: '4£ % m I M*. '*? jC "CM' I > I < i BRHH "V Es wa /■ SHIPS' mi I HHHHI ^H M ■I H frinftin' <«- 3K MM i 3P?ra» w MEMOEIALS PAET I. FAMILY AND PERSONAL Ic>{).(/1 MEMORIALS PAKT I. FAMILY AND PEESONAL 1766-1865 BY ROUNDELL PALMER EARL OF SELBORNE 1 For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a city.' .^ ^ VOLUME I &g2tfg t . ■■•■ -z #&**•• ■'■'■"■■ foe ■> ' 3Loni»on MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. NEW YORK : MACMILLAN k CO. 1896 All rights reserved • * • t • « • • * *> • •• • 4 *«.«.'- * «. f t *«-»..*.. i. I »• I «■ ^iv I • ••»•• ( *.*.». * .. ^4- ft 3 PREFACE i- In the evenings of the summer of 1885 my Father CO »_ and I were much alone, my Mother having died in DC Si the April of that year, and he then told me more 3 than I had before known of his own father and his early life ; and when we went to Siena the follow ing August, I asked him to write these recollections, that we might possess them. He took with him to -^ Siena an accumulation of unsorted family letters, ^ and in reading them and writing these Memorials he ^ lived over again the life which made him. Beginning with his parents, he naturally passed on to his home, Of and in granting our request as to writing some record *^>of his own life also, he could not write of himself r " 1 apart from his brothers and sisters and friends, and, «» above all, from my Mother. For as he did not live for himself, so he did not live in himself; and as his heart was filled with the ^ love of his people and his country, he could only write § of himself as affected by these relationships. There is much of so intimate and personal a 3H6629 vi FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS nature, that it would not have been given to the world, but for loyalty to his known intention and desire in regard to these Memorials. I hope at some future time to publish Part II., and to insert, as I have done in Part I., letters from my Father, and also, in a few instances, from members of his family. In regard to the latter, I have been guided in my selection by his expressed wishes as to letters he vainly sought for, and which have since come into my hands ; and by whether, or no, any contribution seemed offered to the whole picture of family life. It will be seen from my Father's preface that he divided the volumes differently. I have been constrained to make this change, as the bulk would have been too unequal, owing to the greater number of letters of the later period. SOPHIA M. PALMER March 1896. TO MY CHILDREN I have long intended, if God should so permit, to commit to paper before the close of my life such an account of my own personal history, private and public, as I should desire you to possess. I had rather not have things written by those who do not know me as I know myself, which might praise me where I do not deserve praise. I have never kept journals or diaries, or any other record of my private thoughts and meditations, but I have a very vivid memory of the earlier part of my life ; and it has been 'my habit to preserve such letters and papers as I thought of permanent interest, whether relating to family or to public affairs. Others of my family, to whose papers I have had access, have done the same ; particularly my brother William, who left notes which show that a purpose like my own was at some time in his mind, though he never fulfilled it. In this volume, besides my own history from my birth till my Father's death, I have had in view the preservation of the knowledge and memory of those viii FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS dear relations and friends, to whom (under God) I owe everything. Some of them, if their lives were quiet and unambitious, and to the world in general unknown, were in wisdom and virtue among the excellent of the earth. Of all the characters and influences here commemorated, that which it has been most a labour of love to me to delineate is your Grandfather's ; and if, in what you learn concerning him, you find the main interest of this work, I shall be rewarded. It is my intention (if I should live long enough) to follow up this volume with another; which may bring down my personal narrative, and my recollec- tion of the persons with whom, and the events with which I have been associated, to the time, not now distant, at which my public life must close. The political element may predominate in that part of my work, as the family and personal element does in this. SELBORNE. October 1888. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE Ancestors— My Uncle Thomas Palmer. 1773-1799 . . 1 CHAPTER II My Uncle Edward Palmer. 1781-1807 .... 18 CHAPTER III My Father. 1778-1818 ...... 36 CHAPTER IV My Mother — Gledstone — Mixbury— Finmere. 1810-1823 . 45 CHAPTER V My Father and his People — Childhood at Mixbury — My Brother Tom's Death in 1823 . . . .56 CHAPTER VI Rugby— Family Events. 1823-1825 . . . .74 CHAPTER VII Winchester. 1825-1830 ...... 85 CHAPTER VIII Oxford — Older Friends there — " Union " — " Rambler." 1830-1833 . . . . . . . .114 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS CHAPTER IX PAGE Oxford — Younger Friends — Studies and their Results. 1833-1834 ....... 188 CHAPTER X My Mother's Illness — Tutorship to Lord Maidstone— Mag- dalen College. 1832-1835 . . . . .147 CHAPTER XI My Brother Henry. 1830-1835 . . . .166 CHAPTER XII Haverholme — Removal to London — Relations and Friends there. 1835-1836 ...... 185 CHAPTER XIII Lincoln's Inn — Legal Tutors and Friends— My Uncle Sir Ralph Palmer— Call to the Bar. 1836-1837 . . 198 CHAPTER XIV Early Years in London — Religious and Academical Interests. 1836-1837 ....... 207 CHAPTER XV Oxford Friends in London — Questions of College Reform — Younger Brothers at Charterhouse — My Uncle Ralph's Death. 1836-1838 . . . . .225 CHAPTER XVI Illnesses of Edwin and my Fai hi: i:— Other Family Sorrows —Beginning of Business. 1838-1839 . . . 240 CHAPTER XVII .My BROTHER William. 1827-1837 . . . . .251 CONTENTS xi CHAPTEE XVIII PAGE William's Study of Foreign Churches. 1837-1839 . . 262 CHAPTER XIX Death of John Cureer — William and the Christian Know- ledge Society. 1840 ...... 273 CHAPTER XX William's First Visit to Russia. 1840-1841 . . .286 CHAPTER XXI Literary Interests. 1840-1843 ..... 299 CHAPTER XXII Tract 90 — Romanising Tendencies at Oxford . . . 309 CHAPTER XXIII Jerusalem Bishopric. 1841-1842 . . . . .316 CHAPTER XXIV Poetry Professorship — Oxford Friends — -Visit to Ireland — 450th Anniversary of Winchester College. 1841-1844 339 CHAPTER XXV Professional Progress — Legal Contemporaries and Friends. 1843-1847 ....... 366 CHAPTER XXVI Troubles renewed at Oxford— William George Ward— Crisis in my Life. 1844-1845 . . . . .380 CHAPTER XXVII Secessions to Rome, 1845— William's Russian Controversy, 1842-1846 ....... 396 xii FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS CHAPTER XXVIII PAGE My Father's Theological Correspondence with "William- William's Appeal to the Scottish Episcopal Church. 1845-1849 ....... 419 CHAPTER XXIX Italy. 1846 439 CHAPTER XXX Beginning of Public Life — Return for Plymouth. 1847 . 450 CHAPTER XXXI Marriage. 1848 ....... 466 ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME I Portrait of Rev. William Jocelyn Palmer. From a Miniature by Cruikshank ...... Frontispiece Portrait of Dorothea Richardson Palmer, 1811. From a Picture by William Owen, R.A. . . '. Finmere Rectory. From a Drawing per Emily F. Palmer Rotjndell Palmer, cetat. 8 Roundell Palmer, cetat. 22. R. A. Clack, Oxford, del. Mixbury Rectory The Pass of Kylemore Lady Laura Palmer, 1848. After a Water - Colour Drawing by George Richmond, R.A. face jxtge 45 )> j j 54 5) J) 66 3) J J 133 J) J) 184 J J J? 350 ) J J) 466 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS CHAPTER I ANCESTORS MY UNCLE THOMAS PALMER 1773-1799 I have always been anion g those who cherish affec- tionately and reverently the thought of union between " the living generations and the dead." No individual life stands apart ; it is made up of other lives also ; — the lives of those by whose love, example, help, and influence it has been formed and directed ; and these have their own associations, going back to more than a single generation, and exciting a natural desire to know of our ancestors, still more remote, whatever can be known. Of my paternal ancestry there is no record going further back than the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, when John Palmer was living at Marston in Staffordshire. He is recorded in the Heralds' College as coming from a Yorkshire stock, about which the genealogists of the family have never been able to discover anything, though some points of resemblance between the armorial bearings of that John Palmer and VOL. i B 2 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS parti his descendants and those of a family of the same name, long established at Angmering and Parham in Sussex, and of which branches were afterwards settled at Wingham in Kent, Fairfield in Somersetshire, and Dorney Court in the valley of the Thames, have suggested the possibility of a common derivation. In 1624, William, the second son of John Palmer of Marston, bought the estate of Wanlip near Leicester, on which Sir Archdale Palmer (his de- scendant through an heiress whose son assumed her name) now resides. Archdale Palmer of Wan lip, William's great-grandson, represented Leicester in the House of Commons in 1697. He was twice married, and had no less than twenty-six children. Thomas, the third child of his second marriage with Anne Charlton, was born in 1706, and was early apprenticed to business in London. In 1729, at the age of twenty-three, he became a member of the Mercers' Company ; the freedom of which has ever since belonged, by right of inheritance, to all his male descendants in the male line. He married Rebecca Pickard, on her father's side descended from a London citizen of that name, who entertained, as Lord Mayor, King Edward the Third and the Black Prince, with three other kings, — John, King of France, and David, King of Scotland, both then captives in London, and the King of Cyprus. Her mother was a daughter of Sir Robert Jocelyn of Hyde Hall, in Hertfordshire, and aunt of the first Lord Jocelyn, Chancellor of Ireland. Thomas Palmer and his wife had a country house at Cheshunt, where he died in 1789. chap, i ANCESTORS 3 The younger of his two sons, my Grandfather, William Palmer, was born in 1737, and in 1766 married Mary Horsley, daughter (by his second marriage with Mary Leslie) of the Eev. John Horsley, Rector of Thorley in Hertfordshire and of Stoke- Newington. He was, like his father, a London merchant ; and became the head of a prosperous business in Kings' Arms Yard, near the Bank of England. Not long after his marriage he purchased some property at Nazing in Essex, which now be- longs to the elder line of his descendants. There, about twenty miles from London, with a spacious breezy common on rising ground immediately in front, he established himself in a convenient house, which he surrounded with gardens and pleasure- grounds, in which many of the happiest days of my childhood were spent. My Grandfather was a prosperous and honour- able man, of considerable influence in the City of London. He took an active and useful part in the affairs of the Mercers' Company, and was instrumental in correcting some errors in the administration of the trust confided to that Company by Dean Colet for the benefit of St. Paul's School. From a letter in my possession, addressed to him by William Wilberforce, I collect that he was generally held in high esteem. He never entered into public life, though he and his family took great interest in the politics of the anxious time in which they lived, especially after the out- break of the French Revolution, when they were staunch Loyalists, and warm supporters of