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•YAiUE-^KravEirainnr- From the
COLLECTION OF OXFORD BOOKS
made by
FALCONER MADAN
Bodley's Librarian

This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in
cooperation with Yale University Library, 2008. You
may not reproduce this digitized copy of the book for
any purpose other than for scholarship, research,
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may not distribute or provide access to this digitized copy
(or modified or partial versions of it) for commercial purposes.

ORIEL COLLEGE

THE OXFORD MOVEMENT

VOL. L

LONDON :¦ PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET

REMINISCENCES CHIEFLY OF ORIEL COLLEGE AND
THE OXFORD MOVEMENT

BY THE
REV. T. MOZLEY, M.A.
Ml
FORMERLY FELLOW OF ORIEL
SUCCESSIVELY PERPETUAL CURATE OF MORETON PINCKNEY, NORTHANTS
RECTOR OF CHOLDERTON, WILTS ; RECTOR OF PLYMTREE, DEVON
AND RURAL DEAN OF PLYMTREE AND OF OTTERY

IN TWO VOLUMES— VOL. I.

SECOND EDITION

LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1882
All rights reserved

Y M F

[".'.

it- J ?'

\.

*%.

v*\

PREFACE TO
THE SECOND EDITION.

THE story of the Oxford Movement has yet to be told,
and there is much reason to fear that it never will be
told as it should be. The greater part of those at all
concerned in it, whether as friends, or as foes, or
as spectators, and likely or competent to contribute
matter for the historian, have passed away — many of
them, indeed, long ago. Of the survivors, nearly all
have disqualified themselves, more or less, one way or
another. They may make most praiseworthy, most
interesting, and most valuable contributions, but
those contributions will have to be carefully sifted
and largely discounted, and a mean will have to be
struck between their conflicting utterances. They that
have gone over to Rome, as they must hold in the
legitimate line of the Movement, will see every
thing, measure everything, accept or reject, remember
or forget, from that point of view. Some of the
survivors are scattered far away in places where all
things are forgotten except parochial duties and the
incidents of rural life. Some have been long absorbed
in courses or enterprises of their own. Some are

vi PREFACE.
bound by political or official obligations. The rapid
current of modern thought in the entirely negative
direction has intensified some opinions and hardened
some hearts from which candour or kindness might
once have been hoped for. They cannot tell the
story of faith who believe in nothing but matter and
themselves. Now for a long time I have seen with more and
more sadness that a period, which in my memory is
as a golden age, has been vanishing from common
mortal ken like a dream. The characters themselves,
even to those of a less relation and a humbler degree,
have to me an unearthly radiance, and I grieve to
think that they should be forgotten, carent quia vate
sacro. To do them justice would require much more
history and much more biography than will be found
in these volumes, which are but planks saved from
a great wreck of time. Even now I should rejoice to
hear that they had encouraged some one to fill the
void which I do but point out ; but I see none to
make the attempt. Scanty, imperfect, and trifling as
these Reminiscences may be — reminiscences and no
more — the generous reader will admit that I should
have been deaf to a Divine call had I allowed them
to sink with me into my not very distant grave. I
began to put them together in March last year,
and completed them, with the exception of a few
pages and the Addenda, by November 30. As I
wrote, death after death removed many whom I had
introduced, or who might be specially interested —

PREFACE. vii
twenty, at the least, in so short a time. Upon
sending the first ninety-nine chapters to the pub
lishers, I wrote to Cardinal Newman to acquaint him
with the fact, lest he should hear it first from any
other quarter. At the same time I enclosed the
titles of the ninety-nine chapters, but with no account
of the text. He acknowledged my letter with his
invariable kindness, only reminding me that even
where the persons named in my headings were no
longer here, there were survivors and friends whose
feelings had to be respected. He also observed on
the fact that I had no personal acquaintance with
him till he became my tutor in 1826. He added
that he had a dread of controversy.
I may be excused saying that this is my first
publication, and will most probably be the last.
Into the Addenda I have thrown some matter which
I have at times hoped to treat separately, but at the
pace of the world and of death it seemed to me
presumptuous to reserve them for the bare chance of
a future opportunity. One thing more I will add,
for it is a matter on which people are very tender.
With all the care I can take, I find myself mis
spelling names. The ' readers ' have saved me from
a good many mistakes, but I have had to correct for
this edition several that they were not likely to dis
cover. I have also availed myself of the opportunity
to rectify some of my ' Reminiscences,' and even to
surrender them in one or two cases, where they clash
with memories entitled to regard. I must leave to
others the spiritual incunabula of the future Cardinal,

'viii PREFACE.
as it is plain my own impressions are derived from
what I saw and heard long after. John Newman, the
father, was partner in two successive banking firms,
from the year after the French Revolution to the
year after the Battle of Waterloo. Though truth
compels me to say that I do not think official per
sonages have much better memories than other people,
I have deemed it best to withdraw the incident of the
late Sir James Stephen discovering an irregularity in
the appointment of an Indian judge. I find that I
had transposed the dates of my brother James' resi
dences, as a theological student, at Oxford. I saw
him once only at Dr. Pusey's, and once only at the
' Hall,' and that is the true order in which the two
occasions stand. By the greatest man that Hampden
ever examined for a degree I am told that Hamilton,
afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, voted against his
disqualification. If a Dean of Oriel ever did send
his compliments to the Dean of Christ Church, and
thereby suggest a disparaging comparison, it cannot
have been the two particular Deans I had named, as
the following note will show : — Lavant Rectory, Chichester,
June 28, 1882.
Rev. Sir, — In your 'Reminiscences' there occurs, at p. 83, vol. i.,
a story of my father (the late Dean of Christ Church). I have no objection
to the story or its appearance, but I wish to point out to you that it
must be untrue. My father became Dean in 1 831. Mr. Tyler, as
appears in your next page, left Oriel for St. Giles' before Dr. Hawkins
became Provost, that is, in 1828. It is evident, therefore, that Mr. Tyler
was not Dean of Oriel at the time when Dr. Gaisford was Dean of
Christ Church.
In case of your book reaching a second edition, I would suggest that
the story, if retained as ben trovato, should have a foot-note appended
admitting its incompatibility with the facts.

PREFACE. ix
I dare say it may have been circulated, as many other stories were,
at Oxford respecting my father ; but I may add that, however amusing
in itself, I do not think it was at all a likely thing that my father should
have said the words put into his mouth.
I am, your obedient servant, Geo. Gaisford.
I trust Mr. Gaisford will pardon my presenting the
public with this model of pleasant correction.
I have considerably modified what I had said of
the Denison of my Oriel days, and I have had much
pleasure in doing so.
7 Lansdown Terrace, Cheltenham :
July 1882.

CONTENTS

OF

THE FIRST VOLUME.

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
_, . . PAGE
Tnese volumes reminiscences and nothing more — The tricks of
memory — Newman's letters returned to him — My college and
private relations to him — The want of some record of the
period — To be done now or never ..... I
CHAPTER II.
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.
Parentage and early education — Dr. Nicholas' school — His
early proficiency in music — At Trinity College, Oxford — His
examination for his degree— Frank Newman's ' Double First '
— John W. Bowden— Poem on St. Bartholomew's Eve — Other
Trinity friends  1 1
CHAPTER III.
THE OLD ORIEL SCHOOL.
Copleston, Whately, Tyler, Hawkins, Keble, Arnold, Rick
ards, &c. — The Noetics — Dr. Bosworth's lectures — My break
down — W. J. Copleston's present — Whately's part and place
at Oxford — What he felt about the Evangelicals 18

xii CONTENTS OF
CHAPTER IV.
NEWMAN FELLOW OF ORIEL. PAGE
His mother and sisters at Nuneham Courtney and at Iffley — S.
Wilberforce's successful strike against a private tutor — Oriel
common room — Newman curate of St. Clement's and
Whately's vice-principal — Election of R. J. Wilberforce and
Froude — Lithographs from Munich and drawings of Cologne
Cathedral — Dr. Lloyd's lectures on the Book of Common
Prayer .  26
CHAPTER V.
NEWMAN TUTOR — HIS PUPILS AND ORIEL FRIENDS.
Jelf tutor to Prince George of Cumberland — Jelf probably saving
my life — Dr. Bourne — Tyler Rector of St. Giles— Pusey
Regius Professor of Hebrew — Keble at Fairford — His shy
ness — The ' Christian Year ' — Copleston Bishop of Llandaff —
Three names for the provostship — Election of Hawkins . . 33
CHAPTER VI.
FRANK EDGEWORTH.
His half-sister Maria — His Charterhouse friend David Reid —
His beating me for the prize poems — Visit to Oxford — Dis
cussion on the Evidences, and on classical versus Christian tra
dition — David Reid's illness and death — A walk with Edgeworth
in London — Carlyle's notice of him in his ' Life of John
Sterling '  40
CHAPTER VII.
BLANCO WHITE.
Spanish friars — Seville Cathedral — A Lent preacher silenced by
an old woman — Holland House — The Bible in Spanish — Don
Quixote — His lecture on musical notes — Our meeting at Mr.
Joseph Parker's — The ' London Review ' — The veto to his
M. A. by Royal diploma — Little annoyances — His great kind
ness — Going to Dublin and not returning to Oxford . . 53

THE FIRST VOLUME. xiii
CHAPTER VIII.
EDWARD CHURTON. PAGE
What he did for me and for Thackeray at Charterhouse — The
latter's grateful recollection of him  63

CHAPTER IX.
JOSEPH PICKFORD.
My first knowledge of him in 1815 — His early portrait — His
tenant and her daily visitor — His election to a Fellowship at
Oriel — The Leigh collection of books— The new library — The
tall steps — Dr. Beeke — The probationary exercise — Its life
long effects on Pickford — His reluctant acceptance of Cholder
ton— His account of college life at the beginning of the
century — A pew controversy at Derby — Cholderton parsonage . 65

CHAPTER X.
HENRY THOMAS ELLACOMBE.
His work on the Devonshire Bells — His church, parsonage, and
garden — A strange apparition — A great sorrow — Provost
Eveleigh  75
CHAPTER XI.
JAMES ENDELL TYLER.
His scholarship — His pets among the gentlemen commoners —
At Moreton Pinckney — His insight into character — Sermon on
Naaman, the Syrian captain, and Gchazi — Rector of St. Giles
— Endell Street . . . .*  81
CHAPTER XII.
HARTLEY COLERIDGE.
His weak constitution, irregular ways, and drollery — Tyler's
vision on the road  £5

CONTENTS OF

CHAPTER XIII.
THE VICARAGE OF TWERTON.

The college hidebound and struggling to break its shell — Twer-
^1*'*vC*v ton, a pleasant suburb of Bath, in the market — Secured for
i\A V £4,000 — Two railways made through it — A new parsonage to
be built — A negotiation— The living vacant in 1852, pressed
p,<^ 0 upon Buckle, and since given to his curate .... 88

CHAPTER XIV.
Tyler's testimonial.
Meeting in hall — Philpotts' protest — The gentlemen com
moners — The ' family ' — Norman Hilton Macdonald — Vainly
assailed by Henry Wilberforce in the Union . ... 93

CHAPTER XV.
the wilberforces.
No longer ' Evangelical ' and not yet ' High Church ' — Theodore
Williams, of Hendon — Mr. Wilberforce's household devo
tions — A recalcitrant butler — A chapel built at last — Expe
riences of ' Evangelical ' private tutors — A fortune and a
position lost by too lavish benevolence — Robert and Henry
unambitious — Culling Eardley Smith — His Christ Church
friends — His treatment at the hands of his own college  Rapid
decomposition of the ' Evangelical ' party . . . .

CHAPTER XVI.
W. WILBERFORCE AND SIR JAMES STEPHEN.
The latter resenting the statement that the former could be
amused by the eccentricities of his religious acquaintances 
Lord Aberdeen's remarks on Sir J. Stephen— A missionary's
account of a grand African ceremony— Sir James' first visit to
Rome ; at the Scala Santa — His bewilderment . . . 107

THE FIRST VOLUME.
CHAPTER XVII.
SOME RESULTS OF A PRIVATE EDUCATION.
Truthfulness — On one occasion severely tried — Giving and taking
learnt at public schools — Personal antipathies — H. Wilber-
force's angular points in collision with C lough's — An appeal
to Newman — A laugh over it — S. Wilberforce's knowledge of
Pines and Taxodia — His trying his memory against a squire's ;
my impatience, and the snub I got in consequence .

CHAPTER XVIII.
SAMUEL AND HENRY WILBERFORCE POLITICIANS.
Debate on Charles I. — S. Wilberforce, Hook, and the 'John Bull'
— Hook at St. Mary's — My first and last attempt at the Oxford
Union, on the seizure of the Danish fleet — Hook's account
of his meeting Mr. Wilberforce — The chief topics ofthe 'John
Bull'  117

CHAPTER XIX.
CONTRAST BETWEEN S. AND H. WILBERFORCE.
How they respectively managed and fared at the Archbishop of
Amiens'— H. Wilberforce's economy in fourpenny bits — How to
get on a platform and how not — S. Wilberforce commanding
the elements — His public discussion with the minister of
Grindelwald — Henry's visit to Jamaica, as a last chance of
health, and to see something of the emancipated negroes . 124

CHAPTER XX.
THE SARGENT FAMILY.
Henry Wilberforce's frequent visits— Meeting the four Miss
Sargents at R. Wilberforce's— An ill-chosen word— Henry
Sargent— Mosley Smith  '3°

xvi CONTENTS OF
CHAPTER XXI.
JOHN ROGERS. TAGE
Question of certain or conjectural outlines — A young cousin —
Henry Wilberforce and John Rogers Damon and Pythias —
Jealousy — No. 14  133
CHAPTER XXII.
A COLLEGE FOR STUDY AND ACTION.
Newman at St. Mary's and at Littlemore — More ' Low Church '
than ' High ' till the completion of his ' Arians ' — A document
to be compared with the 'Apologia ' — Binding the Apocrypha
last in a family Bible — Roman Catholic Relief Bill and the
'700 Oxford firebrands' — A college with resident Fellows
disposed to work something like terra firma . . . .136
CHAPTER XXIII.
TWO CANDIDATES.
John F. Christie — His prize poem on Regulus — Myself — A
Darwinian dream imbibed from Mr. George Spencer — Suc
cessive school failures— My ' philosophy ' always stopping the
way— H. Wilberforce finding out the weak point — Applications
to Arnold to admit my brother James to Rughy . . .145
CHAPTER XXIV.
COLLEGE ELECTION OF 1829.
Self tutor to Lord Doneraile's son at Cheltenham — Question of
one or two vacancies — Decision not to stand for one vacancy —
Journey to near Liverpool — Henry Wilberforce there before me
to say there would be two vacancies— Christie and self elected . 153
CHAPTER XXV.
THOMAS BENJAMIN HOBHOUSE.
Our rough quarters at Charterhouse — His frantic manners— Dis
putes about institutions, the criminal code, and the ' Gothic '

THE FIRST VOLUME. xvii
PAGE
of the day — A queer bet — Wantonness over-punished — A
questionable authority for a 'quantity' — Sortes Biblical— A
serious misquotation in the Oxford Union . . . .157
CHAPTER XXVI.
GEORGE ROBERT MARRIOTT.
At Charterhouse — His ready wit and knowledge of men and
things — Ambition too early roused— His tormentor and the
tricks played upon him — An improviser, to his cost — Joseph
Richardson and Charles B. Pearson  165
CHAPTER XXVII.
WILLIAM DOBSON.
From Tate's at Richmond — Under the Madras system at Charter
house — Having to teach him ; that is, having to be taught by
him — Pleasant, idle, and unambitious — Successful at Cam
bridge, and the making of Cheltenham College— His testi
monial and portrait — A contrast — Promotion by purchase ¦ 1 70

CHAPTER XXVIII.
MEETINGS FOR THE STUDY OF SCRIPTURE.
The Revelation taken for the subject — Antichrist the spirit
of old Rome haunting the Church — A grammar of prophecy —
The British Association at Oxford — The formation of a
clientele/. — Newman's work with his pupils . . . . 1 75
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE EVANGELICAL SCHOOL.
The character and ways of the ' High Church ' clergy, and of
the ' Low Church ' — The simplicity ofthe Evangelical message,
and its scanty Scriptural stock — Personal assurance — The
effect on ordinary congregations  182
VOL. I. a

xviii CONTENTS OF
CHAPTER XXX.
TWO CLERGYMEN OF THE PERIOD. PAGH
Charles S. Hope, Mayor of Derby— An insurrection — Lewd
Lyndhurst — An execution for high treason — The death of the
Princess Charlotte— Funeral sermon —The Vicar of St. Wer-
burgh's— His list of chief parishioners — Gaius of Derbe —
Abandonment of pastoial duties— Simeon and Robinson. . 188
CHAPTER XXXI.
COLLEGE COURTS.
The care of college property — Wadley House — Famous law
suit — A manor court and a labourers' question — Littleworth
church — Charles P. Eden — Riding expeditions — Newman's
'Klepper'  198

CHAPTER XXXII.
SOME CHARACTERISTICS.
'O /ipyar— Newman not imposing — Canon Bull — The long-tailed
coat of the Oriel school— A testimonial to Wellington — New
man quick at figures — Copleston quicker — Do people really
change ? — Newman's interpretation of Providence — AbstulU
clarum cita mors Achillem . . ..... 204

CHAPTER XXXIII.
NEWMAN, KEBLE, AND FROUDE.
Newman's ' Up and be doing ' — Butler— Crabbe's poems — Froude
a reader of Law, the Nonjuror — Sense of sin, or -ro Ka\6v 
Nature grave and gay — Newman's love of forest trees, flowers,
and the various aspects of the sky — Salisbury Plain — ' Nep
tune '— Froude's admiration of St. Peter's— Keble's remarks
on the west front of Lichfield Cathedral, and the portico before
ihe town-hall of Derby — Municipalities

PAGE

THE FIRST VOLUME.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
JOHN KEBLE.
The * Christian Year '—His- shyness— Sir W. Heathcote his pupil
and patron— Protest against a. Lutheran godfather for the
Prince of Wales — Some small matters — Sursum Corda . .218
CHAPTER XXXV.
FROUDE.
From Eton to Oriel — William Froude, the engineer — Hurrell at
war with shams — Siding with Anselm, Becket, and Laud —
Tory and ascetic — The ' Oriel teapot ' — ' Poor Bulteel ' of
Exeter — His secession and marriage ...... 224
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE TUITION REVOLUTIONISED;
What the Tutors proposed— The Provost's fears and difficulties —
His own edition of ' Paradise Lost '—L'e'tat ;.c'est moi — Tutors
left without pupils — Hampden — Arnold's system at Rugby —
Tuition in classes a daily examination — Self charged with a>
counter programme — Carried — Too much for me — Tutorship
offered me and declined — Why was it offered ? — Why did I
decline?  229
CHAPTER XXXVII.
NEWMAN AT ST. MARY'Si
Undergraduates flocking from all' quarters — Was Newman a * good
man ? ' — An unintended testimony to him and his friends —
His break with the Church Missionary Society .. . . 238
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
ST. EDMUND HALL.
Buried among- grander buildings — Mr. Hill — The principle of
selection at the Hall — The prevailing complexion there — Sug
gestion for making the best of it — The inmates of the Hall-
driven to invention — A singular instance — Golightly's indignar
tion and complaint —The Bishop justified by the result . . 241

xx CONTENTS OF
CHAPTER XXXIX.
'THE THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY.' PAGE
Two colleagues— The principal Councils and the Inquisition —
Quartettes at Blanco White's lodgings— The ' Arians,' and
'Heresy and Orthodoxy' — A last evening— Checked utter
ances — False enumerations — Numerical aids — ' Mother
Church' — Isaac Williams borrowing as much as he pleased
from Boetius a Bolswert — The Provost's directions to
writers  246

CHAPTER XL.
THE REFORM BILL.
Orleanist intrigues and the July Revolution — Reform ; what people
at Oxford thought of it— Derby True Blue Club— Petition to
the Lords — Letter to the Marquis of Londonderry — Rejection
of the Bill — Riots at Derby and Nottingham — Meeting in the
town-hall, and resolution to open the gaols — Casualties —
Charles S. Hope— County magistrates - James Dean and the
last words of the old House of Commons .... 252

CHAPTER XLI.
WHATELY ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN.
Believed to be for separating Church and State — Surprise at the
appointment — My expressions to that effect in Christie's room
before Pope, Whately's brother-in-law — Whately's disgust
with Oxford — Willis his man-at-arms — Sad accident —
Whately at the Viceroy's table — Hinds — How got rid of . 266
CHAPTER XLII.
UNIVERSAL MOVEMENT OF 183I-1832.
Everybody, except the Church of England, competent to set the
world to rights — Popular writers — Christian fanatics — Whately,
Arnold, Bunsen  272

THE FIRST VOLUME. xxi
CHAPTER XLIII.
ST. NICHOLAS AND ST. RUNWALD. PAGE
In Deacon's orders— Whitaker Churton taking me to East Ilsley—
A pensioner — Ogilvie of Balliol — James Round, late Proctor,
laid up, and wanting a curate at Colchester — Holly Place —
Mr. Morant's -library — First pastoral visit — Want of rest —
Fasting — Old family servant — Contest for the Boden Professor
ship — The Pharmacopoeia — Bishop Blomfield — From Col
chester to Teignmouth, Dartmoor, Totnes, Dartmouth— Dies
mirabilis .......... 275
CHAPTER XLIV.
BUCKLAND.
The arrangements for the parish— How we furnished a cottage—
The ladies at the parsonage — Cecilia — Confirmation at Abing
don — Hyper-ritualism — A divided parish and divided parson
age — Permissive legislation — The Throckmortons — Olden
times — Archdeacon Berens — The cholera — The general election 282
CHAPTER XLV.
NEWMAN AND FROUDE ON THE MEDITERRANEAN.
' History of the Arians ' completed — Continental tours —
'Memorials ofthe Past ' — Palmer's 'Antiquities ofthe English
Ritual ' — The inn at Whitchurch — ' Are these the tracks of
some unearthly Friend ? ' — Caelum non animum mutant — Rome
— Dr. Wiseman and M. Bunsen — ' Who can answer for Arnold ? '
— Palermo — Castro Giovanni— Sicilian fever — 'Lead, kindly
light' — What was going on at home — The return — Keble's
sermon on ' National Apostasy '  291
CHAPTER XLVI.
FROUDE'S COMMENTS ON THE PANTHEON.
Greek, Roman, and ' Gothic ' architecture — The spherical dome
— The catenary curve — Construction versus effect — The vast
dimensions of the Pantheon  298

xxii CONTENTS OF
CHAPTER XLVII.
AFTER THE MEDITERRANEAN VOYAGE. FAGS
A shower of meteors— Froude no better for his voyage —
' Wretched Tridentines everywhere '—Froude sent to the West
Indies— Newman's letters to the 'Record'— Publication ofthe
' Arians ' — ' A humdrum marriage ' . . > 3°3

CHAPTER XLVIII.
MEETING AT HADLEIGH.
Hugh J. Rose— The suppression of Irish sees — Apostolic succes
sion— Dr. Morris, Bishop of Troy— Rev. A. P. Perceval —
' Hadleigh Conference '  308

CHAPTER XLIX.
THE 'TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.'
Difficulties of publication and circulation — Inequality of form
and composition — Variety of adherents — Newman seeing good
in all, and hoping against hope — First volume of ' Parochial
Sermons' — 'University Sermons' — 'Sermons on Holy
Days' — The ' Lyra Apostolica ' . . . . . .3"

CHAPTER L.
ROUTH, PRESIDENT OF MAGDALENE, AND PALMER 07
WORCESTER.
The authors most named in the Oriel circle — Newman slow to
enlist Routh— Tithonus — Giving in— Lectures on ' Romanism
and Popular Protestantism ' — William Palmer's ecclesiastical
studies —His * Origines Liturgicoe,' and ' Treatise on the Church
of Christ ' — The Ten Commandments in our Communion
Service — Observation by H. Wilberforce .... 317

THE FIRST VOLUME. x..;ii
CHAPTER LI.
BISHOP MARSH. PAGE
Popular ignorance as to the clergy of the last century — ' Three-
bottle orthodox' — 'Going to public-houses' — A successor of
Sydney Smith — A clergyman to be found in the market place —
Peterborough Palace and Cathedral— Bishops visiting North
amptonshire on a pillion behind the churchwarden, or vid
London — Confirmation at Brackley in the black cherry season
—A costly attempt to enforce church law — ' Give a knave, ' &c. 323
CHAPTER LII.
DISTRIBUTION OF THE 'TRACTS' AMONG THE OLD CLERGY.
Mr. Crawley, of Stowe Nine Churches — Fighting through three
generations against turnpike roads, canals, and railways, but
expecting, to win his last fight — His son-in-law, Lloyd Crawley
- — The terms on which he had his living — Mounting me on his
best horse to call on Sikes of Guilsborough — Sikes on Educa
tion and dissenters — His death — A dissenter's son taught Cross-
man's Catechism  329
CHAPTER LUI.
NORRIS OF HACKNEY.
A crisis in the management ofthe S.P.C.K. — Taken up by Lloyd
Crawley to a meeting at Bartlett's Buildings — More people
than the place would hold — Archbishop Howley equal to the
occasion — Country members invited to attend in reasonable
numbers — Last day of Norris' reign — Invited to dine at
Hackney — Herons — Confectus cutis somnoque gravatus —
Norris' curates at Hackney  335
CHAPTER LIV.
OUTCOMES OF THE MOVEMENT.
A multitude of writers — A school of theology wanted, and a
'Hall' set up for the purpose — Its results — Hampden Princi
pal of St. Mary Hall — Professor of moral philosophy — His

xxiv CONTENTS OF PAGE
pamphlet on religious dissent and tests in the University — H.
Wilberforce's ' Foundations of the Faith Assailed ' — Church
to be built at Littlemore — Cossus ligniperda — Newman's
idea of the church wanted— The chancel of Moreton Pinckney,
taken for a model, to be enlarged — Froude's return from Cod
rington College — Anthony Froude — Hurrell on Babbage's
calculating machine — S. Wilberforce's evening in Oriel com
mon room, and his unpleasant remarks on it — Lord Dudley's
remarks to the same effect ... .... 340
CHAPTER LV.
HAMPDEN REGIUS PROFESSOR.
Burton's premature death — Hampden's Bampton Lectures now
coming up — His observations on religious dissent — Carries the
day against Edward Denison's claim to the Professorship —
Why the lectures not noticed earlier — Blanco White's
assistance — Utilised, duped, and aggrieved .... 350
CHAPTER LVI.
BLANCO WHITE'S PART IN THE PREPARATION OF
HAMPDEN'S BAMPTON LECTURES.
Disputed by his biographer — Alleged 'germs' in articles on
Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, and in the old Oriel stock —
Shuttleworth, Blanco White, Hampden, W. Bishop and his
brother, intimate friends in 1814 — Hampden and Blanco
White together at Oxford 1829-1832 — Nor was it wrong
to use helps — The relation of Blanco White with the college
in 1827 — Hampden's account of himself to Whately — Deep in
the subject in 1832 — Immediately dropping it, except as to its
practical consequences  354
CHAPTER LVI I.
CONDEMNATION OF THE BAMPTON LECTURES.
Newman's ' Elucidations ' — Meeting at C. C. College —
Vaughan Thomas — Proposed measure of disqualification — A
trail of circulars — Measure vetoed, then carried — Its legality
questionable — Its prudence also — The Inaugural Lecture . 362

THE FIRST VOLUME. xxv
CHAPTER LVI 1 1.
UNREADABLENESS OF THE BAMPTON LECTURES. PAGE
General character of Bampton Lectures — Archdeacon Goddard s
- — Davison's alleged approval — His indecisive character — His
early works and his unpublished Commentary on the Scriptures
— The widow's testimony — The acknowledgment of the Lectures
produced by Hampden — Davison appreciating the latter from
the day he came to college, and expecting much from him —
Davison's oddities  366

CHAPTER LIX.
GLADSTONE AND S. WILBERFORCE.
The latter drawn into a correspondence with Hampden, friendly,
but with menace — Hampden neither cajoled nor frightened —
S. Wilberforce knocking under, on the ground that he had
never read the Lectures, and now saw no harm in them —
Gladstone, thirty-four years after the delivery of the Lectures,
writing unexpectedly to say that he had never been able to
understand them, or any ' works of an abstract character, '
and had therefore been wrong to condemn them — Letter put by
till published by Hampden's biographer — Was Oxford called
on to protest? — Was Hampden right or wrong? — Dependent
on the view taken of the Platonists and Aristotelians . . 374

CHAPTER LX.
VOICE, LOOK, AND MANNER.
Unprepossessing — A dull talker — Embarrassments created by his
position — The planter and the emancipator — Purple and gold —
Simplicity the fashion at Oriel — Incidents of a state visit of the
Duke of Wellington to the Provost — Johnnie Deans, Hamp
den's predecessor at the Hall — Hampden's correspondence
with the Duke, and disappointment at finding him not a mag
nanimous man — The voices of Copleston, Tyler, Hawkins,
Whately, Newman, Froude, the Wilberforces, and Pusey . 379

CONTENTS OF

CHAPTER LXI.
NEWMAN, 1836-1837. PAGE
Clergy flocking to Oxford — Hume Spry — Andrew Brandram —
Lectures in Adam de Broome's Chapel — The law of change —
Marriage of my brother John to Jemima Newman — Mrs.
Newman's death — Consecration of Littlemore church — Infant
baptism ; whether charitable under existing circumstances —
' What was Newman tending to ? ' — What did we understand
by the Primitive Church? — A welcome offered to all sorts, but
for a journey without an end — Vox damans in deserto —
' Oxford society '  387
CHAPTER LXII.
SOME INCIDENTS..
Newman's college rooms — Conversion of a Baptist family — -
Braham, the singer — Newman finding himself the college dog
keeper — Sad accident with different results — A Latin sentence
a day— Nothing to pass without a record— Newman's visit to
Derby ; attending a committee meeting and a public meeting,
and entangled in a procession of men on strike — Much to be
said for dissenters — A curious question of identity — The
respective virtues of rich and poor . . . ,, , 395
CHAPTER LXIII.
SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT-
Great bulk of the ' Tracts for the Times,' and the Catena' — Rival
series — ' English Reformers' — None of them read — The ' Tracts
for the Times ' against the whole course of the Church of
England —Practical difficulties — Bishop Blomfield's movement
adopted by the Oxford movement, and found the more un
popular and troublesome of the two — Difference between life
in a country village and in a university, or in the metropolis —
Fasting and fasting — Zeal with and without discretion — The
leaders of the movement beset and carried off their legs by
their followers — A critical question every day — Newman's
successive arrangements with the ' British Critic ' — The ' Pro
phetical Office of the Church ' — The ' Library of the Fathers '
— 1 he Oriel Tutors 1837-1840— Newman's Tuesday evening
receptions  405

THE FIRST VOLUME. xxvii
CHAPTER LXIV.
BISHOP BURGESS.
The 'Apcstolic bishop '—The new Rector of Fugglestone—
George Herbert's church and parsonage — The Bishop pressing
on me the study of Hebrew — His nephew at Charterhouse,
Oriel, and Streetley — His will, executors, nephews and nieces 417
CHAPTER LXV.
CONVOCATION.
A frequent topic — Newman himself no enthusiast for it — Others
taking it up — Myself charged with the circulation of an
amendment to be proposed on the opening address — Making
an appearance at Salisbury at a select meeting for the election
of Proctors — Did I receive a pat or a blow ? — Sending a copy
of the amendment to Manning — His position at Oxford, and
his discipline in his own church — His early acquisition of
respect and veneration — His reply to me as to the amendment
— ' Provincial synods the right thing ' — But are they better than
Convocation?  421
CHAPTER LXVI.
RESERVE IN COMMUNICATING RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE.
Isaac Williams the simplest of men — Reserve there must be in fact,
but not in system ; and as little in name as possible — Can the
Atonement be reserved ? — Does the Catechism reserve it ? — Is
it possible with the Bible open and read ? — The terror caused
by the word ' reserve ' — The standing topic of exhausted
preachers — Thomas Keble's vindication of Williams — If
Bishops don't like the title, are they bound to read the book ? —
Yet titles are misquoted, that of Butler's ' Analogy ' for
example . .  430
CHAPTER LXVII.
ATTACK ON THE MOVEMENT.
The ' Christian Observer '¦ — Its fate — Dr. Faussett's ' Revival of
Popery ' — Newman's reply — The weak point in Dr. Faussett's

xxviii CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
PAGE
case — Bishop Bagot's charge — S. Wilberforce's contributions to
the ' British Critic ' declined— Dr. Shuttleworth's appearance
in the field of controversy  439
CHAPTER LXVIII.
DEAN HOOK, DEAN CHURCH, AND CHARLES MARRIOTT.
Sermon in the Chapel Royal — ' Hear the Church ' — Defended
as an old sermon often preached before — The Queen pleased
with it ; not so Her Majesty's advisers — What is the Church,
in the British Isles sense ?— Church, Fellow of Oriel, nephew
of General Church — Charles Marriott a laborious student and
inquirer, working without show or reward, and appreciated
only by students like himself — Sticking tb his purposes —
Occasionally out of his element  444

REMINISCENCES.

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
As all the world knows, Reminiscences are very sus
picious matter. They are a lower form of Recollec
tions, which, at the best, must share the common infir
mities of mortal memory. The mental picture of events
long passed by, and seen through an increasing breadth
of many-tinted haze, is liable to be warped and
coloured by more recent remembrances, and by im
pressions received from other quarters. When the
event itself is more striking or more important than
any particular mode of knowing it can possibly be,
memory deals very unscrupulously, so to speak, with
the inferior matter.
For example, I have read scores of Reminiscences
and biographies — the latter, of course, affecting to be
made up from journals and letters — about the incidents
and the sensations attending the receipt of the news
of the Battle of Waterloo ; and I grieve to say they
have greatly lowered my estimate of the historical
value of such records. They have told me little that I
was not familiar with from my childhood ; and what-
VOL. I. B

2 REMINISCENCES.
ever I was not familiar with was evidently fictitious.
My father used to read his newspaper to us, dwel
ling with exultation on the passages most likely to
take our interest or our fancy. Going in and out, he
saw many people, and heard news, which he told us.
Now, in the Reminiscences I am referring to, some by
very distinguished persons, by ladies of quality, per
haps—supposed to have special access to headquarters
for information — I really may say I have never
found anything that was not public property by the
end of June 1815. Of course I am not speaking of
alleged particulars most improbable and almost in
conceivable. I am not speaking of the story of the
company at the dinner-table where the despatches
were delivered being unable to decipher them, or too
impatient to open them ; of the officer sinking down
in a chair too exhausted to give a coherent answer,
and of some shrewd old military gentleman solving
the difficulty by asking the number of guns captured,
and being answered ' All,' or some very large number.
Such statements are reminiscences in their lower de
pravation — that is, blending with fiction.
Nor is it a matter in which confidence is any
assurance ; for they who remember most confidently,
or most exactly, are often the most wrong. At
least they are not more likely to be right than others.
I once heard Lord Panmure exclaim at a Charter
house Brooke Hall dinner, ' Fancy a man forgetting a
thing ! ' Not long after, he had personal experience
that it was not only possible but quite easy. Some
years since there was a discussion in the Lords as to
the antecedents of a man who had failed of his duty

INTRODUCTION. 3
in a responsible and well-paid office. It was a Whig
appointment. Lord Granville said the man had
excellent recommendations, including one by the late
Lord Chelmsford. Thereupon Lord Chelmsford
sprang from his seat and declared he had never re
commended the man ; he knew nothing about him ;
so it was quite impossible he could have recommended
him. Lord Granville took a note out of his pocket
and passed it to Lord Chelmsford, who recognised
his own handwriting and surrendered at discretion.
It is true these are cases of bad memory, not of
memory too good to be true ; of forgetfulness, not
hallucination. But the truth is they go together, for
when a man forgets what is necessary to the truth of
events, he fancies something untrue ; and if he inserts
unconsciously some illusion of his own, it unfairly
occupies the ground to the exclusion of the truth.
Even exaggeration compels diminution, if not entire
suppression, in giving too much to some persons, and
that much less, or nothing, to others.
To confess oneself fallible is to claim no more
than mortal excellence, and I have learnt to think no
more of infallible people than of fallible. I will say
even more. Is not a very distinct and vivid memory
of persons and things in continual change, itself a
disease of memory ? As persons and human affairs
are not the same always, and do not continue in
exactly the same bearings and relations, the best
memory of them must be a certain abstract or mean
rather than a picture or a stereotype. Many years
ago, sitting by Page Wood at a dinner-table, I asked
him if he was not haunted by the long and anxious

4 REMINISCENCES.
causes in which he had been engaged. He replied, ' No.
They pass away from my thoughts. It's all logic'
The Irish have very exact and vivid memories, simply
becafise their memory is subordinate to imagination
and passion. They remember too easily, too quickly,
and too much as they please. The reader, I trust, will
not think the worse of me and my testimony because
I have felt the truth to be a matter requiung much
care and vigilance. But he may fairly ask what are
my claims to publish reminiscences of such men as
the chief personages in this volume.
I came into residence at Oriel College after Easter
1825. Copleston was Provost, and Tyler, Hawkins,
Dornford, and Jelf tutors. Newman was then much
in the College, holding the office of junior trea
surer. Early in 1826 he took J elf's place in the
tuition, and his pupils, including myself. I took my
B.A. degree in the Michaelmas term 1828. In those
two years and a half I saw very much more of Newman
than pupils usually saw of their tutors even in those
days when tuition meant something. From Christmas
to Easter I was private tutor to the present Lord
Doneraile at Cheltenham, but was in correspondence
with Newman. At his encouragement and urgency I
stood for a Fellowship at the next Easter, and was
elected. From that date — that is, from Easter 1829 to
Christmas 1831 I resided, not only in term time, but
also a good deal in the vacations, on intimate terms,
with Newman's mother and sisters, and with his circle
of friends. At Christmas 1831 I was ordained deacon by
Bagot, Bishop of Oxford. Through Newman and

INTRODUCTION. 5
his friends I went to Colchester to take sole charge
of James Round's two parishes. In less than three
months I found it too much for me, and after some
weeks in Devonshire, was back again at Oxford. Then
I took charge of Buckland, an easy ride from Oxford,
myself and Newman interchanging visits. At Michael
mas I went to reside at Moreton Pinckney, a small
college living thirty miles from Oxford, to the per
petual curacy of which I was afterwards licensed by
Marsh, Bishop of Peterborough. The place was well
known to Oriel men. Newman and my other Oxford
friends often came over to pay me visits, and I often
rode or walked in to Oxford. It was at Moreton
Pinckney that I had to put the ' Tracts for the Times '
into circulation, and do some other little affairs, such
as getting up a petition against the Marriage Bill. I
frequently came across Litchfield, of Merton College,
then himself engaged in worrying Arnold, but he did
not take cheerfully to the new movement at Oxford.
Church and Land was then the ruling idea.
At Easter 18351 came up to Oxford, took college
office, came into rooms, and asked to be relieved of
Moreton Pinckney. I do not think I could say that
Newman suggested to me this change of plan, but I
knew he wanted all the help he could get. Possibly
he did not think I was doing such a work in my parish
as should excuse me from taking a share in the larger
work he had then in hand. I found it not so easy to
be relieved of my parish. The Provost went by rule,
and offered the living to every unbeneficed clergyman
down to the bottom of the list on the college books,
where at last he found a worthy man, who took the

6 REMINISCENCES.
living, and had a hard fight to live on it, which he
did, I think, thirty-four years or more. Till my place
was supplied I had often to go up and down. From
Easter 1835 to Michaelmas 1836 was a period of
great excitement. There was much to be done, and
I had generally a hand in it ; always, so to speak, at
Newman's side.
By the end of September 1836 I had become
Newman's brother-in-law, I had accepted the rectory
of Cholderton, in Salisbury Plain, and I was on my
way to that place. It was a long way from Oxford,
but still I went backwards and forwards. Newman
came to see me more than once. We also corresponded
much. Most of my clerical neighbours warmly sym-
pathished with Newman, even if they did not all of
them altogether agree with him. It was a great thing
to hear of anybody standing up for Truth and for the
Church. It must have been about the time of my going to
Cholderton that Newman asked me to translate Vin
cent of Lerins. I was slow about it, and I found my
self anticipated by some quicker hand (C. Marriott,
I believe). But I have my translation half done.
In 1838 I published 'A Dissection ofthe Queries'
on education circulated by Lord J. Russell, 'by a
Clergyman of South Wilts.' Newman told me it was
a great pity I had not sent it as an article to the
' British Critic,' of which he had become editor. So I
began to write for him, and contributed to most of
the numbers for two years. He then proposed to me
to take the editorship, which, I need scarcely say,
would in such a case be better described by sub-

INTRODUCTION. 7
editorship, though I am sure this was not Newman's
intention. I consented, and did so act till October
1843, when I resigned, and the periodical ceased to
exist. At the same time there came to me, through my
brother James and another member of our Oriel circle,
the offer of employment in a quarter then supposed to be
friendly, not only to Newman, but to the movement
of which he was now held to be the real leader. After
a good deal of conversation in Temple Gardens, in
which I declared myself very strongly, for specified
reasons, against the Corn Laws and Protection
generally, I agreed. This act was necessarily a de
parture, as far as co-operation was concerned, and
from that time there could not be confidential cor
respondence on the heart of affairs. But I had frequent
letters from Newman, and occasional reminders that
what I did must be for heaven as well as for earth, and
would have to be so judged.
Three years before this, early in 1840, Newman
consulted me about the conventual house to be
constructed out of a range of stabling at Littlemore,
and there ensued a correspondence. I sent some
drawings and suggestions, which would have some
what redeemed the ugliness of the building. I went
several times to see Newman and the brothers,
as I may call them, at Littlemore. I should add
that though I was, I really believe, as mugh in
Newman's secrets as anybody else — at the time, I
believed, as much in his secrets as he himself was — I
could not have said, till he actually went over to
Rome, whether he was even likely to go over. I was

8 REMINISCENCES.
repeatedly asked the question ; I was even told that the
Court of Rome had certain grounds for being sure of
his submission. But the Italian temperament is so
entirely different from the English ; it is so sanguine,
so ill content with imperfect development, so resolved
that a man shall be either one thing or the other, and
so habituated to make events, that I did not credit
the most positive announcements from that quarter.
Nevertheless the end was no surprise to me. ^
The reader will notice that in this summary of two
lives I have said very little indeed of Newman's works.
My present purpose is to show what basis I have for
Reminiscences. If I have a memory at all — if I have
even a particle of truthfulness, I ought to be able to
tell something. Newman's publications are before the
world ; they are before all time, as long as the Eng
lish language is spoken, and as long as this is a people
and an empire. If I said not a word about them they
would suffer no wrong from me. But my personal
recollections, whatever they are worth, would be lost
if I did not collect and publish them. Newman ap
pears here as the centre of a group. I may honestly
say that, with the exception of Keble, I do not think
one of them would be a living name a century hence
but for his share in the light of Newman's genius and
goodness. Yet even as the planets of such a system
they are worthy of a better record than I am about to
offer. One thing more I must say. These are Remini
scences, and Reminiscences only. I possess a great
mass of letters, journals, and other documents that
might have helped me to make these volumes a little

INTRODUCTION'. 9
more interesting and more authentic. But I have now
only a small remainder of my eyesight — one eye gone,
and not much left of the other — while my prospects
of life and strength are also a small and doubtful re
mainder. I should soon have lost myself had I
attempted to penetrate into all this buried material.
Some years ago various incidents brought before
me the possible fate of documents in that contingency
which is certain and which may be any day. Car
dinal Newman's letters and manuscripts I knew to be
his property in the eye of the law, as far as publication
is concerned. That question was brought before the
Oxford world when Whately went to the publishers
of Blanco White's Life and threatened legal proceed
ings in case his own letters were included in the pub
lication. The result of that interference is that the
most important part of Blanco White's Life — viz. the
later period of his residence at Oxford — is left a blank.
No reasonable person could blame Whately for that
step, or found any surmise upon it, for the letters of
intimate friends are always supposed to be inter
changed in an inner council, quite apart from the open
circle of the Church or the world. To Newman's own
letters I added whatever was worth sending in the
correspondence relating to the ' British Critic' Some
time after a kind and good Irish Roman Catholic
gentleman, who, though in a dying state, had given
himself much trouble for me, asked for Newman's
autograph. The only one I could then find with
considerable search was Newman's acknowledgment
of the returned letters, which I sent to poor Mr.
Frank Harris, since dead.

10 REMINISCENCES.
There cannot be much, then, in the nature of a bio
graphy here. Nor could I have attempted any account
of Newman's works, for I have always been a bad
reader, and have now less power than ever of master
ing any work requiring close attention and continued
thought. Moreover, I very much distrust the impar
tiality of the gentlemen who, past the middle age,
sit down, as they would fondly persuade themselves,
to form a right judgment upon a work written by
some one whom they utterly disagree with. They set
to work (they know it well) with a foregone conclusion.
As a member of the Anglican communion I am bound
to admit that my own foregone conclusion must be
to some extent against all Newman's later works, not
only those published since his submission to Rome,
but also those in which he has since maintained his
final course to have been involved. But that foregone
conclusion would in my case be good for nothing, and
I see no possible good to the world, or to myself, in
sitting down now to the task of analysing a series of
great works, which I have always felt to be above both
my working powers and my mental qualifications.
Even as regards the grand subject, these Remi
niscences are superficial, sketchy, and often trivial. As
regards some other subjects they are even more so.
Perhaps I shall even be found to come under the old
description of those that remember the evil more
easily than the good. Be it so. I feel myself bound
to give a testimony, and it must be in my own kind.
But why have I not waited, anyhow, till the Car
dinal is history, and fair prey to the biographer ? I
hope I should have to wait long enough for that — nay,

INTROD UCTION. 1 1
that I shall not then be found waiting. I am not quite
six years the Cardinal's junior. Since I put pen to
this work, death has visited the names contained in it
again and again ; yes, again and again since I wrote
these very words, ' again and again.' Several times
have I had to sit down to correct the tenses. There
has also been a whole crop of Reminiscences. I
much wished the Dean of Westminster to see what I
had written ; but he has gone, after giving another
contribution to the history of that period — a contri
bution evidently intended to amuse, and, for that
purpose, most successful.
The sum is, one cannot wait for ever. I shall
be glad to reflect that the Cardinal will have the op
portunity of correcting my errors, and will have some
mementoes of interest. But, again I say, this is but a
superficial work, for I am not much of a logician, or
of a metaphysician, or of a philosopher. Least of all
am I a theologian.

CHAPTER II.
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.

CARDINAL Newman was born in the City of London,
and baptised a few yards from the Bank of England,
earlyin 1801. His father was ofa family of small landed
proprietors in Cambridgeshire and had an hereditary
taste for music, of which he had a practical and scien
tific knowledge, together with much general culture.

12 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.
He became a banker, and his name is found in the
banking firm of Sir James Sanderson, Bart., Harrison,
Prickett & Newman, i Mansion House Street, from
1794 to 1797 inclusive. By the year 1799 the first
name had dropped, and from that date to 1 806 the
style of the bank was Harrison, Prickett & New
man. In 1807 the style of the bank at 1 Mansion
House Street was Harrisons, Kay, and Chapman ; but
from that year to 1816 Mr. John Newman's name
appears in the newly-established firm, Ramsbottoms,
Newman, Ramsbottom & Co., 72 Lombard Street.
The firm would seem to have had particular relations
with another firm styled first Fry & Sons, afterwards
Frys & Chapman, established at the same time. John
Newman was an enthusiast in his way, and he bestowed
some labours of calculation upon the various popular
schemes of the day, such as that for making England
independent of foreign timber, by planting all our
waste lands. He was a Freemason, and had a high
standing in the craft, into which, however, no one of
his three sons was initiated. He was also a member
of the Beef Steak Club. In 1800 he married Jemima
Fourdrinier, of a well-known Huguenot family, long
known in the City of London as engravers and paper
manufacturers. Two of Mrs. Newman's brothers in
troduced from Italy the machine for making endless
coils of paper, which up to that time had been only
made in sheets, by the slow work of the hand.
Throughout the whole of what may be called his
youth, John Henry Newman happily had no suspicion
that theology would be to him more than the saving
of his soul, for his parents intended him for the law,

EARLY SPIRITUAL LIFE. 13
and he actually kept some terms at Lincoln's Inn.
Without a thought of converting the world — which,
indeed, he formerly held to be the impossible am
bition of fanatics and worldlings — and thinking of
nothing but the openings he saw here and there
through the drift into the glory beyond, he ac
cepted from early years every text, every expression,
every figure, every emblem, and every thought thereby
suggested, as a solemn and abiding reality which it
was good to live in. (J± would hardly be too much to
say that he knew the Bible by heart. In his later years
he has described in very touching language the impos
sibility of shaking off or even modifying this sweetest
of his early possessions. He might study the Fathers,
and many a weary volume of annals or of controversy ;
he has had to master the Vulgate, but his first and
last love has been the Authorised VersionT) His recol
lections of his early spiritual life, published in the
'Apologia pro Vita Sua,' contained some novelties,
not to say surprises, to his longest friends, and it is
quite possible that a new search into first memories,
under a strong suggestion, may have varied their order
and prominence.
In that most interesting record, however, he omits
some important particulars. At a very early age indeed
he was sent to Dr. Nicholas's, at Ealing, said to be the
best preparatory school in the country. There were
300 boys there, and many of them became distin
guished in various ways. John H. Newman rose,
almost' at a bound, to the head of the school, where
before long he was followed by his no less remark
able and precocious brother, Frank Newman. As

14 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.
far back as I remember what I saw, or heard from
others, the two brothers took the opposite sides on
every possible question, and perhaps the fact that
one of the born disputants was more than four years
younger than the other accounts somewhat for their
respective lines of divergence. If they argued at all
on an equality, the younger must be the cleverer, the
elder more mature. There was also another brother,
still living, not without his share in the heritage of
natural gifts. John H. Newman used to be sensible
of having lost something by not being a public-school
man. He regarded with admiration and a generous
kind of envy the facile and elegant construing which
a man of very ordinary talents would bring with him
from the sixth form of any public school. 'You
don't know how much you owe to Russell,' he would
say to me, though I was never one of those facile
construers. In the account of himself referred to, John H.
Newman has said little of his early adventures and
sallies into the domains of thought, politics, fancy,
and taste. ^He very early mastered music as a science,
and attained such a proficiency on the violin that, had
he not become a Doctor of the Church, he would have
been a Paganini. At the age of twelve he composed
an opera. He wrote in albums, improvised masques
and idyls, and only they who see no poetry in ' Lead,
kindly light,' or in the 'Dream of Gerontius,' will
deny that this divine gift entered into his birth
right/) From Dr. Nicholas's he went straight to Trinity
College, Oxford. Not long afterwards his brother

FROM DR. NICHOLAS'S TO TRINITY COLLEGE. 15
Frank, too advanced for Ealing, but too young for a
college even in those days, came to Oxford and
pursued his studies, as far as compatible with an
amiable but persistent antagonism, under John
Henry Newman's direction, in lodgings. When the
latter had been at Trinity for a term or two, a great
blow fell on him and changed his destiny. The
bank in Lombard Street was one of many London
banks which, with as many as a hundred country
banks, succumbed under the pressure caused by the
rapid fall of prices. It had to 'stop,' though by
the end of the month it paid its creditors in
full. Henceforth Newman could have little or no
aid from his friends. The father took the Alton
Brewery, which for two or three years became the
head-quarters of the family, making the place ever
after very dear in their memories. The three
Eclogues forming the first three pieces in the
'Memorials of the Past' — printed 1832, and dated
Alton, July 1818 ; September 1818 ; April 18 19 —
show how intensely the writer appreciated the well-
known features of Hampshire scenery. Gilbert
White's ' Natural History of Selborne ' (a few miles
from Alton) was a great book with Oriel men of those
days, and when Newman became a Fellow of Oriel
he was often proud to name him as one of the college
worthies, and to recommend a careful reading of his
book. The father could not make the brewery
answer, though he seems to have studied the business
thoroughly and to have applied himself to it with
much diligence. There finally remained nothing but
the mother's jointure, which was soon sadly diminished

1 6 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.
by the successive reduction of the interest from 5
per cent to 4, and then to 3. John Henry Newman
could now help others as well as maintain himself.
In the declining fortunes of his family he read the
call to a higher and more congenial profession than
that for which he had been actually preparing.
His academic sympathies and associations ex
panded all the more because his prospects were closed
in other quarters. For his college and what could recall
it to his memory he acquired a passion which has never
died. But there was one unlucky consequence of this
change in his expectations. He passed his examination
for his degree at the earliest possible time, Michaelmas
1820, when he had not quite completed his nineteenth
year. Various explanations are given of what oc
curred. It is said that Newman was very ill ; that
he had had no sleep latterly, and had neglected even
to take food. It is also added that the examiners
were not the men to discover a genius under this
disguise. Newman always maintained that he had
been too discursive to make the proper preparation ;
that he had been properly examined ; and that he
alone was answerable for his failure. The result in
those days turned on the viv& voce examination, not
on the paper work, as now. When the class lists
came out Newman was found ' under the line,' as
low as then he could be. The comparison with those
to whom higher honours were accorded, and with the
examiners themselves, is at least suggestive ; but it
really was a question of ' results,' as they are now
called, and the results were not forthcoming on this
occasion. Was it likely ? He was not yet nineteen,

'ST. BARTHOLOMEWS EVE.' 17
the age when most men now enter a university. Five
years and a half afterwards his brother Frank gained
without any apparent effort one of the best double-
firsts ever known.
For three years after taking his B.A. degree
Newman resided at Oxford, enjoying the much-prized
position of a scholar of Trinity, and some friendships
that became ever stronger and stronger. In the year
1 82 1, together with John W. Bowden, he published
first one canto, then a second, of ' St. Bartholomew's
Eve,' which might now be supposed the first fiery
outbreak of a spirit destined to wield the masses of
Exeter Hall. In a note to the second instalment he
explains that he had been much surprised to find by
the remarks of his academic readers that the learned
university knew nothing about St. Bartholomew's
Eve. So he undertook to enlighten it with a brief
narrative beginning: — 'The year of our Lord 1572
will ever be branded with infamy and recollected with
horror, as the date of this most barbarous and cold
blooded massacre. The Queen Mother, Catherine de'
Medici, actuated by zeal or ambition, conceived this
design, so pleasing to the Court of Rome,' &c, &c.
Notwithstanding this bold adventure into the realms
of history, poetry, and polemics, it does not appear that
Newman attempted to retrieve his examination disaster
by writing for either the English or the Latin essay.
He remained for years in the very distinct circle of his
Trinity acquaintances. As that college was his home
for the first six or seven years of his academic life, he
retained for it, to the last, the tenderest affection. For
Isaac Williams and W. J. Copeland he had the love
VOL. 1. C

1 8 THE OLD ORIEL SCHOOL.
which passes that of common relation. Many years
afterwards he typified his life's aspirations in the
snap-dragon fringing the wall opposite the rooms
in which he spent his first three solitary weeks at
college.

CHAPTER III.
THE OLD ORIEL SCHOOL,
Thus in the most impressible period of his mental
growth, Newman was external to the college most
associated with his life, work, and name. Oriel
College at that time contained some of the most dis
tinguished personages, the most vigorous minds, and
the most attractive characters in Oxford. From the
Provost, Dr. Copleston, to the youngest undergraduate
they had been carefully selected, for to get a son into
Oriel was a great thing in those days. Keble,
Whately, Tyler, and Hawkins were tutors. Arnold,
though not then residing, for he did not reside beyond
his probationary year, was present in spirit. Much
the same might be said of the softer and milder in
fluence of Samuel Rickards. Richard Hurrell Froude,
and a younger brother, who lived but to die, Robert
Wilberforce and latterly Samuel, Sir George Prevost,
Dallas, Proby J. Ferrers, William Falconer, John
Colquhoun, Edward Denison, William Heathcote,

NOE TICS.

19

Charles Wood, and Charles Porcher, were among the
undergraduates. Though the distinction was rather on
the decline — for other colleges were joining the race — ¦
Oriel had more than its share of university honours.
What was more, its most prominent talkers,
preachers, and writers seemed to be always under
mining, if not actually demolishing, received traditions
and institutions ; and whether they were preaching
from the University pulpit, or arguing in common room,
or issuing pamphlets on passing occasions, even faith
ful and self-reliant men felt the ground shaking under
them. The new Oriel sect was declared to be Noetic,
whatever that may mean, and when a Fellow of the
College presented himself in the social gatherings of
another society, he was sure to be reminded of his
pretence to intellectual superiority. Perhaps the topic
was getting rather stale when I was elected Fellow in
1829, but even then, being in University common
room, on Plumptre's invitation, I was most unmerci
fully baited upon it by Booth, a Magdalene Fellow, and
one of the many victims of Routh's cruel longevity.
For Whately was claimed by his admirers a
spiritual as well as mental pre-eminence, but it would
not be possible to describe now the terror his presence
was sure to infuse among all who wished things to
remain much as they were in their own lifetime. In
stead of being comforted and built up in the good old
fashion, they were told they were altogether wrong,
and must first retrace all their steps and undo all they
had been doing. What was worse, the efficacy of the
cure which had become necessary consisted in the
hearers thinking it out for themselves. Yet for many

20 THE OLD ORIEL SCHOOL.
years after this date, and long after Newman was a
member of the same college as Whately, it would not
have been easy to state the difference between their
respective views, unless it might be found in New
man's immense and almost minutely reverential know
ledge of Scripture, and in a certain yearning to build
as fast as men cast down, and to plant again the
waste places. Something like a conspiracy there
seemed to be — all the University thought that — but
Newman had never liked a movement to destroy. He
used to talk of the men who lash the waters to frighten
the fish when they have made no preparation to catch
them. As a matter of fact, there was something more
than a morbid intellectual restlessness in the so-called
Oriel School of that day. It was not behind the most
bigoted, or the most fanatical school of theologians in
its readiness to impose certain opinions and expres
sions when the opportunity offered itself and the
persons to be indoctrinated might not be on their
guard. In the last century one Dr. Bosworth left a
sum for a series of divinity lectures to be read every
year in chapel. Every old Oriel man will remember
the ' Bossies,' and his own sensations when, at the end
of Morning Prayers, instead of his being dismissed
to his breakfast, one of the Fellows rose and delivered
a very cut-and-dried lecture. It came to every clerical
Fellow in succession. As these were young men, it
had been, not improperly, the custom to read the same
lectures every year ; only the MS. was changed from
time to time. The manuscript then in use was the
production of the Old Oriel, that is, the Noetic school,

THE BOSWORTH LECTURES. 21
and was by no means that neutral composition which
would have been proper under the circumstances.
Certainly it was an unfair use of authority to surprise
either the young lecturer, or the boys that were sup
posed to listen to him, into new theological terms and
definitions. I must have heard the ' Bossies ' frequently, with
out being conscious of receiving either harm or good
from them, but upon my return to residence in 1835
I was appointed the lecturer — I suppose, by the Pro
vost — for the following year. This was after the new
arrangement of the tuition, and during the issue of the
' Tracts for the Times.' Not having paid much atten
tion to the lectures, I now found myself in a serious
difficulty. The MS. explained the word ' Person,' in
the Athanasian Creed, in the Litany and in the Com
munion Service, by the word Office, in the sense of
representation. As far as I can remember, after so
long an interval, what I really could not understand
at the time, the new explanation — for it hardly dis
guised that it was new— amounted to saying that the
Second Person in the Trinity was a representation of
the Father's mercy, and the Third of His sanctifying
power, or something to that effect. It certainly
suggested to my mind a very misty, shadowy, and
unreal idea of Him we read of in the Gospels, as if He
were but a phantom form, or at best an archangel. I
really should be glad to be corrected by the produc
tion of the MS.
This ran through all the lectures in an ascending
scale of prominence and distinctness. I managed,
however lamely, to qualify, or omit, the passages in

22 THE OLD ORIEL SCHOOL.
the earlier lectures, the Provost making no sign.
When the last, or the last but one came, I found my
difficulties face to face,' and insuperable I worked
all night in the vain attempt to find expressions com
patible with the Creeds, and with the general drift of
the MS., but an hour before chapel I found the task
still unaccomplished and seemingly impossible. I
therefore returned the MS., to the Provost, stating my
sad case, and also pleading that I was not then in a
fit state to read the remaining lectures. The note
must have reached the Provost just as he was begin
ning to dress for chapel, for he was too hard worked
and too late worked, to be a particularly early riser.
However, he wrote the kindest possible reply ; and also
another note, which he sent with the MS. to William
J. Copleston, requesting him to finish the series. This
he did, and of course received the remuneration, such
as it was. Not very long after there came to me from
Copleston a handsomely-bound copy of Britton's
' Cathedral Antiquities,' duly inscribed; a kind and
welcome gift, which had the disastrous effect of
making me an architectural enthusiast, and wrecking
me on that rock.
But I have now to retrace my steps some twelve
or fifteen years, to the period when Newman was not
even yet a member of Oriel, and when Copleston
and Whately ruled the college, and threatened to
dominate over the university. It is sixty years ago.
Many who have since passed away, leaving loved and
honoured names, were proud to be numbered among
their friends, and justly proud. But, whatever the
personal merits of these two remarkable men and the

OXFORD EVANGELICALS. 23
sincerity of their convictions, it is necessary to con
sider these as elements in the condition of the college
and university when Newman came into public view.
Whately — for Copleston was now content to be repre
sented, not to say personated, by his disciple — regarded
High Church and Low Church as equal bigotries.
In the Evangelical scheme he saw nothing but
a system of dogmas framed to create a groundless self-
confidence, and to foster spiritual pride. The man
inwardly sure of his own salvation and of his Christian
sufficiency, and equally sure of the damnation of
most people around him, particularly of those he did
not like, Whately used to compare to the self-sufficient
Stoic of the Roman satirist. Such a man was natu
rally indifferent to further knowledge and improve
ment, being, indeed, as good as he need be, and only
in danger of being so good as to rely on his own
merits. Even though the Evangelicals had their
favourable side in their affinities with the Noncon
formist body, and, upon their own principles, had
little to say to formularies, and even to creeds, still
Whately had far less respect for them than for the old
High Church, for it was learned and cultivated, and
it could appeal to something more than those incom
municable sensations which it is impossible to reason
upon. St. Edmund Hall was then the head-quarters
of the Evangelical system. It is difficult to convey an
idea of the very low position it had in the university ;
and it is even painful to recall it, for it was religion
in the form of a degradation utterly undeserved.
There were in most of the other colleges one or two
men who inherited or imbibed sympathy with the

24 IHE OLD ORIEL SCHOOL.
despised sect. But to Whately, in his lofty eminence
of free speculation, the Evangelical system as pre
sented at Oxford was below contempt. If there were
differences between him and Newman when they came
to work together, it must have arisen from Newman's
deep convictions in favour of the Evangelicals, while
Whately could only feel the obligation of a common
Christianity. Whately dealt more freely with the Ten Command
ments than I had been accustomed to. He strongly
deprecated the prevalent idea of the Sunday taking
the exact place of the Jewish Sabbath, or being
properly called the Sabbath. But anyone coming
to Oxford from the country at that time would have
received a little shock to his provincial strictness. It
often occurred that on Sunday there was an unusual
muster at the High Table and in the common room,
of strangers as well as men of the college. In order
to escape this there were occasionally private dinners,
which some would think worse. Sunday was thus a
Feast Day. One of Whately's topics was tliat the
prohibition of idolatrous likenesses and emblems in
the second commandment pointed beforehand to the
true Image of God in his Son, the reception of which
would be impeded by such preoccupations.
Whately's personal habits are too well known
perhaps to be noticed. He used to take daily walks
round Christ Church meadow with a little company
of dogs, and provided with sticks and big round
missiles for their amusement. As soon as people heard
he was Archbishop of Dublin, the first question they
asked was how would he amuse his dogs. He used

RICHARD WHATELY. 25
to lecture his awkward squad of elderly under
graduates at St. Alban Hall, lying on a sofa, with
one leg over the back or the end. Like Macaulay,
he had a healthy appetite, possibly because he had
not been playing with it during the day. To provide
against the danger incident to those who talk and eat
at the same time, when he was to dine at Oriel, a large
dish of currie, or calf's head hash, or other soft and
comminuted meat was provided. Repeatedly when I
have been serving this dish at High Table a plate has
been brought to me, and I have put on it what
seemed to me a liberal help. ' It's for the Principal,
sir,' the servant whispered, and then I began entirely
de novo. I believe Whately rather astonished the
Dublin waiters at the hotel where he had to put up
on his arrival there. There is no point on which
constitution and habits so much differ, but I suppose
the brains will not do their best work without ample
and generous diet : Dr. Johnson, to wit.
I am conscious that in these Reminiscences there
are things which some will think had better not have
been said, for one reason or another. But remi
niscences cease to be reminiscences when they are
much weeded and pruned. I will also add this.
While I confess, as I do, to the large place a man like
Whately holds in my memory, in my regard, and in
the course of my early thoughts, by that very confes
sion I assign to him a far higher place than I should to
some with whom I could find no fault, and of whom,
in fact, I have nothing to say. All this time there
were men at Oxford, able and learned men too, as
irreproachable in their opinions and manners as in

26 NEWMAN, FELLOW OF ORIEL.
their lives ; but who to me were nothing and are
nothing, for they were concerned only for themselves,
and perhaps for some other people in some subordi
nate degree.

CHAPTER IV.
NEWMAN, FELLOW OF ORIEL.
It was in 1823 that Newman was elected to a fellow-'
ship at Oriel ; and it was always a comfort to him
that he had been able to give his father this good
news at a time of great sorrow and embarrassment.
The father died not long after, and the family may
be said then to have had no home They resided for
short periods at Brighton, at Strand-on-the-Green,
and other places ; and some members of the family
paid long and frequent visits to Samuel Rickards, a
quaint, patriarchal, and truly saintly man, at Ulcombe,
near the Earl of Winchelsea's place. Lord Maid
stone — rather eccentric then, in due time the very
eccentric earl — was Rickards' pupil. He had con
siderable powers of caricature, as Etonians all re
member, and he was glad to contribute to any lady's
album. Though Rickards lived to be left far behind
in the race of development, he and his surroundings,
whether at Ulcombe, or at Stowlangloft, near Bury
St. Edmund's, were always very dear to the Newman
family. In October 1827 Newman and his sisters

NUNEHAM COURTNEY. 27
paid a most interesting visit to Highwood, where
Mr. Wilberforce then resided, and where the three
younger sons were then assembled.
In the summer of 1829 the family took a furnished
cottage in a very out-of-the-way spot at Horspath,
of which Dr. Ellerton, a well-known Fellow and tutor of
Magdalene College, had charge. This was pleasant
enough in the summer, but when Dornford, a Fellow
of Oriel, who was serving Nuneham Courtney, and
had the use of a cottage there, offered it to the New
mans, they were glad to avail themselves of the
opportunity, though the change did not bring them
nearer Oxford. The cottage formed part of the new
village built in uniform style by Simon Lord Har-
court, in place of the ancient village, cleared away
because too near the magnificent new mansion, so con
spicuous an object as seen from the river. It was said
to have been intended for the parsonage, but was by
no means a picturesque building. Indeed, in the
Midlands it would have been set down as the habi
tation of a family of weavers or stockingers.
It was not, however, without associations. Jean
Jacques Rousseau occupied it for some time under
the patronage of the Harcourt family, and is said to
have sown seeds of many foreign wild flowers in
spots where they were likely to grow. The fact of
such plants being found about Nuneham has been
adduced to support the tradition that this is the true
Auburn of Goldsmith's ' Deserted Village.'
Another not less interesting association is an inci
dent not to be found in Canon Ashwell's account of
the late Bishop of Winchester's early years. Among

28 NEWMAN, FELLOW OF ORIEL.
the many hands through which Samuel Wilberforce
passed, was the Rev. E. G. Marsh, then occupying
this cottage, and finding room in it for a family and
some pupils. Samuel was then hardly twelve years
old, but he had decided tastes. He conceived a great
dislike of his tutor and the whole manage, and one
day, after a violent collision, demanded to be sent
home immediately. The tutor demurred. There
upon the lad ran into the road before the cottage,
then traversed by a score or two of London coaches
a day, threw himself flat on the ground, in the very
track of the coaches, and announced his intention of
remaining there till he was sent home. After he had
remained there several hours the tutor struck his
colours, and Samuel was sent home.
A special interest attaches to this cottage from its
being the scene of a remarkable family group, inclu
ding the whole surviving Newman family, in chalk,
by Miss Maria R. Giberne, an early and ardent ad
mirer of Newman, and his follower- to Rome.
Upon Dornford leaving college, the family had to
quit Nuneham, and then took a cottage in Iffley,
welh known for its massive Norman church, over
looking the Isis, a mile and a half out of Oxford.
Here they took in hand the school and the poor
at Littlemore. After a time they moved to ' Rose
Bank' Cottage, then just completed, on the Oxford
side of Iffley.
To no period of Newman's life do his younger
friends turn with more curiosity than to his position
in the Oriel common room for the first two or three
years. The truth is, it was very easy for a man to

ORIEL COMMON ROOM. 29
have no position at all there, especially just at that
time. Newman, a shy man, with heart and mind in
a continual ferment of emotion and speculation,
yearning for sympathy and truth, was not likely to
feel entirely at home with some, whom it would be
needless either to name or to describe. From the
first he loved and admired the man with whom even
tually he lived most in collision, Edward Hawkins.
He would also have been ready to love and ad
mire Whately to the end, but for the inexorable
condition of friendship imposed by Whately — abso
lute and implicit agreement in thought, word, and
deed. This agreement, from the first, Newman could
not accord. His divergence was in fact radical. (He
used to say that Whately's Logic was a most interest
ing book, but that there was one thing not to be
found in it, and that was logic) The truth is, every
man in these days is his own logician. However, they
lived for some time in close intimacy, and it is pain
ful to remember that a time came when they were
in the same city for seven years, passing one another
in the streets, without even recognition.
Newman was, however, unaffectedly deferential to
his seniors, some of whom could little have sus
pected the future of their shy probationer. Dr.
Copleston, seeing him less frequently, and on less
familiar terms, could never quite understand him,
though he understood, and even too kindly appre
ciated, some men of much less originality, power and
address. This was all the more remarkable as no
man in Oxford ever so studied and admired Cople-
ston's famous Praelections as Newman did. He read

3o NEWMAN, FELLOW OF ORIEL.
them with his favourite pupils, pointing out their
originality, and their felicity of expression. Copleston
had more ' breadth of culture,' as it is now called,
than is commonly found united with exact and
elegant scholarship, and it is to be regretted that
the ephemeral form of his writings has thrown them
much out of date. The Latin of the Praelections,
Newman used to say, was very good, but Coplesto-
nian, not Ciceronian. All that Copleston saw in him
was, as the Greek poet expressed it, a lion without
the spirit of a lion.
In 1824 Newman took orders and became Curate
of St. Clement's. This was then a quaint little church,
in a very small churchyard, adjoining the toll-taker's
shed, at the east end of the picturesque bridge over
the Cherwell, at the London approach to Oxford. At
this time Newman was Secretary to the local branch
of the Church Missionary Society, an occasional
frequenter of the religious soirees held at the Vice
Principal's of St. Edmund Hall, and on terms of more
or less familiarity with a considerable number cf men
destined soon to part in many directions. His church
was soon filled, and although his sermons, from the
first, rather puzzled Mr. Hill and his weekly synod,
they passed the censorship and were pronounced, on
the whole, spiritual.
The parish of St. Clement's was increasing, and it
devolved on Newman to undertake the building of a
new church, on a more open site. This he had to
leave very much to others, and the result was the
singular edifice compared by irreverent undergradu
ates to a boiled rabbit, on some low ground, on the

ST. CLEMENT'S. 31
bank of the Cherwell, opposite Magdalene Walks.
There could hardly be imagined a building with less
indications of the architectural reformation which has
marked the last half-century. Part, if not the whole,
of the old parish church was allowed to stand for
some years, for use at the funerals still occasionally
performed there. The chief university solicitor per
sisted that it would make no difference in the status
of the new church, notwithstanding a resolute protest
of Newman's that it would ; and the result was that
some years afterwards an Act of Parliament had to be
obtained to give validity to the marriage ceremonies
performed at the new church while the old church was
standing. In 1825 Whately became Principal of St. Alban
Hall, and Newman his Vice-Principal. Both took
their parts in such tuition as could be given to a
dozen young men, whose sole aim was to get a degree
with the least possible trouble.
At Easter 1826, while Newman was still assisting
Whately, two Oriel men were elected to fellowships —
Robert Wilberforce and Froude. The former of these,
second son of the great emancipationist, besides
being a laborious and conscientious student, and a
good writer, had recommendations which were then
rare in Oxford. Even under his father's declining
health and circumstances, he had seen a good deal
of the political and ' religious ' society of the metro
polis, and of the great world. He had also travelled.
At that time the Continent had not been opened more
than ten years to the English tourist, who could
scarcely be said to exist before 1815, for the few

32 NEWMAN, FELLOW OF ORIEL.
people we sent to other parts of the world were
not tourists, but discoverers. Even in 1825 a Conti
nental tour had its difficulties, and consisted chiefly of
troublesome and costly incidents with vetturinos,
guides, and hotel-keepers ; road accidents, and brig
ands, real or imaginary.
Robert Wilberforce had been much impressed
with Cologne Cathedral, and with the galleries of
early art at Munich. It is an illustration of the turn
ing of the tide, and of the many smaller causes con
tributing to the ' Movement,' that in 1 829, German
agents, one of them with a special introduction to
Robert Wilberforce, filled Oxford with very beautiful
and interesting tinted lithographs of mediaeval paint
ings, which have probably, long ere this, found their
way to a thousand parsonages — a good many to Bromp
ton Oratory. Even one such picture was a pleasant and
wholesome relief to the battle-scenes, the sporting pic
tures, and pretty female faces, which had been the chief
subjects of English art now for a whole generation.
About the same time — that is, in 1829 — there came
an agent from Cologne with very large and beautiful
reproductions of the original design for the cathedral,
which it was proposed to set to work on, with a faint
hope of completing it before the end of the century.
Froude gave thirty guineas for a set of the drawings,
went wild over them, and infected not a few of his
friends with mediaeval architecture. As an instance
of the way in which religious sentiment was now be
ginning to be dissociated from practical bearings and
necessities, Froude would frequently mention the
exquisitely finished details at York Minster, and other

WHAT NEWMAN MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 33
churches, in situations where no eye but the eye of
Heaven could possibly reach them.
Newman had attended the regular lectures of Dr.
Lloyd, Regius Professor, and also his private lectures,
or rather conversations, in which the origin of the
' Book of Common Prayer ' had a prominent place.
Dr. Lloyd had received this task from others before
him, and he hoped to accomplish it or to pass it on.
It was a year after this that Froude was invited by
Lloyd to attend a course of lectures on the same
subject, viz. ' an historical account of the Liturgy,
tracing all the prayers, through the Roman missals
and breviaries, up to their original source.'

