised 
 in the last number of the " British Critic," no doubt 
 contain a good deal that is startling and past the 
 powers of a modern imagination. But when these 
 saints present themselves and their wonderful stories, 
 demanding admission, and at least a hearing, it can- 
 not be said that there is no place for them, or that 
 we have not the faculty for comprehending such be- 
 ings, or that we are better employed. Of course it 
 will be replied that between mediaeval legends and 
 modern works of imagination there is the saving dif- 
 ference that the forme^r profess to be true, the latter 
 to be fictitious. Even if that were quite ti-ue it would 
 not much affect the comparison, for when we have 
 allowed ourselves to be possessed with an ideal per- 
 sonage, it does not much matter whence he came or 
 what are his credentials. 
 
 The truth is, even if we have made these idols of 
 the imagination with our own hands — and many of 
 U3 have so made them — they work upon us as effect- 
 
374 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 ually as if they were real and living beings ; often far 
 more injuriously. 
 
 After all, these legends are the chief material left 
 for filling up the enormous gap that we call the " Mid- 
 dle Ages." We possess annals, indeed, still with the 
 monkish taint upon them ; documents, title-deeds, 
 and what the antiquary can make out of heaving turf 
 and mouldering wall. But none of these give the 
 life, the faith, and the thoughts of the once mighty 
 people from whom we are descended. Historians de- 
 spair of rousing interest for the battles of kites and 
 crows. When Kingsley wished to introduce Saxons 
 and Normans to his Modern History class, he sub- 
 stituted a tale for annals. Living historians are 
 throwing overboard men and things, and giving us in 
 their stead the successive developments of principle 
 and the irresistible instincts of class, position, and 
 power. Not only Divine intervention but the human 
 will itself disappears into the inevitable sequence of 
 causation. 
 
 Maitland, working in the Lambeth Library, and 
 Sir F. Palgrave, undertook in their respective ways 
 the restitution of the Middle Ages, and of monkish 
 literature, art, and science, to their due place in his- 
 tory. They would both probably think themselves 
 taken at more than their word by Newman's " Lives 
 of the English Saints." This, however, is an age of 
 discovery and of exhumation. An immense quantity 
 of documents, hitherto buried in archives and muni- 
 ment rooms, in public and private collections, have 
 been published in series. The principle of entire 
 and unreserved publication is now universally ac- 
 cepted. Everybody is to be allowed to use his own 
 judgment upon the originals. It would have been 
 
THE FIELD OF IMAGINATION. 
 
 375 
 
 quite impossible at this date (1843) to publish the 
 " Lives " with selection, omission, suppression, or cur- 
 tailment of any kind. 
 
 Though the publication en masse was thoroughly 
 in accordance with the modern English usage, and 
 was certainly a bold reply to a crowd of jesters, yet I 
 believe most Roman Catholics of the old school would 
 call it unnecessary. They concern themselves very 
 little about these legends. They are not called on to 
 accept everything, nor is it their business to disparage 
 anything. Few indeed of them know anything about 
 these matters which so much trouble Protestants. 
 They can refer to a local tradition or a quaint per- 
 sonage, much in the same tone as an English gentle- 
 man would in giving the history of the monastic 
 founders of his house and his estate. 
 
 The English Protestant may go to St. Peter's 
 every day for a winter vpithout seeing the least sign 
 of a relic or a miraculous legend. If he goes to the 
 metropolitan church of St. John Lateran, he will see 
 a nave adorned with the colossal whi<^e marble stat- 
 ues of the Apostles, and nothing more. But his 
 guide-book will probably tell him of wonderful relics 
 at both churches. Hope Scott greatly desired to see 
 the treasures accumulated in the " Confession " — 
 that is, the crypt of St. Peter's, and asked the Pope 
 for an order. Pio Nono told him he must go to the 
 Dean for that ; but he added, " I have not seen them 
 myself." 
 
 At the Lateran the stranger has been told of a 
 cloister remarkable for its fine twisted columns of 
 Alexandrine mosaic. Through a small side-door he 
 passes into it and finds himself in another world. A 
 vast quantity of relics are piled against the walls, 
 
376 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 as if it were a curiosity shop, looking very dirty and 
 neglected. The one that dwells in my memory is a 
 slab perforated, so the legend is, by the fall of the 
 Host upon it. I need not say that few Italian or 
 French gentlemen believe in legends, but alas ! few 
 of them believe anything at all. 
 
CHAPTER CXXV. 
 
 HOLY WRIT. 
 
 I HAD never read the Bible much in a devotional 
 way, nor cared to hear it so read, except in church, 
 or on the rare occasions of it being read exception- 
 ally well. There is hardly a chapter which does not 
 bring up a passage of doubtful significance, and it 
 was always an extreme annoyance to me to find my- 
 self expected to accept a conventional sense, which 
 was sometimes no sense at all, but rather an expedi- 
 ent to evade the obvious sense. Sixty years ago the 
 interpretation of Scripture was one vast mass of con- 
 ventionalisms, very galling, very oppressive, yet not 
 to be touched as you would value your peace and 
 character. Should any one have the temerity to ex- 
 press a doubt whether the words " In the place where 
 the tree falleth, there it shall lie," were jDoint blank 
 against purgatory, or whether the " works " con- 
 trasted by St. Paul with " faith," included Christian 
 obedience in the same category as Jewish ordinances, 
 he must be an atheist, or, still worse, a Papist in dis- 
 guise. More than fifty years ago I was with Go- 
 lightly at my Lincolnshire friend's, Mr. Wayland, 
 whose wife was very clever and very good after the 
 fashion of the time. She quoted as a promise of sup- 
 port in the hour of need the words, " As thy days, so 
 shall thy strength be." Golightly, with much so- 
 lemnity interposed, "If you will excuse me, ma'am, 
 
378 
 
 REMmSCENCES. 
 
 that is not the exact sense of the original," which he 
 Tvas proceeding to explain. He was, however, inter- 
 rupted in return. " That 's just the way of you Ox- 
 ford gentlemen. You are taking away from us, one 
 after another, all the texts which are our comfort and 
 our stay, till we shall have none left." I might not 
 myself be so careful as Golightly to ascertain the true 
 sense of popular texts, but I had come to regard noth- 
 ing with so much suspicion as popular interpreta- 
 tion. 
 
 Hence, possibly, my present questionings were less 
 reverent and more impatient than they might have 
 been. I had to seek, and I did seek, for a clue 
 through this sea of doubtful interpretations ; but I 
 was not much of a Biblical scholar, and still less read 
 in the Fathers, or even in our own divines. The lat- 
 ter are a wordy race, and one has to be a long time 
 getting at the pith of their meaning. Some of them 
 seem to have no other art than that of disguising the 
 weakness of their convictions. 
 
 My general impression of the Church of England 
 was that it told you to use your common sense, which 
 upon a favorable estimate of yourself would be the 
 teaching of the Holy Spirit. It appeared to be uni- 
 versally agreed that Scripture, which was to be the 
 rule of our faith, must be, to use the words of a popu- 
 lar misinterpretation, a book that they who ran might 
 read. That is, incapable of misinterpretation except 
 by those wilfully prone to error. This being the case, 
 any orthodox reader, or any " spiritually minded " 
 reader, would find this common sense a sufficient 
 guide. 
 
 What common sense may have been in former 
 days, and what in other countries now, I know not, 
 
HOLY WRIT. 
 
 379 
 
 but in England it is a personal gift, each one having 
 a common sense of his own, and no two agreeing, 
 unless their tastes and objects happen to be the 
 same, or they resort to the same Commentary. Any 
 one who selected such portions of Scripture as his 
 own common sense or his favorite Commentator's 
 told him were of real value to him personally, and 
 in these times, and then applied that common sense 
 to their interpretation, seemed to me very liable to 
 self-deceit, and no guide to earnest inquirers. He 
 might answer his own purpose by the method, for 
 that was what he wanted, but it was all. It was 
 quite impossible to say what people would not drop 
 altogether out of count, and what significance would 
 attach to the scant remainder, under the guidance of 
 an inward monitor, itself the creature of habit and 
 the slave of the will. The appeal to common sense 
 seemed to me, " Believe just as much as suits you, 
 and understand it as you please." 
 
 All that does very well, so long as you have no 
 other wish than to float indolently in some sluggish 
 old stream of traditional interpretation. But I was 
 now at sea — such a sea, indeed, as if I had really 
 embarked on the perilous voyage once proposed to 
 me by William Froude. Forgotten texts reappeared, 
 slumbering questions awoke, and passages that had 
 long lain, as it were, in the trough of the sea, were 
 now curling over head, and threatening to overwhelm 
 me. 
 
 One thing was now very plain to me. It was that 
 while the traditional interpretations of the Church of 
 England, in the line of the Thirty-nine Articles, were 
 very timorous and reticent in one direction, they were 
 very negative in another. There are people so con- 
 
380 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 stitutionally and habitually given to negatives that 
 they have extinguished the power of definition and 
 assent in themselves, and in those who submit to their 
 influence. It is dangerous for preachers to tell people 
 that many hundred passages in Scripture cannot niean 
 what they seem to mean, and in fact have no meaning 
 that concerns us. Hearers who are so disposed, and 
 many are so disposed, readily hail the suggestion 
 that Scripture generally bears whatever sense you 
 may wish to put upon it, down to no sense at all. I 
 was then in no mood to bow down to this idol of 
 " common sense " as the rule of Scriptural interpreta- 
 tion. It was the teaching of men who exalted com- 
 mon sense over theology, and deprecated its usurpa- 
 tions in all other branches of knowledge, in arts and 
 in sciences. I had now been many years under a 
 very different teaching, under which much of Holy 
 Writ, that had been dead before, now lived to me. 
 Newman had always seemed to me to start from the 
 axiom that Scripture must mean something, while 
 even pious people were content that much of it should 
 mean nothing, and had better be left unintelligible. 
 I am aware that there are those who think that literal 
 interpretation was Newman's great error, indeed the 
 chief account to be given of a life's aberration from 
 the wise Anglican cou'rse. I should myself say that 
 he did cherish and freely use the literal sense, without, 
 however, binding himself to it, or seeing nothing in a 
 text but the outside. Inside and outside, the buried 
 ore and the glistering surface, had both come from 
 heaven, and he would turn both to account. If you 
 use a text simply for illustration, you must take it as 
 it is, for neither eloquence nor exhortation loves the 
 critical mood. 
 
HOLY WRIT. 
 
 381 
 
 On the whole I was prepared to find more than 
 the great Family Bible' of the period would allow me. 
 I was prepared to go forward in the direction of 
 faith. It is true that I was as a poor weakling, who 
 insists on joining an Alpine adventure when he 
 cannot but break down at the first pinch ; or as the 
 multitudes that hung on the Crusades, to fall out and 
 die on the long march. 
 
CHAPTER CXXVI. 
 
 THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 
 
 Throughout the great conti'oversy of that day the 
 choice lay between two things which, if not equally 
 questioned, were equally questionable. First of all 
 came the great question whether the Anglican 
 Church should aim at a more Catholic form and 
 manner ; and, to use the old familiar phrase, set bet- 
 ter the bone badly set at the Reformation. The other 
 alternative was imminent and hideous. It was to let 
 the Church of England settle down like a scuttled 
 ship under the combined attacks of Liberal unbe- 
 lievers, rationalists, dissenters of every variety, and 
 parties and schools in the Church who also had their 
 future, and who were ready to combine for any act of 
 destruction. 
 
 Then for the Sacramental question, and the prac- 
 tices depending on it. I have always maintained and 
 do still maintain, that the Church of England allows 
 the widest scope on these subjects, and abstains from 
 imposing either of the two conflicting theories on 
 those who seek her sacraments. But at the period I 
 am writing of there was a confident and very general 
 expectation that the Church of England was to be 
 speedily made more comprehensive not upwards but 
 downwards, by the removal of everything disagree- 
 able to Liberals, Dissenters, and the Anti-Sacramen- 
 tarians in her own bosom. 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 
 
 383 
 
 Tlien there was the lamentable fact that, in our 
 towns, Communion was almost confined to the well- 
 to-do-classes, the mass of the people being so far out 
 of the pale, and without that which, as children, they 
 had been taught was a necessary of spiritual life. 
 
 Nothing has raised more Protestant indignation 
 than the reservation, the exhibition, and the carrying 
 about of the Host, the Victim once slain for the sins 
 of the world. But do we in any way bring before 
 the masses of our people the great saving truths thus 
 feebly represented ? Again, it might be all well for 
 the Anglicans to denounce the invocation of Saints, 
 and the worship of the Virgin, but here in their own 
 system and practice was an absolute blank. Sepa- 
 rated by the Reformation from the Church of all ages 
 and all lands, the Church of England has no Church 
 in heaven to call its own, and shows not even the de- 
 sire to communicate with it, or to be sure that there 
 is such a Church at all. It peoples the spiritual uni- 
 verse with the Father and the Son, and certain em- 
 blematic representations of the Spirit, which the 
 Western Churcli, somewhat roughly, declares to pro- 
 ceed from Them. 
 
 As for the departed generally, it allows the sur- 
 vivors to indulge in their own fancies, so as they do 
 not force them on their neighbors. 
 
 The national mind revolts from the sacerdotal 
 form of confession, absolution, and penance ; but even 
 the national mind laments, in its more tender moods, 
 that confession is not made except in the most gre- 
 garious fashion ; that absolution is not sought, that 
 penance is not endured, and that retribution is a for- 
 gotten idea. 
 
 Again, we have turned out statues and pictures 
 
384 
 
 EEillNISCENCES. 
 
 from the inside of our churches. But we yet miss 
 sadl)^ something to look at, and prevent our eyes 
 from wandering everywhere. We have nothing to 
 fix our gaze upon except the Commandments, most 
 known and most broken of all known laws, and the 
 Prayer and the Creed, which by this time should be 
 engraven too deep in our hearts to require that the 
 text should be always before our eyes. 
 