Mr. Pitt's 4 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i administration. I remember him only in extreme old age ; and not very much of what I have heard of him from others remains in my memory. My Grandfather had no sister, and only one brother, a merchant like himself. My Grandmother belonged to a family more distinguished than his by ability and culture ; l distinguished also, in a re- markable degree, by the strength and closeness of the bonds of mutual affection which united them together, and which has been since transmitted through three generations, to my Grandmother's and my Father's children, and to my own ; to be transmitted by them, I trust, to their descendants also. 1 Both brothers and sisters were fond of literature, and wrote fugitive poetry, some of which was known beyond the family circle. My Father, in a letter written from Oxford when he was nineteen years old (in 1797), speaks of copies of his aunts' and uncles' verses on several subjects as handed about there. When my brother and I were children, my Aunt Mary used to recite some of them to us with great spirit and animation ; I remember especially a translation by George Horsley (which even now seems to me to have more than common merit) of Ovid's lines about Ulysses and Calypso. No beauty distinguished Ulysses, yet he (What power cannot elocpuence move ?) So inflamed with desire the nymphs of the sea That as rivals they strove for his love. How oft would Calypso his restlessness chide, And swear 'twas no season to go ; Could his frail bark the wintry tempests abide ! Their dangers, alas ! did he know? Then again, and again, of Troy and of arms The goddess would fondly enquire ; He repeated the tale, but with still varied charms. That ever forbade it to tire. As they stood on the beach, by the slow-rising main, "Here too," cried Calypso the bright, " Relate how the young Thracian warrior was slain. And the perils of that bloody night." chap, i * ANCESTORS 5 My Grandmother's eldest brother was Samuel Horsley, Bishop successively of St. David's, Rochester, and St. Asaph ; a distinguished mathematician, editor of Newton's works, and for some time secretary to the Royal Society ; a learned theologian also, who became famous, before his advancement to the Episcopate, by a controversy with Priestley as to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, in which he was by general consent victorious. Lord Thurlow, a man of rough masculine character, recognised in him, intellectually, a kindred spirit, and they became friends. He was a man of piety as well as learning, a strict but not illiberal churchman ; diligent in the duties of his office, and a powerful, if not " You have heard," said the chief, "the whole story before ; Yet see " — and he stretched out a wand — " Behold ! the great scene is now called up once more ; And I sketch what you ask on the sand. " Here Troy proudly stands," — and her ramparts he drew ; " Here Simois pours through the vale ; Lo ! yonder our tents, they lie stretched in your view, With streamers that float on the gale. " A plain lies between," — and a plain he marked out, — •• Where Dolon was fated to bleed, While hope of the coursers betrayed the poor scout, The coursers of heavenly breed. •• Sithonian Rhesus here camps his whole band ; His pavilion you plainly discern ; And by yon darksome path, that winds round where you stand, To the fleet with his steeds I return." The picture still grew, when a white curling wave Broke full on the murmuring shore : Troy falls at a blow : lo ! the mighty, the brave, Fleet, city, and camp are no more. The goddess then said, or attempted to say : " Ah ! Ulysses ! how faithless the sea, Which e'en now all these names of renown makes its prey ! Yet you trust it, abandoning me." FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i always judicious, speaker in the House of Lords. He sympathised much with the Scottish Episcopal Church, then depressed and all but persecuted ; he vindicated the Catholic character of its distinctive formularies, and exerted himself successfully to obtain for its clergy relief from the disabilities under which they had been placed by the legislation of the years succeeding the Revolution of 1688. He also earned the respect of the Calvinistic party in the Church of England, with whose opinions he did not agree, but whose right to be comprehended within the pale of the Church he strenuously maintained. Of his private affairs he was, unfortunately, negligent. My Father, who was for some years his chaplain, learnt lessons of great value to him through life, both from the virtues and from the defects of his brilliant uncle. My Grandmother (with whom I was a favourite, and my recollections of whom are still vivid) must have been in her youth beautiful ; and the charms of her mind were not less than those of her person. She was ten years younger than her husband ; in character ardent and high-spirited ; by education well cultivated, and fond of intellectual society and pursuits. The health of my Aunt Elizabeth, her youngest daughter, led her, before the French Revolution, to pass some time upon the Continent, where she made friends, to some of whom she had afterwards the opportunity of showing kindness when they were emigrants in this country. My Grandparents were warm and constant in their friendships, kind and good neighbours, to poor as well chap, i ANCESTORS as rich ; and both in the country and in London hospitable and sociable. Their religious principles were confirmed and strengthened under the discipline of sorrow as they advanced in life ; and they were, from a time further back than I can trace, in faith and life consistent and earnest members of the Church of England. I have spoken of their political opinions. A letter from my Grandmother to a friend in Ireland (near Limerick), dated the 29th August 1790, seems hardly less appropriate to the present than to that time. " I know you," she said, " to be a very good Irishman ; but that does not prevent your being a good English- man also. My idea is that we are brothers, and ought to hold ourselves bound by one common interest. The Eevolutionists of the present day aim at a separation of interests. What has happened and is daily passing in France ought to be a warning to us, and to every other nation, how they begin the work of reformation. But, instead of growing wise from the misfortunes of our neighbours, there are too many among us that have caught the contagion, and would gladly plunge their country in the like miseries." My Grandparents at Nazing had nine children : three daughters and six sons, five of whom went to Charterhouse, of which Matthew Kaine, a good scholar, and in political and religious opinions a Liberal, was then Headmaster. My Uncle George, the eldest son, went early to sea in the service of the East India Company, in which he rose, while still 8 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS tart i young, to the command of the ship Boddam, and had his share of adventures in tempests and war. Thomas went to India, as a Writer in the East India Company's Civil Service. My Father, William Jocelyn, went to Oxford and took Holy Orders. Edward entered the Royal Navy in 1794, at the age of thirteen. Horsley joined his father in business ; and Ralph was called to the Bar in 1808. Thomas and Edward died in the flower of their youth, and the memorials which have been preserved of them show that they were such young men as it may have been a misfortune to their country to lose. I cannot help consecrating some pages to their memory, though it was impossible for me to know them. Thomas was sent, at the age of eighteen, to a counting-house at Rotterdam to complete his preparation for India. Those were the early days of the French Revolution ; the Prince de Concle was threatening France ; the French army was supposed to be disorganised and incapable of resisting a numerous and well- disciplined force; Burke had sounded the alarm in England ; the Reign of Terror, though fast approaching, had not yet come. My uncle watched with interest the events passing around him. He did not so far deviate from the opinions of his parents as to be an enthusiast for the Revolution, but his sympathies were not with the old regime, nor with the threatened invasion of France. He wrote to his mother, on the 10th of June 1791 : " Mr. Burke's situation seems to be very chap, i MY UNCLE THOMAS PALMER 9 melancholy ; separated for ever from his former political and dearest private friends, and his pride (for I cannot believe that the man who will call Lord North his noble friend, and prosecute Mr. Hastings, can have much of the principle and pure love of his country that he professes) not suffering him to join the other party. He must be in a very awkward situation, too, in the House of Commons, and where- ever he goes : in short, he must carry the load upon his back, for as he himself says, it will be a hard task for him to recur to his swaddling; clothes in his grand climacteric." On hearing of the Birmingham Riots, in the following month, he wrote again (26th July 1791) : "For my own part, I always maintained in every company, that there was not the smallest danger of the introduction of French politics, or any real apprehension entertained. I was obliged to con- fess my error upon hearing from good authority that on the 14th July the Horse Guards in London were under arms, though not drawn out ; the horses were ready saddled in the stables, and the men ready to mount at a moment's warning. However, now the danger is blown over, it is to be hoped that the riots in Birmingham will teach our English rebels in spirit, better than a thousand Mr. Burkes, the temper of the people and the goodness of our constitution, and that we shall have no more commemorations of the French Revolution." Before returning home he visited Paris, in February 1792, and went to the National Assembly. "No caricature," he wrote, "can equal the confusion io FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i that reigned in their deliberations, or the indecent part the galleries took in them ; and these galleries are only filled with the commonest people, Mesdames de la halle, etc. Those who have members' tickets have places apart. One instance of their good manners, which I was witness to, will be sufficient to give you an idea of their mode of debating. The Minister of War, M. de Narbonne, came down to the Assembly ; and, when he obtained leave to speak, unfortunately begun with saying, ' Je puis, Messieurs, eclairer la discussion.' Upon which a member immediately exclaimed, ' L'Assemblee n'a pas besoin d'etre eclairee par vous.' This was received with the most violent clapping of hands and plaudits on the part of the demigods in the gallery. At length silence was again procured, and the poor minister explained himself : ' Qu'il n'avoit pas la pretention d'eclairer L'Assemblee,' — but only, 'la discussion.' Such is the grave and sober dignity of the French Senate." To his father he wrote, describing the tumultuous state of Paris and the provinces, consequent on the scarcity of provisions, and the political situation. " The minds of the people are very much irritated by the exorbitant price of sugar and coffee, by the unsettled state of the negotiations with the Emperor, and the distrust they entertain of the King ; which are fomented by emissaries, perhaps of many parties. So far have the suspicions of the King's views been carried, and such strong reports circulated of his being about to quit the capital, that two or three days ago he thought it necessary to send a letter to the chap, i MY UNCLE THOMAS PALMER u municipality of Paris, positively to deny any such intentions. The day before yesterday, several persons were arrested for carrying pikes in the street ; it is said there are 30,000 of these pikes made and