CHAPTER V.
NEWMAN, TUTOR. HIS PUPILS AND ORIEL FRIENDS.
One morning in 1 826 Newman received a very short
note from Lloyd — ' Dear Newman, step in, please, for
a moment.' Newman thought it might be a reference,
or a memorandum, something lent, or lost, a date,
or what not, and ran to Christ Church. Upon
his opening Lloyd's door the Professor asked, ' New
man, how old are you ? ' ' Five-and-twenty.' ' Get
away, you boy ; I don't want you,' was all the expla
nation given, and Newman had almost forgotten it
when he heard next day that Jelf had, through
VOL. 1. D

34 NEWMAN, TUTOR.
Lloyd, been selected for the tutorship of Prince
George of Cumberland. The only restriction to
Lloyd's choice was the limitation of age — twenty-
seven. Boundless is the vista of consequences with which
this little difference of age may be credited 'In this
instance. Historians have sometimes amused them
selves with following up the probable consequences of
events that impended, but did not come to pass. What
if Alexander had turned his course westward instead of
eastward ? What if Harold had been the survivor at
Hastings ? What if Newman had become the adviser
of the Court of Hanover, and of all the smaller German
States? His politics occupy an earlier place in the
memory of his pupils than his theology, for he had ana
lysed the constitution and history of every State in the
world, ancient or still existing. (A very good judge
of men and things used to call Newman a Lord Chan
cellor thrown away^and there are plenty of examples
to show that even though a man does not find his
place in legislative assemblies, or in appeals to the
people, he may still have the highest capacity for
government and diplomacy.
The first consequence of Jelfs leaving Oxford was
that Newman became tutor at Oriel in Jelfs place,
receiving his pupils ; for it was then the custom of the
college — indeed, the law of the university — that every
undergraduate should be entered under a tutor, who
should be, to a great extent, answerable for him, As
Newman was resolved to understand the office of
tutor by the law and spirit of the university, the
change proved very important to the pupils transferred

RICHARD W. JELF. 35
to his charge, and eventually to himself. As I write
this, however, I feel bound to add that Jelf was a very
good lecturer, and a kind and conscientious tutor. It
is needless to say that he was a good scholar ; his
explanations were simple and easy ; his utterance was
soft and even musical. Perhaps he too readily assumed
that his pupils were as well grounded and industrious
as himself, and as capable of reading Herodotus
without a frequent recurrence to the lexicon.
Personally I am under a great obligation to Jelf.
At Christmas 1825, 1 was persuaded by a very hard
working but eccentric acquaintance to stay up the
vacation and read with him. I had been latterly
encroaching far on the night to make up for lost time.
The result of that, and of strong coffee, was that the
very first night of the vacation, a few days before
Christmas, I was seized with violent pains. The scout
called in a medical practitioner often seen in the
college. He gave me a large bowl of Epsom salts.
I lay in agony all night, worse and worse every hour.
About seven the scout went to Jelf, who immediately
came over. He sent at once for Dr. Bourne, then
the leading physician in Oxford, of whom it used to
be said that once, finding himself despised for his
youth, his good looks, and gaiety of manner, he had
disappeared for a month, and then reappeared with a
wig, a graver tone, and a more measured utterance. He
pronounced the illness peritonitis, told me I was at
death's door, that the salts had nearly killed me. and
I must be bled. This I was, the only time in my life
At every visit, he told me of young men thus attacked,
who, from taking too much beef tea, or buttered

36 NEWMAN, TUTOR.
toast, had died in twenty-four hours. Jelf had me
moved from my close and dismal garret to the best
rooms in college, those between the two Quads, then
Welby's. He wrote to my parents who came up im
mediately, and were much relieved to find me alive
and mending ; and were also much impressed with
Jelfs kindness. He visited me every day while he
remained up. Hawkins also called on me on his
return to college, and seemed to detect in me more
than usual wandering and incoherency.
This was at Christmas 1825. In the course ofthe
next year, as stated above, Jelf was succeeded by
Newman, who took over his pupils. A few months
afterwards Tyler, a most energetic and genial man,
then Dean and tutor, accepted the Rectory of St
Giles's-in-the-Fields ; and early in 1828 Dr. Cople
ston resigned the Provostship on becoming Bishop
of Llandaff and Dean of St. Paul's. About the same
time Pusey, who had now been Fellow of Oriel four
years, showing himself, however, very little latterly,
returned to Christ Church as Regius Professor of
Hebrew. Upon the vacancy in the Provostship three
names presented themselves for what was then deemed
one of the highest objects of academic ambition, so
illustrious had Copleston made it.
Keble was still Fellow, and had very recently given
up the tutorship and taken to parish work. His
' Christian Year ' had now been published a twelve
month and had gone through several editions. But
he was always a shy man, and on the rare occasions
on which he revisited Oxford, he preferred some quiet
domestic hearth to Oriel common room. The world

THREE NAMES FOR THE PROVOSTSHIP. 37
associates Keble very intimately with Oxford, and
with Oriel College, and the world is right in doing so ;
but there is something in the mode of this association
which has to be explained. The usages of Oxford are,
in some respects, different from those of Cambridge,
and still more so from the ideas naturally formed by
strangers. In most of the colleges, especially those
where the reputation of the tutors attracted undergra
duates, the Fellows were politely requested to give up
the rooms to which they had a foundation right for the
use ofthe undergraduates. This reduced the resident
Fellows to those engaged in tuition, for though they
might go into lodgings if they were so minded, that
was not the same thing as being in college and hav
ing a gratuitous home, which they could leave or re
turn to when it suited them. When John Keble gave
up the tuition to assist his father at Fairford, though
he would probably have retained his rooms in college
had that been the usage, he did not provide himself
with lodgings in their place. In 1835-36 he was glad
to have the use of my rooms for a week or two. But
the fact was that from his giving up the tuition to his
vacating his fellowship by marriage many years after,
he was very little indeed in Oxford, and then only at
a private house in the city. Yet everybody who
visited Oriel inquired after Keble, and expected to see
him. It must be added that he was present in all
our thoughts, as a glory to the college, a comfort and
a stay, for the slightest word he dropped was all the
more remembered from there being so little of it,
and from it seeming to come from a different and
holier sphere. His manner of talking favoured this,

3 8 NEWMAN, TUTOR.
for there was not much continuity in it, only every
word was a brilliant or a pearl.
The Rector of St. Giles's-in-the Fields was still in
his year of grace, and eligible.
Hawkins, who had long striven to keep an even
course between all sides, had really won the love and
esteem of all. In whatever he wrote or said, he
laboured to concede to anyone what he asked, without
sacrificing what was due to the truth, as he conceived
it. He spoke incisively, and what he said remained
in the memory and seemed to come from him. He
was fond of business and wished to keep it in his own
hands. Keble humorously proposed that the Fellows
should divide the prize— give Tyler the red gown,
Hawkins the work, and himself the money. The
junior Fellows looked to Newman to see which way he
was going. To the great surprise of some old mem
bers of the college who knew everybody there and
everything, he gave all his weight for Hawkins. He
liked the man and hoped much from him, but he
could hardly have expected much unless he also
thought that Hawkins was impressible and compliant,
which he decidedly was not.
But what reason could Newman have for not wel
coming back to college the author of the ' Christian
Year ' ? Keble always understood that the reason was
Newman's distrust of his power to manage young
men, and said that it was a mistake, for he felt him
self peculiarly fitted for it. It certainly was the fact
that he had private pupils as well as college pupils,
and that they respected him. A former Fellow of the
college, a friend of Whately as we'll as Newman, a

THE ELECTION OF DR. HA WKINS. 39
quaint, patriarchal man, with a century of wisdom on
his still young shoulders, wrote to Newman, ' You
don't know Hawkins as well as I do. He will be sure
to disappoint you.' But then, it must be added, the
dear good man did not quite know Newman himself,
and lived to be disappointed in him.
Whatever thoughts Newman might have had about
his own part in the election he kept them to himself,
for his most intimate friends cannot remember a single
word of self-accusation. It was his wont to accept
his own acts as Providentially overruled to purposes
beyond his own ken. He was, therefore, much sur
prised and concerned when he read in a sermon
preached by Pusey at the consecration of the chapel
at Keble College, that Newman had lived to regret
the part he had taken in Hawkins' election to the
Oriel Provostship.
Thus in 1828 Newman found himself in a college
at that time held to be in the very front of academic
progress, with some half-dozen very important, in
tractable personages just cleared away ; with a Provost
who owed his election to him ; himself tutor, and
with two other tutors, Robert Wilberforce and Richard
Hurrell Froude, entirely devoted to him. At what
date he began to move in the direction which seems
now plain enough, it would not be easy to say. It never
was possible to be even a quarter of an hour in his
company without a man feeling himself to be invited to
take an onward step sufficient to tax his energy or
his faith ; and Newman was sure to find out in due
time whether that onward step had been taken.
But though we may now construct a design, still we

40 FRANK EDGEWORTH.
shall have to admit that it is only by being wise after
the event, or with the event near in view.
Newman wrote about this time an elaborate
article on Apollonius Tyanseus for an Encyclopaedia,
drawing the line strongly between true and fictitious
miracles. (He had early faced fairly the question of
evidences, by the study of infidel writers. He was
one of the few people who could be called thoroughly
acquainted with Gibbon's great work. He could
recite many long passages of it, particularly the
famous one in which Gibbon describes the change-
lessness of agriculture and the simple arts in the
midst of changing governments, religions and manners.
He knew well Hume's Essays. He had Tom Paine's
works under lock and key, and lent them with much
caution to such as could bear the shock. Indeed, his
carefulness to master the other side of the great
question has suggested to some critics that his faith
and his scepticism contended for the ascendancy on
such equal conditions as to leave the issue sometimes
doubtful.^)

CHAPTER VI.
FRANK EDGEWORTH.

WHAT has Frank Edgeworth to do with this story, for
he was a Cambridge man, and only a visitor at
Oxford ? Well, he was part of my life, and part
of the circumstances of the day. His name was

AT CHARTERHOUSE. 41
public from his childhood, for his very much older
half-sister had made Frank the hero of several then
very popular but now forgotten tales. Her tales,
indeed, are not so wholly forgotten as her sensational
novels, hardly distinguishable from burlesque, written
to damage the character of the statesmen, the aris
tocracy, and the Church of this country — indeed, of
English society in general. Maria Edgeworth cared
for the actual Frank as much as he cared for her,
which was so little that it was better not to mention
her. He showed an early and strong revolt against
the hollowness, callousness, and deadness of utili
tarianism. He affected, however, no saintliness, for
his humour ran the other way.
He was a little fair-haired, blue-eyed, pale-faced
fellow, ready and smooth of utterance, always with
something in his head and on his tongue, and very
much loved in a small circle at Charterhouse. With
a fertile imagination and with infinite good-nature
he would fall in with any idea for the time and help
you on with it. He cast aside altogether his father,
of whom he knew nothing, and the above-mentioned
half-sister, with whom, when she was mentioned, he
was careful to say that he had little in common.
Among his friends at Charterhouse was David Reid,
of the family of brewers, a man of many hobbies
rapidly succeeding one another. At school he was
on Perpetual Motion, so often the first round in
the ladder that leads nowhere. The result was the
Usual story. The theory was sound, but the machine
had a trick of stopping, and when it stopped would
not go on again.

4i FRANK EDGEWORTH.
Edgeworth was second for the English Poem on
Carthage in 1823, and I was third. As the Duke of
Wellington is related to have said about his De
spatches, I may reasonably wonder how in the world
I came in third for even a school prize-poem. The
circumstances of the incubation were exceptionally
favourable. I spent the St. Bartholomew's vacation —
that is, August and half September — at Filey, going
thither straight by sea from London. At Filey
there was nothing to distract my attention, no society
out of our own family, no amusements, no books.
There were none there but fishermen, and not a house
much better than a hut. I think I was rather inclined
to shirk the poem altogether, pleading my total
ignorance of the history of Carthage. But only three
miles off, at the village of Hunmanby, Archdeacon
Wrangham had one of the best libraries in the north of
England. My father sent me off with a note to the
Archdeacon, requesting that I might be allowed to
consult some of his books. I was received most
kindly into a house where the book-shelves began
at the front door, and, I should think, ran up into
the garret and down to the cellar. However, I was
taken into the library proper, which I had to myself
for a couple of hours. I made the most of this by
reading the article on Carthage in the * Encyclopaedia
Britannica ' a good deal more carefully than it was my
wont to read. I made notes. So I had nothing more
to do with books. The composition was done on the
spacious sands and stormy ' Brigg ' or natural break
water of that then very lonely and primitive place.
It was some years after this that the Wilberforces

COMPETITORS IN ENGLISH VERSE. 43
told me the Archdeacon had obtained an introduction
to their father. He was not ofthe same way of thinking,
or, indeed, of any particular way of thinking, but, as
he explained at once, it was that he might have a
copy of the first edition of every book printed at the
presses, which were being sent to the South Sea
Islands and other like countries.
The Carthage of history had no future, nor had
mine. The next year the subject was Saul, and
Edgeworth came in first. I have a sad story to tell.
I set to work diligently on the history of Saul and
David, and, by way of a solid foundation, attempted
a chronological order of events, with the proper
developments of character to suit each stage ; and I
made a mess of it. I floundered in a sea of enigmas,
which I laboured to solve, instead of leaving alone.
When a knight of romance does but flourish his
sword, the visionary obstructions vanish ; and it
ought to be the same with a flourish of the pen. It
was not so here. The result was a very laboured,
heavy, and, after all, a very imperfect composition, not
placed at all in the award. When I came to Oriel I
attempted to retrieve my disaster by availing myself
of the liberty to send in verses instead of essays, but
I soon received from Tyler a kind but impressive
warning to addict myself rather to prose.
About the time of this unhappy attempt on the
books of Samuel and Kings, I did the same with
the first book of Livy, then treated at Charterhouse
almost exclusively as an exercise of scholarship, even
in the First Form. I carefully wrote out some results,
illustrated by chronological diagrams, and showed

44 FRANK EDGEWORTH.
them to Russell, who glanced his eyes over the con
tents, made a humorous grimace, and returned the
paper without a word.
Reid, named above as Edgeworth's friend, was in
the same house with him, and a constant companion.
Somehow — I never knew why — he had incurred very
early Russell's extreme dislike. He always called
him ' Veneer,' which was hardly deserved, though a
man who takes up one thing after another is likely
to be superficial. At least he cannot have much
ballast or groundwork of knowledge and action,
which is perhaps what Russell meant. Reid came to
University College, took to books in extravagant
bindings, then to boating, then to philosophy, then to
freemasonry — in all an enthusiast.
Edgeworth soon came to him on a visit, full of
Platonism, in which his old Carthusian friend, Eaton,
was taking a lead at Cambridge as member of a
Platonist club. Among the friends he met at my
rooms one only did he much admire, and that was
John F. Christie, destined to a humble and brief, but
not the less noble, career in duty's straightest course.
Edgeworth pinned me to my chair about eight
o'clock one evening at University College, and de
manded point-blank the grounds of my faith. It was
not a matter to which I had ever given a serious
consideration, for, as it was fatal to doubt, it was
superfluous, and indeed very foolish, to inquire.
However, I had studied, or rather had had to study,
Paley's ' Evidences,' and of these I had to reproduce
a floating plank or two from a fatal shipwreck. So I
began as seriously and in as set form as I could.

THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 45
Self.— This is a question of fact, and therefore a
matter of testimony. Is it possible to doubt the
authenticity or the truth of writings quoted sub
stantially and often literally by well-known and good
men living only two or three generations after ?
Edgeworth.— -It is possible to doubt, for I doubt
myself, and what I want is to have my doubts re
moved. I wish to believe, but I do not, and cannot
The statements themselves are incredible, unless
supported by testimony, and we all acknowledge
testimony to be a thing that requires much sifting.
Our courts of law are sifting it continually, and
often in vain, for they cannot get at the truth. Were
the Fathers who quoted the gospels men to inquire, or
only anxious to believe ? What do we know about
them ?
Ah me ! This struck at the root of my defence,
for I knew nothing about the Fathers. Even had I
known more it would have been all book knowledge,
nay, worse than that, mere 'cram.' I had never
realised any of the persons cited as authorities for the
sacred canon, or their position, or their work, or their
lives, or anything about them. To me they were
names. So what I said must have been all milk and
water, or, to speak more german to the matter, pen,
ink, and paper. But then, after I had been standing
long on the defensive, came my turn for assault.
Self. — What have you to show instead ? Truth
there must be somewhere. Where is it ? What is
it ? Can we suppose the world left without it ? Can
we suppose it undiscernible ? Is truth important or
not ? Is there or is there not such a thing ?

46 FRANK EDGEWORTH.
My attack was desperate and revengeful, for I
had been on the rack a couple of hours or so. It was
met with perfect self-possession, and much alacrity,
for it was the very thing desired.
Edgeworth. — Yes, undoubtedly, there is truth ; it
is most desirable — indeed, necessary ; it is quite dis
coverable and ascertainable. But it is not confined
to certain narrow limits of space and time. It is in
all things and everywhere. The truth meets us in all
sayings and all doings. There is nothing from which
we may not extract truth. Granting all you say about
the traditions of one remote corner of the world, and
one race of no figure in history, only discovered to be
conquered, enslaved, absorbed or scattered — granting
all that, why is not truth human and divine to be
found also in the traditions of Greece and Rome in
which we have been educated, and which are part of
our very being ?
Finding my antagonist well in position I pressed
onwards. Self. — Is there truth, then, in Jupiter, in Venus,
and in Hercules ?
Edgeworth. — Yes. Truth mixed with error and
extravagance, as in all religions, in all opinions — in
deed, in all human affairs. We must go back very
far; into the very well of antiquity. All bow to
antiquity. We must strike off additions, interpola
tions, variations, and all plainly foreign and incon
sistent matter. All truth is charged with judicial
functions. Self. — But where are we to find the pure wisdom
of antiquity ; the tradition of a golden age ?

BIBLICAL AND CLASSICAL TRADITION. 47
Edgeworth. — Greek philosophy may not give it,
but it shows the way. It leads back to a sacred
source, and it retains the fragrancy of Eden.
I saw now, or seemed to see, that the question lay
between the Bible and Lempriere, and I was, unhappily,
more familiar with the latter than with the former.
As I had not yet begun to write sermons, I had
turned over the leaves of ' Gradus ad Parnassum '
oftener than those of Cruden's ' Concordance' How
ever, I had to fight on.
Self. — Does not Herodotus tell us that the
Greek, and by consequence the Roman, divinities,
all came from Egypt ?
Edgeworth. — True, Egypt has a good deal to
say to all religions, and to all civilisation ; both to
the matter and the form ; the truth and the error.
Fortunately for me, Sagas and Vedas, and Rig
Vedas, were then only known to a few Oriental
scholars, and the only Arians then ever heard of were
the early heretics so named. In these days you
have only to quote an eminent Sanscrit writer who
flourished 5,000 years ago, and you are silenced, for
even if you know half a dozen stages of Sanscrit, there
is always an earlier one you know nothing of. The
discussion lasted without the chance of a conclusion
in which both could agree, till one of the disputants
at least was glad to find it was midnight
Reid must have sat by and heard all this, for it
was in his rooms, but it was not the direction in
which his mind wrecked itself. His final quarrel was
with social and domestic traditions. He revolted
against all usages and forms. He would not rise,

48 FRANK EDGEWORTH
take his meals, or go to bed, when other people did.
He would not believe that night was night, day day,
or that summer and winter were different things. One
day when snow lay on the ground, he ran full speed
from his friends, dashed through a river, and continued
his flight for miles into space. In a very hot June
day, he suddenly presented himself at my lodgings in
Oxford, a wild, haggard figure, announcing that he
had escaped from his keepers in St. John's Wood,
and had just been engaged in a long argument with
Plumptre and the other tutors of University. He
had proved to them till they had not a word to say,
first that he was not mad and never had been mad ;
secondly, that man could live by water and the Spirit,
entirely without other food. He had been long baffling
all the tricks of his keepers ; he had drunk pitchers
full of water, and had buried himself in blankets to
perspire it off. Thus he raved for precious hours.
But he had promised the tutors at University to re
turn to them. He kept his appointment, and as they
were better prepared this time, he was laid hold of,
and conveyed back to his friends.
Some weeks after, Edgeworth wrote to me asking
for information about Reid. This I gave. Then
came a letter from him asking for a meeting. The
only appointment that could be made was a very
homely business house in the city. Edgeworth came
and said he had seen Reid ; he was quite under con
trol, and his friends were agreeable to Edgeworth
taking him a tour abroad. I remonstrated against
the plan, on the ground of its dangers, the inevitable
excitement, the chance of paroxysms far from help,

A DAYS RAMBLE ABOUT LONDON. 49
the little good a maniac would derive from new
scenes and experiences. Edgeworth persisted. The
plan actually answered for months and even years,
and it was at a time of comparative rest, and after a
not unsuitable marriage, that poor Reid threw him
self from a window at Venice into the canal below.
I had a long summer's day ramble about London
with Edgeworth. It was before the days of cabs or
omnibuses, and we could stop often and look about.
The General Post Office was just finished. Edge-
worth strongly condemned the sacrifice to archi
tectural effect ; and to an effect not suited to our
climate. I could not but admire the portico. What
was it for ? It shut out the light, which is the want
of this country. He would have had centre and
wings all alike. Edgeworth was no utilitarian, but
light and sunshine are matters that come home to
those who read and write. We went to the National
Gallery, then in its embryo state, at a house in Pall
Mall West. He gave a very long look at the ' Raising
of Lazarus.' The picture, the conception, the group
ing he much admired ; the principal figure, he said,
was ' Jewish.' ' But our Lord was a Jew,' I observed,
not very wisely. ' A Jew,' Edgeworth replied, ' but
not Jewish.'
I met Edgeworth again. He was looking out for
' an Eve,' and pleasant it was to know that he was at
least on the first step of Christian tradition. He
settled near London, had to work for himself and his
wife. He took pupils, and had appreciating friends.
But he wanted physical stamina, and he died young.
In Carlyle's ' Life of John Sterling,' is a very in-
VOL. I. E

50 FRANK EDGEWORTH.
teresting, and indeed tender, notice of Frank Edge-
worth, upon which, however, some comments have to
be made. ' Frank,' he says, ' was a short neat man,
of sleek, square, colourless face (resembling the por
traits of his father), with small blue eyes in which
twinkled curiously a joyless smile ; his voice was
croaky and shrill, with a tone of shrewish obstinacy
in it, and perhaps of sarcasm withal. A composed,
dogmatic, speculative, exact and not melodious man.
He was learned in Plato, and likewise in Kant ; well
read in philosophies and literatures ; entertained
not creeds, but the Platonic or Kantean ghosts of
creeds ; coldly sneering away from him, in the joyless
twinkle of those eyes, in the inexorable jingle of that
shrill voice, all manner of Toryisms, superstitions ; for
the rest, a man of perfect veracity, great diligence, and
other worth ; — notable to see alongside of Sterling.'
Carlyle then gives a long passage about Edge-
worth from one of John Sterling's letters, more inter
esting as indicative of the writer's state of mind, than
as illustrating Edgeworth's ' moral scheme' This,
Sterling says, contained the fundamental unsoundness
of asserting the certainty of a heavenly futurity for
man, because the idea of duty involves that of merit
or reward, whereas duty, says Sterling, seems rather
to exclude merit. Edgeworth, in his opinion, had
advanced so far in speculation as to have the title
deeds to an estate from which the idea of futurity is
carefully excluded, but had not yet got possession.
'This good little Edgeworth,' resumes Carlyle,
'had roved extensively about the Continent, had
married a young Spanish wife ' — I think a sister of

CARLYLE S TRIBUTE TO HIS MEMORY. 51
David Reid's widow — ' whom by a romantic accident
he came upon in London ; having really good scholar
ship, and consciousness of faculty and fidelity, he now
hoped to find support in preparing young men for the
university, in taking pupils to board ; and with this
view was endeavouring to form an establishment
somewhere in the environs ; — ignorant that it is mainly
the clergy whom simple persons trust with that trade
at present ; that his want of a patent of orthodoxy,
not to say his inexorable secret heterodoxy of mind,
would far override all other qualifications in the
estimate of simple persons, who are afraid of many
things, and are not afraid of hypocrisy, which is the
worst and one irremediably bad thing. Poor Edge-
worth tried this business for a while, but found no
success at all ; went across, after a year or two, to
native Edgeworthstown, in Longford, to take the
management of his brother's estate ; in which function
it was said he shone, and had quite given up philoso
phies and speculations, and become a taciturn grim
land manager and county magistrate, likely to do much
good in that department ; when we learned next that
he was dead, that we should see him no more. The
good little Frank ! '
Early in the spring of 1836, at Sterling's invi
tation, Carlyle walked with him to Eltham to see
Edgeworth and the big house he had taken for pupils.
The day proved very bad ; they came home wet,
weary, and bemudded. Sterling had been failing.
This fixed his disorder. He was confined to his
house a long time, and cannot be said to have ever
recovered. E2

S2 FRANK EDGEWORTH.
Carlyle, it is evident more from casual words
than from full-blown sentences, felt a singular, and
even affectionate, interest in Edgeworth. Yet some of
his expressions are so harsh and so unmerited, as must
rouse the susceptibility of Frank Edgeworth's early
friends. They jar on my memories very much. My
ear still testifies that there was sweetness in Edge-
worth's voice, and gentleness in his manner and tone.
My eye still recalls his soft and steady gaze. I felt
sure then, and I feel sure now, that he wished to be a
Christian. What invincible impediments he found in
the creed, in the world, or in himself, I know not.
While he seems to have puzzled Sterling by the frank
admission that his soul had not found rest in phi
losophy, he hardly seems to have done justice to
himself with Carlyle, who could not help tyrannising
over one so little his equal in physical or other energy.
But after Edgeworth had probably sacrificed Tory
ism, superstition, and a good deal more with a readi
ness which even amused Carlyle, he seems to have
fallen back on a standpoint from which he would
not recede, and to which indeed he clung with an
obstinacy which offended Carlyle's egotism, making
himself the object of a compassionate rather than
respectful interest.
Frank Edgeworth was torn by conflicting sys
tems, and I may add conflicting sensibilities, from
childhood. He was a most sympathetic, self-sacrificing
being. If anyone thinks this too much to say of him,
I believe I may confidently refer him to Canon
Cook, the well-known editor of the ' Speaker's Com
mentary.'

BLANCO WHITE. 53

CHAPTER VII.
BLANCO WHITE.
BLANCO WHITE was now residing at Oxford, a
member of the university, and of Oriel College, and,
by courtesy, of the common room, where he brought
to the common stock of information, apt to be
limited at a university, no small contribution of
literary gossip, scholastic lore, and philosophy. He
was always ready to talk about Spain, and the
Church he had left, when asked about them, but he
was generally content with an allusion, or an
incident. He had in truth said pretty nearly all he
had to say in his published works.
I asked him one day a question of simple curi
osity about the smaller religious houses in Spain.
The answer was that in Spain you knew that there
were friars in a town, and you knew that there were
pigs, and that was all you cared to know about either
of them. Seville Cathedral, with its numerous aisles, its
forest of pillars, and its awful gloom, had made a
deeper impression upon him than our English
cathedrals could do. The latter were cold and dull,
and were too long for their other dimensions. Their
great length he ascribed to the severity of our climate,
which compelled the processions to be done indoors
instead of outside, and he stated that their length was
exactly adjusted to the length of the processional

54 BLANCO WHITE.
hymns. One incident may or may not be found in
his books.There was a great preacher at Seville, who was
engaged during Lent to preach as many as seventy
sermons of what is now called a sensational character.
Wherever he preached multitudes flocked to hear him,
and hung on every word. An old woman of remark
ably grotesque face and manner, one day got a place
opposite the pulpit a few yards off. In her eagerness
to catch every word she unconsciously rose from her
seat, still keeping her eyes fixed on the preacher. The
light fell upon her, and the preacher's eye was
fascinated by the strange object before him. She
riveted his gaze. He looked on and on, and utterly
lost the thread of his discourse He stood a minute
in helpless embarrassment, descended from the pulpit,
and never preached again.
Blanco White had a good deal to say about the
' Prince of the Peace,' the Court of Spain, and the
French occupation, but no more than what books and
newspapers could say. Holland House was not a
favourite subject in my time at Oriel, not at least in
the common room. It was taken for granted that
people went there prepared to drop some of their pre
judices and superstitions. The circle assembling
there had the same relation to the universities as that
afterwards taken up by the Pall Mall clubs in a larger
and more dominant form. Blanco White's own stories
of Allen, Lord Holland's 'tame Atheist,' were
amusing, but far from pleasant. That uncanny per
sonage, however, must have been a kind as well as a
very clever man,

THE BIBLE IN SPANISH. 55
Blanco White had had occasion to give some
thought to a new translation of the Bible into Spanish,
of course the revision of an existing translation. On
this subject he frequently made a remark which is
more or less true of all vernacular languages; possibly
more of Spanish than of any other. The language,
he said, had been too vitiated by vulgarity, licentious
ness, and slang, to be the vehicle of a sacred matter.
Every word had its double meanings and coarse
associations. Yet in this halo of many colours and
changing forms that surrounded every word consisted
the principal charm and the very life of the language.
No Englishman, Blanco White said, could possibly
enter into the drollery and the local allusions of ' Don
Quixote' He had a literary rather than political quarrel
with the ' Times.' How he had found himself in that
quarrel I know not ; but he gravely related one day
in the common room that a certain well-known author
had given the editor several hundred pounds not to
be noticed at all, dreading alike his censure and his
commendation. This sort of black mail he described as
a considerable element in the revenue of that journal.
Soon after he had become a member of the
university, he preached once at St. Mary's, and
occasionally assisted in services, but it shortly became
evident that he was neither physically nor mentally
in a state to perform service in the Church of England.
He still, however, attended the services at St. Mary's,
whether those of the university or those of the parish,
very often. One inducement was the exquisite per
formance of the young organist, who to the extreme

56 BLANCO WHITE.
grief of many friends and all lovers of music, was
killed with some others, by the upsetting of a coach,
on his way to one of the festivals of the Three Choirs.
Music was Blanco White's chief solace, for he could
almost forget himself when listening to Beethoven ;
but it was with a smile of depreciation that he
described the old ladies at a concert beginning to
beat time when they heard their own familiar Handel.
He repeatedly said that if he were a man of for
tune he would employ somebody to keep all the
street barrel-organs in tune. He gave a lecture on
musical sounds at the Ashmolean, illustrated with a
great variety of instruments. It was very interesting.
What, however, I most distinctly remember, is Tom
Churton, in his Proctor's velvet sleeves, advancing to
the table, taking up something like an organ pipe,
putting it to his mouth, and blowing a blast which
shook the building, and made him fall back quickly
into the rank.
From the time I became Fellow I resided a good
part of the Long Vacation at Oxford. Blanco White
did the same. I did not venture to intrude much on an
elderly gentleman engaged in study— indeed, in writing,
too, as we understood. It was generally possible to
make up a party to dine in the common room, and
one of the servants, under- butler, or under-cook, had
to go round every morning, as in term time, and
ask the residents whether they intended to dine in
common room. Of course they did not, unless at
leact a pair could be made up. So a little nego
tiation became necessary ; and this was just the
poh:t at which my courage failed. Whatever the

A LONG VACATION AT OXFORD. 57
reason, I was seeing very little of Blanco White.
Mr. Joseph Parker asked me to dinner. Shortly after
my arrival, Blanco White arrived, and chanced not
to catch a sight of me in the room. Mr. Parker
asked about the college. Was it not dull in Long
Vacation time ? Who was up ? The answer was
that Newman was up, very busy with his work and his
parish, and one other young Fellow. ' But,' he added,
in my hearing, ' I see very little of him. I suppose
he thinks an old man dull company.' Thereupon Mr.
Parker turned round to me, and, bringing me to the
front, said, ' Here is Mr. Mozley to answer for himself.'
Of course they were all amused. I said that I should
very much like to call on Blanco White when I should
not be in the way. The result was I did often call,
and saw a good deal of him, though I had often to
feel it was as much as his strength could well bear.
I think it probable that during the whole period
of Blanco White's Oxford residence he was the victim
of an inward struggle. With frequent impulses to
religious acts, whether in public or in private, he never
gave way to them without the immediate sense of a
check that made it impossible to complete the act.
As he painfully relates, he could not bless a child, or
utter a short prayer, without the instant recurrence of
the question, 'Is there a God, and does this mean
anything ? '
He had a good deal to say of authors, for he had
been among them now many years in the metropolis,
and he had got to regard them generally as mere
book-makers, writing for money. Southey he cor
responded with, but he described him as a man with

58 BLANCO WHITE.
many pigeon-holes, who spent his days in jotting
down ideas and particulars, on slips of paper, which
he filed for future use, each in its own pigeon-hole.
This might have been suggested by the mosaic for
mation and frequent incongruity of Southey's writ
ings. Blanco White, however, was carried away, like
the rest of the world, by the Waverley novels, to
which he returned again and again.
About the year 1829, together with Whately,
Arnold, Senior, and others, he started the 'London
Review.' Newman wrote for it an article on Poetry,
evidently with an aim to make it the ladder of Faith ;
but the composition was an essay, not a review, like
some of the other contributions. The ' London
Review ' soon came to an end, followed to the grave
with lamentations on the stupidity of the British
public. Newman did not take its decease much to
heart. Every Oriel man of that day may look back with
regret at the little use made of what was really the
very interesting episode of Blanco White's connection
and residence. It might have recalled many similar
incidents in the past ages, when marvellous per
sonages, specially endowed with a migratory instinct,
roamed about connecting the centres of knowledge
Palmer's lodgings, opposite Merton, where he resided,
were those traditionally, but incorrectly, assigned to
Duns Scotus. For some time after Blanco White's
arrival at Oxford he much enjoyed its quiet, for he
hated noise, and the sound of a few voices, heard a
little way off, was to him the bellowing of ' the great
beast ' — his notion of the British populace. He was

HIS ACUTE SENSITIVENESS. 59
really incapable of rest and composure, for his head
and heart alike were in a continual flutter and tur
moil, and his memory was heavily charged with pain
ful sores. He had probably never enjoyed a day's
thorough rest, or a night's uninterrupted sleep in his
life. A small bottle of cayenne pepper, of exceptional
pungency, the gift of some City friend, was his in
separable companion at dinners, and without it his
digestion was powerless even for the plainest food.
It made him shudder to see the young Fellows slicing
up big pears and despatching them. ' The least bit of
that pear,' he said, one day, 'would keep me in
agonies the whole night.'
He was the most sensitive of men, and, as is often
the case with such men, he seemed doomed to small
annoyances. He had one at the very outset of his Ox
ford career, though, even as he told it, he could have
afforded to laugh at it. The royal diploma conferring
his degree had to pass through Convocation. Hare,
of New College, was much puzzled by the affair, and
suspicious of something behind it ; so he thought the
best way to meet it was a general protest. But when
the question was put to the vote, his voice, which was
a weak one, quite broke, and he could only squeak
out ' Veto ' in a tone that moved some merriment as
well as surprise. Some kind friend told Blanco White
this as a good story, but the poor man was exceed
ingly exasperated, and often alluded to it, mimick
ing the false tone of the single, heart-failing dis
sentient. He once dined at Magdalene College, and was in
a sad state of mind the day after. There were some

6o BLANCO WHITE.
old Fellows there who had become fixed to the place.
They desired no addition to their knowledge and ideas,
for they were incapable of it, and they rudely resented
all attempts to force it on them. Blanco White had
been encouraged to talk a good deal, for he was the
lion of the occasion. One of these — Old Grantham —
in a very bluff way and very audibly expressed his
dissent from almost everything the guest said, even to
the simplest statement. Most Oxford men would have
thought no more about it than about the barking of a
lap-dog. Blanco White never forgot it.
Dining in Merton College Hall, he chanced to
praise their home-made bread, in comparison with
the white, insipid, and not very wholesome baker's
bread at his lodgings. A most eccentric Fellow of
Merton, proud of his college, told him he would send
a loaf the next morning. There was nothing to be
done but to thank him. The loaf came and was ap
preciated. But it came the next day, and the day
after, and continually. Blanco White found himself
a dolesman — a poor scholar allowed his commons
from the buttery hatch— nay, publicly, for the loaf had
to cross the street every day and be delivered at the
front door. He resisted, gently at first ; but it was
not easy to check the flow of his benefactor's bounty.
He became miserable, almost wild, and had at last to
use a violence very alien to his nature, to the poor
gentleman's consternation.
When his health at all permitted he attended the
university sermons, but got little comfort from them.
They never admitted a question, not at least in his
own direction for he had been born and bred in a

HIS EXTREME KINDNESS. 6r
controversy generally going one way. Edward
Churton preached one Sunday a sermon designed to
recall and settle the troubled spirits of Oxford, of all
schools, in what to him was the faith and practice of
his forefathers. ' That man must have brains of cast
iron,' was Blanco White's first ejaculation on meeting
his friends, and he was evidently more exasperated
by the singular quietness and confidence of the
preacher than he would have been by the most in
flammatory tirade It was pouring oil on the volcanic
heat of his own nature.
Nothing could exceed Blanco White's kindness
to those who would receive favours from him, seek
information, and show that they valued his opinion.
He might have been happy in a world of such cases
as long as the illusion lasted or the performances
could be kept up. But that is not the condition of
human existence, in our days at least
As an instance of his excessive kindness : having
arranged to leave Oxford for some months, and
finding me unsettled in my lodgings, he offered the
use of his very comfortable apartments. I accepted
the offer gladly, but with an explanation that I must
take his place in the arrangements with Palmer, the
householder. Blanco White would not hear of it,
and was so indignant at the idea that I could not
press it again, and I actually enjoyed the use of his
lodgings for nothing for some time. It was a little
before this that Blanco White had done me two very
different acts of kindness. He had presented me
with Coleridge's 'Aids to Reflection,' urging me to
read it ; and had strongly impressed on me the im-

62 BLANCO WHITE.
propriety of leaving money and other valuables lying
about, and so putting temptation into the servant's
way. Blanco White found individualities at the uni
versity as strong as his own — in a moral sense,
much stronger. He had passed years of his life in
continual dissolution. At Holland House everything
was questioned, though with one foregone conclusion.
At Oxford his best and most congenial friends found
that they must take a stand, and from that time
there was a widening chasm between them and
Blanco White. Oxford was no longer the same place
to him when Whately had gone. After a restless
interval, Blanco White followed him to Dublin, and
soon found that it was impossible, with the con
victions he had come to, and was now freely ex
pressing, that he could be a member of an arch
bishop's private society. He returned to England,
but not to Oxford.
In 1838 his son Ferdinand, in the Indian military
service, came home on leave a Christian, and returned
to India an unbeliever. This I had from Newman
at the time, and he spoke of it with great sorrow.
Among Blanco White's familiar topics was one to
which he often returned with much bitterness. I do
not think I have mentioned it. This was the ' fan
tastic notion ' of Marriage being a type of the mystical
union between Christ and his Church.

EDWARD CHURTON, 63

CHAPTER VIII.
EDWARD CHURTON.
ABOVE is mentioned the sad effect produced on
Blanco White by Edward Churton's quiet and grave
advocacy of the old Church of England. I cannot
pass him without a memorial. He was one of our
masters at Charterhouse. All I had to do with him
was that he assisted Russell in looking over the
themes, verses, and translations of the upper school.
Occasionally he did the whole work. We were sum
moned one after another to an anteroom, where we
found Churton already prepared with neatly-written
criticisms and corrections. He did not say much,
but he said it gently and in a way to reach the under
standing and remain there. It was the only teaching
addressed to oneself individually that I had at that
school, and I felt it invaluable.
Nor was I alone in this. Thackeray had the bene
fit of this personal instruction, and he acknowledged
the debt. Meeting him one day in the Strand, I
told him I had just had a talk with Churton. He
exclaimed, ' O tell me where he is, that I may fall
down and kiss his toe. I do love that man.' I told
him I was afraid he would not be able to do that, for
it was at the exhibition of the Royal Academy I had
just met Churton.
Russell was rough with Thackeray, not more so

64 EDWARD CHURTON.
perhaps than with many others, but when he saw
Thackeray's spirit and humour rising with him, that
made matters worse. Hence a life-long resentment
much to be lamented. One of the very few times
when I felt really angry with Russell was when
he was guilty of great rudeness to Churton. Yet
there was a coldness in Churton's manner and ex
pression sometimes almost chilling. Becoming an
archdeacon, living in Yorkshire, and having to deliver
charges studiously within the lines — a Providential
survivor, too, as he felt, of Norris, Sikes, and Watson
— he early felt himself bound to give notes of warn
ing, and even of remonstrance, at the development of
the Oxford school.
On one occasion, some bad quarter of an hour
on the eve of publication, I penned for the ' British
Critic ' a very saucy reply to one of these attacks, for
so I counted it. Churton was indeed cold the next
time I met him. He was too serious to smile ;
indeed, I cannot remember him ever smiling except
sadly. But when you have once thoroughly liked a
man, it is hardly in his power to make you like him
much less. In after years we went very different
ways, but my memory of him has never changed.

JOSEPH PICKFORD. 65
CHAPTER IX.
JOSEPH PICKFORD.
There are men who are interesting from their asso
ciations, but whom no associations can redeem. Such
was Joseph Pickford. I first became acquainted with
his figure and circumstances at Derby, in 181 5. His
father had been architect and builder ; and the intimate
friend of Wright, the painter, remarkable for his illustra*
tions ofthe varieties of light and their effects ; and also
of Whitehurst, a mechanician and author of a 'Theory
of the Earth.' It was a coterie contemporaneous and
on friendly terms with the Philosophical Society
founded by Erasmus Darwin, but with a difference of
caste, for philosophers are, socially, as exclusive as
other people. The father had built in the Friargate
a house of some architectural pretensions, his chef
cfceuvre, people said. The son had divided it. He
occupied the smaller portion, entered by a side door,
much as it had come from the builder's hands. The
only pretty thing in his sitting-room was a charmmg
picture, by Wright, of Pickford and his brother, play
ing with a spaniel, of the date of 1785, 1 should think,
and in the gay costume of that period. It passed
into the hands of a branch of the Curzon family.
When I called on Pickford it was a ' caution ' to see
what a beautiful child might come to.
The larger part of the house and the front door
he let. It adjoined the school to which I went for
three years. My young eyes used to watch for the
VOL. I. F

66. JOSEPH PICKFORD,
sight of a pretty little girl, who, with her lady in
charge, paid daily visits to Mrs. Knightly, Pickford's
tenant. This was,' the Barones^ Grey de Ruthyn,
then residing at Castle Fields, adjacent to the site of
the present Midland station. She became Marchioness
of Hastings, and grandmother of the present Duchesg
of Norfolk. Pickford, even then, was insulated and disagree-*
able. The old ladies used to mention it as an extra*
ordinary thing that he had once been very pleasant
company. He now visited the News Room every
morning and afternoon, wrangled politics, of course
on the Tory side, lost his own temper and several
other tempers too, and was voted a nuisance. He
had a living three miles out of Derby, and also a
Rectory on Salisbury Plain, It was said that he was
a good Greek scholar, In those days it was generally
assumed that if a man was very disagreeable, and
good for nothing else, he must be a Greek scholar.
It was added that he had very nearly been Pro
fessor of Greek. This is not easy to understand, for
Jackson was Professor from 1783T01811. Was some
hope of this sort part of the system of cajolery of
which Pickford described himself the unfortunate
dupe ?
It was not till my name was down in 1 822 for
future admission into Oriel College that I was aware
he had been a Fellow there; but after my matriculation,
and still more after my election, I compared notes
with him about our college, and he readily disbur
dened himself of his grievances. He often reverted to
ihem, and they are much as follows.

ORIEL LIBRARY. 67
About the year 1780 an ancestor of the Leighs
of Stoneleigh left a very large and valuable collection
of books to Oriel College. In my time the under
graduates generally believed that once a year Lord
Leigh walked into the college Quad, and with a loud
voice demanded recovery of the library as a family
heirloom which could not be alienated. That per
formance I never witnessed. The books had to be
stored in cases in a set of rooms between the Quads,
and, of course, were inaccessible. The college slowly
saved the money for building a new library. This
was done at last. Oriel library is handsome, but not
convenient, and it has some considerable faults : one
of them is that there is no light or ventilation on the
gallery level. Though lofty and spacious, it is apt to
be hot and close. What now remained was to arrange
and place the whole collection, 30,000 vblumes at
least, I should estimate from memory. Several sets
of steps were provided, one of them very tall, as, in
deed, was necessary.
All the Fellows shied the work, and particularly
these steps. They remembered the old saying about
the pitcher that often goes to the well. Then it was
not quite the pleasantest way of spending a Long
Vacation. Beeke, afterwards Dean of Bristol, had
undertaken the work, but he must have somebody to
render the manual aid. Here was head work, hand
work and foot work, very monotonous, unrelieved,
and even dangerous. It was the treadwheel, but
without its security, its easy rhythm and its mental
repose, said by some unfortunate actors to be a grand
oppprtunity for recollecting forgotten parts.
F2

68 JOSEPH PICKFORD.
So the Provost and Fellows looked about them,
and fixed their eyes on the active, tidy, and clever
little builder's son, from Derby. He seemed to have
no special calling, and he had no friends. They
elected him probationer, and immediately set him his
probationary exercise, which was to help Beeke in
the library. Much pleased with his election, he con
sented at once. From that time he ceased to be
his own master, and found Beeke a very hard one.
He had to be in the library from sunrise to sunset.
The Leigh collection had now been twenty years in
their cases, while the original Oriel collection, most of
it very antiquated, had been stowed away in close quar
ters for a much longer period and very little handled.
When the books were spread out, and shaken,
and dusted, the atmosphere became charged with an
acrid dust, the result of long fermentation, germina
tion, secretion, humectation, and exsiccation, and all
kinds of natural processes. The summer proved very
hot The dust penetrated everywhere. Pickford could
not mount the steps, or take up a book, without rais
ing a cloud. Brushes and dusters only diffused it more
thoroughly through the atmosphere. Pickford found
himself stifled and choked. He became really alarmed
for himself. Beeke sitting quietly below, in the cooler
stratum of the atmosphere, and taking the writing
part of the work, would allow no pause. He must
have been a Prospero to gain such a dominion over
his Caliban. Whether he coaxed, or cajoled, or
bullied him to do his bidding I know not, but he cer
tainly impressed well on Pickford's mind that he was
on trial, and liable to dismissal.

COLLEGE LIFE EIGHTY YEARS AGO. 69
As long as I remember Pickford had an angry
eye, and a carbunculous complexion, and I have often
thought of him toiling up and down those weary
steps, full of rage and dust, aching all over, and
cherishing an implacable grudge with all mankind.
From that time he hated books. I cannot remem
ber to have seen one in his only sitting-room. He
found it necessary to wash down the dust, at least
to try to do so, for the necessity increased — nay, it
never ended. Long past fifty, he assured me that he
had not washed it quite down yet. It was his honest
conviction that it was there still, a disagreeable, pun
gent dust, that had established itself in the tissues of
his throat.
As his memory went back to the last century,
and he was contemporary, more or less, with Mant,
Beeke, Copleston, and other remarkable men, I
asked him one day for some account of the Oriel life
of those days — that is, before and after 1800. He
began, 'We lived loosely — I may say, luxuriously.'
Of course, by the former word he only meant a
rather free-and-easy life, without formality or strict
rules. Such were his habits at this time that an or
dinary High Table dinner would seem to him a waste
ful luxury. However, he went on. They dressed
for dinner at three o'clock. After dinner they went
to the common room, so he declared, and had pipes
and ale. Then they walked up and down High Street
till five, when they read and wrote in their rooms till
seven or eight. They then returned to the common
room to play at cards, and drink brandy and water to
a very late hour. There must have been supper in

70 JOSEPH PICKFORD.
this programme, but I forget it. He declared he had
seen some of them the worse for drink. If he could
be made worse by anything himself, no doubt he was
so too. He also declared there was no carpet in the
common room, and that it was furnished with Windsor
chairs. As the whole building was only just com
pleted, it is possible the Fellows may have occupied
their new quarters in this simple fashion for a short
time. But most probably his recollections were a sad
jumble, and he had misplaced persons and scenes.
As sobrl as his task was finished and he was full
Fellow, he perceived that the college was watching
for the earliest opportunity to get rid of him. The
rectory of Cholderton, on Salisbury Plain, fell vacant
the first year of the century, and it was intimated to
him that he must take it and be off. He left me to
understand that he had been the victim of trickery,
insult, and something like violence, which of course
was most ungrateful. Happily there was no parsonage
at the living, so he was not bound to reside, and he
was equally fortunate in finding another living, near
Derby; without a parsonage, in which he need not
reside. So he betook himself to a corner of his
paternal mansion, as I have related.
I never remember his doing more than one act
that could possibly be interpreted into an act of
virtue, and that he immediately repented of. My
father, being churchwarden, had made the discovery
that all the galleries of the parish church, amounting
to several hundred sittings, and occupied mostly by
the genteel folks, had lapsed to the parish for failure
of the conditions expressed in the Faculties. So he

HIS PART IN A PEW CONTROVERSY. yr
resumed them all and made a scheme for their re*
appropriation on proper principles. Summoning a
vestry, he laid it before them, with the intimation
that a day would be named for carrying the change
into effect. There was a large attendance of rate
payers. Pickford came with the rest. They were
all rather taken aback, but did not know what else
could be done. The minutes of the meeting were-
handed round, and all, including Pickford, subscribed
their names. In a few days an eminent Evangelical
minister, who chanced to be the reputed owner of
one of the pews, rallied the pew-owners, roused
their Vicar, and appealed .to the Bishop. Imme
diately Pickford sent to withdraw his signature, lest
it should seem to countenance a proposal which met
with his unqualified disapprobation. This was in
1830, and he expressed to me his belief that this was
part of the great revolutionary movement.
As to the matter itself, after much controversy,
the Bishop appointed a Commission, which drew up
an award substantially and almost entirely confirming
my father's scheme and fully recognising the re
version of the seats to the churchwardens. He con
firmed it. The Bishop of Exeter, to whom I recently
showed the Award, after giving it careful perusal,
observed that it was probably the first general Epi
scopal act in the matter of pews in modern times.
When I became Fellow I soon heard enough of
Pickford. He had left a deep impression. More
than once at college meetings, Copleston had
solemnly declared, ' I say it deliberately, Mr. Pickford
is the most ungentlemanly person I ever met in the

72 JOSEPH PICKFORD.
whole of my life' I am not sure it was not ' the
most disagreeable.;' perhaps 'the least like a gentle-.
man.' Possibly it was all three at different times,
and more, and stronger too.
The college had now to build a parsonage at
Pickford's living, and every step of this process he
regarded with horror, as leading to expense, and
possibly involving residence. The first question was
the site. Keble and Froude undertook this. They
found a small, very narrow slip of glebe land nearly
opposite the Manor House, and with a hovel upon it
near the road. Turning up this narrow slip they
came half-way on two handsome sycomine trees.
Here must be the parsonage, with the two trees just
opposite the front door. Three leaps from the
windows on either side would take you out of your
domain. Finding chalk cob the common material of
the country, they thought nothing better, though the
Manor House and the farm-houses were of brick.
The cob walls would have to be an immense thick
ness, and the extra thickness would have to be taken
out of the rooms, unless you would have a much
larger roof.. There was not only a total absence of
modern accommodations, but an utter impossibility of
making them anywhere, unless you pulled half the
house down.
I found that the Lord of the Manor and his
friends had been earnestly desirous to give the college
a much better site in exchange for this. It was a
larger and higher piece of ground, on -which still stood
a great number of elms and other trees that had sur
rounded a mansion of historic name and interest.

CHOLDERTON RECTORY. 73
Mr. Foyle sent his carefully-written proposal to the.
college, and never had an answer. I am afraid it
must be said that colleges used to suspect everybody,
whereas it is my own experience that when a gentleman
makes an offer it is probably generally to his own ad
vantage, but he takes care to offer an ample equiva
lent. The Long Vacation, too, is a terrible gulf. A
gentleman writes to a college very early in June, and
expects an answer in a week or two at the latest.
He is pretty sure to receive no answer till the end of
October, if even then ; but the odds are his letter is
forgotten, or not to be found.
But for the parsonage. It was settled at last that
Pickford must do the tenant's fixtures. He battled
every point. There was an interchange of letters on
the question of one or two bell ropes and wires for
each sitting-room. Two he thought preposterous.
Changing his tone he begged for mercy, and besought
the college not to press too hard on ' the sear and
yellow leaf.'
After this he paid a visit to his parish— whether
from a wholesome interest in his new parsonage I
know not. He passed through Oxford and called on
me. I had either the kindness or the malice to press
him to dine in hall, and he came to the common room.
In his breeches and top boots — mahoganies, as they
were then called — he somewhat astonished the under
graduates. He was not at ease in the common room,
nor did he contribute to its cheerfulness. Once of it
was more than enough. Some years after he had a
bad accident. He went up into his hayloft in the
dusk of the evening to see what stock of hay was

74 JOSEPH PICKFORD.
there, when somebody laid hold of him and threw'
him down to the ground. So he said. He was very
much shaken and bruised.
Soon he began to fail. When he mounted his
pulpit at his small Derbyshire living, he took out his
account-book instead of his sermon, and was a long
time fumbling at it without finding his mistake. He
was shortly laid up. Good people came and urged him
to make a will, but he could not be persuaded to make
that parting with the seven or eight thousand he had
scraped together. When I succeeded him at Chol
derton I found that for many years he had used
phrases to leave the impression of a wife and large
family to be provided for. ' How are Mrs. Pickford
and the children ?' I was immediately asked. If he
could be supposed to care to save his conscience his
words might refer to two respectable young women
who came from Nottingham at intervals to keep up
their interest with him. They were regarded as
nieces, but not being blood relations they took no
benefit out of the" property, which all went to the
keeper of an apple-stall at Warwick that Pickford had
never heard of. Such was a Fellow of Oriel, a con
temporary of Mant and Copleston. Yet better
men have not done more work than was got out of
him, one way or another, in Oriel library.

HENRY THOMAS ELLACOMBE. 7$
CHAPTER X.
HENRY THOMAS ELLACOMBE.
Whoever has read the last chapter faithfully will
think himself entitled to some relief. The material is
at hand, however I may present it. Very early did I
hear of Henry Thomas Ellacombe. Happy were they
that knew him, or had talked with, or even seen him;
Yet I am ashamed to say I did meet him once in
Oriel common room and failed to retain an image
which was not eclipsed by the name. Ellacombe
survives, and is of about the Provost's standing, ninety-
three, or thereabouts. He is of that fortunate race— '-
'sons of the gods' they may be truly called — that
care for everybody and everything. There is no
wealth like sympathy, for it is inexhaustible. I had
heard of Ellacombe's addiction to church bells, to
plants and flowers, to armorial bearings and genealo*
gies, but when I went into Devonshire, I might say
that not half had been reported to me.
His magnificent quarto on the bells of Devon
shire gives the size, tone, quality, date, and legend of
every church bell in the county, with full particulars
of their condition and surroundings. The first thing
that strikes the reader is the evidently strong attach
ment of the people to their bells, and the lead bells
have taken in church restoration. Long before
Simeon was skeletonising our sermons, churchwardens
were recasting our bells, and doing it very well too.
They made mistakes sometimes, and they dealt rather

yf, HENRY THOMAS ELLACOMBE.
recklessly with the church towers. When they had
not room for a larger peal, or even one more bell,
they thought nothing of scooping out a waggon-load
of solid masonry. What was worse, when the 'cage'
would oscillate so much as to disturb the ringing, they
drove in big wedges between it and the wall, thereby
communicating the oscillation to the walls, and in
many instances cracking them from top to bottom.
Ellacombe went about suitably apparelled and with
proper tools and materials, running up every tower in
Devonshire. He did not think it always necessary to
ask the parson's leave, but when the parson heard his
bells tinkling, clanging, and jangling, he knew some
body must be at them, and rushed out to see who or
what it was. He found an extraordinary figure that
might have stepped out of a scene of German dia
blerie, ascertaining the key-note of the bells, or taking
a tracing of the legend, or a cast of the devices. One
clergyman exorcised Ellacombe at once, and his
church is conspicuous by its absence from the
book. After a very'kind invitation, and some unsuccess
ful attempts, at last an appointment was made, and
we drove to spend a day at Clyst St George. There
had now for ten years been an interesting link between
us. The Clyst, which gives its name to a dozen vil
lages or hamlets, rises in my parish and reaches salt
Water in Ellacombe's. The tide there works its way
up the watercourses to within a few hundred yards of
the parsonage. There are ships and shipbuilding at
Topsham, a mile off. Within a mile, in another di
rection, is a splendid mansion, surrounded by gardens,

CLYST ST. GEORGE. 77
terraces, balustrades, statues and vases, strange to the
eyes of those who have lived long among dairies and
cow-sheds. This is the residence of Joshua Dixon,
brother of the late member for Birmingham, a kind
neighbour, and forward to help the Church in material
things. Clyst St. George is the ancient birthplace of the
Gibbs family, so renowned for its munificent doings at
Keble College, and elsewhere. The church is hand
some, and has been as much restored and decorated as
it is possible for a church to be, by Ellacombe's taste,
and chiefly by his means. The painted windows, the
heraldic ornaments, the mosaics on the font and on
the walls, are beyond me altogether. I will freely
confess that, earth-worm as I am, I should appreciate
better the contents of the parsonage. Every wall of
room or passage, upstairs as well as downstairs, we
found covered with engravings, portraits, and carica
tures of the great turning-point of history at which
Ellacombe was born. But you might pass to and fro
between church and parsonage, for they were close
together, hardly a fence between them ; and the
church, I think, was very likely open from sunrise to
sunset. Heraldry, I may observe, is no trifle in
Devonshire, where a single name and coat may ramify
into some dozen differences. At least a dozen of my
labourers could have shown good coats of arms.
Ellacombe's garden was, or rather had been, one
of the wonders of the county. He was his own
gardener, employing only labourers. But his staff
was now low, and there had been a long drought
He had a record of 5,000 different plants and flowers

78 HENRY THOMAS -ELLACOMBE.
grown with success. They had come from all parts
of the world, and here had been the first introduction
of many to English society. The old gentleman
talked to me more of people than of flowers, or church
ornaments, or church bells ; for he was as full of men
as of anything.
After we had done our duty to the church and the
grounds, he proposed to take me to a grand point of
view. So we passed out of the churchyard by a wicket
into a pathway, four or five feet above the carriage
road. I immediately saw what I at least had never
seen before, or expected to see, in England. Six men
in clerical vestments were marching at a rapid pace in
the middle of the road, three before and three behind.
The middle one ofthe three first was somewhat older
than the rest, and held before him a book, from which
he was reading aloud. Ellacombe, standing at his
own church gate, said, with great promptitude and in
a very distinct voice, ' Gentlemen, you are strange to
me.' The reader, without the least abatement of his
pace, answered, ' We are strange, indeed,' and resumed
his reading as he passed by. These six men had at
that moment an object before them to move the cu
riosity and reverence of every common mortal. Ella
combe is a very short man, very much bowed by age,
with a white beard reaching half way to the ground,
a beaming countenance, a pair of bright eyes, and a
good, clear, ringing voice. He was in his own sacred
ground. Of course he was surprised, as I was, at their
repelling so rudely an aged man's courtesy, but we
had no occasion to be hurt, for if they had met a
company of angels, they would have done just the

PRO VOS.T EVELEIGH. 79
same. I cannot even guess whether they were Roman
Catholics or Anglican imitators.
Ellacombe had had a great sorrow, for which his
own generous aspirations and high standard of duty
might be held accountable. He had had to learn that
counsels of perfection, and the sense of a Divine call,
may clash with common routine, and even with en
gagements, and may do that with sad results. Yet,
after the lapse of many years, he still regarded with
unabated affection and respect the preacher to whose
exaggerated tone, as he felt it, he owed what had
befallen him.
One could not be in Ellacombe's company five
minutes without learning something worth knowing,
and in a distinct and positive form. What a loss it is
that there are not the men to rescue these accumu
lations of knowledge before they sink into the grave
where all things are forgotten. But the aged only
speak as one memory raises another, and you may not
catch the fish you have baited your hook for.
Ellacombe was undergraduate for some time, if
not all his time, under Provost Eveleigh. A certain
vague college tradition ascribed to the joint efforts of
Eveleigh and Copleston the" elevation of the college
from a state of mediocrity, in which it lay till the end
of last century. A long time ago there chanced to be
a majority of Welshmen in the college, and the clart
feeling was so strong as to make Oriel the Welsh
college, as Jesus College has since been, without even
as good results. Yet there was something to account
for in the combination of two such men as Eveleigh
and Copleston. I never heard of anything that the

?o HENRY THOMAS ELLACOMBE.
former said or did out of the way ; whereas the latter
was the most substantial and majestic and, if I may
so say, richly-coloured character within my know
ledge of Oxford. How could they work together on
anything like parity of condition ? But what had
most moved my curiosity was that in my village
and neighbourhood were many Eveleighs and that
they showed a very strong family likeness to the
portrait of the Provost. The Eveleighs have all fair
complexions and light hair ; they are mild, inoffen
sive, and unambitious. There are yeomen and trades
men bearing the name, but all have the family features.
They are all strangely fond of light blue. The
school children of the name — boys and girls — were
sure to have blue about them, and I could not pass
their cottages without seeing a blue rag on the road.
Meeting a carpenter of the name in a neighbouring
village, a jolly fellow of near seventy, I asked him
about his relatives, and observed how fond they all
were of light blue. He replied he had never heard
that said before, and had never noticed it. I replied,
' Why, you've got a light blue neckcloth on yourself.'
At which, with a laugh, he succumbed. I took the
opportunity to ask Ellacombe what he remembered of
his first Provost. It was immediately clear that
Eveleigh had left no strong or distinct impression on
his memory. This is what I should have expected.
All he could mention was a line in some humorous
verses by an undergraduate, describing the Heads of
Houses, ' Here comes fair Eveleigh with his blue hose'
This at once established his relationship. Within
memory a Miss Eveleigh, a lady, resided in Plymtree

JAMES ENDELL TYLER. 81
From another quarter I have heard that the Provost
was shy of naming his birthplace. He used to say
his family came from the North of Devon. No doubt
they did, for the hamlet so named is there. Mr.
Walkey, the Rector of Clyst St. Laurence, near Plym-
tree, had a servant of the name. He said to him,
' Don't you know, John, you've got a coat of arms ? '
John asked what it was, and whether it was worth
anything, for he should be ready at once to turn it to
account.

CHAPTER XI.
JAMES ENDELL TYLER.

James Endell Tyler was so striking and so es
sential a feature of the college that he cannot be
omitted, though at Oriel he was only a vivid memory
when the movement began. His florid figure,
florid address, and florid style, made him the centre
of observation. As an undergraduate he had been
Whately's contemporary and friend, and there were
stories of their rustic appearance at a time when pro
vincial fashion was more marked than it is now, and
showed itself in colour as much as in cut. By the time
Newman had taken Jelfs place in the tuition, Tyler was
Copleston's right-hand man. He was not a reformer
of Churches or of creeds, but he was an able and
effective lecturer. He was no genius, it used to be
VOL. I. G

82 JAMES ENDELL TYLER.
said, but he could construe Thucydides 'through a
deal board.' He was on very good terms with most
of the undergraduates. His special fondness, how
ever, was reserved for the Gentlemen Commoners,
above all for one ' dear boy,' who in after life became
the pet of the world, and who was probably indebted
to Tyler for no small part of his spoiling. This was
Charles A. Murray. Possibly a life-long devotion to
the memory of Henry V., native of his own town of
Monmouth, and member of his own college of Oriel,
may have implanted in his mind a deep veneration
for the noble and the gentle.
For eight or nine years Tyler held what was then
the perpetual curacy of Moreton Pinckney, in an out-
of-the-way part of Northamptonshire, near Canons'
Ashby, the seat of the Dryden family. He used to
run down there for a few weeks at a time, roughing it
as to accommodation, and making his presence felt
and appreciated by the primitive and half-gipsy
people. He would take down with him occasionally
some of his young Oriel friends, whose respective
statures, distinguished by their initials, remained many
years on the inside of a closet door. Some of these
men rose high in Church and State, and must often
have found recollections of a state of things rapidly
giving way to the ubiquitous and monotonous rail
way intruding upon them in the busiest seasons and
the most critical occasions.
Tyler left behind many marks of the interest he
took in the people and the place. I frequently came
on lists of classes he had had for instruction. He
had surmounted every gable in the church with a

MORETON PINCKNEY. 83
stone cross, and had also put one on the stone ledge
behind the altar, darkening the wall behind to give it
prominence. A wretched old Quaker, surviving like
a raven in the village, told me that had he been a
younger man he would have pelted the out-door ones
till he brought them down. Tyler had also added
considerably to the old parsonage, no better than a
labourer's cottage when he found it ; but for this his
successors had to pay their share.
He had once had a singular mishap. He rode down
upon an Oxford hack that had a trick of twisting its
head about in such a way as to strangulate itself
unless the halter was tied in one particular fashion.
Arriving at Moreton Pinckney, and finding an invi
tation to Canons' Ashby, he availed himself of the
poor beast to ride to dinner. He took good care to
go into the stable and tie the halter with his own
hands, as he had been directed. At ten the bell was
rung for his horse, and was answered, ' If you please,
sir, your horse is dead.' A groom had come into the
stables, and seeing a halter tied in what he thought
a bungling fashion, had set it right, and thereby
enabled the animal to destroy itself. The unlucky
hirer had to present himself at the livery stables on
Monday morning with an empty saddle and bridle.
Tyler saw into character. On my first coming to
Oxford there were no rooms vacant ; so a bed was
extemporised for me in a lumber room just outside
the library door. At Whitsuntide I was promoted
to a garret at the top of the buttery stairs, from the
window of which I used to see an increasing family
of rats devour the remains of my breakfast, thrown out

84 JAMES ENDELL TYLER.
on the leads. My friends made me apply to Tyler for
better rooms. He looked at me, and said, ' Now you
know you're quite satisfied, and don't wish to change.'
It was true, but I had to hold to my request.
Oh the rare occasions on which he occupied the
university pulpit, all the college went to hear him,
even those who usually held loose to that obligation.
He preached a now famous sermon on Naaman, the
Syrian captain. Tyler was accused of conniving too
openly at a pack of beagles kept chiefly by the Oriel
noblemen and gentleman commoners, and this pack,
by a curious process, had acquired the nickname of
Gehazi. It was kept at Garsington, and as many
mistakes were made in the spelling and pronunciation
of the word, undergraduates hit at last on the com
mon term of Gehazi, which was more easy to remember.
Tyler must have known of the nickname. It may
even have suggested his text. When the thread of the
discourse passed from the prophet to his knavish ser
vant, there ensued a great deal of tittering in the
gallery at every occurrence of the familiar name.
Tyler preached the sermon in town. Lord Liver
pool heard it, and was so pleased with the preacher,
whose vigorous and energetic appearance went for
as much as the sermon itself, that he presented him
to the rectory of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. It was
thought great promotion. Tyler accepted it at once,
and thereby, to his long sorrow, lost his chance of the
Provostship, which became vacant within a twelve
month. His work in his new sphere was so appreciated
that his parishioners did whatever he asked for. They

ENDELL STREET. 85
had to name a broad new street running from High
Holborn to the Covent Garden district, now a very
important and handsome thoroughfare. It passed
through the part where Tyler might be seen any day
or hour on his way from one parochial institution to
another ; and they wished to call it Tyler Street. It
was his modesty or some personal affection that
prompted the substitution of Endell Street. It is to
be hoped that the prebendal stall at St. Paul's, to
which he was at last presented, consoled him for
the loss of the Provostship, for which he would
gladly have given, so he is said to have declared,
all he possessed in the world.

CHAPTER XII.
HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

A REMARKABLE episode of Oriel history naturally
connects itself with Tyler. Entering heartily into the
new idea of collecting at Oriel the most interesting
and most promising elements of English society, he^
was much pleased at the election of Hartley Coleridge.
This very singular being was son of Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, and cousin and contemporary of the late
Sir John Coleridge. He took his degree with high
honours in 181 1, and it was possibly a mutual re
silience between him arid people of more orderly ways

86 HARTLEY COLERIDGE.
that prevented him from standing at Oriel till some
years after. Tyler knew that the poor man, besides
constitutional weakness, was very eccentric, and he
was prepared to bear something.
Hartley Coleridge was of course fully aware that
he was on his trial for the first year, and that he had
to prove himself companionable and sufficiently
regular in his habits and ways. For six months, the
amount of residence required, this could be no great
strain. However, it proved too much for Hartley
Coleridge. He would not dress for dinner ; he smelt
sadly of tobacco, and, indeed, was known to be
smoking all day. It was evident that he cared
little for the society of the Fellows, and it was known
that he was on freer terms than etiquette allows
with the people at his lodgings. He preferred
natural life to artificial. There was a certain drollery
about him which prevented these peculiarities from
being regarded as mere weaknesses. Being told one
day in the common room that he could not have
shaved for a whole week, he presented himself un
mistakably shaven and shorn the next day. He
was then absent from the common room for a week,
in spite of repeated summons. He then reappeared
with such a growth on his face as clearly proved the
^former charge of a week's neglect to have been a
gross exaggeration. The worst was that a glass too
much — nothing with a stronger man, or with a man of
less mercurial temperament— upset him altogether.
Sad stories reached Tyler, but he resolutely
closed his ears. If Coleridge could only hold out
decently, so at least as to elude absolute detection,

A VISION. 87
Tyler's generous nature would have been satisfied,
for he then would have handed him over to his
friends, and allowed him to choose his own associates,
remaining Fellow of Oriel. But Coleridge was not
the man to calculate consequences. He lived just
for the day, and no more. He got worse and worse.
Tyler found at last the case was hopeless, and he
either had a most wonderful vision, or he invented
one, to cover his retreat from an untenable position.
Perhaps the truth lies midway, and he had only
caught a whiff of poor Hartley's own dreamy tem
perament. Midway on his ride home from a Sunday visit
to his Northamptonshire parish, at a point of the
road well known to Oriel men, suddenly road, hedge
row, trees, and cottages disappeared, and he found
himself in Oriel Lane. A man lay in the gutter. It
was  Tyler had steadily refused to believe
idle gossip, but there could now be no doubt of the
sad fact.
When Easter came the college and the pro
bationer had arrived at the only possible conclusion —
that they were not likely to get on well together ; and
they parted good friends. It is a melancholy story,
and it is impossible not to ask whether the pnor
youth might not have been saved by some friendly
and wise intervention. Perhaps the attempt was
made ; indeed, Tyler himself was the man to speak
at once kindly and strongly to anyone plainly in need
of guidance ; but it must be said that the wayward and
eccentric must and will take their own course, and
a university is sure to have a good many such men.

88 THE VICARAGE OF TWERTON.

CHAPTER XIII.
THE VICARAGE OF TWERTON.
TYLER represented the ordinary fair and generous
ambition which is a first step to the improvement of
men and of institutions, whatever special form that
ambition may finally assume. In his time the college
was like some uncanny thing — say a cockatrice — the
still undeveloped product of a long and restless in
cubation, unable to break its shell. Energy was
flowing into it from various quarters, for besides its
communication with Holland House, both the system
ol open fellowships and the careful selection of under
graduates attracted force.
But the college itself — the buildings as well as
the men — was hidebound and shut in. It looked out
on its principal approach, Oriel Lane, one of the
narrowest and darkest in Oxford, on the slovenly
and unfinished back buildings of Peckwater ; on the
Provost's stables and offices, which could not be re
moved, for they were all that he had ; over a very
narrow lane, on Corpus ; and on Magpie Lane, occu
pied by the college servants. But the north was
the hopeful and debatable frontier. As common lay
Englishmen understand law and equity, there could
not be a doubt that St. Mary Hall was an appendage
of Oriel ; indeed, some said the college was the ap
pendage, for that St. Mary Hall was the origin and
nucleus of the college. It was once proposed in the

CABIN' D, CRIBB'D, CONFIN'D, BOUND IN 89
common room to take the fire-irons and batter a hole
through the wall into St. Mary Hall, when they might
enter in a body and take possession. ' Johnnie
Dean,' the Principal of the Hall, was often threatened
with forcible entry. That, however, he took very
easily, for the maxim of his life, as appears by the
result, was ' After me the deluge' The college had
thus no garden ; not space to add a single room, and
not much to be seen from the Windows. Merton
College Chapel was a grand but a very noisy neigh
bour. Its big bells at certain times called a parish
which no longer existed to a service which was no
longer performed. In fact they did nothing but
disturb Tyler's very useful lectures and very good
temper. Its four weathercocks were creaking all
night, as bad as those which disturbed the sleep of
poor Catherine of Arragon as she lay in the Deanery
at Exeter, and which the Mayor of Exeter received
orders next morning to oil.
But in a still more important respect was Oriel
sadly handicapped for the race it had to run. Col
lecting and training the minds that were to control
the course of human affairs, it had no posts or outlets
for them except a dozen livings which were not only
divisible into poor, poorer, and poorest, but lay in the
most out-of-the-way places, far from the haunts of
fashion and the centres of thought. While fanatics
of any newly-invented dogma were busily securing
the seats of trade, the resorts of pleasure, and the
springs of health, the men of real thought were to be
banished to Salisbury Plain, to unknown villages
buried in dairies, orchards, and grazing-grounds, or

90 THE VICARAGE OF TWERTON.
surrounded by fens ; purely agricultural, or barely re
lieved with some mechanic industry.
Could Oriel but tap the greater and higher world !
An opportunity offered. There must have been some
very good years, for about 1824 the college found
itself in possession of 4,000/., to do what it liked with.
The living of Twerton was in the market. Mr. Spencer
n\M ^^Madan, the incumbent, though a young man, was
dying, and neither the Provost nor Tyler, well informed
as they were generally, seems to have been aware that
the incumbent of a living on sale always is dying and
remains in a dying condition till the living is sold,
when he takes a new lease of his life, generally a long
one. Twerton was described as an agricultural suburb
of Bath, pleasantly situated on the banks of the Avon,
twenty minutes' walk from the Pump Room and the
Abbey, combining town and country, and offering the
choice of a social and a literary career. Should the
incumbent be a preacher as well as a pastor, his light
would not be hid under a bushel.
Bath was a more fashionable place sixty years ago
than it is now, when the railway has opened so many
other resorts more attractive to the young and enter
prising. The Duncans of New College, great men in
Oxford of those days, were of Bath. Hampden had
Bath connections. Devonshire and Wales were then
well represented at Oriel, and both those regions to
this day look with much respect on Bath, as being up
the country and quite in England. The genius loci was
in favour of movements, at least supposed to be, for
it was at Bath that all last century His Majesty's
Opposition passed the winter to prepare for the next

A SUCCESSFUL TRANSACTION 91
Parliamentary campaign. Alas ! Fuit Bath ; but it
was still living in those days.
The bargain was concluded, and Oriel became the
fortunate possessor of the living of Twerton. Soon
did the illusion fade, and facts present themselves.
Spencer Madan was reported in robust health, with
every sign of longevity. In three or four years the
college had notice of a railway that was to run right
through the parsonage. This involved a new parson
age and a new glebe. The company offered 4,000/.,
which would be handsome under ordinary circum
stances, but there was a just apprehension that it
might be insufficient in this case. Twerton occupies
a rather narrow slip between the river and the hill
side, and of this slip the railway would consume no in
considerable part, thereby enhancing the value of the
remainder. In much trepidation it was resolved to send one of
the Fellows to look about him and report. Charles
P. Eden volunteered, and went down with a budget
of cautions and instructions. Making immediate
inquiries for some one who could acquaint him with
all the circumstances, he had the good fortune to
obtain an introduction to a very competent person, to
whom he disclosed the whole case of the college. It
was not till after several days that he discovered it
was the local agent of the company he had taken into
his confidence. The offer was accepted, and a mode
rate parsonage built at what was then the extremity
of the ' village' By and by there came another rail
way through the glebe, involving a claim for com
pensation.

92 THE VICARAGE OF TWERTON.
For years Twerton was a matter for consultation
and negotiation. The Great Western — for that was
the first railway — came between the parsonage and
the river. It brought factories and a population ;
Twerton rapidly improved in everything except the
value of the living, which was fixed by the Commuta
tion Act. The incumbent, if he did his duty at all,
would have no time for walks into Bath, or for pulpit
and platform demonstrations there. The living did
not become vacant till the year 1852. At a moderate
calculation of interest it had cost the college by that
time not less than 12,000/.
Not a Fellow would take the living, with all its
local charms and splendid opportunities. In the
course of a generation Bath had somewhat receded in
fashion, and Twerton had become a small manufac
turing town, swarming with poverty and dissent. The
Provost, clinging perhaps to the last plank of the old
crazy speculation, but anyhow guided by a right instinct,
and with a very happy result, persuaded his brother-
in-law to reconsider his objections and take the
living. Buckle laboured there a quarter of a century,
making excellent work, and earning a name for
Twerton. But when, three or four years ago, he took
a somewhat less laborious charge at Weston-super-
Mare, the college, on public grounds, filled the va
cancy with his meritorious curate.
Such was the commercial result of the investment,
by a college which at present has not a pound to spare
on its dilapidated buildings. Providence, that ordains
all things for the best, has taken Twerton out of the

TYLER'S TESTIMONIAL. 93
hands of Simon Magus and his crew, and placed it in
the care of conscientious and honourable patrons ;
but it has not become, as was hoped for, the happy
means of introducing Oriel's choicest spirits and
special influences to the great world.