 We denounce the authority of the Pope, and gener- 
 ally of the Western Church in any form whatever. 
 But what have we instead ? Lay courts, lay judges, 
 and lay lawyei-s, whose only business it is to construe 
 the acts of a legislature, the leading part of which is 
 a House of Commons, which is not even lay, for a 
 large part of it is not Anglican, while some are not 
 even Christian. 
 
 Forty years ago the negative side of the Church 
 of England, represented in all these contrasts, was 
 rapidly increasing. The state of things just as they 
 were did not seem a suflBcient basis for defence 
 against the general dissolution of faith threatening 
 the Church. If we would continue to believe what 
 we professed we must all believe more, and find in 
 more definite ideas a protection from growing care- 
 lessness and indifference. 
 
 This growing indifference was the great fact of 
 that day. It was a public fact, a social fact, an 
 academic fact, a domestic fact. A man might avow 
 any phase of unbelief, and any contempt of religion, 
 without loss of character, in the service of the state, 
 in societj', at Oxford, and at home. It was expected 
 of ever)' young man in "• the world." If he was wise 
 he held his tongue, or did not needlessly shock preju- 
 dices. If he was humorously and good-naturedly pro- 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. 
 
 385 
 
 fane, and could extract amusement out of such barren 
 stuff as the Bible and the Prayer Book, he might lose 
 a little, but he would certainly gain a reputation 
 ■which slower wits or more timid hearts might envy. 
 For everything short of fanatical and intolerant athe- 
 ism, there was not only condonance, but a certain de- 
 gree of admiration. Good mothers were proud to see 
 their sons thinking for themselves, and knocking over 
 the idols themselves were bowing to. But though 
 impiety, and even immorality, did not signify. Pop- 
 ery did, and if a man so much as looked that way, he 
 forfeited his inhei'itance, his prospects, his popularity, 
 the confidence of his equals, and the love of his 
 nearest friends. 
 
 VOL. 11. 25 
 
CHAPTER CXXVII. 
 
 DISCONTINUANCE OF THE "BRITISH CRITIC." 
 
 Such had been the state of affairs, such my own 
 little part in them, and such my reflections upon 
 them, when I went to Normandy in July. To these 
 I had added, without intending it, a large Roman 
 Catholic experience when I returned to Salisbury 
 Plain on September 1, 1843. Things had been go- 
 ing almost headlong at Oxford now for two years. 
 No. 90 had appeared early in 1841. It was cen- 
 sured by Bagot, Bishop of Oxford, defended at great 
 length by Ward, condemned by the Hebdomadal 
 Board, which not many years after itself ceased to 
 exist. The " Tracts for the Times " ceased at the 
 moment when they became the best read publication 
 of the day. Encouraged by these attacks, and by 
 this submission, a flock of male and female vultures 
 darkened the air, and lighted on what was left of the 
 ojEfending tracts and other writings of the school. 
 
 I had to look into these attacks, some worth read- 
 ing, most of them not, at the rate of a score a day. 
 When I had read a few pages, and dipped in here 
 and there, it always occurred to me to ask why it 
 was that these good people, so alive as they all were 
 to the danger of believing a little too much, seemed 
 perfectly indifferent to the certain fact that a large 
 part of the so-called Christian world believed either 
 nothing at all, or so little that it never showed 
 
DISCONTINUANCE OF THE "BRITISH CRITIC." 387 
 
 itself, and could never be ascertained. I then felt, 
 and I still feel, that as matter of doctrine, that is of 
 belief, the difference between what is held by English 
 Churchmen, and what is held by Roman Catholics, 
 is infinitesimal. There is absolutely no comparison 
 between the doctrine of the Incarnation and all the 
 special beliefs and practices dividing us from Rome. 
 That indeed is the Continental estimate of the mat- 
 ter. When an ordinary French or Italian gentleman 
 hears that a respectable English gentleman actually 
 believes that "the birth of Jesus Christ was on this 
 wise," he sets him down as afar greater fool than 
 the uneducated peasant who holds a few trifling and 
 harmless superstitions. The enlightened Italian will 
 look you in the face and tell you that if a man be- 
 lieves the Bible he is prepared to believe any lie, and 
 to tell any lie ; and this he says with a special regard 
 to the great doctrines which are at once the founda- 
 tion and the key of the whole structure. 
 
 Of course I admit that though the Roman Catholic 
 additions, developments, concretions, or whatever 
 they may be called, are infinitesimal in the scale of 
 doctrine, the practical, that is, the political and social, 
 difference is very great. Rome is a power ; the 
 priesthood is a power ; and in the matter of confes- 
 sion there is the choice — if choice it may be called — 
 between a painful submission and a burdensome 
 neglect. But all the writers I am speaking of were 
 riding the high horse, that is the high doctrinal 
 question ; and it was always strange to me that 
 while they seemed utterly indifferent to pure deism, 
 or absolute atheism, they were driven into fits by 
 matters which are but as dust in the scales of Divino 
 truth. 
 
388 
 
 BEMIKISCEXCES. 
 
 I cannot remember whether it was in 18-1:2 or 
 184:3 that I had had to stand before the Bishop of 
 Salisbury' at a Visitation, and listen to a carefully 
 composed censure on the Oxford movement, with a 
 passage which both I and my neighbors understood 
 to be aimed at myself. My impression at the time 
 was that it was borrowed from that passage in the 
 " Clouds " of Aristophanes, Avhere Socrates is intro- 
 duced suspended in a basket and conversing with the 
 newly invented divinities. Certainly Socrates was 
 not a man of position, or indeed of the world. A 
 man who deals with Church matters, and human 
 affairs generally, from a small village in Salisbury 
 Plain, and who when he goes to town finds himself 
 a man on the pavement, between his hotel and the 
 printer, may be said to be hung in a basket. How- 
 ever, the Bishop was bound to say something, and, 
 being a good classical scholar, he could not prevent 
 the old ideas from running in his head. The " Four 
 Tutors " had now invoked the readv intervention of 
 the Vice-Chancellor to the rescue of the orthodoxy, 
 or the peace and quiet of Oxford, and had won an 
 easy, if not a pre-arranged victory. Jsewman had 
 immediately met the challenge of the "Four Tutors," 
 whom in so doing he had called the " Four Gentle- 
 men." It did not seem to me a happy expression. 
 They were gentlemen, of course, but they were not 
 equally gentlemen. Tom Churton, for example, was 
 a very queer fellow, an exception to his family, and 
 an exception to his class. Another of the Four evi- 
 dentl}- did not know his own opinions at the time, 
 for he soon found himself in a case to ask for a Uberal 
 interpretation, instead of disallowing it. 
 
 It did occur to me that Newman might not choose 
 
DISCONTINUANCE OF THE "BRITISH CRITIC." 889 
 
 to recognize any special right in Tutors to move the 
 University in religious matters. They were ceasing 
 to have anything to do with the religion of the 
 undergraduates. In the matter of religious belief, 
 " Four Tutors" had no more meaning now than Four 
 Bursars, or Four College Stewards. Newman him- 
 self had led the last struggle for the ancient quasi- 
 parental and religious character of the College Tutor 
 and had been beaten. The University was now 
 drifting away from its old anchorage in the Christian 
 faith, and Tutors were fast sinking into lectui'ers in 
 classics and mathematics. What, then, had the name 
 of Tutor to do with the religious controversy ? 
 
 Our good Primate must sometimes smile to think of 
 his colleagues on this occasion. But this is always the 
 case with combined demonstrations, in which variety 
 is first a necessitj', but afterwards a scandal. I was 
 too busy and too far from the scene to follow the 
 literature of that occasion. No. 90 itself, and the 
 stronger tracts of the series, including that which com- 
 pares Romish scandals and difficulties with those of 
 the Old Testament, I had read with much interest 
 and care. I had agreed with them, all the while 
 trembling at the writers' audacity. The suspension 
 of Pusey from the University pulpit, and my own 
 article on the Six Doctors, were then the most recent 
 of these violent proceedings, but evidently not to be 
 the last. Thus the gi'ound was shaking under us, and 
 the very atmosphere seemed to be charged with de- 
 struction. 
 
 Immediately on my return alone from the Val- 
 rogers, I had to attend to the forthcoming number of 
 the "British Critic." There were letters to be an- 
 swered, much MS. to be read, and several parcels of 
 
390 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 books to be dealt with at such leisure as I could com- 
 mand. In rapid succession e\ery point of the great 
 controversy returned again and again to me. It had 
 now been repeatedly declared by my own Bishop, by 
 most of the Bishops, by the University, and by some 
 whom I loved and respected, that the conclusions to 
 which I had deliberately assented were not compatible 
 with a ministerial position in the Church of England, 
 or Avith the performance of sacred offices in it. New- 
 man's own retirement to Littlemore seemed to admit 
 this. I attempted, as I resumed my work, indeed I 
 think it was before I resumed it, to sum up the whole 
 controversy, and bring it to a practical point, for at 
 such a point I had plainly arrived. It was " to be or 
 not to be " in the Church of England. 
 
 As I have related in the preceding chapter, I had 
 found that, as a matter of fact, it is the will that 
 decides this question. The minor issues, the details, 
 the offences and scandals, sink to nothing compared 
 Avith the current of the mind running in the direction 
 most congenial to one's nature. Nobody attaches the 
 slightest importance to the particular reasons which a 
 man may allege, and even think that he has, for .be- 
 coming a Baptist, or a Plymouth Brother, or a Unita- 
 rian. His new communion is more to his liking and 
 agrees better with his religious ideas than the old one. 
 The struggle is generally deep in a man's nature ; too 
 deep for either himself or any one else to have a true 
 notion of. It is a battle, with confusion and din, in 
 which he may think himself a commander, but is only 
 a common soldier. I had been brought face to face 
 with the great Church of Western Christendom, and 
 now the question was whether I was to advance or 
 retreatj when even retreat seemed denied me. 
 
DISCONTINUANCE OF THE "BRITISH CRITIC." 391 
 
 Can I swallow this ? Can I take part in that ? 
 Can I say this and not be untrue? Can I do that 
 and not be a hypocrite? Can I do something else 
 and not find condemnation starting up from my own 
 ■writings, my own recollections, nay from my old con- 
 victions not yet quite shaken off. But something I 
 must do, and it must be decisive. 
 
 It can only have been two or three days after my 
 return from Normandy that I wrote to Newman, and 
 to various members of my family, to the effect that I 
 had serious thoughts of joining the Church of Rome. 
 At the same time I wrote to Rivington, giving up 
 the " British Critic." My friends, of course, were 
 shocked and grieved. Of Newman's letter I must 
 speak from recollection. I am not sure that I have 
 not both my letter and his reply somewhere among 
 my papers, but I don't expect, or even much care, 
 to see them again. If I am told that I have given 
 an incorrect account of the reply, I will look for the 
 letters. 
 
 Newman was surprised. From mj own showing 
 he could not think I was in a state to take a strong 
 step. A man ought to give at least two years to the 
 consideration of it, and to be assured that his reasons 
 and his motives were right. In a divided state of 
 mind I could not go on with the " British Critic," but 
 then there was my unfinished church, which seemed 
 providentially designed to compel deliberation. By 
 the time I had completed it I should know my own 
 mind better, and there would not be the scandal of 
 leaving the work to my successors, perliaps unable 
 to finish it. There was more to the same effect, 
 but the advice was definite. " Think over it two 
 years." 
 
392 
 
 REMraiSCENCES. 
 
 This was disappointing. It would indeed have 
 been a great trouble to me to leave the church un- 
 finished, for its extravagant scale and style made the 
 question one between a grand success and a ridiculous 
 failure. I should, too, have been sorry to plunge a 
 poor man, as my successor would probably be, into a 
 costly and troublesome work. Yet, had Newman ex- 
 pressed approval, or the merest acquiescence, I should 
 have gone over at once, with what consequences I 
 can hardly venture to imagine. 
 
 After the lapse of thirty-nine years, which is more 
 than half my whole lifetime, I do not find it easy to 
 recall the state of mind, or even all the circumstances, 
 under which I formed this resolution. Possibly, just 
 as a man's own neighbors can often understand his 
 movements and motives better than he does himself, so 
 I may now have arrived at the distance of time neces- 
 sary to an impartial judgment on myself. 
 
 I believe I was seeking rest. I was distracted and 
 wearied with discn-sions above my measure, my fac- 
 ulties, and my attainments. I disliked the tone of 
 disputants, all the more because I easily fell into it 
 myself. 
 
 The Church of England was one vast arena of con- 
 troversy. Ten thousand popes — the lay popes ten 
 times more arrogant, unreasonable, and bitter than 
 the clerical, and the female popes a hundred times 
 worse than either — laid down the law and demanded 
 instant obedience. Everybody was always being 
 called upon to defend his opinion, if he ventured to 
 have one, and was not allowed even to dream quietly. 
 He had to show a reason for everything, though he 
 might be the first himself to feel that he had no rea- 
 son to show for a cherished belief. 
 
DISCONTINUANCE OF THE "BRITISH CRITIC." 393 
 
 The tendency of the mass, not only of the people, 
 but of the Church and of the academic world, was 
 negative. This negation was at once impudent and 
 hj'pocritical. The opponents of the " movement " 
 were always charging upon it hypocrisy and conceal- 
 ment, at the very time that they were conscious of an 
 amount of skepticism and downright unbelief that 
 they could not venture to avow, as their own mouth 
 would be stopped thereby. 
 
 But there was also that which most will think to 
 the credit of the Church of England. The English 
 Churchman, on his own theory of spiritual life, and 
 by virtue of his position, must be always fighting for 
 the truth, and actually the member of a Church 
 militant. He must be supposed to have won the 
 truth or captured it out of the hand of many foes. 
 Now, so far as regards the great truths of Revela- 
 tion, all this was to me pure misery. I wished to 
 live and let live. I wished to think as I pleased 
 and let others think as they pleased. Only my 
 sense of justice made me cry for fair-dealing and 
 equality. 
 