making in Paris, — for whom, or with what view, I have not been able to learn. It is very clear that something serious is apprehended from them, as they have pro- voked a prohibition from the municipality of carrying them publicly, and many have been arrested in conse- quence. Whatever is to happen (as something must happen, sooner or later), I hope to get quietly out of the kino-dom before the flame bursts out." In his last letter from Paris (to his mother, in French, dated the 20th February 1792), he reports an interview with one of her lady friends, who remained there while almost all the rest had gone to Coblentz : not by any means " ce qu'on appelle aujourd'hui une democrate enragee " ; but rather one of the moderate party. Society, it seems, was still going on its old ways ; it had not dropped titles of honour, notwith- standing the decree of the National Assembly. The latest news was, that petty insurrections were taking place everywhere in the provinces, to prevent the transport of grain from one place to another, and that all commerce in corn, in the interior of France, was suspended. The Minister of the Interior had just recommended the operations of the Jacobin Club to the attention of the Assembly ; for which he had been himself instantly denounced. Thomas reached Calcutta in September 1792, where he found a home with his uncle, Mr. Francis 12 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i Horsley, and soon made himself master of the Oriental languages. Lord Cornwallis, then Governor-General, was engaged in the judicial and financial reforms on which his reputation rests. The first war in the Carnatic was just concluded ; and in the following year the war with France broke out, of which the effects were speedily felt in India, as well as elsewhere. Early in 1794 Sir John Shore, who succeeded Lord Cornwallis, appointed Thomas to a post in the Col- lector's department at Mozufferpore, in Behar, a district not directly affected by the intrigues or military operations of the time. There he remained for two years, till the spring of 1796, when he re- ceived a subordinate judicial appointment at Moor- shedabad. His manner of looking at European politics had undergone no material change. " I remember," he wrote to his mother in October 1794, " an observation in some French author which struck me forcibly at the time, and is in some degree in point to the present subject. ' L'Europe,' says he, ' se dit civilisee ; et l'Europe se fait la guerre.' But this poor man was thinking of a French war, a Spanish war, a war about a — what Mr. Burke compared the Scheldt to. How would his weak nerves have shud- dered at such a war as the present, a war of extirpa- tion ; for nothing short of that, it is pretty generally agreed, can ever bring the French to submission. By the way, I think the English of that is, that the French will never submit ; for they can never be exterminated, though all the world were to rise in arms against them." chap, i MY UNCLE THOMAS PALMER 13 He referred to the political outlook, to the prospect of a national bankruptcy (the stoppage of cash pay- ments took place in 1797), which he thought probable and near, and he spoke of the military disorders and discontents at that time prevailing in India, but which were soon, by prudent measures, allayed. " If the army," he said, " are not soon satisfied, they will certainly put most of us civilians on board a ship, and give us a voyage to England as the reward of our loyalty. You will know best, when you receive this, whether any arrangements have been agreed upon for the Indian armies. If they have not, expect to hear by every ship of the greatest confusion in this country, which can only end in the total subversion of the Anglo-Indian Empire. How it would make you smile in England to hear of a ship arrived at Ply- mouth freighted with the Bengal Council, and the Commander-in-Chief of all the King's and Company's troops ; and another with the colonels of the Honour- able Company's army ; a third loaded with the Judges and Collectors ; and a fourth with us poor writers ! If Lord Hobart were here, he might j^erhaps save us. My Lord Clive would cashier these turbulent fellows as easily as he did upon a former occasion. But alas, poor Sir Robert ! God help him, that he may help us ! I must tell you an observation of Horsley's upon the Government, but which is not meant for common ears. He says, this Government is very like that of the Jews under their Judges, for, as human wisdom has undoubtedly no share in the administration of it, it can only be a Theocracy." 14 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i On 6 th March 1776 he writes to his sister Elizabeth : " I was out, a few cLoys ago, in quest of a tiger we had heard of, in company with a gentleman whose exploits, I think, rival those of Hercules. He has killed, or (in sportsman's language) been in at the death of two hundred and thirty-eight tigers, and none of them little blind whelps, but fair full-grown beasts, killed with powder and ball from elephants ; he once killing two-and-twenty in the space of three days. Should he not have a column erected to his honour, embossed with tigers' heads all round ? But I see you don't believe one word I say — you believe me, but not my authority. Well, be incredulous if you will ; only, if you dare to disbelieve this, never expect that I should tell you another story as long as I am in India. I will only tell you one more, to show how much profound reasoners may be mistaken when they decide upon the veracity of travellers. A gentleman of my most intimate acquaintance, after being six or seven years in this part of India, made a visit to England. He had also a papa and mama, and sisters Mary and Elizabeth, who heard all the wonderful stories he told with great attention and implicit confidence, until he by accident told them a true one, which was no other than this, that in the Upper Provinces three fine sheep sell for a rupee. After hearing this they never believed another word he said, but, as soon as he began a story, sto{)ped his mouth with the sheep and the rupee." My uncle continued to condemn the war in Europe, and he felt no confidence in Mr. Dundas, then at the chap, i MY UNCLE THOMAS PALMER i S Board of Control. But the next two years made some difference in his views. The invasion of Syria and Egypt by Bonaparte, the actions of Nelson, and the arrival in India of a Governor-General of energy and enterprise, in the person of Lord Momington, changed the aspect of things ; and Thomas himself doubtless regarded the course of public events with more maturity of judgment, though in a not less manly and independent spirit. In 1798 he was removed for a short time to Benares, and was there when the Eesident, Mr. Cherry, was murdered by Vizier Ali. The drawback was that this change of place separated him further from Mr. Francis Horsley, in whose family his strong domestic affections found much enjoyment. He wrote to his mother from Benares (23rd November 1798), that Mr. Francis Horsley was about to send his two little children to England, and, he added, that it might be for their father's benefit to accompany them. " Yet," he said, " should that happen, it was in my head already what a desert would India appear to me ! I believe I must pack up bag and baggage and follow them. And suppose, too, that George " (his brother) " could make a voyage to Bengal and carry us all off together ! We should not regret the flying cars of fairyland. Here is a fine chateau d'Espagne for revolutionary times, while Bonaparte is marching across the green fields of Arabia, or exploring Pharaoh's passage through the Red Sea, that he may come and turn us all out of India ! And a most excellent bugbear it has been ; for it has served to frighten, or at least to alarm a little, 16 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i the wise heads that are set over us. I fear it would go hard with us if we really had to fight Bonaparte upon the plains of India. Thanks, however, to the gallant Nelson, we are pretty well out of this scrape, while the whet it has given to our Indian councils may serve to prepare them against the day, if trial does come. That you could but see Nelson's letter to Governor Duncan, written eight days after the action, 1 with all the simplicity of true bravery in what relates to his own actions, while he breathes a soul of fire in speaking of the cause he is engaged in. He concludes with apologising for any incorrectness in his style or language, from his brain being much shaken by the wounds in his head ; ' but while a ray of reason remains, my heart and my head shall be exerted in defence of my King and my Country.' This is English, I think, in matter and phrase, and is, I hope, universally felt and acted upon now in every part of our native land. The sentiment, indeed, begins to vibrate in these remote quarters." He was transferred from Benares, in June 1799, to Chittra, where he was to be sole or chief judge and magistrate, an appointment which, according to his account of that place in a letter written to his eldest sister during his journey towards it, gave little satis- faction to his ambition and little scope for his abilities. His mother had sent him several numbers of the Anti-Jacobin, and two works against Jacobinism then much read in England, by the Abbe Barruel, 1 Battle of the Nile, 1st August 1798. chap, i MY UNCLE THOMAS PALMER 17 and by Professor Robeson. These form the principal subject of the last letter which he lived to write. It was addressed to his mother, and dated from Chittra on the 30th August 1799 : — You could not have sent me a greater treat than the numbers of the Anti-Jacobin. I read, I believe, every word of it, and could never enough admii'e the fund of genuine wit, the correct- ness and elegance of the language, which appeared in every page of it. The principles of it I of course applauded ; and only wonder how so good a cause, supported by so masterly a writer, should leave a single Jacobin in all England, except those who know and acknowledge themselves to be rogues in grain. His health had been generally good, even when stationed in unhealthy places. His habits were regular and temperate, but on the 16th September he was attacked with fever, and, after being removed to Sherghati (a healthier place), died there on the 24th. So closed, in his twenty -seventh year, the earthly hopes of this young man ; bright, affectionate, a diligent student, eager in the pursuit of knowledge, a graceful writer, an independent thinker, taking a lively interest in all that was passing in the world. Had his life been spared, he might perhaps have attained a place and distinction in the Indian Civil Service like that of the Colebrookes, Elphinstone, or Metcalfe. He had as high a spirit, as quick a faculty of observation and discernment, as strong a con- sciousness of power, as worthy an ambition to use it for the honour of his country and the welfare of his fellow-men. His eyes were fixed upon the high places of the bench and the council-board ; the path seemed to him easy, and the competition not formidable. vol. 1 c CHAPTER II MY UNCLE EDWARD PALMER 1781-1807 My Uncle Edward left Charterhouse to enter the Royal Navy in his thirteenth year. A sailor son is generally a favourite in an English family ; he was no exception to the rule, and there was evidently in him a great charm of character. He joined the Canada (seventy-four guns) as a midshipman in March 1794; and before the end of that year had some taste of the dangers of war, the Canada, when cruising in the Channel with one other ship, being chased, and nearly taken, by a French squadron. In the next year, 1795, his captain sent him on a cruise in the Pallas frigate, attached to Admiral Cornwallis's squadron ; and he was on that service when Cornwallis