CHAPTER XIV.
TYLER'S TESTIMONIAL.

As soon as it was known that Tyler was going to St.
Giles', it was taken for granted there must be a testi
monial, which no man deserved better. The circle of
noblemen and gentlemen commoners at once took the
initiative. They had for their leader a man who, from
first to last, was always great in small affairs — Norman
Hilton Macdonald. They appointed a committee of
themselves, drew up a suitable statement, and re
solved on a service of dinner plate, which no one was
so competent to select as Macdonald.
Having done all this, they invited the college to a
meeting in the hall, and laid the matter before them.
Phillpotts, a son of Henry of Exeter, and afterwards
Archdeacon of Cornwall, came forward and spoke
with characteristic plainness of the unwarrantably
exclusive form and manner of the action taken by one
small section of the college, who had no more interest
in Tyler than the others and who could not more like

94 TYLERS TESTIMONIAL.
him and respect him than they did. It was, he
said, the very worst compliment they could pay him,
for it suggested the thought that Tyler had cared for
gold tufts and silk gowns more than for the college
generally. He waxed warm as he spoke, and rather
startled the freshmen, who had thought it was so
much a thing of course that the big men they saw dining
with the Fellows at High Table should take the lead,
since a lead must be taken.
The gentlemen commoners assumed an apologetic
tone ; pleaded something like a necessity ; and hoped
that the honourable jealousy now displayed would
show itself in the subscription. It did ; but a sore
remained, and something more than a sore, for to this
day old Oriel men will remember Tyler and his high
born or wealthy young friends. It is only justice to
the gentlemen commoners on this occasion to state the
simple fact that they were in a difficulty. The com
moners had no circle of a representative character.
There were nobodies, and there were somebodies ;
there were good men and reading men ; there were
some strong individualities, and there were a few who,
for one reason or another, naturally attached them
selves to the silk gowns — Samuel Wilberforce, for
example. But among the commoners there was only one
circle of any numbers or prominence, and it was
of an exceptional, and therefore not representative
character. This was the 'Family.' It met every
night at the 'Bar,' which was said to be well supplied
with Scotch ale on tap, and whisky. The habitual
members were about a dozen including two sons of

« THE FAMILY.' 95
Church dignitaries, several other sons of clergymen, a
son of Sir Walter Scott, and a distant relation of the
Provost, so I believe he was. Among these were good
talkers and good listeners ; men of wit not always
under just control, and men with some experience
of public or high social life. Perhaps the literary
and the philosophical elements were deficient. The
meetings fell naturally into the class of Nodes Am-
brosiano?, which I suppose implies a certain genial
abandonment There was an incessant flow of con
versation in a good-natured tone, and the voices mul
tiplied as the evening went on, indeed sometimes it
was a Babel of sounds. There must have been more
talkers than listeners.
For more than a year I was a Peri at the gate of
this Paradise, for my rooms were on the same floor,
and our doors opposite, about two yards apart. Most
nights I was waked up out of my first sleep by the
breaking up of this assembly. Yet I feel I had no
reason to complain of my cheerful and lively neigh
bours. No doubt it was a great resource to some of
the men, who might have found it hard to do anything
better in the evening. Some of them have passed
away, after lives of incessant struggling with scanty
means in remote situations, with no society or- sup
port, spending the little money they had in church
restorations, and getting into trouble with their
parishioners on trifles of the hour. Such a club, for
a club it really was, forfeited power and influence by
its exclusiveness. It lived for itself, and could do
nothing. The gentlemen commoners, on the con
trary, had an open formation, and could not be called

96 TYLERS TESTIMONIAL.
a close circle. So they naturally took the lead now,
and did everything.
I should have let the 'Family' pass as one of
the arca7ia of college life, did I not now look on it
much more leniently and sympathetically than I then
did, and attach to it an important bearing. If the
college system is to be abolished, the Heads deprived
of all power, the Tutors hustled out of wrork and out
of the scene, and the university reduced to a mob of
undergraduates and a crowd of professors, the vacant
ground will possibly be occupied by private coaches
and private tutors, and by combinations really de
serving the name of families. Some organisation
there will be, spontaneous if not authorised, and a
time will certainly come when they that urge the
present changes will witness the operation of the
universal law, that a system once established does not
follow the will of its authors, but takes a course of
its own, and is, indeed, bound to adapt itself to the
incessant change of circumstances.
In the matter of the testimonial the gentlemen
commoners acted as they did in default of any other
possible lead. They might have done better, which is
much the same as may be said of all human action ;
but upon the whole the event amply justified them.
Macdonald was necessarily a personage and a
leader everywhere and in every stage. He was a
very big, imposing, solemn fellow at Charterhouse
When in the first form, or sixth form as it is else
where called, not a dozen places from the top, Russell
one day asked him his age. He drew himself up to
his full height, which must have been six feet and

NORMAN HILTON MACDONALD. 97
said ' fifteen.' Russell's expression was that of incre
dulity rather than surprise, yet at any time of his life
Macdonald could easily have been supposed a good
deal younger than he looked. His father rode habitu
ally in the Park a white charger that was said to
have brought a dozen bullets from Waterloo, and
when the animal died at last, there was a story that the
belief was found to be not quite without a foundation.
Macdonald was an imposing and constant figure
in the Union, making speeches so absurdly pompous
that they could not have been tolerable but for his
prestige, and a certain consciousness that he kept the
ball going. Henry Wilberforce, early in his day,
used to rise in reply, too full of humour, for he could
do nothing but laugh at his own jokes before he
had developed them to his hearers. His gusty mirth
and his broken phrases dashed like spray on the huge
rock before him and fell harmless, for Macdonald
was the last to see the point of them.
Macdonald became, almost as a matter of course,
a Fellow of All Souls, whence, at a University elec
tion or a Convocation, he would step over in his
dressing-gown and slippers, throw a Master's gown
over his shoulders, and give his vote, a perfect study
of indolence and indifference. He held something
in the Foreign Office ; he accumulated a vast quan
tity of curiosities and bric-a-brac ; he had a very large
fashionable acquaintance, became enormously stout,
and was nicknamed ' Chaos,' as being without form
and void. Void he was not, for he had an immense
knowledge of men and things, and without a good
deal of that knowledge the world cannot get on.
VOL. I. H

98 THE WILBERFORCES.
CHAPTER XV.
THE WILBERFORCES.
The Wilberforces were the largest and the most in
teresting family group in this history. They brought
a great name, and also the name of a great party, for
William Wilberforce was the brightest star in the
Evangelical firmament As the title of Evangelical
is one of the highest honour, except when monopo
lised by a party or otherwise misapplied, it can only
be used with a continual protest in these pages. Such
a party, however, there was, and greatly did it stand
in need of the adventitious yet useful lustre of the
accomplishments which education and society can
give or improve. This was especially the case at
Oxford, indeed to an extent which amounts to a posi
tive mystery. The Evangelical party there could not
show a single man who combined scholarship, in
tellect, and address in a considerable degree. The
public school men might not be anything else, but
they were not ' Evangelical.' Good men, and men
of good families, came from Scotland, and were of
course a little that way of thinking. If they had
brains, and a strong physique, they made their way, if
not they dwindled or retired. Oriel men of that
date must remember William Colquhoun, a fair and
promising lad, who tried one term, then another, but
proved incurably home-sick and went home. My
recollection of him is that he was always sitting at
his open window looking at the sky, which in his case
was eastward.

THEODORE WILLIAMS, OF HENDON. 99
All watched with interest the course of the three
already famous brothers. The result at this day is
that Robert and Henry are both numbered by the
Evangelical world among Newman's victims, while
Samuel is partly admired, partly pitied, as a brand
plucked from the burning, but with the smell of the
burning strong upon him. No party in the Church
claims him very decidedly, or would quote his
authority upon any crucial question.
The real fact is that all three were already in a
state of gradually increasing estrangement from the
Evangelical party when they came to Oxford.
True they were not of the High Church of that day,
or of any other party, if there were any, for they
knew little of the High Church, and that little could
not be attractive. A long and bitter controversy
with Theodore Williams, of Hendon, and weekly
jests in the ' John Bull ' newspaper, constituted
nearly all their experience in the High Church
direction. It may seem absurd to name Theodore Williams,
who was not only a very cantankerous but also a
very ridiculous person, in any religious reckoning.
Theodore was, however, a remarkably handsome man,
with a most dignified manner, and he could be very
gracious even to a stranger coming to him, cap in hand,
to look into his church, or to ask a question his library
could answer, for he was a fine scholar. He had all
the metropolitan clergy on his side, for he contended
against the right of anybody professing to be a
churchman to assemble more than twenty worshippers
over and above his own family, not being duly
h 2

ioo THE WILBERFORCES.
ordained, instituted, or licensed, or placed under a
bishop or an incumbent.
The controversy with this champion of the Church
was twofold, or rather in two stages. It began in
the very great and natural desire of some of Mr.
Wilberforce's neighbours, rich or poor, to join his
family worship. This would generally mean his
Sunday worship. His morning and even evening week
day worship — that is when the latter was possible —
was quite as long as that provided by the Prayer
Book, consisting of Psalms, a hymn, a portion of
Scripture, and a most eloquent extempore exposition.
Such a service, so conducted, must be supposed to
have had a great share in the education of his
children. That it was possible to become weary of it is no
more than may be said of many good things. The
old butler took to absenting himself, first frequently,
then entirely. His master had that opinion of him
that he feared there was some serious spiritual im
pediment, and asked very tenderly why he could not
join family worship. The butler put himself into an
attitude, and said he looked into his Bible and found
written, ' To your tents, O Israel.' The master for
once was taken aback, or possibly thought it best not
to repeat what followed. Henry Wilberforce was of
opinion that it had something to do with tent beds.
The Sunday services would be longer and probably
more formal. It became known that outsiders, to
more than twenty head, or souls, as they are usually
called in this matter, were attending. Then began a
long, angry, and even scandalous attack, which endec

THE BANDED 'INTERESTS.' 101
in some one having to count heads, and intimate to
the twenty-first that he was one too many. It was
succeeded by the project of a new chapel, and this
was warmly debated at boards, in newspapers, and at
all the religious houses of whatever side in London,
and the country also. A chapel was built at last,
but it could hardly have been before Mr. Wilberforce
was leaving Highwood and becoming a wanderer.
It must be borne in mind that the Church of
England, particularly as represented by the High
Church and by ecclesiastical dignitaries, was in those
days one of the ' interests ' of the country. All those
'interests' clung together, and made a common
cause. The West Indian interest, the East Indian,
and every other interest with the least monopoly
or protection ; land-owners, boroughmongers, sine-
curists — all were as one, and old Mr. Wilberforce,
besides other liberal tendencies, had put himself in
the front of the attacks upon two of these interests,
slavery, and the monopoly of souls.
On the other hand, the Wilberforces had had a
large experience of the Low Church, as it was called.
First, they had had experience of many private
tutors, and it was a very mixed experience. Some
of these men, whatever their other qualifications, were
not scholars, or men of common sense, or even quite
gentlemen, or even honest in the sense necessary for
the fulfilment of a positive and very important contract.
Of the best of them the Wilberforces said that, after
spending the whole day in his parish, and returning
to a late dinner, he would take them just from nine
to ten, when both he and they, were good for nothing

102 THE WILBERFORCES.
but bed. A scrambling lesson at any odd hour was
the common rule. Robert's industry enabled him to
surmount any difficulties, and he was his own teacher,
but Samuel and Henry both found themselves very
ill prepared in scholarship when they came to Oxford,
Samuel was not the man to own this, or even to
admit to himself that he was inferior to others in any
respect ; but it was plain to others, and in effect he
never became a good scholar. He may now be
placed by the side of Cobden, Bright, and many
others as a proof that a man may be a great orator
and a respectable administrator without being a
scholar. But these clergymen had been engaged to
make the young Wilberforces scholars as well as good
Christians, and the pupils felt themselves and their
father ill-used. Upon the whole, though perhaps an
Etonian would say that he detected more than a
want of high scholarship in the Wilberforces, it is
difficult to deny that they stand to the account in
favour of private education ; even though they
suffered their full share of its proverbial risks and
mishaps. Again, by the time the three sons were emerging
from boyhood, the father was a man of broken health
and strength, diminished means, almost out of the
political world, a noble wreck and no more. He was
no longer good for anything in the world's scale, and
though he happily lived in heaven himself, his sons
had not yet been educated to absolute resignation.
Pitt had offered Wilberforce a peerage. It would
have involved a good pecuniary provision of some
sort, with the corresponding duty of a general support,

DOWN IN THE WORLD. 103
which Wilberforce was too conscientious to promise.
Had he promised it, Pitt's death would have set him
free while still young, and in possession of extra
ordinary powers, unequalled social charm, and the
most conciliatory manners. He would have been an
important member in a Ministry, perhaps Premier.
There were several instances of less men, within less
time, becoming marquises, in which case it would
have been ' Lord Samuel ' and ' Lord Henry.'
These were but poor imaginings, but when these
young men came to Oxford they found a great deal
to impress upon them that they had dropped far
below the level at which their father had gone to
Cambridge and entered public life. At this they
repined not, for they had the heritage of a name and
of a nature better than land or money ; but it also
brought before them the usage their fathei had received
from his religious friends. These people had always
been at him for some end of their own, and he could
hardly see anyone requesting an interview, or answer
a letter, without finding himself the worse off by a
round sum of money. At the sale of his effects,
when the family expected that the apparently large
library would be an appreciable item in the proceeds,
it was found that its bulk was very much owing to
tens and twenties, and even fifties of books of
sermons, poems, and devotional works that he had
been pressed to subscribe for and had never opened.
He had now been used, used up, and thrown away.
This may seem to ascribe to the Wilberforces
something of bitterness approaching to disappoint
ment. It is not intended. The three Oriel brothers

104 THE WILBERFORCES.
had unquenchable spirits. They were always ready,
both from principle and feeling to demand fair play
for anyone professing a religious character. At
Henry's rooms I frequently met the sons of clergy
men and others well known in the religious world,
and now recurring in religious biographies. One of
them, who, as an undergraduate, was remarkable for
pretension, foppery, and utter emptiness, died not
long ago, and was described in a religious paper as
one of the last survivors of the old school of truly
pious clergy. He would have to undergo a great
change before he deserved that character.
Facts, it is often said, are stubborn things, and, as
a matter of fact, the Wilberforces found themselves
moving adrift from the world they had belonged to.
They had lived in large houses, abundant hospitalities,
political and religious gatherings, and now they really
were nowhere. Nobody knows what it is to lose such
things but they that have lost them. ' The great use
of a country house,' Henry would sometimes say, ' is
to stow away things you cannot carry about with you,
and do not want to destroy.' But what are these
things ? They are the material making of a family —
collections of letters, relics, heirlooms, portraits,
ornaments, mementos of persons and events.
The truth is, both Robert and Henry Wilberforce
were so without ambition in any practical form, that
their friends out of Oxford used to urge upon them
the duty of aspiring to higher society than chance or
routine brought them at Oriel. Robert's very quiet and
studious ways would be naturally proof against any
such stimulus. Henry's nature was so little in

CULLING EARDLEY SMITH. 105
harmony with it that, on his return to college after a
vacation, he divulged at once with much simplicity the
exhortation he had received to go out of his college in
quest of better company than he found in it. He
said enough to give a little offence, but did no more.
At the end of that term he asked me to pay his
father a visit, and I declined, suggesting that I might
be better able another day. The next invitation came
in a more serious form in a letter from Bath, where
Henry was attending on his father. I was then tied
to my Northamptonshire parish and could not leave
it. It was a real concern to me that I could not com
ply with the summons, because I had seen the father
at Oxford in a very helpless state a year or two be
fore, and I knew Henry wanted some one with him.
It was only two or three weeks after that Henry
brought his father up to town, to die in a few days,
with no one else about him.
Culling Eardley Smith was then at Oriel, very
much the same ridiculous personage he always was,
and a flagrant tuft-hunter. He availed himself of his
high connections to cultivate Christ Church society,
and thereby got into a scrape It is, or at least was,
usual for undergraduates to draw upon one another's
' battles ' to meet the extra demands of a breakfast or
a lunch. But this could only be done when there was
a perfect understanding, and when a man was quite
sure that his friend would not want his ' battles.' An
undergraduate entering his room at breakfast or lunch
time, and finding that his 'battles' had gone elsewhere
to an entertainment to which he was not himself in
vited, naturally resented what was an injury as well

106 THE WILBERFORCES.
as a slight. There might be occasional mistakes and
oversights, and, upon the whole, undergraduates are a
forgiving race, squabbling like brothers and sisters,
and shaking hands again. Culling Eardley Smith
made this a regular practice, and, while showing his
contempt for the country gentlemen's sons of his own
college, was entertaining his grander out-college ac
quaintances at their expense. So one evening, when
he had gone to a supper at Christ Church, the out
raged gentlemen commoners of his own college entered
his handsomely-furnished rooms, destroyed every ar
ticle of furniture in them, heaped the fragments in the
Quad, and, it was positively stated at the time, way
laid the owner, and left him for some hours tied up
in a sack on the wreck of his own property. Some
how or other S. Wilberforce's name was prominently
associated with this act of public justice — whether as
instigating, aiding, or abetting, or simply conniving,
was not very clear. If he did not enjoy the joke, he
was the only man in college besides the sufferer who
did not.
It may seem strange that so great and powerful a
party, containing at least the most popular preachers
and religious writers of the day, had none to lead them
in their day of visitation. Newman was most loyal to
his own early associations. I remember his speaking
to me with pain of Pusey not being able to swallow
a college lecturer of that school, a good man and an
able man, and showing an unwillingness to be thrown
into his company. My own wonder was, not that
Pusey could not feel at home with him, but that
Newman could.

MAC AULA Y. 107
It must be added that the Evangelical party was
undergoing a rapid decomposition. Robert and
Samuel Wilberforce had been seeing a good deal of
Macaulay, who even then talked incessantly as no
body else could talk, and who had written off his ar
ticle on Milton as fast as his pen could carry him.
Macaulay had described to them his father Zachary's
extreme disappointment when he declined the impor
tant service for which he had been destined and edu
cated, the long desired Index of the 'Missionary CA^ff**-
Register,' or whatever the name of the father's perio- 6f>»femHA
dical. Macaulay had also told them that there were
not two hundred men in London who believed in the
Bible. The Wilberforces were also acquainted with
Gisborne, who, out of the same school, had emerged
into the same freedom. Whatever speculative faith
the ' Evangelicals ' of that period had in their theory
of salvation, their highest success generally was to
make their sons clever men of the world.

CHAPTER XVI.
MR. WILBERFORCE AND SIR JAMES STEPHEN.
BUT there was something more. It will be contra
dicted, for it has been contradicted, but it must be said
in the face of contradiction. Mr. Wilberforce, the
father, was not so entirely without a sense of humour

108 MR. WILBERFORCE AND SIR J. STEPHEN.
as some of his friends would have him. In his various
religious and philanthropic operations, particularly as
his basis was rather a broad one, he came in contact
with a good many queer people, and with many queer
things. In his own family circle he would frequently
raise a smile by the seeming naivete" with which he
described them. The smile and the cause of it stuck
to the young memories about him closer than the
matter and the men. All the four Wilberforces had
abundance of humour, and they certainly did not get
it from their mother, good woman as she was — in her
way. I said something to this effect, now many years
ago, to a friend of the late Sir James Stephen, and,
upon it being repeated to him, he took it up with ex
ceeding wrath. It was utterly impossible, he said,
that Wilberforce could smile at any of his friends. It
was not likely he would smile at Sir James Stephen.
But Sir James could hardly have maintained that
all the hundreds and thousands of persons who got
access to Wilberforce, generally for some little wants
of their own, were as awful personages as himself.
Again, there are smiles and smiles, and there are
people who do not recognise a smile. Indeed, there
are many smiles that address themselves to one order
of intelligence and not to another.
Thus, in the late Bishop of Winchester's diary of
October 16, 1858, are notes of a conversation at
Haddo, in which the following is ascribed to Lord
Aberdeen : — ' I think most highly of James Stephen.
He is a very first-rate man, and the most unpopular in
Europe. I do not quite know why. Perhaps some-

GENTLE HUMOUR. 109
thing in his treatment of inferiors was the cause. I
was never in that relation to him. I stood in the re
lation of an admiring master. His papers on the
Laws of the Colonies were admirable digests.' Now,
is there, or is there not, a smile in such commendation,
at once so high and so qualified in the very direction
in which Sir James Stephen himself would have wished
it unqualified ?
Certainly the Wilberforces had a good many
amusing stories of the persons their father had to deal
with, and of the meetings he attended and took a
part in.
These stories I cannot now recall. Perhaps I did
not pay much attention to them. I do remember
hearing several times of a plump, greasy little Dis
senting minister, who was always invading the poor
old gentleman at the most inconvenient days and hours,
making long solemn speeches, and expecting the
whole stream of Mr. Wilberforce's time, interest, in
fluence, and resources to flow through his own parti
cular channel. One story has clung to my memory
because I have always suspected the incident described
to have been the outcome of some mischievous prac
tice upon native credulity. At a great meeting a very
solemn missionary related his entrance into an African
city. It seemed almost deserted, but he was directed
to the market-place. There he found the whole popu
lation assembled, the army drawn out, the king, the
court, and the priests in the midst. There was a
hideous noise ; then silence. At a signal all fell
prostrate. The missionary was just able to distin
guish the object of this awful act of adoration. It

no MR. WILBERFORCE AND SIR J. STEPHEN.
was a cannon ball and three decanter-stoppers. The
whole meeting burst into a roar of laughter. They had
prepared their minds for a massacre, or at least some
hideous idol, and the rebound was too much for them.
But it is impossible to look at the face in the
familiar portrait, or at its reproduction in Westminster
Abbey, without seeing that there is humour there, and
that it must have found a vent somewhere.
The Wilberforces started with the immense and
very rare advantage of perfect confidence and openness
with their father. He was the joy of their life and the
light of their eyes. Visitors have described, as the most
beautiful sight they ever witnessed, the four young
Wilberforces stretching out their necks one in advance
of the other, to catch every word of the father's con
versation, and note every change in his most expressive
countenance. On such terms was he with them that a
stranger might have thought their love and respect
admitted of some improvement by a slight admixture
of fear. Sir James Stephen, who so warmly defended Mr.
Wilberforce from the imputation of too much play
fulness, I met several times, and I only wish I had met
him earlier and oftener. With the care of near fifty
Colonies always upon him, he could not have had much
spare time for personal recollections ; but he might
have told me something about old Wilberforce. When
I did meet him he was expressing himself very strongly
against all religious endowments. That this stern
condemnation did not extend to other endowments he
proved not long after by obtaining from Government
the Professorship of Modern History, to the great dis
appointment of several resident Cambridge candidates.

SIR JAMES STEPHEN AT ROME. in
Upon the cessation of his long and laborious
career, Sir James visited Rome for the first time in
his life. Whoever wishes to see Rome should go there
at once, for every year diminishes the power of mas
tering it. I came on Sir James as he was gazing
most intently on the pilgrims crawling up the Scala
Santa on their knees. He certainly looked as if he
much wished to do the right thing if he could, and
in the full belief that up these very steps our Lord
ascended to the Praetorium. At least he was realising
the fact that these steps had been so credited and so
used for many centuries.
The hardest thinkers, the very devotees of busi
ness or of science, can betray a continual hankering
for the legendary and superstitious. Brougham, I
remember H. Wilberforce telling me, had a visit from
a Presbyterian minister, and was proud to show him
a pretty chapel in his grounds, with every mark of
antiquity. The visitor deciphered, to his horror, the
legend running round the walls inside : ' Of your
charity, pray for the soul of Ingulphus, the founder of
this chapel.' Taking his host aside, he represented to
him the groundlessness of this belief, the folly of re
lying upon such prayers, and the sin of encouraging
the delusion. Brougham joined issue on these points,
and stood up for the legend. Not being able to con
vince his guest, he fell back on the ground that
' Ingulphus had not a soul, or, for the matter of that,
a body either, for there never was such a man.' With
this the visitor was satisfied.
The evening after my coming across Sir James
Stephen at the Scala Santa, a friend took me to
his apartment. It was soon apparent that he Mras

ii2 SOME RESULTS OF PRIVATE EDUCATION.
jumbling up sadly the many objects of ancient and
modern interest he had been visiting. The fifty Colonies
were far clearer in his head than Rome. There came
in a bright vivacious youth, who had everything at his
finger's end, and his tongue's end too. He talked about
everything with piercing clearness. As I listened
with enforced admiration, I had my inner revenge.
What is the use of knowing so many things if each is
to occupy the mind two seconds, and then give way
to another and then another equally transient object ?
As for Sir James, it was simply pelting him with Car
nival missiles. The clever youth was, I believe, the
present Head Master of Harrow.

CHAPTER XVII.
SOME RESULTS OF A PRIVATE EDUCATION.
One result of a private education on the Wilberforces
was their truthfulness. A public school, and indeed
any school so large as to create a social distance be
tween the masters and the boys, is liable to suffer the
growth of conventional forms of truth and conven
tional dispensations from absolute truth. Loyalty to
the schoolfellows warps the loyalty due to the master.
The world has had many a fling at Bishop Wilberforce's
ingenuity and dexterity, but his veracity and faith-

TRUTHFULNESS SEVERELY TRIED. 1 13
fulness cannot be impugned. He said what he
believed or felt, and was as good as his word— a fact
that must be admitted by many that owe him little or
nothing. But in those days, probably even more
than now, very few came out of a public school
without learning the art of lying. There was no
confidence with the masters, and lads who would
have shuddered at the bare idea of lying to a school
fellow thought nothing of inventing any false excuse,
or even fabricating a story, to a master, whom they
regarded as their natural enemy. Newman, who had
many public school men among his pupils, lamented
that they would not invariably tell the truth — for he
knew they did not — although the only result of telling
it would have been a gentle reproof, and a step higher
in his confidence. He warned men not to acquire
too much facility and cleverness in excuses.
On one occasion Henry Wilberforce had his
truthfulness very severely tried. A man whose ac
quaintance he did not desire, and whom he had once,
by mere accident, found himself in the same room
with, sent him a card for a ' wine party.' He would
not accept the invitation — in fact, did not go, but had
no reason to offer except one that would have been
offensive. The very morning after the wine party,
upon entering the covered passage leading from the
square of the Radcliffe to the Schools' quad, he en
countered the disappointed host entering the passage
from the quad. They were vis a vis, and there was
no escape. They came to a dead stand with their
eyes fixed on one another. The other man waited
for an explanation, and Henry had none to offer
VOL. I. I

ii4 SOME RESULTS OF PRIVATE EDUCATION,
Something, however, was expected, and there was
nothing but the bare fact. He delivered it in naked
form. '  I did not go to your wine party yester
day.' The man waited for the reason why, and said
nothing. Henry, after a pause, could only repeat,
' I did not go to your wine party yesterday.' After
another pause of helplessness on one side and
vain expectation on the other, he repeated a third
time, ' I did not go to your wine party yester
day ; ' which said, both pursued their respective
courses, and, it is needless to say, never recognised
one another again.
It may be said that a public school boy, even if he
cuts a knot with a good bold lie every now and then,
on what custom holds to be the necessity of occasion,
yet learns to manage the whole matter of truth better
than he could at home or at a private tutor's. He
learns better to distinguish between truthful and
false characters, true and false appearances, the
genuine and the spurious in the coinage of morality,
the words that mean and the words that don't mean,
the modes of action likely to bear good fruit, and the
modes which only promise or pretend. Every public
school boy can say how it was S. Wilberforce made
some considerable mistakes, and how it was he ac
quired a reputation for sinuous ways and slippery
expressions. All three brothers would have learnt at a public
school how to give and take, when all must offend
more or less, and how to accept differences and even
disagreeables with comparative indifference. A public
school boy — indeed, a boy at any school of at all a

SELF-DEFENCE, 1 1 5
public character— spends years in the society of boys
from different families, places, conditions, and even
classes. The varieties of character there presented
are so marked as to have suggestive nicknames, and
to furnish many an allusion more or less flattering.
But it is all taken for granted and borne easily, and
it is often combined with warm affection. All this
is capital training for the world, where a man will
often find he has to live his school life over again.
Robert Wilberforce was so diligent in his duties
and in his search for knowledge and truth, he was
so humble in his self-estimate, so modest in his
expectations, and so kind, affectionate, and constant
where he had a liking, that one is pained to write that
he had some personal antipathies, which might have
had excuse, but which could do neither him nor
anyone else any good whatever. Now, a public
school boy has his antipathies like anybody else, but
he reduces them to a very small and very manageable
compass, and he does not allow them to disturb his
happiness or to clog his action.
Henry Wilberforce could defend himself promptly
with resources adapted to the purpose, and he would
carry on a little quarrel briskly, but it would soon
pass away. He went with Newman to some public
affair at the Theatre — a musical performance, I think
it was — and they had to sit in the undergraduates'
gallery, which is built in steps, each projecting about
twenty-seven inches, if so much, from the higher one.
Wilberforce soon found that he had directly behind
him the tallest, longest-legged man in Oxford, Clough,
a tutor of Jesus. His situation, was most uncom-
1 2

n6 SOME RESULTS OF PRIVATE EDUCATION.
fortable, for he had but a ledge of three inches to
sit on. After a while he backed a bit to obtain
more sitting-room, and found Clough's knee-caps
sticking into his ribs. As this was intolerable, he
drove back his elbows to save his ribs, and found
them in contact with the aggressive knee-caps. This
held out a hope of relief. He ground at the knee
caps with his very sharp elbows. Clough, who was
a remarkably mild-looking man, turned to Newman
and said piteously, ' Newman, is this a friend of
yours ? ' Newman smiled in a way to express some
sympathy with his tribulation, and I trust another
solution of the difficulty was soon found. Wilberforce
and Clough had a laugh over it afterwards.
One result of a private education in this case
must strike all who can recall that period. The
Wilberforces had a great love of natural history and
of science, as far as they had been able to study it.
Robert was much given to geology, and, upon joining
the Church of Rome and consequently renouncing his
Anglican Orders, he intended to devote himself to
the study, but was not allowed to do so by his new
masters at Rome. Samuel was always fond of trees
and flowers. I once heard him and a friend alternately
name Pines and Taxodia till they had got over fifty.
I became rather impatient, and at a pause thought
my turn was come. So I threw in, ' Yet the meanest
grub that preys on one of these trees is higher in the
order of creation than all of them.' Wretched man
that I was ! Instantly the Bishop looked me in the
face. 'So you think a bucket of Thames water a
nobler object of contemplation than Windsor Forest'

TREES AND INSECTS. 117
I collapsed, for I never executed or even attempted
a repartee in my life. I might have said that I would
rather spend a day in Windsor Forest than in the
House of Commons, or in Convocation, but that it
did not follow I thought Windsor Forest higher than
both of them in the order of creation. Henry
Wilberforce had a great knowledge of insect life.
His amusingly annotated copy of Pinnock's Entomo
logical Catechism I cherished for many years. At
classical schools of that period there was no such
thing as natural history or science. From the age of
ten or under till twenty-two it was Greek and Latin,
Greek and Latin ; parsing, criticism, antiquities,
composition, history — all Greek and Latin. Latterly
the history itself vanished into criticism. True there
were mathematics and a Mathematical Class List.
Yet I once had a discussion with a mathematical
second class who did not know the difference be
tween the planets and the fixed stars, and who could
not believe it possible that the planets revolved round
the sun.

CHAPTER XVIII.
SAMUEL AND HENRY WILBERFORCE POLITICIANS.
Samuel and Henry Wilberforce were both
politicians, which, it is needless to say, is far from
being the case with all churchmen, or even with all
scholars, or all country gentlemen. It required a

118 S. AND H. WILBERFORCE POLITICIANS.
politician to preside over the Union, which Henry
did for some time without reproach. He frequently
made a gentle protest against the very strong language
in which the exasperated Church people and Tories of
the day spoke of the revolutionary action of the Par
liamentary Reformers. 'It's either Parliaments or
pitchforks, gentlemen. Take which you please' In
the very infancy of the Union Samuel Wilberforce
had had to stand some persecution for his consti
tutional principles. Neither in his Life nor in that of
Hook do I find an incident that at the time caused
some amusement and some indignation at Oxford.
Hook and a friend chanced to be on a visit to Oxford
one night that the Union met, and went in unob
served. The question happened to be substantially
the case between Charles I. and his antagonists.
S. Wilberforce made a speech which I did not hear —
indeed, I think I was not yet a member — but which
I have been told was a very fair statement of the
points at issue, not wholly condemning either side.
Hook at that time was full of the High Church anti
pathy to the very name of Wilberforce, and sent off
an account of the speech to his uncle, the Editor of the
' John Bull.' It was published with suitable comments
to the effect that the young Wilberforces might be
expected to take part in any revolution or treason.
Hook and S. Wilberforce became in due time the
most affectionate of friends, and if the latter would
ever have prescribed limits to the royal prero
gative, the former had his eyes on episcopal usur
pation. On the other hand the apologist of Parlia
ment became a courtier and a bishop, while the

THE OXFORD UNION. 1 19
champion of the Presbytery became the historian of
the Archbishops of Canterbury, and died spending
all he could earn, and with it probably some years of a
strong vitality, in the restoration of a cathedral and
the rebuilding of its tower.
Hook preached a great sermon in St. Mary's. All
Oxford was there. Of course it was on the Church,
and treating the State as an aggressive and dangerous
rival. In the afternoon St. Mary's was again crowded
to hear James Anderson, a well-known Evangelical
preacher from Brighton. I had to give careful atten
tion to both sermons, for I had then the correction of
the sermon notes. The Provost commented on the
morning sermon to some members of the college with
much energy and some warmth. He concluded,
'After all, there was something in the morning
sermon ; in the afternoon sermon there was nothing
— nothing at all.'
I have to thank S. Wilberforce for the kindest
intentions to myself, though continually thwarted in
one way or another ; such being my folly or my fate.
In 1826 he pressed upon me to become a member of
the Oxford Union, and offered to propose me him
self. I consented, and was elected ; almost a matter
of course in those days. But there was also a half
engagement that I was to speak, and in order to bind
me to this S. Wilberforce proposed that I should
undertake a subject. He suggested several. I chose
the Seizure of the Danish Fleet, an event then only
twenty years old. As S. Wilberforce suggested the
subject I asked his own opinion on it. He had none
except that it was anyhow a very strong act, and

i2o A. AND H WILBERFORCE POLITICIANS.
required defence. I took the patriotic side. England
can do no wrong. Moreover necessity knows no law.
This was a case of self-preservation. I was not of
much service to my country on this occasion. I read
about the matter, wrote a speech, and committed it
to memory, not quite, but sufficiently as I thought.
But in my anxiety I had been sleeping little and
eating little. On the day itself I had hardly been
able to swallow a mouthful. I went to Pearson's
rooms, in Baliol, where the Union met that evening.
My name was called. I rose and delivered two or
three sentences, which my friends told me afterwards
promised well. Then all vanished from me ; the
Danish Fleet, patriotism, necessity, and everything.
I tried to recall it, but in vain. I did not quite faint,
but I had to be taken out of the room, and the de
bate proceeded, whether in the lines of patriotism or
of eternal justice I cannot remember. It was one of
many like failures. I have had to leave public
speaking and debate to others, and fortunately there
is never any want of men both quite ready, and fairly
competent, to undertake these duties. Among the
subjects suggested by the Wilberforces was one which
involved a question frequently recurring in those days,
almost antiquated now. ' Do you hold the doctrine
of Divine Right ? ' I had to answer that I did.
' Then that settles the question.' I could not take
that subject What was said implied that the royal
prerogative had a large place in the mind of all three
brothers, but that they could not go all lengths with
Charles I. and his advisers.
In the subjects of debate at the Oxford Union

DR. HOOK AND MR. WILBERFORCE. 121
enumerated by S. Wilberforce's biographer, I see
that with only one exception he took the Liberal
side. A few words about this. The Wilberforces
were intensely filial. They worshipped their father.
He had been now for many years the principal
object of Tory aversion. Toryism, in those days,
included all the ' interests : ' the West Indian, then
very powerful ; the boroughmongering ; the Church
monopoly down to its grossest forms and most
flagrant abuses ; and generally speaking, the right
of any authority or power to do just what it pleased.
The Wilberforces were fighting for their father, still
not so as utterly to preclude reconciliation with
what was then the opposite side. They were fighting
for him all the more valiantly in that he was himself
now retired from the war, and yet was the object of
much ungenerous attack.
In Dr. Hook's Life, by his son-in-law, there is a
letter so remarkable and so interesting that the bio
grapher had no choice but to publish it, for it is
Hook's own account of a meeting and a discussion
with old Wilberforce. Though it was bound to see
the light, yet there are comments to be made upon it
such perhaps as would not have become the biogra
pher. The date is June 4, 1827. In October of that
very year Newman and, my impression is, one or both
of his sisters, paid a visit to old Mr. Wilberforce at
Highwood, and I have always understood that he had
then to be treated very tenderly, and was not in a
condition to argue with. My own brief experience is
a year or two later. I sat by old Mr. Wilberforce at
St. Mary's, when he was as helpless as a child, though

122 S. AND H. WILBERFORCE POLITICIANS.
paying fixed attention to the sermon. The day
after, when I was in Oriel Library, Robert brought his
father in, and introduced me, asking me to get out
some books. I spread out some of the show books ;
Smith's ' Mezzotintos,' Stewart's ' Athens,' and Gell's
' Pompeii.' The old gentleman turned over the leaves
as if looking for something worth his interest, but
said hardly a word and asked no questions. He could
scarcely creep along the floor.
But if such was old Mr. Wilberforce about that
time, what was Dr. Hook? He was twenty-nine,
At that age he was assuming to be familiar with a
shortened form of Mr. Wilberforce's name. I do
not remember to have heard it, but I do remember
that almost all surnames were abbreviated or tra
vestied in those days. Time had done its worst
with ' Hook,' which I suppose was once Hugo, but
even monosyllables did not escape, either at school
or at college, in my time. Only two or three years
before this Hook had been foraging, and most pro
bably writing, for the 'John Bull,' the editor of
which was his uncle Theodore, young enough to
be his brother. The style of the letter is redolent of
'John Bull.' The argument was about the new
' London University,' as it was then called, in Gower
Street. Since it would not be of the Church of
England, was it better it should have some religious
instruction — say the 'Evidences' — or none at all?
Hook credited himself with taking the Evangelical
side of the question, and proving old Mr. Wilberforce
a pseudo-evangelical, because Mr. Wilberforce wished
for some religious instruction, in the hope that it

THE 'JOHN BULL} 123
would lead to more, whereas Hook himself wished
there should be none, lest it should tend to worse.
Such a discussion was a joke and nothing more.
Was it pious, was it decent, was it humane, to attempt
to drive old Mr. Wilberforce out of his life's path,
when he had been so consistent to it, and it could not
be said without the warrant of a great success ?
In my own recollections of the ' John Bull ' about
that period, there survive three topics repeated till
they were stale enough. The first was ' The Cow-
keeper,' that is Mr. Wilberforce's eldest son, who had
been persuaded by the religious secretary of a Milk
Company to take its stock, and who had been ruined
by an unexampled drought. The next was ' Silly
Billy,' that is the Duke of Gloucester, who was a
dabbler in science. The third was ' Stinkomalee,'
that is the university which Hook at this time was so
anxious to secure from heresy that he would prefer
it should have no religion, or approach to religion, at
all, than mere elements or evidences. Was Hook in
a position to enter on such an argument ? The
difference between the two disputants is plain.
Wilberforce had, as he always had had, a simple and
unaffected love of souls, whom he would feed anyhow.
Hook, in this instance at least, contended for ortho
doxy, to be maintained at any cost, leaving the souls
to take care of themselves.

124 S. AND H. WILBERFORCE CONTRASTED.
CHAPTER XIX.
contrast between s. and h. wilberforce.
Many years after that period, when Henry had gone
over to Rome, the two brothers, Samuel and Henry,
gave a singular illustration of their respective shares
in the wisdom of the world. They made a trip to
Paris. Immediately after they had left their hotel to
return home, there came an invitation to the Tuileries.
It was telegraphed down the line, and brought them
back to Paris, when they spent an evening at the
Tuileries, and had a long talk with the Emperor.
The Archbishop of Amiens was there, and engaged
them to a reception at his palace, offering them beds.
It was a very grand affair ; a splendid suite of rooms,
brilliantly lighted, and all the good people of Amiens.
The bedchambers and the beds were magnificent.
Putting things together, and possibly remembering
Timeo Danaos, the Anglican bishop came to the con
clusion that his bed had probably not been slept in
for some time or aired either. So he stretched him
self down upon the coverlid in full canonicals, had a
good night, and was all the better for it. Henry
could not think it possible a Roman archbishop
would do him a mischief, and fearlessly, or at
least hopefully, entered between the sheets. He
caught a very bad cold, and was ill for some time
after. Henry had many a good story of the conse-

A WELL-INTENDED ECONOMY. 12;
quences sure to arise when a simple man attempts to
act the part of a perfectly sensible man. At his
curacy in the New Forest he soon found it necessary
to consult economy, and about that time he received a
great encouragement and assistance in the new coinage
of ' fourpenny bits,' so pretty, so lustrous, and so cheap.
It occurred to him, for it had been in fact one of the
motives of the coinage, that there were occasions in
which it would be thought handsome in a squire or
a rich incumbent to give sixpence, in which there
fore it would be at least sufficient for a curate to give
a fourpenny. Chancing to meet his banker, a natural association
of ideas led to his mentioning this unexpected boon.
But how was he to get a stock of fourpennies?
' Nothing more easy,' the good-natured banker said.
' Have you a sovereign about you ? Give it me. Go
to the bank, and tell them to give you that in four-
pennies.' Henry was much pleased, and took the
first opportunity of walking into the bank and giving
them his order from their chief. The clerk said he
had nothing to do with that. His duty was to hand
nothing over the counter except for an equivalent.
Mr. Wilberforce had better take a sovereign's worth
of fourpennies in the usual way and state it to the
banker, who would of course repay the sovereign
which had been paid him irregularly. Henry fell in
with this suggestion, and thereby parted with the
sovereign he had reckoned on for settling some small
accounts. A few days after he paid a bill for twelve
or thirteen shillings in fourpennies, having no other
money about him. Meanwhile, though he was giving

126 S. AND H. WILBERFORCE CONTRASTED.
away his fourpennies more freely because they were
only fourpennies, ostlers looked hard at them. In
this country, though kings no longer levy poll-tax,
that is the rule of ostlers, and of beggars of all kinds,
including societies and institutions. With them, a
gentleman is a gentleman, and they expect as much
from 200/. a year as from 20,000/. Henry never
renewed his stock of fourpennies, and, what was
worse, he never had the courage to tell the kind
banker that he had been obliged to pay for them
over again at the counter. He thought it not un
likely the banker had forgotten all about it.
Henry Wilberforce occasionally went to public
meetings for which he had received the usual circular
invitation, and was frequently late. He was sure
that, had he been in time, he would have been
asked to take part in the proceedings, and as he
was never without something to say, he was sorry to
find himself in a crowd of listeners, perhaps dis
appointed listeners. He noticed, however, that his
brother Samuel, though quite as liable to be behind
time as himself, nevertheless was always on the plat
form, and always a speaker. How could this be ?
Samuel explained it straight. He was perfectly sure
that he had something to say, that the people would
be glad to hear it, and that it would be good for
them. He was also quite certain of having some
acquaintance on the platform. So immediately on
entering the room he scanned the platform, caught
somebody's eye, kept his own eye steadily fixed upon
his acquaintance, and began a slow movement in
advance, never remitted an instant till he found him-

MAKE YOUR WAY AND HOLD YOUR OWN. 127
self on the platform. The people, finding their toes
in danger, looked round, and seeing somebody looking
hard and pressing onwards, always made way for
him. By and by there would be a voice from the
platform, ' Please allow Mr. Wilberforce to come this
way,' or ' Please make way for Mr. Wilberforce' Such
a movement of course requires great confidence, not to
say self-appreciation, but anybody who is honestly
and seriously resolved to do good must sometimes
put a little force on circumstances. I should doubt
whether Henry ever tried to follow his brother's
example. I can give another testimony to the Bishop's com
mand over his eyes. Crossing the Channel together
in a wretched French screw-steamer, we had to wait
the tide off Calais. The vessel rolled incessantly like
a log, and we were told we must expect two hours ot
it. The Bishop secured his hat with a string, and then
leant against the bulwark, fixing his eyes on the hori
zon, his recipe for sea-sickness. The sailors did not
like to see a Bishop commanding the waves, so they
watched him with intense interest, hoping to see him
succumb with the majority of his fellow-passengers.
He kept his own to the last, and landed as if nothing
was the matter. He had with him then his daughter
and his future son-in-law. To the former he was very
affectionate, but I could not help noticing that he
always addressed her as 'Miss Wilberforce' There
might be some special reason.
At Grindelwald the future son-in-law was gone, and
Archdeacon Wilberforce was in his place. On Sunday
we had service at the hotel ; the Archdeacon reading

128 5. AND H. WILBERFORCE CONTRASTED.
the prayers, the Bishop preaching on the duty of Eng
lish people showing themselves Christians in a strange
country. In the afternoon I and those with me were
sitting at the windows commanding the half mile of
road leading up to the parish church. The congrega
tion came out and came down the road in a dense
black mass, but obliged to tail a little. Before long,
and long before the mass neared the hotel, we heard
a deep sonorous utterance. Then we perceived two
figures leading the column, and occasionally turning
round to one another. These two were the Bishop
and the pastor. The former had attended the service,
and, upon its close, had introduced himself to the
latter, and entered into conversation with him. . It
probably took the form of a discussion. The congre
gation gathered round them, and, upon their leaving
the church, had accompanied them right up to the
hotel. One could not but be struck with the courage
of an Englishman entering into a controversy with a
German, in German, for such I suppose was the
language, in the midst of his own people. The Bishop
gave us an account of the conversation as if it had
been all in English.
Two or three years before his death, when his
health and strength were sadly failing, Henry Wilber
force was advised to try a winter in the West Indies.
It must have chimed in with his heart's wishes, for he
was the one who most identified himself with his
father and his father's work. He and his friends had
fixed on Jamaica, he told me shortly before his voyage,
and he expected to see a good deal that would be in
teresting in Negro life after so many years of perfect

EMANCIPATED NEGROES 129
freedom and almost unexpected prosperity. He
thought he might have some experience worth pub
lishing. Going there with the best introductions, he
saw the island, at least what he did see of it, under
favourable auspices. Immediately on landing he was
taken up to a house in the mountains, where he had
everything he could desire, and felt himself getting
better and stronger every day amongst the kindest of
friends. But the Blacks he found inaccessible. They
did not like to see anybody looking at them, or at
their cottages, or at their ways. It was partly that
they did not want to be advised or criticised, and
partly that they were always expecting some new tax
or fiscal regulation. They had generally squatted on the
ground most convenient for them, without caring to ask
whose property it was ; indeed so much property had
been abandoned that it was excusable to think pro
perty no property at all. Henry Wilberforce thought
if he had stayed longer he could have got at the
people ; but he had to come home, and so far, it was
one of his many disappointments. But his daughter
Agnes, who accompanied him, will be able to say
more about it

VOL. I. K

i3o THE SARGENT FAMILY.

CHAPTER XX.
THE SARGENT FAMILY.
Henry Wilberforce's want of a public school
touched him in another way. A public school is a
male commonwealth. As regards the older boys it
is a monastery, and the results are about as mixed as
in the monastery of old times. But one result is that
the young men learn to exist, for a time at least,
without female society. At that period there was no
female society in Oxford, except that of the ladies of
the Heads of Houses, and their families, if any there
were. A public school boy, indeed any schoolboy,
coming to Oxford for a two months' stay, did not feel
utterly banished and desolate because there was not
a pretty face to be seen or a sweet voice to be heard.
It was part of his education. When Henry Wilber
force returned to college, especially after the Long
Vacation, he was heart-sick, insomuch as to give the
college generally to understand that their society was
utterly distasteful to him. He had been amongst
the four still unmarried Miss Sargents, or other
young ladies as pretty and agreeable. He was a very
charming fellow ; they could not but make much of
him, and he could not but return their attentions.
Forced back to Oxford he was shut out of Paradise,
and in another place altogether. It was but loyalty to
those he had left behind to tell us so. Golightly, I
remember, did not see all this. He felt he had legiti-

LIONIZING THE COLLEGE. 131
mate and solid claims to love and respect that no
amount of pretty girls could justly interfere with. This
fit of nostalgia generally lasted about a fortnight, for
then Henry Wilberforce could begin to look forward
to the end of term.
In 1 829 I met all the four celebrated sisters toge
ther at breakfast at Robert Wilberforce's, and looked
at them with a strong mixture of curiosity and admi
ration. Mrs. S. Wilberforce was a bride in her first
year. The brighter constellation must have eclipsed
the brothers from my memory, for all I remember of
Samuel was his springing up to remind the party they
had a great deal to do and must set about it. They
were to divide, and I was to assist.
First we lionized our own college, lingering a long
time in the common room. I have always found the
common room the thing ladies are most interested
about. That is quite natural. A common room is a
male drawing-room. It should exhibit the Fellows at
their elegant ease or their dignified state. What can
they do there ? How do they arrange themselves ?
In a circle, or all about in separate parties ? Do
they leave their work or their books about ? What
are the ornaments ? What sort of carpets and cur
tains have they ? This was before Denison beautified
the common room, and it was looking rather dingy.
However, the ladies on this occasion were charmed ;
they looked out of the windows into the quad they
had just left, and all agreed it riiust be a very happy
place. The next day I talked over them with Henry, and
chanced to say that I admired Mary's ' cool ' expres-

132 THE SARGENT FAMILY,
sion and manner. I meant calm and self-collected,
but I never heard the last of that unfortunate word,
remembered half a century after. The youngest
seemed a mere child, indeed she hardly looked more
when I saw her at Hanbury, in Staffordshire, seven
years after, as Mrs. George Ryder, a very sylph in
form and in feature. Mrs. S. Wilberforce I met again,
not two years before her death, at Canon James', at
Winchester. She was still beautiful, but her strength
was evidently declining.
I met Henry Sargent, the surviving brother, at a
common room breakfast at Oriel the day of his matri
culation. His life was watched by many who had
heard of the old saying that no heir to the Lavington
estate had ever succeeded his own father. He seemed
to me in health and strength, and he talked cheerfully
about Oxford. I did indeed note the peach bloom
of his cheeks, but saw no harm in it. A fortnight
after that he was gone.
This delicacy of complexion I think must have
come from the mother's side. A first cousin of hers,
Mosley Smith, one of my younger friends at Charter
house, was remarkable for it. So also was an elder
brother of his, in the bank of Derby, a very good-
looking man, but a little too pretty to be handsome.
He was a good deal quizzed for the pinks and lilies
on his round cheeks, and was known everywhere as
Sweet Pea Smith. To burn off the bloom he would
often walk in the hot sun to Burton and back, but in
vain, for it would persist in returning.
Mosley Smith, my young Charterhouse friend,
was, by the Birds, second cousin to the Wilberforces,

MOSLEY SMITH. I33
as well as first cousin to Mrs. Sargent My chief
recollection of him is that once on our return from
the holidays, we had neither of us done a translation
into Greek Iambics which had to be sent in next day. I
offered to do his for him, and, setting to work at once,
very shortly completed a copy which I thought good
enough for him. My own copy I had to send in un
finished, and of course it was nowhere The finished
copy had a respectable place.

CHAPTER XXI.
JOHN ROGERS.
WE had all of us one sad business with Henry
Wilberforce. We were much in fault, myself I fear
first and most, but he resented it too warmly and
quite needlessly. He had a very dear friend and
former fellow-pupil, for whom I also had a great re
gard, though the rest of our set did not care much for
him. They pronounced him solemn and drawling.
This was John Rogers, of Baliol, a fine but rather
dreamy figure, with a rich-toned voice, a set utterance,
and a large store of knowledge. He had deep religious
feelings, but upon the whole his training had been
more secular than traditional.
I had long walks and long talks with him. One
argument, or rather friendly comparison of ideas, must

134 JOHN ROGERS.
have lasted two hours, and seven miles, or more.'
'Which is best — a thoroughly well-defined sphere of
knowledge ; everything known exactly and in its
place ; or one less compact and certain, with a large
fringe losing itself in the indefinite, with glimpses or
guesses of the far beyond ?' If I have not put the
question in a way creditable to John Rogers, it is my
fault. He chose the former ; indeed, it always had
been his choice. I the latter. As I had a hazy sub
ject, no doubt I did it hazily ; all chiaroscuro and
nothing more, like Turner's pictures in his tenth or
twentieth style. May I give here an instance of the
separableness of an essence from its surroundings, and
the possible transformation of an individuality, or
what is next akin to it, hereditary character ? As I
was staying at a Lincolnshire parsonage some callers,
the Sollys, came with a little girl two years old. I
instantly said that must be a relative of John Rogers.
She was his cousin.
Some of our people at Oriel were a little jealous
of John Rogers' place in Henry Wilberforce's affec
tion. They were Damon and Pythias. I and an
other — I forget who — went into Henry's rooms one
day, and not finding him in, looked about for a slip of
paper to leave a note. We were not quite so unlucky
as a parent who had shortly before come to see his
son, and not finding him at home had written a
note. On folding it he saw it was a ' bill delivered for
cigars, 80/.' The young gentleman had been making
his rooms a divan for the use of his friends. Our eyes
were caught by a row of cards, with lists of names,
stuck up on the mantelpiece. These were evidently

NO. 14. 135
arrangements for a series of wine parties, some of the
names recurring in various combinations. One of the
friends was represented by the figures 14; and it had
the singular honour of appearing in every combination.
We were amused, and we had the folly to ask some
of the rest to share our amusement. Of course they
called John Rogers No. 14, and spoke of him to
Wilberforce by that denomination ; and it always
elicited some strong remarks on the treacherous and
ungentlemanly habit of prying into a man's private
memoranda. As well pick his pocket, &c. Wilber
force kindly looked over the heads of the chief de
linquents, at those who were adding insult to injury.
There was not the least reason in the world why
he should be offended, for he had only been doing
what everyone does, and is bound to do, though it is
not usual or advisable to publish one's plans. But
Henry Wilberforce never put anything away. I
doubt whether he ever possessed a key for a longer
time than was sufficient to lose it in. Some people
leave everything about ; their cheque-books wide
open ; their tradesmen's urgent reminders. They
would leave their Will on the table, if they had ever
made one. Recalling the whole of our Oriel circle,
not a large one, I can understand their want of sym
pathy with Wilberforce's inseparable friend. It was
the Darwinian element in my own education that gave
me access to his mind, and made us mutually inter
ested. But No. 14 was a perfect gentleman, and a very
nice fellow ; and, as I believe, a very good Christian.

j36 A COLLEGE FOR STUDY AND ACTION.

CHAPTER XXII.
A COLLEGE FOR STUDY AND ACTION.
IN the year 1828 Newman's hands were beginning tb
be full. Besides such a devoted body of pupils aS
Oxford had never seen since the chiefs of the northern
or southern faction or the heads of rival scholastic
systems moved about with little armies, he had suc
ceeded Hawkins in the vicarage of St. Mary's, the
University church. Even to fill that pulpit and read
ing-desk as well as the new Provost had done would
have been no slight honour and no mean engine of
usefulness. The services, however, were necessarily
parochial, and for a small parish, and they had not
much chance of competing for a congregation with
the university.
But in point of fact there was soon a large regular
attendance at St. Mary's, and the sermons occasion*
ally flew over the heads of the High Street shop
keepers and their housemaids to a surrounding circle
of undergraduates, who now went to hear the Univer
sity Preachers sometimes, the Vicar of St. Mary's
always. Newman was thus what might be called a
popular preacher, little as he coveted that distinction,
for several years before he ever published a sermon.
Indeed he repeatedly maintained that for a parish
priest to publish his addresses to his flock was as shock.
ing as it would be for a man to publish his conversa-

SOME UNKNOMN QUANTITIES. 137
tions with his wife and children, or with his intimate
friends. To St. Mary's was attached the hamlet of Little
more, three miles from Oxford, on the lower London
road. There was no church there, or within two miles
of it, and the want had to be supplied, as far as one
thing could supply the place of another, with house to
house visiting. Newman walked or rode there most
days ; almost always with some young friend, who
greatly valued the privilege.
Immediately on his acquiring a parochial position,
his mother and two surviving sisters came to reside
near Oxford, first at Horspath, as I have stated above,
then in the village of Iffley, afterwards at Rose Bank,
on the slope between that village and Oxford. They
attended to the schools, the charities, and the sick
people of Littlemore, which though without a
church, and at that time with scarcely a genteel resi
dence, had more care bestowed on it than many a
village furnished with all the outward symbols of
parochial completeness.
Up to this date, and for some time after, it could
not be said that there was any open breach between
Newman and the Low Church party. In the familiar
conversation and correspondence of the circle, the
difficulty of describing and naming the parties in the
Church was got over by a simple expedient. The
Evangelicals were always designated by the letter x,
High Churchmen, or High and Dry as they came to
be called, by the letter z. No doubt this practice arose
out of the unwillingness to use a good word in the
ill sense of denoting a party division. Newman was

138 A COLLEGE FOR STUDY AND ACTION.
from the first very anxious to ascertain the position
of the party claiming this title, and how he stood in
regard to them. If they neglected, and indeed depre
ciated, large parts of Revelation, they were to be
respected for that they still held.
It was not, however, till after the completion of
the 'Arians' that Newman felt so strongly he was
parting company with his old friends that he set
seriously to work on the character and tenets of the
' Evangelical ' school, as compared with the Church of
England and the great Anglican divines. For this
purpose he wrote an elaborate comparison of it, par
ticularly as to its subjective character, with the more
objective system of the Primitive Church and the
Church of England. It was put in the form of heads
for inquiry. This he circulated in manuscript among
his friends, including some who had been his pupils,
and it was done so fairly, in so neutral a frame, that
such Evangelicals as chanced to see it accepted the
account of themselves and were thereby the better
pleased to remain as they were. I showed it to some
acquaintances brought up in the teaching and under the
personal influence of Dr. Chalmers, and they entirely
acquiesced in the description of the two sides, without
seeing in it any reason to reconsider their position.
The copy I made at the time lies before me, and
I have lately gone over it again. I have also read in
the ' Apologia ' Newman's account of the successive
developments of feeling which led him to Rome. A
comparison naturally suggests itself between an
apology for leaving the ' Evangelical ' party and an
apology for leaving the Church of England. That

OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE. 139
comparison, however, is rendered difficult by the
former being an act contracted by circumstances into
brief limits of time, and the latter the religious history
of a life. I speak therefore diffidently and under
correction. In the former of these documents New
man was describing Evangelicals as a school of mere
feeling, with an evident tendency to lapse into ration
alism. It was not necessary to his immediate purpose
to describe the tendencies of the Church of England.
In the 'Apologia' it does seem to me that Newman
returns a long way towards his earliest religious im
pressions, and shows himself more at home with the
Evangelical party. He relates the spiritual history of
his soul, and records an impression, continually in
creasing till it becomes irresistible, that the Church of
England is an external affair, out of the sphere of the
soul, and incapable of being taken into it, but con
demned to be always outside. I can only say I should
like to see the comparison put better, for it is above
my mitier.
It is a significant landmark in the development
of Newman's opinions that in a large Bible for family
use presented to his mother, with a most affectionate
inscription, on March 28, 1828, he had the Apocrypha
placed last of all, after the New Testament, in order
to indicate how low he then rated these books in the
scale of Inspiration. This was rather an unpractical
way of carrying out his purpose, for everybody knows
it is the first and the last parts of a volume that are
most read — the middle the least. Nay, there are
readers who read a book backwards, and even some
who read the index and nothing more.

140 A COLLEGE FOR STUDY AND ACTION.
This was not long after the time that Newman
gave his influence in favour of Hawkins over Keble,
and it may contribute to explain what some have
thought unaccountable. Did not Newman at that
time agree with Hawkins more than with Keble,
with whose strong political feelings, the result of his
country education and associations, Newman never had
much sympathy ?
At the beginning of 1829 Sir R. Peel suddenly
produced his Roman Catholic Relief Bill, and, by
resigning his seat, appealed to the university to give
him its deliberate support. The Test and Corporation
Act of the previous year had looked the same way,
but had been stoutly defended on the ground that it
could not lead to anything else. However that
might be, the present appeal was met. Forty came,
reduced by a single defection to thirty-nine, assembled
in a common room, opened the Oxford Calendar,
turned to the list of Christ Church gentlemen com
moners, stopped at the first unexceptionable or indeed
possible name, that of Sir R. H. Inglis, and took
their stand there. The name was one to unite all
Church parties, and so it did on this occasion. Lord
Ellenborough, writing either after the date, or with sin
gular prescience at the time, speaks of the ' 700 Oxford
firebrands ' that turned out Peel ; but the greater part
were in no aggressive mood.
Newman's feeling was that, since the world was
going one way he would go another, and that the
world had no right to complain if it compelled
counter-action. The universities and the Church of
England were rendered ridiculous in the eyes of the

SOMETHING LIKE 'TERRA FIRMA.' 141
British public by a sudden order from headquarters
to wheel to the right about. To men with the least
independence of spirit it was equivalent to leaving
them for the future to consult their own honour and
their own best and highest interests. Peel had out
raged and lacerated the feelings of the Church and
the universities. His statecraft was commercial and
military ; not properly political, religious, or social.
Whoever bound themselves to him might any day be
called on to unsay all they had been saying and undo
aU they had been doing.
Yet in 1830 there were no other leaders or parties
in the kingdom that Oxford men could look .to, for
the volcano of Reform was already heaving and
roaring on the eve of a grand eruption. With clouds
and darkness about him, and the ground itself
treacherous, not even knowing whither to direct his
steps, Newman felt that he had those about him that
heard his voice, that were sensible of his guidance
and grateful for it.
This was Oriel College, many a university
friend, and the congregation that flocked to St.
Mary's. What if he then conceived the idea of
forming the college, of reviving the college of Adam
de Broome, or of Laud, or of making it such as they
would have made it in the present altered circum
stances ? What if he dreamt of a large body of
resident Fellows taking various parts in education,
some not very much part, pursuing their own studies
and exchanging daily assistance in brotherly love
and confidence ? The statutes still implied residence
and bound the Fellows to it, as also to theological

142 A COLLEGE FOR STUDY AND ACTION.
studies. In theory no Fellow could leave the
college or return to it without the Provost's leave.
Nor was the idea simply mediaeval or ecclesiastical.
Lord Bacon zealously advocated colleges for study
alone, and in these days the endowment of research
holds a prominent place in the programme of the
advanced party. Newman had now been Fellow six
years — a long time at Oxford. He had seen con
siderable changes, and had Froude and R. Wilber
force at his right hand, both ready to go through
fire and water with him, the former only likely to
quarrel if the pace was too slow.
So far as I can remember, from my election at
Easter 1829 to Newman's return from the Mediter
ranean at Midsummer 1833, his main idea, still rather
a dream than a purpose, was the reconstitution of
the college in the old statutory lines. Religious lines,
I should add, but no Fellow of Oriel can ever forget
that he is bound by the statutes not to become
religiosus, that is a member of any Order. At the
time of which I am writing — that is on the eve ofthe
Reform Bill — it was held almost necessary to a high
type of character that a man should have his life's
dream. Books were written to urge it. At Oxford
it was currently stated, truly or not, that the Sunday
after Hawkins came from Merchant Taylors to St.
John's, he made a tour of the university and walked
into Oriel. He could not be struck by the beauty,
the amplitude, or the picturesque features of the
college, for it is one of the homeliest and closest ;
and already at that time it was falling out of repair.
Yet something about it took his fancy, and when he

RESIDENT FELLOWS. 143
heard that its fellowships were open to the university,
he instantly resolved that he would be Fellow of
Oriel, and Provost in due time.
If true, this was thought most honourable, and
was adduced to show the power of a defined and
proper ambition. Surely then it was not less
honourable to resolve, upon the persuasion of extra
ordinary circumstances, to make a college what it was
founded to be, and to put it thereby in the form best
qualified to counteract the vicious tendencies of the
age. It might not be possible, but that could only
be ascertained by trial, and meanwhile, even with the
possibility of failure, there would be a certain benefit
in setting minds upon the pursuit of a good object,
which is indeed the usual plan of moral education.
For several years the notion of a large body of
resident Fellows, occupying their own college rooms,
and engaged in religious studies, was steadily main
tained as the beau ide"al and the true purpose of a
college. When a Fellow gave up residence at the
end of his year of probation, he was looked on as a
deserter, and rallied accordingly.
But a college formed on such an ideal would
require something like homogeneousness in the
Fellows. Within reason they must be of one mind
Even that idea was so far from being new at Oxford
at that time, that it was really the rule. With very
few exceptions, including notably Baliol, elections to
the foundation had become appointments, made
almost invariably for personal or domestic reasons.
Each college had become a domestic and a social
circle, of course working in harmony, always pleasantly

144 A COLLEGE FOR STUDY AND ACTION.
sometimes even usefully. Nay, in Oriel itself, cosmo
politan as it was, there was occasionally a most
desperate resistance made to the choice of a meri
torious and distinguished candidate, on no other
ground than that he would not be found a uniformly
pleasant companion.
Mere social compatibility, however, was not the
kind of thing Newman had in his eye in his dream
of a regenerated college and university. Yet a fair
prospect of assimilation was certainly likely to affect
the choice of the future Fellows. How far it affected
the vote of Newman and his friends could only be
found by a special and minute inquiry conducted
under the not trifling difficulty that the virtual
election is secret. Much, however, may be easily
guessed. Perhaps it would be found that during the
next ten years after the Roman Catholic Relief Act
the college made some very indifferent or useless
elections in an excessive anxiety to resist Newman's
lead, while every single election made in accordance
with that lead justified itself by its results. This of
course is a personal question, in which it is not to be
expected that all will agree. A man may think an
election a very good one, when the Fellow never
does anything that the world knows of except make
a competency, marry, have children, and die. He
may think it a very bad and improper election when
the candidate elected spends a long life in continual
services to the Church and to the State, attended
with some success and large appreciation. But New
man at that date certainly had an eye to the formation
of the college.

JOHN FREDERICK CHRISTIE. 145

CHAPTER XXIII.
TWO CANDIDATES.
AMONG the undergraduates who had become New
man's pupils and friends were two who might be
expected to stand at the Oriel election in Easter
1 829. They had taken their degrees in the previous
year. Of these one was John Frederick Christie, a
sound and elegant scholar, He was one of a very
good batch of sixth-form men, including Claughton,
sent to Oxford by Dr. Wooll, before Rugby gave itself
up to historical and philosophical speculations. He
was a man of extensive reading, for he read all the
novels and all the poetry of the day, and he took to
Tennyson, it may be said, at first sight. He was a
poet himself. His prize poem on ' Regulus ' might
have a place in any collection. There was a reason
able prospect of his election.
The other was myself. Besides being not well
grounded, I had been self-willed and perverse. I
had indulged from my boyhood in a Darwinian dream
of moral philosophy, derived in the first instance from
one of my early instructors. This was Mr. George
Spencer, Secretary of the Derby Philosophical Asso
ciation founded by Dr. Darwin, and father of Mr.
Herbert Spencer. My dream had a certain family
resemblance to the ' System of Philosophy ' bearing
that writer's name. There was an important and
saving difference between the two systems, between
VOL. I. L

146 TWO CANDIDATES.
that which never saw the light, and perished before it
was born, without even coming to wither like grass on
the housetops, and that other imposing system which
occupies several yards of shelf in most public libraries.
The latter makes the world of life, as we see and take
part in it, the present outcome of a continual outcoming
from atoms, lichens, and vegetables, bound by the
necessities of existence to mutual relations, up to or
down to brutes, savages, ladies and gentlemen, in
heriting various customs, opinions, maxims, and
superstitions. The brother and elder philosophy, for
such it was, that is mine, saved itself from birth by
its palpable inconsistency, for it retained a Divine
original and some other incongruous elements. In
particular, instead of rating the patriarchal stage
hardly above the brute, it assigned to that state of
society a heavenly source, and described it as rather a
model for English country gentlemen, that is upon
the whole, and with certain reservations.
I had, however, more or less consciously, some
points in common with the younger philosophy, for
I had derived straight from the elder Spencer a
constant repugnance to all living authority and a sus
picion of all ordinary means of acquiring knowledge.
From him I had learnt to believe that what you were
simply taught you did not really learn ; and that
every man who wished to know things really must
rummage them out for himself in all sorts of ways,
the odder, the more out of the way, the more diffi
cult, all the better. As well as I can now state in a
few words, such was my dream from the Ivory Gate,
and many years was I dreaming it

MR. GEORGE SPENCER. 147
I used to read Bacon, and giving nobody the
opportunity to correct me, I took for granted that my
system was Baconian induction. The proposed mode
of induction was such a steady contemplation and
careful comparison of all sayings, laws, rules, maxims,
or what not, as should gradually and completely
gather and harmonise all into a system, wherein each
would have its proper place and proportion, and
thereby a fixed mathematical character. Mr. George
Spencer looked forward hopefully to the time
when all words, ideas, and sentiments would be
stripped of their drossy and fallacious accretions,
coined into a universal currency, and made amenable
to mathematical calculation. He used to insist on
the propriety, indeed the honesty, of always em-,
ploying the same word for the same thing, and not
attempting to please the ear of the hearer or the
reader by the use of words not really synonymous as
meaning the same. In this he anticipated the Re
visers of the Authorised Version, though not with the
same intent. They desired to follow the original ;
he to reduce morality to mathematics. I recognise
in the younger Spencer a continual attempt to
persuade himself that he has established new ethical
principles as incontrovertible as that two and two
make four, and that the three angles of a triangle are
equal to two right angles. It is needless to say
that my dream was moonshine. It amounted to
nothing less than a very serious mental disorder.
for though it is said every man ought to be mad
upon something, at least now and then, this was a
madness with almost sole and continual occupancy.
u

148 TWO CANDIDATES.
It was exclusive and tyrannic, for it always asserted
the right of possession against every fact, every
opinion, and every sentiment that books could offer.
It was much favoured by my personal defects.
From infancy I had been slow and inarticulate, and
as I took much time to say what I had to say, this
was a bar to instruction by the ordinary method of
lessons. The quicker ones were always before me.
Thus my 'system' was a consolation for continual
defeat, but being a consolation, it made me on all
vivA voce matters a beaten man. Such I was under
my successive masters till I came to Oriel, when I
was not so much beaten as self-confident and rebel
lious. I would not give up my dream, which I
confidently believed to be the secret of all knowledge
and wisdom. For everything that offered itself I had
one reply, ' I know a better way than that' Of
course I had only to open my eyes to see what non
sense it all was. It had nothing to do with actual
life or with daily events. Its completion and ope
ration, if any, was in the far future. It admitted of
no argument or comparison of ideas ; it was hardly of
earth, and I could not honestly have said that it was
of heaven ; it had no more to do with the Christian
revelation than with anything else in the universe ; it
was not a rule of life or a moral guide in any sense
directly applicable to the present difficulties. By
repudiating authority and resting on experiment, it
left everything really unsettled. Being thus without
sanctity or awfulness of any kind, it became a refuge
and a harbour for all sorts of follies and weaknesses.
In a world of my own I could do what I pleased.

AN INWARD CONFLICT DETECTED. 149
Early in my acquaintance with Henry Wilberforce,
I had let out something about Mr. George Spencer
and his views. I must have spoken of him as a very
interesting man and original thinker ; indeed as a
strong character, and as inculcating high principles
and proper independence, besides a vast amount of
ingenuity. As to the last point I may as well men
tion that he was an early teacher of Sir Charles Fox,
besides other since prominent characters ; and that
he was great in such ideas as the Crystal Palace, long
before they came to be realised. I had, as I supposed,
saved myself to H. Wilberforce, by protests on moral
and religious grounds. Spencer never recognised any
religious authority. He held that social worship
ended inevitably in degradation, and was funda
mentally untruthful and unreal. He was known uni
formly to disappear on the Sunday. As a boy I
credited him with field preaching, and felt a sort of
reverence for him on that account, though holding it
a mistake. That he went into the fields on Sunday I
think likely enough, but, in the matter of religion, I
should now be surprised to hear that he had ever ad
vanced beyond the contemplation of things in general, .
with a careful avoidance of the revealed solution.
Henry Wilberforce had detected that Spencer had
a deeper hold on my mind than I chose to acknow
ledge, and that there was an inward conflict, and
consequently a sore point. So, when he had nothing
better to do, he would make some apparently casual
remark implying that I had the profoundest reverence
for Spencer, and might be regarded as his disciple,
and consequently incapacitated from sharing higher

150 TWO CANDIDATES.
feelings and convictions. He was sure of drawing
out an indefinite, perhaps a peevish, protest, and an
explanation which he could object to as not quite
satisfactory. I said what I felt, but the mental dis
order I knew to be still within.
For many years I thought it impossible I should
ever give up this insanity. It was part of my nature,
and my one chance of emerging, or even having a solid
existence. It gave me a self-esteem which naturally
imposed on some of my friends. The strangest thing
is that I now find it impossible to say when, and how,
and by what means the dream departed from me, for
it is gone, and its place in my mind is not to be found.
I suppose that every time I did an act of duty or
plain necessity ; every time I engaged myself in such
a healthy pursuit as an inquiry into facts, or testing
opinions by consequences, or learning a lesson tho
roughly, I was unwittingly encroaching on the ground
of my system, undermining it, and sucking away such
strength as it had. It died at last easily and without
a struggle, so that I knew not that it was dead. I was
under the spell all the time I was at Oxford. For
the ' Rhetoric ' and the ' Ethics ' I could find no rest
ing place in my system ; so, as they could not rest,
they flew away. All my deep and serious convictions
were from my dream. To everything included in the
Oxford course I could only give superficial regard.
Of course I gave up all thought of honours, for I
was too proud to try, except for the highest. In my
last term Newman told me I must get a ' Third ' at
all events, or I could not otherwise stand for Oriel.
This was a bit of encouragement, I added some

MY BROTHER JAMES AND DR. ARNOLD. 151
extra books to my list, and I was duly gibbeted, like
some other illustrious offenders, in the third class.
A few days after taking my degree I was pressed
to do something for my brother James. He had been
sent very early to Grantham School, on the recom
mendation of Archdeacon Bailey. Andrews, the
master, was a good scholar and a diligent teacher, but
of violent temper and brutal manners. Like most
people of that sort, he made a special set at any lad
who showed spirit, as some lads cannot help doing.
At the age of thirteen matters came to such a pass,
that upon James's repeated entreaties my father took
him away. Could my brother have borne it a year
longer he would have come in for a gentler master,
as Andrews had to be removed. From that time
he had daily lessons from James Dean, a clergyman,
a Hulme exhibitioner and a good classical scholar.
He was also having many a long argument, on the
pretence of mathematical instruction, from George
Spencer. But it was not like being at school, and my
father had a conviction which grew every day, and
gave him much pain, that James was wasting his time
and doing no good. So, at the request of the family,
I wrote to Arnold, lately come to Rugby, stating the
whole case, and asking admission for my brother.
The answer was kind, but decisive. My brother was
then three months past fifteen, beyond which the
governors had decided there should be no admission.
Arnold closed his reply with the words, ' From what
you say of him, I am very sorry that we are unable
to receive him.' My friends at Derby were not
satisfied, and wrote again next February, only to

152 TWO CANDIDATES.
elicit a much longer and stronger denial. Both letters
are before me, and show in their composition and
penmanship a remarkable contrast to the slip-slop
notes which some distinguished personages are said to
have tossed off at the rate of thirty an hour, from
vestries and railway carriages.
This was one of many disappointments, for my
brother had before this been very nearly elected at
Corpus, and had passed a good examination for
Wadham. I am now quite satisfied that he was not
admitted to Rugby. Two years before this he had
translated large portions of the Iliad into very good
English verse, and he would not have been content to
be in any lower form than the highest, that is Arnold's
own class. But his hesitative manner of speaking,
which showed itself most in construing, would have
made him very much in the way there. It is a
question of time, and a very serious one. Forty
are not a large class, compared with the classes of
fifty or sixty common in those days. Russell had
always a hundred and twenty before him, that is,
the first, the second, and the upper third. Even in
the very moderate case of forty, each boy has only
one minute and a half out of an hour, and if he
unfortunately requires five minutes to do what boys
with far less brains but quicker tongues do in
one, he perceptibly reduces the time available for the
others. Moreover, there were some points of fatal re
semblance between Arnold and my brother. Both
were independent in their opinions and quick in
their tempers. It was only sixteen years after this

LORD DONER AILE. 153
that my brother published in the 'Christian Re
membrancer ' an exceedingly able and interesting
review of Arnold's ' Life and Correspondence,' by
Stanley.