 But should I get that in the Church of Rome? 
 That is a question, and it is a question that few 
 Protestants see the whole of. They do not even see 
 the whole meaning of their own words. They charge 
 Rome with depriving men of the right of private 
 judgment. Why, this is to relieve them of a task 
 generally above their powers. It gives them a harbor 
 of refuge from a continual storm. They are to be no 
 longer answerable for their opinions. So as they 
 conform and obey, the Church of Rome will not be 
 always putting them into an arena to fight wild 
 beasts. I really think it would have suited my 
 
394 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 nature to accept all the decisions of the Church of 
 Rome in a quiet lay fashion, and then turn my atten- 
 tion to matters more in my own line. Yet even if 
 thus I had escaped shipwreck, I might have rotted in 
 harbor and gone down. 
 
CHAPTER CXXVIII. 
 
 THE PROPKIETOE OF THE " BRITISH CKITIC." 
 
 RlVlNGTON, to whom I gave no reason for my 
 sudden withdrawal, was very kind, though evidently 
 unprepared and much concerned. I think he wrote 
 to Newman, who declined to name a successor. I 
 was not myself the least prepared for Rivington's 
 decision to discontinue the Review. Of course that 
 only shows my stupidity, for there was nothing else 
 to be done. The " Christian Remembrancer " imme- 
 diately took the place of the " British Critic," and a 
 large part of the readers of the latter were consoled 
 for their loss. To Rivington, however, it must have 
 been a serious matter, and I was much grieved on 
 his account. His way of taking it then and long 
 after deeply impressed me. There was not even a 
 suspicion of reproof or complaint in his words or his 
 looks ; and he never made any allusion to my run- 
 away horses, Wai'd and Oakley, or to any of the 
 articles to which exception might justly have been 
 taken. He could not have been kinder to me if I 
 had so edited his Review as to drive the " Edinburgh" 
 and the " Quarterly " out of the field. 
 
 Some years after I was residing for a few months 
 at Hampstead, and came across Rivington, with 
 whom I had some pleasant talks. He asked me to 
 dine more than once. The last occasion was one 
 which under ordinary circumstances should have been 
 
396 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 singiilarly happy and brilliant ; a white day in any 
 man's life. It was a dinner to authors and writers. 
 As I was not a member of any club, it was almost 
 my first introduction to the literary world. jNIany of 
 the names were new to me and have passed out of my 
 recollection. There were, however, if I remember 
 right, ^lontgomery, of Percy Chapel, and Words- 
 worth, now Bishop of Lincoln. The conversation 
 seemed in a suppressed tone, discursive, and seldom 
 rising above the usual colloquy of a man with his 
 next neighbor. 
 
 The fact was, a terrible blow had just fallen on 
 English literature. This was a funeral feast over 
 scores of promising works, born to die at once, some 
 indeed never to be heard of, so I have been told, but 
 to pass straight from the press to the vat. It was the 
 year of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." All the 'ologies, all 
 the arts and sciences, histories, travels, fictions, facts, 
 light literature, heavy literature, everything that 
 man can read, perished in that fatal blight. Mrs. 
 Beecher Stowe had found the Garden of Eden before 
 her, but she left a wilderness behind, and in this 
 wilderness I was now sitting down with a score of 
 the chief sufferers. I had no business there, for I 
 belonged to the camp of the destroyer. I had been 
 absorbed in the book, I had shed tears over it, and 
 devoured every line. I had been, and was now still 
 more than ever, rather strong against slaveiy, though 
 I could not hold it to be quite incompatible with the 
 Gospel. 
 
 The common affliction was only alluded to once or 
 twice, as a grief too big for words. I have forgotten 
 the book, except just a few names. I never read it a 
 second time, nor did I read any other work of Mrs. 
 
DISCONTINUANCE OF THE "BRITISH CRITIC." 397 
 
 Beeclier Stowe. I went to a reception given to her 
 at Willis's Rooms, when she seemed to me a weird, 
 uncanny creature, more French than English, and 
 her husband a remarkably fine specimen of the An- 
 glo-Saxon race, and no improvement upon it. There 
 can be Uttle doubt that the book greatly exasperated 
 the ill-feeling between North and South, and so con- 
 tributed to the Civil War, and the extinction of 
 American slavery. 
 
 Many years afterwards I was involuntarily re- 
 minded of the Hampstead dinner by a horrible story 
 in one of Dickens' Christmas numbers, not very 
 suitable to the season. It was a Parisian euthanasia. 
 A physician opened his house from time to time to 
 self-invited guests, who sat down to a succession of 
 the greatest achievements of the French cuisine. 
 But in every dish there was poison of one sort or an- 
 other so skilfully dispensed that the operation of the 
 whole could produce nothing worse than a good 
 night's sleep, from which, however, the guest would 
 not awake again. It was in fact a dinner of suicides, 
 seeking a painless extinction. The company were 
 bound to keep up one another's spirits, but that was 
 not easy, for the)'- had only one future, and that was 
 a blank. The only topic they had in common was 
 one they could not talk about. Yet talk they must. 
 Every now and then it was evident the speaker was 
 suddenly pulling up, and changing the line of his re- 
 marks. As the story ran, the doctor's manipulations 
 were not entirely successful. Though he watched his 
 patients closely, interdicted dishes they were running 
 on, and ordered some counteractives, there was a 
 dreadful scene or two. 
 
 So far as I remember, on this occasion Rivington 
 
398 
 
 REMINISCENCES, 
 
 •was quite successful, and no stranger would have 
 gathered from the conversation, and the looks of the 
 company, that they were sensible of any profounder 
 affliction than the ordinary dulness of a large and 
 miscellaneous dinner party. 
 
CHAPTER CXXIX. 
 
 WHERE LANDED. 
 
 I "WAS now under a direction, which to me was a 
 command, to wait for two years before a final decis- 
 ion. Two years are not too long for a consideration 
 affecting one's eternal happiness, and the present and 
 future happiness of many. But I had always found 
 it not easy to concentrate my attention on a serious 
 matter for even ten minutes. There was sure to be 
 some irrelevant idea shooting right athwart the range 
 of my speculations. It is so invariably the case that, 
 sometimes in charity to my poor self, I have tried to 
 account for it physically. Was it a peculiar working 
 in the organ of vision ? Had I a bee in my bonnet ? 
 I know the Provost, who himself could work his men- 
 tal apparatus with perfect regularity, thought some- 
 times I was light-headed. I can, however, return to 
 a point again and again. My time, too, was now en- 
 tirely occupied, and it was very soon apparent that I 
 was taking two years, but not employing them as di- 
 rected. 
 
 I cannot remember when, or how, Newman told 
 me what must have been in his own anticipations, 
 indeed in his own theory of the spiritual work to be 
 done, that if I was ever to go over, it would be, and 
 indeed ought to be, by a superior act of volition over- 
 ruling and containing my own. The Almighty would 
 give me the opportunity and the call, as well as the 
 
400 
 
 BEMINISCENCES. 
 
 power, and the mode of conversion. At the time it- 
 self I was so far from interpreting the injunction of 
 two years' waiting correctlj', that it gave me a fresh 
 assurance that Newman himself did not in the least 
 contemplate the possibility of himself taking the step. 
 I could not realize his sitting down deliberately to 
 give two years to working out the problem. The fact 
 was he did not intend to work out any problem at all, 
 but to wait for further light from his Heavenly Guide. 
 
 In the "Apologia" Newman describes himself as 
 true to the law of his nature and his life from the 
 hour of his conversion in very early years. By a 
 special inspiration he received that faith which he 
 long held in common with Anglican believers; and 
 by a special inspiration also he finally received the 
 submission of heart and mind to Rome. From one 
 change to the other, it was one regular spiritual 
 growth. 
 
 There was at one time an apparent deviation from 
 this course ; I mention it with the greatest humility, 
 and should not venture to mention it were it not that 
 a chance criticism by a writer of great keenness and 
 occasional justice seems to agree with it. Allusion 
 Has been made above to a very important paper on 
 the points of difference between the " Evangelical " 
 and the "Anglican" systems, which Newman circu- 
 lated amongst his friends ; it must have been imme- 
 diately after completing his work on the Arians, in 
 1832. The tendency of that paper certainly was not 
 to encourage any waiting for conversions of any 
 kind, or any belief likely to discourage inquiry or to 
 weaken the will. It suggested the idea of a man, a 
 theologian of the old dogmatic type, with all the 
 materials of knowledge lying before him and about 
 
WHERE LANDED, 
 
 401 
 
 him, working his way by the use of an enlightened 
 reason through the maze of texts and authorities. In 
 such a maze had Newman been when he wrote this 
 paper, and in a field quite new, now for a twelve- 
 month. The vast work had been spread out before 
 him, and he had had but little time, indeed little oc- 
 casion, to consult the workings of his own heart upon 
 this copious ingathering. 
 
 Stanley's remark is that Newman had not yet got 
 into the spirit of the Fathers when he finished the 
 book on the Arians. It certainly is, with some not- 
 able exceptions, less eloquent and less moving than 
 his other writings. It had been undertaken and be- 
 gun as a light, handy volume, meant to beguile the 
 dulness of an idle hour, and it became such a rock as 
 Ajax himself might vainly strive to throw. All the 
 Fathers and all the Church Councils were to be mar- 
 shalled in Anglican order and costume, and marched 
 before us as we sat at our firesides. It was terribly 
 outside work, and possibly the iron, indeed the very 
 rust of it, entered into Newman's soul. It might be 
 in this stage of deviation, like the faulty joint occa- 
 sionally found in the pine, noticed by Shakespeare, 
 that the above paper was written. I, too, was tliink- 
 ing just as I was doing, and what I was doing was 
 on the table before me — pen, ink, paper, piles of 
 books, and stray memoranda. 
 
 No doubt Newman's reply did urge upon me the 
 spirit of self-humiliation and discipline in which such 
 an inquiry ought to be conducted ; but I soon found 
 myself not at home in a state of expectancy, in 
 which I must not trust to that ordinary reason which 
 had hitherto been my very fallible guide, but wait 
 for an enlightened volition. 
 
 VOL. II. 26 
 
402 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 In the abstract, and in regard to other people, I 
 had long recognized the predominance of will in 
 matters of faith ; that is, of will formed by circum- 
 stances, habits, traditions, and prejudices. In so 
 doing I had always pitied the unfortunate persons, 
 indeed the vast multitudes, who had lost either the 
 whole truth, or a large part of it, through the fatal 
 dominion of a vicious or ill-educated will. The will 
 itself, one is told continually, is corrupted, obstinate, 
 and wayward. It is thus the worst enemy of truth. 
 Yet through the will I was now to attain the truth ; 
 that is, through the inspired will I was to attain that 
 truth which only comes by inspiration. 
 
 All this time my unfinished church stood before 
 me, the flint and stone walls temporarily protected 
 by rough red tiles, and not likely to be completed, 
 or even proceeded with, in two years, or even in ten. 
 That told for unlimited delay. Then there arose the 
 question whether I could conscientiously finish the 
 building for the Church of England while I was en- 
 tertaining a doubt of its authority. Upon this came 
 the larger question, " Could I go on ministering in 
 the Church of England, with a crippled faith in its 
 position, its Articles, its order of worship, its rites 
 and ceremonies ? " 
 
 Of course I was not so unreasonable as to expect 
 ever to quit the Anglican communion in a way quite 
 satisfactory to those I was leaving behind, for no man 
 has done that yet, the British public being quite re- 
 solved there shall be something wrong in the manner 
 of doing it — some treachery, some concealment, 
 some want of proper feeling or good manners. But 
 if I was to do at all what would be horrible to many 
 kind friends, I must do it as well as I could. 
 
WHERE LANDED. 
 
 403 
 
 As I returned to the question over and over again 
 in that month of September, alone as I was in Salis- 
 bury Plain, I felt more and more that there must be 
 a call of some sort or other. In my own case that 
 would not be such a call as the Evangelicals suppose 
 to be necessary — a sudden, distinct, and overpower- 
 ing conviction, plainly coming direct from Heaven. 
 In days long before this period I had occasionally had 
 fits of deep despondency, or rather of deep disgust, 
 with earth and all earthly affairs, yet I fear without 
 a very palpable reaction towards the Source of all 
 true happiness. Let saints describe their pits of de- 
 spond as they please. My misery took the material 
 form which prompted the old cry of " Vanity, van- 
 ity ; all things are vanity." My mind dwelt on the 
 mansions reduced by fire to cinders, or by neglect 
 to rottenness ; on estates wasted and overrun with 
 weeds; on the labors of a life reduced to nothing in 
 an hour ; on imaginary wealth discovered to be waste 
 paper, or jewels discovered to be counterfeit ; and all 
 the disappointments to which matter is liable. The 
 only result of these sensations, deep as they some- 
 times were, had been a certain careless and cynical 
 indifference to money, land, position, and the ordi- 
 nary objects of ambition. But I doubt whether they 
 ever made me a bit the more spiritually minded. 
 
 My call to Rome, if it ever should be, must be one 
 written in circumstances, and be intelligible alike to 
 myself and to my friends. Some will smile at such 
 an idea, but the truth is the call of circumstances is 
 all the call the great mass of mankind, specially of 
 my own countrymen, have ever had to Rome, or to 
 any other communion. They are whei'e they are, 
 and what they are, by force of circumstances. They 
 
404 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 may flatter themselves they are exercising private 
 judgment, and that they have selected their own be- 
 liefs ; but the intensely national feelings of our peo- 
 ple, and their strong secular leanings and complica- 
 tions, necessai'ily mould them in traditional forms. 
 If this be true, is it a slur? Is it a disadvantage? 
 Is a man the worse Christian for being a Christian 
 after the manner of his fathers, and of those about 
 him? As it is the will of the Almightj'^ with re- 
 gard, to the greater part of mankind, we must speak 
 charitably and reverentially of a law which however 
 should rather humble us than be made a matter of 
 vain boasting. Civilization and high culture are not 
 so far fi'om nature, or so great an improvement upon 
 it, as to be entitled to pronounce its dictates foolish 
 or wrong. Plainly, it is better that people in general 
 should accept the religious forms and ideas, the words 
 and the customs they find, and should abstain from 
 disturbing others accepting them, unless upon a very 
 great and evident call. 
 