made his famous retreat before a French fleet of more than thirty sail. At one time it was thought impossible that the British squadron could escape, and every ship was prepared for a desperate defence. Edward was stationed in the magazine to watch the lights ; " but " (wrote chap, ii MY UNCLE EDWARD PALMER 19 Captain Curzon of the Pallas) "the young man begged so hard to be allowed to come on deck that I was obliged to comply with his wishes, and, had we come into action, I doubt not I should have found him very serviceable." In 1797 he was transferred to the Pomona frigate, which formed part of Sir John "Warren's fleet during the mutiny of 1797. Of the mutiny, as well as of the rapid change in the temper of the men after its suppression, he was a witness. The Pomona was then off Ushant, and in a postscript, dated the 17th May 1797, to a letter begun two days before, he wrote : — Little did I think when I wrote this, that I should take this letter to England myself. You must know, then, this morning at eight o'clock the Galatea's men put Captain Keats in confine- ment, made the signal to speak us, and told us they were determined to proceed to England. The flame communicated to our own ship's company ; they took the same resolution, but never offered to touch any of the officers. Nevertheless, their power is only nominal, until we arrived at Plymouth. Now, therefore, the French fleet may come to England, and he the first messengers themselves. No time, perhaps, in the history of England, was more critical ; and the spirit in which the clanger was met, and the success with which patriotism and courage were then rewarded, may be remembered with advantage, if any such cloud should ever come over us again. Among the letters in my hands is one from my Grandmother's sister, Elizabeth Horsley, to her niece my Aunt Mary, dated the 26th of May 1797, written when she first received the news of the out- break of disaffection in Sir John Warren's fleet, in 20 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i which she mentions the spirited exertions of the captains and officers who had kept under the mutinous spirit of the fleet at Yarmouth — particularly Captain Trollope, who " harangued his men upon the first symptoms of mutiny, telling them that, having often led them against the enemy, and proved to them that he did not then want courage, so he would now show them the same ; for, if they dared to persist in their disobedience, he w r ould on the first signal blow up the ship, himself, and them, all together. Upon which they gave him three cheers, and declared they would be obedient to him to the end of their lives." And her informant added, that they had " ever since behaved to him with the reverence and affection of children to a father." In what way Sir John Warren subdued the dis- affection among his men my Uncle Edward's letters do not show. It was subdued ; perhaps in conse- quence of what had already been done at Spithead. My uncle wrote (2nd June 1797) of the suddenness and completeness of the change. " One day they were drumming their officers on shore and disgracing them as much as in their power lay, and the next they were drawing them about the streets in carriages and honouring them up to the skies. Suffice it to say, they drew Sir John about the streets (of Plymouth) last Friday." The crews of the different ships appear to have contended with each other for the honour of priority in repentance, like the men of Israel and of Judah when King David was brought back to Jerusalem after the suppression of Absalom's rebellion. chap, ii MY UNCLE EDWARD PALMER 21 " There are battles," said my uncle, " very often fought between some of our ship's company and the others. The Powerful, and the other ships in the Hamoaze, have also taken affront at our ship's com- pany returning to their duty before them." In the next year, 1798, he again changed his ship, being transferred to the Unicorn frigate, in which he was stationed, first at Cork, and afterwards off Wex- ford, during the Irish rebellion. The affair of Vinegar Hill, and the massacre of the loyal inhabitants of Wexford by the insurgents, took place while he was on that station ; and on the night of the 1 7th June 1798 the barges of his ship w T ere employed in destroy- ing upwards of eighty flat boats of the rebels, sup- posed to have been built for landing French troops. He witnessed, and was shocked by, the recklessness of life engendered on both sides by the passions of civil war. After a cruise in the Baltic in the Hyaena he revisited — now a young man of nineteen — the home which he had left as a boy. In the spring of 1800 he was appointed second lieutenant to the Regulus, a " cut-down forty-four," under orders for Egypt with troops. He assisted in superintending the landing of the first division of the army in Egypt, and after- wards had the command of a gunboat, and accom- panied the operations of the army during that campaign. Returning home in 1803, he was made first lieutenant of the Squirrel frigate, ordered with a convoy to the coast of Africa. Early in 1805, he was advanced to the rank of commander, and 22 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i appointed to the Nautilus, a sloop of the largest class, then recently launched ; and was for some time attached to Lord Collingwood's fleet at Cadiz. He wrote to his mother from Gibraltar (2nd June 1806), that his ship was, " without exception, the finest sloop in the service, being the only one that carried long nine-pounders," and that " there was not one thing in her to complain of." He was equally well satisfied with his crew, 122 in number (officers in- cluded), all high-spirited and young. At the end of 1806, he was sent to join Admiral Sir Thomas Louis in the Dardanelles ; and the admiral, finding his force inadequate for the service it had to perform, ordered him at once to return to Lord Collingwood with despatches, in the delivery of which no time was to be lost. The Nautilus left the Dardanelles on the 3rd of January 1807, under charge of a Greek pilot, who at sunset on that day, when off the island of Anti-Milo, declined further charge, declaring himself unacquainted with the rest of the navigation of the Archipelago. He remained, how- ever, on board, the weather making it impossible to put him ashore. I cannot better describe what followed than by adhering to the substance, and frequently using the words, of the contemporary narratives of some of the crew. "The Captain," wrote one of the seamen, "than whom, to pay the tribute due to so fine a man and officer, better none could exist, was determined to run every hazard rather than delay one moment." chap, ii MY UNCLE EDWARD PALMER 23 He left Anti-Milo at sunset, and shaped his course for the passage between Candia and Cerigotto, giving all the necessary directions himself, and omitting nothing which (consistently with the speed thought indispensable) could be done by skilled seamanship and the most watchful care. From the time of leaving the Dardanelles to the 5th January he did not change his clothes, and took little if any sleep. The weather w T as dark and tempestuous, with heavy rain and incessant thunder and lightning. A flash of lightning revealed the island of Cerigotto right ahead, and only a few miles distant, about 3 o'clock on the morning of Monday the 5th January. The ship had been driven by the tempest somewhat out of her course, and it now became necessary to haul her upon the starboard tack. She was kept by the wind till within sight of the small island of Pori, then going N.W.N. The Captain, perceiving that he could not weather that land, and finding it correctly laid down in his charts as Pori, decided on passing between it and Cerigotto. There w T as a rock about four miles from Pori also laid down in the charts, but not correctly ; and when the place where that danger was indicated had been passed all was sup- posed to be safe, and the captain w T as about to take the rest of which he stood in much need. Instantly, however, the cry of " Breakers ahead ! " was heard from the starboard watch, and the ship was upon the rock before her course could be altered. It was about twenty minutes past 4 a.m. when she struck. The Captain was at once on deck, and did his best to quiet 24 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i the crew ; but water began to pour in, and, the ladders being displaced, those below could only reach the deck by breaking through the skylight. The Captain then burnt his papers and his private signals, and under his direction the coxswain, George Smith, while a tremendous sea was breaking over them, got into the gig with the master's mate, a midshipman, and seven men, and, after lowering her with much difficulty, made for the small island to windward. About 8 p.m. they succeeded in reaching Pori, which proved to be a place without a single inhabit- ant, and without a drop of fresh water. In the meantime, the ship was rapidly breaking up. " Scarcely an instant," said the same seaman whom I have already quoted, " but our main deck was burst in, and in a few moments we saw our lee bulwark entirely overwhelmed ; a heavy and relent- less sea broke over us, and none could espy the smallest appearance through which hope could enter." At 5 o'clock the mainmast, and in five minutes more the mizzen-mast, went, forming a sort of gang- way from the wreck to the rock, over which a con- siderable number of the crew passed. Shortly after, the Captain, observing that the bottom was gone and the boats washed from the booms, the main-topsail being aback, ordered the best bower anchor to be cut away, as the ship was going off the rock. About 6 o'clock the foremast went, and the ship parted, just above the chest-tree. Eighteen men on the main and mizzen masts were at that moment killed or dashed into the sea. When the after-part of the ship chap, ii MY UNCLE EDWARD PALMER 25 had gone to pieces, the fore-part hung surprisingly together and eased itself gently towards the rock, so that a man could reach the royal masthead from the rock. In this manner, all who were not disabled left the wreck, and, for the time, were in safety. At daybreak, those who had (so far) escaped went back again, to search for any of their shipmates who might have been left behind. They found Captain Palmer only. He had remained by the ridge-rope upon the quarter-deck, the last man to quit his station. He had suffered dreadful injuries, in the head and limbs, of a nature evidently dangerous to life ; and it was not without difficulty that he could be brought to the same place of temporary refuge which the rest had reached. But he remained sensible ; and " neither asked for, nor appeared to want, any- thing for himself; but seemed to feel only for his ship's company." The highest part of the rock was eight feet above the sea. No provisions were saved except one piece of pork of three pounds weight and a biscuit which was washed up ; and there was no water. One keg of oil and a cask of gunpowder were saved, which enabled those on the rock to light and keep up a fire with pieces of the wreck. Shortly before the gig re- turned from Pori, Captain Palmer called the surgeon, and said : " Doctor, for my own part I don't expect to live out this night ; but how long do you think my poor fellows may live upon this place without food or drink of any kind ? And, alas ! there is no expectation of release." The surgeon answered that the longest 26 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS parti a man could live without sustenance, even when sheltered, was four days ; but, exposed as they were to the inclemency of the weather, insufficiently clothed, and the sea breaking in upon them (by which a quantity of salt water was taken internally), he thought three days was the longest any of them would see. The coxswain and his companions, on