CHAPTER XXIV.
COLLEGE ELECTION OF 1 829.
AT Christmas I became the tutor of a nice little
fellow, now Lord Doneraile, a represenlfetive Peer of
Ireland, and a master of hounds. I was to have
gone straight to the family seat in county Cork, but
her ladyship had spent the last winter in Ireland
with all the lower windows boarded up, and she had
now had to read at breakfast every day the reports
of spies, to the effect that immediate and sudden
death awaited both her and her husband on their
return home. So she would take Cheltenham in her
way. There she at once filled her drawing-room
with bulbs timed to flower at various dates, and
announced her intention of staying till she had seen
the last of them out. The very best of them, a rare
and beautiful specimen, was not to be in its perfection
till near Easter. The devoted husband had to bear
as well as he could the sickening perfume in the long
spring evenings, for it gave him a continual head
ache, which he tried in vain to walk off on the
Cotswold Hills. This he confided to me, enjoining

154 COLLEGE ELECTION OF 1829.
me not to give the least hint to her ladyship. From
the first he had been longing to be back to his dear
native country. He would have to dodge blunder
busses, but that was better than having nothing to
do at all, the usual fate of a country gentleman
weather-bound at an English watering-place.
Meanwhile I was in daily communication with
the other expected candidate, living at Cheltenham,
a hundred yards off, and I discussed with him the
chances of myself standing so frequently and so
coolly that he became very nervous, and his father
seriously ill. The pupil's parents also were rather
worried about it. At last the question depended on
one vacancy hor two. The one undoubted vacancy
had arisen from the death of William Churton, who
had passed away in the prime and sweetness of youth,
after taking the highest honours, after making many
friends, and becoming private chaplain to Archbishop
Howley. The other vacancy was doubtful. Edward
Pusey had become Professor of Hebrew and Canon
of Christ Church, and he had just married or was
about to marry. Ten days before Passion week I
learned from Oxford that there would not be a
second vacancy. I at once told my friend and my
pupil's parents that, this being the case, I should not
offer myself. All were set at ease, and the pupil's
mother shook hands as much as to say that it was a
positive engagement to stay. However that might be,
the shake of the hand was never forgotten.
At last all started in the family coach, with four
posters, northward, stopping everywhere, and always
allowing daylight enough to explore towns, churches,

A FRIENDLY MESSAGE. ISS
castles, and city walls. I and my pupil raced round
Chester and up and down its arcades, and up
Wrexham Church tower and into the crowd of round
hats and red cloaks in its market-place, and round
Shrewsbury. At the last place an evil suspicion entered my
mind. We were all staying with Colonel Leighton,
a relative of my pupil's parents, and Lord Doneraile
had a good deal of talk, confidential it sometimes
seemed, with the colonel's son, who had taken his
degree in the same term as myself, the late
Warden of All Souls. I thought I perceived an
increased security and cheerfulness of tone in the
parents, as if they had been told that it was quite
out of the question I could be Fellow of Oriel. This
touched my pride. I had been making too much of
myself, perhaps enhancing my services by talking
idly of other prospects. But it did not change my
intention not to stand.
About an hour before dinner time we arrived at
Norton Priory, near the Mersey, and just within
sight of the shipping of Liverpool, whence we were
to cross the Channel. Sir Richard Brooke had a
very large company and a grand banquet, including
a musical performance, ready for our party. But in
the course of the morning Henry Wilberforce had
arrived from Oxford with a message from Newman
to say that Pusey's Fellowship had been declared
vacant, so that now there would be two vacancies,
and I must stand. Immediately after dinner I
parted from my pupil and friends most sorrowfully,
and, travelling all night, arrived at Oxford the next

156 COLLEGE ELECTION OF 1829.
morning. I was too late for some formalities and
for the first part of the examination, but under the
circumstances this was excused. I and my friend
Christie were both elected, out of thirteen candidates,
though there were some who were very indignant,
as there always will be.
The election cannot be alleged to prove that
Newman and his friends were packing the college
with their favourites, or with men just of their own
views. Nor were these views determined at that
date. This was Easter 1829, and Newman was only
twenty-eight He frequently said that a man ought
to decide his course and his opinions at thirty, as if
it might be better he should not decide till then.
He was still more of an Evangelical than of a High
Churchman, while Froude was a Tory and a bit of a
Jacobite and Nonjuror. Newman looked forward to
spending many years in the college, and, unreasonable
as the hope was, he looked to have the society of men
with the same plan of life and the community of
feeling requisite for it.
Seven years after this I was glad of the oppor
tunity to make a very small return to Henry Wilber
force for his long journey in my behalf. He had
been reading for the Denier's Theological Prize, the
subject of which that year was ' Faith in the Holy
Trinity' It was a Friday evening. The Essays
were to be sent in on Monday, and Henry had not
put pen to paper. It was vain now to think of
attempting it, as he was due for his Sunday duty at
Bransgore, at the other end of the New Forest. So
I offered to take the duty for him. On my return to

THE UNSUCCESSFUL CANDIDATES. 157
Oxford late on Monday, I found, to my delight and
surprise, that Henry had actually completed and sent
in the Essay. The prize was awarded to it

CHAPTER XXV.
THOMAS BENJAMIN HOBHOUSE.
Of the eleven unsuccessful candidates some were good
and likely men. Isaac Williams must have been
elected, but that it was known to make little difference
to him, as he was sure to be elected Fellow of his
own college in due time. Vaughan of Baliol was a
first-class man. He has been for many years a useful
clergyman and acceptable preacher at Brighton.
Several of the candidates might have saved them
selves the trouble of standing. Walter Mant might,
but probably his father had put it on him.
Two of the candidates had been with me in the
same house, living in the same room with me, several
years at Charterhouse. It was a rough system
there, no separation either by day or by night. In
our house, which was a small one, thirty of all ages
lived in the same room, down which ran two deal
tables, from breakfast to bed-time, doing all our work
there, however elbowed, jostled, dinned, and dis
tracted. These two candidates were old competitors.
They had always beaten me in vivA voce, and I had
had generally the advantage on paper.

158 THOMAS BENJAMIN HOBHOUSE.
Thomas Benjamin Hobhouse was half-brother of
Sir John Cam Hobhouse, tall, with a good figure
and fine features, but with a singular want of repose
and self-possession. He and I were Monitors,
that is, bound to keep the boys in order. Charles
Childers, for half a century the well-known chaplain
at Nice, was Monitor Praepositus, nominally over us.
Hobhouse and I had for several years interminable
wrangles, almost one long wrangle, for there was
always a tail left for the next day. Towards eight
o'clock, if we were not more than usually busy, he took
his station with his back to the fire, and threw out
some challenge, when I took my station by his side.
He very shortly became angry, insulting, and abusive.
He foamed at the mouth, and had a strange trick of
striking the grate with his heels, even if there were
ever such a fire in it. Doing this continually he
burnt off the calves of his trousers, reduced his shoes
to slippers, and wore away the heels of his stockings.
He would walk slipshod for months in consequence.
We disagreed about everything, but politics were
the staple. He held everything to be vicious and
corrupt — court, aristocracy, institutions, laws — no
good to be done without rooting out and turning
upside down. I held that all these things had a
right to stand till found hopelessly bad, and that in
all questions where they were concerned the turn
should be in their favour. One point we had in
common, though perhaps I did not see it so plainly
then as now. It was that all these institutions, com
prising nearly all the old state of society, were in
favour of the weak and dependent elements — that is,

THE CRIMINAL CODE. 159
for the help of those who could not sufficiently help
themselves. So far we agreed, but no further. With
all forms of this class I had an excessive and
foolish sympathy. Hobhouse had none. He despised
and hated weakness in every form. I must add that
though he swore freely, he was not otherwise profane
or irreverent, and he was entirely free, both in
language and in mind, from the worst of the moral
plagues that wretched schoolboys are addicted to.
Childers struck in sometimes into our discussions,
not to arbitrate, but on some side issue. He must
have thought us all bad, for he had out his Bible
every night and read a chapter to himself, which
nobody else did. I do not think he talked to any
body for his soul's good, and he was the only one at
all likely to do it.
However, to return to my nightly antagonist.
The Criminal Code was being ameliorated, and it
gave us plenty to disagree upon, for at that time I
was likely enough to defend capital punishment for
forgery. In the year 1823 we had a bitter discussion
in chapel, during one of Archdeacon Hale's sermons
most probably. The question was, could a man now be
hung for picking pockets. We all sat, almost in the
dark, in a remote corner of the chapel, with an im
mense pier before us, and we all did just what we
pleased. Hobhouse got very exasperated. I said
there was no occasion to be angry, as we could soon
find out how the law stood. Yes, but I was so shifty,
he said, that I was likely to deny having maintained
what I did, if I found I was wrong. So he took my
Prayer Book and wrote on a fly-leaf, distinct and

160 THOMAS BENJAMIN HOBHOUSE.
large, ' Hobhouse says that a man who picks another
man's pocket of a handkerchief is liable by law to be
hung. Mozley denies it' It is only the other day
that I lost the Prayer Book with this interesting
record. It will be found, if ever, in some cottage
in Devonshire. To secure better behaviour during service the
governors of Charterhouse added an aisle to the
chapel, projecting into the ' Green.' It was done in
stucco, with Gothic windows of the period. Here
was a new point. Hobhouse declared the building
detestable, such as the commonest mason ought to
be ashamed of. I said that it was homely, but fit
for the purpose, and that if there had been any
ornament it ran a chance of being destroyed. He
said I could not possibly have an atom of taste.
The building was not homely but vulgar, which was
a different thing. This was a rather early protest
against Churchwardens' Gothic, for at that time there
was no other Gothic in the country. For the matter
of having a taste I felt inwardly fortified by the fact of
my having recently copied on a very large scale, for the
performance of Pyramus and Thisbe, a coloured print
of the Acropolis in Hobhouse's ' Tour in Turkey
and Greece'
We played at chess. When Hobhouse won there
was no end of cock-crowing. We all had colds ;
with the usual result of cracked lips and sore noses.
A kind friend sent Hobhouse some lip-salve. The
rest of us resorted to the tallow-candles. This gave
him a great advantage. * There was no accounting
for tastes. Some liked smearing their faces with

WHIG AND TORY. 161
tallow, some did not' The balance of propriety,
however, was not always in his favour. 1 le betted
mc one day that he would drink ten mugs of water
in ten minutes. Each mug held half a pint, so this
was five pints, a good day's allowance for a labouring
man. I thought it impossible. He pressed me to
accept the bet, which I did. After the first mug he
left the room and returned. When he had done this
several times it dawned upon mc how the feat was
done. By tickling his throat he got rid of the water
as fast as he drank it. I became frightened for the
consequences of such a disturbance of the regular
course of nature, but he must and would proceed.
Ho won the bet, and covered with his exultation
an>' sense of shame he might have felt. Whether
it was impecuniousness, to which all schoolboys are
liable, or the desire to get a triumph out of mc at
any cost, I never knew.
Though a Whig, Hobhouse was most arbitrary
and tyrannical to the little boys, insomuch as to drive
mc to the other extreme, for I was far too easy
going. He was not cruel, but wanton, and even
violent Dickcn, tho master of our house, was having
some friends to dinner, and this made the servants
rather slack in their attendance to us. The candles
had been called for, and they did not come. Hob
house called out, ' Go all you unders, and call for
candles till they come.' Instantly there started
twenty boys, little and big, only too charmed to
have the opportunity of making a row without being
responsible for it. Crowding into the passage, a
few feet from the dining-room door, they set up a
VOL. L M

162 THOMAS BENJAMIN HOBHOUSE.
tremendous and continuous shouting, to the dismay
of the little dinner-party. Dicken's pride must have
been touched at this exhibition, for on his finding
that Hobhouse had caused it he complained to
Russell, and Hobhouse was flogged.
This was done so speedily that I did not hear of
it till after morning school, when I was shocked and
grieved. Hobhouse was not a fellow to flog, and
bully as he was in a certain harmless way, every boy
in the house would have protested against it had he
been consulted. It has occurred to me that Russell
had been watching for an opportunity. He had called
one day for an authority for the quantity ofthe second
syllable of victoria. Of course he wanted the passage
in the Satires, but no one had it. He passed rapidly
a score or so. When it came to Hobhouse he rapt
out, ' Jamque manu viridem tendit victoria palmam.'
Russell looked queer, and asked where it was. Hob
house answered, ' Lucan.' It was impossible to stop the
school and make a search, so Hobhouse took twenty
places, and was in great delight, boasting, however,
not his memory but his ready wit. Russell no doubt
felt himself grossly imposed upon, but he had to let it
pass. The Toryism of those days relied much on the
army. Besides an old and natural alliance, it had
then the bond of a great necessity, for there was hardly
an institution of the country that could have stood
as it was without the aid of physical force. Military
glory was then all the glory possible ; at least all that
was recognised. Even Hobhouse shared this en
thusiasm. With much solemnity he and I one day

SORTES BIBLIC^E. 163
tried the Sortes Biblicce. It was, I fear, the only time
I opened my Bible that term. The seventh verse, in
the first column, in the first, that is the left-hand page,
was to be decisive. My verse made me unmistakably
a man of war, with multitudes of men and horses at
my command. Hobhouse's as clearly made him a
man of peace. He was thoroughly disgusted, and did
not try it again.
Hobhouse left Charterhouse before me, and went
to a private tutor, I think Arnold. Then he came to
Baliol, and soon made his appearance in the Union-
I was told to my surprise and concern that he was
drinking too much, and that he primed himself for
speaking, in which, however, he had not much suc
cess. His mind was still running on the Criminal Code,
and he had resolved to make a stand somewhere, for
he put up, ' The necessity of retaining Capital Punish
ment for Murder.' I went, and there was a large
muster. Hobhouse rose with a slip of paper in his hand,
which he kept flourishing in his usual nervous manner.
He felt quite easy and confident in supporting the
proposition before the meeting, because it rested on a
natural and immutable foundation. If people chose to
divide land and to build houses ; to make goods and
chattels and to coin money, then we had to see that
they did not encroach too much on common right, and
exceed the bounds of humanity in protecting from
man the rights which man had made. But your life
was a natural and inalienable property, and in this
case the danger was not lest you should guard it too
much, but lest you should not guard it enough. The

164 THOMAS BENJAMIN HOBHOUSE.
most precious of possessions had to be protected by
the greatest of penalties. That was equal and fair.
But he would go to the oldest of all law books, the
foundation of all jurisprudence. There was a good
deal in that book which was limited to place, time,
and circumstance, but there was no place, time, or
circumstance to limit the character of murder, or the
justness ofthe penalty. He wished with all his heart
England had followed the law of the Bible in its
mercy, and he therefore had the less hesitation in ap
pealing to its justice. The ancient and eternal law of
the Bible in the case of murder had been expressly
delivered to save mankind from reverting to its former
stage of violence.
He had taken care to write it Nothing could be
more express, and it took no lawyer to explain it.
' Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by him shall man's
blood be shed.' The roar of laughter that followed
this enunciation only stirred Hobhouse to greater
earnestness. He did not expect to hear the Bible
laughed at in a company of gentlemen, least of all at
Oxford. He had always respected it, even if he had not
read it as much as he might. 'Well, but the text?'
they called out. ' Call it a text if you like. It is a
law binding on all the world. Here it is, and I wish
all laws were as plain : 'Whoso sheddeth man's blood,
by him shall man's blood be shed.' ' Read, read,
read,' they cried out. So he took the paper, stretching
it out with both hands, and read it again, with a pause
before every word, and a tremendous emphasis on the
words ' by him.' Whoso, sheddeth, man's, blood, by
him, shall, man's blood, be shed,' But he was again

AT BALIOL, AND IN THE UNION. 165
drowned with laughter, when a friend took the paper
away from him and pointed out his mistake. ' You
all knew what I meant,' he exclaimed. ' Then why
didn't you say it ? ' ' What signifies the mistake of a
word ? ' ' But it does signify who is to have the right
to-kill us all.' When the storm had subsided, Hob
house went on with his speech, and made a good
finish. In due time he went into Parliament, was member
for Chatham for some years, afterwards for Lincoln ;
spoke occasionally and well, but not to much purpose ;
was very unpopular in the House, and, in effect, did
nothing.

CHAPTER XXVI.
GEORGE ROBERT MARRIOTT.
George Robert Marriott, the other candidate
from Charterhouse, and from my own house there,
was the son of a Chairman of the Middlesex Sessions
well known in society. He was a cousin of Charles
Marriott, not yet come to Oxford. He must always
have had a hard battle for life, for he was very small
and slight, and he had a strangely malformed head.
So little breadth was there across the temples, and
such a mass of fluffy hair that would not lie down, that
he was, not very appropriately, nicknamed ' Cocoanut*
Of the genius that takes the form of ready wit he
had more than all of us, and he was never at a loss.

166 GEORGE ROBERT MARRIOTT.
Boy's wit is nothing if it be not sarcastic. Seeing me
making a map, he glanced over my work with the
words, Mai/r, arap oi Kara k6o-/j,ov. I would have
given five shillings to have said it myself. Besides
his wit and his scholarship, he brought to our house
a vast knowledge of the London world, at least of a
very important part of it. At thirteen or fourteen he
knew all about all the courts of law, an utter mys
tery to most country lads even up to man's estate. He
knew by name and character all the judges and lead
ing lawyers. He talked familiarly of Lord Kenyon,
Judge Richardson, Sir John Bayley, 'Fred Pollock,'
and many others I had never heard of.
He was himself intended for the law. The father
had been compelled by failure of health, or physical
weakness, to limit his own ambition to a moderate
career ; he no doubt looked to the next generation to
retrieve his own shortcomings. He must have looked
with much hope on his precocious, spirited, nimble-
witted boy. Yet he could not have looked on his
long, narrow face without misgiving. Parents who
urge their children to rise in the world sometimes suc
ceed only in making them proud and discontented.
The child acquired a contempt for small and even for
struggling people ; for ladies who were their own
housekeepers, and who had been seen giving out sugar
to the servants ; for ' pigging,' as he expressed it, in
a cottage, and for humble associates. From mere
pride he was saucy in his food, and would not touch
rice-pudding with currants, because the boys at his
' totherum,' that is his last school, had nicknamed it
fly-pudding. All knowledge he measured by its power

HIS TORMENTOR. 1I7
to raise a man in life, and to make him a figure in the
world. His ambition, or his love of great people, made
him the slave and the toy of a very big fellow, the
son of a Cabinet Minister, in our house, who could do
anything with him, and be forgiven the minute after.
I once saw this fellow take up Marriott, and by main
strength lay him on a shelf, seven feet above the floor,
so narrow that had Marriott moved an inch he must
have rolled to the floor, most probably headforemost.
There the poor child lay for near half an hour,
entreating in vain to be taken down. At another
time his tormentor took him out of bed and hung him
by the heels out of a four-story window. The people
of the mews behind hearing cries and seeing some
thing very extraordinary, came round and rang the
bell. There was an inquiry next day, and Marriott
gave Dicken a very mild version of the affair dic
tated by his tyrant,
At another time the latter had some oysters sent
him. They must have a supper. Marriott was
pressed to go out and buy a couple of pounds of
butter. Of course he would have to be flogged if he
were seen, but he only escaped that for a worse fate.
He brought the butter enveloped in cabbage leaves.
His friend put his nose to it. ' Capital,' he said, ' it
seems quite fresh.' 'Only in this morning, they
assured me,' said Marriott ' We'll have a jolly tuck
in,' said the other. Whereupon he seized Marriott as
in a vice between his knees, and slapping the butter
hard down on his bushy poll, worked it into his hair,
till it became a foaming stream, blinding his eyes,

168 GEORGE ROBERT MARRIOTT.
filling his nose, and saturating his clothing down to
the ground. After enduring this and a great deal
more, I should doubt whether Marriott ever got a word
or a line, or even a thought, from his tormentor, from
the time that one went into the Foreign Office and
the other to Oriel.
Marriott could be obliging even when there was
nothing to be gained, and all in that house owe him a
debt of gratitude for his helping much to enliven its
dull hours. Will these debts ever be paid ? Nay,
rather, how can they ever fail to be ?
It was very soon found that Marriott could im
provise stories. Accordingly, when the candles were
out and all were in bed, there arose the cry, ' Now
Marriott, tell us a story.' He started immediately and
well, but by the time he had got the travellers, after a
long journey, into a deep lane, with the moon some
times showing itself, sometimes hidden, and the sound
of hoofs in the distance, he would fall asleep. After a
pause there was a cry, ' Go on, go on,' with vitupera
tive comments, and a shower of missiles would descend
on him. He had utterly forgotten his story. * Where
was I ? ' ' In a dark lane, with the sound of hoofs in
the distance. Go on.' Marriott would take up the
thread of his tale, till the most importunate of his
listeners had fallen asleep and he might do the same.
When Marriott came to Oriel he became one of a
trio of constant friends, equally sharp-witted and
men of the world. The two others were Joseph
Richardson, son of the Judge, and Charles B. Pear
son, son of the Dean of Salisbury. I saw much of
all three. Richardson, taking pity on my shyness and

HIS COLLEGE FRIENDS. 169
awkwardness, coached me through the first wine
party I had the courage to give. Some years after I
entertained him at Moreton Pinckney, gave him some
direction and information when he was going the
round of the county as Commissioner of Inquiry
into the administration of the Poor Laws. I often
think of a saying of his at college, ' Cut me in two,
and you'll find me a rotten apple' I believe I might
have said the same, but I wasn't used to express
myself in that slapdash fashion. He died young,
attended by Tyler on his deathbed, and well re
ported of by him.
Marriott was sadly disappointed at the result of
the Oriel election. Relying on our old familiarity he
said to me that it was a case of favouritism. ' Why
didn't they let it be known they intended to elect
you ? ' I was too sorry for him to say a word, for I
knew it was his only chance at Oxford. It was,
however, partly his own fault. He could easily have
taken a first class, and in that case the college would
have found it difficult to pass him over. So, at least,
I think. He had a short and sad life, for in a few
years he went out of his mind, and in that state he
died.

170 WILLIAM DOBSON.

CHAPTER XXVII.
WILLIAM DOBSON,
IN the wake of these two Carthusians I take leave to
bring in a third as different as can be imagined, — a
being all smoothness, ease, and grace, without malice
or guile, entirely destitute of ambition. William
Dobson had nothing to do with Oriel College, or
with any movement or cause, but he became Principal
of Cheltenham College, the maker of that college as
some say ; and some even go further, the maker of
the town as it now is. Dobson came to Charterhouse
in 1822 from Richmond, then enjoying a high repu
tation from being Canning's first school. Tate was
said to be a first-rate scholar. In that same year I
was appointed to teach a form.
This will puzzle some readers. Russell had adop
ted the plan of mutual instruction, the Madras system
as it was called, imported into England by Dr. Bell.
It was supposed to be economical, by enabling fewer
masters to do the work, and accordingly we had only
eight masters for nearly five hundred boys ; that is
one to sixty boys. Some of the masters, too, were
little better than boys themselves. A boy had to teach
a form satisfactorily for at least six weeks if he would
rise from the fourth form to the third, and the same
condition was required for a rise from the third to the
second, and again from the second to the first. If, as
sometimes happened, as it did happen in my case, he

THE BELL SYSTEM AT CHARTERHOUSE. 171
did not teach very efficiently, he had to teach a form
another six weeks. I spent a whole year in teaching
and nothing else ; except paper work. Russell did
not seem to think it a matter of serious consideration
that when an indifferent teacher was remitted for a
second trial, the unfortunate and guiltless form put
under him had the largest share of the punishment.
I found Dobson in my form, a very nice fellow
of thirteen, with black hair, dark eyes, well moulded,
mildly expressive features, and a soft pleasant voice.
Not two years before this, that is on returning from the
Long Vacation in 1820, I had just learnt the Greek
alphabet for the first time, and now I was to take a
form in the Iliad, and teach it critically too. I very
soon found that Dobson knew a great deal more
about it than I did ; or to speak more correctly, that
he knew a great deal, while I knew nothing. I really
felt it a providence. I kept him steadily at my right
hand. He coached me every word, every aorist,
every elision, every dialectic difference, matters on
which a scholar may make a volume out of the first
ten lines of the Iliad. All this he did quietly, con
cisely, and clearly. After a consultation with Dobson
every other line, I faced my form manfully, and sus
tained the credit of my position. This went on for
two months, and they are an oasis in my life.
Some will ask how this could go on, and why did
I not report Dobson as fit for a higher form. No
teacher that I am aware of ever did that ; nor do I
think it was expected of him. The masters of the
lower school, dropping in now and then, and hearing a
lesson, were expected to manipulate the classes. It

172 WILLIAM DOBSON.
was they who looked over the 'exercises,' and a good
scholar might be idle out of school. This indeed was
the fashion, ' Exercises ' interfered with games and
conversation. There was a certain selfish, designing
look in extra care given to them, as if a boy was
trying in that way to steal a march on his school
fellows. But here was Dobson, I am quite sure, fit
for the first form in 1822. By Easter, 1823, I was in
the first form, and Dobson down among the dolts
and dummies of all sorts in the lower school. At
Easter, 1824, he was still only in the third form,
where I find his name close to that of R. A. Reynolds,
who had such a row with Lord Cardigan. What
could he be doing all that time, and what could his
masters be about ? He and I became friends, not
that we had very much to say to one another, for he
was just a schoolboy and not much more.
It is plain he ought to have been taken by the
hand and seated in the higher room. His example
brings out the fault of the system as concerned the
lower school, while the upper school had quite as
serious faults of its own. At Cambridge Dobson was
First Class, and became Fellow of Trinity.
When the present Bishop of Truro had been some
time head-master of Wellington College, he was de
sired by the governors to make inquiries on certain
points at other large schools. He came to Chel
tenham, and was pleased with the Principal. He
was particularly anxious to know the spiritual and
moral relations of the Principal to the scholars.
• That,' said Dobson, ' is the great advantage of my

PRINCIPAL OF CHELTENHAM COLLEGE. 173
position. I've nothing to do with the boys out of
school time. The lessons over, I am a man at large'
Benson failed to appreciate this limited responsi
bility. Perhaps he did not consider what it would ba
for the Principal to have a hand in the theological
imbroglio of the place.
Dobson however could enjoy ease, and no doubt
his nature required it. When Cheltenham, upon his
retirement, offered him the choice of a testimonial,
he did not ask for a service of plate, but for a hand
some and comfortable brougham and pair. The
town, however, must have his portrait, and it would
have been a pity if so handsome a face had not been
duly perpetuated. I saw the full-length portrait at
the Royal Academy. It was a very good picture,
and it also showed that Dobson had at sixty or so
the same features, the same expression, the same
complexion, as at thirteen. But what would Russell
have said ? At Charterhouse every boy was bound
to stand always in the ' first position.' To cross
one's legs was a high crime and misdemeanour.
And here was Dobson handed down to posterity
crossing his legs and leaning against a table.
I was myself the very opposite of Dobson — no
scholar, but very ambitious and very desirous to gratify
my friends at home. It would have suited my case to
pay less attention to my exercises and more to the
preparation of my lessons. Had I done that I should
have remained longer in the lower school, and in the
lower forms of it. It would have been a trial to me
to be amongst boys of inferior intelligence, but that

174 WILLIAM DOBSON.
one might have borne. Being ' Monitor,' too, in my
house would have made the lower classes less toler
able One act I cannot remember without shame and
something like remorse. It must have been in the
hot summer time of 1 821, when Russell unexpectedly
presented himself one afternoon in the lower school.
It was fearfully hot and close. There were between
a dozen and twenty forms going on, and if, as was
likely, they were not being kept well in hand, they
were all talking. Russell proceeded to examine form
after form angrily, bestowing savage looks on the
assistant and under masters. The latter had been
complaining of the size of the forms, which were
beyond the control of the teachers.
Suddenly Russell strode to the desk, took a slate,
and by striking it against the desk several times gave
the usual summons to attention. He ordered the
whole school to form one long line, or rather queue,
round the room, about 350 boys. Beginning at the
top, he was rapidly dividing them into twenties
Slow as I usually was, I was quicker than he on this
occasion, and found that I was the first of a twenty.
This would be no good to me, for I might be the last
of that twenty before the end of the day. To be the
last of a twenty was a step gained. A few days
before this I had bought in the streets a knife with a
dozen blades of one sort or another. I immediately
offered it to the next above me, if he would change
places. The poor fellow caught at the bait, and in
half a minute more I had gained a promotion. I
am quite sure it would have been better for myself at

PROMOTION BY PURCHASE. 175
least not to have interfered with Russell's process,
rough as it was.
If Sir William Fitzherbert, Bart., of Tissington
Hall, still lives, and reads these words, he may re
member the Jacob that got this much of his birthright
out of him.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
MEETINGS FOR THE STUDY OF SCRIPTURE.
In Michaelmas term, 1829, Newman and the other
Fellows and Probationers named or alluded to above
began to meet twice a week for the study of the
Scriptures. There had been various gatherings of
this sort at Oxford for some time, not very unlike
those which the Wesleys and their friends had held
exactly a century before, seemingly with little fore
cast of the outcome. These meetings were bearing
their fruits in Oxford. About this time not less than
a dozen men of good university position and respect
able abilities went out of the Church of England in
different directions, agreeing only in a hasty and
presumptuous opinion, as we may certainly call it,
that the Church of England was incurably wrong and
finally doomed. These seceders were so good in
their way ; so amiable ; so well-intentioned and single-
minded, as far as one could see without a close
analysis of character, and in some cases so distin-

176 MEETINGS FOR THE STUDY OF SCRIPTURE.
guished, that the loss was much felt, all the more
because it augured greater losses to come.
The choice of the subject for our meetings be
longed rather to the time than to the men that
made it. Prophecy was much preached and written
upon in those days. For years before it had been
debated all over the land whether Napoleon or the
Pope were Antichrist, for one of them it must be,
and the downfall of the former had decided the
question for, that is against, the latter. It was every
where held to be of vital importance to have a right
understanding on this question, and Newman was
doubtful. It was decided, apparently without much
forethought, to read the Revelation of St. John
with the best commentators. I had Joseph Mede,
but I did not make much progress with his book,
which is in Latin, nor was I much called on. It
served to impress on me that there is a grammar of
prophecy, a matter generally little known, or much
overlooked. The only conclusion come to, as far as I can re
member, was that Antichrist was not the Church of
Rome, but Pagan Rome, the spirit of which survived
Paganism and the Empire, and, as it were, haunted
and partially possessed the Church, especially the
Roman Communion. It was the spirit of old Rome.
This was a comfort to me, because while I had never
been able quite to reject the great article of faith
held in those days as all but necessary to salvation,
that the Church of Rome is Antichrist, still I had
an insuperable repugnance to the notion for more
reasons than I could number here. My good friend

BIBLICAL CRITICISM AT OXFORD. 177
Golightly had often quoted the saying of some witty
Anglican divine, that ' if the Church of Rome be not
Antichrist, she hath ill-luck to be so like him.' For
the matter of that I reflected that Antichrist must
be expected to be not only like the Church of Rome,
but like Christ Himself — nay, that Christ Himself
had been condemned for being so far like the Roman
Emperor as to pretend to take his place. The truth
is likenesses have to be interpreted.
There was then hardly such a thing as Biblical
scholarship in the university. Of course it could
have no place in the much crowded, much circum
scribed preparation for the schools. Our Oriel tutors
gave exceptional attention to our New Testament
lectures, but these consisted almost entirely in our
construing the original and having occasionally to be
corrected on some point of mere scholarship. I re
member being told as an incident of that very morning
that the very learned tutor of a neighbouring college
had not opened his mouth once during the whole
' lecture,' except to observe on the words ' Draw out
now,' in the miracle of Cana, ' Whence we may infer
that the Jews used " spigots." ' I leave it to better
scholars than myself to say whether the inference be
just, for I doubt it.
For the degree of M.A.. and for all the degrees in
theology and in law there was then no more exami
nation than there is for a bogus degree at Philadelphia.
In point of fact they were bogus degrees and nothing
more. The Regius Professors of Divinity did their
best to revive theological studies, but when Lloyd
collected a private class it was to study the history
VOL. I. N

178 MEETINGS FOR THE STUDY OF SCRIPTURE.
and original sources of our Prayer Book, and when
Burton took his place in that practice it was to
study Eusebius and the Primitive Church. When
any preacher went out of the text of Scripture it was
generally for some paradox or some oddity to strike
and fix the attention, or a sort of five minutes
wonder. Tyler had a decided turn for the picturesque
and quaint. To illustrate the absolute sanctity with
which the Jews regarded the Temple, he quoted a
strange Rabbinical story. Along all the lines of the
cornice and roof there were wires in such complete
communication that not a sparrow could light on any
part without setting 6,000 small bells tinkling. As
may be supposed, a responsive titter rose through St.
Mary's. Newman might be supposed to have really be
lieved the English translators inspired, for any criti
cal comment he ever made on the Authorised Version :
as if he would rather have every defect in it implicitly
swallowed than that it should be made the sport of
scholarship such as scholarship was in those days. It is
true the Authorised Version was being frequently ques
tioned, as it had been all last century, by well-known
divines. Even village preachers, after reading some
disquisition on a corrected text, would air their newly-
acquired scholarship to the poor rustics before them.
But the practice was discountenanced by serious
people of all schools.
In one respect there was a great difference between
Newman and Keble, Froude occupying a point between
them. All three had the same strong antipathy to the
moral tone ostentatiously displayed by many men of

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 179
science, flattering themselves that they had beaten
' Revelation ' out of the field. Froude was too ardent
for all real science not to stand up for its right to its
own just conclusions. Keble, on the contrary, once
had an argument with Buckland on a coach-top all
the way from Oxford to Winchester, in which he
finally took his stand on the conceivability and indeed
certainty of the Almighty having created all the fos
sils and other apparent outcomes of former exist
ences in the six days of Creation.
Newman at that time had nothing to say to any
such physical questions. Yet he could not but be
stirred by the vulgarity of the triumphant savans.
The British Association brought a number of Cam
bridge men to Oxford. Buckland, always coarse, was
emboldened to unwonted profaneness. A very dis
tinguished Cambridge professor having to deliver a
lecture to the ladies in the Radcliffe Library, congra
tulated them on the thirst for knowledge they had
inherited from their great-grandmother Eve. Oxford
men in those days were rather jealous of Cambridge
men. It is not so now, when any Cambridge man is
as welcome at Oxford as a sea-lion or a chimpanzee
in the metropolis. This jealousy, of course very un
reasonable in itself, led to a general suspicion of Cam
bridge men. Froude, writing from abroad, says, ' How
these Cambridge men quote one another ; such a one's
lectures, such a one's articles, &c.' The result on the
occasion just mentioned was a deep disgust at the
Cambridge invasion. Let each university have its
own and take its own course Newman felt.
At that time the course of Oxford was plain,
N 2

180 MEETINGS FOR THE STUDY OF SCRIPTURE.
Newman so often spoke of Laud as seeing and hearing
all that was going on, and actually walking about
Oxford, that he seemed to realise it as a fact. At all
events, Why not ? Who could possibly say that Laud
was not there, as well as all the good men who had
fought the good fight of faith at Oxford since its
foundation? It is impossible to disprove such beliefs,
and hardly wise to question them.
Yet the argument must have its reasonable limits.
At my own table once, an unhappy gentleman, not in
his right mind, handed to the servant the plate of
mutton he had just been helped to with the words,
'Take that to the poor old man at the back door.'
His brother in charge of him exclaimed, ' Now you
know there is no old man at the back door.' ' How
can you possibly tell there is not an old man at the
back door ? ' the poor lunatic rejoined ; and there was
no reply, none at least that he could have appre
hended. Up to this time, that is to the end of 1829, all was
going on smoothly between the four tutors, i.e., Dorn-
ford, Newman, Wilberforce, and Froude, and Hawkins
the newly-elected Provost. Newman, besides being a
tutor, was parish priest and preacher ; a great reader,
and a writer on rare occasions. If I may say it, the
relation of tutor led the way. Newman was first
tutor, then preacher and pastor, then writer. Charity
begins at home, and the home in this case was the
room in which then, and for many years, Newman
had quiet talks with his younger friends.
The reader must excuse an illustration from
natural history. I once put out a mare to grass in

NEWMAN'S WORK WITH HIS PUPILS. 181
Blenheim Park for the Long Vacation, and had some
talk with the people there. The horses, some hun
dreds of them, divided themselves into herds of about
forty head. In every instance the nucleus was a mare
and foal. A new horse would be sure to attach him-
selfto them, and so the ball would grow.
CThe interest felt by Newman for his pupils and by
his pupils for him was contagious^)for young men are
certain to find out quickly who T-eally cares for them
and has interests in common with them. There were
plenty of college tutors in those days whose relation
to the undergraduates about them was simply official
and nominal. Newman stood in the place of a father,
or an elder and affectionate brother. There were
indeed intractable subjects at Oriel as there are every
where, but some of those very men became in after
years repentant and ardent admirers.
(YHis pupils would generally agree in the recollec-
tionthat the best work he did with them was in pri
vate, in conversation, in revising the essays or bio
graphies he had set them.) From the most ancient
times there had come down the practice of ' disputa
tions ' and ' themes,' the former upon questions
admitting of an affirmative and a negative side.
These exercises, as may be supposed, were mostly
done in a very perfunctory manner. Newman asked
much more than this from those who were at all
willing to work for him. But whatever the exercise
his first care was that the pupil should know what he
intended to say, and what his words stood for. Find
ing, for example, the expression 'principle of evil' in
one of my compositions, he pressed hard for an ex-

1 82 THE 'EVANGELICAL' SCHOOL.
planation of what I meant by it, whether a person or
thing, and what was the nature of the evil.
Of ' verse,' in whatever language, he was a severe
critic, and had a fastidious ear. After one of the
first examinations for the ' Ireland,' Keble, one of the
examiners, lamented to find so much scholarship and
so little poetry, and this was very much Newman's
view of the scholarship of the day.
Newman entered early into university office. He
was examiner in the Classical School in 1827 and
1828 ; he was Pro-proctor for a year. There was
before him, in all human likelihood, a high university
career, with its usual consequences in the larger field
of the Church.

CHAPTER XXIX.
THE 'EVANGELICAL' SCHOOL.
THE religious state of the country, prior to the Oxford
movement, is a matter upon which more and more
questions are asked, and more and more answers
given with increasing positiveness. The younger
people are, the more they think they know about it.
But even the oldest must speak with diffidence, for
they speak from experience, and experience cannot but
be local and personal. However, a moderate observer
and inquirer may contribute a large body of recollec-

THE HIGH CHURCH CLERGYMAN. 183
tions on this point. I believe I could, but space only
admits of a few. My own deep impression at that
time, left on me by all I saw and heard, was there
was a good deal of religion in the country at the be
ginning of this century, but that it had little opportu
nity of showing itself, or of taking concerted action for
any good purpose ; that the High Church found its
scope in the regular exercise of the pastoral office, and
the Low Church in preaching its peculiar tenets, and
in meetings and demonstrations of one sort or another.
The difference of practice was quite as wide and
distinct as the difference of doctrine The High
Church clergyman was seen daily in his parish ; he
was visiting sick folk, or calling upon the genteeler
ones ; once in the thoroughfares he met everybody
and exchanged a word with everybody. There was
no appearance of pressing business about him ; he
was not bound to an appointment, booked for a meet
ing, or on his way to a coach-office He might some
times seem to be at an idle end, and even too
accessible. But you saw him. If you wished you had
a talk with him ; and if you wished more, a serious
talk. He was well read, that is in comparison with
his ordinary parishioners. He would sometimes be a
polemic, and if so a peppery one. He would have
small quarrels, and would look on dissenters invidi
ously and helplessly, not knowing what to do about
them, and finding vent for wounded susceptibilities in
peevish expressions. When Sunday came he delivered
a cut and dried sermon ; if he was a big fellow and
had a strong voice, ore rotundo ; if not, in a mono
tonous tone, as much as to confess that what he was

1 84 THE 'EVANGELICAL' SCHOOL.
saying was hardly worth your attention. Yet there
were very good and very energetic High Church
preachers in those days, but most of them were in
rural districts.
In the prevalent estimate of the clergy of that
period and of the preceding century, they are most un
fairly charged with what they could not possibly help.
It was not their fault that thousands of livings were
without parsonages, and with incomes so small as not
to admit of building or even of renting. It was not
their fault that non-residence was almost the rule in
some districts, and that even the pastoral duties of
which all clergymen are capable and which are always
welcome, were discharged intermittingly and cursorily.
It was not their fault if the church fabrics fell into
disorder and even decay. It was not the fault of the
clergy generally that bishops and dignitaries made
fortunes, and used their patronage for private purposes.
There was a broad line between the rich and the poor
clergy in those days ; but in truth the poor clergy re
presented the Church, the rich clergy her oppressors
and plunderers. Nevertheless, whether rich or poor,
there were scattered here and there many who did
their duty under increasing difficulties. The public
are plentifully informed of those who went about
preaching and speaking; who started movements,
whose lives furnished events, and who co-operated
with many like-minded men. But it is only in local or
family traditions that they live who did their work, that
is their bounden duty, quietly at home, and were
better known among their own cottagers than in
strange churches, town halls, and newspapers. It

THE EVANGELICAL PREACHER. 185
was the High Churchman who was pastor. The two
things went together naturally, for the High Church
man assumed all in his parish to be his flock, all to be
Christians — all on the road to heaven, though re
quiring much help, guidance, and stimulus. Of course
he had to work quietly. There was no one to report
or publish his talk. His best things were said to one
at a time. A hard day's work would not be known
even to the next parish. Talking daily with poor
country people he became more and more like them,
for we all grow like those we are most with. His
sympathies preyed on his purse as well as his
strength, and after a long spell of this work even an
able man would become fit for it and for nothing more.
The part of Evangelical preacher was the very
opposite of all this. The great mass of the people
committed to his care he assumed to be utterly bad
or hopelessly good, that is hopelessly trusting to good
works ; or perhaps waiting for the day and hour when
the divine call was to reach them. Anyhow, he
could discard them altogether from his consideration.
He had delivered his message and that was enough,
for him at least. He could thus reserve his attention
for a few, and would naturally consult his tastes and
preferences in the selection. Relieved thus from the
dull reiteration of house to house work, and from close
parochial duty generally, he became mobilised. He
preached and heard preaching ; he spoke from plat
forms and heard speeches ; he came across mission
aries, philanthropists, and the flying staff of societies.
He saw something of the higher, richer, and more
educated classes. He was in the world, and he daily

1 86 THE 'EVANGELICAL' SCHOOL.
acquired more and more of that knowledge and of
those manners that in the world make the chief
difference between one man and another. The Evan
gelical preacher very soon discovered that his vocation
was not in cottages and hovels, or in farm-houses, or in
garrets and cellars far up or down, in dirty lanes and
courts. Very soon, too, did he discover his own great
spiritual superiority to the rank and file ofthe Church,
consigned to the only drudgery they were capable of.
These clergymen were known, while the others
were unknown. Evangelical preachers were announced
and paraded. The corners of the streets and the
newspapers proclaimed their appointments and in
vited listeners from all quarters. They sought the
most capacious and best situated churches, and long
before the Oxford movement rich partisans were fast
buying up the most important pulpits for them.
The doctrine thus everywhere preached was
simple enough. Its fortunate discoverers and propa
gators rejoiced in its simplicity. Simple I say it
must have been, for it excluded everything else. You
were to be quite sure not only that you had received a
special revelation that Jesus Christ died for you in
particular, but also that your salvation was now such
a certainty as to place you above all further anxiety.
You might have your faults, but you were saved.
Your neighbours might have their virtues, but, want
ing this personal assurance, they were not saved.
They were not even one step on the way to salvation.
I sat myself under this sort of preaching for many
years of my boyhood and early youth, indeed up
to my ordination, whenever I joined the family circle

PERSONAL ASSURANCE. 187
at Derby, and I feel certain that the impression I
acquired of it is sufficiently grounded. I feel that all
the more because I liked some of the preachers per
sonally, and much respected others whom I had not
the opportunity of liking more. The impression of
the system on my mind, after many years of such ser
mons, nay thousands of such sermons, with hardly any
relief whatever, was that it put the character of Jesus
Christ entirely out of account, and that it reduced the
Sermon on the Mount, all the discourses of our Lord,
and all the moral arguments and exhortations of St.
Paul and other Apostles, to mere carnalities that
no real Christian need have anything to do with. All
that is tender, all that is touching, all that appeals to
our higher and nobler feelings, all that by which Jesus
Christ is the object of unbounded love and adoration
even to those who shrink from the attempt to fathom
the mystery of His being, was thrown aside, behind I
should rather say, trampled upon, as likely to lead us
astray from the real point at issue, viz. whether we
ourselves are personally saved to our own certain
knowledge. As to the effect of this preaching, repeated Sunday
after Sunday, it was simply none. Hundreds of
times have I looked round on a congregation specially
moral and respectable — for it had none of the political
element to be found in the principal church, and
none of the operative element to be found in no
church at all — to see how they took the final and
irreversible sentence of eternal doom sounded con
tinually in their ears. As often as not everybody was
asleep, except a few too stupid to be ever quite awake

1 88 TWO CLERGYMEN OF THE PERIOD.
or quite asleep. The sermon was brutum fulmen.
Humanity and common sense revolted against such
teaching, and it could really no more reach the under
standing than so many letters of the alphabet shaken
out of a bag upon a table. A fanatic indeed may
swallow what a sane man and a good man will not ;
but we were not fanatics there.

CHAPTER XXX.
TWO CLERGYMEN OF THE PERIOD.
DURING all the period I speak of, which extended
from the Battle of Waterloo to the Reform Bill, there
were two clergymen at Derby placed by their circum
stances far above the rest. Charles Stead Hope was
in all respects a big man, with a sonorous voice, a
commanding manner, and a quick temper. He was
of good family and undeniably a gentleman. He
held both the corporation churches, All Saints with
little income, and the better living of St. Alkmund's
to eke it out. He was a High Churchman after the
fashion of that day, and a Tory of course. Old
members of his congregation noted, without a murmur,
that they heard the same sermon very often. He could,
however, write a good sermon, and his powerful utter
ance made every word tell.
He had one great occasion, and as it resulted from

CHARLES STEAD HOPE. 189
a combination of events for which history can present
few parallels, I will relate them as they bore on one
another. In June 18 17 there was a rising of poor
stockingers and handloom weavers in the north of
Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, very like some
former outbreaks. The men had no work, or wages
they could not live on. Though simple, they could read
the papers, and their leader had made an important
improvement in his machine. They believed that their
misery was owing to high taxation and corrupt go
vernment. These indeed were the universal topics of
the day. A band of these men, never amounting to a
hundred, some armed with pikes and swords, went
about demanding bread and arms ; and they seem to
have thought that they might be strong enough in a
few days to march upon Derby or Nottingham,
where, they were told, the soldiers would not fire on
them. Coming to a farm-house, and being refused
what they asked for, the leader shot a man through
the kitchen window. Already the wildest rumours had
been circulated as to their designs, and this made the
matter look very serious. The most serious part of it,
however, was that the population of Derby generally,
and most of the people interested in trade and manu
facture, heartily agreed with the insurgents, only
differing from them as to the means to be employed.
Charles S. Hope was Mayor, and immediately took
the proper measures for the defence of the town,
calling up the Yeomanry and the Militia, swearing
in constables, and patrolling the approaches. The
insurgents were surprised and routed by the Hussars
from Nottingham, but were lodged in Derby gaol. A

190 TWO CLERGYMEN OF THE PERIOD.
special Commission was issued, and opened at Derby
in October. The trial, however, did not take place till
the middle of November. The grand jury had already,
at the previous assizes, returned true bills on the in
dictment for high treason against all the men. Mean
while the whole town was very much moved. The
charge of high treason was trumped up, people said,
for political effect. The leader, it was true, was a
fanatic and talked nonsense, but the rest were work
men and wanted bread. The Liberal party, which
included the corporation generally, had the mortifica
tion of witnessing two serious desertions from their
ranks. One of these was Copley, afterwards Lord
Lyndhurst, who had now taken a brief from the
Crown. The other was William Jeffery Lockett,
clerk of the peace for the county. He was the lead
ing lawyer of the town, a tall, grave figure, with very
marked and prominent features, and a perfectly sallow
complexion. He had been a corresponding member
of the French Revolutionary Convention. He was
known to be at heart a kind and generous man. But
he was now to be solicitor for the Crown. He lived
next door to us, and I now often saw him and Copley
walking arm in arm ; himself the taller, solemn and
saturnine ; Copley bright, ruddy, and mercurial. The
trial once begun did not take very long. Denman
exhausted his eloquence in vain, but deeply impressed
all hearers. The facts were undeniable ; one or two
guns and some newly-cast bullets in stockings, were
produced and handed about the court. So, too, some
strangely-written proclamations. An example must be
made. The leader and two others were sentenced to

AN EXECUTION FOR HIGH TREASON. 191
be executed after the barbarous old fashion. When
the warrant came down it was found that His Royal
Highness had graciously remitted the ' drawing and
quartering.' A week was given them to prepare. The
day before the execution I and my older brother went
to the blacksmith's to see the instruments ; a ponderous
axe, a small and handy one, and a large knife, all
beautifully finished, and sharp as a razor. We tried
the edges on our fingers. When the morning came,
all good people, whether as a protest or in mere dis
gust, were to keep indoors. But there was still an
undefined hope of some intervention, not probable,
hardly possible in those days. The execution was
fixed for twelve ; the London mail was to come in at
eleven. As the clocks struck, it drove up in the middle
of the town. There was no reprieve, but the Princess
Charlotte with her babe was dead. In a few minutes
everybody in the town knew it, and everybody asked
whether it was possible the execution should take
place after that. But there was no possibility of
stopping it. My father, after some changes of mind,
felt it a public duty to witness what no doubt would
be variously described. There was a vast crowd.
The hangman's work was then a very ordinary busi
ness and made no sensation. There was then a long
pause. One of the poor creatures was lowered, and
something was done behind a low screen. In matter
of fact a young London surgeon did the work with a
knife. A grim fellow then stood up, and raised high
with both his hands the head of the chief criminal,
pronouncing thrice in different directions ' the head of
a traitor.' At that hideous spectacle the whole crowd,

1 92 TWO CLERGYMEN OF THE PERIOD.
with a confused cry of horror, reeled and staggered
back several yards, surging against the opposite
houses. My father came home sick and faint. For
many days after the small shop windows contained
coarse and vivid representations of the scene. We
had a memento of the execution always in sight. Mr.
Lockett soon after considerably enlarged and beau
tified his house, throwing out a handsome stone por
tico. It was speedily named 'Brandreth's Gallows,'
after the unhappy ringleader.
The terrible news of the morning seemed the end
of all things, so completely had the foreground of
hope been occupied by the newly-married pair. No
body knew with what expectation to fill the gap. The
Duke of York was Tory enough, but the Liberals had
now no fear of him. What else was there ? Though
the deceased Princess had taken her mother's side,
none knew how to estimate her loss in the political
reckoning. Only thus much was certain ; the dynasty
was now in peril.
In less than a fortnight followed the funeral. There
was to be one service, late in the evening, for the whole
town at All Saints. The corporation met at the Town
Hall, and went in procession with a long train of flam
beaux, headed by Hope, both Mayor and Vicar. The
crowd rushed in with them, and the church, a very large
one, was immediately a sea of heads still heaving and
eddying. I remember seeing my own schoolmaster,
Edward Higginson, the Unitarian pastor and teacher
of the Strutts, beckoning to friends and clambering
over the pews. The best lighting in those days was
gloomy and fitful. But one could see the town was

FUNERAL OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 193
there. Many indeed heard that day their first and last
sermon. Hope was almost the only Tory in the
corporation, and he had just taken a strong side for
the powers that be. The past was full of sores ; the
future a very blank. He had all the world before him.
A man of greater genius or inventive power might
have failed. He rose to the occasion, and seemed
quickened by the sense of difficulties. This was a
blow that fell equally on the whole nation, on all
classes and parties, that confounded all calculations,
and united all in the common sense of an inscrutable
visitation. I was just eleven when I heard the ser
mon, and the feeling of national prostration it left on
me has not wholly departed to this day.
The temptations of such a position are obvious,
otherwise they that are in the world, and have to use
the world, would not be so emphatically warned not
to abuse it. I believe the clerical Mayor, who it
should be considered, was surrounded by open foes as
well as candid friends, was said to be too free with his
tongue, and to sit too long at the table on convivial
occasions. There are those who would say at once there is no
more to be said about such a person. Yet there are
simple tests to which even the discharge of the minis
terial office is liable. There can be no just claim to
spirituality when there is no action or appearance at
all. Even when there is both appearance and action
we have to look sharp to our definition of spirituality
before we can say positively it is not there. We have
to be quite sure what spirituality is. The High
Church Vicar was always in the presence of his people.
VOL. I. °

194 TWO CLERGYMEN OF THE PERIOD.
I could not walk through the heart of the town with
out it being more than an equal chance that I met
him somewhere between his two churches, or in their
neighbourhood. He could not walk ten yards without
exchanging greetings, or fifty yards without being
stopped for a talk. This was early and late, for I
often saw him walking through the town before break
fast with a garden tool in his hands. There was no
man or woman in the whole town who was not fami
liar with the rather imposing figure of ' Old Hope,' or
'Charley Hope,' as the older ones called him. He
resided constantly in his only parsonage in one of his
churchyards, just under the church tower. He no
ticed my brother James and recognised him again and
again from the time my brother was barely two years
old. It was a case of mutual admiration. In my
oldest recollections of Derby I see him moving along
the thoroughfares, and hear him thundering the Com
mandments from the altar of Gibbs' largest and hand
somest church. I see him laying, with masonic rites,
the first stone of St. John's, the first entirely new
church built in Derby after the Reformation. Well,
there is something here, even if it be matter to be well
sifted. Now for the Evangelical counterpart. This was
the Vicar of St. Werburgh's throughout the same
period, and for many years after. He was a nominee
of Lord Eldon, as a good many other Evangelical
clergymen were. He resided in a pretty villa, sur
rounded by extensive grounds, out of his parish,
and a good step out of the town. I am certain that
neither I nor anybody else ever saw him in his parish

THE VICAR OF ST. WERBURGH'S. 195
except when he drove in to take part in the Sunday
services, or upon some very special occasion. He knew
absolutely nothing of his parishioners.
At the time ofthe Irish Famine of 1825, or some
like occasion a little after that date, there came an ur
gent appeal to the ministers and churchwardens to
canvass at their own houses those parishioners who
were at all likely to contribute. It had been appre
hended that a collection in church would not produce
much. My father was churchwarden. He took care to
provide himself with a list. However, it was proper
to suppose that the Vicar had one of his own. My
father asked to see it before starting on the round.
The Vicar drew a dirty slip of paper from his
pocket and opened it. There were about twenty
names. The first three or four had been dead long ago ;
others had left the parish. There were not more
than three or four to the good. The paper had
evidently been made out at the Vicar's induction
into the living many years before, and he had never
corrected it or made another.
Of course he had curates ; but the whole matter
of these curates, their selection, their management, the
doctrine they were to preach, and all they had to do,
he deputed to a wealthy tradesman of the strongest and
bitterest ' Evangelical ' principles. Being a man of busi
ness, and so far a man of the world, with much natural
shrewdness, this Gaius of Derbe, as his friends called
him, made a good selection within his own lines, and
entirely escaped the unhappy selections which the
best clergymen are apt to make. But if these men
had wished to preach the Bible or the Prayer Book,
02

196 TWO CLERGYMEN OF THE PERIOD.
they would not have been allowed to do it. This
censor sat over them, and if their tone had once
faltered into mercy and grace, they would have been
sure to hear of it.
What they preached under this dire compulsion
was nothing more than the coarse blasphemies of the
market-place put into longer words and strung into
sentences. It meant about as much as what the fellows
say in the streets, and was taken at that value by the
generally sleeping congregation. It may be said
that this was an exceptional instance, but it is not
my own experience that it was exceptional, nor is that
the result of the inquiries which even then I was
making. It was openly avowed that this was not the
doctrine of the Prayer Book. A hundred times did
I hear, ' I don't go by the Prayer Book. I go by the
Bible,' the fact being that the one was treated much
in the same way as the other. When a chapel of
ease, not then with a district, was built in the parish,
a clergyman of these opinions and of a good county
family took it, as he proudly avowed, because it did
not involve baptisms, burials, and marriages, none of
which services he could conscientiously perform. Of
course, too, in the same view of pastoral duty, he had
no occasion to enter any house or exchange a word
with anybody, except in his own theological circle.
Generally speaking the Evangelical theory was held
to relieve the clergyman of his pastoral duties alto
gether. All he had to do was to declare his message
every Sunday. They who accepted it were saved ;
they who did not were damned. That concluded the

ABANDONMENT OF PASTORAL DUTIES. 197
matter. What more could he say or do? The
younger and more active clergymen of the school
were to be seen flourishing about everywhere and
heard everywhere, except in their own parish. When
heard of in their own parish it was not among the
weak and maimed lambs of the flock, not among the
aged, sick, and dying.
In the year 1827 I was told by a Fellow of St.
John's, Cambridge, as a simple matter of fact, that
Simeon, the prophet of the school, having the charge of
an important parish in that town, gave up the whole
pastoral work to Robinson, afterwards Archdeacon.
Robinson, in his turn, and for the same reason, viz.
a feeling that his call was rather to preaching and
committee work, passed on the whole pastoral duty to
another clergyman. This other clergyman found
pastoral duty as little in his line as did his superiors,
and the result was the whole pastoral charge of a
parish for which three clergymen were thus answer
able, was consigned with a small gratuity to a very
humble member of one of the college choirs.
Yet I know well there are men who stand on the
Prayer Book and yet are untrue to it ; and in like
manner there are men who can be happily untrue to
the most foolish dogma ever invented by man. There
is that which never fails, notwithstanding the changes
of appearance and form. Ten years ago, one winter's
day, I stood by the bedside of a village patriarch
more than ninety years of age. He had cleaned the
shoes of a Rector who had been Fellow of Oriel in
the middle of last century. Finding him cheerful
and seemingly stronger than usual, I took the oppor-

rg8 COLLEGE COURTS.
tunity to ask what he remembered of old times. ' Was
the world better now than he knew it eighty years
ago ? ' He collected his thoughts and said solemnly,
'There were bad people then and there are bad
people now. There were good people then and there
are good people now.' That evening I was stepping
out of a cottage into the dark, and was awe-struck to
hear a knell. I thought of this or that, but becoming
conscious of some one nearing me from the village, I
asked whom the bell was tolling for. It was for the
old man who had given me his dying testimony to
the perpetuity of the true Church.

CHAPTER XXXI.
COLLEGE COURTS.

BEFORE the impending dispute on the tuition, New
man, Froude, and Wilberforce — it was hard to say
which took the lead in it — tried a revival which was
at least very agreeable to the younger Fellows. It
might be called the sweet infancy of the 'Oxford
movement.' Oriel College has estates and manors
within easy distance of Oxford. It certainly was ad
visable that as many of the Fellows as possible should
have some acquaintance with this property.
Some of them had a great deal to learn about
agricultural affairs. It was long after this that a

THE CARE OF COLLEGE PROPERTY. 199
Fellow of the college, being driven over Salisbury
Plain, was so scandalised at the operation of paring the
turf, burning it, and spreading the ashes for manure,
that he got into a warm argument with his driver,
and finished by denouncing the act as a sin against
the majesty of nature and the ordinances of God.
The Provost was the only college official who
could be called permanent. The senior Treasurer
might give up his fellowship any day, before he had
learnt his duty. The visitation of the estates and the
holding of the manor courts, if held at all, was left to
the Provost and the Treasurer, perhaps more gene
rally to the professional steward. Yet all the Fellows,
from time to time, were called on to vote upon ques
tions of rent, renewals, fines, rebuildings, or what not.
I remember that at some college meeting at the
Provost's house, he entered the room with a document
in his hand, observing that he had just concluded a
matter dating from about the Reformation — he gave
the very date. Of course it was a lease on lives, and
this would be the determination of a lease that had
run for three centuries. None of the Fellows seemed
to know more about the matter than I did. This
alone would show how much depends on the life of the
Head of a College, happily so often almost preternatu-
rally prolonged. Perhaps the little revival I am now
speaking of might be ascribed chiefly to the compre
hensive idea of restoring the college to its old form
and old ways. However that might be, the Provost,
half-a-dozen of the Fellows, and the steward, made
some pleasant visitations.
The college was very proud of Wadley, near

2oo COLLEGE COURTS.
Faringdon. At the beginning of last century, a
gentleman who held it on an old lease from the col
lege, and had a freehold estate of his own adjoining,
thinking the leasehold as good as freehold, built a large
family mansion upon it. This possibly led to the
college raising its fines for renewal. Anyhow there
ensued a lawsuit, the progress of which was watched
with much interest by all concerned in this sort of
property all over the kingdom. The decision was in
favour of the college, which celebrated a great victory.
In 1830 the mansion had been some time unoc
cupied, except that it was occasionally used for
Yeomanry and county balls. We held a court there.
The Provost and Fellows put up their horses at the
stables, roamed over the house, and opened the court
in the servants' hall. The business was not such as to
require a large attendance.
The Provost, however, had received applications
from a number of labouring men at Littleworth, a
hamlet on the property, asking for cottage gardens, or
pieces of land to cultivate as they pleased. As luck
would have it, under the instigation of some local
agitator, they had used language which indicated a
theoretical right rather than an appeal to benevolence.
This promised sport. The Provost had taken care to
invite the presence of spokesmen both at the manor
court and at the hamlet itself. The men presented
themselves, looking not very like labourers, but more
like outcasts from a town.
The Provost and senior Fellows had their case
ready. A labourer's best chance is wages. His time
and strength are due to his employer. Land above

WADLEY HOUSE. 201
the scale of a garden is an encumbrance. Who is to
pay rates and taxes upon it ? What is to be done
when the holders increase and multiply? It was
fortunate that neither Whately nor Bishop was there,
or the discussion, one-sided, would have lasted long
enough. The labourers could only repeat that they
would like some land to do what they pleased with,
and that they had been told manors were for the poor
as well as for the rich. Oriel College was a very
great body. It had taken Wadley House from the
builder. It could do anything.
From the court the college rode to the hamlet, a
couple of miles off. It was not a very natural looking
place. The people might have been squatters, specu
lating on the generosity or forbearance of the college.
But the argument was resumed, and being reinforced
by numbers became rather loud at one or two wicket
gates. Whether the college ever tried the experiment of
a little Ireland I cannot say, but some years after
wards C. P. Eden, a Fellow of the college, devoted
himself to the building of a pretty little church at the
place. He had to go to Cambridge and fight a hard
battle with Simeon, whom he described as a Hebrew
of the Hebrews, but he finally secured the patronage
for the bishop, and Littleworth, which includes
Wadley, now makes a proper appearance in the
Clergy List.
The college held another court at a village beyond
Ensham, in the north-west of Oxfordshire. There
was not much to be done, and there were no episodes
to enliven it or spin it out. Froude, and one or two

202 COLLEGE COURTS.
others, including myself, made their way up to the
bell-chamber of the church tower, in the hope of
finding old bells and quaint legends. The bells had
been recast two years before, and bore the date and
the names of the churchwardens. The port provided
at the village inn was not drinkable. Accordingly
two of the Fellows, neither the oldest and wisest nor
the youngest and least wise, took the bottle, minished
by a single glass, filled it up from the contents of the
cruet-stand and the saltcellar, recorked it, shook it
well up, and left it for the next customer.
Had the college extended its visitation some
twenty miles northward, it might have held a court
where it was really wanted. A large village had be
come a reproach, a nuisance, and an eyesore, from the
fact of anybody with the requisite amount of money
and impudence seizing on any bit of the common
he fancied, and building a cottage or a public-house
upon it. The main street of the village itself had
been twisted and constricted, and rendered dangerous
as well as dirty, by lawless fellows who did what they
liked, and could not be restrained because the only
authority was the lord of the manor. This was
Oriel College, that never went near the place, and
only knew of the state of things through a clergyman
who had complained so long and so often that nobody
listened to him.
But we had many other riding expeditions. In his
earlier Oriel days Newman rode a good deal. The
use, and still more the possession of a horse, was then
one of the principal charms of a Fellowship. Froude
was a bold rider. He would take a good leap when

KLEPPER. 203
he had a chance, and would urge his friends to follow
him ; mostly in vain. Anyone who has seldom been
on the back of a horse till the age of twenty-two had
better not try bull fences. The two elder Wilber
forces, properly accoutred, rode to London and
back, or to the South Coast. It was possible in those
days to do either of these journeys on roadside turf,
with frequent commons and open heaths. Froude
delighted in taking his friends for a gallop in Blenheim
Park, to the no small peril of indifferent riders, for the
horses became wild, and went straight under the low
hanging branches of the wide-spreading oaks.
Newman rode well enough to come to no mishaps.
Besides taking his chance of the Oxford hacks, he had
for some time a rather dangerous animal, Klepper, a
pretty creature with Arab blood, which had been
brought over from Ireland by Lord Abercorn, then at
Christchurch. It was said that she had been bred in
small square enclosures, where she had to get her
living by picking up what she could on the rough
edges of the ground. In such a place, when she
chose to take a run, she had to turn at a sharp
angle every two hundred yards. The tendency re
mained, and involved some strain on the rider's
attention, and nerve also. Newman had always a
difficulty in keeping her straight and saving himself
from his own momentum. Klepper became mine,
and I lent her one day to C. P. Eden, duly warning
him of the creature's dangerous tendency. On his
first and last attempt to ride her, he found himself
lying, sadly contused, on the turf of Bullington Green,
and Klepper nowhere in sight.

204 SOME CHARACTERISTICS.

CHAPTER XXXII.
SOME CHARACTERISTICS.
BUT what was Newman in the Oxford world at this
time ? How did he stand to his university sur
roundings, and how were they mutually affected ?(His
appearance was not commanding to strangers. It
never was. Henry Wilberforce, from the first, used
to speak of him as 'O Msyas, but he knew the inner as
well as the outer man. Newman did not carry his
head aloft or make the best use of his height. He
did not stoop, but he had a slight bend forwards,
owing perhaps to the rapidity of his movements, and
to his always talking while he was walking. His gait
was that of a man upon serious business bent, and
not on a promenade.
There was no pride in his port or defiance in his
eye. Though it was impossible to see him without
interest and something more, he disappointed those
who had known him only by nameY They who saw
for the first time the man whom some warm admirer
had described in terms above common eulogy, found
him(scT little like the great Oxford don or future
pillar of the Church^that they said he might pass for
a Wesleyan minister. John Wesley must have been a
much more imposing figure.
Robust and ruddy sons of the Church looked on
him with condescending pity as a poor fellow whose
excessive sympathy, restless energy, and general unfit-

THE LONG-TAILED COAT. 205
rigss for this practical world would soon wreck him.
Thin, pale, and with large lustrous eyes ever piercing
through this veil of men and things, he hardly
seemed made for this world. Canon Bull meeting
him one day in the Parks, after hearing he had been
unwell, entreated him to spare what fibre he had for
a useful career. ' No ordinary frame can stand long
such work as yours.'
His dress — it became almost the badge of his
followers — was the long-tailed coat, not always very
newY) There is a strange tendency in religious schools
to express themselves in outward forms, often from
the merest accident. It has been said that the long-
tailed coat — morning same as evening — which pre
dominated at Oxford sixty years ago, was a tradition
of the Eton Oppidans ; and it was so long kept up
by the new Oxford school as to be likely to become
as permanent as the distinctive garb of the Quakers.
Newman, however, never studied his ' get up,' or even
thought of it He had other uses for his income,
which in these days would have been thought
poverty_Y) When the Duke of Wellington had come forward
to form a Ministry, at any cost of trouble or risk of
failure, on the occasion of an unexpected breakdown
of the Whigs, Keble, Froude, and other Oxford
Tories got up a subscription for a statue of Welling
ton to be given to the university. The appeal was not
responded to by the country clergy as Froude thought
it ought to be, and a bust was now all that could be
hoped for. Newman took the part of the clergy.
'They can't afford it,' he said. .Froude replied,

206 SOME CHARACTERISTICS.
• They can do with one coat less a year.' ' Perhaps
they are doing that already, and can now do no
more,' Newman answered.
f^It became the fashion of the party to despise
solemnity of manner and stateliness of gait. Newman
walked quick, and, with a congenial companion, talked
incessantly. George Ryder said of him that when
his mouth was shut it looked as if it never could
open ; and when it was open it looked as if it never
could shut?) Yet he was never so busy or so pre
occupied "but that he had always upon him a burden
of conscientious duties to be attended to, calls of
civility pr kindness, promises to be fulfilled, bits of
thoughtfulness carried out, rules of his own to be
attended to.
Genius and a high vocation are sometimes pleaded
as an excuse from the common drudgery of life.
There are people too much in the clouds to trouble
themselves about accounts, (^"ewraan used to astonish
the High Street tradesmen with the rapidity and the
infallible accuracy with which he went through the
parish accounts?) He was surpassed, it must be said,
in the college accounts by Copleston, perhaps also
by Hawkins. Every term the Provost and several
of the Fellows used to meet in common room to add
up the weekly ' battles ' of all the undergraduates and
other resident members. Each bill would consist of
eight or ten sums in pounds, shillings, and pence to
be added up. Copleston rapidly passed his finger
up the central column once and declared the sum,
which was always correct. This was to add three
columns, nay more, at once, each step involving

MORAL IDENTITY. 207
several carryings. Whately as a boy was an arith
metical prodigy. When he became a scholar, a
logician, and a good deal more, he lost his powers of
calculation. In one point, which to Newman was of
no practical importance, he was deficient. He had
not much measure of length, breadth, height, and
capacity. It led him into no mistakes, for he could
state what he wanted, and that was a bare suf
ficiency. Qle never complained of any unexpected addition
to his work or any interruption. I had undertaken a
Saint's-day sermon. An hour before the time I
presented myself a defaulter. I could not do it.
Newman threw aside the work he was busily and
eagerly engaged in, and wrote a sermon, which, when
delivered, might indicate days of careful preparation^
(_He always claimed to have been substantially the
same from first to last, only in progress and develop
ment ; under heaven-sent guidances, impulses, and
assistance. It was the fashion of that day to speak
of utter and complete change from one type of
character into another as possiblejand indeed ordi
nary, by the influence of education, or association, or
new circumstances, or a sudden call. Most young
people believed in this possibility, and trusted to it ;
while some of their elders demurred.
fOn one occasion, when Newman was on a visit to
Derby, my father quoted the saying of a wise old
Yorkshire schoolmaster, that men never change. I
thought myself bound to protest against a maxim
which seemed to preclude hope and discourage
exertion for the improvement of others, not to speak

208 SOME CHARACTERISTICS.
of oneself. Newman, not to come between father
and son, turned round to me, shook his head and
smiled, as much as to say there was too much truth
in the maxim for it to be hastily put aside/
[Newman looked out inquiringly, expectantly, and
believingly for the special powers and intentions of
his younger friends. They generally agreed that his
fault lay in believing and expecting rather too much
of them. He would easily accept a promise, and
interpret silence itself favourably. This is common
with ' movers,' for they interpret others by themselves.
Bub Newman had also another faith in accord with
his own career, and that was in the existence of a
particular part and a special work to be accomplished
by everybody, in accordance with his powers and his
circumstances. In his own case he was always con
sulting the auspices, so to speak, to guide his course
and to decide some question which he found it im
possible to decide simply on its own merits. An
unexpected act, or word, or encouragement, or a
check, the appearance of a book or an article, pleasant
or otherwise, a meeting, a separation, came to him
with the significance of an intervention.
Whatever happened he interpreted it as provi
dentially designed] We really have no choice but to
do this, though we may carry it too far, and may do
it by no rule but the merest fancy. His powers were
often taxed. Why was it ordered that such a one
should suddenly withdraw, perhaps turn round ?
Above all, there occurred very frequently in the
course of a long and large career the always mys
terious phenomenon of a man in the infancy or in the

QUEM DEDERAT CURSUM FOR TUNA PEREGI. 209
maturity of his powers, with golden hopes, and work
in hand, being suddenly withdrawn from the seen
world to the unseen. One of Newman's common
interpretations was that such a one had done all the
good work he could do or was likely to do. He was
withdrawn because he would do no more, or could
do no more. He had said his say in writing or in
the pulpit, he had put a parish in order, he had built
a church, he had started a local movement, he had
left a name behind him — more he was not likely to
do, for the work was thenceforward too much, and
he might possibly have lost in it what he had gained
before. ) He would warn his young friends who had done
something to see that it was not the whole work of
their life. They might read in its very completeness
the completion of their own career. He had some
thing of the Highland idea of an extraordinary
exuberance of spirit before departure, the dying note
of the swan. He once gave a humorous illustration
of it. My servant drove him in a pony trap from
Cholderton to Salisbury — eleven miles. The poor
man, who was gardener, and always had a good deal
to say about the country and things in general,
talked the whole way. The next letter from Newman
ended with, ' Pony went well, and so did Meacher's
tongue. Shoot them both. They will never be
better than they are now/J

VOL. I.

210 NEWMAN; KEBLE, AND FROUDE.

CHAPTER XXXIII.
NEWMAN, KEBLE, AND FROUDE.
As Newman kept careful account of his pupils, with
occasional allusion to their spiritual progress as well
as their other acquisitions,jhe would now and then
bring to their remembrance the great law so emphati
cally laid down by Butler ; the vital difference be
tween the active and the passive reception of truths
and impulses. Whatever we do on the call of duty
we do easier next time ; whatever we fail to do we
find more difficult, that is we are still less disposed
to do it.7 We fall back on the sure law of habit.
Having not done it, we continue not to do it. That
may not be as Newman expressed it, for he reverted
to the topic often, with a great variety of illustrations.
One of these I heard repeatedly, for it described what
was then the universal danger. It was the unhappy
maid of all work, who has to light the kitchen and
parlour fire, to sweep the floor, to dust the furniture,
and to prepare the breakfast, but. not knowing which
to begin upon, goes to bed again. Another occurs to
me : ' You can't eat your cake and have it,' he would
say of those who used up too rapidly their powers and
opportunities in the idle expectation of possessing
them still for better purposes.
JNewman found in human character the same
variety, the same matter for contemplation and re
search, that others do chiefly in the works of nature.