 If this be so — if indeed it is the order of Provi- 
 dence — it follows that forms, words, and customs 
 cannot have the terrible significance which contro- 
 versialists are apt to give them. There cannot be so 
 much virtue, or so much mischief, in either the posi- 
 tive or the negative side. It cannot make so very 
 much difference whether a man believes the conse- 
 crated wafer to be the Body of Christ, or believes it 
 no more than what came from out of the oven ; 
 whether he invokes the Saints and the Blessed Vir- 
 gin, or believes that they cannot hear him, and that 
 they can do him no good ; whether he believes there 
 is a virtue in Orders, or nothing but edifying forms ; 
 whether he believes in a purgatory or a dead sleep till 
 
WHEEE LANDED. 
 
 405 
 
 Judgment Day. A man may I hope be " liberal " as 
 regards such questions, which certainly have a lesser 
 place and rank in Revelation. 
 
 Moreover, these and other still more questionable 
 beliefs of the ante-Reformation Churches are widely 
 accepted in a very substantial way by many who 
 would refuse to acknowledge them in formal language. 
 Religious jjeople live amongst the saints of all ages, 
 making their choice indeed, as the Roman peasant or 
 devotee does also. Religious people of all names 
 hear with love and awe the command given from the 
 Cross, " Behold thy Mother ; " and it is certain that 
 the elevation of the sex, which cannot be said to be 
 less evident now than it was before the Reformation, 
 is due to that natural worship which the heart cannot 
 but give to tlie Mother of our Lord. 
 
 Far and widely antecedent to tlie whole matter of 
 Revelation is the fact of beliefs and practices being 
 natural to all men. From nature man has learnt to 
 dream, and so to believe, in a Maker and Preserver, 
 in sons of God, in angelic hosts, in ministering spirits, 
 in messengers of peace or of woe, in threads of des- 
 tiny running through tlie web of human affairs, in Di- 
 vine interventions to rectify the balance of earthly 
 forces, in that day of retribution that only arrives to 
 be further postponed, and in that restitution of all 
 things that must one day surely come. From the be- 
 ginning of the world nature has taught the sacrifice 
 for sin, not only for known sin, but for some indefi- 
 nite burden pressing- on families, nations, and the 
 world. From nature man has learnt to believe in 
 mysteries of which he can but touch the merest 
 fringe. From her he has learnt to believe in a peo- 
 pled air, in shadows that hover over the tombs, in 
 
406 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 spirits that soar to the skies, in souls that wander 
 through the dark passages of the earth, or crowd the 
 shores of the hateful stream, or that live in rapture, 
 or in agony in a nether world. Nature has taught 
 men that the same Power which exults in endless 
 variety of creation, and ever baffles research, may 
 make the bread that perisheth the seed of eternal as 
 well as tempoi'al life. 
 
 So vast is the school of Nature, so various her 
 lessons, so numberless the institutions founded upon 
 them, and so inveterate the fond beliefs of man, that 
 Pagan and Christian philosophers have alike ex- 
 hausted all their art, and labored still in vain, to 
 nip faith in tlie very bud and extinguisli natural 
 religion. Conyers Middleton has proved beyond a 
 doubt the identity of all that we in England call 
 Roman Catholicism with Paganism. The ideas, the 
 sentiments, the very objects, the rites and ceremonies, 
 all substantially the same. So far it may be said 
 that the Church, when it went into the rude village 
 populations, adopted their pagan faiths and observ- 
 ances. But then arises the question whether these 
 Pagan faiths and customs are utterly wrong, without 
 foundation, without benefit. 
 
 If the family likeness between Paganism and 
 mediseval Christianity is to be held fatal to the lat- 
 ter, that argument goes very far. The whole of 
 Christianity comes under the condemnation. Con- 
 yers Middleton, like many other writers before and 
 after his time, only went to a certain point, but he 
 implanted in a congenial reader an impetus which 
 carried him much further. The Creation, the Incar- 
 nation, the Atonement, the Resurrection, the Ascen- 
 sion, the glories of Heaven, the Judgment Day, are 
 all Pagan ideas. Are they therefore incredible ? 
 
WHERE LANDED. 
 
 407 
 
 The elder dispensation left much to the personal 
 piety and private opinion of the very various citizens 
 of the Jewish Commonwealth. They might believe 
 or not in a future state and a judgment to come. 
 They might believe or not in a Divine Presence — at 
 least it is certain only some did believe in it. They 
 might believe or not in a Divine Victim, in a Heaven- 
 sent King, and a suffering Messiah. They were per- 
 mitted to exercise their own choice between a The- 
 ocracy and a Monarchy of the vulgar earthl}' pattern. 
 
 No theology, even with the encouragement and 
 assistance of philosophy, can define what is necessary 
 to a good moral faith and what is inconsistent with 
 it. A wide range will ever remain for the exercise of 
 private judgment, which in its negative capacity is 
 belauded as the most valuable of liberty's preroga- 
 tives. I, too, am a citizen of no mean city. I, too, 
 claim the right to exercise my private judgment 
 wherever Nature speaks and Scripture leaves me 
 free. All around me are engaged in bold investi- 
 gations. If investigation is not to imply a foregone 
 conclusion, I am ready to take my part in it, but I 
 am not ready to pretend inquiry, with an intention to 
 reject and disbelieve. 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 Vol. i. page 12. 
 
 I see it stated that the Newmans resided for a time 
 in Bloomsbury Square, and that in that way the future 
 Cardinal and the future Premier, Lord Beaconsfield. 
 may have been playmates. The difference between 
 ten years of age and six years of age would not sig- 
 nify, for Disraeli was a singularly precocious and en- 
 gaging child. The house occupied by the Newmans 
 for some years was No. 17, Southampton Street, 
 Bloomsbury Square. Had I inquired more, or remem- 
 bered better, I might have been able to say more of 
 early family acquaintances. The chief names I do 
 remember are IVIr. IMullins, Mr. Levy, Mr. Capel, 
 and Mr. Ellis of the Bank of England. The first was 
 a blind clergyman, a good scholar, a good preachei", 
 and a kind friend. He had surmounted his diiBculties 
 sufficiently to be able to say from memory the whole 
 of the Church Services, including the Psalms, and to 
 talk well on the topics of the day. But, strange to 
 say, he had not learnt resignation, and he felt his 
 infirmity with keenness and even bitterness to his 
 death. Such people are rather to be pitied than 
 blamed. In all the ranks of industry there are those 
 who labor and groan, and who will endure, so long as 
 they be allowed to vent their accumulated griefs now 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 409 
 
 and then. Their spirit is sufficient to give nerve to 
 their working frames, but not to give wings to their 
 souls or cheerfulness to their tongues. Mr. Levy was, 
 I think, on the Stock Exchange, a man of high literary 
 attainments, and an accomplished musician. At a 
 later date he occupied a house on the west side of 
 Russell Square. Upon his death, and the consequent 
 sale of his effects, about 1848, I bought one of his 
 dinner services as a memento of the Newman acquaint- 
 ance, and, for a friend of mine, bid up to a hundred 
 guineas for a fine organ. 
 
 Vol. i. page 23. 
 
 William James Coploston was nephew of the 
 Bishop of Llandaff, and uncle of the present Bishop 
 of Colombo. He will be long remembered by Oriel 
 men for his useful and agreeable qualities, but chieily 
 for the light and pleasant way in which he bore what 
 really was a great trouble and inconvenience. One 
 of his legs had always been dwindled, useless, and 
 liable to painful sores affecting the whole system. 
 The doctors at last told him frankly he had better 
 have it off. Without saying a word to anybody he 
 went up to town, and wrote in a few days to say that 
 he had had the operation performed. I believe the 
 amputation was very high up. Fi'om that time he 
 was always having new cork legs, costing a good deal. 
 He walked as a lame man, not worse ; and rode like 
 other people. Upon the whole he managed so well 
 that people did not always remember his mutilated 
 state. Denison one day said, " Coplest(m, don't you 
 find your ankles ache this cold weather? " He replied, 
 " I 'm thankful to say I don't, fur I 've six of them." 
 His horse fell with him on Burlington Green. Some 
 
410 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 one coming up found him lying on the turf with a leg 
 under the animal, and was horror struck. " Is n't your 
 leg crushed ? " "I hope not," Copleston replied, " for 
 it cost me thirty guineas." He was always so cheerful 
 that I could scarcely say there ever was a shade of 
 sadness about his expression ; but when I saw him 
 late in life it was too plain that he had gone through 
 a good deal of suffering. As a conscientious and pains- 
 taking man he would not spare himself in his duties 
 as Rector of Cromhall, and would no doubt suffer in 
 consequence. The Copleston family has remarkable 
 qualities, which have yet perhaps to take a higher 
 part and make more show. Some one has said that 
 genius is an aptitude for taking trouble about things, 
 and there can be no doubt that the moral part of our 
 nature contributes to its formation more than the 
 intellectual. The very qualities which in the opinion 
 of some people tend to stupidity and dulness, such as 
 sympathy, patience, and love of work, have the largest 
 share in the development of the higher faculties, which 
 really are stifled without them. 
 
 Vol. i.page 30. 
 
 Copleston's Lectures or Prelections on Poetry are 
 a great classical work, in a language which few can 
 read without more labor and time than the pace of 
 life now allows. Why have they not been translated ? 
 Even Copleston had to complain latterly of the vacua 
 subsilia before him. Milman smuggled into his 
 Lectures his own English translations of the choruses 
 in Aristophanes and other bits, and in this way secured 
 good audiences. His delivery told as much as the 
 translations themselves. Keble overshot the mark in 
 his extreme desire to be perfectly distinct and intel- 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 411 
 
 ligible. He made such pauses at all the stops that 
 he broke his sentences to pieces, and put so many 
 stumbling-blocks in the way of attention. I remem- 
 ber, however, being amused as well as interested by 
 his claiming Homer as the poet of old country life, 
 who might have learnt all his facts, his pedigrees, and 
 his legends from persons corresponding to the old 
 family servants left in great houses to show them to 
 strangers. As to the matter of Copleston's Praelec- 
 tions, though I read a good deal of them with New- 
 man, I have to confess that I remember best what at 
 the time I could not quite agree with, and have since 
 much objected to. The ancients, Copleston says, had 
 not the idea of the picturesque. They do not describe 
 objects that most prove the skill of a modern painter. 
 This I think true only so far as that their taste for 
 the picturesque was less developed than ours. The 
 taste is cultivated by the painter, not the sculptor. 
 By the time we have seen many houses, trees, gates, 
 animals, bridges, roads, or what not, faithfully repre- 
 sented as the worst of their kind, and in the worst 
 possible condition, we begin to admire them when we 
 see them in matter of fact. It is the same witli singu- 
 lar features of scenery. But a scholar may easily 
 collect a great number of epithets and single words in 
 the classical writers that at once bring a whole 
 landscape to the eye. 
 
 Vol i. page 87. 
 
 I am told that upon hearing of the College de- 
 cision, either before or after the actual dismissal, the 
 father came down to expostulate with Copleston, and 
 got into a long argument with him. To the charge 
 of disgraceful intoxication he replied that drunken- 
 
412 
 
 BEMINISCENCES. 
 
 iiess was not necessarily intoxication. There were 
 four kinds of intoxication, and it was possible for a 
 man to be drunk neither disgracefully nor injuriously. 
 My own experience is that it is a great mistake to 
 tell people drunkenness will make them fools and 
 poor men. In one parish at least within my knowl- 
 edge the only men who made their fortunes and 
 retained their natural shrewdness to the last had 
 never been known to be quite sober. Drinking de- 
 graded them and made them knavish, tricky, selfish, 
 and generally unprincipled, but did not prevent them 
 from milking their way in the world and being even 
 clever talkers. Drunkenness puts a man into one 
 long dream ; but if that one dream is money-making, 
 he will be sharper for that purpose than his neighbor 
 with more things to care about. 
 
 Vol. i. page 155. 
 
 Among other morning callers at Shrewsbury was 
 Dr. Darwin, father of Charles R. Darwin, who has 
 just closed a long career of meritorious, and, as far as 
 it goes, beneficial work. Dr. Darwin was, I think, 
 the biofcrest man I ever saw out of a show, for though 
 not so tall as Carus Wilson, he was much stouter. 
 When he entered the room it was like the door 
 coming upon you broadside on. Bat what most 
 struck me was the small soft voice that proceeded 
 from this mountain. Erasmus, so I used to hear, 
 had great faith in the instincts of even the human 
 child, enfeebled and vitiated as they are supposed to 
 have been b}' civilization. His plan was to let his 
 children eat and drink what they liked ; so they ate 
 much fruit and drank bowls of cream. The general 
 opinion was that he had carried this too far, and that 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 413 
 
 it had told, injuriously on the constitutions of his 
 children. The one who lived and died at Breadsall 
 Priory, near Derby, was a very tall fellow, but not 
 unwieldy or over stout. 
 
 Vol. i. page 183. 
 
 " Themes " are part of a very long story in my life, 
 indeed beginning before my life. In a question upon 
 ■which people differ even to soreness I will give some 
 facts, which to me are most interesting. But it is a 
 long story, and it is not a few pages that will see the 
 end of it. I must begin at Oriel. Not more than 
 a dozen of the undergraduates took pains with their 
 " themes." At least, not so many had the distinction 
 of reading their themes in hall. The readers were 
 myself, John F. Christie, Sackville U. S. Lee, now 
 Canon of Exeter, and Francis Trench, elder brother 
 of the Arclibishop of Dublin. I am doubtful about 
 Holford, Sir John Duckworth, Algernon Perkins, 
 J. Richardson, Charles B. Pearson, and some others. 
 They might have read in hall once or twice. The 
 tutor had to overhaul tlie " theme " before it was read. 
 Newman never flattered me. I don't think he ever 
 gave me to understand that I had a good style, or 
 any style at all, or indeed that style was an object 
 in a theme. He used rather to touch my amour 
 propre in this matter, and he frequently reminded me 
 that Avhat a writer thought his best things were 
 generally his worst. These " themes " I kept for 
 many years, and I never looked at them without 
 being deeply impressed with the truth of Newman's 
 comments. No doubt a " style " is generally an af- 
 fectation and a trick ; a vehicle for paradoxes, if not 
 the disguise of nonsense. No sensible tutor would 
 
414 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 encourage the formation of a style. He commonly 
 finds points of far more importance to insist on. 
 