reaching Pori, had found that island about a mile and a half long, and a quarter of a mile broad. There were goats and sheep upon it, and a considerable growth of leeks. The men caught, with difficulty, two small lambs, but could not dress them, having no means of lighting a fire. They saw plainly the citadel of Cerigo, and on the other side Cerigotto ; on w T hich they thought they could distinguish inhabitants. They saw also the fatal rock ; but could perceive nothing of the wreck, nor any person moving upon it, until it became du.sk, when they saw the fire, assuring them that some of their comrades were alive. The storm increased, and they were obliged to pass that night at Pori, having leeks only to assuage their hunger and thirst. In the morning the wind moderated ; and Smith, with four others, returned to the rock to bring off as many as might be possible, the other five remaining at Pori. They soon reached the rock, where their arrival was hailed with cheers. Ninety-five men were on it. Smith brought them a lamb and a half, and some leeks ; enough (as was thought) to keep them alive one day longer, if only there had been water. But the want of water, and a further supply of provisions, was urgent ; and Smith chap, ii MY UNCLE EDWARD PALMER 27 proposed to go off at once to Cerigotto to procure these necessaries, and also large boats to take the men away. This was the order which the Captain had previously determined to give. Smith entreated the Captain to come with him, but he answered : " No, Smith, never mind me, mind your messmates." If he had then gone, his life might possibly have been saved ; but, according to the testimony of all his fellow-sufferers, " he cared for nothing but the ship's company." Four men and the pilot (it was necessary to take the pilot as interpreter, no one else understanding Greek) went with the boat and her crew to Cerigotto : the pilot declined to go with more. They put off at 9 A.M., but encountered an increasing gale, and did not land till 3 p.m. The inhabitants came down to the beach alarmed, and in arms ; but when the pilot had explained how matters stood, they were received with kindness. On being requested to furnish supplies, and long boats to bring off the men from the rock (for which, they were assured, the British Government would reward them handsomely), they replied that Cerigotto was but a poor rocky island, and the chief of their subsistence came from Candia, but the sufferers were welcome to what they had ; they were also ready to lend the three large boats which they possessed, and to give all the assistance in their power. They accordingly stocked all their boats with water and provisions, and watched for an opportunity of putting off; but a tremendous storm came on, which made this impossible, and it lasted all that night, and the following day (the 7 th of January). 28 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i The situation on the rock was now more terrible than ever. All the men were obliged to retire to the highest point, and there to lash themselves together, and to the clefts and projections of the rock, with some cordage which had been washed up ; the sea breaking over them continually, extinguishing their fire, and carrying away their tents and everthing else which they had. At daybreak, six were found dead at their companions' feet. On the morning of the 7th, a merchant brig, passing near, saw them, hove to, and hoisted out her boats ; and now there seemed hope of deliverance. But the brig proceeded on her voyage without rendering any help ; probably, because her officers considered that the storm made it im- possible. Late in the evening of that day, the wind having somewhat abated (though not sufficiently to induce the people of Cerigotto to trust their boats to the sea), Smith got the ship's gig out of a cove where she lay, through a tremendous surf which filled her three times before she could get clear. He then made for the rock, hoping to find that the brig (which had been seen from Cerigotto) had taken off all the people. The sea was so high that he could not land, or attempt to take any of the men into the gig at the time with- out swamping it ; but he encouraged them to keep up their spirits, as the large boats from Cerigotto would come on the first lull in the weather. He then re- turned to that island, the inhabitants lighting fires to direct him to the proper landing-place. Watch was kept there throughout the night for an opportunity of getting off the boats, but the weather became chap, ii MY UNCLE EDWARD PALMER 29 worse than before, and so continued throughout the next day. It was not till 9 a.m. on Friday the 9th of January that they were able to put to sea. During this long interval those on the rock were in the last extremity. Captain Palmer died on Thursday the 8th, having continued as long as he was conscious to set his men a heroic example. Not a murmur, not the slightest expression tinctured with impatience, escaped him ; patient submission, an entire resignation to the will of Providence, were strongly characterised in those moments, until he became delirious. Not till then did he speak of his family : but when reason failed, all and each of his family were dwelt upon with the most enthusiastic ardency of expression. His influence was felt by all his ship- mates to the last. They abstained from stimulants, of which some store had been saved, till the Friday, when they were induced to taste them, but then only partially and with great reluctance. Their obedience and attachment to their Captain and officers, during the whole of their distress, was that of true British seamen. Before rescue could come, fifty-eight of them had perished, eighteen (as already stated) when the ship went to pieces ; eight who attempted to leave the rock on a raft, and were never afterwards heard of; thirty-two (including the Captain) who died from wounds or exhaustion on the rock. One man was drowned when attempting to reach the boats. On the Friday, the boats from Cerigotto started at last with supplies, but even then disappointment was 30 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i not at an end ; they were met by a sudden squall and driven back, while the gig went in and brought off the few that she could carry. The rest came away on the sixth day (January the 10th), alive, but in such a state of utter exhaustion that it was hardly possible to administer to them the nourishment, or even the water, necessary to sustain their lives. The doctor died in the boat, just as they were landing at Cerigotto. Last of all, the men who had been left at Pori were brought off, in a very exhausted state. Sixty-three in all of the whole crew were saved. On the 16th of May 1807, a court-martial to inquire into the loss of the ship was held at Cadiz, which acquitted Captain Palmer, as well as the survivors, of all blame. Their conduct indeed, — especially that of Mr. Nesbitt, the second lieutenant (the first lieutenant perished with his commander), and George Smith, the coxswain, — was excellent and admirable ; and that of Smith in particular received professional as well as private recognition. The Nazing family never lost sight of him or his children. My Father and my Uncle Horsley obtained, long nfterwards, for his grandson, Joseph Smith, a nomination to Christ's Hospital. The boy had very good abilities, and profited by his schooling. My Father often gave him a home at Mixbury during his holidays, and my brothers and myself kept up a friendly intercourse with him as long as he lived. He grew up to be a young man of intelligence and character, and, through the influence of my uncles, was sent to sea under a good captain ; and, after a chap, ii MY UNCLE EDWARD PALMER ?i short apprenticeship in the merchant service, became first assistant-master, and then master, in the Eoyal Navy. He served with credit in the Mediterranean, and on the surveying expedition under Captain Stokes in the Pacific ; but he died prematurely in the prime of life. The news of the loss of the Nautilus, and of my Uncle Edward's death, did not reach England till April 1807. A narrative of the shipwreck was published at the time, and was afterwards reproduced in 1813, in a collection of Remarkable Shipwrecks and Adventures at Sea. Many, however, of the most interesting particulars, which I have gleaned from the contemporaneous statements of the coxswain and other survivors, were omitted in that account. I am not one of those to whom it is difficult or painful to speak of the dead. How is it possible to help thinking of them ? And " out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." Silence is not always indicative of a deeper feeling than speech. Yet sometimes it may be so ; and I think it was so in the Nazing family, for it was not very often that I heard my Uncle Edward spoken of, and my Uncle Thomas more rarely still ; so that, until the letters written by him, which my aunts had preserved, came into my hands, I knew of him no more than the name. But now I know how deep the feeling was which was hidden under that reserve. Of my Uncle Thomas my Grandmother wrote, soon after his death, that he had furnished a bright example to old and young ; and my Father named after him my next 32 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i brother, whom he lost when a young child, — a loss acutely felt. Then the cherished recollection of the elder brother, lost twenty- three years before, broke out in a letter, which I reserve for its own place. On the occasion of my Uncle Edward's death, my Grandmother wrote to her brother, Francis Horsley (then about to return from India), a letter entitled to a place here, both for Edward's sake and for her own. I do not know whether you will have heard of the affliction which it has pleased God to visit us with, in the loss of my beloved son Edward. Failings, I suppose, he had ; for human nature cannot be without ; but in contemplating and studying his disposition and character, I could see nothing that ought to give me anxiety, but everything to satisfy and gratify me. In his profession he was a diligent and good officer, and all who served under him or with him spoke in his praise. His person was good, wanting little, if anything, in height of six feet ; and having lived much with the army during the three years he was in Egypt, he was very upright, and had the carriage of a land officer more than that of the sea. Such was my beloved Edward — greatly beloved he was by all the family. He was exposed to greater perils and therefore excited a greater interest. We did not see much of him ; and, when he did come, it was a gala day to us all. His virtues, and the five-and-twenty years of pleasure I had in him, will ever live in my memory ; and, while I bow myself to the will of the Almighty, I pray that His mercy may pardon the grief I have been unable to control, and assist my endeavours to use this His chastisement for the purpose for which He graciously intends it, that of my humiliation and improvement. I had often contemplated the probability, considering the warfare we are engaged in and the perils to which his profession exposed him, that I might outlive him ; but I was wholly unprepared for the disastrous circumstances which took place. But he submitted himself with fortitude and resignation, I hope ; and I will also hope and believe that the chap, ii MY UNCLE EDWARD PALMER 33 trials which it pleased God to lay upon the last days of his life may have expiated faults (if any he had, unrepented of), and that his final happiness is assured by the blood of his and our Eedeemer. My dear brother, your heart, I know, sympathises in my grief; it will also partake of those sources of comfort which I have. I can say with the Psalmist, " Thou, God, in judgment hast remembered mercy." The affectionate proofs of regard and