CRABBES POEMS. 211
He had this at least of the traditional Jesuit about
him. There was in those days, and there still is, a
great deal of speculation about characterjbut it is
apt to take the turn of mere moralising, rapidly
degenerating into unprofitable satire. [Newman, early
hoping to move the world about him, and having no
means for the work except such human agencies as
Providence might bring in his way, considered well what
any man was good for, and had his eye on the metal
rather than on the dross. Crabbe, as is well known,
was one of his favourite authors, and nowhere can be
found such generous and discriminating appreciations
of human character as in Crabbe's poemsTj
Though Law's works generally were in great
favour, with Froude at least, the ' Serious Call,' the
most entertaining of them, was never mentioned at
Oriel in my time, to my recollection. I have seen it
lately described as a much overrated book. That is
easily said. Five or six successive generations of
readers and admirers are now dead and gone, and, it
is quite true, their place is not supplied. My own
copy I lent or lost many years ago, and have not
replaced it. If I now looked into the ' Serious Call,' it
would be for criticism, which I don't care to bestow-
on a book so valued in its day. It would, however, be
worth the while of a ' serious ' writer to point out its
deficiencies. Perhaps I should say from memory that
it calls attention too much to externals, and thereby
takes the form of caricature, at once odious and use
less. It would enable anybody to ticket and cata
logue his neighbours, rather than divest himself of his
own follies. What Froude and the others discussed
p2

212 NEWMAN, KEBLE, AND FROUDE.
continually was r)9o<i, the dominant moral habit or
proclivity. Newman several times put before me a
question which I know I shall not state well. No
doubt, too, it is well put somewhere in his wri
tings. All therefore that I can say with certainty is,
that such a question he did put to me, and probably
to his other young friends, for their serious con
sideration : — Which does Scripture present to us as the
ruling motive, and that most contributing to form the
Christian character and life— the sense of sin, or
to koXov, the beauty of holiness and of high moral
aims ? The two motives are necessarily presented to
us, both in succession, and also as continual and co
operating ; both as severally applicable to classes, to
characters, and to stages, and also as universally ap
plicable. They contribute the one to the other. But
it cannot be said that they move only by mutual de
pendence. In fact the one motive becomes often much
more prominent than the other. Men begin, or at least
they ought to begin, with penitence. The Saints began
with penitence, often in exaggerated and grotesque
forms ; Churches begin with penitence ; divines lay
down a solid foundation of repentance from dead
works. But when these necessary preliminaries have
been executed, and the rough foundation laid, all go
off into spirituality, perfection, piety, holiness, deco
rum, sweetness, and all the qualities that figure in
biographies, funeral sermons, and epitaphs. One might
suppose that most of the good people one hears of
had never done anything to repent of, except some
trifle, just sufficient to give occasion for the first stage
of Christian growth.

SENSE OF SIN, OR to koXov. 213
The proportion of the two motives cannot but vary
with the constitution and character, for there are those
whose tendency is to be happy, and those whose
tendency is to be miserable. Their religion must and
will take the constitutional form. There are also stages
of life, and circumstances, in which it would be very
idle work to attempt to impress so deep a sense of
guilt and unworthiness as to keep down the more
ambitious sentiment in even its most secular forms.
What would be the use of telling a number of young
men, in health and spirits, with their programme of
studies and amusements fixed for days and months to
come, that they ought to have the constant feeling that
they are miserable sinners, unworthy of a moment's
happiness ? Even especially Christian operations, such
as the building of a fine cathedral, would be unduly
hindered by too much prostration of spirit. I do not
pretend, however, to elucidate Newman's meaning, but
to inform my readers that he repeatedly touched on
some such comparisons, indicating himself no pre
ference, but leaving it to us to feel more that there were
two classes of motives, neither to be undervalued.
Was it ever in Newman's thoughts to derive from
the school of nature the proper proportions of the gay
and the grave ? £Tseveral times heard him notice that
the sounds of nature— the wind, the water, the poor
beasts and even the birds, were all in the minor key ;
as, too, age itself, in comparison with youth. Energy^
contest, glory, and triumph were in the major key_^
But as Newman had to think well over it, I sup
pose this comparison may admit of some qualifica
tions.

214 NEWMAN, KEBLE, AND FROUDE.
One striking peculiarity in Newman's character
must have been often noticed by his walking com
panions. It was This admiration of the beauties of
earth and sky, his quickness to observe the changes
overhead, and the meaning he put into them, some
times taxing the patience of a dull observer. Flowers,
especially certain flowers, he was as fond of as a child
could be. He could seldom see a flower without it
reviving some memory. Old English forest trees he
delighted irD
On a visit a few years ago to my Devonshire par
sonage he compared the garden, much to its advan
tage, with those he had seen at several other parson
ages better known and more largely endowed. Those
were surrounded by walls. This contained a grove of
oaks, elms, and ash trees. There were three ancient
and lofty poplars, covered with moss, and the ground
rising round their stems. ' I never cared for a poplar
before,' he said, ' but I like those. I shall like poplars
now.' He looked wistfully at a large bed of St. John's
wort. He had tried several times to make it grow at
his Retreat, near Birmingham, but it would not.
[The walk from Oxford to Littlemore, especially
if taken every other day, might be thought monoto
nous, but it never palled on Newman. The heavens
changed if the earth did not, and when they changed
they made the earth new. His eye quickly caught
any sudden glory or radiance above ; every prismatic
hue or silver lining ; every rift, every patch of blue ;
every strange conformation, every threat of ill, or
promise of a brighter hourT]
|He carried his scenery with him, and on that

NEWMAN NO TOURIST. 215
account had not the craving for change of residence, for
mountains and lakes, that most educated people have.
Unless his voyage with Froude to the Mediterranean
in 1832 be excepted, he never made a tour for plea
sure sake, for health sake, or for change sake] He
did move about a good deal, but it was to the country
parsonages to which so many of his friends were early
relegated. He had much to say ; he had to advise, to
direct, and he had occasionally a note to make. He
looked for progress of some sort or other. These
visits sometimes took him into districts singularly
wanting in the features constituting ' scenery ' and
' landscapes.' But even in Salisbury Plain, where there
are no trees, no hedges, no water, no flowers, no banks,
no lanes, and now not even turf, and seldom even a
village or a church in sight, he would walk or run
with a friend as cheerfully as the prophet ran before
the king from Carmel to announce the opened gates
of heaven to Jezreel.
I must give Salisbury Plain its due. It has its
flowers, though they escape the eye by their minute
ness, or by their shy habits. In 1831 I traversed the
Plain in a walk from Oxford to the Isle of Wight, in
the very agreeable company of Neptune, S. Wilber
force's dog, whom I deposited finally at Brightstone
It was a time of great heat and long drought, and the
Plain was as hard as iron, with about as much to be
seen on the surface as there is on a not entirely worn-
out Turkey carpet. Poor ' Nep,' a genuine Newfound
land, walked as gingerly as he would on a cook's
' hot plate.' I sat down, keeping my open palm, acci
dentally, flat on the ground for a quarter of an hour.

216 NEWMAN, KEBLE, AND FROUDE.
On removing my hand I was struck by the exact im
pression left, and on further examination I counted
twenty-five different species of vegetation in that very
small area. On going to Cholderton, five years after,
I remarked on the want of flowers to Walter Blunt, the
curate in charge. Without saying a word he went to
a shelf and took down an album containing in his. own
writing the Flora of the parish — 340 species.
^Newman never went into architecture, though
very sensible of grand effects, and ready to appreciate
every work, of whatever style, good in its way. \ He
much admired the restoration of the interior of St.
Mary's, executed in his predecessor's time, and re
cently threatened with utter effacement by the more
fastidious taste of the present Dean of Chichester. He
used to mention in a pathetic tone the fate of the
young man who designed it, completed it, and died.
It will be seen that when he finally withdrew to Little
more, he simply utilised a long row of stables and
sheds, and would not add a single architectural fea
ture. He asked me to give my ideas on the subject,
and I sent some suggestions of a sort to redeem the
utter plainness of the existing walls, but they made
no appearance in the result.
Froude was most deeply interested in architecture,
but it is plain that he was more penetrated and in
spired by St. Peter's than even by Cologne Cathedral.
After spending three days with me in taking measure
ments, tracings, mouldings, and sketches of the in
terior of St. Giles at Oxford, one of the purest
specimens of Early English, he devoted a good deal

KEBLE ON ARCHITECTURE. 217
of time at Barbadoes to designing some homely
Tuscan addition to Codrington College.
Keble was a latitudinarian, if not a utilitarian, in
architecture He could see a soul in everything if he
could only be allowed to enjoy the illusion. Travelling
with me on the top of a coach he came in sight of the
west front of Lichfield Cathedral, and fell into rap
tures. ' They do nothing like that in these days.' I let
him go on for some time, and then had the wickedness
to tell him that only a year before I had seen the entire
front chopped and chiselled away, sheets of copper
laid on the rough wall, big nails driven in, tarred cords
stretched from nail to nail, and all the niches, saints
and angels of the old work reproduced in Roman
cement upon this artificial backing. I received a very
sharp rebuke indeed for not letting him remain under
an illusion, which had been honestly intended, and
which had contributed to his happiness. ' What good
could it do to him to know how the thing was done ? '
A few hours after, on my taking him into the
market-place of Derby, he was at once struck with the
very graceful and airy Ionic portico then standing
before the newly-finished Town Hall. ' It seems to
take the town under its protection,' he said, which was
indeed the effect. Municipalities have lost favour
with advanced Church-people latterly, but Keble was
far too much of a scholar not to reverence the institu
tion which formed the central point of so much ancient
virtue and piety.
Many years after this, at the consecration of one
of his new churches in Hursley parish, he said to me

218 JOHN KEBLE.
' Come this way, and I'll show you something very
unpleasant' It was the side of the church away from
the public road, where, for economy, brick had been
used instead of flint or stone.
I think we all of us found it easier to admire, and
even to criticise, than to design. Keble, Froude, and
Ogilvie undertook a memorial of William Churton, to
be placed in St. Mary's. It was to be simple, modest,
and unobtrusive, like the subject. Whether the result
carried out this idea I leave others to say.

CHAPTER XXXIV.
JOHN KEBLE.

John Keble was at this time the sun of this little
world. Most of its happy members knew the ' Chris
tian Year' by heart. There were interesting ques
tions as to the meaning of a few passages, and some
of the transitions could be variously accounted for.
But a meaning there must be, even though ordinary
men might not be able to penetrate into it. For some
years after the publication of the ' Christian Year,' and
its intimate reception into many thousand hearts and
minds, there was no other published work whatever
that could be called the distinctive literature of the
new Oriel school, taking the place of the ' Noetic '
philosophy. Not only did Keble lead, but he was

'THE CHRISTIAN YEAR.' 219
alone as an author. Had Keble remained quite as
he was for two or three years more, and had the
others been content to preach and to talk, half Oxford,
and a great part of England, would have been called
Kebleans to this day most probably.
But Keble's shy, retiring habits must have always
disqualified him for the difficult task of getting many
men to work together in some practical fashion.
From all I could hear, he spent his earlier years in what
may be called the sacred seclusion of old English
family life, among people enjoying a perfect harmony
of taste and opinion. His nature, indeed his very ap
pearance, was such as to move the affection of all about
him, and he could hardly ever have the least need of
those rebukes and contradictions that pursue ordinary
people from infancy to manhood, indeed later still.
From the time he was known to write verses, he
could not go anywhere without finding that he must
leave a blessing behind him in the form of some con
tribution to a lady's album. At least he must read
something he had written elsewhere. Some months be
fore the publication ofthe' Christian Year' in 1827, it
was reported that Keble had been persuaded to collect
and publish his stray pieces. Several of the Sundays
had had to be composed very hastily, in a morning's
walk for example, to complete the series. This must
be all the foundation for the stories of Keble going
to this or that house, and reading the whole ' Chris
tian Year ' before publication.
Such a training had not that admixture of rough
ness which is necessary to fit a man for the work of
this rude world. He could only live in a calm and sweet

220 JOHN KEBLE.
atmosphere of his own. He had not the qualities for
controversy, or debate, which are necessary for any
kind of public life. He very soon lost his temper in
discussion. It is true there were one or two in our
college who might have tried the temper of an angel,
but there really was no getting on with Keble with
out entire agreement, that is submission. This was
the more lamentable in that some very small matters
came in those days to be raised into tests of loyalty
and orthodoxy.
Keble was evidently shrinking from the general
society of tbe college in my time, though a large part
were devoted to him. But here was a puzzle, which
often occurred to me, then and after. How had he
managed to get on with the old Oriel school ? Was
it that the theological question was less developed
then ? It was not till his deathbed that Keble
would give up the famous line in the ' Christian Year '
that gave so much offence to his High Church ad
mirers. Was it that all scholars, and all divines, and
all who read their Bibles through, had been thrown
together by a common necessity to defend faith,
truth, godliness, and common sense against infidelity
on the one hand and Simeon on the other ? No
doubt scholarship created a community of feeling, for
Coplestone and Keble might have much to say to one
another without approaching theology or any Church
question. When Keble's favourite pupil, Sir William Heath
cote, then member for Hants, and afterwards for the
University, invited him to Hursley, he created the
most beautiful picture of English society that this

HURSLEY. 221
century can show. Away from the garish metropolis,
the proud cathedral, and the restless university, Keble
pursued quietly that sublime life of pastoral duty
which is so little esteemed in these days. The great
poet of his Church was content to spend himself in
those humble ministrations which noisy pulpit ad
venturers proclaim to be utterly beneath their notice,
not to say their contempt.
But there are inevitable drawbacks in any earthly
position. People felt, not unjustly, that Keble was,
as it were, a little smothered in the embrace of a not
very large-minded or open-minded section of the
aristocracy. Landowners cannot help being very
sensitive on points that affect, as they think, their
very existence, and this tenderness they cannot but
impart to their sympathising surroundings. I re
member one of Keble's curates, a strong, healthy
man, bursting into tears as he related that Sir
William would probably have to put down one of his
equipages on the repeal of the Corn Laws. Well,
Keble would not have done this, yet it was impossible
not to feel that his sympathies were very one-sided,
and not enlarged or corrected, so to speak, up to the
actual state of things in the Church and in the world.
Moreover, people who have found a quiet har-
¦bour and made up their minds to remain there, are
not quite the best advisers for those who are still
struggling with the currents and storms of life. Keble
induced a number of his neighbours and friends to
sign a protest against Her Majesty choosing a
Lutheran Prince for one of her son's godfathers. It
must immediately occur to any reasonable person that

222 JOHN KEBLE.
the Vicar of Hursley had nothing at all to do with it,
and that if anybody had a call to interfere it was the
Primate. But Keble can hardly have considered the.
certain consequences to the signatories. He had
himself renounced all hope of promotion, but there
might be some of them to whom it was almost a
necessity. Moberly was kept at the grindstone for
many years after his strength had begun to fail, and
his soul to desire refreshment, through his compliance
with this most unnecessary, indeed unjustifiable act.
Keble had not the art, only to be attained by the
best natures, assisted by the best breeding and the
most propitious circumstances, of being quite ready
for any occasion and meeting it perfectly. If one
heard nothing at all about a man, except the very
trifling incident I am about to relate, one would call
him very absent, or awkward, or something of that
sort. On one of the few occasions on which I was at
Hursley, we spent the evening in the drawing-room ;
Keble and I on one side of the large round table of
the period, and Miss Coxwell, afterwards Mrs. Peter
Young, on the other side. We were talking. The
young lady was at some needlework that required
both the two candles to be brought close to it. The
candles, like all the candles of those days, rapidly
acquired huge chignons. Keble made a long arm,
drew the candles across the table close to the edge
on his side, and deftly applying the snuffers, restored
the wicks to their proper form. But he omitted to
replace the candles, and the young lady was even
worse off than before he had come to her rescue.

SURSUM CORDA. 223
When sufficient time had elapsed to disconnect the
reclamation of the missing candles from their abstrac
tor, she stretched across the table and replaced them
close to her work. In a quarter of an hour the same
double process was repeated, and so it went on all
the evening. I think we all three failed in this
matter. Keble of course did, in not completing his
well-intended kindness ; the lady might have asked
for the return ofthe candles in a way to impress by its
prettiness ; and I might have amused Keble and the
young lady too by pointing out what he was doing.
Such matters, small as they are, nay the more
because they are small, are a school for important
matters, often ill done from want of ' manner,' that
is an address at once genial and plain. The art of
making really good capital out of such light stuff
as ' chaffing ' or persiflage is best learnt at public
schools and in good society, so as it be not the so
ciety just of a parish or a clique. But of course there
are those who never learn it, for it requires a man to
be quick of tongue, simple and kind.
One little way Keble had which must recur to the
recollection of those who knew him. It was his habit
of suddenly rousing himself, shaking himself rather,
throwing his shoulders back, and raising his head.
Perhaps his friends, in view of George Herbert's
consumptive habits and early death, had often cau
tioned him against stooping. Perhaps it was the
heroic element struggling against the downward ten
dency of a weak frame. When I last saw Keble,
past seventy, he was brisk and upright, though read
ing and writing more than most people. The trick I

224 FROUDE.
have mentioned, which was indeed a spontaneous
convulsion of the whole frame, reminded me of George
Herbert's quaint appeal to England, to spit out her
phlegm and fill her breast with glory. If people
would but observe some such Sursum corda every
quarter of an hour, they would be able to make a
better resistance to the weight of years, and what
ever else time and decay are sure to bring.

CHAPTER XXXV.
FROUDE.

No one, even then, would have said that Newman
was simply the greatest man among Keble's ad
mirers. He was no more that than he was an
' Evangelical ' of the St. Edmund Hall school, or a
destructive logician of the Whately type. He has
repeatedly said what he was at all times. He was
always for a thorough religious conversion, with a real
sense of it ; a deep sense of the necessity of doctrinal
truth, and an absolute devotion to its claims. No
wonder that even when Keble might have heard him
in the pulpit many times, and must have had many
talks with him, alone or in company, and must also
have heard common friends discuss him freely, he
still saw the trappings of his old Calvinistic harness
hanging about him.

FROM ETON TO ORIEL. 225
But what was there — who was there — that may
have contributed much to determine the direction of
this great movement? Robert Wilberforce, besides
being a scholar and a theologian, was a conscientious
and most laborious man ; and, with his youngest
brother Henry, was no inconsiderable power. He was
also a very good college tutor, with the special quali
ties for instilling philosophy, poetry, and scholarship
into ordinary minds. But he attained not to the
foremost rank of the little body now about to shake
the Anglican world. If there ever could be any
question as to the master spirit of this movement,
which now would be a very speculative question in
deed, it lies between John Henry Newman and
Richard Hurrell Froude.
Froude was a man, such as there are now and then,
of whom it is impossible for those that have known
him to speak without exceeding the bounds of com
mon admiration and affection. He was elder brother
of William, the distinguished engineer, who died
lately, after rendering, and while still rendering, most
im portant services to the Admiralty, and of An
thony, the well-known historian, the sons of Arch
deacon Froude, a scholar and no mean artist. Richard
came to Oriel from Eton, a school which does not
make every boy a scholar, if it even tries to do so,
but which somehow implants in every nature a gene
rous ambition of one kind or other.
As an undergraduate he waged a ruthless war
against sophistry and loud talk, and he gibbeted one
or two victims, labelling their sophisms with their
names. Elected to a Fellowship, and now the com-
VOL. I. Q

226 FROUDE.
panion of Newman and Pusey, not to speak of elders
and juniors, he had to wield his weapons more reve
rentially and warily. But he had no wish to do
otherwise. His figure and manner were such as to command
the confidence and affection of those about him. Tall,
erect, very thin, never resting or sparing himself,
investigating and explaining with unwearied energy,
incisive in his language, and with a certain fiery force
of look and tone, he seemed a sort of angelic presence
to weaker natures. He slashed at the shams, phrases,
and disguises in which the lazy or the pretentious
veil their real ignorance or folly. His features readily
expressed every varying mood of playfulness, sad
ness, and awe. There were those about him who
would rather writhe under his most cutting sarcasms
than miss their part in the workings of his sympathy
and genius.
Froude was a Tory, with that transcendental idea
of the English gentleman which forms the basis of
Toryism. He was a High Churchman ofthe uncom
promising school, very early taking part with Anselm,
Becket, Laud, and the Nonjurors. Woe to anyone
who dropped in his hearing such phrases as the dark
ages, superstition, bigotry, right of private judgment,
enlightenment, march of mind, or progress. When a
stray man of science fell back on ' law,' or a ' subtle
medium,' or any other device for making matter its own
lord and master, it was as if a fox had broken cover ;
there ensued a chase and no mercy.
Luxury, show, and even comfort he despised and
denounced. He very consistently urged that the

TORY AND ASCETIC. 227
expenses of Eton should be kept down so low as to
enable every ordinary incumbent to send his sons
there to be trained for the ministry. All his ideas of
college life were frugal and ascetic. Having need of a
press for his increasing papers and books, he had one
made of plain deal. It must have been Woodgate
who came in one day, and finding some red chalk,
ornamented the press with grotesque figures, which
long were there. Froude and Newman induced
several of the Fellows to discontinue wine in the
common room. As they had already had a glass or
two at the high table, they did not require more.
There was only one objection to the discontinuance,
but it was fatal at last ; and that was its inconvenience
when strangers were present.
This preference of tea to wine was no great inno
vation in Oriel. When I came up at Easter, 1825,
one of the first standing jokes against the college, all
over the university, was the ' Oriel teapot,' supposed
to be always ready ; the centre of the Oriel circle,
and its special inspiration. How there ever came to
be such an idea I cannot guess, but wherever I went,
when I passed the wine, I was asked whether I would
not prefer some tea, much to the amusement of the
table. Self-renunciation in every form he could believe
in ; most of all in a gentleman, particularly one of a
good Devonshire family. His acquaintance with
country gentlemen had been special, perhaps fortunate.
He had not been in the north of England, in the
eastern counties, or in the midlands. It was therefore
in perfect simplicity that, upon hearing one day the
Q2

228 FROUDE,
description of a new member in the Reformed
Parliament, he exclaimed, ' Fancy a gentleman not
knowing Greek ! ' I chanced one day to drop most
inconsiderately that all were born alike, and that
they were made what they are by circumstances and
education. Never did I hear the end of that No
retractation or qualification would avail.
When Mr. Bulteel, a Fellow and tutor of Exeter
College, mounted the pulpit of St. Mary's, denounced
the university and the Church of England, took his
name off the books, married the sister of a pastry
cook in High Street, and set up a meeting-house
behind Pembroke College, Froude went about for
days with a rueful countenance, and could only say
' Poor Bulteel ! ' He had married a housekeeper, no
doubt, Froude thoroughly believed, to chasten his
earthly affections and show what a minister ought to
be. Nor was Froude's faith in his fellow-countyman
much shaken when it turned out that the pastry
cook's sister was still young, accomplished, rather
good-looking, not at all dowdy, and that she had a
good fortune of her own.
Not to speak of Froude's laborious researches into
the history and correspondence of Thomas a Becket,
the writer most on his table and his tongue was the
above-mentioned William Law, of the second school
of Nonjurors, the author of the ' Serious Call,' the
antagonist of Hoadly, and the ' most honoured friend
and spiritual guide of the whole Gibbon family,' of
whom Warburton says that ' he begat Methodism.'

COLLEGE LECTURES AND CLASSES. 229

CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE TUITION REVOLUTIONISED.
IN 1 83 1 Newman had finally ceased to be tutor, and
to explain this important and to him very painful de
privation, it is necessary to go back a year or two.
When he, Wilberforce, and Froude had been working
together in the tuition for some terms, and bestowing
on their pupils as much time and trouble as is usually
only expected from very good private tutors, they
proposed to the Provost some improvements in the
course of lectures, the selection of books, and the
formation of the classes. Dornford was still tutor,
but that would have been no difficulty, for he would
have had the choice of profiting by the new arrange
ment, or, if he should prefer it, having his own classes
and his own books, by the old routine.
The discussions on these points extended through
the year 1829, and were concluded early in 1830.
Not to speak of the introduction of modern books to
be compared with the ancient classics, as, for example,
Butler's Analogy to be read by the side of Lucretius —
an innovation claimed for Hampden by his biographer
— the principles of the proposed arrangement were an
exacter regard to the character and special gifts of
each undergraduate, and a closer relation between
him and his tutor. It was a large and novel propo
sition in those days.
The Provost received it with a suspicion amounting

230 THE TUITION REVOLUTIONISED.
to dismay. He felt that the tutors would thereby
have the tuition entirely in their own hands, and
that he might find himself left out of the actual
course of studies and out of the current of college
thought and feeling. It might be all well, he said,
while those three men were the tutors, but supposing
a tutor with an ambitious spirit and revolutionary
views, how was the Provost to control him ?
There was also an immediate and practical diffi
culty of which Hawkins must have had experience
the very first year of his Provostship. The three
tutors named were even then lecturing in new books,
such as the minor Latin poets. Three times a year,
at the end of each term, every undergraduate in his
turn was summoned to the Tower, that is the room
over the college gateway, and examined in all that
he had been doing. These Collections, as they were
called, were formidable enough to idle students ; not
so to the examiners, who had gone through the books
often, and who would select their own passages and
, ask their own questions. But if the tutors were to
be always introducing new books, the Provost would
have to get them up also, or would have to be content
with taking little part in the examinations. Hawkins
was about as equal to such an emergency as most
men would be. In his own lectures he would occa
sionally save himself the trouble of laborious prepara
tion, yet detect the omission of it in the class. Thus
in reading the Tusculan Disputations he once
turned over several leaves and said, 'Please go on
there, Mr.  .' The unhappy man immediately
came upon the word Equuleus, and rendered it 'a

COUP D'ETAT. 231
little horse ; ' nor was anyone in the class wiser. It is
' a rack of torture' So ancient is the practice of giving
fond names to diabolical devices.
I do not think the Provost can have objected to
the moderate introduction of modern classics for
illustration and comparison with the old. His edition
of Milton's ' Paradise Lost,' published before this
date, illustrates with a great abundance of quotations
the classical allusions in the poem, just as the school
editions of Virgil give the passages from Hesiod,
Homer, Aratus, Theocritus, and Columella. But I
should think it likely he would insist at least on a
veto in the selection of modern authors.
The proposals of the three tutors, however, went
beyond the selection of books, for they amounted to
a new organisation of the college, as far as the studies
were concerned, and they were likely to include the
discipline also. There ensued a controversy as to
the academic position of a college tutor, to which the
Provost would not allow a substantive character.
His idea was the French king's — 'L'/tat, c'est moi.'
As the three tutors persisted, the Provost announced
that no more undergraduates would be entered to
their names, so that in three years they would have
no classes at all, and that meanwhile he would find
lecturers to do the work.
There were younger Fellows coming on, and the
future was no difficulty. The present emergency was
serious, and the Provost met it with an expedient
which was a great shock to the old college traditions
of Oxford. Hampden, a former Fellow, a man of
ability and university distinction, was then residing

232 THE TUITION REVOLUTIONISED.
with his family, and taking private pupils at the
other end of St. Giles's, and the Provost invited him
to give the lectures, for which his learning and his
intellect undoubtedly qualified him. It was not a
popular step, and it was not successful ; but if the
Provost was to hold to his declared views, there was
nothing else to be done, and he could hardly be
blamed for availing himself of a good instrument
found at hand in the hour of need. The tutors finding
their classes dwindling, soon left the Provost in sole
possession of the ground, but only to find the rising
tide of academic revolution bringing on changes far
greater than those he had resisted.
In some respects the points contended for by the
three tutors were singularly prophetic. They asked
for subjects, rather than particular books ; they asked
for properly composed classes ; and they asked for
the fittest men to teach each class, though it does not
appear that they distinctly recognised that the last
demand would be likely in time to interfere with the
monopoly hitherto possessed by the college tutor.
Few can see the inevitable consequences of their own
acts. The Provost certainly did not see that he was
breaking up the college system, upon which his own
exclusive claims over the teaching of the under
graduates depended, when he invited a married
lecturer to visit the college just for his hour's work
and no more. Little, too, did he see that by insisting
on his rights he was hastening the day when the
younger members, alike of the college and of the
university, would obtain their share in the government
of both, and by their greater activity and aptitude

ARNOLDS OWN SYSTEM. 233
for new formations would in effect leave their elders
behind. Nevertheless it cannot be denied that the Provost
seemed to be justified by the event in not virtually
resigning the education of his college into Newman's
hands. He foresaw the consequences of Newman's
policy, though, happily for his present comfort, he did
not foresee the consequences of his own.
There were men, however, who might have been
consulted, and who ought to have been consulted,
and who could have told the Provost that the three
tutors had both right and the public interest on
their side. Arnold was now conducting Rugby on
the principle of selection, adaptation, and careful
manipulation. He was sending away every boy not
likely to do good to himself or to the school. Con
tenting himself with a general oversight of the rest,
he chiefly devoted himself to the ' Sixth,' that is, the
forty boys most qualified to benefit by his instruction.
He also innovated considerably on the old routine of
books and studies. It is impossible to imagine a
greater innovation than to occupy lads of sixteen and
under in the unfathomable problems of Niebuhr's
' Roman History.'
Some years before this, when at Charterhouse,
beaten as I was out of the construing by the quick
ness of the pace, I amused myself with drawing up a
genealogical table illustrating the absurdities of Livy's
chronology. I handed it to Russell, who looked
over it and returned it with a smile, as much as to say
it was a matter one need not trouble about.
The position Arnold made for himself was that of

234 THE TUITION REVOLUTIONISED.
a private tutor, with the pick of a large public school,
itself purged by frequent dismissals, and in the hands
of colleagues of his own choosing. It is hardly to be
supposed that he would have advised his friend the
Provost of Oriel to inflict on the three tutors an in
variable routine, without any choice in the selection
or the arrangement of the young men admitted into
the college, not invariably by the rule of selection,
some indeed chiefly on the recommendation of wealth
or rank. It is true the example of a public school
does not apply in all respects to a college ; for in a
public school the head master is the teacher, while
the head of a college is not. But Arnold's practice
pointed to the necessity of careful selection, manipu
lation of classes, and adaptation of studies, to be
placed in the hands of the actual teachers, that is the
tutors. Both the statutes of the university, and the practice
ancient and still existent, left the studies very much
in the hands of the tutors and at their discretion —
indeed, during last century to an extreme degree.
The Provost had to confess to this by altering the
usage, and virtually violating the statutes, for thence
forward he had to enter undergraduates no longer
under respective tutors, but under one common name
for form sake. By accepting the tuition on this
footing, Hampden lent himself to alter the custom of
the college, to deprive the undergraduates of real
tuition, and to oust the real tutors, whom he was in
vited to supersede.
Hampden was the man of all others to appreciate
the advantage of real tuition. It must have been

TUITION A DAILY EXAMINATION. 235
ever present to his mind that the practical interest
taken in him by his own tutor, Davison, from the day
he entered Oriel, had been, as they say, the making
of him. Davison himself was very strong on this
point The 'Edinburgh Review' had charged the
University of Oxford with the scantiness and weakness
of its public examinations. To this Davison replied
that the reviewer had forgotten that at Oxford the
colleges did the work of the university ; and that every
undergraduate was under examination sufficiently
public every day, finishing with a solemn examina
tion by the Provost and tutors at the end of the term.
This would not be thought a sufficient answer in these
days, but its very insufficiency shows the immense
reliance which Davison placed on the then existing
system of handing the undergraduate over to the
tutors, and expecting them to do everything for him.
Of course Hampden must be assumed to have thought
himself right, under the present circumstances, but he
was not quite in a position to complain of persecution,
carried on, he said, not merely in controversy, where
he gave as much as he took, but in the more painful
form of social affronts, which he imagined himself to
be continually receiving.
More than a year elapsed between the introduc
tion of Hampden and Newman's final release from
the tuition. He held on till he found himself alone,
when he felt his position no longer tenable. Mean
time there had arisen an awkward question. The
college, not the Provost alone, had the appointment
to the college offices, dean, treasurer, junior treasurer,
and librarian. They had generally been held by

236 THE TUITION REVOLUTIONISED.
tutors. Froude and Wilberforce thought it important
that the Fellows should assert the right of inde
pendent choice, as otherwise a precedent would be set
up for allowing the offices to be as much at the dis
posal of the Provost as he claimed the tuition to be.
There were certain names which it was understood
the Provost desired. A counter-programme was
suggested, containing Newman's name. On these
occasions it was the custom of the Fellows to form
themselves in the order of seniority, and for the
youngest Fellow to be called on first to name the man
for the office. I happened to be youngest Fellow.
Every name of the opposition programme in my hand
was carried. I found it too much for my nerve. Passing
the night without sleep, all next morning's chapel
I was in tears. However, I met with nothing but
kindness, and between the Fellows themselves there
was no sore on this point.
Late in 1835 or early in 1836, the Provost walked
across the Quad in his academicals, and asked me
whether I was willing to take a part in the tuition. I
was much surprised at the question. I can now
hardly say why. From the beginning of the contro
versy I had taken the part of the three tutors, and
had given up all thought of the tuition. I did not
take into account that the Provost had no call to re
cognise this, even if he suspected it, and that he was
justified, indeed necessitated, to do whatever he could
to carry on the tuition as much as possible in the old
lines, that is by resident Fellows. But I had to reply.
I did not wish to argue the question between him and
Newman ; indeed, it would have been ridiculous for

THE OFFER OF A TUTORSHIP, 237
me to make the attempt. So I replied that I did not
feel myself equal to the tuition.
A thousand times have I asked myself the question
whether I lied or not in that statement. I had un
bounded confidence in myself. I had all my life learnt
more by teaching than by solitary study. I could
certainly keep ahead of my pupils, which was all that
many tutors ever did. I could come round my class
by questions they were not prepared for. I was sure
always to hear mistakes which it would be easy to
correct. In matter of fact a tutor often did no more
than half of the class could have done quite as well.
Though the method of instruction was very effectual,
yet it was easy sailing. Moreover, I had not quite
given up my classics, for I had been tutorising a
younger brother, and had just taken a Winchester lad
at a hand gallop through the Odyssey, my instruc
tions — very unnecessary — being not to make him too
much of a scholar. I had also had nightly village
classes in the New Testament.
The Provost made matters easier for my con
science by the next question, which was to the effect
that he was to understand I had not kept up my
books. As for 'my books,' those that I had taken up
for my examinations were a beggarly account indeed,
but the phrase was usually employed to denote the
'sciences,' that is the chief philosophical works of
Aristotle, and other books of special difficulty. It
was quite true that I had not once looked into the
Rhetoric, or the Ethics, or the Politics, or the Greek
Plays, or Pindar, or even Herodotus. So it was true
I had not kept up my books. But though that was

238 NEWMAN AT ST. MARY'S.
true, it was not the whole truth; for I had pur
posely not kept them up, as having no thought of the
tuition, and this I did not tell the Provost. As far as
I am concerned I hope I have now made a clean
breast. But why did the Provost make the proposal, and
with such solemnity ? I think I see it. On his view
of the case I was bound to take part in the usual
college duties. Nay, I had taken the office of junior
treasurer, and also that of Censor Theologicus. As it
was my duty to take part in the tuition, it was his
duty to propose it. He had also laid down, as Cople-
stone had before him, that a Fellow ought not to take
rooms in college unless he were tutor, and there I was
in college, and not a tutor.

CHAPTER XXXVII.
NEWMAN AT ST. MARY'S.

Newman was now one of the preachers of the day.
Oxford, it must be remembered, receives twelve
hundred young men from all parts of these isles, three
times a year, sending them back again after a few
weeks, to stand a fire of questions, to tell their fresh
experiences, to cheer solitudes with bright images, and
to enliven monotony with novel characters and utter
ances. Every undergraduate visits alternately the

STRANGE NEWS FROM OXFORD. 239
centre and the extremity of his system a dozen times,
and is every time more and more looked for and wel
comed. By the year 18.31 undergraduates from the
Lakes, from Ireland, even from Scotland, from houses
long addicted to Cambridge, or sat upon, from all
time, by the metropolis ; from parsonages occupied
by the same family and the same traditional opinions
time out of mind ; were all coming up and securing the
next Sunday afternoon a good place at St. Mary's.
Many of them, perhaps most of them, being of
other colleges, were never in the same room with
Newman, and never exchanged a word with him..
Frederick Faber came up in the summer of 1832, and
at once attached himself to the St. Mary's congrega
tion. He was a singularly attractive and popular
person, making friends all around, but was not per
sonally acquainted with Newman till three or four
years after. He missed at St. Mary's the continual
introspection, the experiences, the emotions, and the
assurances in which he had been bred up.
No wonder that Newman now found himself re
garded with deep though indefinite suspicion by the
party which had hitherto claimed the monopoly of
gospel truth. That undergraduates should flock to a
parish service, to hear a man with whom they had no
university or college relations, was a serious incident
and must have its meaning. It brought, however, no
accession to the weekly tea-meetings at St. Edmund
Hall, and there was evidently a distance between the
two circles. The Evangelical parents of the man who
came home talking about nobody but Newman, and
about nothing but his sermons, were sorely perturbed

240 NEWMAN AT ST. MARY'S.
and seized every opportunity for penetrating the
mystery. Visiting such a household, many miles from Ox
ford, in the summer of 1831, I was urged, besought,
and invoked a dozen times over in one evening, to
say truly and outright, with no faltering or speciality
of tone, but in the orthodox accents of unflinching
certainty, whether Newman was a 'good man.' On
the right ring of the response depended the happiness
of a poor lady who had recently dismissed, after many
years of faithful service, a housekeeper whose only
crime was escorting a visitor across a single field in
her master's grounds on a Sunday afternoon.
An Oxford clergyman of the same school gave a
remarkable, though unintended testimony, to this oft-
challenged ' goodness.' There was cholera in Oxford,
and he had to take his usual holiday. There might
be some visiting necessary, and funerals involving
danger. Clergymen under no obligation to incur the
risk might hold it their duty to avoid it. So he care
fully drew up a long list of clergymen to be applied to
in the order stated, and gave it to his clerk in case of
need. One of the clergy applied to took the list
out of the clerk's hand, and found it headed with
Newman's name, followed by those of his known
friends in the order of their reputed devotion to him.
After this came the clergymen of this gentleman's
own school. It was never known whether he made
this arrangement as thinking the clergymen first in
his list more likely to attend the summons, or as deem
ing their lives less precious than those of his own
friends.

CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 241
Whether acting in defence or not, Newman had
resigned the secretaryship of the local Church Mis
sionary Society, on the ground that it dispensed with
the necessity of bishops, as he explained at length in
a pamphlet. The step much simplified his relations
with some former coadjutors. This pamphlet I read
at the time — indeed, I think Newman gave me a copy-
I remember my impression, superficial as it might be.
It was that Newman had found it necessary to make
a stand against a general decay of faith and authority.
He would not be swept down in a current overpower
ing in its bulk, though composed of inferior material.
He must cling to something, and it must be a Divine
ordinance, and this he found in the Bishops, or in what
shortly became a watchword, and then a byword,
' Apostolical Succession.'

CHAPTER XXXVIII.
ST. EDMUND HALL.

IN a back lane, buried between the splendid buildings
of Queen's, the Norman tower of St Peter's, and the
tall limes of New College garden, is the very ancient
Hall of St. Edmund, so named after an Archbishop of
Canterbury, canonised by Innocent III. It had not
been true to the religio loci ; in fact Henry VIII. had
stept in the way. When I came to Oxford, it was
VOL. I. R

242 .ST. EDMUND HALL.
soon pointed out to me as the headquarters, the cave,
the den of the ' Evangelical party.' It was entirely in
the hands of the Vice-Principal, Mr. Hill, who ran a
long, a consistent, and an honourable career, but, so
far as the Hall was concerned, singularly unsuccess
ful — indeed, doomed to disappointment. Mr. Hill was
a good scholar. He did his duty to his men as a
tutor and as a shepherd of souls, and the Hall had, I
believe, a good character in the schools. But it was
expected to do and be more. It was to be a burning
and shining light in the surrounding darkness, and
that it entirely failed to be.
The society was formed by selection. It consisted
of young men who had shown early ability, and some
interesting form of goodness ; who made a profession
and aspired to the ministry, but whose immediate
relatives were too poor to send them to an ordinary
college. A benevolent friend, a good uncle, or a
society, had taken compassion on them, and sent them
to St. Edmund Hall, where spirituality and economy
were said to be combined. Thus all the circumstances
and signs of failure were here concentrated in one
focus. All were poor, struggling men, starting with
the fixed idea that they were out of society, which, it
was a comfort to think, was too worldly and wicked a
thing to be coveted, or envied.
There were men of reading and of learning there,
but they did not find themselves at home, and they
made their escape to another college at the first op
portunity — Jacobson to wit. Matters must have been
even worse at the beginning of the century. An old
family friend of mine, Mr. Wayland, together with his

EDMUND HALL MEN. 243
friend Mr. Joyce, who became a popular private tutor,
and used to help Lord Grenville to write Elegiacs
on his departed dogs, and another literary gentleman,
found themselves thrown together by misdirected
kindness in St Edmund Hall. I cannot say that they
blessed the friends who had so ordered their career.
They were French and Italian scholars, and had seen
a little of the world. Mr. Wayland's favourite author
was Horace, and one of my saddest experiences was
the death of his only son Horace, when I was on a
visit to his parsonage. These three gentlemen, who
must have been at the Hall in the first years of the
century, declared there was then nobody there they
could associate with.
The Edmund Hall men could be known any
where. They were either very shabby or very foppish.
They all had the look of dirt, which perhaps was not
their fault, for they had dirty complexions. How is
it that goodness, poverty, and a certain amount of
literary or religious ambition, produce an unpleasant
effect on the skin ? There must have been something
in the air of the spot, which certainly was a dark hole.
In those days the university sermons were occasion
ally preached at St. Peter's, adjoining St. Edmund
Hall. The undergraduates of the Hall felt it their own
ground, and took early possession of the front rows
of the gallery. I shall not say who it was — but he
became a very distinguished Prelate — proposed that
before the opening of the church door, there should be
arranged a row of basins of water, with soap and
towels, on the book ledge before the front row, with
the admonition to wash and be clean.
B 2

244 ST. EDMUND HALL.
Having no secular literature, no great matters to
talk about, and very little indeed of what is now
called Biblical literature, these men gossiped, gos
siped, gossiped, from morning to night, running about
from room to room in quest of somebody to talk with
and something to talk about. An acquaintance of
mine with friends there related that an undergraduate,
finding himself obliged to disappoint some regular
callers, chalked on his ' oak ' ' I shall be out till two,
after that I shall be in.' Wit was not altogether
extinct in St. Edmund Hall, for a friend chalked ' st '
before ' out,' and ' th ' before ' in.'
As the St. Edmund Hall men divided their time
between self-contemplation, mutual amusement, and
the reading of emotional works ; studying no history,
not even critically studying the Scriptures, and know
ing no more of the world than sufficed to condemn
it, they naturally, and perforce, were driven into a
very dangerous corner. This was invention. Their
knowledge was imaginary. So too was their intro
spection, their future, sometimes even their past. All
precocity is apt to take this form. The quick ripening
mind, for lack of other matter, feeds upon itself.
These young men had been reared on unsubstantial
and stimulating food ; on pious tales, on high-wrought
deathbeds, on conversations as they ought to have
been, on one-sided biographies. Truth of opinion,
they had always been told, was incomparably more
important than truth of fact. Henry Wilberforce
used to relate the rather unguarded speech of a
well-known Archdeacon, friend of Sumner, Bishop
of Winchester. 'It's remarkable that all the most

EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF IMAGINATION. 245
spiritually-minded men I have known were in their
youth extraordinary liars.'
Golightly was shy of the St. Edmund Hall men.
He could not but be shy, for they would have expected
introductions which he could not have given them
Nor did he much like them. However, one of them,
by his insinuating manners and glibness of tongue,
managed to break through social defences, and
Golightly became much interested in him. He had
already won all hearts in his own Hall. His name I
remember, but when I have finished my say the
reader will see why I do not state it. When this
man had been at Oxford so long as to be about to
take his degree, there was a sad exposure. He had
been going on for years showing every now and then
most interesting love-letters from various ladies com
peting for his hand, while he could still say he was
free. He showed also copies of his own replies, and
there would sometimes be a muster of his friends to
hear the next news from this or that distracted adorer.
All at once it was discovered that the man had
written .all the letters, those of the ladies as well as his
own. He had to humble himself before the Hall, and
Golightly came in afterwards to administer a tremen
dous verbal castigation. In a year or so Golightly
heard that the man was about to be ordained with a
title to an important town curacy in one of the home
counties. He immediately drew up a full statement
of the man's delinquencies and sent it to Sumner.
By the very showing of the case it was now a by
gone affair. The man had repented ; he had made
public amends, and he had been absolved by Mr.

246 THE ' THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY.'
Hill, whose testimonials he presented to the Bishop.
Sumner could do nothing. But Golightly was far
from satisfied. He, shrewdest of men, with a spe
cial insight into character, had opened his house
and his heart to a liar and an impostor. Unless I am
mistaken in the identity, the man achieved a long,
useful, and honourable career. No doubt, in other
spheres as well as in the Church, many a youthful
liar has become an honest man, though finding honesty
the less easy for his early bias the other way.

CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE 'THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY.'
In the year 183 1, in a Vacation, when Newman and
Blanco White had the college very much to them
selves, the same post brought them invitations from
Mr. Hugh James Rose to contribute to the ' Theologi
cal Library,' about to be published by Mr. Rivington.
The first number, containing the ' Life of Wiclif,' by Mr.
Le Bas, came out the following year, and the annexed
programme announced that there were already in pre
paration — the ' Consistency of Revelation,' by Dr.
Shuttleworth ; the ' History of the Inquisition,' by
Joseph Blanco White ; the ' History of the Principal
Councils,' by J. H. Newman ; and the ' Life of
Martin Luther,' by H. J. Rose. They were to be

TWO COLLEAGUES. 247
handy little volumes, uniform, and with appropriate
embellishments. Both the Oriel men were well pleased. It would
be Newman's introduction to the literary and theo
logical world, for he "had not yet achieved any con
siderable publication. Blanco White was at the
time very much out of humour with litt/rateurs and
publishers, and was becoming rather tedious in his
gossip about people little known at Oxford. So this
was a turn of fortune in his favour. The two col
leagues, as they were now to be, compared notes, and
immediately made inquiries about the books it would
be necessary to read and the time they would have
to do it in. As they met frequently, and could not
but ask one another questions, there was a growing
sense of difficulty and something like reserve on both
sides. Up to this time there had been no reserve
beyond that arising from difference of occupations
and studies, and from each having his own more inti
mate friends.
Both were violinists, but with different instru
ments. Blanco White's was a very small instrument
whatever its technical name. Poor gentleman ! Night
after night anyone walking in the silence of Merton
Lane might hear his continual attempts to surmount
some little difficulty, returning to it again and again,
Hke Philomel to her vain regrets. With Reinagle
and an amateur, Newman and Blanco White had fre
quent quartettes at the latter's lodgings, where I was
all the audience I have long been unable to recall
the figure or the performance of the nameless ama
teur, and have latterly suspected him to be a shade of

248 THE 'THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY.'
my own raising, and that these were trios. Most
interesting was it to contrast Blanco White's excited
and indeed agitated countenance with Newman's
sphinxlike immobility, as the latter drew long rich
notes with a steady hand.
Neither of the above undertakings was fruitless,
but in neither case did the results appear in the
' Theological Library,' or in the intended form, or upon
the matter that Hugh J. Rose had indicated. In
July, 1833, Newman's labours revealed themselves in
the ' History of the Arians,' completed the previous
year, in writing which he saw what he calls the
' ghost,' which eventually drove him to the Church of
Rome ; and in June, 1835, Blanco White gave to the
world, from Liverpool, his ' Observations on Heresy
and Orthodoxy,' announcing his rejection of the
whole patristic theology, and his profession of Chris
tianity as a Unitarian. That Hugh J. Rose should
have conceived it possible that either Newman or
Blanco White would be able to contain himself within
the form and dimensions of an entertaining manual,
shows how little even great men can estimate the
volcanic working of free and independent thought
Before these two friends finally parted in their
opposite directions, they could confer pleasantly upon
the restraints they were respectively suffering. One
Council Newman soon found to be more than enough
for his limits, and Blanco White soon made the dis
covery that a true history of the Inquisition would
properly include every act of man which put the pro
fessors of a different creed at a disadvantage, or made
them uncomfortable. This he deemed the special

ALL OR NOTHING. 249
vice of religious establishments, indeed of all definite
creeds, and very naturally expected all good people
to agree with him.
As the two contributors to Mr. Rivington's series
warmed up to their labours, they saw less and less of one
another. One Sunday evening, in the common room,
Newman roused himself and exclaimed ' Who's seen
anything of Blanco White lately ? Let's go and take
tea with him.' Some three or four of us went off to
his lodgings, and found the poor gentleman at home.
After an hour's forced hilarity and agreeableness, we
all felt it a relief to say 'good-night,' and part for
our own rooms. It was about the last incident of a
long residence, which had been a picturesque and
pleasant element in college society, but had latterly
taxed the forbearance of both the college and its
guest. Blanco White enjoyed conversation, even with
much younger men, from whom he could learn but
little ; but it frequently occurred that he brought a
topic suddenly to a close, gently intimating that he
did not think it fair to say all he had to say when the
hearer might not be duly prepared for weighing it.
Nevertheless his topics were apt to be suggestive.
Indeed, they could not fail of it, for out of the
abundance of the heart every ma®, speaks. One of
his topics was false enumeration, that is the number
ing of things not in the same category. It is a folly
to be found sometimes in our ordinary school books.
For example : ' Write down a man ; his hands, his arms
and legs, his fingers and toes, his nose, eyes and ears,
his heart and his brains. How many are they alto-

250 THE 'THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY.'
gether ? ' Such an enumeration and such an addition
imply misapprehension at every step, and a com
plete abeyance of the reasoning faculties. The
bearing of Blanco White's special dislike of this prac
tice is of course obvious.
Then, what did people mean when they talked of
the Church ? What was it ? Who was it ? Where
was it to be found ? Did it signify more than certain
persons agreed to act together, and to make the same
profession ? But Blanco White was not the only man
then asking this question, for it would be hard to say
who were not asking it, if not openly, not the less
anxiously in their own minds. Though there were
men with a cut and dried answer, and very positive,
yet it might be found that no two agreed. It was
Keble who began at Oriel what some think the wor
ship of the Church as the mother of us all. For my
own part I will confess that I had to use great force
in regarding the Church as a mother, though there was
no gainsaying the fact that I was born in her.
In the latter days of the movement proper, when
Newman felt his moorings to the old shore looser and
looser day by day, a singular incident compelled him
to recognise openly his changed position. Isaac
Williams published a volume of poetry, called the
' Baptistry,' upon a, series of very curious and beautiful
engravings, by Boetius a Bolswert, in an old Latin
work, entitled Via Vitce AZternce. In these pictures,
besides other things peculiar to the Roman Church,
there frequently occurs the figure of the Virgin
Mother, crowned and in glory ; the object of worship,
and distributing the gifts of Heaven. For this figure

NUMERICAL AIDS TO APPREHENSION. 2;:
Williams substituted the Church, and thereby in
curred a protest from Newman, for adopting a Roman
Catholic work just so far as suited his own purpose,
without caring for the further responsibilities. Blanco
White would certainly have objected to the substi
tution quite as much as the original, probably still
more. As to the subject of false enumeration I have
mentioned above, the Provost used to approach it
from the opposite quarter, urging the convenience of
keeping in the head the number of persons, or things,
or duties, or engagements, each separately liable to
slip out of recollection, but easily retained by the
bond of a number. Frequently recurring to the
point, he instilled the convenience of number, and so
justified the wisdom of antiquity in arranging all
things in numerical groups ; twelve of this, nine of
that, seven of something else, and three in some cases.
This, however, was comprised in a general and
very important instruction, often given by the Pro
vost to young writers. It was, to pay such attention
to the arrangement of paragraphs and clauses, to the
due prominence of names and important words, that
upon returning to the MS. the writer would im
mediately find himself as much at home with it as
when he left it, instead of having to waste precious
time and strength in recovering his lost relations with
his own handiwork. A MS. thus written has some
chance of impressing itself on the memory, and ena
bling the writer to recall what he has written, without
having the trouble of going to the MS., and perhaps
having to look for it

252 THE REFORM BILL.

CHAPTER XL,
THE REFORM BILL.
We were nearly all Tories at Oxford. The com
paratively few Liberals had indefinite yearnings in
the other direction, but no plans that we heard of.
Bonamy Price used to tell us, with bated breath, on
the authority of Arnold, that at Paris it was a settled
thing the Duke of Orleans was to succeed Charles X.
Price may not remember this. I do. I was a Bour-
bonist, knowing next to nothing of the Bourbons.
I did not know, for example, that not only
Charles X., but even Louis XVIII., always had ready
for the emergency the programme of a war with
England. Fortunately they were like the old lady
who will keep her ace of trumps so long in hand that
it has at last to be played in vain. Louis Philippe and
Guizot thought to profit by the mistake, and accord
ingly kept the little quarrel with England always
simmering, apologising privately all the time, on the
ground of political necessity. So whether it was for
the elder or for the younger branch, English sympathy
was equally unrequited. When the July Revolution
was coming on, I was exceedingly moved by Prince
Polignac's manifesto against the Orleanist machi
nations. I thought it a document for all ages. All
Oxford, indeed, was for the ' elder branch,' and was
greatly scandalised when Harington of Brasenose,
then Denison's close ally, hoisted the tricolor in his
sailing boat

OXFORD ON THE EVE OF REFORM. 253
We seemed very soon to be following in the wake
of France, excepting that here it was the King him
self that led the way. During the progress of the
Reform Debates, Oxford men gave their characteristic
contributions to the controversy. Keble circulated a
most moving appeal to the British electors. Pusey
left the matter to his brother Philip.fNewman neither
did nor said anything that I can remember. His
particular aversion was oligarchy. A monarch may
be ' a fell monster of iniquity,' or he may be a church
founder, or even the converter of a race. Democracies
may be wielded. They acknowledge the tongue and
the pen. Aristocracies have their divine tradition and
their natural gifts. But an oligarchy is powerful for
evil only, never for good7~) There are always bad ele
ments in it, and the bad elements always prevail.
These, however, are abstract opinions. Newman had
plenty to say on this or that utterance, but I cannot
recall that he had formed any estimate of the working
of the Reform Bill. When the Reformed Parliament
began to show its animus towards the Church of
England he became outspoken, but not, that I can
remember, till then. For my own part, not speaking
much, I took in all the more. While at Oxford that
year one heard every day dreadful accounts of what
was done, said, threatened, and designed in all quar
ters. Much of this has been since actually done ;
and yet I live to tell the tale, nay more, to have helped
in doing some of it ; for I have to confess that some
things I thought very bad then, I have since thought
better of.
At Derby, such Tories as there were or had been,

254 THE REFORM BILL.
were in despair. For many years the True Blue
Club, of which I was not a member, had annually
testified to Church and State with jovial and exulting
celebrations. County and town then met together,
and the Mite of the town received with open arms
some of the queerest personages to be found in it.
But the Reform Bill came like a simoom on this gay
and motley company. Our strenuous friend James
Dean, my brother James's private tutor, all backbone,
but all fire nevertheless, was quite ready to take a
part in a counter-demonstration. So after he had
consulted some old Tory colleagues, we set to work.
I was to write the petitions, to both Houses of Par
liament I think, though that to the Commons would
not be of much use.
I drew up a monster indictment of some fifty
counts against the Bill ; the policy, the party, Radicals,
dissenters, and the rabble generally. I think I pretty
well succeeded in enumerating, as the inevitable con
sequences of the measure, almost everything that has
actually come to pass during the last fifty years —not
quite everything, indeed, for the present state of things
in Ireland and in the House of Commons was beyond
my most dismal forecast. A meeting, summoned
by circular, was held in a room used for committee
meetings, over a bookseller's shop in the market
place, kept by a good sort of man whom my father
had brought to Derby in 1 8 1 5. The leading ' Church
and State ' banker was in the chair ; and my pretty
petition was, as I then thought, mauled a little, and I
daresay pruned of some extravagances. There had
been a magnificent display of moderation in the

A PETITION TO THE LORDS. 255
original, but my friends now deemed it expedient to
make still further admissions. They were all now
desirous of a judicious and well-considered Reform.
We must have had wonderful faith to stand up
for the existing Parliamentary system, with such a
state of things as we saw even immediately around
us. Derby, Nottingham, and Leicester kept common
political accounts in the Whig interest Any man
who could be perfectly trusted was made burgess of
all three boroughs, and these threefold burgesses
were a large if not preponderating part of the three
constituencies. In Derby every burgess who chose
to ask for it had his regular fee of two guineas for his
vote, as young Edward Strutt, afterwards Lord Belper,
found to his sorrow. Though a man might have large
property in the town, live in one of its best houses,
and employ scores of men, he had now no chance of
the freedom, unless he were a known Whig.
The Reformers had the run of the Town Hall,
opposite our committee room. Poor ' Charley Hope,'
the leading spirit of the True Blue Club, was now
near the close of his fifth mayoralty, and they insisted
that he was bound to summon a meeting to take the
sense ofthe town. He consented, distinctly stipulating
that as soon as he had opened the meeting he should
be at liberty to vacate the chair, leaving the meeting
to fill it with some one more to their mind. He did
as he said he would do, but I, who was present, saw
it struck a damp into the people, and they did not like
to see his back as he left the room. He ought to have
retired facing the foe, and covering his retreat with a
blessing. But this is more easily said than done.

2S6 THE REFORM BILL.
His withdrawal left the coast clear, and full advantage
was taken of it The enemy immediately denounced
ours as a ' hole and corner meeting,' and the* petition
itself as a hole and corner petition.
It lay at the shop for signature, just opposite the
Town Hall, with due notice in the window that there it
lay within ; and my colleague and I went about night
and day rallying the scattered forces of the old
cause. Most declined on the ground of the uselessness
of the movement and the probable dangers to them
selves. But there were more than a hundred names,
many of them of good and brave men. A better
hundred I believe there never were.
I sent it up, so it had been indicated to me as the
proper course, to the Marquis of Londonderry, for
gotten now, but then a respected though vehement
politician. Together with it I sent a private letter,
describing, in what I thought proper terms, the
character of the meeting in the Town Hall, the lan
guage of the speakers there, and the intentions every
where avowed, and extending far beyond Parlia
mentary Reform. The Marquis presented the petition,
and I think read some of it, though that would be a
long business. He also read my letter, or the greater
part of it. I called one good man a ' democrat' I
mentioned that Edward Strutt, now the young leader
of the Liberal party, did not himself altogether
approve of the Bill, which was probably true, if
only because it retained the freemen. But what was
most needless and most foolish, I mentioned the
withdrawal of the clerical Mayor from the chair, after
formally opening the meeting in the Town Hall. The

REJECTION OF THE BILL BY THE LORDS. 257
Marquis gave their lordships, and consequently the
people of Derby, the benefit of these communications.
The Duke of Devonshire, finding his manor poached
upon, demanded the name of the writer, which the
Marquis gave. • The Duke had only heard of one of
the name in Derby, and he was not likely to write
such a letter. He was quite right there The
gentleman, whose name was pronounced, though not
spelt, like mine, was an eminent solicitor who had the
care of several large county estates, and with whom
the Duke had business relations.
This was on Tuesday. The Bill was thrown out
after sunrise on Saturday, and the news, by a great
effort, arrived at Derby soon after sunset the same
day. Immediately very strong placards appeared in
the hostile shops, and wherever bills were usually
posted. The Reformers got at the late Mayor's own
church tower and rang a muffled peal. The placards
and the bellmen summoned the population to the
market-place. The streets were, however, already
thronged with the men who had just received their
week's wages. Speakers were soon forthcoming in the
market-place. Some one proposed they should wreck
the shop, then right before their eyes, where the ' hole
and corner ' petition had lain for signature. So they
set to work, gutted the shop, and broke the windows.
Amongst other drunken men there were some
from the iron and lead works. One of them con
ceived the happy thought of fetching a sledge-hammer
and breaking the slight iron pillar supporting the
front of the building. He and his comrades struck
at the pillar for some time, with no result happily
VOL. I. S

s58 THE REFORM BILL.
for, had they succeeded, the whole building would
have come down upon them. The mob waited to see
the expected downfall, amusing themselves mean
while with a bonfire of the books and stationery.
As the iron pillar refused to yield, something else
must be done. A voice suggested our house, and a
friend in the crowd ran to give us warning. We all
rushed to close the front gates and the shutters,
While we were so engaged the mob made its ap
pearance, and as the road contractors had left some
heaps of broken stone handy, the stones soon began
to fly in. Every pane in the forty front and side
windows was broken, but somehow the mob were
afraid of being caught in a trap by getting behind the
house. Of course the shutters, as well as much of the
stone work, were injured. It was a still night, and the
breaking of the glass was heard a mile out of the town,
and mistaken for a discharge of musketry.
Another body of Reformers went from the market
place to the house of a Mr. Eaton, a surgeon, and a
rather noisy member of the True Blue Club. This
gentleman was great-grandson of Alderman Eaton,
who attended on the Duke of Perth in 1745, and over
heard the council of war in which the young Pre
tender declared he would rather be buried alive
where he was than give up his march to London ;
but, after a long and hot discussion, had to consent
to a retreat northward. The Reformers gutted the
poor man's house and drove him into the Derwent,
that flowed by the foot of his garden.
Attacking many houses as they passed, they
gathered strong and took a stand in St. Alkmund's

DERBY REFORM RIOT. 259
churchyard, at the vicarage of the late Mayor, who
had offended them by vacating the chair at the Town
Hall. Here they broke every pane of glass, besides
other damage, and kept up such volleys of stones
that the inmates, including several ladies, were driven
from one comer to another, and even into cupboards,
to escape them. One division went to Chaddesden,
and broke every window in Sir Robert Wilmot's
house, back as well as front Another went to
Markeaton Hall, the seat of the Mundys, and did
the same It was the poachers probably who directed
the mob to these two houses. They were at this
work most of the night A good gentleman, still
living, whom I had described as a democrat in my
letter to the Marquis, sent to offer us the use of his
house for the night We managed to do without it.
He had not been quite hitting it off with his own
workpeople ; indeed, one of the charges I brought
against the leading Reformers was tliat they were
trying to turn against the political state of things
the discontent they were suffering from at home.
Of the wisdom or the justice of this charge I say
nothing. It must have been many mobs who did the
work of that night, several of them probably directed
by merely personal malice, since no other reason
could be found. Plunder there was, too, but it was
just the accident of a fellow fancying some article
and rescuing it from the wreck.
I and a brother got up early and visited the scenes
of devastation. The town was placarded with notices
put out by the new Mayor, inviting all well-disposed
citizens to a meeting in the Town Hall to take measures

260 THE REFORM BILL.
for the restoration of order. The previous evening,
at the approach of the mob, my brother had been
sent off to the Mayor to ask for assistance, though
what assistance he could render it was not easy to
see. So the poor man thought himself, for as soon
as he heard of the mob in the market-place, and the
work going on there, he went to bed. However, he
presented himself to my brother in his nightcap, and
told him he didn't know what he could do. In
the course of the night he issued the notice I have
mentioned. The bellmen who the evening before
had been calling the population to a meeting in the
market-place, were now calling the citizens to a
meeting in the Town Hall. The Mayor's notion was
that the friends of order would be in the majority.
At nine, the appointed hour, the Town Hall was
full. By a side door I got to a seat a place or two
from the Mayor. Some one came up to me and
warned me of the danger of exposing myself, but my
face was not much known in the town ; nor did I
think anybody would harm me. In a few minutes a
man got up and proposed that they should proceed
to the town and county gaols, and let out all the
prisoners. It was carried by acclamation. Upon
this I went home to breakfast, expecting the mob to
pass on its errand very soon. Some long-winded
fellow must have kept them, for they did not come, and
I began to think they had thought better of this move.
Soon after breakfast we started for the half-past
ten service. On passing out of our gates we saw the
mob coming up the street. A common instinct took
us all, nine or ten, into the middle of the road, so

THE GAOLS ATTACKED. 261
that we met the mob face to face. It divided for us,
and we passed through without hearing a word ;
indeed, some touched their hats to us. During
prayers we heard distant tumult, and before prayers
were over we heard shots. The mob had gone first
to the old county gaol, now used as the town gaol.
Taking up an iron lamp-post, they applied it as a
battering-ram against the door. When that began
to give, the governor surrendered at discretion, having
already opened the doors of the cells and mustered
the prisoners. There were about a score of them,
some debtors and some small offenders ; who now
walked out of gaol to gratify their deliverers, and
returned that evening or the next morning.
Thence the mob went a couple of hundred yards
to the newly-built county gaol, standing on an octa
gonal area surrounded by a high wall, and with a
deeply recessed Doric entrance. The assailants
could not be touched from the walls, and a hundred
of them could have worked for an hour at the door
without molestation from within. The governor and
his turnkeys scrambled to the top of some ornamental
stone work over the entrance, pointed guns, gave due
warning, and then fired as much downwards as they
could, killing one young man and wounding another
— mere lookers-on, of course. I might just as well
have been shot myself as I stood in the crowd that
was breaking the windows of the 'New Times'
office, on the withdrawal of the Bill of Pains and
Penalties in 1820. The siege of the county gaol was
raised quickly, but the mob had entire possession of
town and neighbourhood till the middle of Tuesday.

262 THE REFORM BILL.
The wonder is they did not do worse than they
did. A troop of Yeomanry came into the town on
Monday, but as they were all neighbouring farmers
and well-known faces, it was judged best that they
should do nothing. This might be right, but one
may yet ask what Yeomanry are for, if they are to
do nothing in the only case in which they can be
wanted. The question has also an important bearing
on the scheme of military centres, and regiments
raised and kept within given localities. The magis
trates sent to Nottingham, where there were two
troops of cavalry ; but these were wanted in the
market-place to protect the shops, while the mob
were gutting and burning the Castle, situated in
another hundred, and belonging to the Duke of
Newcastle. On Monday morning the authorities
sent the bellmen around again with a general invita
tion to a meeting in the Town Hall to address the
King, praying him to persevere in Reform, but the
populace paid no attention to it ; indeed, most of
them were now too drunk to do anything but break
windows and commit petty acts of destruction.
On Tuesday there arrived a troop of Hussars,
which drew up and formed in the market-place,
waiting for orders. The mob assembled opposite
them, and the pavement all round was crowded with
spectators. Some fellows came out of the mob, made
speeches, and defied the soldiers to do anything.
The Riot Act was read, and the soldiers were ordered
to charge the mob, which they did slowly. One
orator held his ground till the horse's head was almost

SAD CASUALTIES. 263
over him, when the hussar fired his piece over the
man's head, and so killed a poor fellow as he was
carrying a tankard of ale across a street near two
hundred yards off. The hussars quickened their
pace ; the mob fled in all directions up lanes and
courts, pursued by the hussars, one of whom charged
up a high flight of stone steps, reared his horse against
the door, burst it open, and presented himself in the
midst of the terrified foe, returning however in peace.
The town was quiet immediately, except that the
rioters were too drunk to return to work, and lounged
about the streets. The well-disposed inhabitants
were formed into patrolling parties, marching about
night and day for a fortnight and were hospitably
invited to supper by those who could afford it. Some
rode about in pairs, with directions to give immediate
information of any gathering. I visited most of these
pickets, and was told I had better take care of myself.
The casualties were not many, but were very sad.
Henry Haden, eldest son of an eminent surgeon, and
uncle of Mr. Seymour Haden, the distinguished
etcher, was a favourite with the town and a musical
amateur. While watching the progress of the mob in
the heart of the town, he heard some fellows say they
meant to go next to Kedleston Hall, the magnificent
seat of the Curzons, containing a fine gallery of
paintings. He was their medical attendant. Trying
to force his way through the mob to send a messenger
to Kedleston, he fainted, was brought home, and died
before morning. It could never be known whether
he had been exerting himself too much, or had had
some rough usage.

264 THE REFORM BILL.
Poor Mr. Hope, whom I have introduced in a
former chapter as one of two clergymen of the period,
received such a shock to his system, and felt so
deeply his undeserved usage at the hands of old
neighbours and acquaintances as it were, that he
soon dwindled into the shadow of his once portly
figure. Mr. Eaton, the surgeon, who was driven into
the river, died of vexation and the chill. The poor
youth who was shot from the county gaol had shortly
before told his mother he would go out and see what
was going on, and was brought home dying.
When all was over people began to inquire into
the composition of the mob that had held possession
of the town so long. Derby was not then so populous
but that everybody could be traced. The active mem
bers of the mob were a handful — two or three dozen
perhaps ; except that boys will always throw stones
when they can do so with impunity. There were
many operatives then off work, or on half time. The
mert who made the apparently senseless proposal to
break open the gaols were poachers, who seized the
opportunity to release some of their friends in prison
just at the beginning of the pheasant season. The
fellow who harangued the dragoons in the market
place had been for many years in the habit of coming
to the benevolent ladies of Derby with long stories of
distress, want of work, and the inhumanity of his
employers. My father and the rest of the sufferers demanded
compensation from the borough. The demand was
resisted on the ground that the mob had not tried
to pull the houses down, which was necessary by

THE COUNTY GAOL FORTIFIED. 265
the Act. The sufferers were also told it was their
own fault They made a common cause, and put
forward first the case of the shop in the market-place
where the obnoxious petition had been agreed on
and had lain for signature. It was proved that the
mob had done its best to demolish the house by
hammering away a long time at the pillar supporting
the front. This decided the case against the corpora
tion. No such case of intended demolition could
have been made out for the other sufferers, but they
proceeded to prosecute their claims, and the corpora
tion were so disgusted by the length of their lawyer's
bill that they gave in, seeing that submission would
cost much less than victory.
The county, finding their new gaol ill adapted
for defence — in fact, utterly unable to point a gun
at any assailant who could get close enough to the
wall, built eight round towers at the corners of the
octagon, so pierced as to rake the walls outside.
They sadly jar with the very severe Doric entrance.
County magistrates are a race beyond the reach of ordi
nary comprehension. Only a few years since, having to
provide a depository for the arms of the Militia, the
Derbyshire magistrates bought a deserted brick-field
commanded on all sides by ground varying from ten
to twenty feet above the site, and there they planted
their arsenal and barracks, which anyone could look
down into from all sides. Some said it was a job,
but as these were honourable men, the probability is
they did not know better.
It was about three weeks after the above dis
turbances that the populace of Bristol took advantage

266 WHATELY, ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN.
of Sir Charles Wetherell's public entrance into the
city as Recorder, to burn down a square, several
streets, and the bishop's palace. James Dean, my
colleague at Derby, had the luck to engage the very
last thoughts of the unreformed House of Com
mons. Upon the occasion of a Fast Day early in
1832, two fellows went about Derby putting up
blasphemous placards and making speeches upon
them. Dean tore the placards down, and was ac
cordingly assaulted by the men. He had them up
and they were sent to prison for two months. Four
thousand men in London petitioned for their release,
on the ground that they were in the right and Dean
in the wrong. There was a debate on this petition
which had gone some way when the House was
counted out on the very eve of the dissolution.

CHAPTER XLI.
WHATELY, ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN.
It was just about this time, that is the rejection of
the first Reform Bill by the House of Lords, that
Whately was made Archbishop of Dublin, to the
great delight and encouragement of his friends and
admirers in and out of the Anglican communion. The
appointment took most people very much by surprise,
probably because they had not . thought about it. I

SURPRISE AT THE APPOINTMENT. 267
had not thought at all about it, but even if I had, I
am sure I should never have guessed Whately for a
bishopric anywhere, least of all in Ireland.
I had always supposed Whately so disgusted with
the whole state of affairs in this country, temporal and
spiritual, and so dissatisfied with the creeds, the rites
and ceremonies, and the Orders of the Church, that he
would be prepared any day for any violent change, a
reformation of the Church on thoroughly liberal prin
ciples, or a separation of Church and State. Whately
had been some time credited with an anonymous
pamphlet, pointing to the latter of these alternatives,
for no other reason that I am myself acquainted with
than that it agreed with his usual utterances, and
there was nobody else in Oxford likely to have
written it.
Cardinal Newman has something more to say as
to this question of authorship. He has a recollection
of having assumed the pamphlet to be Whately's in a
conversation with the Provost, who could hardly fail
to know whether it was his or not ; and of having
been left by the Provost to understand that the as
sumption was right. But he has told me the Provost
does not remember this. So I leave it in the Cardi
nal's hands.
Whately's whole life had been a continual protest
against pomp and formality, and this was all the
more noticeable inasmuch as nobody ever found him
wanting in good manners, or, at Oxford, in social
kindness. I remember, indeed, a story which might
be interpreted as showing him not quite equal to a
not very uncommon difficulty. He had asked some

268 WHATELY, ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN.
neighbours to dinner at his country parsonage, and
after dinner their conversation became so disagree
able that Whately threw the window open, jumped
out, and disappeared till late in the evening, when
the coast was clear. One cannot help thinking he
might have played the triton easily among such very
small and dirty minnows.
Shortly after the news of Whately's appointment,
I came up to Oxford from Derby. I do not think I
was excited, though perhaps more than usually want
ing in circumspection. My head must have been
running a good deal on the scenes I had left, and one
cannot look forward and backward at the same time.
The Provost greeted me with the remark that he sup
posed I had made Derby too hot to hold me, which,
as a fact, was by no means the case.
Immediately on my arrival I made straight for
Christie's rooms. There I found in conversation with
him a rather common looking man, of no particular
significance or expression. I delivered at once the
fulness of my soul about the new Archbishop of
Dublin. ' What an appointment ! Could there be a
worse one ? Was he sent to Ireland to destroy the
Church and faith altogether ? ' Christie became un
usually excited. He stamped about the room ;
looked daggers, as they say, bit his lips, all in vain,
for I went on, thinking it possible the dull stranger
might be the cause of all this fidgeting. The dull
stranger left the room. It was Christie's old friend
Pope, Whately's brother-in-law. He was saying
good-bye, as he had to accompany Whately to Ire
land. It was painfully evident in after years that

CUTTING THE OXFORD CONNECTION. 269
Whately did not carry away pleasant impressions of
Oriel, or of the university.
When Christie was in the last of his many and
serious illnesses, his sufferings were increased, and
his recovery rendered hopeless, by his circumstances.
He had a numerous family, and he was leaving
very scant provision for them, having been open-
handed like the rest of us. He persisted in doing the
duty of his church and his parish, for he could not
afford to pay a curate, still less to find another tem
porary home. A kind cousin, who had come to see
him, was shocked to see him struggling on in this
deplorable state. He knew Christie had had many
and good friends, and that at one time he had seen
much of Dr. and Mrs. Whately. He drew up a cir
cular, stating these lamentable circumstances, and pro
posing a subscription to pay a curate, and so give
Christie the rest essential to his recovery. I re
ceived the circular and responded to it The cousin
sent one to the Archbishop, and received an exceed
ingly rough reply. A few days after that he would
see Christie's death in the papers.
That Whately should think the case possibly
exaggerated, and that he should find himself under
the painful necessity of drawing strong lines in the
distribution of his bounty, is so likely that any appli
cant might have to take the risk of that. But the
reply received indicated a resolution to efface the
memory of Oxford, and of his Oxford friends gene
rally, from his mind, and to be as if he had never been
at that university. This was, to say the least, very
ungrateful, for Whately owed a good deal to Oxford.

270 WHATELY, ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN.
It certainly was more than half the making of him,
whatever that making might be worth.
Whately had a strange idea that his acceptance of
the see was a service of danger, and that there were
many Irishmen fanatical enough to be ready to
assassinate so known and so powerful a foe to super
stition. Blanco White may have contributed to this
belief, for he had himself a firm conviction that the
first day he showed himself in Dublin would be his
last Accordingly, besides Pope, who was a very
robust person, a still more stout and muscular cousin,
named Willis, was to form part of the escort. This
gentleman prepared for the worst, for he carried an
armoury of pistols. On the arrival of the whole party
at Holyhead, Willis was despatched to the post office.
It was dark, and he fell into an ill-protected cellar,
breaking several bones badly. He had to be nursed
many weeks at Holyhead, and was then found un
necessary at Dublin.
It was not long before there came from Dublin
some rather absurd stories. At the Viceroy's table
the Archbishop was airing his Liberalism gaily. After
a rapid succession of magnanimous surrenders, he
suddenly felt he must make a stand somewhere.
There was at least one thing he could not and would
not abide. His Excellency smiled so graciously that
Whately went on stronger than ever. By and by
he felt various toes approaching his feet and shins
under the table, some right across. He broke out
indignantly, ' What are you kicking me for ? ' This
final stand happened to be the very point on which
the Viceroy was most open to censure. The young

VICE-PRINCIPAL HINDS. 271
aides-de-camp tried to sharpen their wit upon the
strange arrival, and it was said had been worsted.
An Archbishop, like everybody else, has to beware
of the prophetic force his own words may one day
be found to bear. The Viceroy wrote to ask whether
he had any objection to meet Dr. Murray, the very
gentle and amiable Roman Catholic Archbishop. Of
course he did not object, and need not have said more
than that. Privately, however, he said to his friends
that he would not object to meet anybody, no, not
even the Devil himself. Many years afterwards this
was remembered when Whately had to meet Cullen,
and did not get the best of it.
Whately took his Vice-Principal, Hinds, with him,
to act as Examining Chaplain. At Oxford they had
been almost inseparable ; the white bear and the
black bear, as they were called. As I remember,
Newman had a certain tenderness for Hinds, even
when the divergence from Whately had been con
siderable. He would speak of ' poor Hinds.' But I
think there was just a suspicion of craziness. I was
myself very much startled one morning by finding all
the corners of the streets posted with 'The Three
Temples, by the Rev. Samuel Hinds,' as if the writer
had made some grand discovery, or was suddenly
throwing out a challenge to the Christian world. I
did not, however, take the trouble to see whether it
was so.
It spoke well for Whately's affection, but not for
his perception of character or general forethought,
that he should take with him as his best man one so
unfit for business, and so different in all respects from

272 UNIVERSAL MOVEMENT OF 1831-1832.
any kind of Irishman. Whately very soon found
others on the spot more serviceable than Hinds,
more popular, and perhaps also more agreeable to
himself. Hinds had not the magnanimity to accept
what really was a matter of course, and he became
jealous and querulous. Whately, however, could not
send him into outer darkness. He would appear to
have borne long the discontents and caprices of his
old friend, and to have done what he could for him.
At last it became a State difficulty, and the knot had
to- be cut, since there was no untying it. Whately
and Lord Clarendon, so it was said, recommended
Hinds to Lord J. Russell as a fit subject for high
English promotion, and Hinds became accordingly
Bishop of Norwich, a post which perhaps he had'
better not have accepted, and which his characteristic
sensitiveness on a delicate matter induced him to
resign. Whately had a very good saying about the ma
jority of preachers. ' They aim at nothing, and they
hit it' Is it possible to describe better his own
episcopate ?