 One day, after reading in hall, I was sent for by 
 Provost Copleston. He had been present at the 
 reading. I should say that he had always shown a 
 kindly interest in me on the strength of Russell's 
 recommendation. On this occasion he at once asked 
 when, and how, I had acquired my style. What 
 practice had I had ? I could only reply. School- 
 themes and letter-writing. Who had been my fa- 
 vorite author ? I am pretty sure that this question 
 was suggested by Copleston's very acute and prac- 
 tised ear detecting an eighteenth-century ring about 
 my compositions. My answer was like too many 
 answers I have given in my life. It was truth, but 
 not the whole truth, or the most important part of 
 the truth. I said, " The ' Spectator.' " I certainly 
 had read it more than any other English classic, but 
 the book which I had returned to over and over again, 
 and read every page of, was not likely to be known 
 to Copleston, any more than to my readers. It was 
 the " Country Spectator." My special interest in the 
 book, and the singularity of the story, as well as the 
 length of it, would have made it scarcely possible for 
 me to do justice to myself had I answered the above 
 question with entire and literal truth. 
 
 I must now go back a long way. In the decade 
 before the French Revolution there were three Blue- 
 Coat School boys enjoying at the same time the 
 closest intimacy and unique educational advantages. 
 These were Thomas Fanshawe Middleton, Charles 
 Lamb, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The first of 
 these was senior in school standing by about two 
 years, but they were all there together five years. 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 415 
 
 They were of a very small class of Grecians, and 
 they had a master to themselves. He was a man of 
 learning and taste, who read and did what he pleased 
 with his handful of pupils, as they might be called ; 
 taking it easy and giving them easy times; consulting 
 their taste for novelty, and feeding them, as it were 
 from hand to mouth, with a bit of this favorite 
 author, and then a bit of that. The master of the 
 lower school was much the same sort of gentleman 
 in his way, doing what he liked, and letting the boys 
 do much as they liked. Nobody wished the boys of 
 the lower school to be educated above the requii'e- 
 ments of the counter or the desk. Middleton went 
 to Cambridge, leaving his friends at the school. Im- 
 mediately upon taking his degree he was ordained to 
 the curacy of Gainsbro'. On arriving there he at 
 once made the acquaintance of my father, and in a 
 very short time started a weekly sheet with the title 
 of the " Country Spectator." My father was then 
 only nineteen. At the age of fifteen he had been 
 brought home from Kirton Grammar School, to the 
 great grief of his master, to succeed his own grand- 
 father in the management of a very important busi- 
 ness. He had the confidence and kindest wishes of 
 the town, for the grandfather had been for many 
 years one of its most useful and popular men ; though 
 not a lawyer by profession, much employed to ar- 
 bitrate, compose difficulties, and make wills. My 
 father must have been, what he always was, a very 
 pleasant companion, and Middleton was with him 
 every day, calling him " Harry," and making a 
 schoolfellow of him. He freely disclosed to my father 
 his feelings about the townspeople, especially where 
 he felt he did not receive the consideration he de- 
 
416 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 served ; and affectionate as he was to my father, the 
 impression he left was that he was generally stiff and 
 prond. 
 
 Of course I should be gratified to be able to detect 
 that my father had some hand in the work. But I 
 cannot. On the contrary I feel very sure that Mid- 
 dleton brought the idea, the thoughts, the characters, 
 and everything short of the MS., from Cambridge, 
 or from some vacation experiences, or from even an 
 earlier stage of his existence. The characters don't 
 fit into Galnsbro', which is a tidal river port, much 
 given to speculation in Baltic produce, and not an 
 ordinary country town. I remember the place per- 
 fectly well as it was only twenty years after Middle- 
 ton's time, and as I write this I can recall the sound 
 of the " Mill on the Floss," and a good deal more. 
 Middleton had some local contributors, and he may 
 have adapted his old stores to the circumstances of 
 the place. But one thing is conclusive as to the long 
 incubation of the work. The first number is that of 
 October 9, 1792, and the thirty-third and last is that 
 of Mav 21, 1793. Throuo-hout the whole series there 
 is not the slightest allusion to the terrible events at 
 the neighboring capital. Everything, too, indicates 
 that the writer had expected to be located in a vil- 
 lage or some small market town. I should say that 
 the whole work is an echo of Addison and Steele, 
 that had been for many years growing into shape, 
 and that the writer could not now get rid of it except 
 by publication. It is, however, a charming book. I 
 believe I read it with more pleasure than the " Spec- 
 tator " itself. It was my earliest idea of good writ- 
 ing. It seemed to have an intrinsic value. Such 
 was my appreciation of it that in my frequent pecu- 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 417 
 
 niary distresses at school, a dreadful thought used to 
 occur to me. As the book was almost unknown, I 
 thought 1 might safely copy sonae of the papers and 
 obtain something considerable by the sale to a peri- 
 odical. Nothing would ever have induced me to do 
 that. It was a wicked thought, and no more. But it 
 shows my opinion of the book. I regard it as a tra- 
 dition of the " Spectator," and I have to thank it for 
 bringing the " Spectator " home to me. 
 
 The " Country Spectator " was, as they say, the 
 making of Middleton. The religious biographers 
 make a good story of Toniline, then Bishop of Lin- 
 coln, hearing of his faithful discharge of his parish 
 duties, and resolving to promote him to a larger 
 sphere. The fact is he saw some numbers of the 
 " Country Spectator," and at once laid hold of the 
 writer and sent him to Norwich to take charge of 
 two nephews. In due time he gave him church pre- 
 ferment. I can remember that even at the age of 
 eleven, at my Derby day-school, despairing of other 
 success, I was pining for the opportunity of essay 
 writing. This and the usual paper work was the 
 most I did at Charterhouse. I was the only one of 
 all our family who took to the " Country Spectator," 
 or realized its existence. Yet several of the family 
 must have felt, without knowing it, a sort of under- 
 current or electric wave coming through INIiddleton 
 from the sweet little coterie at Christ's Hospital, foi', 
 from very early years, they enjoyed no writer so 
 much as Charles Lamb. 
 
 I must confess to a certain fascination in tracing 
 the threads of moral and mental influence, be they 
 silver, gold, silk, or some common fibre. Surely, in 
 these may be seen the hand of the Almighty ever 
 
 vor,. II. 27 
 
418 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 preparing His servants for their appointed work. It 
 is their very nature to escape vulgar eyes, and be 
 only known, or best known, by those who are most 
 concerned. Very trifling incidents indeed, that might 
 easily pass unnoticed, have affected my course ; some, 
 indeed, my existence. I am thankful that I was born 
 at a place which contributed to me very early experi- 
 ences in the lines of my future occupations. In my 
 childhood I used to walk down the Trent to meet the 
 " Egre " or " Bore," as it is called, in the Severn. I 
 used to watch the building of ships and see them 
 launched ; in particular the Trent, one of the first 
 vessels sent this century on an Arctic expedition. I 
 remember seeing an iron bridge shipped for Calcutta, 
 and cannon balls for our wanton and abortive land- 
 ings in the United States in 1813-14. I remember the 
 Pressgang, the Volunteers, and the rejoicings for our 
 Peninsular victories. I early ranged about the Old 
 Hall ascribed to John of Gaunt, and heard of sad 
 stories connected with it. Before the days of steam, 
 after witnessing a tremendous storm at Bridlington, I 
 passed a night and was nearly wrecked on the mud 
 banks of Trent Fall up the H umber. I saw the ar- 
 rival of the first steamer that ever came up those 
 waters, and a very clumsy affair it was. Besides 
 events nearer home, I heard the newspapers read as 
 they brought news of Waterloo ; and very soon after 
 that was initiated into the difficulties then besetting 
 home government. Even my infancy was amongst in- 
 genious and good-natured people. To a nursery com- 
 panion of mine a very competent authority ascribes 
 the invention upon which the concertina and the 
 harmonium are based. From a child I was a good 
 listener, if there was anything to attract attention. 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 419 
 
 My father saw many of the people connected with 
 the trade and enterprise of the town. In this way I 
 used to hear a good deal of the whale fishery, many 
 Gainsbro' people having sliares in whalers or rela- 
 tives on board. Nothing then did I long for so much 
 as a chance of an encounter with a whale. I used to 
 hear also of a less recognized but still common in- 
 dustry ; that is, chartering rotten ships and sending 
 them into the Baltic heavily insured, to sink or swim 
 as might be. Then I heard of the vast " warping " 
 operations ; that is, the reclamation of marshy land 
 irregularly flooded by the Trent, by allowing the tide 
 to enter, deposit its rich mud, and then quietly retire 
 till wanted again. More, much more could I say, 
 but one thing only will I add. A lingering attach- 
 ment for a young lady brought home an Indian chap- 
 lain, who remained in England, and by whose advice 
 my father sent me to Charterhouse, and then asked 
 Russell to obtain my admission into Oriel. The evo- 
 lutionist will allow that these things have been op- 
 portune for me, and he is not in a condition to dis- 
 pute that they may have been providentially ordered 
 and controlled. Slow as I am in the powers of ac- 
 quisition and expression, I never could have done 
 anything without the timely and abundant aid of 
 surrounding circumstances, interpreted frequently by 
 a parent who early regarded me with a special inter- 
 est and more than my due share of affection. 
 
 Vol. i. page 302. 
 
 On consulting Fei'gusson's works, I find I must 
 qualify what I have said in the comparison of the cir- 
 cular curve with the catenary in the matter of domes. 
 The inner dome of St. Peter's is no more spherical 
 
420 
 
 REinNISCEXCES. 
 
 than the outer ; indeed the only difEerence between 
 them is that the outer dome is larger, and rises from 
 a base three or four vavds higher. Fergusson's il- 
 lustrations are not quite large enough for exact 
 measurement and calculation, but so far as I can es- 
 timate, the curve is obtained by dividing the diame- 
 ter at the base or spring of the dome into three equal 
 parts, and making the dividing points the two cen- 
 tres. Tliis forms a Gothic arch of a very ordinary 
 chai-acter, but interrupted by the " eye," or aperture 
 for the cupola. The arch is that which runs through 
 AVestminster Hall, appearing in a very grand form 
 in the timber roof, and in all the windows. If one 
 can imagine the great window over the north, or 
 principal entrance, revolving round a perpendicular 
 dropped from the point of the arch, that will give the 
 very form of the double dome of St. Peter's. As the 
 two domes are rigidly connected at the cupola, the re- 
 sulting curve, in the matter of forces, is a very com- 
 plex problem. But the domes approach the spher- 
 ical form too nearly to support the cupola a second 
 without an abundance of metal ties. The dome of 
 Sta. Sophia, at Constantinople, as well as the much 
 smaller dome of the ancient building called the Les- 
 ser Sophia, is spherical, but very far short of a whole 
 hemisphere. The centre of the dome is three or 
 four yards below its actual base or spring line. The 
 curvature thus leaves the walls at a great angle. 
 Such a dome is quite safe, but it must spring from a 
 firm base secured by strong ties or by ver}" heavy 
 abutments, the latter being employed in this case, as 
 one sees in the familiar photographs of the exterior. 
 Every bit of masonry in the building, every wall, 
 every vault, is made to contribute to this abutment. 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 421 
 
 Early in 1833, Hurrell Froude was some weeks at 
 Malta, from which he went to Rome, and immedi- 
 ately set to work studying the Pantheon, especially as 
 to its economical conditions. At that very time, as 
 I now read in Fergusson, a village mason, with the 
 aid of a local architect, was about to put in execution 
 a long-designed and long-preiDared plan for a church, 
 at Mousta, a walk from Valetta, which was completed 
 in 18G0, and which Fergusson classes as the third 
 dome in Europe. It was built without scaffolding, 
 and over the existing church, which was not removed 
 till the new church was completed. The mason and 
 the architect must have been well acquainted with 
 the domes of the Pantheon, Sta. Sophia, and St. 
 Peter's, for they have improved upon all three. For 
 safety, and economy of material, they have avoided 
 the spherical form. As at St. Peter's, they have ob- 
 tained the required curvature by describing it from 
 two centres, dividing the diameter of the dome into 
 three equal parts. At Sta. Sophia, as above stated, 
 the true centre of the dome is three or four yards be- 
 low its actual base, and at Mousta, the two centres 
 are about that much below it. The village mason 
 very wisely dispensed with a cupola, and provided an 
 immense quantity of abutment. Under the circum- 
 stances it is a prodigious achievement. If Froude 
 did not hear of the design, the fact of his head run- 
 ning so soon on a very similar modification of the 
 Pantheon, is one of those instances of ideas " in the 
 air " that everybody has often experienced. The 
 building itself was only commenced that year, but 
 Froude might have seen the drawings for it, which 
 had been many jears in preparation. He might at 
 least have heard the talk about it. Froude observes 
 
422 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 on the stones being laid horizontally on the dome of 
 St. Peter's, as in the building of a common wall. 
 Tliat might be to avoid the necessity of scaffolding. 
 At Mousta, Fergnsson says, each successive course is 
 notched on to the course below. 
 
 Vol. a. page 37. 
 