attention I have at all times experienced from my children have been ever felt as a blessing above price ; but perhaps I should never have felt to what extent they valued my comfort but for this loss. It is impossible to describe how solicitous they have been to give me marks of their affection, and by participating to soothe my grief. They have done every- thing that most affectionate and feeling hearts could dictate. I should be wholly unworthy of such children, if I did not acknowledge it by my endeavours to recover my former tran- quillity. To this end, I do not permit myself to talk of him ; and, to do away the pretext for gratifying myself in this particular, by entering upon the subject when we meet, I have said thus much to make you acquainted with his worth and my loss ; and will not, my dear brother, damp the joy of your arrival by a repetition of my sorrow. My Grandmother's surviving children, as she said, did their best to comfort her, standing themselves in no less need of consolation, as letters which they wrote to each other remain to show. My Aunt Elizabeth, in particular, who had a strong mind, and considerable talents highly cultivated, as well as the ambition to make good use of them, but who from an accident in her childhood was lame, found the burden almost more than she could bear. My Uncle Edward had been always most tender in his affection and attention to her, and to her my Father wrote on 31st March 1807 :— We know most surely, that to such as hold the faith of VOL. I 1) 34 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i Christ and have been baptized, death is not death. Neither let us in any case harbour a doubt of the particular worthiness of an individual, much less in such a case as this. It would be the baseness of ingratitude, and argue indeed but the weakness of our own faith. Shall we, who are so sensible of the Divine goodness towards ourselves, doubt that it has been equally ener- getic towards another ? And him, probably, one from the humi- lity and constancy of his mind infinitely more deserving, and who, perhaps, had profited, under that portion which was given him, infinitely more than we have under ours, — it may be a like, or smaller, or greater portion of Divine grace, according to our necessities. We can entertain no such doubt. We and our dear brother will assuredly meet again ; we shall meet in joy, God knows how soon. The Grecian Archipelago has often been the sepulchre of the brave ; a sea famous of old for the dangers of its navigation, and for the courage and conduct of those who were accustomed to sail on it. He described the scene of the wreck, according to the information down to that time received, and con- tinued : — Neither was their end inglorious or without honour ; for they were doing their duty in their country's service, when it pleased God to stop them in their course, and shorten their voyage of life. Here our dear Edward died, and with him the greater part of his brave crew. These men, my Bessie, had their friends, — their parents, brethren, sisters perhaps, and children ; and perhaps, also few of them have so many remaining comforts of life as it has pleased God still to bless us with, — not always sufficiently mindful of Him. His will, His will, be done. We acknowledge His mercy and His goodness, without doubt, in every dispensation ; and we pray that He will in like manner crown all His blessings to us also at the last ; that, doing His will in what we do for the present, and suffering patiently and thankfully what we suffer, when the day of our departure comes it may find us ready and our work finished, — and all this for our Lord's sake. I find this entry in my Aunt Elizabeth's diary, chap, ii MY UNCLE EDWARD PALMER 35 made on her brother Edward's birthday thirty-seven years afterwards, when she was herself seventy years old :— What are the feelings with which I now regard an event so harrowing at the time it occurred 1 For many a year the pain was too vividly felt, nor is it very long since the least circum- stance that recalled it brought with it an unutterable pang. Even now I retrace the days of youth with a mixture of joy and sorrow. I see his buoyant spirits, sweetness of temper, bold bearing, cheerful happy countenance ; that love and kindness bestowed upon a suffering sister often leading him to forgo the active lively sports of childhood. The early promise was con- firmed in manhood. Of an ardent character, and cool determined courage, he chose the profession of the Navy, of which he became enthusiastically fond. After fourteen years of nearly incessant service, in the Mediterranean and Egypt, and cruising in the Channel, he fell in the discharge of duty at the age of twenty- six. What satisfaction would all this afford, without the hope that qualities so bright and fair were based upon the only true vital principle, Christian faith and practice ? Relying upon that hope, I no longer mourn over days that are gone, which now, under different circumstances, must have been drawing to a close. What my Father himself felt appears incidentally in a letter to my brother William, written in 1836 : — I have been exceedingly moved of late by reading the article in the Quarterly on the life of Lord Exmouth — surely a most glorious and happy man through life. His day is over, and he is now on a level with his brother, who fell in action at the age of eighteen years. I know not why I should have found so moving an interest in his character, unless it be that he was a seaman, and had passed with glory and unvarying success through all the perils of his profession in the course of a long life. I remember my Mother felt a similar interest in his character while living, and I thought her spirit had a delight in contemplating what her son, my brother, might have been, had it pleased God. CHAPTER III MY FATHER 1778-1818 Of my Father himself it is now time to speak. He was born on the 5th February 1778. On leaving Charterhouse he was for some time a pupil of Mr. Jones of Nayland, an excellent clergyman ; and, in 1796, went to Oxford, where he was a Commoner of Brasenose. There (through the introduction of his schoolfellow and friend Richard Henry Roundell, my Mother's eldest brother, who was at Magdalen) he became intimate with the Hebers — Richard, afterwards member of Parliament for the University, and his more celebrated brother Reginald, Bishop of Calcutta, who came into residence there about the time when my Father took his bachelor's degree. The house and estate of Gledstone, in Yorkshire, where Richard Roundell's father lived, were in the same parish with an estate and manor-house belonging to the Heber family, which, after the deaths of Richard and Reginald Heber, were sold and added to the Gledstone property. The friendship between the Roundells and chap, in MY FATHER 37 Hebers was of old date, and my Father, as Richard Roundel! 's friend, was admitted to share in it. Be- tween him and Reginald Heber it gained strength, when they met, after their Oxford days, at St. Asaph, where they were both intimate with the family of Dean Shipley, one of whose daughters Reginald Heber married. There were no honour examinations at Oxford in those days, and I have no reason to suppose that my Father was distinguished above other young men of literary taste and good conduct and character, or that he received from his college any strong intellectual impulse. As a youth, he shared with his brothers a taste for field sports, and rode sometimes to the hounds ; but he gave up those pursuits after he took orders, and shooting, as a sport, became repugnant to him, though he did not condemn it in others, or prevent his own sons from moderately using such opportunities as he thought proper of indulging the natural inclination for it in their youth. He was a genial and popular member of the University society in which he lived, and one whose influence must have always been on the side of what was manly and right. Of his early letters not many have been preserved ; but they show, from the beginning, strength and warmth of affection, and a thoughtfulness and ripe- ness of judgment uncommon at that time of life. He was ordained deacon in 1801, and priest on the 20th of February 1802 ; and in the same year (1802) was presented by his uncle, then Bishop of Rochester, to the Rectory of Mixbury, which he retained till a .'S8(i6!29 38 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i short time before his death. The Rectory house was in a ruinous state, and he had to build a new one. While this was doing, and during the remaining four years of Bishop Horsley's life (who died on the 4th October 1806), he was his uncle's chaplain, and most of his time was spent at St. Asaph. He was partial to Wales, and made many friends there. After the Bishop's death, he came to reside at Mixbury, between which and another parish, to which his father presented him (Beachampton, near Stony Stratford), he divided his time, with the necessary assistance. The law then permitted two such benefices (they were about twelve miles apart) to be held together ; but finding, after the experience of a few years, that the best arrangements which he could make were unsatisfactory, he in 1814 ex- changed Beachampton for Finmere, a parish im- mediately contiguous to Mixbury, the villages and churches being not more than two miles apart from each other. Neither parish was very well endowed ; Finmere had, in that respect, the advantage. With the assistance at all times of a good curate, both parishes were easily worked together ; my Father, though he lived at Mixbury, constantly visited Finmere, actively superintending all that was done there, and takingpart in the services of Finmere church. The letters of this period of his life show how his character grew. That to his sister Elizabeth at the time of Edward's death has already been referred to ; in the same spirit, he wrote to my Aunt Mary in the following year, 1808 : — chap, in MY FATHER 39 I think we are a little too silent, perhaps we are not warm enough at heart for the blessings we receive, and think too much upon our crosses. ... It is not by fondly hanging on the past that we shall steel our minds against the sufferings of the future; we shall not so fortify ourselves against the day of our proper affliction and distress. But by living while we may, by thank- fully using and enjoying the blessings showered down upon us, by increasing the comforts of those with whom we live, by doing good to the poor, and by mastering our own selves ; by resigna- tion as to the ills of life, with a confident and consoling hope as to the fixed events of things,— may we hope so to prepare our minds as, though they be not steeled, yet that they may be strengthened to bear without danger that wherewith they shall be tried. Then, passing to public matters, he said : — As to my politics, of which you impure, I think the opposi- tion of the Spanish nation to the tyrant is as glorious as it was unexpected. Their cause and ours is properly one ; — I would Ministers would send us all to Spain, if we be wanted there. I join with you in wishing that success may attend our friends : but I tremble not at the loss they will probably sustain in the warfare ; neither do you tremble, nor think of it. Why fore- stall evils which may never happen, and which when they do (if they do), will not be the lighter, because we have forestalled them 1 Do what is right : do it boldly : and never fear the event, though it be unfortunate. The following written by him to my Aunt Eliza- beth in June 1814, after the visit of the allied sovereigns to Oxford, is interesting for the subject and for the manner in which it is described : — If you have caught anything of the imperial and royal fever which is so general in the metropolis, I suppose you must feel a little of the languor which that