CHAPTER XLII.
UNIVERSAL MOVEMENT OF 1 83 I-I 832.
People who talk about the Oxford movement seldom
say anything about the universal movement which

ALL THE WORLD TO BE PUT TO RIGHTS. 273
immediately preceded it. In the year 1831 the whole
fabric of English, and indeed of European society, was
trembling to the foundations. Every party, every
interest, political or religious, in this country, was
pushing its claims to universal acceptance, with the
single exception of the Church of England, which
was JbJding its robes to die with what dignity it
could. /
There is a singular feature of that period, almost
unnoticed, which must be described by a reference to
Plato's saying, that Truth is so beautiful that were she
seen really as she is, all men would love her. fEvery
clique, every sect, almost every middle-class family,
believed itself that Truth, and felt no doubt that if
any one of its members were to have the manage
ment of public affairs but for a very short period, it
could and would entirely regenerate the world. / The
belief, monstrous as we may deem it, was not quite
unnatural. At that time all who held office in the
State, in the Church, in our county and municipal
institutions, and in the management of the army, the
navy, the colonies, and the other dependencies —
in a word, the entire administration of the country,
had long been under a load of depreciation amount
ing to'the bitterness and weight of an anathema.
YThe people who contemned, denounced, and
anathematised, regarded it all as a matter simply of
right and wrong, and believed that every question
could be solved instantly and for ever by the triumph
of the right — that is, of themselves.! In the story books
of that date, and even long after that date, the good
man, the right man, and the true man, has only to
VOL. I. T

274 UNIVERSAL MOVEMENT OF 1831-1832.
show himself and to say a few words, and he carries
all with him.
Undeed for a long period before this the assumption
of ' good books ' had been that all the world was wrong
except a few of the author's own mind, and that this
privileged few only wanted the opportunity to set
everything right. Every ambition found its stimulus
in the doctrine that everything was wrong, yet capable
of being effectually, and almost instantly rectified^
Popular writers urged the rising generation to choose
their lines of reformation at once, and pursue them
obstinately to the assured end.
In all these matters, and in the census thus taken
of human affairs.jpeople looked generally, so to speak,
over the hedge. One class took its measure of
another ; one trade of another ; one Christian body
of another. The towns had but the most outside
knowledge of the county families, and by what they
saw passed judgment upon them. The Church was
pursuing an exclusive line. It made little appearance
in the good works of the day, and was condemned by
default. But nobody wished to be better informed
about the Church, for egotism was now the great
virtue, and nobody wished to go out of himself to be
another's friend and adviser, except to destroy him,
or tie him to his own chariot wheels.
Thus there prevailed universally, in one form or
another, the idea of a great enterprise, in which one
man was to save his country, not to say the whole
worldi the achievement to be all the greater because
done against the wishes and opinions of those that
were to be saved, and by the discomfiture and humili
ation of all existing powers and influences.

NEWMAN OUT OF IT, 275
At such a time, when a thousand projectors were
screaming from a thousand platforms, when all Eng
land was dinned with philanthropy and revolution,
spirituality and reform^jvhen the scissors and paste-
pot were everywhere at work on the Prayer Book,
when Whately was preparing to walk quietly over
two Churches in Ireland, and Arnold was confidently
hoping to surpass Bunsen's scheme of universal com
prehension in England, [Newman was laboriously
working his way into the hitherto unvisited region of
patristic theology, and closing his work almost before
he had begun it, in order to accompany a sick friend
to the Mediterranean, and there pass the winter and
spring, far from home, beyond the very tidings of the
demolition to be any day begum]

CHAPTER XLIII.
ST. NICHOLAS AND ST. RUNWALD.
The year 1832 was to me a very broken one, as
indeed it was to many of us, for the vast locomotive
of ' Church and State ' was that year being shunted
from one line to another. I had just been ordained to
Deacon's Orders by Bagot, Bishop of Oxford. To his
very recent death, I never heard or saw the name of
Archdeacon Clerke, Bagot's chaplain, without a fresh
twinge of conscience at the remembrance of the very
T 2

276 ST. NICHOLAS AND ST. RUNWALD.
indifferent figure I must have made in the exami
nation. I had no occasion to be jealous of the reader
of the Gospel.
Early in January, Whitaker Churton, whom I
had admired as a sweet little child at Charterhouse,
and whom I should have liked if only for his brother
Edward's sake, drove me to take his brother-in-law
Loveday's Sunday's services at East Ilsley, a village
in which the principal thoroughfares are divided into
pens for the periodical sheep fairs, the pens being the
best property in the place. A new parsonage was
rising from the ground. Loveday occupied it thirty-
four years, and died, or resigned, fifteen years ago.
My first initiation into the secular responsibilities
attached to the pastoral office was when the clerk,
after service, requested me to sign a certificate that a
man I had never seen or heard of was the proper
recipient of a pension. I requested to see the man,
and I did see him, but of course I was not much the
wiser for that, unless it were that I thought the man
looked like a pensioner. However, I signed the
document, I wished for regular clerical duty. Newman and
Ogilvie of Baliol soon planned it for me, Ogilvie
taking me several times round the ' Parks ' to satisfy
himself as to my seriousness and to give good advice.
His chief recommendation was excellent, but unfor
tunately too late, and I pass it on to those whom it
may concern. It was that I should start with a good
stock of written sermons. The only sermons I had
were those I had written for East Ilsley. I can
never say that I have wanted the opportunity of

JAMES ROUND. 277
ministerial usefulness, for the opening now offered
was a most exceptionally good one. James Round,
father of the present member for East Essex, but then
unmarried, had been Proctor the previous year.
There had been a visitation of Cambridge men, who
had come with the set purpose of making distur
bances. Round had taken vigorous measures, shutting
some of them up in the Castle. Their Oxford friends
had retaliated in various offensive ways, particularly
at Commemoration. He had taken it to heart, and
was suffering neuralgia.
I undertook his whole duty at Colchester — two
parishes, one of them populous ; two churches, daily
service, two full services on Sunday, two sermons to
write every week, and what was more than all, not a
minute's repose in the day. I lived with Round, and
had to be with him as much as I could. He was a
most agreeable and most instructive companion,
while his habitual seriousness was specially adapted
to supply my own lamentable want of it. The house
itself was charming to my tastes. It contained the
very large and interesting library of Mr. Morant, an
eminent antiquary, in a grand room built for it ;
and the gardens surrounded what was left of Col
chester Castle, stoutly but vainly defended by the
Royalists against the Parliamentary forces. Time
out of mind there had been a family of wood-pigeons
in the garden. The ruins of a grand Norman church
were a few steps off.
But I had never five minutes of that absolute rest
which my poor nature required, and which less scru
pulous or more courageous people obtain by the use

278 ST. NICHOLAS AND ST. RUNWALD.
of tobacco. Had I gone there provided with a few
dozen sermons, or with some speaking power, I might
have remained at Colchester to this day. But the
necessity of writing two sermons a week interfered with
everything ; with the occasional rest I required, with
exercise, and with my night's sleep. They were
always on my mind, and, becoming drudgery, I was
conscious of their being ineffective. My visiting,
though there were some twelve or thirteen hundred
people in the two parishes, was not such a burden ;
indeed Round seemed to think me rather an enthu
siast in that way. Yet my first visit was a nervous
one. On returning to ' Holly Place,' after my first
afternoon service, I found waiting for me a summons
to a deathbed. I went to the ' Barracks,' as the place
was called, a large quaint old pile, let in tenements ;
a warren of poverty. Groping about and winding
about, I found myself at last in a wretched bedroom,
where two men, one evidently a minister, stood by
the sick man's bedside. They immediately made
way for me, and asked, as it appeared to me simply
and unaffectedly, that they might join in my prayers,
for they saw I had a Prayer Book in my hand. How
I acquitted myself, and what good I did, I cannot say,
but if I was not prepared for the pulpit, neither was
I for the bedside.
One little matter of housekeeping I will mention,
not because it affected me, but because it affected my
Rector very much, and illustrates what people were
doing in those days, before the appearance of the
' Tracts for the Times.' Round, though a thorough
invalid, very nervous, and full of aches and pains,

A FAST DAY. 279
fasted all Lent, and particularly on a great fast, I think
for the cholera. He would scarcely touch animal
food, or any other pleasant food that had passed
through a cook's hand. But his friends had put him
under the care of an old family servant, who did not
like to see him fast, and who tried to circumvent the
Church by a constant profusion of very heavy plum-
cakes, plum-bread, honey, jams, and other sweet things.
I used to wonder how a man of sense could allow
himself to be duped by such a distinction. On the
great Fast Day he ate a scrap of hard dry salt fish, and
would not look at the egg sauce. I had had one full
service, and had another before me, so I brazened my
front, and helped myself largely to the contents of
the tureen. It was not fasting, for I did not fast, but
work without rest that was too much for me, and I
soon broke down utterly. The tone of Holly Place,
it will be seen, was High Church. There was a Low
church at Colchester, and a Low Church clergyman ;
a very good man I used to hear, for I never saw him.
Round would drop hints about making approaches to
him, and so bringing him round a little. Some time
after this episode, Round married a lady of a family
certainly not High Church, and I believe it ended in
the Low Church clergyman neutralising Round. My
Rector made Bishop Ken his ideal, and Ken, I sup
pose, now occupies a neutral position in the Church
of England. When nearly as ill as I could be, I went to Ox
ford to vote for Dr. Mill in the contest for the newly-
founded Boden Professorship, as I had promised
before leaving Oxford. My friends told me I must

280 ST. NICHOLAS AND ST. RUNWALD.
see a doctor, so I saw Dr. Wootten, and no doubt he
went by the Pharmacopoeia. He gave me a prescrip
tion, which on my return I took to a good London
chemist. What he gave me I know not ; but it must
have come from Medea's own medicine-chest I took
the proper quantum and went to bed, for I had been
directed to break my return journey by a night or
two. I immediately passed into another state of
existence, which next morning I resolved never to
return to if I could help. It was chaos rather than life.
My Rector had given me a note to Blomfield, then
Bishop of London. It was the Bishop's rule that
newly ordained deacons must be examined with his
own candidates before they could be admitted to
curacies in his diocese. So I had to receive instruc
tions. I was also to ask whether my license was to
be for one of the two livings, or for both. This I
did. The Bishop seemed exceedingly put out, and
exclaimed ' What can it possibly signify ? ' I quite
agreed with him, but I had done as I had been bid.
Nor could I be expected to know the technicalities
of the business.
I was so ill at the time, that on leaving the house,
which I did instantly, seeing it was expected of me,
I staggered across the street, and held for a quarter
of an hour to the garden rails. This was the only
time I ever saw or heard Blomfield, except when I
heard him preach upon an occasion, the same sermon,
I need not say a very good one, at the Chapel Royal,
St. James's, and at St. Paul's ; much better, of course,
in the morning than in the evening.
On my return to Colchester my friends there were

DEVONSHIRE. 2S1
all as kind as they could be, but when, in another
month or so, the doctor told them confidentially I
was dying, they were rejoiced at my receiving an in
vitation to join our family circle at Teignmouth. I
went in one long day, from London to Exeter, feeling
better every mile of the road. A lady who chanced
to see me stepping down from the coach next morn
ing at Teignmouth, exclaimed, ' What is the use of
that young man coming to lay his bones here ? ' In
three weeks I was wandering over Dartmoor, losing
my way at nightfall, and passing the night in a poor
cottage at Manston. With my friends I took a very
pretty tour, much enlivened by the political situation,
for it was the conclusion of the long Reform debates.
Totnes looked dilapidated, the Reformers having
smashed every Tory window in the town the pre
vious evening. We were rowed down to Dartmouth,
and received with discharges of artillery from the
quay by Colonel Seale's supporters, to the sad discom
fiture of a nervous lady and her invalid daughter. We
took shelter in the first hotel we came to, and in ten
minutes saw under the window the principal Tory of
the town, brought to bay by a triumphant Liberal
mob, thrown on the ground, and deprived of a pistol
he had been foolishly pointing at everybody. As
there was no quiet to be expected on shore, we took
to the water, and were immediately surrounded by
the most impudent shoal of porpoises I ever knew,
staring at us, switching their tails, and squirting water
all about us. After catching a sight of Start Point,
we returned through a sea of brilliant phosphoric
effects. It was a dies mirabilis, pleasant to recall.

282 BUCKLAND.

CHAPTER XLIV.
BUCKLAND.
A FEW weeks more and I was back at Oxford.
Moreton Pinckney, in Northamptonshire, just then
fell vacant. It was about thirty miles from Oxford,
and had been served many years by a dual arrange
ment. Tyler and Dornford had successively held the
living, with curates in charge, occasionally taking
their place, and frequently riding down even in term
time. They had found it an agreeable relief from
their college duties. Froude, whether spontaneously
or not, suggested that I should take the living and
he should share the duties. I agreed at once, and
for a week or two supposed that to be the arrange
ment. But Froude had by this time begun to show
the approach of that disease which always seemed
imminent, but which he had defied rather than
guarded against His father put his veto on the
plan. I have to confess that I felt a little relieved,
for I knew that a moiety of the work on high eccle
siastical principles would prove to me a heavier
burden than the whole on my own lines. My Derby
friends hardly knew what to say to my taking the
living. My father consulted Pickford. He must
have studied the college patronage, dividing it into
prime, secondary, and inferior joints, for he told my
father Moreton Pinckney was an ' offal ' place. It
had the recommendation of lying between Oxford

HOW WE FURNISHED A COTTAGE. 283
and Derby. The curate in charge wished to remain
till Michaelmas, but meanwhile John Marriott had
accepted as a title for orders the curacy of Buckland,
a pleasant ride from Oxford, and he wanted a locum
tenens for four months.
The arrangements made for a population not far
from a thousand illustrate the kind and comfortable
practice of those days. The Vicar having died,
leaving two young children, the Roman Catholic
patron, or his trustees, gave the living to old Mr.
Stevens, Rector of Bradfield, to hold with his own, on
the understanding that, after providing for the duty,
he would hand the proceeds to his sister-in-law, the
late Vicar's widow, for herself and her children.
Bishop Burgess was an old friend of the Rector of
Bradfield, and paid him occasional visits ; so he could
be sure the arrangements would be properly carried
out. Indeed there was no doubt it would. Marriott
had taken an empty cottage with four rooms and
two garrets, and he gave me 50/. to furnish it. Mrs.
Newman said it could be done, and she would do it
for me. She went with me from shop to shop ; and
we completely furnished the cottage, parlour, kitchen,
two bedrooms, and two garrets, for the money, not a
shilling over. When Marriott came into the cottage
he was quite satisfied with the use we had made of
his money, excepting that the ' sofa,' or settee, besides
being large and ugly, was very hard and knotty.
Newman rode in from Oxford, more than once I
think. It was about that time he wrote to me a long
and earnest letter, calling me to greater devotion of
life, more regularity in duty and study, and more

234 BUCKLAND.
consideration of the end of my being. Already his
name was great, and through him the name of Oxford
was greater than it had been. The widow at the
parsonage — poor lady, who sang one song, and that
was ' The Last Rose of Summer ' — was most anxious
to see him, for her son was going to Oriel, where her
brother Tinney, the Chancery barrister, had been
Fellow. Even more desirous to see him was her daughter
Cecilia, a very lively, talkative, clever girl of thirteen,
as honest, good, and true as her wretched brother was
the contrary. She charged herself, with a store of
questions about the great Oxford world, and all that
was doing there and everywhere, and when Newman
came she kept up an incessant battery, which, as she
was very nice looking, and had a sweet voice and a
charming manner, was not disagreeable. Newman
answered so fully and pleasantly that time only
failed for more. He relapsed into a musing mood ;
perhaps he was thinking of John Marriott. ' I sup
pose Cecilia will marry the curate some day,' he
said. Heu vatum ignarce mentes ! Her mother was
a sad wilful woman. When I had carefully prepared
two of her servants for Confirmation, she sent word
at the last moment that she could not spare them, as
she had asked a friend to dinner that day. This from
the widow of the Vicar and the occupant of the
parsonage! When she left Buckland she took up
her residence at Bath. Cecilia had had an epidemic,
and was not quite sufficiently recovered to go to
a ball. But she must go, and she must be set up.
The doctor gave a prescription that was to foitify

CONFIRMATION AT ABINGDON. 2S5
her. It was taken to the druggist. The shopboy
made some horrible blunder, and Cecilia died in
agonies the next day.
Yet since I wrote these very lines memory has
brought together what had lain separate in my mind
for half a century. Newman's forecast was fulfilled
in some secondary sense or form. The coming
curate, that is John Marriott, married Cecilia's
cousin, Tom Stevens' sister, who thus took her place
in the prophecy.
Even for so little as four months Buckland
would be a long story to tell. Some of the incidents,
however, are of the period. I took forty candidates
to be confirmed by Bishop Burgess at Abingdon, but
I had to reject a good many. Farmer Church way
laid me at a stile and begged hard for four grown-up
daughters. I had tried them ; they could not say the
Catechism or learn it. The father said he had never
heard of a man or woman who could say the Cate
chism. It was very hard. ' But,' said I, ' they cannot
even say the Belief or the Commandments.' ' Nor
can I,' he said, 'and I'm not the worse for it' I
heard a few months after that when he was about to
introduce a step-mother into the house, the four un
confirmed daughters made him break off the engage
ment, with the threat that if the lady came they
would throw her into the horse-pond.
As I am confessing the faults of others rather
freely, aye, of poor souls long gone to their account,
I ought not to be chary of myself. I had had four
baptisms one Sunday afternoon during service. A
few days after a good woman, begging many pardons,

286 BUCKLAND.
said she wished to tell me something that didn't
much signify, but it made people smile Why did I
put my finger into the font before signing the baptised
child with the sign of the cross ? They had never
seen it done before. It was a fact that I had been
doing this, and must have done it scores of times at
Colchester. Of course it was inadvertency, nay,
downright stupidity on my part. Before I ad
ministered myself I don't know that I had ever seen
a baptism, so as to have my eye on the performance
of the act I had certainly never seen a Roman
Catholic baptism, which might have suggested some
such idea. I had never seen anyone using 'holy
water,' as is done upon entering and leaving a Roman
Catholic church. Of course there is not the slightest
warrant, or excuse, or even palliation of my little
piece of hyper-ritualism. A very little thought would
have put me right. This present confession will
cause a few smiles, not all of them as kind as could
be wished, or as respectful ; but I think it just
possible that there are other clergymen doing the
same thing, with nobody to tell them they are
wrong. I was kept well informed of those who were back
ward in bringing their children to baptism. There
was a well-to-do couple, the husband a shoemaker,
who had a fine child two years old, not yet baptised.
It was the usual story. None of their friends were
good enough to stand for a child. My sister Anne,
who was with me all my stay at Buckland, undertook
to be godmother, and the little girl was baptised the
next Sunday.

A DIVIDED PARISH. 287
I had a warm controversy with one of the very
few Unitarian survivors of a Presbyterian congrega
tion, that the first Lord Barrington, his friend Locke,
and, in his earlier days, Shute Barrington, afterwards
Bishop of Durham, had occasionally joined. There
were more than a hundred Roman Catholics, and a
resident priest, whom I only once caught a sight of.
There was a village raven that walked backwards and
forwards before the blacksmith's shop, ready to pick
a quarrel with anybody that came that way. I had
accepted a quarrel, and was gently teasing him, when
suddenly the 'priest' appeared on the scene. 'So
there are three of us,' I said to myself, and walked
away. Just before I went to Buckland some village
miscreants had stolen a number of silver pheasants
on which Mr. Robert Throckmorton set great store.
So he resolved to make a clean sweep of the bad
subjects. To as many men as, with their families,
amounted to more than a hundred, he offered the
choice between the workhouse and emigration. They
chose the latter, and were soon put on board a ship
at Southampton bound for the United States.
Coming on deck the next morning they saw the Isle
of Wight, and shouted for joy at having so soon
arrived at a beautiful new home. They would have
at least six weeks' tossing before they reached it.
The parsonage was a house divided against itself,
for a sister and a gentleman parishioner living there
while Carswell House was building, were Low Church
and strongly anti-papist. They gave me warning of
several dangers ahead. One was that I was not

238 BUCKLAND.
unlikely to be asked some day to let the son of the late
Vicar read the lessons in service. This came to pass,
as did another warning. In due time a man came to
me, asking me to add my signature to that of six
householders, backing his petition for a public-house
license. As advised, I refused. There were too many
public-houses already, and one of them was only a
few steps from the house for which application was
now made. I had to refuse again and again, but
before long I heard the license had been granted, and
that my signature had not been found necessary.
My parsonage friends — that is the coterie in the
Ultra-Protestant parlour — affirmed that Mr. Throck
morton held a mortgage on the property, and would
never have got either capital or interest unless he
could manage to get it made a public-house Is not
this a case of permissive legislation, and is that com
patible with a squirearchy ?
The Throckmortons were very civil to me, ask
ing me to dinner and so forth. They always had
foreign visitors, among them a very handsome young
German Baroness, rather on the look-out for amuse
ment. Nicholas Throckmorton, the wicked wit of the
family, had taught her all the slang he could think of,
making her believe that it was ordinal y and fashionable
phraseology. The result was she sometimes surprised
even a fast partner at a county ball. As taught by
the said Nicholas, upon some appeal to her finer in
telligence, she replied to her partner, not at all prepared
for it, by putting up her forefinger to the side of her
nose and saying, ' I smoke' I still tingle with shame
at the recollection that, having promised to take her

OLDEN TIMES. 289
up to the top of my church tower, I thought better,
or worse, of it and absconded.
Another young acquaintance of ours at Buckland
was a girl not long out of a boarding-school, and
almost as lively as the Baroness. This was Miss
Pusey, afterwards Mrs. Cotton. The widow at the
parsonage found Philip Pusey a man of the world,
and a very agreeable neighbour at a dinner table, but
somehow could never feel much at home with Edward,
who had nothing to say to her that she cared for.
My own brief experience was the other way.
Wl>en I had been at Buckland about two months,
to my great surprise I heard the church bell ringing
at a very early hour — four o'clock I think it was.
This was that all the gleaners, or leasers as they
Were called, should start fair. The women and
children assembled at certain points just out of the
village, and when the bell went down, made the best
of their way to the fields. The farmers complained
that they could get no women to assist the reapers
or to rake the corn. It was so much more worth
their while to pick it up for themselves.
No doubt many things are much improved since
then, there as everywhere else. Yet in these days of
universal reading, writing, and arithmetic, people may
be little aware how much could be once done without
them. I was giving some commissions to the Oxford
carrier, a plain, elderly man, and, finding he took no
notes, asked if he was sure he could remember them,
for there were not only shops and articles, but
quantities and qualities in my orders. He answered
that he could not read or write, that he carried his
VOL. I. U

290 BUCKLAND.
accounts in his head, that he had sixty-three different
orders for his next day's journey, and often had many
more. The people at the parsonage told me that he
never was known to make a mistake.
In the neighbourhood I met Archdeacon Berens,
an old Oriel Fellow, and a very pleasant man. He
amused us all with his stories of country life, then
new to me. In those days wills were occasionally
proved before the Archdeacon after the other work of
a visitation. A farmer's will was presented and duly
spread out. ' What's this ? ' exclaimed Berens.
' Here's a name scratched out. Explain it, please'
The widow stepped forward. ' I tells you how he be,
sir. When we comes to look into the will, we sees
50/. left to John Wheeler. What's he to do with
master's money ? says I. So I gets a knife, and us
scratches he out ; and that's just how he be, sir.'
The Archdeacon replaced the name, and warned the
family party of the consequences of another meddling
with a will.
It was the year of the cholera. The widow at the
parsonage walked into the vestry as I was preparing
for the morning service, entreating me to take care
of myself, for Mr. New, a very fine young gentleman,
had died of cholera the day before in the next parish.
Only on Thursday he was eating currants from a
garden wall. I had the exclusive use of a very fine
fig-tree at the parsonage, as Charles I. had had during
his captivity at Buckland House. Nobody else cared
for figs that year.
I was here in the thick of the excitement conse
quent upon the first general election after the Reform

POLITICIANS GRAVE AND GAY. 291
Act. The Puscys were very grave indeed about it.
Philip had written rather violent political tracts for dis
tribution. William had found himself charged with the
payment of the shillings which the farmers, on prin
ciple, would not pay for registration. Mr. Throck
morton could only laugh about it, especially when
the other Liberal candidate was named. I chanced
to mention this many years after to the other Liberal
candidate ' lie had a right to laugh at me, for he
left me to pay his expenses as well as my own.'

CHAPTER XLV.
NEWMAN AND FROUDE ON THE MEDITERRANEAN.
IN July 1832 the ' History of the Arians ' was ready
for the press, and as Newman was now relieved of
his college duties, he was more a man of leisure than
he hail ever been, and was also in more need of rest.
lluirell lMouile, as Richard was always called, though
there was another llurrcll in the family, had now to
submit to be ruled by his anxious relatives. He must
spend the winter on the Mediterranean and its shores,
friends were taking him, and Newman was easily per
suaded to go with them. In these days it requires little
persuasion to induce ordinary people, who happen to be
free from pressing engagements, to accept the offer of a
continental trip, especially southward, in the winter
v 2

292 NE WMAN AND FRO UDE.
But this did rather take Newman's friends by surprise,
and the only reason they could suppose was his great
anxiety for Hurrell Froude.
The new circle of which Oriel was the centre had
no sympathy, or even charity, for the common run of
tourists going a round of cathedrals and mountains
simply to amuse themselves, and bringing home a
sorry stock of hotel gossip, road adventures, and old
tales. Sacrifice and self-denial were the new fashion,
and there were those who were giving yearly to new
churches and other religious objects what would have
taken them pleasantly half through the Continent,
and might have done them much good.
It had been a busy year with Newman, and he
was full of work to the day of his departure. The
tour he was about to make was in those days more
of an epoch in a man's life than it now is, and it
might itself be a turning point in his career, as many
have since felt that it really came to be in Newman's.
But he was now just over thirty. A man had made
up his mind at thirty, if he ever made it up, he used
to say. This very year he had been writing earnest
letters to us all, urging a more definite plan and
more devotion of life, with reasons addressed to our
respective characters, powers, and circumstances.
Early in the year he had put together and circulated
among his friends his birthday poems and other
fugitive pieces, of all dates from 1818 to 1831, with
the title of 'Memorials of the Past,' and a motto
which showed that a change was passing over him,
and he was entering upon a future. This very month,
as he said long after, a ' ghost ' was pursuing him,

'ANTIQUITIES OF THE ENGLISH RITUAL.' 293
He had already vowed to give his heart to no earthly
surroundings, however sweet or beautiful. But the
crisis was a stirring one. The Reform Bill had
passed, after a long struggle, and more reform was
coming. At Oxford, Mr. W. Palmer, of Worcester College,
but a frequent guest at Oriel, had now, with much
assistance from Bishop Lloyd's papers, completed
and brought out his 'Antiquities of the English
Ritual.' Palmer was so quiet a man, so unimpas-
sioned and so unambitious, that he really hid his
light in a bushel. Yet when this work came out it
made a great sensation. Its simple statement of
facts and documentary evidence took with people
who were wearied with logic and jaded with style
If Newman was to disappear from the scene for half
a year, this seemed to come opportunely to supply
his place Once on the road, with his plans laid out for him,
Newman found his spirit taking wings. Among the
things of the past is the old corner inn at Whit
church, where the road from Oxford to Winchester
crosses that from London to Exeter. Many a weari
some hour can old Oxford men of the south-western
counties remember to have spent at that dull spot,
the interior of the inn, and the town, being equally
unattractive. I have seen a respectable represen
tation of the university there, forming groups on the
road side. The landlord's only chance was a good
shower of rain, when the men, even if they would not
eat or drink, must find shelter, and had to pay a
shilling a head for it. It was here, while waiting for

294 NEWMAN AND FROUDE.
the mail to Falmouth, that Newman wrote the verses
on his Guardian Angel, beginning, 'Are these the
tracks of some unearthly Friend ? ' and going on to
speak of the vision that haunted him. On such occa
sions as this he composed whatever appears with his
name in the ' Lyra Apostolica,' published at first in
the ' British Magazine'
In his 'Apologia' Newman gives a very brief
sketch of this remarkable tour. The materials for a
full account must exist in the very interesting letters
he found time to write to all his friends, but their
place has been supplied so far by large extracts from
the correspondence of his humorous and brilliant
companion R. H. Froude, published in his ' Remains.'
Even with much time lost in quarantine, storms,
calms, and slow steamers, they saw more of the
Mediterranean ports, cities, churches, and peoples,
than is usually done in little more than half a year,
and whatever they saw or heard came upon highly
sensitive minds and concentrated attentions. They
had not the time, the opportunity, or the desire to see
the interior of either the political or the religious
systems they came upon.
Most tourists leave their own religion behind
them, and amuse themselves by gazing at the exter
nals of other religions. The two voyagers and their
kind friends were at one in this matter, for the
yacht was their church, and they kept up their daily
devotions, as good Church of England men. All kept
their eye on the compass, as it lay on the cabin table,
to be sure they addressed their prayers towards the
east, that is to Jerusalem and not to Rome. Arriving

CCELUM, NON ANIMUM, MUTANT. 295
at Rome, they had interesting conversations with
Dr. Wiseman and Mr. Bunsen, but no more approxi
mation to one than to the other, at least no more that
they were then conscious of. They seem to have
found things abroad very much as they had left them
at home. The people had a religion of their own
sort ; the cities had that show of religion which con
sists in churches, services, and bell-ringing, and so
reminded them of Oxford ; the clergy were every
where trimming and knocking under to the State,
which was generally irreligious as well as rapacious.
In Rome they saw the magnificence of all the world
collected by a Pagan power to be converted into the
monuments of Christian saints and martyrs.
A single word dropped by Newman at Rome,
soon forgotten, and indeed variously related, reached
Arnold, and fell on him with the weight of a papal
excommunication — taken off some years afterwards.
The only service they attended at Rome, or any
where else, was the Tenebrae, at the Sistine Chapel,
for the sake of the Miserere. Newman says his
general feeling was, 'All save the spirit of man is
divine' The Bill for the suppression of Irish Sees
was in progress and filled his mind. In a fit of indig
nation with the course taken by the Bishop of London,
he wrote from on board a steamer to decline that
Prelate's offer of one of the Whitehall chaplainships,
just put on a new footing. He had ' fierce thoughts
against the Liberals.' Perhaps even when he long
after recorded these feelings, he little anticipated that
Mr. Gladstone would one day supplement the ob-
noxious half measure with a whole one.

296 NEWMAN AND FROUDE.
Newman left his companions and returned alone to
Sicily, for which he seemed to have a strange long
ing. Sicily, besides its extreme natural beauties, is
the common ground of Greek and Roman history and
poetry, and has always been the abode of an op
pressed and comparatively simple people. Palermo
the traveller had thought more beautiful than Naples,
and the temple of Egesta grander than those of Paes-
tum. Cicero's picture of Enna, now Castro Giovanni,
described by other ancient as well as modern writers
as the most beautiful spot on the face of the earth,
had always dwelt on Newman's memory. He went
there, and being now alone, and moving about more
freely, had conversations and adventures.
Some days before he was aware of it, he was in
the gripe of a dangerous fever, in which priests and
others nursed him for several weeks. In his long
delirium he said things which he knew not, but which
they brought to his remembrance. For a long time
after his return to Oxford there arrived frequent
letters elaborately addressed to the Reverend John
Henry, brother of the college Stce. Marice Virginis at
Oxford. The burden of a work to be done was too
much for one no longer cheered by company, and
encountering fatigues ; he was really sick unto death,
but he felt he should not die, so he said in his de
lirium, for he had not sinned against knowledge.
Returning homewards in an orange boat bound
for Marseilles, he was becalmed a whole week in the
Straits of Bonifacio, and there, within sight of Ca-
prera, since known as Garibaldi's home, he wrote,
'Lead, kindly light,' now sung in all our churches,

'LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT.' 297
with a various, but we will hope a convergent, signi
ficance. All this time there was raging at home a contro
versy on the whole matter of the Church of England,
if controversy that could be called which was almost
wholly on one side. Every table was covered with
pamphlets, many of bulky dimensions, and generally
embracing all the topics comprised in the idea of
Church Reform. Writers not wanting in learning or
conscientiousness gave their views under thirty or
forty heads on the Liturgy, the Creeds, the Bible, the
revenues, the government, the basis and composition
of the Church. Pamphlets were quickly followed by
postscripts and second parts. Industrious men were
already publishing Collectanea of the views of all the
reformers in the field — a legion of them. The one
idea pervading all these divers utterances was to sur
render everything which the old school of churchmen
had thought essential to the Church, for the sake of
the Church, that is for the sake of the name.
Newman, hardly yet recovered from his Sicilian
fever, and travelling too rapidly for his strength,
reached England and his mother's house on July 9,
his brother Frank having arrived there from Persia a
few hours before. This was on Tuesday. The fol
lowing Sunday, July 14, Keble preached the Assize
Sermon in the University Pulpit, published under the
title of ' National Apostasy.' ' I have ever considered
and kept the day,' says the writer of the ' Apologia,'
• as the start of the religious movement of 1833.'

298 FROUDE 'S COMMENTS ON THE PANTHEON.

CHAPTER XLVI.
FROUDE'S COMMENTS ON THE PANTHEON.
IT must have been soon after Froude's return from
the Mediterranean that I had with him one of our
old talks about architecture. He was as devoted to
science and as loyal to it as any materialist could be.
But architecture and science are very apt to be at
variance, and Froude was always disposed to side
with the latter. As for Greek architecture there is
no science in it except the mystery of proportion
and a certain preternatural and overpowering con
ception of beauty. The temple of Egesta, which
won the hearts of our travellers, has no more science
in its construction than Stonehenge But Roman
architecture was for all the world, for its gods as well
as for its mortals. The arch', and still more the
vault, were mighty bounds into the time to come
Always leaning on tradition where possible,
Froude wished to believe the pointed arch the natural
suggestion of a row of round arches seen in per
spective. Of course a deep round arch in a thick
wall only shows its roundness when you stand
directly before it, but seems pointed from any other
direction. I remember ventilating this idea to Sir
Richard Westmacott and Turner, the great painter,
at the former's table, and I remember also the great
contempt with which the latter dismissed such me
chanical ideas from the realm of the picturesque.

THE CATENARY CURVE. 299
But it was the dome that chiefly exercised Froude's
mind. It was a positive pain to him that so grand a
building as the Pantheon should have been con
structed, as he believed, in such ignorance of science.
His notion was that if Agrippa had known the
qualities of the catenary curve he would have used it
instead of the semicircular curve — that is, in this
instance, the spherical vault. A spherical vault re
quires one of two things ; either an immense load
upon the haunches, indeed on all the lower part of
the vault, or a great quantity of metal ties passed
round the vault.
The Romans adopted the former plan. With
any quantity of rough material at their command,
and any quantity of slaves trained to march in pro
cession up zigzag inclines, they very quickly filled
up the space between the vault and the parapet walls,
and made it all one mass of hard concrete. As it
stands, the Pantheon is a huge grotto cut out of a
solid mountain. This required walls of proportionate
solidity. With a catenary curve the masonry of the
vault need not have been more than two feet thick,
that of the walls not more than four.
Had any common utilitarian made such a sug
gestion I should not have thought it worth notice. I
only mention it as showing the scientific character of
Froude's tastes. The objections are obvious and
overwhelming. In the first place beauty must lead in
architecture, and construction must obey. Like poetry
and music, it is an art that lives to please. The
catenary curve, familiar as we are with it in a chain,
is a very ungraceful one, and would utterly fail to

300 FROUDE 'S COMMENTS ON THE PANTHEON.
satisfy the eye in a vault or a dome. There is no
want of examples sufficiently near the catenary curve
to test the question of beauty. The Italian domes
of the age before St. Peter's, the Saracenic domes,
such as at Cairo, and the two domes of the Inter
national Exhibition of 1 86 1, at South Kensington —
lemon-shaped, or melon shaped, they are called — are
very distasteful to the English eye. Their plan is the
catenary curve slightly modified and disguised. It is
a sound principle of construction, whereas the semi
circular dome is an impostor.
Yet nature and education combine to make the
sphere the most beautiful of forms, whether concave
or convex. The heavens expand overhead, and do
not converge rapidly to a point or form a hollow
cone. Neither do they start abruptly inwards from
the horizon. The eye requires that a dome shall not
leave the upright walls too abruptly, that it shall not
rapidly incline from the upright, that it shall afford a
large space overhead nearly horizontal, and that it
shall be roomy and recessed midway. These con
ditions are fulfilled in a spherical dome, and they are
not fulfilled in any other form of dome, not at least
nearly so well. Even the most graceful elliptical
dome seems flat and unnatural.
If anybody will take the trouble to draw a semi
circle, and then hang a chain by the two ends so
that the two curves may hang from the same points
and fall down to the same depth, he will see that the
space included in the catenary curve is not nearly so
large as that in the semicircle ; that the catenary
curve starts at a palpable incline from the upright,

CONSTRUCTION OF SPHERICAL DOMES. 301
and that the greater part of the catenary curve would
form not so much a vault as a cone, that is a common
kiln. It is needless to speak of the exterior effect,
which would be quite as unpleasant. So much for
the effect.
Then for the construction. The catenary curve
would stand strong enough and long enough, if
secured at the base, that is at the spring of the arch.
This could only be done by a metal tie like that im
bedded by Wren round the cone of St. Paul's, or by
an adequate abutment, which would have to be
provided by raising the walls, as Wren has done
also. Spherical domes are the crux and the pitfall of
architecture. They involve false construction and
positive deception. Froude appears to have remained
under the impression that the dome of St Peter's
was a piece of simple masonry, for he notices with
surprise the fact, if such it be, that the courses are
laid horizontally. There are, I believe, a hundred
and twenty iron or bronze bands round that dome,
which would not stand for a second without them.
It is therefore substantially a metallic construction.
One of the finest domes in the world is in this me
tropolis, viz. that of the Reading Room in the British
Museum. But it is an iron structure, filled in with
the lightest possible brickwork.
A cupola, both for the structure and for the effect,
is not compatible with an exactly spherical dome.
But a dome without a cupola does not please the
eye. All London would be in a fury if the dome
of the Reading Room at the British Museum were

302 FROUDES COMMENTS ON THE PANTHEON.
to show itself over the roof of the portico. I well
remember the indignation of the British public at
the big pudding, as they called it, on the top of
Buckingham Palace as it came out of the builder's
hands. It had to be hidden immediately.
Froude had a soul for beauty ; but he did not like
shams. He did not like a thing to seem what it was
not. Few buildings are prepared to stand such a
test. Amiens Cathedral, for example, the first love
of the English tourist, is nothing more than an iron
cage filled in with stone,
The dome, that is the hollow hemisphere, is
always regarded as the grandest of Roman additions
to Greek forms. It proved too much even for its
Epicurean poet, who complained of the Roman
millionaire, mutat quadrata rotundis. To raise the
Pantheon over the grand vaulted basilica of Con
stantine was the proud boast fulfilled in St. Peter's.
The Pantheon, whatever its first destination, repre
sents the universe. It is a globe, 145 feet every way,
placed on the ground, with the substitution of a
cylinder for the lower half. In one respect it has
a strange resemblance to that vast temple of Nature
into which one can enter day and night. It disguises
its own immensity. I have entered it scores of times
under every condition of light, and I have seen it
from an inner balcony under water, in which the pillars
seemed to double their length, but I never could
realise or even quite believe its enormous dimensions.
It is half as high again as the nave of Westminster
Abbey, the highest in England. It is twice as high
as Westminster Hall, and more than twice as wide.

303

CHAPTER XLVII.
AFTER THE MEDITERRANEAN VOYAGE.
It was now deep in Long Vacation, but no period in
the annals of Oxford was ever more pregnant with
consequences than the next two months. The re
turning travellers had lost time. The world had got
the start of them, and they had to make up for it.
Froude's imagination teemed with new ideas, new
projects, topics likely to tell or worth trying ; to be
tried indeed and found variously successful. They
came from him like a shower of meteors, bursting
out of a single spot in a clear sky, for they had
been pent up. Every post had brought the travellers
some account of fresh ' atrocities.' The ' Examiner '
was the only paper that talked sense. Conservative
churchism Froude now utterly abhorred. In passing
through France he had listened with hopefulness to the
dream that a deeper descent into republicanism than
that represented by Louis Philippe, would land that
country in High Churchism. How could the Church
of England now be saved ? By working out the oath
of canonical obedience ? By a lay synod, pending
the apostasy of Parliament ? By a race of clergy
living less like country gentlemen ? By dealing in
some way or other with the appointment of bishops ?
By a systematic revival of religion in large towns ;
in particular, by colleges of unmarried priests ? By
excommunication ? By working upon the pauperes

304 AFTER THE MEDITERRANEAN VOYAGE.
Christi ? By writing up the early Puritans who had
so much to say for themselves against the tyranny of
Elizabeth ? By preaching apostolic succession ? By
the high sacramental doctrine ? By attacking State
interference in matters spiritual ? By an apostolic
vocabulary giving everything its right name ? By
recalling the memory of the Gregorian age ?
It was perhaps a happy diversion of his thoughts
that he had so much to say on other topics, such as
architecture, and the construction of ships and dock-
gates. It was now plain that he had brought home
with him not only his own fervid temperament, but
some of the heat of sunny climes, where indeed
he had not taken proper care of his health, or any
care at all. Like most other Englishmen, he would
not be indoors by sunset, or put on warmer clothing
when the thermometer dropped twenty or thirty
degrees. It happened to be an exceptionally cold
winter in the Mediterranean. As far as regards
health, the experiment had been a failure.
One thing, however, is quite clear from his letters
and other remains ; and, as he was all this time
somewhat in advance of Newman, it has a bearing
on his mental history. Froude came home even
more utterly set against Roman Catholics than he
had been before. His conclusion was that they held
the truth in unrighteousness ; that they were wretched
Tridentines everywhere and of course ever since
the Reformation ; that the conduct and behaviour of
the clergy was such that it was impossible they
could believe what they professed, that they were
idolaters in the sense of substituting easy and good-

LETTERS TO THE 'RECORD.' 305
natured divinities for the God of Truth and Holi
ness. Froude stayed in England just long enough to
take a present part in the great movement, and to
contribute to it, and then, as he sorrowfully said of
himself, like the man ' who fled full soon on the first
of June, but bade the rest keep fighting,' he found
himself compelled by his friends to leave England
for the West Indies.
All these vivid expressions, delivered with the
sincerity of a noble child or a newly-converted
savage, chimed in with Newman's state of feeling,
and struck deep into his very being, to bring forth
fruit. Yet in neither Froude nor Newman could
now be discovered the least suspicion of what these
outbursts might lead to, for at every point they found
Rome irreconcilable and impossible.
Newman, as we have seen, did not return to
England till July 9, 1833, and it was exactly two
months after, on September 9, that the first four, or
rather in regard to the subjects, the first eight ' Tracts
for the Times ' suddenly appeared, beginning with the
famous words, ' I am but one of yourselves, and a
Presbyter.' The ' movement ' then, in the very form
irt which it actually began, had but a short incubation
and a very perturbed and unpromising one. Newman
was scanning earth and sky, and casting his arms
about wildly for some one to help him, and for some
form of action more practical than those which had
hitherto been found ineffective.
Strange to say, the alternative for the ' Tracts for
the Times,' perhaps one may say their first form, was
VOL. I. X

jo6 AFTER THE MEDITERRANEAN VOYAGE.
a series of letters to the ' Record.' Five years before
this, in 1828, Newman had contributed a small sum to
the starting of that paper, and had become a sub
scriber and constant reader. So he now wrote several
letters on Church Reform, beginning with Church
discipline in its various aspects. The letters, besides
being long, could not be very palatable to the habitual
readers of the ' Record,' and by and by came to a
point of absolute divergence. The editor cut short
the correspondence, explaining his reasons in a cour
teous letter to the writer.
It must be considered that Newman had now
been seven months away, in another world, at sea, or
seriously ill, or in strange scenes and among new
faces. For a long period before that he had been
engrossed in his ' History of the Arians.' He had
found that a very laborious, difficult, and, his critics
discover, an ungenial work, for he had laboured to
throw himself into those times, and had not suc
ceeded, so they say. Instead of comprehending all
the principal Councils, he had not seriously treated of
more than one, that of Nicsea, and had only given it
twenty pages out of four hundred. Newman, these
critics observe, had evidently not got into the spirit of
the Church of those times when he wrote this book.
That is not only true, but confessed by the very fact
of it costing the writer so great an effort to introduce
the reader and himself to the period. The book
represents the operation of sinking a shaft for water,
or for precious ore.
An incident of the two months that intervened
between Newman's return from the South and the

A 'HUMDRUM MARRIAGE.' 307
appearance of the 'Tracts for the Times,' rather
relieved the stern character of the crisis, though
Newman did not seem to think it quite in keeping.
Clerical celibacy used to be either a vulgar necessity
or a heroic devotion at Oxford, where the great ma
jority were Fellows waiting for livings. In its more
exalted form it was one of the favourite ideas of the
new school, which, however, had by and by to suffer
a long list of cruel disappointments as one Benedick
after another proved faithless to his early professions.
Newman was full of something for a day or two
which he hardly knew how to tell. At last it came
out. He was afraid Keble was about to make a
' humdrum marriage.' It was for the best of reasons,
that is in order to discourage young men from aiming
at a standard above the age, and possibly also above
their own power to attain. It was like Keble, the
humble, lowly, retired walk, and there was much of
the sort in his poetry. I was fairly taken in by this
account of the matter. I had known what I might
have called humdrum marriages that one could hardly
account for. I might indeed have remembered how
I had been taken in by Froude's explanation of
Bulteel's unexpected marriage, and how the flesh-
chastising ' housekeeper ' in that ease had turned out
to be a lady not wanting in either youth, looks, wit,
money, or accomplishments. The stupid, however,
are always deceived, and only recover from one mis
take to fall into another.
Keble was over fifty. The intended was the
sister of his younger brother's wife. Of course it
must be the elder sister, and that would make the

jo8 MEETING AT HADLEIGH.
union ' suitable' For the younger brother to marry
the younger sister, and the elder brother to marry the
elder, is quite proper and even humdrum. But it was
no such thing in this case. The lady was the younger
sister of Mrs. Thomas Keble, and was a rather
strikingly handsome, pleasing, and dignified woman.
Not only was Keble quite justified on the most ordi
nary grounds in marrying her if she would have him,
but he had already shown the bent of his inclination,
having, long before this, ' loved and lost,' on the lines
of youth and beauty.

CHAPTER XLVIII.
MEETING AT HADLEIGH.
IN a very few days after his return home, Newman
was in communication with Hugh J. Rose, who besides
being one of the two editors of the 'Theological
Library,' and the editor of the ' British Magazine,' was
the one commanding figure, and very loveable man,
that the frightened and discomfited Church-people were
now rallying round. Few people have left so distinct
an impression of themselves as this gentleman. For
many years after, when he was no more, and New
man had left Rose's standpoint far behind, he could
never speak of him or think of him without renewed
tenderness. There ensued much correspondence, and, to bring

THE BISHOP OF TROY. 309
matters to some point, there was a meeting of Rose's
friends at Hadleigh. They were rallying round the
Church of England, its Prayer Book, its faith, its or
dinances, its constitution, its Catholic and Apostolic
character ; all more or less assailed by foes and in
abeyance even with friends. The suppression of Irish
Sees gave immediate prominence to the doctrine of
Apostolic succession, which it was said to set at nought
This of course would not be the aspect in which
Apostolic succession is generally regarded, which is
that certain special gifts of the Spirit are, ordinarily,
only communicated by officers appointed for that
purpose by the Apostles, and by successors occu
pying their place in the Church. The aspect now
regarded was that insisted on by some of the Non-
juring Bishops, not by all. It was that each see, and
each local succession, must be perpetual. The Roman
Church, it is well known, makes a point of preserving
every episcopal succession, even though the see has
long ceased to possess any visible existence ; and
there have been bishops in partibus who could not
even say where their sees lay, or had ever lain.
Dr. Morris, Bishop of Troy, was for many years
one of the best known names in this metropolis,
being always at hand when a bishop was wanted.
All the world credited him with the city founded by
Rome in the Troas, at or about the site of Homer's
Troy, and so he did himself. Having to preach at
the Oratory in behalf of the sick and wounded in the
Crimean War, he introduced with much propriety and
feeling the neighbourhood and relation of his own
diocese to a war which was not without points of re-

310 MEETING AT HADLEIGH.
semblance to that which had made ancient Troy
memorable. In the vestry Frederick Faber thanked
his lordship, but pointed out that he appeared to be
under some misapprehension as to the locality of his
see, which lay in Magna Grsecia, not Asia Minor.
During the Saracen occupation of that part of Italy,
Troy had disappeared like its Asiatic sister, and a more
convenient town had risen in its neighbourhood. But
Rome would not allow the title to pass away. The
perpetuity of the see was the pledge of the perpe
tuity of the Church, and must thus therefore be con
tended for as a vital question.
It was Newman's way to accept the suggestion of
times, circumstances, and persons, and so to allow
people to believe themselves the original movers, if it
were at all possible. This sometimes gave an undue
appearance of originality and finality to a proceeding,
or to a mere concurrence. If he always left as it
were a nest egg for something beyond, that he did not
heed, for though it might not be in the programme,
it was not beyond the scope of the occasion.
[From the first he insisted on what may be called
a loose formation. He would neither bind nor be
bound. He had seen enough of societies. He did
not like committees. He suspected everything me
tropolitan. Great cities were great evils, he used to
say. Yet there must be a centre. Universities he
said were, in this country, the centres of intellect and
of religionT] So they that chose to write on the lines
ofthe Church of England might send him what they
had to say, and he would see to have it printed and
circulated. Of course there must have been also

«/ AM BUT ONE OF YOURSELVES.' 311
some distribution of subjects. But several writers, in
particular Mr. Perceval, conceived a most extraordi
nary idea of the ' Hadleigh Conference,' as if it were
at once a great beginning and a grand finality. They
who heard of it as one of the many incidents of the
day can only be surprised that any man of sense
should think it possible Newman, or even Froude,
could be comprised and shut up by a few strokes of
the pen, and henceforth warranted to keep pace with
so very casual an acquaintance as Mr. Perceval.

CHAPTER XLIX.
THE 'TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.'
In two or three weeks accordingly appeared that
portentous birth of time, the ' Tracts for the Times.'
Tracts had long been the most familiar form of re
ligious propagandism, and there were many thousands
of ladies and gentlemen who made it their business
to deliver tracts by the house row, by the post, or to
anybody they chanced to meet Yet this was a
startling novelty. The distributors of tracts, that is
the clergy and educated classes, had hitherto enjoyed
themselves an exemption from tracts. So this was
to turn their own battery against them. There were,
too, great practical difficulties. (The booksellers did
not like tracts. They are litter ; they occupy space,

312 THE 'TRACTS FOR THE TIMES}
they encumber accounts ; they don't pay. Messrs,.
Rivington, however, undertook the London publica
tion, it must be presumed for conscience sake] For
the convenience of the publishers they were to come
out with the monthlies. They were to be anonymous
and by different hands, each writer singly responsible.
If such an arrangement be not simply impossible, it
could at least only work upon an occasion and for a
brief movement. In a series or in a periodical either
the editor is responsible or the writer, and in the
latter case the name must be given. The plan
worked because the writers were soon known ; in
deed proud to be known, and so were responsible.
But now came the great difficulty. [The only one
who could write a tract, possibly because the greatest
reader of tracts, was Newman himself. He urged
all his friends to contribute, and if any one of his
acquaintance did not contribute, it was because he
was idle or was not in heart. The contributors wrote
sermons and treatises, but not tracts. They dis
charged the contents of their commonplace books, or
they compiled from indexes, and thought it im
possible to give too much of a good thing. Com
pared with Newman's, their ' tracts ' were stuffing
and makeweights, learned, wise, and good, but not
calculated to take hearts by stormT? They were
useful because it is an ascertained Tact that bulk is
necessary, as they say it is in food, and that it helps
the real essence of a publication to keep its place on
the table, or on the shelves. There are, too, people
who really think more of an opinion when they see
that a great deal is to be said for it.

THEIR CIRCULATION. 313
The tracts had to be circulated by post, by hand,
or anyhow, and many a young clergyman spent days
in riding about with a pocketful, surprising his neigh
bours at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and tea. The corre
spondence that ensued was immense. Nobody was too
humble in intellect or in clerical position not to be in
vited, and enrolled as an ally. Men survive, or have
but lately passed away, who can never have known
what it was to share a glory and a greatness except
at that happy time. The world would now wonder
to see a list of the great Cardinal's friends. He had
a remarkable quality which presents a strange con
trast to the common habit of vulgar depredators.
/Like Walter Scott, he could only see the best and
highest parts of the human character, hoping ever
against hope. He expected rivers out of the dry
ground, and found poetic beauty in the quaintest and
most rugged writers. Wise and experienced Oxford
observers smiled at the confidence he reposed in men
who were at best broken reeds and bulrushes, if not
stocks and stones. He could appreciate writers
whom nobody else could, seeing sense in their ob
scurity and life in their dulnessTj
But it is proper to say that this excessive appre
ciation was not confined to the crisis when the zeal
of propagandism, or of partisanship, might seem to
account for it. When Newman was tutor the college
wiseacres often commented on his misplaced confi
dence, and lost labour upon the most barren and
ungracious material. He would often have to his
rooms for private talk and instruction men who went
away and called it a bore. There were some men of

314 THE ' TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.'
high rank and expectations in Oriel at that time who
had come to Oxford, they conceived, to learn how to
enjoy this world, to take their place in its society,
and to win its prizes. Newman tried to reach their
hearts and understandings. It was not without
effects, which revealed themselves many years after,
but which did not show themselves at that time.
There were other examples and advisers in the college
too potent for Newman, and these he could not reach
or eliminate. The most courageous law-makers and
founders have declared it to be impossible to lay
down rules for the young nobility of this country,
insomuch that they must be treated as exceptional
and foreign. But they have hearts, and a time
arrives when they are no longer young. A bitter
experience has then reduced them to the level of a
common humanity.
The heir of an ancient and much-loved name,
who lived to take a high part in the government of
the country, and to be anxious to retrieve by mag
nificent Church work the errors of his youth, found
that he must choose between Newman and associates
more of his quality and more to his taste. He closed
with the latter. He studiously adopted the tone and
the conduct most likely to repel interference. When
Newman finally gave up the tuition, his pupils sub
scribed near two hundred pounds to purchase a set
of the Fathers for him, and the movers of the sub
scription would gladly have done without this man's
money. He heard of the subscription and sent ten
guineas, which it was impossible then to refuse. But
George Ryder and the other members of the com-

'PAROCHIAL SERMONS.' 315
mittee had good reason to suspect that Newman
would refuse the testimonial if he knew this name
was in the list of subscribers, and, notwithstanding his
frequent entreaties, they would never let him know
the names. Had Newman been less hopeful he might
have been more forgiving, for it is the most generous
and confiding who most feel ingratitude.
At the time now under consideration Newman
seemed to have had hope of everybody. Whoever
was not against him might be for him. For months
he kept his friends daily informed of the reception
which the tracts and the views contained in them
received in many and unexpected quarters. The
great world, indeed, whether of politics or of religion,
was but slowly moved, and this new mode of assault
had to be carried on for two or three years before it
encountered an opposition worthy of its own audacity.
The tracts indeed were for some time as seed cast on
the waters. It must be said that some were heavy
reading, and the series presented even greater varieties
of style than are commonly found within the same
covers. Meanwhile it was not without a certain degree of
impatience that Newman found himself only one
strand in the weighty and multifarious coil of the
' Tracts for the Times.' While he was anonymous
the crowd of other writers deadened, if they did not
drown, his own intense individuality. So,(wTth a great
effort, he got over his old scruple against divulging
to the world at large what had passed between him
and his congregation, and published in 1834 a volume
of ' Parochial Sermons.'

3i6 THE 'TRACTS FOR THE TIMES}
It was as if a trumpet had sounded through the
land. All read and all admired, even if they dissented
or criticised. The publishers said that the volume
put all other sermons out of the market, just as
' Waverley ' and ' Guy Mannering ' put all other
novels. Sermons to force their way without solicita
tion, canvassing, subscription, or high-sounding re
commendation, were unknown in those days, and
these flew over the land. They rapidly proceeded to
successive editions, and were followed bv ' University
Sermons,' and ' Sermons on Holy DaysYj
The title of ' Parochial Sermons ' represents the
fact, but not fully. The parish contains a score or
two shopkeepers, their servants, and some college
servants also. Strangers used to wonder to hear
sermons which might tax the highest intellect de
livered to housemaids. But long before the publica
tion of his sermons Newman had gathered round him
the best part of his own college and of some others —
men to whom the sermons were the treat of the
week, and who would often recall to one another the
passages that had most struck them.
Newman and his friends had for some time been
contributors to the ' British Magazine,' in Hugh J.
Rose's hands. Much of the ' Lyra Apostolica,'
whether by him or the other six contributors, ap
peared first in this magazine. This now famous
collection was the growth of many minds, and many
places, and many occasions. It has been abundantly
criticised on the score of poetry, Christianity, and
common sense. But it holds its ground and seems
to address itself to a great variety of readers, for the

'LYRA APOSTOLICA.' 317
very reason perhaps that it actually represents that
variety of origin and suggestion which poets are often
obliged to affect and to invent for the occasion.

CHAPTER L.
ROUTH, PRESIDENT OF MAGDALENE, AND
PALMER, OF WORCESTER.
SINCE the movement became historical the question
how it began, and who began it, has been continually
asked, and answered in very different ways. Fashion
has put its form on a fact which it could not easily
accept or conceive in any other form. For a long
time past it has been a fashion to ascribe causes,
revivals, and human changes generally either to in
dividuals possessed with extraordinary qualities and
a distinct forecast of the future, or to some very
exceptional origin. The fact is, as far as the by
standers could see, there was no such idea of origi
nation of a cause or a party in Newman's mind, even
though Froude, and possibly one or two others, might
play upon the thought. He stirred up everybody to
act for the best on his own lines. . He had a wonderful
faith in men and in the call of circumstances. He
much desired to impress upon everybody the great
power he possessed for good, though generally content
to leave the work and the manner of it to the man

3i 8 ROUTH AND PALMER.
himself. He put into the hands of his young friends
the books that had done his own soul good. He
saw substantial merits and recognised services in all
quarters, and never encouraged the tone of disparage
ment too common in young people full of themselves
and new to persons and things.
Long before the earliest date that could be as
signed for a ' movement, ' Bishop Jebb, Mr. Forster,
author of ' Mahomedanism Unveiled,' Canon Davi
son, the Oriel writer on Prophecy, and John Miller,
of Worcester College, were great names in the circle
of friends ; indeed a sort of foundation for such
work as there was to be done. Newman held Van
Mildert in much esteem, and quoted his Bampton
Lectures. Old-fashioned clergy of those days talked
much of Norris of Bemerton, of Tucker's ' Light of
Nature,' and of Jones of Nayland, as a kind of esoteric
school leading to better things, but like many other
authors these had been crowded out of Oriel.
Froude early established Law as the prophet of
the last century. Resigning assigned specialities to
other hands, Newman devoted himself to the great
questions immediately before him. This could not
but limit the range of his studies. He had now
begun a life of action, and even reading must be sub
ordinate. The greatest name in patristic theology at Oxford
— indeed a name in Europe, which is a rare thing to
be said of any English scholar — was Routh, the aged
President of Magdalene. Newman was sometimes
asked why he did not enlist the old gentleman more
directly in his cause by dedicating to him one of his

TITHONUS. 319
works. The reason of this he gave in confidence to
a few friends. It was a painful one. The President
had been for a very long time notoriously negligent
of the discipline of his college. In his excessive care
of himself and his almost morbid craving for lon
gevity — the longevity of Tithonus — he made a rule
of caring for no other person or thing, and of letting
the college go its own way, as it did. He could
even derive amusement from the scandals which the
seniors of the college would have prevented if he had
given them the requisite authority and support.
It was long after this, when Routh must have
been ninety, that Faber, the chief college officer
in the matter of discipline, called upon him one
morning, evidently preparing to break some sad
news. ' Stop, I know what you're going to tell me,'
he said. ' One of the Fellows has died drunk in the
night.' ' It is indeed so,' said Faber. But before he
could give the name the President exclaimed, ' Stay,
let me guess.' He guessed right. ' There, you see I
knew the men well. He's just the sort of fellow to
die drunk.' As longevity is justly regarded as a
blessing, it may be well to remember that it is
possible to survive, not the physical powers, or the
mental, but such heart as one may have. It may
be possible to attain length of years without becoming
at all better for it.
Newman's early scruples as to the enlistment of
Routh's honoured name was one of the delicacies
which, like his hesitation to publish his ' Parochial
Sermons,' he lived to abandon. The ' Lectures on
Romanism and Popular Protestantism,' referred to

320 ROUTH AND PALMER.
above, and published in 1837, are dedicated to Routh
in terms which the writer no doubt hoped might
suggest to him 'the day of account,' in which he
would want ' support and protection.' There was no
help for it. All the work of life has its roughness.
There is some defilement in all labour. Hinc mihi
sordes. If a man will save every scruple he will have
to sit still and do nothing. Yet it seemed to those
about Newman as if a little of his bloom was rubbed
off when he addressed what to vulgar eyes seemed a
glowing panegyric to the faithless guardian of a great
Christian college. But what they grieved was the
necessity forced upon him.
William Palmer, of Worcester, had the English
Liturgy and the Constitution of the English Church
for his work, and Newman was among the .first
to recognise his great services. Palmer's extreme
sedateness, shyness, and seeming coldness of man
ner, stood much in the way of his general ac
ceptance. Among the many and great scandals of the
Church of England there is hardly a greater than its
gross and stupid neglect of this able and excellent
man. He came from Trinity College, Dublin, to
pursue inquiries for which Oxford was a more con
genial as well as convenient place. In his own pre
paration for Holy Orders he had had to study the
Prayer Book, and for this purpose he found abundance
of commentaries of a doctrinal and practical character.
But he desired to learn the origin and history of our
formularies, and for this he could find little or no
help. So he came to Oxford. Fate, or the kindness

EARLY LITURGICAL REVIVAL. 321
of a friend, directed him to Worcester College ;
choice took him often to Oriel. He had at once
placed in his hands Bishop Lloyd's annotated folio
Prayer Book, and an older document of the same
kind in the Bodleian, besides other MSS. there.
It should be said there had been a sort of revival
of these studies a few years before. Shepherd, a
clergyman of much promise, had announced a Prayer
Book with historical illustrations ; and had set about
it with industry, when he died. The very frag
mentary work done was published by his daughter,
and several thousand guinea subscriptions testified to
the interest felt even then in the antiquities of our
ritual. Mr. Palmer brought out his ' Origines Liturgiaz,
as stated above, in 1832, the year before the ap
pearance of the ' Tracts for the Times.' There is not
a more interesting work to a scholar and divine, and
hardly a more useful one to an ordinary clergyman.
It was a great addition to our national literature.
To most Oxford men it was like an incident of con
tinental travel before railways — the sudden view of a
vast plain full of picturesque objects and historical
associations. Mr. Palmer was always ready to talk on the
subject and to exchange information. He could
impart his knowledge clearly and succinctly, in good
and incisive language. There could be no suspicion
of party, or bigotry of any kind about him. The
work was in the straightest lines of the Church of
England, without a shadow of deflection.
Henry Wilberforce thought he had detected a
VOL. L v

322 ROUTH AND PALMER.
latent humour in Palmer's defence of the introduction
of the Ten Commandments into the Communion
Service. The gist of that 'defence was that all
Churches had read some portion of the Scriptures,
generally of the Law and the Prophets, in this place.
Some had varied the passages, some had not The
old Irish Church, and the Malabar Church, had used
the same passages always. Comparing one passage
with another, the Ten Commandments were as use
ful as any. All this, however, is put with so much
gravity and solemnity, that if there were humour,
there is great virtue in its effectual concealment.
His ' Treatise on the Church of Christ,' published
six years after, in 1838, is a defence of the Church
of England, full of careful statement and valuable
information, though the writer's Irish birth and educa
tion come out with unexpected force in the history
and denunciation of the 'Irish schism,' that is the
Roman Catholic Church in that island.
After residing some years at Oxford, taking the
tenderest care of an aged mother, long the sole com
panion of his walks, Palmer left for a remote country
living, involving work unsuited to his studious habits,
and expenses beyond his means. Reward he wanted
not, but he had scarce even recognition.

323

CHAPTER LI.
BISHOP MARSH.
MOST people have some information, and consequently
some rational grounds for their own opinions upon
the working of the ' Oxford movement' Such
opinions will vary according to predisposition and
circumstances, but there will always be something
to be said for them. It is far otherwise with regard
to the times before the movement, and its antece
dents so to speak. The popular ignorance with
regard to that period is amazing. People have
taken up a book, generally a biography, and upon
finding it chiming in with their own ideas, they have
accepted it for authentic history, and given it even
a wider application perhaps than the writer intended.
My own belief is that the history of no period in
our Church is to be written, or judged, in that way.
In particular, I feel sure, as the result of much ob
servation and inquiry, that people are under a very
great error in their depreciation of the last century.
The clergy lived and worked under the greatest
difficulties. Their net receipts from their livings were
little more than two-thirds what they now are, or
about 70 per cent. The country roads were very
bad, and in many months of the year almost im
passable. There were but scanty means of enlivening
the rural solitude with newspapers and periodicals.
Few clergymen could afford a horse, or a man-
y 2

324 BISHOP MARSH.
servant, and if they could, both horse and man must
have been of the roughest.
I believe that, as a rule, the clergy did their best
under these circumstances, and were often shining
lights in dark neighbourhoods. I can attach no credit
whatever to the stories of clergymen frequently
marrying the lady's maid, or lower still, picked up by
Macaulay from satirical novels, farces, lampoons, and
caricatures. These were generally written by men
who had forfeited their character with all respect
able people, and who accordingly revenged themselves
on the gentry, the clergy, and Christians generally by
their pictures of extraordinary characters whom they
represented as typical of the class. Macaulay wished
to believe the worst of the gentry and the clergy,
and he would not be at a loss for evidence, nor would
he care to sift it.
In my time at Oxford, and I suspect long before
my time, the expression ' three-bottle orthodox,' was
often used to denote some class supposed to exist in
the last century and reaching down into this. The
phrase is one to fix itself in the memory, like many
other foolish phrases, but it will not bear a minute's
examination. Putting aside the question of physical
possibility, which would involve an inquiry into the
question whether port in those days was a beverage,
like claret, or a liqueur as it now is, the cost of the
feat would prevent its performance, except by very
few persons, and on very rare occasions. If it could be
supposed a daily practice, the great majority of
livings would not pay the wine bill.
But the whole clergy, one used to hear it said,

CLERGY AT PUBLIC-HOUSES. 325
frequented the public-house, and drank beer with
their parishioners. That they sat and talked with their
parishioners was so much to the good, and it could
not be worse to drink beer with their parishioners than
to drink wine with their neighbours. If there be any
moral difference between drinking a pint of wine
with the squire and a pint of beer with the labourer,
the latter has the advantage in economy and health,
and opens a wider scope of usefulness. The squire
both can and will educate himself, but the labourer
has to be taught both the will and the power. In
the course of long walks, pedestrian tours, and cross
country travelling, I may safely say I have never
found such disgusting conversation as I have heard
at gentlemen's tables, or anything to censure, except
now and then a piece of ignorance to smile at. Every
clergyman sincerely desirous to have talks with his
poor parishioners finds it difficult. He must not in
terrupt them at their work, and it is very seldom
that he can find them at home. Why should he not
join them when they are taking a rest, and talking
with one another ? With the Bible in our hands, it
will not do to throw the public-house out of the
pale of the Church.
When I went to live in Salisbury Plain, I saw
at Netheravon an elderly, grave-looking clergyman,
a very spare figure, living alone at the dull roadside
parsonage. ' He's a queer fellow,' people said ; ' he goes
to the public-house, and drinks with his parishioners.'
I did not hear anything worse about him. This was
the parish, and the parsonage, where Sydney Smith had
been once for two years, dining generally at the great

326 BISHOP MARSH.
house, but very much put out, and giving bad names
to the locality, because, when he sat down to some
roast veal, he found he could not get a lemon with
out sending to Amesbury, five miles off.
Netheravon is just two miles from the humbler
village where Addison spent the first fifteen years of
his life. He went daily to Amesbury School, and it
was in his walks to and fro, in the very track the
servant would have to go for a lemon, that he gathered
the touching imagery for his translation of the 23rd
Psalm. Here, too, it was that he found the original
of his Sir Roger de Coverley in Richard Duke, of
Bulford House, which he daily passed. The Paking-
tons claim Sir Roger de Coverley, but Addison is
more likely to have taken his ideal from an acquaint
ance of his youth than from a gentleman who survived
him many years.
Samuel Rickards, of whom I hope to say more,
told me that his uncle, a Leicester incumbent, used
to take a seat every day before a public-house in the
market-place, ready to have a talk with anybody
who wanted it. He was never without a companion,
and sometimes had a circle of listeners.
I took charge of my Northamptonshire living
about Michaelmas, and was ordained Priest at Christ
mas, at Oxford, by Murray, Bishop of Rochester,
Bagot being then unwell. I was to go to Peter
borough, to be licensed, not instituted, for it was a
Perpetual Curacy. This name has been abolished,
young incumbents not liking a designation which
seemed to imply perpetual subalternship, but it
may be doubted whether they have gained much by

FRIENDLY CHURCHWARDENS. 327
being called Vicar or Rector, as if they had received
their final preferment and had nothing better to
expect. I went to Peterborough from Derby. The palace
struck me as a dull solitude. Marsh, who, if my
memory is not at fault, wore a Welsh wig, sat at a
small reading-desk in the middle of a scantily fur
nished room, looked a homely old gentleman, and
made kind inquiries about my parish and my pre
decessors. 'Mr. Mozley,' he then said, 'how do
you propose to go to your living ? ' ' That is just what
I am in a difficulty about,' I replied. He went on :
' I have always found that my best way from one
end of my diocese to the other is through London.'
It was quite true, as I found, that this would be the
best, the cheapest, and the most expeditious route.
I wished, however, to see Northamptonshire, and
therefore traversed that long county.
The Bishop added : ' Mrs. Hinchcliffe, widow of
Bishop Hinchcliffe, told me that her husband used to
go about in his visitations and confirmations on a
pillion behind the churchwarden, and that this was
the only possible way he could travel in Northamp
tonshire' I thought of this when I saw many years
after a beautiful picture of Mrs. Hinchcliffe and her
sister, by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
As I walked away from the palace with Mr.
Gates, the secretary, he seemed to think it necessary
to make some apology. The Bishop's palace was out of
the way, and there was no society, but the Bishop
was in years, and it was an advantage that he had not
the trouble of entertaining.

328 BISHOP MARSH.
The Cathedral, as I remember, holds its own for
grace, solemnity, and cheerfulness. Catherine of
Arragon lies there, and when Henry VIII. was re
minded that she wanted a monument, he used to say
she had the finest monument in England — the
Cathedral itself.
I met the Bishop and Mrs. Marsh, who always
took charge of him, on two occasions afterwards — a
visitation and a confirmation ; and being the youngest
incumbent on both occasions had to take out Mrs.
Marsh to the lunch. I think there was rather more
under-play going on than I expected or liked, but the
clergy had come from long distances and were glad
to see one another. At Brackley there must have
been near four hundred young people, most of them
coming in waggons, as mine did. Old women occu
pied all the approaches to the church with large
baskets of black cherries ; the day was hot, the roads
dusty, and the young people soon blackened their
lips, faces, and hands, much to the spoiling of their
pretty looks. One clergyman, singularly wanting in
self-management and with a remarkably large mouth,
fell into the snare, and made himself a terrible object.
Head, in his ' Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau,'
relates an incident of the same kind.
Not long before I went to Moreton Pinckney,
Bishop Marsh had attempted to stop the use of a
hymn-book at a church near mine, and after an ex
penditure of 4,000/. had been foiled or worn out. His
opponent had been a good-looking shopman at a
linen-draper's, who attracted the notice of a young
woman left with a large fortune, and became her

FOILED AT LAW, BUT AVENGED. 329
husband. She took him to a university. He
was ordained, and in due time she presented him to
a good living. Though he beat the Bishop, he avenged
the Bishop himself, for he became a scandal to the
Church. He had to hide himself, his living was se
questered, and he only reappeared to make a dis
graceful figure in the courts.