 The fact of so many men of great power and high 
 promise suddenly relinquisliiiig the wide field of lit- 
 erature and philosophy for the narrow path of the- 
 ology, of a more or less polemical character, has 
 hardly yet been duly and accurately estimated. The 
 gain is before the world in the copious library of the 
 Oxford movement in all its stages and branches. 
 What has been the loss ? " Very great," will per- 
 haps be the answer. But then comts the question, 
 who is answerable for the loss ? They that did not 
 join the movement were far more numerous than they 
 that did. Till the appearance of the " Tracts for the 
 Times," in autumn, 18o3, there was nothing to distract 
 general attention from the studies of the University 
 such as they were at that time. There were then 
 man}' thousands of Oxford men all over England, still 
 comparatively fresh from Oxford, and full of its cul- 
 ture. These men had brought with them to Oxford 
 the special tastes and mental discipline of many great 
 schools, conducted by the best scholars of the day. 
 They had been well drilled in all the Greek and Latin 
 poets — epic, lyric, and dramatic; in liistorians and 
 philosophers, in antiquities and in criticism, in com- 
 position, in philology, and in ethnology. I remember 
 1 egarding with something like awe the knowledge this 
 man had of Homer, another of Greek plays, another 
 of Cicero's Letters, another of Herodotus or of Livy, 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 423 
 
 another of Terence. They were really familiar with 
 these authors, and could quote them largely. The 
 greater part of these men carried their literary ac- 
 quirements to spheres where there was nothing to 
 curtail their free development and full use. Imme- 
 diately after that date there ensued an immense 
 extension of our scholastic system in the same lines 
 as the old, with the same course of classical and 
 mathematical studies. It cannot be said, then, that 
 classical literature has not had a fair field, and its full 
 share of golden opportunities. I have lately heai'd it 
 estimated tliat there are now ten scholars to one in 
 the comparison with the last generation but one. But 
 what has this scholarshijj done ? What results has it 
 to show ? The poetry, the philosophy, the politics of 
 the country have generally left tlie old "classical mod- 
 els. The lines of thought have ceased to be classical. 
 The chief arena of the country has been Parliament, 
 and if classical ideas and classical allusions could still 
 emerge and hold their ground, it would be there. 
 For years and years the best, or at least the most 
 popular and the most powerful, scholars in the coun- 
 try did their very best to keep up the pleasant old 
 freemasonry of classical thought and illustration. 
 That very best consisted in the annual use of some 
 hundred quotations, every one of them familiar to 
 even a fifth-rate scholar, who would not even call 
 himself a scholar. Scores of men ranging free over 
 the whole surface of literature, with the aid of ex- 
 cellent libraries, could not produce at the most more 
 than half a dozen new quotations a year. The ex- 
 hibition became disgraceful. Lord Sherbrooke pro- 
 nounced classical litei'ature self-condemned, obsolete, 
 and no longer suited to English wants or theJEnglish 
 
424 
 
 REMIXISCENCES. 
 
 character. As the Muses could not be entirely 
 banished from the society of gentlemen, he tried old 
 English ballads instead. Why he gave that up he 
 best can say. The final result is that the classical 
 quotation, illustration, or allusion is gone. A great 
 statesman, strong enough to do and to say anything, 
 now and then brings up a quotation from some un- 
 known depth, but the c-lassical vein has been worked 
 out. Never was there so much classical education, 
 and never was there so little to show for it, or so few 
 who could be called good ripe schohirs. 
 
 Vol. a. pages 217, 218. 
 
 I will venture to add here several phenomena of 
 the skies above that have much impressed me in 
 different ways. Of the first phenomenon I have to 
 say that I did not see it ; nevertheless, what hap- 
 pened told on me as much as if I had. In the spring 
 of 1820 there was to be a great eclipse, beginning 
 about noon. We were released early from school 
 that we might observe it with due preparation. I 
 had half an hour or so to wait. Sitting down in my 
 father's library, with my back to the book-case, I 
 dived with my hand backwards into the shelves and 
 took out a volume which turned out to be a very old 
 number of the " Monthly Review." I opened it at 
 random, when the first words that caught my eye 
 were, " If any one of the present generation should 
 live to see the great eclipsp of 1820, he will have the 
 opportunity of observing," etc. The writer went on 
 to describe the " beads," the " flames," the " protu- 
 berances," and the " corona," since more accurately 
 ascertained. Now, with our common telescope and 
 our siiioked glass we were not likely to make out 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 425 
 
 these objects, and we did not. So, assuming the 
 ■vrarning to be providential, what did it mean ? As I 
 had not the appliances, and could not do the very 
 biddintj, it did not seem intended to make me an 
 astronomer. What then did it mean ? I can only 
 say that it made a very deep impression on me, and 
 that was that He that ruleth in the heavens was 
 then very near to me, and that He guided my hand 
 and opened that book, and thereby assured me of His 
 constant presence and aid. 
 
 The next phenomenon I did see, and when I read 
 that the strongest and bravest men are unnerved by 
 an earthquake, I am not ashamed to confess that for 
 a few seconds I was myself in that condition. Some 
 of us were at the Waylands, at Bassingham, and 
 there was a comet to be seen, if we could only find 
 it. We stayed very late in the garden, taking our 
 stations before the different windows to scan the 
 heavens all round. The servants knew what we were 
 about. As the search was fruitless we went indoors. 
 Before tea was over the servants rushed in to say the 
 comet was come. We all ran out, and there, right 
 across the blue sky, from the east horizon to tlie 
 west, was a broad arch as white and almost as bright 
 as the full moon. For some seconds or breathings, if 
 I breathed, I felt that this was coming down upon us, 
 with what results one could only tremble to think of. 
 It remained and was harmless. It was a " northern 
 light," and nothing more; but the momentary im- 
 pression remains to this day, after more than half a 
 century. 
 
 Twenty-one years ago I had the converse expe- 
 rience, for I was in the tail of a comet, without 
 knowing it, though noting the effects, which were 
 
426 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 very remarkiible. T and my wife were at Paris on 
 Sunday, June 30, 1861. We liad dined with friends, 
 and they took us a drive on the Bois de Boulogne. 
 I sat by the driver that I might h)ok about me. The 
 hour was not late, and I was struck by finding night 
 closing in. There was a murkiness in the atmosphere 
 not like a summer evening. Looking towards Paris 
 I was surprised to see a brilliant primrose, or rather 
 gamboge, light over the horizon. Considering and 
 disposing of several solutions, I settled at last that it 
 might be the illumination of some public gardens, but 
 I was not satisfied with that. In the midst of this 
 bi'illiancy, and outshining it, was a flaming torch of 
 this yellow liglit, \ery little above the horizon. What 
 could it be ? There was no evening star, even if that 
 bad been the direction for it. Was it a fire balloon? 
 But it had no perceptible motion. I kept entreating 
 the attention of the gentleman and two ladies in the 
 carriage to these unaccountable appearances, but with 
 the result that has uniformly attended similar at- 
 tempts. One of the most entertaining gentlemen 
 in the world was there, and what could the skies 
 show in comparison ? I think it was only on Tuesday 
 morning that I saw by the English papers that this 
 was a comet, and that we had probably been passing 
 through its tail. This, too, has left a strong imj^res- 
 sion upon me. It is not the fear of collision or com- 
 bustion ; for this particular experience rather goes to 
 show that comets are harmless things. It suggests 
 to me the infinite treasury of new forces at the com- 
 mand of Omnipotent Wisdom. Who knows what 
 mj'sterious yet powerful elements may not have been 
 contributed by this sudden, near, yet almost unnoticed 
 visitor ? 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 427 
 
 I have had a similar experience of an earthquake ; 
 that is with a clear perception of the effect, without 
 even guessing the cause. We were at Grindelwald in 
 1851, in the same hotel as Bishop Wilberforce. 
 There was not room for me to sleep at the hotel, and 
 I w<is sent to the minister, whose maid-servant under- 
 stood the arrangement and conducted me to my bed- 
 room. I had just got into bed when there was a 
 knocking at the door. I must pay my two francs 
 down, the minister having frequently lost it through 
 the carelessness of the hotel people. I had notliing 
 but sovereigns about me, and it was only after a long 
 negotiation that the minister consented to take a 
 sovereign in pawn. By tliis time I had become aware 
 of the fact that there was a baby in the house. In 
 the middle of the niglit I was waked by a movement 
 that I could only compare to the brandishing of a 
 sword or the flicker of a flame. My first idea was 
 that a whirlwind had caught the house, or some vio- 
 lent gust. I opened the window, and all was still. It 
 was a calm moonlight night. Then I thought of an 
 avalanche. At last I settled down to the conclusion 
 that the minister's baby had fallen out of bed. When 
 morning came, however, I examined the walls and 
 ceiling for cracks, and found none. At dinner people 
 were talking of tlie earthquake there had been in the 
 niglit. It is not mentioned in the notice of Bishop 
 Wilberforce's Swiss tour, curtailed by his biographer, 
 no doubt to give room for what he deemed more 
 interesting matter. As soon as I knew it had been 
 an earthquake, I felt very deeply impressed at the 
 thoiiglit tliat the huge Alps all about us had been 
 flickered like a candle and brandished as a sword. 
 I felt them to be nothing in the Almighty hand. 
 
428 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Some j'ears after tbis I saw the terrible destruction 
 done by an earthquake in the valley from Visp to 
 Zermatt. No doubt I should have trembled and 
 cowered as other men had I felt that earthquake, but 
 it could not give me a more awful lesson than I re- 
 ceived at Griudelwald. 
 
 Vol. a. page 230. 
 
 From the day I went to Charterhouse, in 1820, I 
 heard and felt very strongly the fate of the Carthu- 
 sian monks, massacred by Henry VIII. for refusing 
 to abandon their spiritual allegiance to Rome. Many 
 years afterwards, at a Founder's Day dinner, I heard 
 Sir R. Peel, after giving a very grand tribute to the 
 memory of Sir Walter de Manny, whom all England 
 mourned at his death, make some touching and 
 sjnnpathetic allusions to these Carthusian monks, 
 whose blood he felt a consecration of the ground. 
 
 Vol. a. page 290. 
 
 The visitation of cholera at Oxford, in 1832, was a 
 great shock to local feeling. The University had been 
 thought safe from pests, possibly because Courts had 
 come here to escape the plague in London. Oxford 
 was thought to deserve the immunity, and it was as 
 much relied on as the supposed exemption from earth- 
 quakes now enjoyed by Rome for a thousand years or 
 more. A lady, nervous about cholera, took refuge at 
 Oxford, and inquiring for airy and cheerful lodgings, 
 was directed to some new houses on the Cowley Road, 
 occupied by Magdalene College servants. Her land- 
 lord brought home a quantity of fruit and sweets as 
 his share of a Magdalene " gaudy." She partook of 
 them freely, had the cholera and died. The porter at 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 429 
 
 Oriel College, a former servant of Copleston's, was 
 proud of his college and Univei'sity. " To think of 
 Birmingham, that vulgar place, having no cholera," he 
 would exclaim indignantly, "while there is so much 
 of it at Oxford ! " It seemed to shake his belief in 
 a Providence. 
 
 Faith and Science. 
 
 I have mentioned several times the frequent col- 
 lisions at Oxford, not between faith and science, but 
 between the religious tone and the prevailing scien- 
 tific tone. From my earliest recollections of Oxford 
 no one ever received the least discouragement in the 
 prosecution of scientific studies. Discoveries were 
 Avelcomed freely. Buckland's lectures were always 
 well attended. I went to several with Robert Wii- 
 berforce. In the lecture-room Buckland would speak 
 of theories as pegs to hang facts upon ; and would 
 confess to changes or modifications of his theories. I 
 believe I have seen lately a very different account of 
 the formation of " coprolites " than that expressed in 
 the name, and enlarged upon in one of his lectures 
 that I attended. 
 
 I cannot recall Keble introducing science at all. 
 It would be his nature to let it go its way so as it let 
 him take his way. But the scientific men were tri- 
 umphant, and would insist on winning and claiming 
 triumphs. They were not content unless they tied 
 you to their chariot wheels. It would not be at the 
 beginning of a journey that Keble would deliver the 
 dictum I have quoted, as to the whole creation, just 
 as we see it, being done momentarily. It must have 
 been at the end of a journey, when he had been so 
 tossed and battered that he could only say something 
 to stop all further discussion. His was the case of 
 
430 
 
 REiimSCEXCES. 
 
 Calrin, who burnt Servetus, not for his heresy, but 
 because the man, who had come to Geneva for the 
 purpose, worried him so incessantly that it became a 
 question which was to kill the other, and Calvin, hav- 
 ing work to do, preferred to be the survivor. 
 
 Fronde. I am quite sure, would have accepted all 
 the legitimate conclusions of science. What he com- 
 bated was gratuitous theory, having no other object 
 than to put further from us all ideas of creation, 
 preservation, and moral government. 
 
 Newman, as a rule, — indeed I cannot remember 
 an exception, — would have nothing to say to phys- 
 ical science. He abstained from it as much as he did 
 from material undertakings and worldly affairs gener- 
 ally. He would be impatient of it, as of something 
 in the way, not worth precious time. He did indeed 
 resent very warmly the tone of scientific men, who 
 would challenge, insult, revile, and extort submission, 
 or claim to have struck you dumb. There were men 
 in those days who might be supposed to have read 
 nothing in the Bible except the first chapter of Gen- 
 esis and a few of tlie most amazing miracles. 
 
 Dr. Prichard"s works on the origin and history of 
 the human race excited much interest ; and my Ox- 
 ford friends were amused, but not at all scandalized, 
 at the theory, which I believe Dr. Prichard subse- 
 quently abandoned, that Adam and Eve were black. 
 
 Dr. Buekland's life was shortened by an act of 
 needless irreverence, as I must call it. When the 
 British Association met at Salisbury, they gave a day 
 to Stonehenge. Buckland stood on the altar stone 
 and delivered an address. For many years the place 
 had been possessed by a family named Brown, who 
 had constituted themselves the rightful cicerones, and 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 431 
 
 ■who, to strengthen their claim of possession and add 
 a trifle to their fees, had invented and printed a the- 
 ory that Stonehenge was an antediluvian structure, 
 and that a slight rising of the ground on the west 
 side of some of the outer stones was the result of the 
 Flood coming that way upon them. Buckland might 
 well have let this alone. But the pamphlet had been 
 put into his hands by some injudicious person, and 
 his eye had recognized in it the imputed action of the 
 Flood. So he could not resist the opportunity of a 
 few skits at the Flood, the ark, and the family in it. 
 The day was very cold, and there was a drizzling 
 rain, which Buckland and his hearers just endured 
 while he was speaking. 
 