disorder usually leaves behind it, and which will be so heavy upon the spirits of the world after the departure of our royal guests. We, who returned on Wednesday from Oxford, have been infected in this way too. 4 o FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i We went there on Monday, and saw all the great personages, and all the pomp, to the utmost perfection. Four times did the Prince Regent, the Emperor of Russia, and the King of Prussia, with their respective attendants, pass within the reach of the hand before us ; and for two hours did we gaze upon them amidst all the pomp and applause of the theatre. The pomp was indeed most splendid ; the applause tremendous. Nothing could exceed the manifest satisfaction of the Prince and the Emperor. They did not smile, they laughed, — they did not bow, they almost embraced the orators, the audience, and each other. Exultation was at its height : neither was it lost upon the King of Prussia who was yet less visibly moved ; whether past misfortunes or present cares pressed upon his mind, or humility before God made him reject the praise of men, to the increase of his future glory. The crowned heads condescended to accept diplomas, degrees of Doctors of Law ; an honour which was likewise conferred upon the Duke of Wellington, though absent. Prince Metternich, Count Lieven, and Blucher received common honorary degrees. The Prince Regent and Emperor, and the King, all wore a Doctor of Law's gown. Besides these, there were present the Duchess of Oldenburg, the Prussian Princes, the Prince of Orange, the Dukes of York and Clarence, the Duke of Devonshire, and a considerable number of the nobility. They dined in public in the Radcliffe Library. . . . On Tuesday night the city was illuminated, with excellent effect, far surpassing the illuminations in London, though not exhibiting any of those grand displays which appear here and there in the metropolis. The evening was perfectly calm, and candles innumerable were stuck on the outside of the buildings, which were diversified by the variety of the architecture, and broken by occasional displays of lamps and transparencies. The curve of the High Street, showing all at once, rendered the effect unique. Richard Roundell was so pleased with the pomp of Oxford upon this occasion, that he said he would willingly have come from Edinburgh to have seen it. Mr. Francis Horsley had returned from India in 1807 ; and, after residing for some time at Little Hallingbury in Essex, parted with his house there, chap, in MY FATHER 41 in a state of health, accompanied by mental depres- sion, which for a time caused anxiety to his family. My Father supported his uncle under this trouble by sympathy and counsel which greatly contributed to the recovery of his peace of mind. He wrote to him on the 14th October 1814: — I am very sure that no one knows the nature of that dis- order, or can estimate the sense of evil it induces, except such as have themselves endured it; and yet I believe I have no in- adequate sense either of one or of the other. For the time we are deprived of every joyous influence, of every enlivening consolation, as though we had been altogether deserted of that Blessed Spirit, in whom alone " we live and move and have our being." We are sensible only of the misery of an alienated state, and consider ourselves as reprobate from God. In this condition the mind dwells upon such particulars of personal misconduct (whether they belonged to infirmity, negligence, or vice) as conscience principally suggests, and considers all as equally unpardonable, — as, indeed, all transgression equally is, without the covenant of the Eedeemer. But from that covenant Ave feel as though we ourselves have been excluded, as if it were the actual state of condemnation. Certainly this is the utmost human nature can endure here, — perhaps hereafter either ; and certainly, it is no more than all of us have fully merited. But, methinks, from this we are assuredly preserved, by Him who suffered all that we deserved. If upon the Cross, as man, He endured the extremity of this very evil (witness the passionate exclamation, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"), is it wonderful that we should be made to feel — the children of grace — somewhat of the same 1 And if God at any time inflicts this, it is no more to be concluded that the individuals who suffer are outcasts from His mercy, than that His eternal pur- pose of redemption was forgotten when the Messiah suffered. I am entirely persuaded, therefore, that this affliction is to be considered as one of those temporal visitations with which they who are most exercised are by the Scriptures pronounced blessed : and the suggestions and evil impulses which, by 42 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS parti occasion of the time, are then most numerous, and which seem to carry us forcibly away, are as a fiery trial upon faith, to the endurance of which, by God's grace, the most effectual motive must be a just appreciation of their nature. If, by His mercy, I have at this time been made the instrument of conveying an idea of the truth to my dear uncle's mind, or if I have assisted to confirm it only in what it did indeed before discern, perhaps I may have done something towards disarming the future recurrence of this disorder of its more dangerous and intolerable part ; perhaps I may have done more, — I may have procured a blessing on myself. But I pray God, I humbly and earnestly pray, if indeed I am so happy, that this disorder may never recur, and that my dear uncle may pass the remainder of his days in peace. Our lives are not without a beneficial influence on those around us, if we fear God, even when we seem most inert. Some men have no talents for action, and some men have no opportunity ; but all have opportunities of exercising patience, and all men who believe may achieve that no small labour if they will. Certainly we shall do wisely to lighten our labours by such useful employment, or such rational diversion of the time, as the providence of God has appointed for that very end. Once more, on the 12th of February 1815 : — One thing above all others, it behoves us on such grievous occasions to notice — namely, that truth compels us to reject the suggestions of despair which the present sense of mental suffer- ing gives occasion to, however strongly they may affect us, and that we should manfully, and I may say violently, put down every temptation that may thence arise. May we, at least, live for others, if not for ourselves ; and we are of more consequence to others, our minutest habits and most trivial actions are of more consequence to the peace and welfare of others, than we frequently are aware of. Much more the great example of fortitude, patience, and resolute forbearance under the severest of ills, that we may set. They also who are thus affected by our conduct have themselves to suffer ; then let them learn of us, as we of Him who died for us and all. chap, in MY FATHER 43 His uncle was strengthened, and replied to these letters in a manner which relieved my Father's mind : — I will always, therefore (he wrote), hope even against hope, as it is said of the Syrophcenician. I will be of the number of those who are also said to take the kingdom of God by force. So may my Lord accept me ! So may He support and succour you and me in the day of our distress ! Not to his uncle only, but to his Father, he was called upon to undertake the part of a physician of the soul. How he did it a letter written on the 22nd of February 1818 shows : — With respect to the evils of the present time, the want of satisfaction, the partial doubt, the occasional anguish of mind you now experience, it is a thing rather to be borne than to be cured ; for to yourself it is intended for a trial, a remedy, a reproof, — as such to be humbly accepted : to us, whom you love, for a lesson and admonition, and on that account the more willingly suffered. Nor think of it at all as mere evil, fruitless and ineffectual of good ; for assuredly it shall answer its end, in either case. You by it shall be preserved ; we shall be en- lightened and improved. You say, that you have not been accustomed, in times past, to pay that attention to religious subjects (let us call them at once by their right name, the things of God), which you conceive now they justly deserved. Be it so ; this explains my meaning, when I say, the present admits not of cure, otherwise than in the bearing. The evil, in age, cannot be removed (because the cause has wrought its effect), otherwise than as, by God's grace, it may become itself a means of cure. For now you are sensible of your error, and know the great value of that, which you say of yourself you have hitherto too much neglected. It is sufficient ; for, by God's mercy, the mind that sees its mistake, and the heart that can confess it, shall always find favour and acceptance with Him, through Christ. . . . But then you say, your notions of the Saviour have been vague and incorrect ; you have not 44 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i known Him as a sacrifice for sin, or as the accepted Mediator between God and man. What is this, but another consequence of the same cause ? But now at least you know Him ; be bold, then, to acknowledge it to yourself. For he that is sensible that he has ill known a thing in time past gives proof, at least, that he is desirous of acknowledging its truth now. And this, too, is the effect of the present privation and distress. Blessed indeed is the hand that thus chastens us. Blessed is the very evil, which brings us acquainted with its cause in time. Let us accept it with all humility in the spirit. Let us bear it cheer- fully with all patience in the body. And God, who now visits us, shall yet show us His favour in the end. You may use me (if you so please, and in what I may seem worthy) as a minister of Christ. If it were more the fashion to use a minister some- times, as such, none (I think) would be the worse, but many would be much the better for it. Many sick persons perish, not for want of a physician, but because they have no opinion of his skill. No matter Avhere the fault lies ; the mischief is plain. For my dear Father, I am his son and servant ; and my services, in any shape that can be useful to him, he has a right to command. . . ■rrf//fef /I fe/ur /ff.x 771 /ff'/, (id//) /////, CHAPTER IV # MY MOTHER — GLEDSTONE — MIXBURY — FINMERE 1810-1823 I have departed from the order of time, to bring together these memorials of a part of my Father's life, which preceded my birth, or was beyond my recollection. He married my Mother, Dorothea Richardson Roundell, the youngest sister of his school and college friend, Richard Roundell, on the 10th September 1810. She was then nearly eighteen; he was thirty-two years old. She was one of a large family, seven sons and three daughters. Her father, William Roundell, a clergyman, had, on the death of an elder brother, succeeded to a considerable estate, situate chiefly at Marton in Craven, a district of rich upland limestone pastures and interesting scenery, on the borders of Lancashire and Westmoreland, including the upper valleys of the Ribble, the Aire, and the Wharfe. The nearest town to Marton is Skipton ; Bolton Abbey, and the fine rock scenery of Malham Cove and Gordale, of Peny-y-gent and Ingleborough, are within easy distance from it. The Roundel] 46 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i family had been settled for more than four centuries in the West Riding of Yorkshire, of which Craven forms part ; their title-deeds to some land at Screven, near Knaresborough, going back to the year 1425. Gledstone, my Grandfather's house, was built for his brother by a popular architect of that day, in a plain Italian style, in the parish of East Marton. The