CHAPTER LII.
DISTRIBUTION OF THE TRACTS AMONG THE OLD
CLERGY.
WHEN the ' Tracts for the Times ' made their ap
pearance I had been a twelvemonth at Moreton
Pinckney, but while that put me right into North
amptonshire, it did not take me far from Oxford, and
the distance was nothing to me. Upon going to the
place I had felt under an obligation to do whatever
work Newman might think me capable of. I was
now to put the tracts in circulation, and to inform
people of the movement generally. Names were
given to me. The most distinguished churchmen in
Northamptonshire, not to speak of a political agita
tor mentioned elsewhere, were Mr. Sikes, of Guils-

330 THE TRACTS AND THE OLD CLERGY.
borough, Mr. Crawley, of Stowe Nine Churches, and
his son Lloyd Crawley.
Stowe Nine Churches lay the nearest, and perhaps
the name was something in the scale. Putting on a
great-coat and mounting a shaggy pony at the dawn
of a winter's day, I rode there with a bundle of
tracts. I passed close to the window of a room where
a considerable party were still at breakfast, and I was
conscious of fluttering the Volsci. The front door
was promptly opened by a wonderfully handsome
man, much over ninety, asking shortly what I wanted,
and looking askance at the hoof-marks of my pony
on his smooth gravel. I explained, and instantly had
a most welcome invitation to come in and have some
breakfast. He seemed puzzled by the tracts them
selves, but had that eager thought of a better time
coming that would accept anything. He gave me
names and directions, and advice, but above all, I
was to see his son Lloyd.
The old gentleman was himself a martyr, or at
least a confessor, to the good old cause of 
what shall I say ? But it really was not so small a
matter as some of my readers might imagine. When
he first came to Stowe Nine Churches — it must have
been before the Declaration of American Inde
pendence^ — the village was singular for its beauty, its
seclusion, its simplicity, and its virtues. The world
had not found its way to Stowe Nine Churches. But
the Birmingham people wanted a straight way to
London, and didn't care what they did for it. They
got an Act for a road right through his parish, and
so let both London and Birmingham loose upon him ;

A LIFE-LONG PERSECUTION. 331
besides mauling his sweet hill sides, choking up some
valleys, and spoiling some pretty lanes.
He had scarcely recovered from this blow when
the Birmingham people found they could not do
without something else — a canal, of all things in the
world. This he would fight against, and he did, but
to no purpose. They got their canal, and from that
time it was impossible to have fowls, ducks or geese,
or anything worth carrying off, within half a mile of
the canal. It certainly was the fact that the boatmen
laid their hands on all the poultry they could get at,
spent the night in plucking them, sold them in
London or Birmingham, and the next time they had
a furniture removal ripped open the featherbeds,
took out the costly down, and replaced it with the
dirty and blood-stained feathers of their other booty.
Mr. Crawley now thought he had suffered all that
human cupidity or malignity could inflict on him.
But no ; at an age when he might justly expect to be
left gliding peacefully to the grave, they were making,
almost by the side of the turnpike road and the
canal, a railway cutting his hills right in two,
stopping up his streams, and transforming his parish
almost beyond recognition. But, thank Heaven, he
did not believe they would ever complete it The
traffic could never pay ; the poor rates alone would
ruin it ; the damages for setting fire to crops and
farm-buildings would be overwhelming. As far as I
remember the old gentleman had most of the talk.
But he inquired much about my Oxford friends.
Soon I rode to his son, Lloyd Crawley. I found
him a very spare, active little man, near seventy,

332 THE TRACTS AND THE OLD CLERGY.
with a great deal to say. His living had been given
to him when he was still young, on the understanding
that he was to vindicate some disputed rights of tithe.
He did it and succeeded, for the case was clear, but he
had never had a day's rest since, or, to judge from his
large wakeful eyes, a night's rest either. The beater,
tithepayers had built a ' meeting-house, and he could
have no dealings with them. He and his people
were most interested in the Oxford doings, but he
kept returning to the London world, and the work oi
the Societies, as the true scene of action. I must see
Mr. Sikes, he said. It was too far, I replied ; twenty-
miles or more from Moreton Pinckney. I gave it up.
My pony was a borrowed beast.
However, I made my appearance there again,
just in time to see Lloyd Crawley mounting for a
ride. ' What a pity ! ' he said ; ' I must go and see
Sikes. They say he's not well. We can't afford to
lose him. But stay, I'll mount you. It's nothing of
a ride ; only ten miles.' I accepted the offer gladly.
Another horse was brought out, which Crawley
mounted, giving me that I had found him on. The
new horse looked, for a horse, just what his rider
looked for a man — all wire and fire. When a little
way on the road Crawley observed, ' I've ridden this
horse twenty years. But he tires me. He pulls too
much. He will take his own pace, which is rather
too much for me now. I come home with a strained
arm, fatigued rather than refreshed.' It was just as he
said. Do what the rider could, his horse would keep
ahead of mine.
In three quarters of an hour or less we were at

SIKES, OF GUILSBOROUGH. 333,
Sikes' gate, and were received in a charming library,
light, airy, and full of well-bound books, ornamental
as well as useful. Sikes was a fine-looking, elderly
man, with a dignified bearing and a very kind ex
pression, ready to talk about everything, but with a
certain languor and sadness which might or might
not be more than his wont. We must join him at
his early dinner. I remember it was a boiled leg of
lamb and spinach. I had never seen a boiled leg of
lamb before. Sikes made the kindest inquiries about
the Oxford people.
But all his talk was against pushing Church
principles too hard, and making breaches never to be
healed. There were zealots in Northamptonshire, he
said, who would bring Church teaching to a point
that would necessarily exclude dissenters. As things
were there was inconsistency on both sides, on the
side of the Church managers as well as the dissenters.
But he had always urged privately that these incon
sistencies should be endured. If the dissenters will
bear it, surely we may. Their children are often the
best in our schools. They do us good, and we may
do some good to them. The Northamptonshire
schools, he said, stood high, and he believed it was
owing to a quiet, conciliatory policy. Avoid dis
turbance if you possibly can.
I may seem to claim a too distinct memory of a
conversation so far back as 1833 or 1834, but it im
pressed itself upon me much, and has recurred a
thousand times, especially when I chanced to read
any of G. A. D.'s effusions. I have often asked myself
what gave the conversation this turn. I suppose that

334 THE TRACTS AND THE OLD CLERGY.
Sikes regarded me as another firebrand, nay as one
of a whole pack of firebrands, and he then was long
ing for peace. Yet he spoke with much respect of
my Oxford friends. At parting he was very kind,
and indeed tender. There was a great work to be
done. He was not to have a part in it. He could
only give his prayers. A fortnight after I was
shocked to hear of his death. Had I put things
together I should have been better prepared for it.
I could not but think of his words in connection
with my own village school. The best boy in it was
the only son of a small Baptist farmer, and had not
been baptised. The chief book in my school, as I
found it, and kept it, was Crossman's Catechism. I
always shudder as I write the name, as I should
shudder at the mention of the rack, the boot, or the
wheel. My schoolmaster was a machine, and
drove his plough and his harrow fast and straight
over the ground. I spoke to him occasionally, asking
special consideration for the poor lad, who might
well have been allowed to leave Crossman alone, for
he could repeat every answer in the book without a
single mistake, and did so. But the master must go
his own pace. Like the omnibus horse, he could only
do his day's work on the condition of not having to
think. Once or twice have I had the opportunity of
inquiring about the poor lad taught after the straitest
manner of Crossman. The only conclusion I have
come to is that in such cases there ought to be a
distinct and friendly understanding with the parents,
and some special and private instruction given to the
child necessarily placed in an ambiguous and dange-

CROSSMAN'S CATECHISM. 335
rous position. Carpenter, for that was his name,
did not much credit to his school, to Crossman, to his
master, or to me.
By the time we got back to Lloyd Crawley's par
sonage, it was too late for me to continue my journey
to mine. So he gave me a bed. At seven next
morning he tapped at my door and asked if I would
like some warm water. I had never used warm water
in my life for washing or for shaving. Well, I said
to myself, here my good host has got up early to
take the trouble to offer me hot water ; it's only a
proper acknowledgment of his kindness to accept it.
In the course of the morning he mentioned that he
always used cold water himself.

CHAPTER LIII.
NORRIS, OF HACKNEY.

THAT year, or early the next, I had an urgent
summons from Lloyd Crawley to attend a meeting of
the Christian Knowledge Society, at which a great
issue was at stake ; nothing less than the future ofthe
Society and of the Church of England. The question
lay between an existing committee and a new one
altogether. But what committee was it ? Was it a
committee for the choice or preparation of books of
useful or entertaining knowledge, or a committee for.

336 NORRIS, OF HACKNEY.
the selection of all the new books to be put on the
list ? Whatever it was, the difference between the
committee, past and to come, was said to compromise
the principles of the Society.
I seem to remember that Tyler and Cunningham
of Harrow were names in the new committee proposed.
To me the question was one only of principle, or of
party, if the reader thinks that the truer way of put
ting it. I had never been able to read or to use the
Society's books. If I couldn't, I could scarcely ex
pect my poor parishioners.
However, I went up to town, met Crawley, and
with him proceeded to Bartlett's Buildings. A very
large room was already crammed. By-and-by the
landings and staircases were crammed too. Most of
these people had come great distances, and had
started with a strong impression that they were likely
to be outjockeyed in some way or other by the people
on the spot. So now they were desperate. There
arose a wild cry for space, which became louder when
it was known that Howley had taken the chair.
Angry voices came up as from an abyss, and impu
tations of foul dealing were freely made. Some one
proposed an adjournment to Freemasons' Hall, a
couple of hundred yards off, then often used for like
purposes. It was seconded by a thousand voices.
The Primate mildly and effectively remonstrated.
What would the world say if it heard of a long pro
cession of excited clergymen, perhaps in warm dis
cussion, passing along a public thoroughfare? It
would put the worst construction on such a scene.
At present we kept our differences very much to our-

A SCENE AT BARTLETT'S BUILDINGS. 337
selves, and so got over them. The outsiders were
therefore sent to another room, with a suitable chair
man, and they were to be kept well acquainted with
the proceedings of the larger assemblage.
It was soon plain how things would go. The
Archbishop said it was quite gratuitous to suppose
that the new committee would represent a different
theology than that of the old one, and so make a
substantial change in the Society. The names in the
proposed committee were a sufficient guarantee for
that. It would undertake to make no such change,
but to work on the old lines. The members of the
Society themselves would watch, and they would have
the remedy in their own hands. He could not say
that he wished often to see a meeting beyond the
capacity of these premises, but he would take from the
present occasion an assurance that their future meetings
would not be so ill attended as they had frequently
been. If the gentlemen before him would be so good
as to come, some at a time, they would be of the
greatest benefit to the Society's deliberations. All
together, they were too many for counsel.
My good friends had committed the usual error of
impulsive natures. They had had no definite pro
gramme, or common forecast, and they had not borne
in mind that the moment the Primate opened his
mouth, he would be master of the situation. That
would be pretty sure of any Primate ; it would be a
dead certainty in Howley's case. With my then
boyish ideas of eloquence, I was much struck by his
perfectly simple and conversational way of speaking.
But there was no answer to it, for when the Primate
VOL. I. Z

338 NORRIS, OF HACKNEY.
had pronounced the new committee all good and true
men, who could say otherwise ?
But this day really was the day of doom to the old
High Church party. The chief clergyman in the com
mittee to be superseded, or supplied with new blood
in a preponderating quantity, was Norris, of Hackney,
commonly called the Bishop-maker. During all
Lord Liverpool's long, premiership, it was said that
every see was offered to him, with the request that if
he could not take it himself, he would be so good as
to recommend some one else. Now for seven years
he had been relieved of this unenviable responsibility.
But he was still everything at the S.P.C.K., and the
country members looked to him to represent them.
So this day his reign was over, and Norris was a
dethroned potentate.
Crawley, who was to be Norris's guest at Hackney,
introduced me, and I was asked to accompany him to
dinner. Norris took us in his carriage. We arrived
at a large and comfortable house — parsonage or not I
do not remember. It seemed quite in the country,
standing in the midst of thirty-five acres of green
fields, plantations, and full-grown hedge-rows. One
could hardly see a roof or a chimney to remind one
of the metropolis. There was something like a farm
yard, with a large haystack, near the house. We
walked out and looked around. Norris was thank
ful he had been the means of reserving all this open
space so long from the invasion of builders. He
said nothing of its future. Looking up I saw some
strange objects far overhead. Crawley, who lived
near Lord Spencer's, said at once they were herons.

A DETHRONED POTENTATE. 339
Norris said he often saw them. They were on their
way from a heronry down the Thames to one far up, I
think near Cliefden, and they made a point of skirting
the metropolis to avoid its smoke and smell.
But I have not given my recollections of Norris.
With his very well-formed and well-chiselled fea
tures, he seemed to me an ideal of Cardinal Wolsey,
finer, though not so powerful. At dinner the talk
ran on people. There was not a word about the
business of the day. Not very long after Mrs. Norris
and another lady or two had left the room, Norris
fell into a very deep sleep. Crawley was embarrassed.
What was he to do ? The butler came in and told
us what was the regular thing. We were to steal out
into the drawing-room, separated by a door. The
door would be left just ajar. In due time, when Mrs.
Norris gave the word, the butler would step in and
tell his master tea was waiting. This was the course
every evening. But here was the deposed monarch
of a mighty spiritual empire, sleeping the sleep of a
child, the day of his fall from that high estate.
Hackney had long been regarded as a sort of
High Church rival and counterpoise to Clapham.
But Norris must have found himself sadly destitute
of resources. He lacked the men, the measures,
and the literature. Edward Churton had a pro
prietary school there for some time, but what he
did out of his school, or could have done, I never
heard. Norris was so ready to close with anybody
who was not an ' Evangelical,' that he had strange
mishaps. He had Hampden, Baden Powell, and I
think Hinds among his curates. Z2

340 OUTCOMES OF THE MOVEMENT.
Late in the evening I returned to the city, as it
seemed to me through several miles of tillage, by very
scantily lighted roads. The next time I heard the
name of Crawley, it was, I think, in connection with
Littlemore.

CHAPTER LIV.
OUTCOMES OF THE MOVEMENT.
Newman took little or no part in those special out
comes of the movement in which it is most presented
to modern eyes. He left to others hymn.ology, though
himself a writer of hymns ; church music, though
a devotee and a performer ; and even church ritual,
which has latterly given a name to the Anglican
section of his followers. Church architecture and
church decoration he even more easily resigned to
those who might care much for them. In all these
matters he acted not as an author, or as prime mover,
but as a sympathetic bystander, hailing the heaven
sent gifts of genius and grace]
The year 1834, in respect of events, was as the
calm which precedes the storm, but it was one of
vast preparation and incessant labour. Nine or ten
men were now doing their best to out-talk, and out-
write, and out-manceuvre the world, and so heartily
did they set about it that there ensued a certain
degree of competition. There were writers who could

A SCHOOL OF DIVINITY TO BE FOUNDED. 341
write nothing short ; writers who could write a good
sonnet or an ode, but nothing in prose under a
volume ; and all disclosed a life of incubation. If one
of them saw that his colleague had ventured on thirty
pages, he would take sixty, and soon found himself
exceeded by the same rule The tracts took time to
write, and perhaps more time to read. Sermons were
preached everywhere, even in the Chapel Royal, but
mostly in country places, and published with long in
troductions and copious appendices. High and Low
Church stood by amazed, and very doubtful what it
would come to ; but meanwhile equally pleased to
see life in the Church, which the House of Com
mons seemed to think incapable of thought, will,
or action. The correspondence grew. Oxford re
sumed its historic place as the centre of religious
activity. This was the golden age of the movement,
and men talked rather gaily. Some readily accepted
the charge of conspiracy, and were far from
prompt to disavow that there was more in the back
ground. As the vastness of the work to be done now
loomed before the hardy projectors, it became evi
dent that a school of divinity had to be founded.
There was no provision either for students or for
teachers in divinity at Oxford. A university that
could make Doctors of Divinity as easily as Birming
ham can make brass tokens, had no occasion for
teachers or examiners. Oxford was too conscious of
its want of discipline to encourage residence, except
for the twenty months necessary for a B.A. degree.
It was then the merest chance whether a man got a

342 OUTCOMES OF THE MOVEMENT.
Fellowship, and even that did nothing for him in
the way of divinity, except board and lodging, and
a society more or less disposed to think theology
worth a sensible man's attention. I remember a con
versation with a newly-elected probationer at Oriel,
a ' first class ' man, when something was said as to
the choice of a profession. He had made up his
mind against Orders. There was nothing more
to be learnt in theology. There was no progress in
it. This gentleman eventually took Orders, and
became a learned theologian and a rather popular
preacher. So Pusey, in 1836, took into his house my brother
James, who the year before had won the prize for his
Essay on ' Ancient Oracles.' With him was a young
relative of Mrs. Pusey. The innovation excited some
curiosity in the higher Oxford circles. If my memory
tells right, I found him engaged on Thomas Aquinas.
When he was ordained deacon, in June 1838, Newman
and Pusey took a house nearly opposite the west front
of Christ Church, fitted it up in simple fashion, and
supplied housekeeping for young graduates willing to
study divinity. This was an old idea of Pusey's ; for it
was long before this I heard at his table an interest
ing discussion between him and the Provost of Oriel,
on a singularly prophetic suggestion of the former to
place the final examination in 'Arts' at the end of two
years, leaving the third year for Theology, and other
special studies. The ' Hall ' was kept up for two years,
but did not attract inmates. I am not aware that
James had more than one companion. Whatever had
been proposed or expected in these plans, Heaven
was the disposer. My brother James, who from

'FOUNDATION OF THE FAITH ASSAILED.' 343
the Hall was elected to a Fellowship at Magdalene,
became the very distinguished author of works in
which agreement with Newman, or with Pusey, was
apparently the last thing desired.
What was the rest of the university doing ?
What especially the old Oriel school ? If work is to
be estimated by events, they must be credited with
marvellous sagacity and prescience. Towards the end
of 1834, Dr. Hampden, who was now, thanks to his
loyal and steady friend the Provost of Oriel, Principal
of St. Mary's Hall, and Professor of Moral Philo
sophy, produced an able but startling pamphlet,
entitled ' Observations on Religious Dissent, with
particular reference to the use of Religious Tests in the
University.' Without referring to the ' Tracts for the
Times,' or other publications of the day, he struck at
the root of the movement ; for he stated that the
Creeds were but opinions, for which a man could not
be answerable, and that they were expressed in obso
lete phraseology. In this pamphlet and in other
forms, there was now before the university a distinct
proposal to abolish subscription to the Thirty-nine
Articles. A Bachelor of Divinity, writing with the pen of
a master, commented on the proposal, and on the
pamphlet, in a circular laid on the common room
tables ; and early next year, 1835, a ' Clerical Member
of the University' (Henry Wilberforce), addressed a
very powerful letter to the Primate, entitled 'The
Foundation of the Faith Assailed in Oxford.' Beyond
a certain degree of irritation betrayed by Hampden,
nothing came of these anonymous attacks, for the
object of them was not a man to waste his shot on

344 OUTCOMES OF THE MOVEMENT.
an unseen foe. He knew too that the issue would
be decided in London, not at Oxford.
A local work, small, but charged with conse
quences, now began to cost time and money, and
some anxiety also. Attached to the vicarage of St.
Mary's was the hamlet of Littlemore, three miles off,
without even a place of worship. Newman often
walked over, generally with a companion. His
mother and sisters had taken charge of the school
and the poor. The names of the families and of the
most interesting characters had become familiar to
Newman's friends. There must be a church some
day there, but there was no prospect of endowment ;
the vicarage of St. Mary's was but a poor one, and
when Newman, no longer tutor, continued to occupy
his rooms in college, it was because the vicar of the
parish attached to the University Church had no
other residence.
Not a few must still remember the lower London
road as associated with the Newman family, and per
haps with some slight incident. Here is one, pleasant
and suggestive. As Mrs. Newman, her daughters, and
myself were walking on the road between Littlemore
and Iffley, we passed some labourers digging a large
rotten stump out of a bank. One of them ran after
us, exhibiting a portion of the stump, with several
enormous grubs or caterpillars eating their way
through it. I brought it home to Oriel, showed it to
George Anthony Denison, and asked him to take
it to his brother Edward, at Merton College. He im
mediately brought it back, with the box neatly
inscribed in handwriting long afterwards presenting

LITTLEMORE CHURCH. 343
itself from time to time in the midst of more
anxious matters : ' Cossus ligniperda, or Great Goat
Moth. For its anatomy, see Lyonnet, who has written
an octavo volume upon it. It is figured in Donovan.'
It is easy to understand how a church became
every year more regarded as a necessity at Littlemore.
The want of it was even a scandal, for there had
once been a chapel there ; nor was this the only
place where a chapel had been disused on Oriel
property. There was the perfect, but desecrated,
chapel of St. Bartholomew's, in a faonyard not a mile
out of Oxford, in the same direction as Littlemore.
Newman's own ideas of a village church were
simple, almost utilitarian. So little part had he in
the great ecclesiological and ritual revival, which has
changed not only the inside of our churches but the
face of the land, that from first to last he performed
the service after the fashion of the last century. At
his own church of St. Mary's was retained the cus
tom, said to be from Puritan times, of handing the
sacred elements to the communicants at their places
down the long chancel, the desks of which, covered
with white linen for the occasion, looked much like
tables. All he wanted at Littlemore was capacity
and moderate cost.
He consulted me, but I was equally at a loss for
an original idea. A happy thought occurred to me.
My Northamptonshire church had a simple Earl}'
English chancel with lancet windows ; a triplet
filling the east end. I had much admired it A
London cousin of mine, an amateur in watercolours,
had made a beautiful picture of the interior. Taking

346 OUTCOMES OF THE MOVEMENT.
drawings of this, adapting them, and enlarging the
scale, I produced something like a design, which was
at once approved and handed to an Oxford architect
to put in working form. The material was to be
rough stone, dug on the spot, the corners and windows
in Headington stone. There was to be no chancel,
or vestry, or tower, or porch. The work became an
object of much interest, and long before it was
completed, it was evident that much more might
have been done ; but one of Newman's rules was to
owe no man anything, not even on a church account.
As soon as the building showed what it was likely
to be, it was perceived that a mistake had been com
mitted in supposing that a design good on a small
scale would be equally good on a much larger one.
However, it became the model of many churches and
chapels, and Pugin himself, after expressing high
approval of it, reproduced it in the Norman style
next year at Reading.
The first stone was laid in July 1835, when New
man noticed the discovery of four skeletons lying
east and west, showing that this was holy ground,
and that the dust of saints was under their feet, with
the moral that ' the ancient truth alone endures ; as
it was in the beginning, so now and for ever.'
Froude, who had now bidden farewell to Toryism,
much in the same key as he had written of old Tyre
and the Cities of the Plain, was contributing to the
tracts from Barbadoes, and also freely criticising
them when they seemed to him to temporise or to
fall into modern conventionalisms. In fact he was
keeping Newman, nothing loth, up to the mark.

B ABB AGES CALCULATING MACHINE. 347
In May 1835 he returned from Barbadoes. On
landing he found a letter from Newman calling him
to Oxford, where there were several friends soon to
part for the Long Vacation. His brother Anthony
was summoned from his private tutor, Mr. Hubert
Cornish. Froude came full of energy and fire, sun
burnt, but a shadow. The tale of his health was
soon told. He had a ' button in his throat ' which he
could not get rid of, but he talked incessantly. With
a positive hunger for intellectual difficulties, he had
been studying Babbage's calculating machine, and he
explained, at a pace which seemed to accelerate
itself, its construction, its performances, its failures,
and its certain limits. Few, if any, could follow him,
still less could they find an opening for aught they
had to say, or to beg a minute's law. He never
could realise the laggard pace of duller intelligences.
I have not the least doubt he did his best to
explain Babbage's machine to his black Euclid class
at Codrington College, and that without ever ascer
taining the result in their minds.
The third or fourth day Anthony returned to his
tutor at Merton, a few miles from Oxford, availing
himself of a ' lift ' I offered him in that direction.
Within sight of Merton he suddenly woke from a
reverie and exclaimed, ' Lor', what a goose I am ! I
haven't told Hurrell Bessie's going to be married.'
Hurrell Froude went home a dying man, though
it was not till the following January that the end was
seen to be near.
A remarkable illustration of the state of the Oriel
society at this time, and of Newman's relations to it,

348 OUTCOMES OF THE MOVEMENT.
occurs in a published letter of the late Bishop of
Winchester. It is dated November 10, 1835. 'By
the way, Newman is just publishing a third volume
of sermons. I spent a day very pleasantly at Oxford.
Newman was very kind indeed — stayed at out inn
till eleven o'clock with us. I dined in common room,
where the sights and sounds were curious : the can
tankerous conceit of  ;  's pettishness ; the
vulgar priggishness of  's jokes ; the loud un-
gentlemanliness of  's cutlip arguments ; the dis
interred liveliness of  and the silence of Newman,
were all surprenant, nay ^pouvantable'
Samuel Wilberforce, it should be borne in mind,
had tried for a Balliol Fellowship and had not been
elected ; his brother Henry had tried without success
at Oriel. He might now be excused for even an
over-anxiety to prove to himself that a wise Provi
dence had ordered better things for him than an
academic career.
But perhaps he did not consider sufficiently that
these men, thus disposed of with a dash of the pen,
had had few or none of his own immense advantages.
Few men, certainly few college Fellows, have such a
father, or such friends, or the choice of all the best
households, whether in the Church or in the State, to
comprise in a round of visits recurring not unfrequently.
A college Fellow, that is, in an open college, becomes
such by force of character more than by force of circum
stances. He has generally had to make his way through
a mass of opposing difficulties, and among such friends
as he could make or chanced to find. With great force
of character there mostly goes some peculiarity, if not

SAMUEL WILBERFORCE AND LORD DUDLEY. 349
eccentricity. The open colleges, inviting candidates
from all quarters, were bound to be true to their pro
fession, and to elect men by worth and merit, without
favour or prejudice, that is, whether they liked a man
or not, or whether they expected to find him a
pleasant companion or not ; and it has happened that
a man has been twice rejected for his rough manners,
and finally elected for his solid recommendations,
which it was felt could no longer be disregarded
without positive injustice.
Samuel Wilberforce was not the first who found
himself out of his element and his plumage a little
ruffled among Oriel men. There is a remarkable
passage in one of Lord Dudley's letters to Dr. Cople-
stone which makes a very good pendant. 'I saw
Davison the other day in town,' he says ; ' it is quite
astonishing how with such an understanding and such
acquirements, his manners should be entirely odious
and detestable. How you could live with him without
hating him, I do not understand. Clever as he is, there
must be some great defect in his mind, or he would try
to make himself a little more sufferable' The man who
stunk in Lord Dudley's nostrils, and from whom he
recoiled with detestation, was one of the best men and
the greatest minds that ever came into Oriel College.
So true is it of manners, as it is of raiment, ' They
that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses.'
There can be no difficulty in identifying the
characters touched off by Samuel Wilberforce's too
ready pen. The portraits are highly exaggerated,
and they also afford some explanation of the
Bishop's patronage in after times. He showed a

35° HAMPDEN REGIUS PROFESSOR.
decided preference for men of good family, good figure,
and good social qualities, but he was sometimes
deceived ; and on the other hand he neglected men
who were not in his eyes sufficiently men of the
world,

CHAPTER LV.
HAMPDEN REGIUS PROFESSOR.
THE year 1836 was eventful. Richard Hurrell Froude
died, working and writing with his usual spirit almost
to the long foreseen end. He had just time to specu
late on the results of Dr. Burton's death, for the chair
of the Regius Professor of Divinity was thereby
vacant. To look at Burton's large bony frame, and
to hear his strong voice, few would have thought he
was to die before Froude. He seemed destined to a
long episcopate in some see requiring a man of work.
But his reply to Bulteel showed him excitable, and
not always able to command himself. Feeling not
quite well, he went down to Ewelme for a few days'
rest, took a walk in the fields, met a dissenting farmer
who told him he did not preach the gospel and so
forth, had a warm argument with him — the farmer
getting very violent — came home in a fever, and died
in a few days.
Lord Melbourne had designed to nominate Ed
ward Denison, who, besides his "strong personal
claims, had one of a political character, his eldest

RIVAL CLAIMS. 351
brother having carried his election at Liverpool at a
critical time, before the passing of the Reform Bill,
after a long and expensive contest. It was repre
sented, however, to Lord Melbourne, that Hampden
was suffering much tribulation, particularly for his
pamphlet advocating the abolition of university
tests, and that he ought therefore to be supported.
George Anthony used to say that Newman and his
friends had to thank themselves for the appointment,
as they had forced it on Lord Melbourne, who would
much have preferred Edward Denison.
As soon as it became known that Hampden had
been recommended to the King, his Bampton Lec
tures, delivered in 1832, when Newman was preparing
to accompany Froude to the Mediterranean, emerged
into notice.
It has been stated by writers who no doubt
believed what they said, that these lectures were at
tended by large and deeply interested congregations,
as if Hampden had really been the Abelard his an
tagonists would make him. As generally happens, a
considerable number went to hear the first lecture,
because something startling was expected ; but when
they were not startled, but very much puzzled, and
when indeed they found it difficult to understand the
lecturer at all, they ceased to attend, and left the
preacher to the empty benches which are often the
only audience of a Bampton lecturer. If the lectures
were not heard, neither were they read, and no one
who knows what the mass of Oxford men are, and
who will also take the trouble to read a few sentences
in these lectures, can think it at all likely that they

352 HAMPDEN REGIUS PROFESSOR.
were either listened to or read. Perhaps they ought
to have been listened to, and perhaps they ought to
have been read, but the question is one of fact, and
they were neither.
Their history was no secret at Oriel, and it had
been several times asked why nobody called atten
tion to them ? Why indeed ? when there were not
more than half a dozen people in the world who
could have recalled a single passage. Not very long
after the publication, some one— Hugh J. Rose, I
think it was — wrote to Newman, ' You must notice
Hampden's Lectures, and if possible move the uni
versity to condemn them, for they say he is to be made
a bishop, and then what shall we do ? ' Newman
replied that he could do nothing in the matter, for
there was necessarily a personal question between
him and Hampden, the latter having been employed
by the Provost to oust him and the other tutors.
Under the circumstances he wished to keep at peace
with Hampden, whom he was coming across daily.
He was, however, at that time, telling everything to
Henry Wilberforce, who would do something. He
fagoted Hampden's pamphlet on ' Religious Dissent '
with several other scandals, as he deemed them, in
the ' Foundations of the Faith Assailed,' already re
ferred to.
At the time the Lectures were written, there was
only one man in Oxford who knew anything about
the scholastic philosophy, and that was Blanco White.
Hampden, an intimate friend of that gentleman from
his first appearance in Oxford, was now thrown a
good deal into his society, and was qualified as well

«/ KNOW THEE NOT, OLD MAN.' 353
as disposed to enter into Blanco White's favourite sub
ject of comment and denunciation. They saw one
another almost daily, and Blanco White's spirits rose
as the time approached for the doom of orthodoxy.
Most feelingly did he express his disappointment
when he heard that the lecturer had stopped short of
that decisive blow which he held to be the legitimate
conclusion. The difference between the two men was
great, for Blanco White was singularly destitute of
judgment, decision, and self-control, whereas Hamp
den, while ready to make a plunge, yet knew where
to land himself.
Hampden recognised, as he believed, the en
croachments of a rash and presumptuous human
element in the domain of revelation, which he could
both describe and arrest. It was reasonable and le
gitimate that he should avail himself of the only
guide through this intricate region to be found in
Oxford, even though he knew there must be a point
where he must take his stand, and say ' Thus far and
no farther.' Blanco White is so little to be regarded as a
perfectly reasonable being, that it really was small
blame to Hampden that Blanco White held himself
aggrieved, and to a certain extent duped. He felt it
very severely, indeed it was the deathblow of a long-
cherished hope. He now saw that his work, what
ever it was, could not be in the Church of England,
and must therefore be pursued out of it, as Arch
bishop Whately before long had to impress upon
him. VOL. 1. AA

354 THE BAMPTON LECTURES.

CHAPTER LVI.
BLANCO WHITE'S PART IN THE PREPARATION OF
HAMPDEN'S BAMPTON LECTURES.
The above particulars as to the relations of Blanco
White and Hampden have been disputed with much
warmth, and some very rough language which it is
not necessary to recall. It is, however, a question of
testimony. I am certainly a competent witness as
far as opportunity goes, for I had frequent talks
with Blanco White at the time Hampden was also
frequently at that gentleman's lodgings, and that was
while Hampden was preparing these lectures.
It is rather ignominious for any one to be called
upon, in very unpleasant language, to corroborate
that which he has stated as a matter of actual know
ledge This, however, I must do to the extent of
disposing of the argument against it. My statement
is that in the latter part of 183 1 and the early part of
1832, these two gentleman saw a good deal of one
another, and that one of them derived from the other
material assistance in the way of information, authors
to be read, and general insight into the subject, in
view of the lectures he was about to deliver on the
' Scholastic Philosophy considered in its relation to
Christian Theology.'
The main objection made to this statement is
that the ' germs ' of these lectures are to be found in
Hampden's previous writings ; in particular in an

« GERMS.' 355
essay on the ' Philosophical Evidence of Christianity,'
published in 1827, written with the view of carrying
out and applying the principles of Butler's ' Analogy ' ;
in two articles contributed about 1831 to the ' Ency
clopaedia Britannica ' on ' Aristotle and Aristotle's
Philosophy ; ' and in another article contributed to the
same work on ' Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastic
Philosophy.' These articles, Hampden's biographer
states, were written partly in London, where he still
retained his house in Seymour Street, and partly in
Oxford ; and of that last article, viz. that on ' Thomas
Aquinas and the Scholastic Philosophy,' the biogra
pher specially adds : ' This article appears to have
excited much interest. It opened up a branch of
inquiry that had been much neglected, and the sub
ject (which might seem a dull one) is made of interest
to the reader by the deep interest with which the
author evidently enters into the research, and by the
power and vigour of the writing.'
By other writers it is added that there is such a
unity of thought and of style in the whole series of
Hampden's writings, as to forbid the idea of a certain
intrusion of foreign elements. A very excitable dig
nitary thought it necessary to his purpose to speak
rather contemptuously of the ' Spanish Gamaliel,' or
the ' refugee from Seville,' and, since everything that
grows must come of a parent stock, he declared that
Hampden's works generally were the legitimate off
spring of the old Oriel school, so much so as to
repel the suspicion of a foreign graft.
Now, in the first place, whatever may be said about
the ' germs ' or the original stock and the parent stock of

356 THE BAMPTON LECTURES.
the lectures, ' Scholastic philosophy,' to the extent to
which Hampden treated it, was a decided novelty.
So is it said with much emphasis and proper pride by
Hampden's biographer. There was a remarkable
ignorance ofthe subject at Oxford. Before Hampden's
reappearance at Oxford, Newman used to say that
Whately, and his master Coplestone, had missed
Aristotle's logic, and certainly without having caught
that logic no one can understand the schoolmen.
The old Oriel school would not have blundered as it
did in its desultory attempts to mend the Athanasian
theology, had it possessed even a moderate acquaint
ance with the ' Scholastic philosophy.' The classics
were everything in those days, and the great scholars
would then rather enlarge the circle of the classics
than leave an opening for early Christian theology.
Gaisford induced the Clarendon Press to spend 2,000/.
in an edition of ' Plotinus,' by a German he brought
over. Showing Christchurch library to a visitor, he
walked rapidly past all the Fathers. Waving his
hand, he said ' sad rubbish,' and that was all he had
to say. Hampden's biographer was proud to cite a
high authority as to the singular originality of his
design. In a letter from Lord Melbourne to the
professor, he says : ' I see Hallam in his new publi
cation, 1837, says you are the first Englishman who
has ever known anything about Scholastic theology.
People who will tread into new and untrodden ground
cannot expect to do so with impunity, as you have
found.' Blanco White brought this ' Scholastic theology '
with him from Seville ; he was ready to produce it on

AN OXFORD CIRCLE IN 1814. 357
every occasion, and he had been one of Hampden's
friends many years before the date of these conver
sations, which were in 183 1 and 1832. Blanco White
began a year's residence in the city of Oxford, under
the auspices of Shuttleworth, whom he had met at
Holland House, in October 18 14. His most intimate
and most valued friends at Oxford at that time were
the two Bishops, of whom William was already
Fellow of Oriel. At the previous Easter, 18 14,
Hampden had been elected Fellow of Oriel. Shuttle-
worth, who had brought Blanco White to Oxford,
was among Hampden's ' most valued friends,' though
in after years there arose differences between them.
William Bishop was also his very attached friend.
Here, then, were the two Bishops, Shuttleworth,
Blanco White, and Hampden, all in a bond of close
intimacy in 18 14.
After a long interval, passed chiefly in London,
and the neighbourhood, and in frequent communi
cation with his old friends, Blanco White returned to
Oxford in August 1826, and after the Long Vacation
became a member of the university and of Oriel
College and common room. In 1829 Hampden re
turned to Oxford, and resided there in frequent com
munication with the older members of the Oriel
circle, including Blanco White, till the delivery of the
Bampton Lectures.
Let it be observed that all the matter in question,
including the ' germs ' and what not, was written and
published in the period between 1829 and 1832,
while Hampden and Blanco White were residing at
Oxford and seeing much of one another. The articles

358 THE BAMPTON LECTURES.
on Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas were written in
the years immediately preceding the delivery of the
Bampton Lectures, and may be considered as pre
paratory to them. The single ' germ ' mentioned as to
be found in any previous work, that is before Hamp
den's return to Oxford, is in the preface to the essay
on the ' Philosophical Evidence of Christianity,' where
the author says : ' It will readily be acknowledged
there is a strong primA facie objection to the asser
tion of a philosophical theology,' &c. But there was
nothing here conflicting with the statement that in
1 83 1 Hampden opened what at Oxford was entirely
a new subject, with Blanco White, a most compe
tent, well-informed, and willing adviser at hand.
But instead of treating the alleged part of that
gentleman in the history of these lectures as a gross
affront to the lecturer, and something like a charge
of dishonesty, which certainly was never intended, it
would have been quite competent to ask what that
allegation really amounted to. Is it wrong for a man
charged with an important public duty, and undertaking
a new and difficult task, full of peril, to avail himself
of the only informant, the only man at all familiar
with the subject, within reach, that informant being
also an old and intimate friend ? Would it have be
fitted the lecturer himself, his position, or the interests
of the university, to neglect an opportunity ready at
hand, and of a very exceptional character ? There is
no such folly, no such cause of utter breakdown and
disgrace, as the silly pride of doing things quite
by oneself, without assistance Hampden never
claimed that originality, which as often as not is the

A FRIEND IN NEED. 359
parent of error. He was a laborious and conscien
tious reader and thinker, whose chief anxiety seems
to have been to work on a recognised foundation, and
to use all the means at hand for doing his work as
well as he could.
What, then, are universities made for, if not to
bring students together, and to enable them to com
pare notions and render mutual services ? Nor does
a statesman or an orator demean himself, and prac
tise a fraud, because he avails himself of professionals
and experts.
Blanco White was a very pleasant talker, only
wanting somebody to draw him out, and perhaps also
to keep him to a subject. He only desired to be
drawn out by any one with whom he could feel on
equal intellectual terms. Newman and the other
Fellows at this time were no longer caring to hear
much what he had to say. They did not want to
be engaged in a controversy which would only end in
nothing ; and to be brought to agony point, only to
recoil. It was no longer as it had been four years
before, when Blanco White entered in his journal :
'February 18, 1827. Taken ill and confined to the
house the whole day. Newman drank tea with me.
March 11. A walk with Newman and Whately. Oc
tober 31. Called on Pusey, who walked with me.
Pusey, Wilberforce, and Froude came' in the evening
to learn the order of the Roman Catholic Service of
the Breviary.'
There is a very remarkable passage in a letter of
Hampden's, written October 31, 1835, in reply to
some remarks in the nature of friendly warning from

360 THE BAMPTON LECTURES.
Archbishop Whately. 'I have certainly tried to
think for myself, and have had a fondness for taking
up subjects of discussion which appeared to me not
to have been fully treated before, because they coin
cided with my turn of mind, or stimulated my
curiosity more than some others. At the same time
I have not pursued the study with the vanity of an
independent thinker. I have always sought every
information that I could obtain, whether from books
or conversation, and have taken care, where I re
membered it, distinctly to refer to the source of my
information — not with the view simply of avoiding
the imputation of plagiarism, but often for the
purpose of leading those who might be so disposed
to examine the points referred to in the authorities
themselves.' And now what is the account of these lectures
strenuously and angrily maintained by persons who
can have no pretence whatever to a present and con
temporary acquaintance with the circumstances, such
as I have ? It is that this extraordinary revelation
came and went of itself in a day, so to speak, begin
ning in 1831 and ending in 1832. Excepting the
above ' germ,' which had shown itself a year or two
before, there was nothing in Hampden's publications
before 1831 to prepare for his Bampton Lectures,
nothing in his after publications in keeping with them.
The ' Observations on Religious Dissent,' published
two years after, admit of being described as the
practical application of the Bampton Lectures, but
they are, in fact, simply a summing up of the Lati-
tudinarian plea, with arguments long familiar to the

SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY LET ALONE. 361
politico-religious world. Hampden assumed his po
sition in regard to Scholastic philosophy in 1832,
and immediately abandoned it Not that he re
nounced it ; not that he would budge an inch, or
explain away, or meet objections in any way damaging
to his own writings, but simply that he laid the matter
down. He dropped it, for he had now something
else to do.
But he could not have dropped it had it been a
part of his mind in a developed and habitual form.
It must have stuck to him and come out in all he
said. The subject, for a time so important and en
grossing, was discarded, and thenceforth was nothing
to him. Hampden acted for the best, from his own
point of view. But it would have been impossible
for a man to be so filled with a great theme, and so
utterly discharged of it, to all appearance, had it not
been substantially the work of a day, done upon a
concurrence of favourable circumstances, including a
very opportune informant and sufficient aid.
To my apprehension the tone of the Bampton
Lectures is that of a man almost carried off his legs
by the sudden sense of a great discovery and a
delightful emancipation. It has often reminded me
of the well-fed horse that Homer describes as breaking
loose from his stall, and galloping, with loud neighings,
to join the wild herd in the open plain. Without the
thought of a comparison, I felt much the same of the
' Essays and Reviews,' chiefly of Wilson's, I believe.
' Why, this fellow's a cow in a clover field,' I said,
almost unconsciously. Hampden, I must allow,
deserves the nobler comparison of the two.

362 CONDEMNATION OF THE LECTURES.

CHAPTER LVII.
CONDEMNATION OF THE BAMPTON LECTURES.
The Bampton Lectures, however, unread as they
were, and unreadable as they might be to ordinary
readers, had now the authority of a Regius Professor
of Divinity. The majority of the residents only
wanted some one to move and to lead the way.
First there must be definite grounds to proceed upon.
The ' Elucidations ' were drawn up by Newman for
this purpose in one night — at a sitting, so to say.
The pamphlet became the text of the controversy, to
the shame, it must be said, of many who could have
turned to the original lectures, and, as self-consti
tuted judges, ought to have done so.
A now famous meeting was held in the common
room of Corpus Christi College, under the presidency
of Mr. Vaughan Thomas, a much respected, though
rather grotesque, specimen of Oxford orthodoxy.
There is a singular absence of authentic history as to
what was done ; and they who were in the thick of it,
and lent a hand at every stage, will differ as to the
many proposals made, accepted, and acted upon. It
was soon seen that it would be useless to ask that
the appointment might not be made. The university
had no choice but to submit to the appointment. So
it was proposed and carried that the Convocation
should be summoned to suspend, so far as Dr.
Hampden was concerned, the provisions of the statute

MEETING IN CORPUS COMMON ROOM. 363
for the nomination of Select Preachers, constituting
the Regius Professor of Divinity one of the Board of
Nomination ; and also to deprive him of his place
as one of the judges on any complaint of heretical
teaching made to the university. The alleged ground
of the double deprivation was that the university had
no confidence in Hampden. This was vote of depri
vation to the utmost extent possible. It would still
rest with each Bishop whether he would require, or
even accept, as a qualification for Orders, a certificate
of attendance on Dr. Hampden's lectures ; but this was
really a very small affair, and very much a matter of
form. A mythical account of these proceedings describes
the meeting of forty Fellows from all the colleges in
Oxford in a common room as a conspiracy, and adds
that the conspirators adjourned from Corpus common
room to Baxter's printing office. I have no recol
lection of any such adjournment, nor can I see what
occasion there could be for it.
One ridiculous incident I do remember, which
shows the slack and open character of our operations.
After helping to fold and direct some hundred copies
of a circular — I forget which — I undertook to post
them. Stuffing as many as I could into my pockets,
I set out with unusual gravity for the Post Office.
Near Carfax I made the discovery that my pockets
were lighter than I expected, and, turning round, I
saw that the pavement all the way from St. Mary's
was strewn with circulars. The passengers, seeing
that there were many of them, concluded that they
were not worth picking up, and I believe I recovered

364 CONDEMNATION OF THE LECTURES.
the whole, though it is quite possible one or two may
have fallen into strange hands.
A Convocation was summoned, and the clergy
came up from all England. A shower of pamphlets in
every form, every tone, and every variety of title,
descended from Oxford over the land, covering
counters and tables, more easily written than read.
The vote of exclusion from the choice of Select
Preachers and from judicial functions had a majority
of the Doctors and of the Masters, but was vetoed by
the Proctors, as had indeed been anticipated. A few
weeks afterwards there were new Proctors, and, another
Convocation being convened, the vote was carried.
If any one will think quietly upon the nature of
this audacious act, he will be led to the conclusion
that the clergy, and probably the people in general,
had a less defined and less exalted idea of the
Royal Supremacy, and indeed the whole Royal
Prerogative, in 1836, than they have now. Whether
the lawyers maintained it or not, it would now be
generally understood and felt that whenever the
Queen appoints to an office, she appoints to that
office with its full existing complement of powers and
privileges. To say to the Sovereign, ' You may take
the hard letter of your right, but we will shear it and
prune it till nothing is left but the name,' certainly
would have cost a few heads in Tudor times, and
historians would have accepted that result as a
matter of course.
Any reasonable person, too, may doubt the validity
of an act depriving the Regius Professor of Divinity
of privileges appertaining to the very essence of the

VALIDITY OF THE DEPRIVATION? 365
office. If he is not to have a voice in the selection
of university preachers, or upon a charge of heresy,
where is he ? The delivery of lectures to candi
dates for Orders — a few young men twice a year —
is but a small part of his office. Some account
has to be given of the facility with which many
hundred well-educated gentlemen defied and insulted
the Crown. That account is to be found, perhaps, in
the continual decline of loyalty from the days of the
Regency to the end of William IV.'s reign. The
language employed about all the royal personages
during that period — the vituperation, insinuation,
and ridicule, not only in the lower organs of the
press, but in journals taking a side in religious
controversy, and laid on the tables of the wealthy,
the educated, and the good — would be incredible in
these days. To judge by the simple facts, the Crown
is indebted to the present wearer for the recovery of
its old prestige and its inherent dignity.
One other feature in this act of deprivation the
triumphant majority could hardly fail to be aware of,
though resolved to encounter it. There would inevit
ably ensue a war of retaliation, for if one side
ostracised Hampden to the extent of their power,
Hampden's friends would assuredly ostracise every
one in the opposing ranks ; and if they thought the
law had been stretched or even broken against them
selves, they would have the less scruple to stretch
or break the law in their turn.
By this time, Dr. Hampden's inaugural lecture
was eagerly waited for ; but he had now to defend
an ecclesiastical as well as a philosophical position.

366 UNREADABLENESS OF THE LECTURES.
He contented himself with a series of doctrinal
statements which it would have taken a great deal
of learning and ingenuity to prove quite incom
patible with his lectures, and which so far saved his
orthodoxy. Neither of the belligerent parties liked
a result which seemed to show that it had been
wasting a good deal of power, not to say character ;
and it spoke well for Dr. Hampden's private virtues,
that he still had the sympathy and admiration of
many friends.

CHAPTER LVIII.
UNREADABLENESS OF THE BAMPTON LECTURES.
The whole proceeding has received from the begin
ning a great variety of comments, and time has con
tinually thrown new lights upon it. A great uni
versity, the most important theological university in
the world — for Oxford was now the only rival of the
Vatican — pronounced the strongest possible con
demnation of a book and of its author, inflicting upon
him an injurious and penal deprivation. He was
now to have no voice in selecting the preachers of
that theology of which he was himself the chief pro
fessor and teacher, or in protecting it from error.
The great mass of the multitude that inflicted this
penalty were very, if not entirely, ignorant of the
book which was the corpus delicti. They might have

GENERAL IGNORANCE OF THE LECTURES. 367
seen it on a counter, or on a table ; they might have
opened it, turned over a leaf or two, and might even
have had their attention directed to a few passages.
The very great hurry in which the thing was done,
and the fact that the book was and is comparatively
rare, forbid the supposition that there could have
been much, or even an adequate, acquaintance with
its contents. There were very few in the kingdom
capable of following the writer into the question of
the fitness of the Scholastic phraseology for the state
ment and exposition of divine truths. The first look
of the text was such that High Church and Low
Church would equally recoil from it.
The country members of Convocation, as fast as
they came up, implored their resident friends, with
pitiable importunity, to tell them all about it, generally
in vain, for their resident friends knew as little about
the book as themselves. This may seem passing
strange to outsiders, but, apart from the special
difficulties of this volume, Bampton Lectures, as
often as not, are preached and paid for, and duly
added to the author's titles of honour, but are not
listened to or read. The institution exists chiefly
for the simple folks who may naturally think it
something that a man has been a Bampton lecturer.
There was once a Bampton lecturer of whom Dr.
Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, could justly boast that he
was the only man who understood him, or could say
what he had preached about. This was Archdeacon
Goddard, who delivered the lectures in 1 823. Hawkins
was Censor Theologicus of his college that year, and
in that capacity had to attend the university sermons,

368 UNREADABLENESS OF THE LECTURES.
and comment on the notes sent in by the under
graduates. Goddard's usual plan of composition was
to write what he had to say simply enough, and then
to expand every word into a sentence, and repeat
that process in successive amplifications of the text,
till the last cooking had swollen the matter to the
required bulk. This is often done to some extent,
even by writers wholly unconscious of a' plan, but the
Archdeacon had carried the license too far. Hawkins
perceived at once that the lectures would severely
tax his own ever-watchful attention, and probably
quite beat the apprehension of the undergraduates.
He saw, too, that the strain on his own memory
would be considerable, especially as in reading the
undergraduates' notes he would find himself in a
maze of incorrect renderings. So he took very careful
notes himself, and kept them always before him till
he had gone through those of the undergraduates.
His own notes' were a considerable labour. There is
no love like that which men have for the work of
their own hands, and the Provost in after times would
refer to his notes on Goddard's lectures, and show
that at least in one matter he had an undisputed
superiority, indeed monopoly, at Oxford.
Goddard, whom I once met at the Provost's, was
a dignified personage, but as dark as his own sen
tences. His sermon at the consecration of Bishop
Howley, copiously quoted in the ' British Critic ' of
the day, shows him an adept in the art of amplifica
tion ; but in that instance it was done by a free use
of the parenthesis.
When Hampden was appointed Regius Professor,

DAVISON'S ALLEGED APPROVAL. 369
his lectures were almost as unknown a book at
Oxford as Goddard's. The Provost of Oriel no doubt
had followed and studied them, and had probably
gone some way with them. Newman also had looked
into them. Others did the same when Hampden's
name was up for promotion. Hampden himself, like
most authors, cherished the impression that the friends
or acquaintances to whom he had presented copies,
and who returned their polite acknowledgments, did
this upon some acquaintance with the contents of the
book. That impression would be probably correct
with regard to some of his friends, for at the delivery
of the lectures he had been a member of Oriel
College twenty-one years — a distinguished member
of it ; and his old friends would be likely to have
some advantage over his newer acquaintances in the
study of the lectures.
But with regard to one of his oldest college
friends, his loved and valued tutor, Davison, there
arose a curious controversy. Hampden stated on
some occasion that Davison had read the lectures,
that he had agreed with them, and had expressed his
entire approval. This was thought inconsistent with
Davison's known character and views. It was even
stated that he had expressed himself unfavourably
of the lectures. He was a very timid and diffident
theologian, and this grew upon him, insomuch that
when his friends were expecting some fresh outcome
out of his studies, he was found more and more un
willing to commit himself by publication. Davison
wrote freely, vigorously, and evei brilliantly on such
matters as education, particularly Lovell Edgeworth's
VOL. I. B B

370 UNREADABLENESS OF THE LECTURES.
scheme of professorial education, and the attacks on
the University of Oxford in the ' Edinburgh Review,'
on civil and judicial institutions, and even on the
poor-laws. So, too, in his nearer approach to Christian
theology, on the prophecies of the Old Testament,
on the origin of sacrifice, and on the evidences ;
but even here he always seemed hampered, as if he
recoiled from a further advance into sacred ground.
When he left college and went into the country, he
would certainly be more at large and his own
master. Davison was now regarded as a man who had
long been slowly emerging from a school in which
he was notoriously and avowedly not quite at home,
but for which he felt the bonds of affection, as well
as considerable agreement. But the people who were
now expecting him to act more like himself, and
from the dictates of his own nature, forgot perhaps
that he was now past middle age, that he had never
had a very youthful mind, that he had always wanted
self-assertion, and that the habit of an imperfect
development must by this time have become incurable.
There was, however, actual information coming again
and again that Davison was known to be engaged
upon a Commentary on the Scriptures. The hesi
tations, whatever they were, that had pursued him
through life, dictated at last an instruction to his
widow to destroy all his MSS. She felt it her duty
to execute this order, and no doubt did execute it,
though she knew that he had written this Com
mentary, or parts of it, several times over. Was he
Hkely at once to declare his approval of a work

DAVISON'S INVETERATE INDECISION. 371
which it would take much time and close attention
to master ?
So the widow was written to. She searched
through the library and found the lectures, only one
leaf cut open, and with no signs of having been read.
This seemed conclusive, and there was much joy at
Oriel in the removal of what seemed a slur on
Davison's memory. Nevertheless Hampden was
able to produce a letter which must be admitted to
have justified him in appealing to Davison's unquali
fied and intelligent approval. But this opens other
questions ; first Davison himself, and his state of mind,
and then the whole chapter of presentation copies,
presentation letters, and presentation replies.
Davison was now magni nominis umbra. The
silence of his house was awful, visitors said, for he
could not bear the footsteps or the voices of his own
children. Going over the same ground over and over
again, he seems to have arrived at hopeless inde
cision. Why, then, decide so quickly upon such a work
as these lectures ? He had every inducement, and no
doubt every wish, to say something agreeable of the
crowning work of a pupil, indeed a promising and
favourite pupil, whose success in life he had prophe
sied almost at first sight, and whose only fault in his
eyes was an excess of modesty, interfering with free
dom of intercourse. A dip here and there might
afford the materials for a kind acknowledgment, and
save the conscience of the reader. The volume on
his shelves showed that it could only be a dip here
and there. Many people acknowledge presentation
copies at once, in order to save the necessity of
B B 2

372 UNREADABLENESS OF THE LECTURES.
reading them ; but they must say something about
the book, and Davison possibly read enough 'to
swear by.'
However, he had passed all his days in the old
Oriel school, in the same rock Hampden himself was
hewn from, and possibly the new Oriel school were,
after all, mistaken in relying on the permanence of
the special convictions which were supposed to have
made him an exception to the general character of
that school. He had need of something more than
convictions to be proof against the fascination of Cople-
stone, then by far the ablest and most agreeable man
in the university. Such a fascination long felt, and
endured in the period of rising manhood, would not
easily be shaken off in its failing years. It had long
been his duty to defer to the judgment of those
around him, one of them at least his superior in all
that makes personal influence, and so far authority.
In the main principles he agreed with Coplestone and
others ; and he seemed ever to postpone the inevi
table parting. The embarrassment betrayed in his
writings was conspicuous in his conversation. It
became his habit and his consolation to contemplate
with simple awe that mystery which neither mathe
matics nor logic could reduce to language, and he
spoke jealously of the hope expressed by a rising
philosopher that he would live to see things now be
lieved inscrutable expressed in mathematical for
mulas. There is another consideration bearing on the
point I do not think Davison and Hampden could
have seen one another since the latter left Oxford

TUTOR AND PUPIL. 373
in 1 8 16. Their courses lay wide apart. I resided at
Oriel from 1825 to 1832, and I am very sure Davison
never appeared in Oriel during that period. Up to
the latter date Davison's recollection of Hampden
would be that of a very studious and promising youth
of twenty-three. There were old college stories about Davison that
might be interpreted one way or another. He was
described as like the mysterious old gentleman in the
' Vicar of Wakefield,' who by a single monosyllable
would dispose of a long flow of nonsense. He would
sometimes cut impertinence very short with an unex
pected sally. Driving his own carriage to Gloucester,
he put it up at a small inn in the suburbs, and pre
sented himself at one of the principal hotels in the
city. He was sharply asked, ' Where did you come
from, and how did you come here ? ' His reply was
as sharp. ' From Bristol gaol by the waggon.' Pos
sibly it was some such reply that obtained for him
Lord Dudley's ' detestation.'
Other old friends, and other authorities besides
Davison, were afterwards appealed to as having read
and approved, but at the time they said nothing.
They did not make the slightest effort to remove the
blackness of darkness which seemed to have closed
round the lectures from the day they were delivered.

374 GLADSTONE AND S. WILBERFORCE.

CHAPTER LIX.
GLADSTONE AND S. WILBERFORCE.
Newman and his friends had been deeply impressed
with the necessity of removing this universal igno
rance of the matter to be adjudicated on, and of
supplying the deficiency. Various writers took it in
hand, and no common work has been so extracted,
elucidated, analysed, tabulated, and furnished with
helps to the eye and the understanding as was this
volume, necessarily, in a very few days.
But here again came a new form of the difficulty.
Can a book be known by extracts ? Illustrations are
made for a purpose. Texts are separated from their
context. One of the standing jokes of that day were
' textes,' that is the score or two texts which old
women would substitute for the whole of the Bible,
as containing all they wanted out of it, of course in
anything but the true sense of the words. Expla
nations are constructed, a passage here, a passage
there. You may build or carve what you please out of
a quarry. It cannot be denied that even if there were
as much honesty as there certainly was industry in
the presentation of Hampden's book to the assembled
members of Convocation, the result would still fall
very short of careful study and real knowledge. In
fact the work of elucidation, quotation, and comment
exceeded the limits of the occasion and the capaci-

NEGOTIATION UNDER ARMS. 375
ties of most of the intended readers. They had
neither the time nor the power to do justice to either
the book or the commentaries.
Two men, both of whom may be considered
great men in their respective ways, and who certainly
were not wanting in the power of acquiring know
ledge, had many years afterwards to make the hu
miliating confession that while ready at the time to
condemn Hampden's lectures, they in truth knew
nothing about them. Eleven years afterwards, when
Hampden had been nominated to the see of Hereford,
the Church of England protested, it may almost be
said en masse, against the appointment. The signifi
cance of the appointment had now every possible
aggravation ; the resistance to it every possible dis
advantage. Hampden's chief antagonists had left
the field, and in so doing had discredited their
old cause, and left it in weaker hands. Samuel
Wilberforce, divided, distracted, and beset, after
signing a futile episcopal remonstrance against the
appointment, allowed himself to be drawn into the
difficult path of persuasion pointed with menace, and
negotiation concurrent with hostile acts. Acquiescing
in legal proceedings, he besought Hampden to give
him an easy victory by explaining away his lectures.
Hampden had now to fight not only for his opinions,
but still more for the Royal Prerogative. The latter
was an impregnable position. Hampden did nothing ;
said nothing ; and was unassailable. As peace there
must be on the Bench, and he would not submit,
others must. S. Wilberforce then began to read the lec
tures seriously ; at least as he had never done before,

376 GLADSTONE AND S. WILBERFORCE.
and the result was an apology to Hampden for all he
had himself done, on the plea of ignorance.
The other recantation was still more remarkable.
Thirty-four years after the delivery of the lectures,
Hampden, to his great surprise, and somewhat quali
fied pleasure, received a letter from Mr. Gladstone,
written in penitence and self-humiliation. He had
done his best to understand the lectures, without
success. As it was past his power to understand
them, he had been clearly wrong to condemn them
on the information of others.
One can imagine Hampden reading the letter
backwards and forwards, upwards and downwards,
and holding it up to the light, to see what he could
make of it. The reason given by Gladstone for his
ill-success, viz. that for a good many years past he
had found himself ill able to master books of an
abstract character, must have satisfied Hampden that
the case was hopeless. Most abstractions are easy
enough and present no difficulty to the understanding.
Some abstractions are difficult, not to say impossible,
to be understood. Humanity is an abstract idea, but
easily brought home to ordinary hearts and minds.
Deity is an abstract idea, of all ideas the least com
prehensible Hampden wisely put the letter into a
drawer and said nothing about it. His biographer re
garded it in the light of a most flattering testimonial,
and accordingly was proud to publish it. Hampden's
extreme modesty and unwillingness to obtrude himself
were the only account the biographer could give of its
suppression. What then, it may be asked, is the difficulty, the

HAMPDEN AND GIBBON. 377
confessed difficulty of these lectures, and why even
now is it rare to find any one who can pretend to
have read them, and very hard to believe him ? The
difficulty lies in the immense quantity of matter that
Hampden labours to bring within the compass of
eight lectures. The composition suggests the idea of
notes made while reading several new authors, in
order to reduce to a still smaller compass their over
loaded pages. The taking of ample notes is a pro
cess very useful, indeed necessary, in the preparation
for a great work to be published without limitations of
time or space ; but it is sure to disappoint when all that
can be done is just to present the notes themselves
in the most grammatical English possible under the
circumstances. Gibbon was not an abstract writer, for he robbed
every person and thing of its abstraction. He had a
marvellous way of working his materials into continual
scenes and pageants, making history an endless drama.
Upon the same ground, and with the same materials,
Gibbon is a novelist and Hampden a bookworm.
Gibbon gave the best part of his life to his work, and
Hampden had only a few months for his. Excepting
in the Long Vacation of 1 831, he had his hands full
of work, and his biographer says that he sometimes
even ascended the pulpit with his lecture so incom
plete that he had to dispense with the MS. before he
got to the end.
There comes, then, the question, Ought judgment
to have been done, by such a tribunal, and upon
such imperfect information ? The only answer is the
necessity of the case. There must either be such a

378 GLADSTONE AND S. WILBERFORCE.
trial of the book, or none at all. Certainly all
England, up to that time, did look to Oxford to pro
tect the orthodox doctrine, and the orthodox exposi
tion of it. The very institution of Regius Professor
of Divinity testifies to that. Unfaithful as the
Evangelical party believed many of the Oxford clergy
to be to their trust, they would have been the first
to accuse them of further unfaithfulness had they let
Hampden's appointment alone. By this time his
opinions were known. He had brought the lectures
to a practical point and a working bearing in a
pamphlet written in plain English and intelligible to
an ordinary reader. There was no choice but to do
what had to be done in the only way possible. Such
has been the common fate of all the most important
and critical acts and facts in history. They have
been done in haste, hurry, slovenliness, with very
mixed agencies and very indifferent tools, and with
much disregard of appearances ; for there was no
other way, and the work had to be done first and
criticised afterwards.
There comes, then, the far more important question,
then hardly entertained, for Hampden's friends advised
him so far to yield to the storm : Was he really in
the right, and was his cause that of truth ? Is it
true that the schoolmen have corrupted Divine truth ?
They who believe it the mission of Aristotle and of
Plato to provide ideas and expressions beforehand
for the Christian revelation will be ready to accept
thankfully and unreservedly the work of their dis
ciples. The old and the new philosophy go together
and cover a large space in the Christian controversy.

WAS HAMPDEN RIGHT OR WRONG? 379
Blanco White said that the Athanasian doctrine of
the Trinity and Transubstantiation were inseparable,
the latter being the necessary outwork of the former.
He rejected both ; Newman accepted both. Almost
every modern disbeliever in the supernatural, whether
in the Bible or in Nature, will tell you that it was
Plato who corrupted Christian truth and made the
Church of history and of the present day.
Hampden, once in the seat of authority, gave up
speculation, unless it were speculation to see how far
he could satisfy the Evangelical party in the Church
without entirely repudiating his own published
opinions.

CHAPTER LX.
VOICE, LOOK, AND MANNER.
THERE is one element of the question which has to
be stated, as otherwise the story would be imperfect.
We may please to regard it as a small matter, but it
has much weight in most careers and in all human
affairs. The historian, the poet, and the novelist
alike do their utmost to bring before the reader the
figures and the manners of the principal personages,
and we all find these poor externals inseparably
associated with their action and speaking.
Dr. Hampden, when he reappeared in Oxford at
the age of thirty-six, was one of the most unpre-

3S0 VOICE, LOOK, AND MANNER.
possessing of men. He was not so much repulsive
as utterly unattractive. There was a certain stolidity
about him that contrasted strongly with the bright,
vivacious, and singularly loveable figures with whom
the eyes of Oriel men were then familiarised. Even
the less agreeable men had life, candour, and not a
little humour. Hampden's face was inexpressive,
his head was set deep in his broad shoulders, and
his voice was harsh and unmodulated. Some one
said of him that he stood before you like a milestone,
and brayed at you like a jackass.
It mattered not what he talked about, it was all
the same, for he made one thing as dull as another.
At one of the Oriel ' gaudies,' or festive anniversaries,
e and Hinds, and one or two others, discussed the
old idea that our first parents were created radiant as
we picture the angels, and even the saints ; that this
radiancy was the badge of their heavenly citizenship,
and the chief element of their dominion over the
brutes; that they lost it at the fall, and that the
loss revealed to them that they were naked ; that
the Lawgiver reappeared with this radiance from the
Mount, and again with the Prophet at the Mount
of Transfiguration ; and that this will be the lost
robe of righteousness to be restored to the saints at
the last day. !
Such a topic might be tenderly, reverentially,
and plausibly treated. Hampden and his friends
brought it down to the level of Rabbinical lumber.
The real question is that on which Dr. Bull has col
lected the opinions of all the Fathers, and decided in
the affirmative, viz. that our first parents had a

SOCIAL DIFFICULTIES. 381
' supernatural habit of grace,' which was in one sense
an investiture, inasmuch as they were divested of it
at the fall, and were immediately aware of the
change. Hampden's appearance and manner helped to
explain the charge of persecution and annoyance he
brought against the majority of university men.
Both he and they were in a real difficulty. Between
all men who had ever met at Oxford there was in those
days some recognition, in most cases civil and slight.
Hampden, not quite certain whether he was to be
cut or recognised, looked for a very marked recog
nition, which some men doubtless found it not easy
to give. Others met the emergency by doing what
Hampden evidently looked for, and then he took it
rather amiss when they gave their votes in Convoca
tion to incapacitate him from his chief functions.
Walking over Magdalene Bridge, I met Hamilton,
and found myself, as I thought, the object of a most
emphatic and beaming recognition, as if something
unusually pleasant had happened. The mystery was
immediately solved by my finding that Hampden
was just behind me. Yet Hamilton was no partisan,
and did not share Hampden's opinions.
Henry Wilberforce, as the author of the 'Foun
dations of the Faith Assailed at Oxford,' and a mem
ber of the same college, had his full share of this
trouble. He said that Hampden glared at him, and
that he recognised in the glare that gentleman's West
Indian blood. If, as was possible, the planter glared
at the emancipator, it is to be considered that there
is much reciprocity in the commerce of eyes, and that

382 VOICE, LOOK, AND MANNER.
it is often hard to say which has begun the friendly,
or unfriendly, interchange.
Moreover, it is to be confessed that the English are
not such masters of the art of recognition as the
French or the Italians. Perhaps they are too honest,
as they think it, and would rather be a little rude
than seem to dissemble.
In one not unimportant matter Hampden jarred
with the Oriel taste, and the taste of the old
school as well as the new. They were, with hardly
an exception, very simple in their ways, caring
nothing for furniture and upholstery. There was not a
bit of ornamental work or drapery to be seen in
the Fellows' rooms. Newman might never have put
a new thing into his rooms since he took them, as the
custom was, ready furnished from his predecessor.
The only luxury ever seen there was a clean towel
always handy, to dust any book that had lain long on
its shelf. The Provost evidently applied to his own house
and establishment the same rule of moderation he
had afterwards to recommend to me, in vain, in the
matter of my church. He must have taken all
Copleston's furniture, and Mrs. Hawkins must have
been very unlike other women if it was not a trial to
her. When the Duke, after his installation, came on
his round of complimentary calls, we were all invited
by the Provost to join in the reception. When we
were all mustered, and the visit was imminent, there
arose an anxious question. There were barely chairs
enough, and several of them were in a very untrust
worthy condition. The shaky chairs and the lighter

A PLURALIST. 383
weights were relegated to the corners of the room,
and a chair that could be entirely depended upon to
bear the weight of a hero was disposed opportune
for the new Chancellor ; with another selected chair
for his guide and prompter on this occasion. Of
course the Duke was found well up to Coplestou
and other Oriel celebrities.
When Hampden was appointed by the Chan
cellor Principal of St. Mary Hall, he stepped into a
house upon which ' Johnnie Deans ' had spent not
only his own fortune, but also all the ' caution money,'
to the great disgust of the members of the hall, and
to the scandal of the university. As he was a very
humorous man, of considerable ability, people were
amused perhaps more than grieved at the disclosure.
As soon as Hampden stepped in he set about rebuild
ing and furnishing, Henry Wilberforce said, ' in West
Indian fashion, all purple and gold,' to the amount of
4,000/. The result was that when Hampden, only three
years after, was made Canon of Christ Church, he
could not find it in his heart to resign his hall. The
whole university cried out against the plurality.
Hampden put in a good man as Vice-Principal, but
the university was not satisfied, and there ensued a
correspondence with the Duke of Wellington, who
stuck to his opinion that Hampden ought to give up
the hall. He did not, and the comment he made on
the correspondence with the Duke, was that the only
thing he was sorry for was that it had disabused him
of his old illusion that the Duke was a magnanimous
man. The truth is Hampden never could see a

384 VOICE, LOOK, AND MANNER.
bit of good in any human being that thwarted his
wishes. It was said just now that Hampden's voice was
not one to invite and enthrall attention, indeed that
it was a real impediment in the way of his influence.
Oriel College was spoilt for ordinary voices at that
time. The richness and melody of Copleston's voice
surpassed any instrument. No one who had only
heard him take his part in the Communion Ser
vice could ever forget the tone. It penetrated every
body, entered into the soul, and carrying with it
much of the man himself, made the least thing he
said adhere to the memory and be easily producible.
It was no small part of the daily amusement of the
undergraduates to repeat what Copleston had said,
and just as he said it, and to vary it from their own
boyish imaginations. The gravest men in the college
could not resist the contagion of mimicry, and would
sometimes go a little farther.
The second of the four Froudes, who died young,
made this a special study. Coming out of Tyler's
room, after a lecture, he tapped gently at the door,
and said in the exact Copleston tone, ' Mr. Tyler,
will you please step out a moment ? ' Tyler rushed
out, exclaiming, ' My dear Mr. Provost ! ' but only
saw the tail of the class descending the staircase.
'You silly boys, you've been playing me a trick,'
was all he could say.
A son of Sydney Smith was at Oxford at that
time, much amongst Oriel men, and often at the
Provost's. ' Mr. Smith,' he said, with much solemnity,
* next Thursday the college will be fifty and I shall be

ABSENS,ABSENTEM AUDITQUE VIDETQUE. 385
five hundred years old.' ' Indeed, Mr. Provost, I
knew you were getting on, but hardly thought you
so old as that,' he replied, with paternal readiness.
The most complete instance of unconscious imi
tation by long and intimate acquaintance was that of
Mr. Joseph Parker, the bookseller.- He had daily
talks with Copleston, Gaisford, Shuttleworth, and
other literary men -in his pleasant upper rooms, and
though he heard many voices, he was absorbed into
Copleston's. If one turned one's head away, so as
not to see the man, one could hardly believe it was
not Copleston speaking — the same sustained note
measured cadence, and careful choice of words.
Tyler had a full, rich utterance, like his genial
character. Voice must have had no small part in
Hawkins' election to the Provostship. His was a
remarkable combination of sweetness with strength,
sincerity, seriousness, and decision. Newman's voice
has had ten thousand admirers, and needs no de
scription, for it has enthralled half the English world.
Whately had a grand roll, sometimes rather over
powering, but such as it is pleasant to recall. Froude's
voice combined the gravity and authority of age with
all the charms of youth, for he might be at once reason
ing with a senate and amusing a circle of children.
The Wilberforces had the sweet voice of their
father. A few whispers, a few words of assent, a few
scarcely articulate sounds, were all I heard from him,
and it was my own fault that I did not hear more,
but it was to the last the tone that the House of
Commons had known and followed as sheep follow
their true shepherd's. S. Wilberforce's voice became
VOL. I C C

386 VOICE, LOOK, AND MANNER.
by use less natural and more formed. Utility had its
cost. The result was that it became the most imitable,
that is, the voice most inviting imitation, and most
certain to be imitated. The present Bishop of Ely
made an absolute acquisition of it. I once heard
him preach in a very small country church. Sitting
under the pulpit, I could have thought it the then
Bishop of Oxford overhead all the time, though I had
known the true voice near half a century. The
Bishop of Oxford was aware of it, and when asked
who was the best preacher in the country, answered,
with an expressive smile, ' Oh, of course I think
Woodford.' The best he heard was his own echo.
Mannerism of any kind, not the less if it be the
mannerism of genius and goodness, perpetuates and
propagates itself till it becomes an institution. A
very distinguished preacher has carried into the
Church of Rome Newman's style and S. Wilberforce's
tone, no doubt in spite of himself. A very marked
voice will survive long in a household, in a choir, or
even in a small congregation, so that its owner will
be heard long after he has departed. All this shows
the great and mysterious power of that human voice,
which is the most perfect of all instruments ; the loss
by the want of it, and the mischief done by its im
perfections. Pusey's voice might want music and
flexibility, but, whatever the cause, it was a powerful
engine. A man with a harsh, or rumbling, or husky,
or squeaky voice, preaching those sermons, would
never have been listened to. Strange it is that when
voice is such a power, and has been so in all ages,
from the ' falling flakes ' of Ulysses to this day, it
should be so little cultivated.

387

CHAPTER LXI.
NEWMAN, 1836-1837.
THE opposition to Hampden's appointment, baffled
as it seemed, told on the country. The clergy of
London and of the great provincial cities realised the
existence of a cause and of a work at Oxford.
What was its real nature ? What would it tend to ?
What good was to be got out of it ? The incumbents
of large metropolitan parishes and the secretaries of
religious societies came, some by invitation, some on
their own motion, to see with their own eyes, to hear
with their own ears, and to take a measure of persons
and things. Suspicious and jealous to begin with,
they did not like the look of things. They were
surprised to see so many young men in the affair,
young men, too, wholly free from the solemn con
ventionalisms of old religious . partisanship. They
had come from town prepared with terms, with a
working basis of agreement, and ultimatums to be
settled with chiefs ; but they found Newman in com
panionship with free-spoken men who might wreck
a cause in a day. Hume Spry, an old Oriel man,
was one of the diplomatic class. The metropolis was
to arrange matters with the university, and the larger
body was not to be hastily compromised by the im
pulses or caprices of the smaller. It was necessary to
ascertain who were the men doing the work, and
whom Newman had about him in a confidential
CC2

388 NEWMAN, 1836-1837.
capacity. Who was this, and who was that, and
what pretence had they for setting things right, and
perhaps thereby putting their feet on the first round
of the ladder that leads to promotion ?
Newman called on Hume Spry by appointment,
in Beaumont Street I think it was. He asked me
to go with him. Hume Spry directed his eyes at us
both alternately, as much as to ask who I was, and
whether I was a safe person. It seemed to me that
he was only wishing to learn the state of things
without committing himself. Andrew Brandram came
down, an Oriel man, a first class, and a big, heavy
fellow. He had his eyes, and what wits he had,
always about him. I had a particular interest in
him. His father, a London merchant, had been a
favourite scholar of my great-grandfather at Gainsbro',
who had taken great trouble with him. The father
acknowledged it by offering an uncle of mine the
choice of a cadetship in the India Civil Service or a
berth in an East Indiaman. He chose the latter, not an
uncommon preference in those days. Finding Andrew
Brandram alone in the common room, I tried to
exchange family notes with him. He promptly in
formed me tha't he had heard his father was a native
of Gainsbro', but that he knew nothing about his
education or early acquaintances. While he spoke
his eyes were ranging over the room, as if in quest
of something strange and significant. He had a great
mystery to penetrate. No detective could look more
vigilant or more perplexed. It was interesting to
speculate on the report he took back to the Bible
Society.

ADAM DE BROOMES CHAPEL. 389
The ' Tracts for the Times ' of course received a
fresh impulse from this movement, however otherwise
abortive it might seem to have been.
It was about this time that Newman tried the ex
periment, for such it must have been, of extempore
lectures on ecclesiastical subjects less suitable for the
pulpit They were delivered in Adam de Broome's
Chapel, an aisle of St. Mary's Church, but partitioned
from it and used for the university robing-room.
As the newly-founded lectures on political economy
were given in another part of the sacred edifice^ there
could be no objection to this use of the addition made
to the church by the founder of Oriel College. The
lectures were well attended, and there were those who
could follow them easily, but Newman was not a
practised orator. He could only attain fluency by
running away from his hearers, unless their attention
were as disciplined and as swift-footed as his own in
tellect, I had to follow him as the toiling hero did
the striding Sibyl, always a little behind.
But the changes which this year 1836 saw in the
Church, the university, and in the inner circle of
friends, were to come even still nearer home. They
found Newman deeply impressed with the law of
change. It appeared in his letters and conversations.
' Do something ; the time is slipping away from us.'
Coming out of St Mary's with me on Good Friday,
he was struck by the sight of very large flakes or
feathers of snow, falling into the black swollen gutter
and instantly disappearing. ' So,' he said, quoting
the quaint language of the Oriel statutes, ' are human
affairs tending visibly to not to be.'