 But Mrs. Brown, a tough old lady, who had long 
 spent her time in all weathers at Stonehenge, and 
 who might not have ventured to maintain her theory 
 unless provoked to it, accepted at once the challenge 
 on the Biblical question. Mounting another stone 
 she stormed at Buckland as an atheist and a good 
 deal worse, for so long a time tliat the whole company, 
 bound to the spot, Avere perished with wet and cold. 
 They must hear her out, and they did. Buckland 
 went back to Salisbury chilled ; was immediately 
 taken very ill, and fell shortly into a sad state from 
 which he never recovered till he died. 
 
 In my time at Oriel Edward Denison was a man 
 of science. Strickland was and became an eminent 
 geologist. He sacrificed his life to the pursuit, for 
 while he was making a hurried inspection of some re- 
 markable strata in a railway cutting near Retford, he 
 was surprised by a passing train and killed. Austen, 
 now better known as Goodwin-Austen, was a man of 
 Bcience, and published works on the fauna of the deep 
 
432 
 
 EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 sea in our part of the world. I cannot forget his 
 showing me in his garden the fossil of a huge nauti- 
 lus that, finding itself left dry by the receding waters, 
 had devoured some dozen small slugs in the same evil 
 case, and had probably been choked by one too many 
 for it. This might have occurred, he told me, twenty- 
 five thousand years since, but the chances were that 
 it was much longer ago. All the Wilberforces had a 
 strong leaning to science. 
 
 At the visit of the British Association which I 
 have referred to, the University showed its feeling in 
 the choice of a preacher. This was Mills, of Mag- 
 dalene. He was a literary man, and something of a 
 philosopher, but not a scientific man or a theologian. 
 The pursuit of all knowledge — that of natural sci- 
 ence not the least — was, he said, the school of the 
 Christian virtues. Humility he put foremost, as the 
 first requisite of the learner. A devotee of science 
 had to go through a long apprenticeship and long 
 years of patient labor in the observation, selection, 
 and collection of materials. He had to begin with 
 no theory ; to be in no haste to make a theory ; to be 
 ready to give up a theory ; and ready also to learn 
 from others. He would find his materials inci'easing 
 on his hands, and his views taking a larger compass. 
 I forget whether the image is to be found in the ser- 
 mon, but he left on me the impression of a philosopher 
 bowed to the ground witli a continual examination of 
 the new wonders revealed from its surface and its 
 inner depths. Much was expected of Mills, but he 
 died young. 
 
 What I have myself to say about Materialism is, 
 that it cannot define itself; it cannot account for 
 itself ; it can tell of no beginning ; it cannot do with- 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 433 
 
 oat forces or laws, whichever they are to be called : 
 yet it cannot say how these laws are enforced, or 
 how tliey were ordained. Its philosophers only place 
 a little further off in time and space the problems 
 that puzzle an ordinary child. Grant the mighty, 
 pregnant, progenitive atom, the mustard seed of the 
 whole living world. How came the atom here, and 
 whence came its powers ? Is all things out of nothing 
 a greater miracle than nil things out of a mote in a 
 sunbeam ; that is, supposing the mythical mote to 
 have found a sun ready to light and warm it? 
 
 What is even more, because more horrible to think 
 of — indeed, almost maddening to contemplate — is 
 that Materialism not only annihilates itself, but is al- 
 ready annihilated. On its own ground it is nothing, 
 and we ai'e nothing. By the only laws that the 
 Materialist recognizes, the entire universe, as far as 
 the telescope can reacli or guess it, will at a sufficient 
 distance become a galaxy, then a nebula, and then 
 pass altogether out of sight, disapjjearing in a vast 
 Nothing. Even a good Christian, who has not yet 
 faced the dismal thought, may shudder to reflect that 
 the awful work of our salvation has been ail done in 
 a speck which cannot be called anything at all in the 
 comparison with infinity. The mere philosopher has 
 nothing to say against the conclusion that all human 
 affairs, enormous and overwhelming as they seem, 
 are but the incidents of an atom in tlie infinite scale; 
 briefer than the story of a spark from the forge. 
 But the whole moral and spiritual nature revolts 
 from such ideas. A good man, nay a sane man, will 
 rather believe, as Henry Martyn sometimes did, that 
 mathematics are a diabolical illusion than that they 
 are all the revelation given to us. There must be 
 
 VOL. I. 28 
 
434 
 
 REMINISCEXCES. 
 
 something else than physical science, if all it tells us 
 is comprised in the sentence that, wliether in space 
 or in time, we are nothing. Religion, at all events, 
 makes something of us. It makes us the lords of 
 creation and the heirs of immortality. 
 
 The Charge of Scepticism. 
 
 A large part of the public appears to be amusing 
 itself with a question which I am utterly unable to 
 treat with the calmness and impartiality expected 
 from those who are to take part in it. That question 
 is, Does Newman really believe a word that he says ? 
 There is even something like an elaborate design to 
 win from Newman, or at least from his friends, by 
 all the arts of the most refined flattery, a complete 
 surrender of faith in return for such gifts and such 
 attributes and honors as were never before henped 
 upon any one man. If it be only admitted that tlie 
 thing we are all fighting about is just nothing at 
 all, that theology is brain work, the Bible a legend, 
 and that Newman knows it, then it shall be conceded, 
 nay it is ali'eady conceded — for a large part of the 
 price is already deposited at the feet of the Cardi- 
 nal — that he is the most wonderful man the world 
 ever saw. He is the very premier of the human 
 race, in intellectual subtlety, in eloquence, in com- 
 mand of language, in acuteness and tenderness, in 
 the wide range of his sympathies, in elevation both 
 of character and of thought, in his contempt of vulgar 
 prizes and gauds, in his acquisition and marshalling 
 of facts and ideas, in all that makes a man as much 
 greater than kings and conquerors as they are greater 
 than common men. The bidding is actually rising. 
 The Cardinal is becoming daily a greater man in 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 435 
 
 all that mortals can appreciate ; he is promised the 
 effulgence of Apollo, the shield of Achilles, and the 
 spear of Ithuriel if only he, or those who can answer 
 for him, will declare that at heart he is nothing at all. 
 
 What these ingenious writers wish to believe, and 
 wish all the world to believe also, is that Cardinal 
 Newman ever has been, and is now, the abject slave 
 of a craven terror and the showy headpiece of a 
 creeping thing. His honor indeed, or his vanity, is 
 to be saved just so far that he is not to be set down 
 as a wilful and deliberate impostor. He is simply 
 flying from the terrible conviction he cannot get rid 
 of, namely : that Christianity is an old wives' fable. 
 This, they say, is the spectre that has ever pursued 
 him from the battlefield of the Arian controversy, not 
 any special misgiving as to the Monophysite charac- 
 ter of Anglican theology. 
 
 To represent what passes conception, strange im- 
 ages are employed. In the midst of the very splendor 
 of Newman's genius, one writer sees a small dark 
 spot conveying to tlie writer the comfortable assur- 
 ance that Newman's faith is the same as his own — 
 none at all. Another writer perceives that Newman 
 is fully aware that he has nothing to stand upon, 
 and that if the natural order of things be left to its 
 proper course, he must descend to the common abyss. 
 Newman, however, he proceeds to explain, has laid 
 planks across this abyss, and standing upon them 
 invites us to share his basis as if it were everlasting, 
 though he knows it to be only a mechanism of his 
 own. Anyhow, whether by argument or by illustra- 
 tion, it must and shall be made out that the Cardinal 
 is, and always has been, essentially a sceptic ; indeed 
 far more of a sceptic than they who confine their 
 
436 
 
 EEMmiSCENCES. 
 
 doubts to such matters as traditions and writinofs. 
 He has betaken himself, they say, to this fabulous 
 stuff because he doubts about everything else. He 
 has renounced nature and humanity, and taken refuge 
 in a dream. Labor as he will, talk as he will, he can 
 never really persuade himself that the dream is a 
 reality. He is now therefore nowhere; not in nature, 
 not in humanity, not even in a dream, for a dream is 
 nothing. 
 
 Something must be allowed for the extreme, in- 
 deed the passionate, desire of all unbelievers to add 
 to their strength by recruiting their ranks. They are 
 alwaj'S assuring the world that such and such a one, 
 hitherto credited with a strong, healthy faith, is at 
 heart an unbeliever, putting some disguise on his real 
 convictions. He must be an unbeliever; it follows 
 on his own premises ; it is impossible such a man 
 can really believe what his position or his circum- 
 stances compel him to pretend. Scanning his compo- 
 sition, and seeing deeper into his nature than he can 
 see himself, they discover the true secret, the very 
 backbone of his system. It is a doubt, they inform 
 the world; or a basis which the man himself has 
 manufactured, and knows to be good for nothing but 
 to serve the purpose of the hour. 
 
 I cannot but give my impressions for what they 
 are worth. Young people are said to be physiogno- 
 mists and judges of character. They know a true 
 man. During the whole period of my personal ac- 
 quaintance and communication with Newman, I 
 never had any other thought than that he was more 
 thoroughly in earnest, and more entirely convinced of 
 the truth of what he was saying, than any other 
 man I had come across yet. This conviction, I have 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 487 
 
 to say, was to a certain extent unconscious on my 
 part, for I cannot remember ever to have entertained 
 the question vrhether Newman did really believe 
 everything he professed to believe. There never oc- 
 curred anything to suggest the contrary. I have 
 mentioned that he had read Tom Paine and other 
 infidel writers ; that he kept them under lock and 
 key, and lent tliem out cautiously ; but it never once 
 occurred to me that they might have left a sting be- 
 liind. The question of miracles Newman had dis- 
 cussed at great length in his paper on ApoUonius 
 Tyanajus. So he had treated Christianity as a ques- 
 tion of evidence as well as of probability. 
 
 I now see, what perhaps I might not have seen so 
 clearly at that time, tliat the dread of unbelief may 
 have given greater activity to belief. It might be 
 that having once caught sight of that spectre, and 
 found it for a moment gaining upon him, he had re- 
 solved never once to abate the speed of his onward 
 progress, never even to look behind, never even to 
 indulge in any earthly abstraction that would give the 
 foe the least advantage. 
 
 It may be said that a man who has to fly from an 
 object is still its victim, and that it is really his 
 master, and the rule of his life. There are, indeed, 
 those who think that faith is a thing for a man to 
 rest upon and be thankful, and that this in fact con- 
 stitutes its great value. But a very little thought on 
 the common condition of human life will show that 
 faith is not a fixed state but an active course. We 
 are always running away from something, or pro- 
 tecting ourselves from something. We are always in 
 the case that if we sit still somebody or something 
 will be down uoon us. and if we are not on our guard 
 
438 
 
 EEMLNISCENCES. 
 
 somebody or something ■will overpower us. Dread of 
 hunger compels some, dread of shame others, dread 
 of contempt others ; dread of nothingness or of them- 
 selves consti-ains a large part of mankind. 
 
 There can be few Christians who have not at 
 some time had a fearful reminder of the sure penalty 
 of idleness. Every schoolboy has had to write an 
 essay on JSon progredi est regredi^ or Si hrachia forte 
 remittis, etc. It may be said that St. Paul himself, 
 notwithstanding his express revelations from Heaven, 
 yet had to stretch his hands to what was before in 
 order to escape from what w;is behind. 
 
 Newman filled up his whole time, taxed his whole 
 strength, and occupied his whole future. In so doing 
 he reduced retrospection to ver\- narrow compass, to 
 a few faces, to flowers on a bank or a wall, to a fra- 
 grance or a sound. Perfumes he said brought back 
 the past, and so did distant church bells, but with the 
 scent and the sound the past departed from him. 
 Employed all day, and with much interruption, he 
 would find his eyes heavy when he wanted to glean a 
 little night work after an interrupted day's hai^vest. 
 He applied to the doctors. How was he to keep him- 
 self awake harmlessly ? I think, on medical advice, 
 he tried a preparation of camphor for this purpose. 
 
 Newman never took solitary walks if he could 
 help it ; for he would work and be doing good while 
 at his exercise. For the same reason he would never 
 take a meal alone if he could help it. Studious men 
 know there are two sides to this question. Russell, 
 my Charterhouse master, used to tell his boys as they 
 went off to Oxford, Go to as many wine parties as 
 you please, but avoid breakfast parties.*' He found 
 they unsettled a man for the day. But even at that 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 439 
 
 risk Newman would not be alone and left to liis own 
 thoughts when he was neither studying, nor writing, 
 nor praj'ing. So, putting things together, we might 
 s-dj that he was always flying from a void, as well as 
 from the temptation to rest. 
 
 This continual pressing forward and this eagerness 
 for activity told on the direction of his studies and 
 his "works. He strode or bounded over thousands of 
 smaller matters that occupy the scholar of the present 
 day. It is with difficulty that I recall a single criti- 
 cal question as to the text, the translation, the chro- 
 nology, the authorship, the canon, or the harmonizing 
 of the Scriptures. I do not think that during tlie 
 time I saw much of him he would ever entertain such 
 questions as the authox-sliip of the historical books, 
 the dates of the several Psalms, or whether there 
 were two Isaiahs, or whether the Book of Daniel was 
 written after the events prophesied, or who wrote the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews. He would not afford the 
 time for inquiries leading, if not to a disappointment, 
 at least to a barren fact of no great weight in the 
 grand scale. It may be said that he refused to in- 
 quii-e where the loss of time would be great, the bene- 
 fit doubtful, and the call not peremptory. But this is 
 another thing from refusing to inquire from the dread 
 of a negative result. 
 
 Newman's character and circumstances alike pre- 
 vented him from pursuing the special activity of such 
 men as John Wesley. For as long as I can re- 
 member him he would have shuddered at the very 
 thouglit of founding a sect or creating a schism. He 
 desired to modify the Church of England as others 
 have modified it ; the Reformers, for example, Laud, 
 for example, and others nearer our time. It would 
 
440 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 not have suited his nature or his habits to go about 
 from town to town, telling the people everywhere 
 they were in bad hands and must take cai-e of them- 
 selves, forming them into communities and putting 
 ministers over them. From first to last he had the 
 deepest reverence for Bishops as such, and the great- 
 est dread of anything that might interfere with pleas- 
 ant relations to them. Having been on very intimate 
 terms with Lloyd while Professor of Theology, and 
 then on good terms with Burton, Newman looked 
 with dismay to the possibility of antagonism with 
 their successors. When the Chair became vacant he 
 ■wrote at the foot of a note he had occasion to send 
 me, " Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and tell Chris- 
 tie to do so." I doubt if I was long on my knees in 
 that matter, but I am sorry to say I have no doubt 
 that for one reason or another I never communicated 
 the message to Christie. The truth is that Kewman 
 wished to avoid collision and controversy as much as 
 possible. 
 
 We may then allowably ascribe this not only to 
 the natural gentleness which shrank from giving 
 pain, but quite as much to a dread of the trials which 
 faith itself might have to encounter in the storms of 
 life. In those storms it is inevitable that the issue is 
 frequently changed and the greater question subor- 
 dinated to the lesser question, perhaps a personal 
 quarrel. When that is the case it is no longer the 
 faith that is contended for, but some petty triumph ; 
 and faith itself is jeoparded when something else 
 rules the hour. 
 
 Some of these writers discover a practical confes- 
 sion of real unbelief in what they are pleased to de- 
 scribe as the fictitious, that is fabricated, character of 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 441 
 
 the Cardinal's arguments and style. I must speak 
 with due submission to those better read in his later 
 works, but I suspect these writers are forgetting tliat 
 faith is an imaginative and creative power. As it 
 believes what it does not see or hear, and cannot in- 
 deed truly conceive, so it has no choice but to fill the 
 void with what may be called its own forms and out- 
 lines. Faith has no choice but to accept the best ma- 
 terials it finds, put them together as they will best 
 agree, and make the most of them. It will always 
 be building castles and cities, and filling the heavens 
 with the most glorious conceivable counterparts of all 
 that earth can show. Faith will ever be supplying 
 the virtues, the graces, tlie order, and the happiness 
 which reason tells us there ought to be below, but 
 which observation tells us are sadly wanting. P'aith, 
 believing in the Omnipotent, the All-wise, and the 
 All-good, will always be asking why the great plan 
 for the intelligent settlement of this world has so 
 conspicuously failed ; and how the failure is to be re- 
 paired. If it tries to answer the question it must con- 
 sult what oracles it can, and interpret as best it may. 
 All this is constructive work, and sometimes very 
 hazardous scalfolding indeed — mere planks over the 
 abysmal darkness. Faith knows it has to stand a few 
 criticisms. It replies that it does what it can ; but 
 that anything is better than to be a mass of organized 
 matter, with no more life or soul than depends on 
 the transitory relations of certain molecules to one 
 another; or than may possibly depend on causes un- 
 known altogether, and not to be even inquired after. 
 
 To the Cardinal's own Oxford contemporaries who 
 did not pass over with him, the most marvellous event 
 of his life must be his miraculous admission, not to 
 
442 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 say absorption, into the Roman Communion. A mir- 
 acle, for such this was, is not to be argued about, or 
 even to be spoken of except reverentially. No one 
 can answer for another's impressions, but I have to 
 confess that the Cardinal's account of his on the occa- 
 sion reminded me of the Roman lyrist's when the tute- 
 lary goddess of his city took possession of his soul : — 
 
 In me tota mens Venus 
 Cyprum descruit. 
 
 To myself it must remain a mystery, if only because 
 I have had no such call. But there is no disputing 
 that myriads of very reasonable men and women in 
 all countries and ages have had the like call, as they 
 have understood it, to some holier walk of life and 
 some stricter profession than they had known before. 
 The sensation indeed has been different. Some have 
 beeH drawn up towards heaven, if indeed they have 
 not found themselves in the third heaven ; some have 
 felt heaven descending into them ; some have re- 
 mained in long ecstasy ; some in sad abasement ; 
 some in sweet companionship with spiritual beings. 
 We have no right to question the fact of such sensa- 
 tions. As little right have we to say that they are 
 the creation of a disordered mind. We cannot deny 
 that where they are God is also. But the fact, that 
 is the mass of like facts, is large ajid heterogeneous. 
 All communions, unless indeed that of the Anglican 
 Church is the one happy exception, have contributed 
 largely to the chapter of miraculous conversions. In 
 the last century Bishop Lavington thought " to kill 
 two birds with one stone," as they say, by " The En- 
 thusiasm of the Methodists and Papists compared." 
 It was a thoroughly English work, designed to make 
 English Churchmen quite satisfied with their own 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 443 
 
 even temperament and well-regulated position. He 
 did not, however, win the thanks, or even the re- 
 spect, of either Wesleyans, or Papists, or English 
 Churchmen, for while the two former have accepted 
 the charge of enthusiasm, the last have never quite 
 sanctioned the repudiation of it. They are too well 
 aware that Establishments are not fanatically dis- 
 posed, and they don't much care to be told it. 
 
 For my own part, while I have to deplore the loss 
 of some thousands of good and learned people from 
 the Church of England, and the estrangement of per- 
 sonal friends, I cannot but recognize the hand of 
 Providence in the event. The Roman Catholic popu- 
 lation of England has immensely increased during 
 this century, chiefly by the influx of Irishmen for 
 whom there was no religious provision, and but few 
 people of a better class disposed to help them. Im- 
 portant as the fact was, and strongly as it might ap- 
 peal to the religious feelings of the country, it had no 
 place whatever in the Oxford movement, and was 
 then regarded at Oxford as a matter with which the 
 Church of England had no concern. To supply the 
 spiritual needs of the wretched Irish colonies estab- 
 lished in the worst quarters of our cities and towns, 
 was about the last thing thought of. Providence has 
 brought these things together, and has made Oxford 
 contribute abundantly to the spiritual needs of the 
 poorest Roman Catholics, on the very eve of losing 
 its own distinctively religious character. 
 
 As to the future, who will venture to forecast that, 
 when every year of this century has only supplied a 
 fresh proof of human shortsightedness ? It is to be 
 hoped and prayed for that the loudest talkers will not 
 be taken at their own word. They that talk of driv- 
 
444 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 ing troublesome Church people into the more con- 
 genial region of the Roman pale can hardly have 
 realized the too possible, if not too probable, fulfil- 
 ment of their wishes. What indeed would it be for 
 any considerable proportion of the wealth, the edu- 
 cation, and the zeal of this country to fall into the 
 ranks of Rome ? That they are even inclined that 
 way, as some think, is believed to be a mischief and 
 a scandal. How then if they should do that, the very 
 threat of which is injurious ? But, it is said, they 
 would at least be open foes, and we should all know 
 what they are at. England boasts that she can meet 
 her enemies in the field. Rash indeed is it to court 
 collision with unknown numbers, unknown combina- 
 tions, and indeed unknown cii'cumstances. We are 
 not so successful just now in getting over our little 
 difficulties as to justify such confidence in our future 
 treatment of any that may occur. Everything warns 
 us and calls us to moderation, and to mutual tol- 
 eration. 
 
 I have referred to two events that never were 
 thought of in any mutual bearing till Providence had 
 brought them to bear one upon another, — the large 
 outpouring of wealth, culture, and faith, out of the 
 English into the Roman Communion, and the vast 
 increase of the poor Roman Catholic population in 
 England. I will venture to point out two other events 
 that may well be considered side by side for such 
 light as they may throw the one upon the other. These 
 two events are the legislative exclusion of religious 
 doctrine, and of the open Bible, from the course of 
 education given in our public elementary schools ; and, 
 on the other hand, the practical independence for all 
 purposes whatever now secured by the Irish peasan- 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 445 
 
 try. Our poor English serfs have submitted without 
 a struggle, and not a few have lost their Christian 
 birthriglit. The Irish peasantry, in their own fashion, 
 have fought the battle of both populations, and so 
 far have won tlie day. 
 
 The new idea of Cardinal Newman as a mere dia- 
 lectician and orator is so utterly repugnant to all my 
 thoughts and feelings about him that I am tempted 
 to add a letter which I have early referred to. When, 
 as I have mentioned in the introductory chapter, I 
 returned all Newman's letters, I lamented that I had 
 not seen this for many years, and concluded I must 
 have lost it. I was deceived by the most important 
 matter of the letter not appearing on the first page. 
 Newman had a better recollection of its contents, and, 
 finding it among the rest, returned it. The letter 
 was written just fifty years ago, while Hampden was 
 delivering his Bampton Lectures, and Newman him- 
 self was deep in his " Arians." 
 
 Ohiel College, Mai/ 13, 1832. 
 
 My Dear Mozley, — J. Marriott has taken Buck- 
 land, in this neighborhood, on his going into orders 
 in the autumn, but, the curacy being vacant in June, 
 the place will be several months without pastor. 
 Stevens has told me this, and on my hinting to him 
 the possibility of its suiting you for this interval 
 wished me to write to you — so I do. The place you 
 know from our Wadley excursions. You distinguished 
 yourself by racing up the lime groves with Wilber- 
 force, and rested under the fragrant firs. The popu- 
 lation about 600 (?). The distance twelve miles from 
 Oxford. There is a cottage which is used as a par- 
 
446 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 sonage for the curate. I hear you are thinking of 
 duty, else I should not have mentioned it, consider- 
 ing your late illness. It has been very unfortunate 
 that you were obliged to give up your engagement 
 with Round, but all is for the best. I am truly re- 
 joiced to find your desii'e for parochial employment 
 has not diminished, and your opinion of your own 
 health not such as to deter you. For myself, since 
 I heard your symptoms I have not been alarmed, but 
 some persons have been very anxious about you. I 
 trust you are to be preserved for many good services 
 in the best of causes. I am sure you have that in you 
 which will come to good if you cherish and improve 
 it. You may think I am saying a strange thing, per- 
 haps an impertinent and misplaced, and perhaps 
 founded on a misconception, yet let me say it, and 
 blame me if it be harsh, namely, that, had it pleased 
 God to have visited you with an illness as serious as 
 the Colchester people thought it, it would almost 
 have seemed a rebuke for past waste of time. I be- 
 lieve that God often cuts off those He loves, and who 
 really are His, as a judgment, not interfering with 
 their ultimate safety, but as passing them by as if un- 
 worthy of being made instruments of His purposes. 
 It is an idea which was strong upon the mind of my 
 brother during liis illnesses of the last year, while he 
 did not doubt that his future interests were essen- 
 tially secure. I doubt not at all that you have all 
 along your illness had thoughts about it far better than 
 I can suggest ; and I reflect with thankfulness that the 
 very cause of it was an endeavor on your part to be 
 actively employed, to the notion of which you still 
 cling ; yet I cannot but sorrowfully confess to myself 
 (how much so ever I wish to hide the fact from my 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 447 
 
 own mind) that you have lost much time in the last 
 four or five years. I say I wish to hide it from my- 
 self, because, in simple truth, in it I perceive a hu- 
 miliation to myself. I have expected a good deal 
 from you, and have said I expected it. Hitherto I 
 have been disappointed, and it is a mortification to 
 me. I do expect it still, but in the meanwhile time 
 is lost as well as hope delayed. Now you must not 
 think it unkind in me noticing this now, of all times 
 of the year. I notice it, not as if you needed the re- 
 mark most now, rather less, but because you have 
 more time to think about it now. It is one especial 
 use of times of illness to reflect about ourselves. 
 Should you, however, really acquit yourself in your 
 own mind, thinking that the course you have pursued 
 of letting your mind take its own way was the best 
 for youiself, I am quite satisfied and will believe you, 
 yet shall not blame myself for leading you to the 
 question, since no one can be too suspicious about 
 himself. Doubtless you have a charge on you for 
 which you must give account. You have various gifts 
 and you have good principles ; for the credit of 
 those principles, for the sake of the Church, and for 
 the sake of your friends, who expect it of you, see 
 that they bi'ing forth fruit. I have often had — nay 
 have continually — anxious thoughts about you, but 
 it is unpleasant to obtrude them, and now I have 
 hesitated much before I got myself to say what I 
 have said, lest I should only be making a fuss ; yet 
 believe me to speak with very much affection towards 
 you. Two men who know you best, Golightly and 
 Christie, appear to me to consider you not at all im- 
 proved in your particular weak points. I differ from 
 them. Perhaps I am exaggerating their opinion, and 
 
448 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 men speak generally and largely when they would 
 readily on consideration make exceptions, etc. But 
 if this be in any measure true, think what it implies? 
 What are we placed here for, except to overcome the 
 cvTrepto-TUTos ajxapria, whatever it be in our own case ? 
 
 I have no great news for you from this place. 
 Poor Dornford is laid up with a low fever. Wood 
 has left us, and in a week or two commences the law 
 in London. The few days he was in Oxford after 
 the decision of our election were sad indeed : they 
 made Fronde and me quite uncomfortable, not as not 
 fully participating in the act of the college (of which 
 doubtless Ch. has given you an account), but from 
 the notion of W.'s going. Under any circumstances 
 it is a painful thing on both sides, when a man leaves 
 residence and parts from his friends ; but I am not 
 to lose him, as we are to be very regular correspond- 
 ents. Wilson is in residence this term, good fellow as 
 he is. What a pleasant thing it would be to have 
 more fellowships than eighteen, ^. e., if we could 
 always have such good men to put into them ! 
 
 Ever yours very affectionately, 
 J. H. New:man. 
 
 THE END.