390 NEWMAN, 1836-1837.
The summer of the year saw the breaking up of
the Newman family. About Midsummer his younger
sister was married at Iffley Church to my brother John.
Newman officiated, myself assisting, so there was no one
to give the bride away. Henry Wilberforce kindly
took this part. We had almost to run from Oxford to
be in time, causing some anxiety. Henry had arrived
the evening before up to his knees in thick mud, and
having to appear at a dinner party asked the loan of
my only presentable trousers. After some earnest
reclamations on my part, barely half an hour before
the time fixed for the ceremony, he was engaged
with a table knife cutting and scraping the mud off
his own garment, in order to resume it and restore
what he had on to its owner. A day or two after the
wedding Mrs. Newman fell ill, and in a fortnight she
was gone, when Rosebank had to be given up.
A few weeks later Littlemore church was conse
crated. Though it was now Long Vacation, many
university men came. Hamilton, afterwards Bishop
of Salisbury, had to stand and kneel, by my side, on the
bare stone. There could not be a church more devoid
of ornament or less fitted to receive it. Newman, on
seeing the design, had doubts about the lancet win
dows admitting light enough. When I assured him
that they would, though not with painted glass, he
was satisfied. The builder or the glazier was not so
well pleased with the very plain work they had to
execute, and accordingly inserted a single suggestive
quarry of red glass high up in the middle lancet of
the east window. This was gravely described in the
' Record ' as a drop of our Saviour's blood.

ANTIQUAM EXQUIRITE MATREM. 391
They who remember their acquaintance with
Newman at this period, and who shared even par
tially his convictions or his leanings, will naturally
search through their own recollections to ascertain
what they expected of the movement, which thus far
took its name more from Newman than from Pusey.
If any of them, as well as Newman himself, proved
mistaken as to its probable tendency, it was not for
want of being cautioned. But as they had expected
this warning, they heeded it not. The common
design supposed in their conversation, and no doubt
deep in the hearts of the more serious amongst them,
was a second Reformation of a reactionary character
to bring back the Anglican Church to the faith and
practice of that Primitive Church which all had on
their lips, and few indeed knew much about. What
ever people may assume to be the Primitive Church,
or the Ante-Nicene Church, one point all must agree
upon. That Church was not a State Church ; it did
not affect to be one with the empire, or to recognise
as its actual members all human beings within a cer
tain territory. Such magnificent conceptions were
reserved for later, and, as they believed themselves,
better periods.
Any reversion to the earlier idea involved at
once a question as to the propriety, not to say validity,
of infant baptism. The question of propriety, that is
the wijdom and the expediency, often returned to
Newman's mind. Really, in these days, he said, in
towns at least, where there was little security that
children would be educated in the true faith, indeed
in any faith, or even in common morality, it did seem

392 NEWMAN, 1 836-1 837.
a question whether infant baptism was a charitable
act, the ground on which it is justified, or rather ex
cused, in the Baptismal Service. Newman gave not
only much of his mind, but some of his heart also, to
the special pleas of the various dissenting commu
nities. They had a good deal to say for themselves.
The theory of the Church of England had no longer
that basis of facts on which it avowedly rested.
As Newman's friends and admirers credited him
with a much distincter forecast of the work to be
done than they could make themselves, some of them
knew not what to think of the almost indiscriminate
character of his advances in all directions. He invited
and seemingly expected the co-operation of people
whom it was charity to suppose at one with him in
essentials, and who could not have preached a single
sermon without a protest against the views now asso
ciated with his name. Like Froude, Newman cer
tainly felt deep respect and warm sympathy with
anybody he believed to be serious, so as he was not
under some utter delusion. What may be called the
hagiology and the traditions of the Low Church
still held their ground in his heart and soul,
side by side with Saints, Fathers, and Councils.
lived in a region of faith, and therefore not of exact
calculation.! Men ofthe world, with defined and practicable ob
jects, easily understand one another, and know both
what they will do and what they will be done by. Their
first instinct is to know the value of instruments and
the efficiency of means. iNewman was really not of
the world. Out of the domestic circle, in which he

OXFORD 'SOCIETY} 393
was invariably kind and affectionate, he could not
freely associate, except for one common object, and
where this was wanting his patience was apt to be
tried, and he was a shy, not to say a reserved man.
He described himself and the movement as vox
damans in deserto. For several later years of his resi
dence in the college he was hardly of it, avoiding
the common room, though having a common break
fast with two or three friendsTj
The formation of a party which had no regard to
the organisation of the university, and which con
sisted of younger and still younger men, could not
but be disagreeable at that date to the elders of the
university. Time and growing considerations of con
venience had sharply divided Oxford into the elders,
that is the Heads of Houses, Canons of Christchurch,
and one or two of the professors ; and the youngers,
that is the undergraduates, and the Bachelors of Arts,
keeping a term, and still in statu pupillari. In the
wide interval between these were the tutors, more or
less, sometimes it is true very little indeed, under the
direction of the Heads. The resident Fellows not
engaged in college tuition were few ; some had pri
vate pupils, others came and went ; none found much
scope in Oxford. There was only one circle of female
society, and that was the ladies of the Heads and
of the Canons.
It follows that if any one chose to apply to Oxford
the prevalent notions of the outer world, he might
understand by the term ' Oxford society,' the Heads
of Houses, Canons, and their families. It is vain to
say that no man of sense, or intelligence, or high

394 NEWMAN, 1 836-1 837.
feeling, or common candour, would do this, for the
melancholy truth is that no amount of these qualities
will save a man from the grossest mistakes, or from
actually grovelling in the dust, where ' society,' social
rank, and social recognition are concerned. The phi
losopher and the saint alike bow to the idols of
quality and fashion, even in forms surpassing the
stupidity of Buddhist conception.
When Arnold discharged his torrent of abuse at
Newman and his friends, the worst thing he had to
say of them was that they were nobodies in Oxford ;
almost unknown there ; not in society, hardly indeed
admissible, so he insinuated. Arnold at that time
knew no more of Oxford than he did of Italy, when
upon finding himself in Genoa he wrote down, ' I am
now in the land of cowards, rogues, charlatans, liars,
and impostors,' or words to that effect. He had
hardly put his foot in Oxford for many years. He
must therefore have derived his estimate of persons
and things from his own contemporaries, that is a
comparatively small body of elder residents. These
latter could not but side with the Provost of Oriel in
the quarrel about the tuition, even though most of
them left their own tutors to do very much what they
pleased, and some were thankful to get a decent tutor
on any terms. Nor would they like a religious move
ment at all of a strength to upheave the surface of
the university.
¦Arnold took their word for it, and tried to crush
the movement with social contempt. Unhappily, the
most distinguished of his pupils believed themselves
justified in saying everything he had said, and they

A PROPHET'S CHAMBER. 395
described Newman as an unknown person at Oxford,
seen in the pulpit once a week, never at any other
time, and having nothing to do with the world, that
is ' society.' In a certain sense it may be said that
the Apostles, and the Fathers of the first three cen
turies, were not in society, socially unknown and in^
significant. In that sense the studiously contemptuous
expressions of Arnold and some of his pupils may be
true. The same and even more may be said of John
Wesley, whom some of these writers profess to
admire. When the Bishop of Exeter asked John
Wesley to dinner at the palace, and invited some of
the clergy to meet him, the diocese thought his lord-
ship_had been much too kind.
/The truth is nobody in Oxford was seeing so
many people, and such a variety of people, and
people of such significance in the matter of religion,
as Newman, and, as he had much to do besides, he
had to be content with but slight acquaintance in that
upper circle of Arnold's imagination^however much,
upon Arnold's reckoning, he lost by it. ]

CHAPTER LXII.
SOME INCIDENTS. .

NEWMAN'S well-known rooms, on the first floor near
the chapel, communicated with what was no better
than a large closet, overlighted with an immense bay

396 SOME INCIDENTS.
window over the chapel door, balancing that of the
dining-hall. It had usually been made a lumber
room. Newman fitted it up as a prophet's chamber,
and there, night after night, in the Long Vacation of
1835, offered up his prayers for himself and the
Church. Returning to college late one night I found
that, even in the gateway, I could not only hear the
voice of prayer, but could even distinguish words.
The result was, Newman contented himself with a
less poetical oratory. College life, except for strictly
educational purposes, is a fond idea and little more,
and Newman's case is one of many showing how
easily and how soon a man may become a foreigner,
an anomaly, and an anachronism in his own college.
(When strangers were daily coming to Oxford and
making it their first business to see the abode of the
man who seemed to be moving the Church of England
to its foundations, they were surprised to find that he
had simply an undergraduate's lodging. Indeed he
shared the same staircase with four undergraduates,
and Charles Marriott who occupied the rooms below.
Marriott's rooms were of exactly the same size as New
man's, but he found himself too straitened to take
all his books out of the boxes they came in, and he
was accordingly obliged to pile the boxes on one
another in lines across his floor for want of wall
space. In dealing with younger men, whether as tutor
or as a clergyman, Newman kept a sharp look-out
for the hypocrisy of fluent and empty professions,
and put them to some practical test. He exercised
discipline equally on himself and all around, with

FROM THE FONT TO THE ALTAR. 397
more or less success, but he would not be a teacher
without acting up to his own words. He and his
friends had declared strongly against the new Mar
riage Act which relieved dissenters of the necessity
of coming to church to be married, but did not re
lieve the clergy of the necessity of marrying them,
if they preferred to come to church for that particular
occasion. He suddenly found himself called on to
perform the marriage service for one of the pretty
daughters of a respectable pastrycook in St. Mary's
parish. The family were Baptists, and the young
lady was not baptised. Newman ascertained this by
inquiry, and refused to perform the service, or to
allow the marriage in his church. The university
was shocked at his inhumanity on such an occasion.
Not so the young lady herself. She immediately
expressed her wish to be baptised, declaring she was
glad of the opportunity. She was baptised and
married ; and became an attached member of New
man's congregation, followed in time by the whole
family. On another occasion he was not so successful.
Braham was advertised to take a part in the annual
musical services at St. Mary's for the benefit of the
Radcliffe Infirmary. Newman had his objections to
Braham, and sent him a note interdicting him the
church. Braham opened the note, read it, and made
no sign. At the appointed time in the programme
he stood up in the organ gallery, and filled the
church with his magnificent voice. Newman waited
for him at the foot of the organ staircase, to demand
an apology for this invasion of his rights. All he
got was, ' You did your duty, and I did mine,' saying

398 SOME INCIDENTS.
which, Braham brushed past him and hurried away.
On one occasion Newman had to forego discipline in
the interest of humanity. In Bear Lane, the poorer
part of St, Maiy's parish, there were houses let in
tenements. The occupant of one came to Newman
and complained that over her head there were a
number of dogs kept by a woman who could not feed
them ; that they were whining day and night for
food, and must soon be actually dying. Newman
went to the room, and on entering it found himself
surrounded by a crowd of famished dogs begging for
food. They had been kept by the undergraduates of
his own college, contrary to strict rule, and these
young gentlemen, upon going down for the Long
Vacation, had left small sums with the dog-keeper,
promising to send her more, but failing to do so.
Newman advanced what was necessary for the main
tenance of the dogs for the rest of the Vacation.
One little matter of self-imposed duty, arising out
of a painful occasion, will be remembered by all who
ever accompanied Newman in a country walk. One
morning Dornford asked him whether he was going
to Littlemore that day, and whether on foot or horse
back. He had to reply that he was riding there,
when Dornford proposed to accompany him. This
gentleman, having served two years in the Rifle
Brigade in the Peninsular War, and being proud of
his military character, was in the habit of cantering
on the hard road, and had generally to do it alone.
But Newman was in for it In those days the first
milestone between Oxford and Iffley was in a narrow,
winding part of the road, between high banks, where

SAD ACCIDENT WITH VARIOUS RESULTS. 399
nothing could be seen fifty yards ahead. Dornford
and Newman heard the sound of a cart, and the
latter detected its accelerated pace, but the impetuous
' captain,' as he loved to be styled, heeded it not. It
was the business of a cart to keep its own side They
arrived within sight of the cart just in time to see the
carter jump down, and be caught instantly between
the wheel and the milestone, falling dead on the spot
The shock on Dornford was such that he was seriously
ill for two months, and hypochondriac for a much
longer time. The result in Newman's case was a
solemn vow that whenever he met a carter driving
without reins, or sitting on the shaft, he would make
him get down ; and this he never failed to do.
Several years after this sad affair, I was walking
with him on the same road. There came rattling on
two newly painted waggons, drawn by splendid teams,
that had evidently been taking corn to market, and
were now returning home without loads. There were
several men io the waggons, but no one on foot. It
occurred to me that as the waggoners were probably
not quite sober, it was only a choice of evils whether
they were on foot or in the waggons. But Newman
had no choice ; he was bound by his vow, and he
compelled the men to come down. We went on to
Littlemore, were there for some time, and then turned
our faces homewards. Coming in sight of the public-
house at Littlemore, we saw the two show teams, and
something of a throng about them ; so we could not
but divine evil. It was too true. The waggoners
had watched us out of sight, and got into their
waggons again. The horses had run away on some

4oo SOME INCIDENTS.
alarm, one of the men had jumped out, and had
received fatal injuries.
Another resolution constantly observed by New
man would have cost most people even more effort.
(While at Oxford he never passed a day without
writing a Latin sentence — either a translation, or an
original composition, before he had done his morn
ing's work} Frequently, when on the point of leaving
his room for an afternoon walk, he has asked me to
stay a minute or two while he was writing his daily
sentence. One more habit, for such it was, must be men
tioned.. As well for present satisfaction as for future
use\_Newman wrote and laid by a complete history
of every serious question in which he was concerned,
such as that of the college tuition. He had to render"
account of it, and he prepared himself accordingly.
But whatever may be said in favour of such a prac
tice, it may be considered fortunate that to most con
stitutions it is difficult, not to say repulsive. Few men
are, or ought to be, so perfectly satisfied with their
own part in a series of transactions as to wish to see a
final record ; and it is hardly possible to frame such a
record oneself without some excess of self-justifica
tion. It must be added that [Newman did the same
with every book he read and every subject he in
quired into. He drew up a summary or an analysis
of the matter, or of his own views upon it/ As bear
ing upon his own studies, his pupils will remember
that when he set them voluntary tasks, they were
not essays on abstract propositions, or moralities, but
biographies, and accounts of periods, political con-

THE NAKEDNESS OF THE LAND. 401
stitutions, crises, and changes. He desired me one
day to write an account of Cleomenes, the Spartan
reformer ; and such were the characters, if I remem
ber rightly, that he generally chose for these exercises.
Public opinion has latterly decided very strongly in
favour of historical as compared with moral essays.
Public opinion may be right, but on the other hand
it is to be considered that certainly a majority of
young minds can write much more easily on a moral
subject than on one mainly and formally historical.
Newman paid visits to my Derby friends, both
when I was there and when I was not. He natu
rally expected to see clergy, and one good man he
did see, it was true. But when I took him to the
Evangelical vicar, who never entered his parish on a
week day, and to the minister of the chapel of ease,
who could not either perform the Baptismal Service or
take the cure of souls, they were simply surprised to
see me, for both regarded me as an unconverted
heathen. Newman acquitted himself with his usual
tact on these unpromising occasions. He said the
few things he could say under the circumstances in a
way to make them ' stick,' though it was out of the
question to elicit any sympathy.
I cannot be exact as to the year in which I took
Newman to a small meeting over a shop in the
market-place — the one that suffered in the Reform
riot — for a declaration in defence of the Church. It
had been got up by my clerical friend, a high
churchman, but it had to satisfy his old friend the
influential banker, who was quite the other way.
The banker of course was in the chair. He in-
VOL. I. D D

^02 SOME INCIDENTS.
sisted on the necessity of Church and State, but was
not so sure as to the necessity of retaining everything
in the Church that might be found standing in the
way of that union. In fact, he thought a good deal
of change in the comprehensive direction desirable.
Personally and socially this gentleman did not appear
to like dissenters much more than we did, but he
thought we might give up a good deal, not so much
to gratify them as to strengthen our own position.
The reader will judge how far this chimed in with the
feelings of our Oxford visitor. The result of the
meeting was a milk-and-water declaration, which
signified nothing, and which nobody would care to
read. The chairman had taken the opportunity of
laying on the table a petition of a very compre
hensive character for the better observance of the
Sabbath. I looked at it and signed it, and thereby
earned the just rebuke I got from my more con
scientious brother John.
On one of these visits my brother James and
another brother took Newman to a public meeting
for the declaration of dissenters' grievances. It was
held in the Independent Chapel. Mr. Gawthorne, a
tall, bony man, with a stentorian voice, was the chief
speaker. These meetings were frequent, and I had
myself attended one of them. Never shall I forget
the tremendous energy with which Mr. Gawthorne,
after a solemn pause, pronounced the words, ' Awake,
arise, or be for ever fallen ! ' or the tremendous accla
mation which they elicited. They seemed to go
home to every one there On the above occasion,
when Newman was there, it was the old story, but I

MUCH TO BE SAID FOR DISSENTERS. 403
have been told that he expressed to my brothers a
good deal of sympathy with the speakers, believing
that they had a real grievance. Parliament and public
opinion have since concluded that they had, but
dissenters don't seem to be so much the better for the
removal of their many grievances as they expected.
Unhappily the social element preponderates in the
great question between the Church and dissenters,
and no legislation will eliminate it.
One of my brothers remembers an incident of one
of Newman's visits that suggests a curious question.
He left by the coach for London, but was warned he
would have to change coaches at Leicester. Ac
cordingly at Leicester he was on the look-out, and
saw ready horsed the coach that was to take him on.
He naturally took the seat corresponding to that he
had occupied in the coach from Derby. A Notting
ham passenger made his appearance and demanded
the seat for his own. He had come in it all the way
from Nottingham. Newman stoutly and successfully
resisted the claim. This was no longer the Notting
ham coach ; it was the Leicester and London coach.
To that seat on that coach he had the right of first
occupation. He had nothing to do with any previous
arrangements that coach had been bound by. This
was a new start. He had to fight hard for it, but he
carried his point and left the Nottingham gentleman
to think over the metaphysical question, Was this
the identical coach in which he had come from Not
tingham ?
On one occasion, having to pass through the town
of Derby, we found our way stopped. There was a

404 SOME INCIDENTS.
so-called. funeral procession of two thousand operatives
on strike. A young woman had died, they alleged
from starvation, a victim to the cruelty of the mill-
owners. Wherever we turned we came upon them,
for they wound about the town like a huge serpent.
Every one carried a sprig to throw into the grave.
Each ' lodge,' consisting of about forty men, was
headed by the warden and subwarden, both wearing
rather short, tight-fitting, white cotton surplices.
The operatives generally were pale and thin, but the
officials were invariably stout and high coloured.
The surplices did not become them. Here was
ritualism half a century ago. Little did I think I
had before me the surplice of the future. My own
surplice of that date, which I still wear, would have
cut up into four of them.
One of Newman's topics I ought to have men
tioned earlier. Perhaps it was suggested by his
almost daily alternation between academic and rural
life. It was the moral probation and proper excel
lence respectively of the rich and cf the poor. The
former have more to do ; the latter more to bear.
The former have greater powers and opportunities,
which they are to make the best use of ; they have
also greater temptations to resist and greater diffi
culties to surmount. The latter have to endure
hunger, thirst, cold, heat, sickness, weariness, and
dulness. The higher class borders dangerously on
the angelic state ; the lower on the brutish. The
difference is so great that each side can hardly see
the possibility of virtue in the other. The rich man
sees in the poor man a machine ; a creature of in-

RICH AND POOR. 405
stinct, appetite, and habit ; a subject for the natural
historian. The poor man sees in his rich neighbour
enjoyment, caprice, idleness, selfishness, wastefulness,
and a bold attitude alike to God and man. Has he
not at least his reward ? How can he expect more ?
The answer to the moral question is that each class
has to consider its own mission and end. But there
is another consideration sometimes forgotten in the
contrast It is that the rich have often to show the
virtues of the poor, and the poor the virtues of the
rich. The rich have often to endure sickness, loss of
appetite, ennui, confinement, monotony of place and
of persons, quarrels, the cares inseparable from money,
house, and land. The poor have often to show the
most heroic virtues in the routine of the field, the
farmyard, the pit, the manufactory, not to speak of
household troubles and vicissitudes. Newman was
no morbid philanthropist or indiscriminate alms-
giver. Some of us were far too much this way, and
perhaps he early detected the dangerous tendency —
the first trial of the Church of the Apostles, as should
always be borne in mind.

406 SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT.

CHAPTER LXIII.
SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT.
By the end of 1837 the 'movement' had diffused
itself all over England. Every month there was a new
sensation, and a new controversy. What the ' Tracts '
had now grown into appears in the fourth volume,
published this year, containing a Letter by Pusey, 42
pages ; Catena Patrum, No. in, 118 pages ; Purga
tory, 61 pages ; Reserve, first tract on that subject,
83 pages ; Catena Patrum, No. IV., 424 pages ;
total 728 pages of small print. The Catena Patrum
supplied the universal want of clerical libraries. Most
of the writers quoted were not accessible except by a
long journey, or an expensive purchase. This was
the first introduction to living eyes, of many works,
indeed of many names, famous in their day. These
men had lived in controversy. The compiler of the
Catena divides the long list into the men who gave to
the world the fruits of deep learning, and the simpler
sort that handed down what they had received ; but
this fails to give an adequate idea of the storm which
has raged round these questions in all ages of the
Church, so long as it had life in it ; or of the very
controversial character of most of these writers. It
was, however, a grave and honest appeal to former ages.
The appeal was promptly met on all sides.
Fathers of all ages and all churches were collected
and published in endless series. As lengthy as any

ENGLISH FATHERS AND REFORMERS. 407
other series, as unreadable, as foreign to the present
modes of thought and feeling, there came out a series
of the ' English Reformers,' costing many who could
ill afford it a couple of sovereigns a year. They came
out in cherry cloth binding, which soon lost its colour.
At the house of a zealous reformer in Hampshire, I
wished to see what Cranmer said upon baptism.
Mounting on a chair I took out first one volume,
then another, of a long row, and found not a leaf
opened, but thick dust on the upper edges. They
who bought, and they who read, did so to the ex
clusion of other literature, and many subjects must
have fallen to the rear, while Church controversies
were resuming their old rank in the front of human
action and progress.
The opponents of the movement one and all
pronounced us on our way to Rome Certainly very
few of us could say where we meant to stop, or what
we had in view as the future of the Church of Eng
land. For my own part I never knew where it was
all to end, except somewhere in the first three cen
turies of the Church, and I have to confess that I
knew very little indeed about them. Happily for us
the case of our opponents was not a bit better than
our own. They did not know where they stood, or
what they would have, or what they tended to.
None of them liked the Prayer Book. As for the
Book of Homilies it was now an offensive missile, a
dead cat, flung first at a Low Church head, then at a
High Church one. Nobody cared to read a line of
it, except to send it flying at his neighbours.
The 'Tracts for the Times' went straight against

4c 8 SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT.
the whole course of the Church of England for the
last three centuries. [That Church had generally
given up fasting, daily Common Prayer, Saints' Days
and Holy Days, the observance of Ember Days, the
study of the Primitive Fathers, even so far as they are
quoted in the Homilies, the necessity of the Sacra
ments and of a right faith, the idea of any actual loss
by want of unity, voluntary confession to the clergy,
and the desirableness of discipline ; all held and
transmitted by the Reformers, but since their day
gone out of fashion and out of thought. Nor had
the disuse been simply that of forgetfulness, for all
England had been more than once agitated on these
very_questions71 ) The tractspreached what a King and a Primate
had lost their heads for ; what the monarchy, the
Church, the whole constitution, and the greater part
of the gentry had been overthrown for ; what, after
wards, bishops and clergy had been cast out for, and
the Convocation suspended a century for7\ These doc
trines had been all but prohibited in the Church of
England, as they probably would have remained to
this day, had not the revolutionary aspect of the
Reformed Parliament seemed to place the Church of
England in the old dilemma between the bear closing
up behind and the precipice yawning in front.
The new teaching was accepted as a reactionary
protest against the existing state of affairs, and as
affording the best basis for the impending general
controversy. Some that received it gladly, not all,
attempted to put it into practice. The difficulties
immediately presented themselves. The clergy had

PRACTICAL DIFFICULTIES. 409
to lead the way. We have only to imagine the not
uncommon case of a young clergyman cast in a re
mote and secluded agricultural parish. He had to
invite his parishioners to daily service, when every
one of them was all day at work, generally far away
from the church. He had to inculcate fasting, when
most of them fasted already in the poverty and scan
tiness of their daily fare. He had to invite to con
fession those whose practice and antecedents were
already well before the eyes of their neighbours. He
had to invite to formal unity persons born and bred
in schism, when they could not but prefer a good
understanding between all opinions and sects, which
it was not easy, if desirable, to interrupt. He had to
urge the new doctrine in season and out of season,
especially to the few educated neighbours who could
understand him, and who soon settled the question by
reducing their intercourse to occasional and unavoid
able civilities. As often as not he found his own
household unable to join in his services. His wife
had children to look after, and his servants were no
more than the work absolutely required.
Perhaps in spite of every obstacle he persisted.
He had the church day after day, year after year, to
himself alone, and perhaps two or three school children.
His people were then told by authorities they were
accustomed to respect that he was making an idol of
the church, and that he prayed like the Pharisees in
the synagogue instead of his own chamber. He fasted
after some fashion, and found himself incapable of
work ; not only weak but light-headed. He found
his elder clerical neighbours generally dead against

410 SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT.
him, and the squires only too glad of the excuse to
have nothing to do with him. If he tried weekly
communion, it was with results too sad to tell.
It seems to be forgotten that there were two
movements — two restorations, Oxford the centre
of one, London of the other. Blomfield and his
advisers had their compromise, or middle course ;
they took their stand on it, and fought it out It
consisted of such requirements as the offertory and
Prayer for the Church Militant after the sermon,
the use of the surplice in the pulpit, baptism in the
course of the afternoon service, and a more rigid in
quiry into the character of sponsors. These restora
tions were quite as unpalatable to the people gene
rally as anything proposed in the ' Tracts for the
Times ; ' but the ' Tractarians ' felt themselves bound
to contend for them, coming as they did from high
episcopal authority, and with several centuries of an
tiquity in their favour. There was a period, and a
long one, when the London ordinances were raising
far more dissatisfaction and actual rebellion than the
Oxford ones, but Oxford got all the credit of these
consequences. The authors of the movement lived in a university,
in the midst of cheerful and educated, if not always
congenial society, libraries, magnificent buildings,
frequent services, and it must be added, all the com
forts and elegances of life. Something amounting to
an appreciable sacrifice could be taken out of this
superabundance, and yet leave a large and solid re
mainder. Even a saint, not to say a confessor, might
enjoy life at a university.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF FASTING. 41 r
But it was quite impossible that these saints and
confessors could enter into the case of men banished
far away from all these things, and amid the very
opposites. The position of a country clergyman is
the least understood thing in the whole sphere of
British intelligence. Nobody understands it. States
men and Prelates are alike at fault Metropolitan
Societies, managed by the race that looks upwards
and flocks to the centre, only regard the country
clergy as sheep to be fleeced or butts to be laughed at.
Then country people, and country clergymen.
soon become countryfied, and are apt to be simple
and literal in their apprehensions. By fasting they
understand doing without pleasant food, or very nutri
tious food, and by consequence doing without cheerful
society. Early in the movement I heard that one of
the Oxford leaders fasted on boiled mutton, because
he did not like it. It is one of the luxuries of a
tithe dinner, and I have been accustomed to look for
ward to it. I now think he was a sensible man ; but
at the time I was puzzled to see how it could be
fasting. In after years I had to go to Oxford from the
country on the affairs of the ' British Critic,' and my
principal apprehension on going there was that my
incurable worldliness would clash with the serious
and saintly tone I imagined to be inspired by the
movement. I felt guilty of irreverence by intruding
on one of the contributors, the most important I may
say, one Wednesday in Lent He was observing
the fast no doubt honestly and in a true sense, but
he was still in bed at n A.M., and a large dish of

412 SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT.
mutton chops was keeping hot for him at the fire
The scout informed me this was his custom. I have
not a word to say against this mode of fasting, though
I do remember some of my Oxford friends making
rather merry at the expense of Copleston, a martyr
to dyspepsia, asking one of the tutors how he got
through the morning, and adding, with his usual
gravity, ' About twelve o'clock I feel a sinking in the
stomach, and must have a mutton chop.'
Such free and enlightened understandings of
fasting are simply impossible in the country. If a
clergyman were to begin Lent by proclaiming a fast,
in any sense intelligible to his simple flock, and were
next day to lie in bed till noon, and then rise to a
good dejeuner a la fourchette, he might speedily find
himself gibbeted or burning in effigy.
The men at Oxford worked indeed, and that was
their enjoyment, and so they might be held indifferent
to the ordinary attractions of the place ; but the very
fact that the clergy scattered far and wide over
meadows, marshes, and downs, are seldom men of a
high intellectual quality or of unusual energy, was
an aggravation of their difficulties. They had to
fight against odds without and within. Many per
severed in a dogged way. In the true lines of the
Church they could not be wrong. But they made
mistakes ; they were inconsistent ; they had no
friendly advisers ; they lost their temper ; and they
found themselves confronted with men wise in their
generation, over full of common sense, and able to
command their tempers even when their own cause
was bad and their conduct indefensible There is

THE TROUBLES OF LEADERSHIP. 413
too much reason to fear that from the beginning,
and still more in after years, many disciples of the
new school, especially those of the weaker sex, lost
their health and strength by too much working, fast
ing, and praying, and shortened their lives.
But while the central agitation was telling on the
whole of the country, it became itself the object of reci
procal influences. Everybody who had a want, every
body who had a difficulty, everybody who had a
quarrel, everybody who could not do what he wanted
to do, wrote to Newman, or to one of his friends, or
to an editor, or an author, or simply to a man at
Oxford. What was he to do ? His parishioners were
dead against him. They took in such a newspaper.
His preaching had been grossly misrepresented. He
had tried more perfect services, but could get nobody
to come. He must restore his church, which had
been pewed up to the altar. Then how was he to
understand such a text, or such a passage in the tracts,
or in Newman's sermons, or in the ' Christian Year ' ?
He thought it meant so and so, but he had been criti
cised, perhaps lampooned for saying it. Ought he to
read the Homilies? Should he insist on the parents
not being sponsors ? Must he allow any stranger to
communicate ? What books would his friend recom
mend, what hymns, what prayers ? j Nobody knows,
till he has turned agitator, the immense prepon
derance of what may be called the feminine, or de
pendent, element in society. The greater part of the
world cries out — ' Lead us. Put your stamp on us.
Fix your bit in our mouths, and have a good hold of
the reins. Save us from the trouble of thinking.

4.4 SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT.
Spare us that terrible responsibility. We incline to
do this or that. Tell us that we ought and must, so
that, like a beast of Jaurden, we may do our duty
without thinking of it.'f

Of course all this reacts on the leader, deciding
him, intensifying him, hardening him, allowing him
no retreat, not even time to think about what he is
doing. Had it been his nature to give his whole
life to anxious questions, and pass them on unde
cided to the next generation, he is not allowed a
day. The applicants have put off writing to the last
moment, and now want answers by return of post.
Are they to exercise godly discipline the very next
day, and pronounce the sentence of excommunication ?
Are they to tell the Bishop he is another Balaam, or
the Primate that he is no better than Caiaphas, the
\ery next morning — the latest hour at which the
solemn duty can now be done ?
Many such questions appear in newspapers, and
in that case it is the public that is invited to answer
them. The public is not backward in doing so, but
there is a certain gaiety, not to say levity in its tone,
that hardly betokens a painful sense of responsibility.
A religious agitator, on the contrary, becomes a
father confessor and director. Thousands pour their
scruples or their troubles into his ear, and ask
private direction. If he complies, he finds himself
directed in return ; or rather swayed by the surging
movements of the mass of which he has now con
stituted himself the organ.
In the year 1836 Newman had entered into an
engagement to supply a quarter of the contents of
the ' British Critic,' which, from being a monthly of

THE 'LIBRARY OF THE FATHERS.' 415
some standing, had lately assumed the form of a
quarterly, and was now edited by Boone, with Le Bas
for his chief contributor. The latter gentleman was
a pleasant and even a brilliant writer, as well as a
man of large general acquirements. Some approach-
ment of views seems indicated by the fact that the
writer of the Lives of Wiclif and of Cranmer was
now engaged on a Life of Laud. Still there is
something almost ludicrous in the partnership, which
did not last long. Two years after this, in 1838,
Newman became sole editor, and the review, always
' High Church,' in the old sense, became the organ
of what had now come to be called the Oxford party.
In 1837 Newman published a work that had cost
him years of labour, and frequent changes of shape
and plan, the ' Prophetical Office of the Church
viewed relatively to Romanism and Popular Pro
testantism.' The title was meant to indicate an
Anglican theology based on Anglican authorities,
and, as it challenged both sides, was not likely to
please many. Whatever its success, it appears to
have been what may be called a ' pet ' of the author,
not always the best judge. The ' Library of the
Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church anterior to the
division of the East and the West,' the original text
and translations, had now been announced a year,
placed in many hands, and worked at with an expe
dition hardly compatible with even that moderate
grace of style which is all a translation admits of.
Perhaps it is impossible to translate a Christian
Father so as to make him pleasant reading, or
even to satisfy the requirements of common sense.
Every attempt at a translation only brought out the

4i5 SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT.
immense superiority of that Book, which is the un
failing delight of the rich and the poor, the learned
and the unlearned, in all places and times. The first
volume of the ' Library of the Fathers ' came out the
following year, containing a translation of the Con
fessions of St. Augustine revised from a former
translation by Dr. Pusey. It is the first book of
patristic theology put by the French Seminarists
into the hands of their pupils.
The Oxford party was not wanting in enterprise or
even in aggressiveness this year. As the ' Tracts for
the Times ' had been now four years coming out with
increased energy, it may be asked why the movement
was allowed to take its course with so little serious
challenge. We must bear in mind that other topics
divided attention. The Church and the universities
were menaced with radical and violent change. The
Conservatives of the Church did not like to quarrel
with its foremost and ablest champions, however rash
and self-willed they might seem to be, and perhaps
were waiting, like wise Gamaliel, to see by the result
whence this new doctrine had come.
The Oriel tutors from 1837 to 1840 inclusive
were Clement Greswell, Charles Marriott, Charles P.
Eden, Church the present Dean of St. Paul's,
Pritchard, Fraser, now Bishop of Manchester, and
W. J. Copleston. Rogers, now Lord Blachford, was
also residing. Newman had no college office or
work, and was seldom seen in hall ; but he gave
receptions every Tuesday evening in the common
room, largely attended by both the college and out
college men.

417

CHAPTER LXIV.
BISHOP BURGESS.

BlSHOP BURGESS one used to hear of as an Apostolic
Bishop. He was reputed to be a man of very simple
habits, and, if I mistake not, the expression 'gig
bishop ' arose from some one having met him making
the round of the diocese of St. David's in a vehicle of
that sort At Salisbury he did as his predecessors
had done. In 183 1 I passed some days at old Mr.
Stevens', the Rector of Bradfield, with whom Bishop
Burgess had been staying over a Sunday not long
before. The Bishop kindly preached. The church
is barely half a mile from the parsonage, and the
road to it then lay across private grounds. The
Bishop went in his carriage, with two apparitors
bearing wands walking before the horses all the way,
making it, as the old Rector said, very like ' a black
job.' The year after this I conducted a respectable
detachment of Buckland parish to be confirmed by
his lordship at Abingdon.
It was four years later, in 1836, when, imme
diately after my actual resignation of Moreton
Pinckney, I went to Salisbury to be instituted to
the rectory of Cholderton. My Oxford friends had
warned me that the Bishop would probably try to
make me promise to study Hebrew, so that I must
make up my mind beforehand on that point. I had
to wait some time in the drawing-room, in the com-
VOL. I E E

418 BISHOP BURGESS.
pany of a pleasant young fellow who was there on a
similar errand. He confided to me that he did not
expect to find the Bishop in the best of humours,
and accordingly, when I had finished my business
and had returned to the drawing-room, he asked me
rather anxiously what mood I had found his lordship
in. He was to be instituted to the rectory of
Fuggleston, comprising Bemerton, George Herbert's
church and parsonage, and he knew the Bishop did
not like the appointment. What made matters worse
was that in a fortnight he would have to come to the
Bishop again to be instituted to the equally impor
tant and valuable rectory of Fovant, to hold with
the other. It would be too great a trial to the
Bishop's equanimity to tell him of both the appoint
ments at once, so Fovant was to be mercifully reserved
till the Bishop had recovered from the first shock.
This young gentleman has now held these livings,
I believe with credit, for forty-six years. The
parsonage, when I saw it three years ago, had been
much enlarged, but it retained as much as possible of
George Herbert's edifice, evidently thought ample in
his days. A new church has been built some years,
and the old church, a small barn-like structure
standing before the parsonage, not ten yards from
the front door, has been entirely cleared of internal
fittings, but otherwise put into good order, and left
open all day for all Christians to enter and pray their
own prayers where George Herbert prayed
But I must return to my new Bishop. He asked
many questions about priel, naming Charles Marriott
as a great scholar. He very soon began upon

HEBREW. 419
Hebrew. At Cholderton I was likely to find my
time hang heavy on my hands. Could I not take
the opportunity to learn the sacred language ? If I
once began I was sure to go on, and find it an un
failing resource. He would always be glad to see
me and hear how I was getting on. I could only
hold out the barest possibility of my following his
lordship's advice. Indeed I am ashamed to say I
shared the common opinion of those days about
Hebrew, derived probably from the old prejudice
against Jews. Latin and Greek were then every
thing ; and that not to master the great classical
authors, but to make feeble and useless attempts to
write in their style Not far from Bath, in 1827, I
met a Mr. Longmire, a laborious Hebrew and Oriental
scholar. All he got for it was that his neighbours
played on his name and called him Mr. Talmud.
The only convert to Hebrew that I ever heard of
the Bishop making was his own nephew, that I had
known from his boyhood. Poor little Burgess, the
only son of the well-known manufacturer of sauces
and pickles in the Strand, came to Charterhouse in a
skeleton suit at the age of ten or eleven, the same
day that I did. Ours was a new house, and for a
whole term there were only seven in it. The poor
child was very shy, very silent, very helpless, and
perfectly inoffensive. How he was shut up ! What
had he not to endure ! How case-hardened did he
become against insult ! Chow Chow was the least'
offensive name by which he was familiarly called.
The day after his arrival there came two honour-
ables, who could only express their disgust at finding

420 BISHOP BURGESS.
themselves in the same room with the son of a fish-
sauce maker. For five years was I in the same room
with him, and I could almost say that I had never
once seen him open his mouth, except that I do
seem to remember the convulsive and mechanical
action of the jaws when suddenly and peremptorily
called into exercise.
Burgess followed me to Oriel, which he must have
found a pleasanter place. There he studied Hebrew,
and I believe won a newly founded Hebrew scholar
ship. Thus qualified, he received from his uncle the
living of Streetley. His father, passing through
Oxford, asked me to dine with him and his son at
the Angel. He was a pleasant, conversible man,
with a good deal to say for himself, and, as it ap
peared to me, quite competent to find out for himself
the motto commonly said to be found for him by his
brother the Bishop, Gravijam dudum saucia cura.
The Apostolical Bishop left 70,000/., appointing
his widow, with a life interest, Archdeacon Clarke,
and Mr. Fawcett, a young cousin of his wife's, execu
tors. A year or so before his death the third
executor was crippled for life by an injury of the
spine, and at the Bishop's death must have been
confined to his bed, and forbidden to exert either
body or mind. The Bishop, however, did not name
another executor. The Archdeacon died first ; after
some years Mrs. Burgess. Mr. Fawcett, still an in
valid, received one day a copy of the will, with an
intimation that he must immediately see to its ad
ministration. On looking into it he found that all
was left to be divided amongst nephews and nieces,

LAY NOT UP FOR YOURSELVES. 421
several of whom were dead. His lawyer told him at
once that he must let the will alone, as it would raise
questions, and might involve litigation. So he wisely
renounced his executorship, and the will was ad
ministered by the next of kin. As it happened, the
nephews and nieces recognised the claim of the great-
nephews and great-nieces, and all ended well.

CHAPTER LXV.
CONVOCATION.
FROM early in the movement Convocation was a
frequent topic at Oriel. There was an increasing
sense of indignity at the suppression of the Church's
only legislative organ, continued from one Par
liament to another, even when every class, every
community, and every interest had its regular oppor
tunity and form of discussion. The whole of the
Church system was under attack, and on all sides
were popular writers and orators urging Parliament
to step in and make a clean sweep, in order to a
new Church of some kind or other. Yet the existing
Church was not to be allowed to stand on its defence
and speak for itself. I cannot recall that Newman
ever went beyond the initial fact of its being an
insult, a wrong, an incapacity, and a point to be

422 CONVOCATION.
insisted on in any discussions for the reformation of
the Anglican Church.
The Church had a Convocation, and it ought to
be a real, living, and active one, instead of a piece of
lumber dragged out one day and dragged back into
its closet the next. For the existing form of the
Convocation Newman could not be an enthusiast, for
it was, and indeed is, a close corporation, very similar
to the worst of the old municipal corporations then
condemned. It had far less of a representative
character than the old unreformed House of Com
mons. Convocation was and is nothing more than a
Royal Commission, and for that character fairly well
constituted, at least in the opinion of its Royal and
Parliamentary conveners.
But while Newman himself said little or nothing,
others, such as Henry Wilberforce, Wilson, and per
haps generally the country clergy, took up the sub
ject of Convocation warmly, reopened the discussions
of the last century, and even tried to persuade them
selves that in Convocation they saw the assembled
Church of England, only waiting for leave to think
and speak. A new reign seemed to present a new
opportunity. The two Houses of Convocation would
have to address the Crown, and the form of address
would have to be proposed and put to the vote. That
would be an opening for an amendment, asking leave
to meet and confer upon the affairs of the Church, as
in old times.
It fell upon me, I know not how, to put about
such a form of amendment, and indeed to act upon
it. Perhaps it was simply because I was now rector

MOVEMENT FOR A FREE CONVOCATION. 423
of Cholderton, not more than eleven "miles from
Salisbury, where I had at least one friend in Daniel
Eyre, an Oriel man. Like the rest of the clergy I
received a regular summons to a meeting somewhere
about the cathedral, not in the Chapter House, if I
remember right, to elect two Proctors for the diocese.
I presented myself in my gown, rather to the sur
prise of the two or three officials. There certainly
could not have been half a dozen heads altogether,
counting my own. I stated that as the names
must be formally proposed, I should propose other
names, and have hands counted, unless some one
could undertake for the names first proposed that
they would move Convocation to ask for freedom
of debate. I wholly forget the name of the official
that took me in hand, unless it were Grove. Sur
prised as he was, he did it well, according to the
rules of high ecclesiastical art. Everybody there
present, he said, was as desirous as I could be to see
Convocation free ; but no such amendment as I pro
posed could be moved in Convocation without
previous conversation and concert with other mem
bers, and it must rest with every member to decide
whether it would be worth his while to take any
action. After some civil words, I folded up my
gown and came home, not quite knowing whether I
had received a pat or a blow.
Among others to whom I sent the proposed
amendment was Manning, who had lately become a
widower, and was said to be entering warmly into
the coming struggle for the independence of the
Church. I had known him, as a friend of the Wil-

424 CONVOCA TION.
berforces, from his first coming to Oxford, and had
frequently heard him at the Union. It is not easy for
me to identify the Manning of my early recollections
with the Father of the Council whom I heard preach
at the church of S. Isidore on S. Patrick's Day,
and whom I saw lately in company with his brother
Cardinal at the Oratory. He must have grown
taller, and his head larger, since he was a very nice-
looking, rather boyish freshman. When S. Wilber
force left Oxford, Manning seemed to drop quietly into
his place at the Union. He spoke at every meeting,
on all subjects, at length, with unfailing fluency and
propriety of expression.
It is a thing elders don't sufficiently bear in mind
that there is nothing young people like better than
talk. There is no music sweeter to them than a
musical voice that never flags. They can bear any
amount of it, so as it does not offend the taste. In
different speakers and disappointed speakers may
sneer at it, but they have to admit that all the world,
except themselves, run after it and cleave to it.
There are occasions that seem to defy eloquence,
but Manning was more than equal to them. Some
one came in to me one evening, and observed that
Manning had just made a very good speech an hour
long. On what subject ? I asked. It had to be ex
plained, and then I fully recognised the occasion.
The Union took in an immense quantity of news
papers, about half of which were never read. Among
the latter were two American papers — one the ' Balti
more Democrat,' and the other a Republican paper, I
think of Philadelphia. My impression is that nobody

THE GREAT BRITISH BROTHERHOOD. 425
ever looked at either. It had become necessary to
economise, and the committee proposed to discon
tinue one of the American papers. The ' question '
of the evening happened to have been disposed of
quickly. So time was no consideration. Manning
arose, and began by deprecating any retrograde step
in the progress of political knowledge and inter
national sympathy. Did we know too much about
the United States ? Did we care too much for them ?
It was the order of Providence that we should all be
as one. If we could not be under the same Govern
ment, yet we had a common blood, common faith,
and common institutions. America was running a
race with us in literature, in science, and in art, and if
we ceased to learn from her what she could teach us,
we might find ourselves one day much behindhand.
So Manning had gone on, till his bewitched hearers
had quite forgotten the original proposal to save a few
pounds, and only felt themselves going along with
Manning, whatever he might be driving at.
When Manning left Oxford he passed rapidly
and completely from politics to a high ecclesiastical
part. He was heard of as a great speaker at religious
meetings, and as a rigorous disciplinarian in his
church and parish. Among other rules, he insisted that
none had a right to join in the service unless they
had joined in the confession and received the absolu
tion. To mark his displeasure at the late ones, he
made a rule of stopping till they were seated, and
had presumably done penance for their remissness.
The church door opened one day. Manning stopped.
An old lady was heard slowly tottering to her pew.

426 CONVOCATION.
There was a terrible fall. It was Manning's own
mother, who had vainly endeavoured to hurry her
pace during the reader's awful pause.
Manning was soon appreciated by his Bishop,
who made him Archdeacon. He became prematurely
bald, venerable, and wise. Henry Wilberforce used
to affect, in his own amusing way, a continual sense
of injustice in the comparison made by the world
between him and the Archdeacon. As a fact, he was
several months the elder of the two, but people
would persist in regarding the Archdeacon as ten
years older. Repeatedly in company he was desired
to hold his tongue, for the Archdeacon was speaking,
when poor Henry declared he was quite sure that
what he was saying was much better worth listen
ing to.
But I have wandered far from my own mark,
which is Convocation. It must have been in the
summer of 1837 that I sent Manning the proposed
amendment. I take the liberty, which I am sure His
Eminence will excuse, to give his answer in full : —
My Dear Mozley, — I have been many times at
the point of writing to you to thank you for your
letter, and the draft of the amendment, and also to
ask you to consider whether a somewhat different
line would not more surely attain our purpose ; and
that is to move your amendment, substituting for the
prayer for license to debate in Convocation, either a
petition that no measure of the Ecclesiastical Com
mission should be laid before Parliament until it shall

CONVOCATION, OR PROVINCIAL COUNCIL? 427
have received the assent of the Church in a Council
of the Province, or offering both this, and your pro
posal as an alternative, of which without doubt, if
either, the Provincial Council would be most favour
ably received. Perhaps the expressed alternative of Con
vocation might have a very good effect in that way.
The reasons for suggesting this are — 1. That
Convocation probably contains three parties. One (2)
against all change ; the second (x) hot for Convoca
tion ; the third against Convocation, but anxious for
some active measure. The two last, if combined, will
be a majority ; if disunited, altogether defeated. I can
not say decidedly that I could vote for your amend
ment as it stands. For the alternative I could ; and
so would the Convocation men.
2. The Bishops would to a man resist your pro
posal, but a large number would vote for a Provincial
Council ; probably all who are now so opposed to
the Commission, and in this way the amendment
would probably pass both Houses, and for once unite
them. 3. I believe many laymen in and out of Parlia
ment are ready to support a measure to obtain the
consent of the Church, and to restore some canonical
Council, but not Convocation. These are some of
the reasons why I believe the amendment as it stands
would be both defeated in Convocation, and un
palatable out of it. I write in great haste ; pray let
me hear how it strikes you, and what is doing in your
Diocese. In our Archdeaconry the address is going
on very successfully — forty-five replies, and only five

428 CONVOCATION.
refusals, and that in about a fortnight It is also in
circulation through the Proctor in the other Arch
deaconry (Lewes), and I know of some approvals.
Believe me, my dear Mozley, yours very sincerely,
H. E. Manning.
Festival of All Saints.
Do you know Mr. Strutt, who married the Bishop
of Chichester's daughter? Tell me if you know
anything of his religious opinions.
The answer to this is that there was a Convoca
tion, whereas there was no such thing as a Provincial
Council. Parliament at that time would not have
listened to any project for reviving an obsolete insti
tution in order to give independence and power to
the Church of England ; whereas it might come to
see the injustice of not allowing an existing assembly
of the Church to exchange opinions, or even freely
exercise the constitutional right of petition. The
practical differences between a Convocation and a
Provincial Synod are very nice questions, and could
not be stated in any accurate or probable form with
out much inquiry into ecclesiastical law, historical fact,
and the tendencies of human nature under various
circumstances. It is quite certain that Provincial Synods have not
always conducted themselves with judgment, or even
common sense. 'In the year 1281,' we read in
Collier, ' in the reign of Edward I., Archbishop
Pecham convened a Provincial Synod at Lambeth.
In his mandate to Richard Gravesend, Bishop of

WHAT A SYNOD ONCE DID. 429
London, after having mentioned the convening of
the suffragans, he gives him to understand that he
designed to summon all the inferior prelates ; those
dignitaries, according to the canon, being obliged
to appear in council. Now, by inferior prelates we
are to understand abbots, priors, deans, and arch
deacons. But of any other representation of the
inferior clergy the mandate takes no notice ; which
is an argument the state of the Convocation was
different from what it is at present. ... By the
second canon (passed in this Provincial Synod), the
parish priests, when they administer the Holy Com
munion, are enjoined to acquaint the more ignorant
sort of the laity (simplices), that the body and blood
of our Saviour, in the integrity of the Sacrament, is
contained under the single species of bread. They
are likewise to teach them that what they receive in
the chalice is unconsecrated wine, and given them
only that they may swallow the other species with
more conveniency.' In the year 1287, in the same
primacy, a Diocesan Synod, convened by Peter Quivil,
Bishop of Exeter, made a solemn protest against
this explanation, and enjoined 'that the priest tell
the people what they eat is the body of Christ, and
what they drink His blood.'
The debates of the Lower House of Convocation
some years since on the subject of the Athanasian
Creed may suggest a comparison with the above most
extraordinary rubrical interpretation ; yet it would be
unfair to describe them as more blasphemous and
ridiculous.

430 RESERVE.

CHAPTER LXVI.
RESERVE in communicating religious
KNOWLEDGE.
The confidence and strength of the movement, now
about at high tide, could not be more illustrated than
in some remarkable numbers of the ' Tracts for the
Times,' on reserve in communicating religious know
ledge. There never was a more extraordinary com
bination of privacy and publicity, shyness and
audacity, and, it may be added, wisdom and rashness,
than in these treatises. That which people do in
stinctively and even unconsciously, by methods and
rules of their own, was here built up into a grand
argument, swollen to the bulk of a volume, and
dinned into the ears of the whole world.
Isaac Williams was the simplest of men. He
had the happiness to live among friends with whom
he entirely agreed ; whom he loved and admired ;
whose sympathy almost excluded the outer world,
and whose loyalty and power made him indifferent
to vulgar opinions. Whatever he had said, or his
friends had said, wisely and truly enough, he pro
claimed from the house-top. In some respects this
was the common temptation and the common fault
of all the writers. Moving in a phalanx, with a
certainty of support, they all said with tenfold freedom
and fulness what they would have thought a good

ISAAC WILLIAMS. 431
deal more about had they been called on to do it
singly on their own separate account.
But what was it that was done in this instance
by a man retiring and modest even to a fault, who
could never have seen a dozen people together with
out a wish to hide himself? He first looks out for
the word that shall bear the most terrible signifi
cance, raise the most alarms, and give the greatest
offence. Common enough as the word ' reserve '
may be in its application to manners and morals, it
is an entirely new word as applied to education and
religious instruction. Having thus put on the most
questionable of guises, and grasped the most dan
gerous of weapons, Isaac Williams blows the trumpet
and convokes the whole Church — indeed the whole
world. ' Listen to me,' he proclaims, 'I've a great
deal to tell you. But I shall keep back from you the
most important things that I have to say till you are
quite fit for them. I shall wait to see whether you
are ever fit for them. You would reject them now,
for you would not care for them or understand them.
You would probably hate them. So I must educate
you for them. I must be clever and crafty, reserved
and economical. I must ensnare you, hook you,
hoodwink you, decoy you into my net, commit you
to my ulterior designs before you know what you are
about. I must exercise upcn you artifices, frauds,
stratagems, plots, and conspiracies.'
Nobody would say this in so many words ; no
body would intend this in fact ; but anybody who
announces that he means to practise reserve is at
once understood to mean all this. He will say that

432 RESERVE.
he means no more than all teachers do, all fathers,
mothers — all who are older, wiser, or better than
those they have to deal with, as a matter of fact, and
by sheer necessity. That may be quite true, but the
difference is they don't proclaim it and he does. All
the world practises all kinds of reserve, but never
mentions the word. The world does not write in
large letters over this spot ' secret ' ; over that ' strictly
private ' ; over another, ' a deep mystery ' ; over
another, ' a dark corner ' ; and over the darkest
corner of all, ' this is what you are to come to at last.'
If, as it is said, there is a skeleton in every household,
it is kept in a closet, and the closet door is not
labelled ' a skeleton here'
Secrets of State there must be, else there need be
no Secretaries of State, or ' Cabinets,' except what
anybody might walk into. No statesman can help
having a policy which stretches into the future. He
must have something behind ; that is, yet to come.
His opponents do their best to draw this out of him,
or to create the impression that it is something very
objectionable ; but it is not he that invites attention
to it, or avows that the most important part of his
policy is that which he will not at present reveal, so
odious would it be thought.
In the whole matter of preaching the Gospel and
of Christian education there will be the question
what part shall take precedence, that is what doc
trine ought to be presented first and foremost. Some
will put one part first, some another. This inevitably
implies that some part will be left a little back,
for of two things, if one be before, the other must

'THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN.' 433
be behind. But this question of priorities and prefer
ences must not be carried too far, for neither nature nor
circumstances admit of such regular succession. Dr.
Johnson said on the matter of education that if you
thought too much and too long which of two things
to teach first, you would find that your quicker
neighbour had taught his pupil both before you had
taught yours one.
Isaac Williams in truth only made a pretty theory
of what all the world does in one way or another.
It was his application of it that provoked a general
attack on the policy of reserve. Now for a long
time it has been the way of the religious world
whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, to put the
Atonement foremost. A large part of the Christian
world, in this country at least, preach the Atonement,
and nothing more, on the simple reckoning that
without the acceptance of the Atonement everything
is worthless ; with it everything else is unnecessary.
The Roman Catholics cannot be accused of deficiency
in their teaching, but the Incarnation and the Passion
are what they put foremost, and proclaim in the
streets and highways. If out of twenty dissenting
communities in a town, one were to avow an un
willingness to place the Atonement before mere
children or hardened sinners, it would be scouted by
all the rest.
The Church of England is supposed to show her
highest wisdom and her most maternal tenderness in
the Catechism, meat for very babes and sucklings.
In this Catechism, immediately after the infant
catechumen has lisped out the Apostles' Creed, it
VOL. L F F

434 RESERVE.
is asked what it chiefly learns from the Creed. Three
short answers are put into its little mouth. The
second of these is, 'I learn to believe in God the
Son, who hath redeemed me and all mankind.'
Those words are universally explained in the sense
of the Atonement — yes, in the popular sense of the
Atonement ; as salvation by the death of Christ
offered to all who will accept that doctrine. Nor can
it be said that after bringing this doctrine to the very
front, and emblazoning it over the very portals of
the Church, the Catechism throws any reserve over
the doctrine in its exposition of the Sacraments.
What then can be the use of inculcating reserve,
unless one is prepared to quarrel with the very
groundwork of the Church of England's doctrinal
method ?
But this quarrel with the Catechism and the
Church of England will not stop there. There is no
knowing how far it will widen. Isaac Williams insists
very much on the teaching of our Lord and of the
Apostles as being always adapted to the occasion, to
the state of knowledge, and to the character. But in
two or three generations all these teachings were
collected and read all over the world, to all ages, and
to all the varieties of faith, education, and character.
The facts, too, which covered the doctrines were
everywhere known. Whatever the tongue or the pen
of man then failed to do the press has since done,
and the Bible is now the most universal book in the
world. Where it goes there can be no reserve.
No doubt the result of the actual universal usage
has been the very wide acceptance of doctrine in

A REIGN OF TERROR. 435
place of a consistent life. For many centuries
practice has lagged in the rear of faith. Isaac
Williams hoped to bring duty more to the front ;
but it was scant wisdom to tell the world he. proposed
to cheat it out of its easy confidence and reduce it to
hard service. Could the man himself have been
exhibited at Exeter Hall, interviewed in soiries at
Willis's Rooms, or even invited to show the almost
sacred lineaments of his face in a fashionable London
pulpit, people would have seen what a simple rogue
the poor child was, what an imitation Guy Fawkes
what an innocent Inquisitor.
As it was, and in total ignorance of the man, the
world fell or affected to fall into a paroxysm of terror
at the infernal machinations preparing against it.
The front line of the advancing foe it could venture
to cope with in open fight and measure swords with.
It was the awful indefinite reserve and the dark
ambuscade that made ten thousand pulpits tremble
to the very foot of the steps. For many years after,
whenever the preacher had exhausted his memory or
his imagination, and run out his circle of texts and
ideas, he could easily fall back on the dark doings of
Oxford. Congregations of London shopkeepers were
told that Newman and Pusey inculcated and practised
systematic fraud, concealment, and downright lying in
a good cause— -that is, in their own; When one looked
round to see the impression made by the dreadful
charge, the congregation either were so fast asleep or
they were taking it so easy that they must have
heard it often before, or perhaps after all did riot
think habitual lying so serious a matter. It could

436 RESERVE.
only have been under the protection pf numbers,
loyalty, and talent that anyone would ever have
promulgated such a policy as reserve. Not even
when so protected would anyone have done that, had
he not lived in great seclusion from the common
sense and common feeling of the world.
The Bishop of Gloucester denounced the tract
very heavily, upon the title alone, without any ac
quaintance with the tract itself. Thomas Keble, a
singularly quiet man, was moved to remonstrate with
his Bishop, and to point out that the tract itself did
not justify his lordship's remarks. The Bishop made
so lame and reluctant an apology and so little retrac
tation, that T. Keble resigned his rural deanery, and
elected to remain for the future on cool terms with
the Bishop. Yet it is hard to see what the Bishop
could do but protest against the thesis contained
in the title of the tract, even though his many oc
cupations might prevent him from ever opening it,
A Bishop has to defend his Church from ill sur
mises, and to disavow complicity in ill teachings ;
especially when some of the writers are in his own
diocese. Suppose, for example, some clergyman with more
learning than discretion, under Bishop Wilberforce,
had published a thick closely-printed octavo, entitled
'Doubt the School of Faith.' If the Bishop had
been true to his rule of stamping out doubt instantly,
lest it spread further, he would certainly have con
demned the book, and preached against it, without
reading it, probably without seeing more than a
picked sentence or two. Since the man chose to affix

MORE WRITING THAN READING. 437
ouch a title, proposing evidently to do half his work
by his title, he must stand the consequences.
In the course of the movement there befell to
many of the writers, indeed to all of them, that which
themselves had done — some very lightly, indeed — in
the Hampden business. They had not read the
famous lectures, and could only know of them second
hand. They came up to Oxford to condemn him,
and did condemn him there and then. By the
same rule they found themselves condemned without
being read. It may be said, that within a certain
circle of intelligence, there is more writing than
reading. People will write big volumes, and people
will not read big volumes. Nobody in his senses
will read several hundred closely-printed pages in
favour of a practice which he knows he cannot ob
serve, and does not intend to observe, and has no
intention of trying to make others observe.
Most books, those of great interest and import
ance, are known only by their titles, and an author
may be considered fortunate if his title has been
read right, and right through. The majority of those
who talk about Butler's Analogy have taken upon
hearsay half the title, quoting it as the ' Analogy of
Natural and Revealed Religion.' Butler, they pro
ceed to argue, must have been a very bad logician,
and the victim of a ridiculous fallacy, if he could
suppose Christianity the more likely to be true be
cause it had a strong family resemblance to Paganism.
The title really is, 'The Analogy of Religion,
Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course
of Nature ;' a thesis which requires careful argument,

438 RESERVE.
but is very different from that in most instances
substituted for it.
Till the ' Tracts for the Times ' finally exploded
with No. 90, Isaac Williams must have been working
night and day to retrieve the error of an ill-selected
thesis and an offensive title. In the year 1840 he
brought out No. 87 of the series, Part IV, on
Reserve, 143 closely-printed pages. Had the tracts
gone on, and had he lived long enough, he would
have published a library on the duty of not telling
people all we believe and know, be it ever so neces
sary to be believed or known.
A man so sensitive to the least touch of irreve
rence received many a wound, which he survived to
tell. Finding himself one Sunday at Southampton,
and not being acquainted with the churches there, he
walked up the High Street to enter the first that
promised well. He found himself before a church of
the best architecture, went in, and was placed in a
pew which looked old-fashioned enough. The con
gregation was respectable, better dressed indeed than
his own poor rustics. One or two things produced a
queer sensation rather than a positive misgiving. A
hymn was sung, not very unusual in country churches.
As the last note of the organ died on his ear, the
minister sprung up — ' Last Sunday, if you remember,
I was telling you about Matthew the publican.' Isaac
Williams quickly disappeared.

THE CHRISTIAN OBSERVER. 439

CHAPTER LXVII.
ATTACKS ON THE MOVEMENT.
THE next year, 1838, saw the burst of the storm
which may be said to have raged round the devoted
band, till by the loss of its chiefs, and to a large
extent of its original character, it settled by degrees
into the somewhat less heroic form and consistency
of the ' Ritualistic ' party.
Newman was now sole editor of the ' British
Critic' The only other religious periodical admitting
essays, or reviews, of any length, was the ' Christian
Observer,' which had but little circulation in Oxford.
The most urgent appeals were made to the clergy to
read and to circulate the ' Observer,' but the impor
tunity itself betrayed weakness. It might be twenty
years after this date I was passing through a by
street from Blackfriars to the Temple, when I saw
two immense waggons, which had just received from
a warehouse huge loads of waste paper. I never see
a bit of printed paper without a certain curiosity, and
on examining the loads closely I found they con
sisted entirely of unsold ' Christian Observers ' for
many years back.
At this time, or about 1838, they that were of the
movement had full swing, they that were not of it
had to content themselves with publishing sermons
and pamphlets, that cost money and were not read.
Thus reduced to an extremity, they could not be ex-

440 ATTACKS ON THE MOVEMENT.
pected to be particular in their choice of a champion.
Dr. Faussett, the Margaret Professor of Divinity, had
approved himself as a matador of great courage and
some skill in an. attack on Milman's ' History of the
Jews,' preached at St. Mary's in 1830. The sermon
nearly threw poor Blanco White into convulsions. He
could only speak of Faussett as ' that butcher.' The
sermon was so far in unison with the general sentiment
at Oriel College, that the Provost, when Milman
came to be his guest, could scarcely get a single
Fellow of the college to meet him. But Dr. Faussett
was now charging in another direction. He was not
a man of great learning. When Henry Wilberforce,
as successful candidate for the Theological prizej had
to confer with him, he found him wholly unacquainted
with that portion of Dr. Bull's ' Defence of the
Nicene Creed,' on the ' Subordination of the Son,'
which brought that divine into much controversy
and some disfavour. Dr. Faussett was however a
scholar, a clever writer, and a telling preacher — that
is, capable of striking hard blows. He had also to
fight for dear life. The Margaret Professor is elected
by the graduates in Divinity for two years only, though
always re-elected. Divinity was now becoming a
study, and there was no knowing how many gradu
ates in Divinity, or with what bias, there might he in
a few years. So he preached and published on May
20, 1838, a sermon on the ' Revival of Popery.'
His style, if not his tactics, was the same as that
which had proved so effectual to give pain on the
former occasion. He had carefully culled from New
man's, writings, from the 'Tracts for the Times,' but

DR. FAUSSETT. 441
most of all from Froude's ' Remains,' all the expres
sions used by writers more anxious to speak to the
full extent of their feelings and convictions than to
regard the perplexity or the pain they might inflict
on some readers.
Froude, for instance, was brimful of irony, and
always ready to surprise and even shock men of a
slower temperament, when he could by a smile soothe
or disarm them. As he talked, so he wrote in his
letters. The editors of his ' Remains ' were under a
temptation, which they construed into a necessity,
to reproduce him as he really had been, to the very
words and the life, and let his words take their
chance. Upon the whole they were right ; for no
one ever charged, or could now charge, on Froude
that his expressions had brought anyone to Rome,
or could doubt that Froude himself was Anglican to
the last
Dr. Faussett avoided all personal allusion to
Newman, probably in compliance with the university
etiquette that the preachers occupying the same
pulpit shall steer clear of one another. Newman,
however, could not but reply, which he did at great
length, giving the Professor a hundred pages for his
fifty. Dr. Faussett published a second edition, with
notes, in which he complained bitterly of the length,
and, as he would have it, the irrelevance of the matter
he was expected to read. It must be admitted that
Newman did not always take into account the
patience of his adversaries, or their physical capacity
for enduring a protracted castigation. On the other
hand, no one has a right to complain who can release

442 ATTACKS ON THE MOVEMENT.
himself from the triangle by simply shutting the
book or throwing the pamphlet aside.
The weak point in Dr. Faussett's case was that
while, eight years before this, he had solemnly pro
tested against the corruption of the faith by the new
German philosophy, and had now testified to the im
mense increase of Papists and Popish chapels in this
century, previous to the Oxford movement, he had
done nothing to stay these evils. All that he had
done during the ten years he had held the chair was
to deliver two sermons, neither of them quite fit for
a Christian pulpit, and both calculated to give pain
and do nothing more.
Shortly after this passage of arms the Bishop of Ox
ford (Bagot) delivered the Charge which gave the note
to the more vehement and less unreserved utterances
of all his brethren. It illustrates the crisis and the
terror which then possessed even wise and moderate
men, that in this Charge the Bishop protested
against the Board of Ecclesiastical Commissioners, as
' a power as irresponsible as it is gigantic, an imperium
in imperio, which before long must supersede all
other authority in the Church, and whose decrees are
issued in such a manner as to render expostulation
and remonstrance unavailing.' Newman respectfully
thanked the Bishop for the attention he was giving
to the new Oxford publications, assuming apparently
that where there was so much ' vigilance,' what was
not condemned was approved.
In July this year Newman had to take what he
no doubt felt the very painful step of telling Samuel
Wilberforce that it was evidently impossible that the

DR. SHUTTLEWORTH. 443
•British Critic' could continue to insert articles
plainly at variance with the tenor of the periodical
— indeed, positively antagonistic to the other writers.
Of course the same difficulty had occurred when
Boone was the editor and Newman the contributor,
and it was then settled by Newman acquiring the
undivided editorship. In the present case the only
possible solution was S. Wilberforce's retirement.
This was small denial to a man who had the university
pulpit some hundreds of other important pulpits,
and as many more platforms, competing for the aid
of his charming and persuasive oratory ; and who
had only to put his name to a publication to secure
for it as many readers as the ' British Critic ' could
help him to.
Dr. Shuttleworth, Warden of New College, and
in times past a guest at Holland House, now pre
sented himself as a controversialist in a pamphlet,
which, when he had finished it, he did not know
whether to call 'Not Tradition, but Scripture,' or
' Not Tradition, but Revelation,' and left that question,
as well as his meaning generally, a riddle to his readers.
Dr. Shuttleworth shared with others of his school
a combination of intellectual facility and practical
indecision. He became, not unworthily, Bishop of
Chichester, but would have been Bishop of that see
several years earlier had he not felt as the Bishop of
Oxford did on the new Church Acts.

444 DEAN HOOK, DEAN CHURCH, C. MARRIOTT.

CHAPTER LXVIII.
DEAN HOOK, DEAN CHURCH, AND CHARLES
MARRIOTT.
In June 1838 Hook preached on ' Hear the Church '
before the Queen and her Court at the Chapel Royal.
The sermon had a prodigious circulation, and raised
a corresponding amount of discussion. The Queen
was only just nineteen, and barely a year on the
throne. She was unmarried. Was it right to attempt
to infuse into her mind what most people would be
ready to call a one-sided view of the great question ?
Hook himself had evidently felt the difficulty of
bringing the question home to her in a sermon
written for the purpose. He had gone to the heap,
and had there found an old sermon that would do.
It had acquired prescription, for he had preached
it at Coventry, Leeds, and elsewhere. Even if it had
been too uncompromising, would it not have been
cowardice to soften it down to royal ears ?
It had been preached to the units of a great
multitude, perfectly free to choose their own religion,
and to apply the principles of that religion as they
pleased. It was now preached to the Sovereign of
three discordant realms, professing as many, and in
deed many more, religions, herself bound to respect
all. But with the preacher, so Hook appears to have
thought, there must be no respect of persons.
Its being an old sermon was no defence, for it is

SERMON AT THE CHAPEL ROYAL. 445
almost invariable that offensive sermons are old ones,
and, if you are to be run through the body, an old
sword is as bad as a new one. A sermon preached
up and down the provinces was likely enough to put
things in that absolute form which does not much
signify to those who have no special concern in them.
You may safely tell village and even town congre
gations that Saul was bound to obey Samuel, and
David to accept the rebuke of Nathan and the
judgment of Gad. It is another matter when you
are addressing a Queen, and when the question of
the day is, Who is Samuel, who is Nathan, and who
is Gad ?
In further extenuation of the sermon it is stated
to have been one of a series ; but a series is a
machine, a mere process of mathematical evolution.
It goes its own way, unswerving, pitiless, and reckless
of consequences. The truth is a sermon must justify
itself, if it is to be justified at all. It won't do to say,
' I hit you at random,' or ' You had the ill-luck to
come in the way of my machine'
To prove the absence of premeditation and design,
Hook pleaded the slovenly composition ofthe sermon,
which he purposely published without correction.
But the truth is he was always too full of matter and
of feeling to express himself accurately.
The Queen is said to have been much pleased
with the sermon. She might well be, for everybody
listened to Hook with admiration, and even with
pleasure, whether agreeing with him or not. But if
she were pleased, and could not help being pleased,
that might be all the more reason why the sermon

446 DEAN HOOK, DEAN CHURCH, C. MARRIOTT.
should not have been preached to her. The Queen's
advisers were not pleased. They had to square
matters with the Church of England, the Church of
Scotland, the Irish Catholics, and the English dis
senters, and they did not feel themselves assisted by
a peremptory command from the pulpit of the Chapel
Royal to hear the only true Church, viz. the Church
of England. However, the sermon set all the reading world
talking, thinking, and feeling too. It announced to
many for the first time the doctrine of Church
authority, and the claim to be the Church possessed
of that authority. The political bearings of the
sermon were both for it and against it, for Hook was
one of the most eloquent exponents of Conservatism
in those days. The Conservatives generally liked
the sermon : the Liberals of course did not.
Manning, long known as an eloquent and agree
able speaker at Oxford, became now more widely
known as the preacher of a learned sermon at
Chichester on the Rule of Faith. This year came
out a translation of Cyril's Catechetical Lectures,
almost wholly by Church, Fellow of Oriel, and
nephew of General Church, who fought with the
Greeks in their struggle for independence.
Within five years of the beginning of the move
ment, which cannot be put earlier than Newman's
return home from the Mediterranean, July 9, 1833,
it had acquired numbers, energy, and momentum
sometimes the work of generations, or only won to
be lost as easily. There had never been seen at
Oxford, indeed seldom anywhere, so large and noble

CHARLES MARRIOTT. 447
a sacrifice of the most precious gifts and powers to a
sacred cause. The men who were devoting them
selves to it were not bred for the work, or from one
school. They were not literary toilers or adventurers
glad of a chance, or veterans ready to take to one
task as lightly as to another, equally zealous to do
their duty, and equally indifferent to the form. They
were not men of the common rank casting a die for
promotion. They were not levies or conscripts, but
in every sense volunteers.
Pusey, Keble, and Newman had each an indi
viduality capable of a development, and a part,
beyond that of any former scholar, poet, or theologian
in the Church of England. Each lost quite as much
as he gained by the joint action of the three. It is
hard to say what Froude might have been, or might
not have been, had he lived but a few more years,
and been content to cast in his lot with common
mortals bound by conditions of place and time.
Charles Marriott threw in his scholarship and some
thing more, for he might have been a philosopher,
and he had poetry in his veins, being the son ot
the well-known author of the 'Devonshire Lane.'
No one sacrificed himself so entirely to the cause,
giving to it all he had and all he was, as Charles
Marriott. He did not gather large congregations ; he
did not write works of genius to spread his name over
the land and to all time ; he had few of the pleasures
or even of the comforts that spontaneously offer
themselves in any field of enterprise. He laboured
night and day in the search and defence of Divine
Truth. His admirers were not the thousands, but

448 CHARLES MARRIOTT.
the scholars who could really appreciate. I confess
to have been a little ashamed of myself when Bishop
Burgess, as I have mentioned above, asked me about
Charles Marriott, as one of the most eminent scholars
of the day. Through sheer ignorance I had failed in
adequate appreciation.
I remember he could address himself at once to
any difficulty, but he must not be disturbed in the
work. While so engaged, or absorbed, he felt an in*
terruption of any kind as he would the stroke of a
bludgeon or the shock of a railway collision. It was
agony, and with upraised hands he closed eyes and
ears. Nothing could exceed his singular tenacity of
purpose, of which he once gave an amusing illustration.
He had to go to town one day and return the next
This gave him an evening, and he resolved to spend
it with his twin fellow, now Lord Blachford, at Eliot
Place, the other end of Blackheath. His first idea
was to be in time for dinner, failing that for tea ; but
business, accidental delays, trains not suiting, the dis
tance of the station from the house he was seeking,
and his finally losing his way, as he might do easily,
several times, ended in his ringing the bell some time
after the family had retired to rest. However, he
was there. Rogers was waked up, and was very glad
to see him. They had a pleasant talk, but whether
Marriott could even then be... persuaded to stay the
night J -do-not remember. Marriott had but a poor
constitution, and, working his head continually, was
frequently ailing. An Oxford doctor told him he
must reduce his wine, which Marriott promised to do.
It occurred to him, however, to ascertain the exact

OUT OF HIS ELEMENT. 449
reduction to be made. Restrict yourself to four
glasses a day, the doctor said. Marriott replied that
he never drank more than half .that in a day. I have
often found the most extraordinary misapprehen
sions arising from the use of general terms.
Charles Marriott was for some years the very
diligent, and, I believe, the very successful Principal
of Chichester Theological College. Before entering
upon his work he had to see the Bishop, who hap
pened to be at Derby, with his son-in-law, Edward
Strutt, «afterwards Lord Belper. My eldest brother
met him at dinner there, and thought him a great
curiosity. Several kinds of light wine were passing
round the table. 'Which wine are you taking,
Mr. Marriott ? ' the host inquired. ' Which you
please,' the guest replied. This was ridiculous, but
Marriott was hardly to blame for it. Was he to
affect a preference or to avow indifference ? In fact
he was only submitting to necessity, for he probably
did not know the difference between the wines, and
did not want any at all. Was the host right in
assuming him to be choice in his wines ? Marriott
was not in his element that day. How he managed
to get on with Bishop Otter, ' neither fish, nor flesh,
nor fowl ' as he used to be called, I can hardly
understand. YAL?

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