situation was happily chosen, a wooded eminence, looking down upon a rapidly-descending slope inter- spersed with clumps of trees, dotted with picturesque old hawthorns, and surrounded by a circle of blue hills ; the moors near Colne to the east ; Pendle Hill over Clitheroe to the south ; Ingleborough westward ; and to the north Rumbold's moor above Skipton, and the Rylstone Fells. My brother William was born at Mixbury on the 12th July 1811, and I on the 27th November 1812. Two brothers followed, Thomas, and Henry Roundell, then two sisters, Mary Richardson and Eleanor ; afterwards two more brothers, George Horsley, born in 1822, and Edwin, in 1824; and three sisters, Emma, Dorothea, and Emily Frances. I recollect but little of my Gledstone Grandparents, though more than one visit was paid to them during my infancy. The impressions which remain with me are, that they were very old and kind ; that I and my brother William were more mischievous than we ought to have been ; and that my Uncle Richard (then practically master of the house) was a strict disciplinarian. The journey of 180 miles from Mixbury was performed in post-chaises, and took chap, iv GLEDSTONE 47 three days. Sometimes we went by way of Man- chester, sometimes by Leeds. On the last of those occasions, when I must have been about six years old, I had an adventure at Warwick, and was nearly left behind. There was a kennelled fox in the inn-yard, off which I could not take my eyes, having never seen a fox before. Our party was a good post-chaise full, and we were duly mustered at the moment fixed for our departure ; but I contrived to slip out again, to take a last look at the fox. In the meantime the carriage came to the door, parents, brothers, and nurses were packed into it, and it drove away down the hill. The hostler, discovering me in the court- yard, ran after it, carrying me in his arms, and shouting " Stop, stop ! you have left a little boy behind ! " I never forgot the sensation with which I saw my Father put his head out of the window, and heard him deny the fact, and order the postillion to drive on. The evidence, however, was conclusive ; and after a little time the chaise stopped, and I was packed in with the rest. How my parents settled between themselves the responsibility for this over- sight I do not recollect ; but the fault was my own, and I never played the truant during such a journey again. The story has interested my children and grandchildren, and I record it for the benefit of little people of future generations. My Grandmother, Mrs. Eoundell, died in 1819, and her husband in 1821. She bequeathed to her descendants the following table of rules drawn up by her Father for her edifica- 48 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i tion on entering into society, two years before her marriage to William Roundell. It is labelled 31st May 1773 — Directions for Molly whilst Abroad. 1. Read a Chapter in the Bible every Morning early. 2. Then say your Prayers. 3. Apply yourself to something of Busyness. 4. Set down every Night what You saw or heard remark- able that Day. 5. Say Your Prayers ; beginning and ending every Day with Applications to Almighty God. 6. Improve Your playing on the Harpsichord and Singing. 7. Set down the Dishes in order at every great Dinner or Supper, and get a Receipt for every pretty Dish and learn how to make it. 8. Take great Notice of any fine House, Furniture, or Gardens, and put it into writing that Night. 9. Observe Every one's Carriage and Behaviour, and imitate what is commendable and avoid what is not. 10. Set Yourself to be obliging to Every -one Your Equal. 11. Be not too familiar with any Servant, nor with any Man You think not fit for Your Husband ; but keep such at a due Distance. 12. Strive to be Virtuous, Good, Discreet, and Wise, and avoid Sin, Folly, and Idleness. 13. Consider well what Company You are in, and take care that You say not anything to disoblige them, or any of their Relations or Friends. 1 4. Say nothing before Servants that may make them uneasy in their Place. 31st May 1773. Recommended by H ry - Richardson to his daughter Mary whilst abroad. Mary Richardson belonged to a family which in the middle of the eighteenth century produced a noted English botanist, a correspondent of Linnaeus and of chap, iv GLEDSTONE 49 other great naturalists of that day. My Grandmother's sister, Dorothy Richardson, who lived at Gargrave, near Gledstone, inherited the garden of her scientific relative ; the beauty and rarity of its flowers even then made an impression on me. My aunt Mary Anne Roundell (a good artist, and in later years a favourite pupil of De Whit) learnt from Dorothy Richardson a taste for botany, and particularly for English wild -flowers, with which she indoctrinated me. The neighbourhood of Gledstone was rich in them : the beautiful rose-coloured Primula (farinosa) was frequent in its meadows ; Greek Valerian (Pole- monium coeruleum) then grew (and I believe still grows) together with the bloody Crane's-bill and Mossy Saxifrage (Geranium sanguineum, Saxifraga hypnoides), and other rare plants, beneath the rocks of Malham Cove; the Lady's Slipper (Cypripedium Calceolus) was found in the mountain copses of Craven, and the cream - coloured variety of the Giant Throatwort {Campanula latifolia), a plant fit to be ranked for stateliness and beauty with the Foxglove, was common in the lanes and hedgebanks close to Gledstone. My acquaintance with these botanical treasures cannot be carried so far back as early infancy, but they enter too much into my memories of Gledstone to be left out of sight when I recall the associations of that place. The only other near relative of the Roundell family, beyond their immediate circle, whom I ever knew was Miss Richardson Currer, my Grandmother's niece, who lived at Eshton Hall, in the same parish with VOL. I E 50 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i Dorothy Richardson. She had succeeded (not with- out a lawsuit, recorded in the law reports of Lord Thurlow's time) to estates of large value, inherited by her father from the Currer family of Kildwick, whose name he assumed and which, if an entail had been cut off, as was contemplated in certain family settlements, would have gone to the Gledstone line. She was a generous and accomplished lady, and formed a splendid library, hardly inferior to that of Mr. Richard Heber, a friend of her youth, whom she was at one time thought likely to have married. From her, my parents received substantial kindness, for which I hold her memory in grateful esteem. Among my Roundell uncles, Henry Dawson, the third living at the time of my Father's marriage, was a clergyman, a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford ; who, not long afterwards, was presented by Lord Chancellor Eldon to the Rectory of Fringford, within four miles of Mixbury. This was the source of constant and most happy intercourse between the two parsonages, which lasted till my uncle's death in 1852. He and my Father agreed in religion and in politics, and, having friends still resident at the University, they helped each other to keep up a connection with Oxford. My uncle's heart was in his duties; he was a genial, high-spirited, high- principled man, universally popular. To complete his own and his friends' happiness, he married a wife of rare endowments of person, mind, and character ; Elizabeth Garforth, daughter of a mill-owner at Coniston, not far from Gledstone. Through her, the chap, iv MIXBURY 51 ladies of the Marshall family, well known at Leeds and in the Lake Country (of whom one was afterwards Lady Monteagle, and another Mrs. Whewell), became frequent visitors at Fringford ; which led to my re- ceiving kindness from that family when I first went to live in London. When my Mother left her home for Mixbury, the change to her must have been great ; Gledstone and its surroundings had been the whole of her world. Her disposition was warm and affectionate, and her natural abilities excellent : but she had been brought up on a rather old-fashioned system ; and the atmo- sphere of Gledstone, as to literature (though not as to art), was then less intellectual than that of Nazing. To those who had not learnt to love it, there could be little attraction in Mixbury. It was a stone- built village of thatched cottages, forming one street, with a lane or two turning downwards to a small rivulet, within half a mile of the turnpike road between Banbury and Buckingham ; the nearest market town being Brackley, about three miles off. The parish was wholly agricultural, the women making lace. It lies at the extreme north-east angle of the high and bleak table-land of Oxford- shire, where that county and Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire meet — a country generally flat and uninteresting. It had been enclosed, less than a century before my Father came to it, from open wastes ; the soil a coarse marly limestone, with little wood except hedgerow timber ; no water, ex- cept the small rivulet just mentioned, which, at 52 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i about a mile's distance from the village, falls into the infant stream of the Bedfordshire and Lincoln- shire Ouse, there constituting the parish and county- boundary — itself a little brook, over which a man, or certainly a good horse, might in many places leap. The property in the parish was divided between two proprietors ; one of whom lived about three miles off, the other (to whom the whole village belonged) in a distant county, never visiting the place, or doing anything for the people. There was no resident gentleman, except my Father. It had not always been so. Hard by the church, there once stood, on a site called "Beaumont," a large Norman fortress, probably of the Conqueror's time, and built by the Lords of Ivery, who were also, no doubt, founders of the church. Of the castle itself, not a stone remains; but the ground-plan of the fosse, tilting-ground, and keep, remained (as they still remain) extremely per- fect. In later times, the lords of the manor resided in a house by the brook-side, called Fulwell ; the last who inhabited it was Benjamin Bathurst, father of Bishop Bathurst of Norwich, and cousin to the Lord Chancellor of that name. His descendants had sold their Mixbury property before my Father's time ; and the old manor-house, like so many others, went down in the world, and was turned into a farmer's home- stead. My Father's predecessor at Mixbury was an eccentric man, named Alt, son, I believe, of a German, who came from Hanover with King George the First. The people had many superstitions chap, iv MIXBURY 53 about him, and thought that his ghost haunted the place. The house which he inhabited had crone That which replaced it was four-square, with a low line of offices dividing the garden from the stables and farmyard ; built of the common limestone of the country, quarried on the spot, and covered with blue Welsh slate. It was good enough inside ; but had been designed with an absolute disregard for architectural effect. The church, and the churchyard, were close by to the north. The church, partly Norman, partly in the simple decorated style of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, was good in itself, but had suffered from many generations of church- wardens ; and, although in some respects improved by my Father in his earlier years, it did not undergo a complete restoration and renovation till towards the close of his incumbency, in 1849-1851 ; when he accomplished a work which he had long desired. In front of the house, to the west, a wall masked by a bank of laurels divided the gravelled entrance from the village street, with a row of stately elms behind it, inhabited by a colony of rooks. The garden lay to the south and east ; a long oval walk ran round a grass paddock, partly bordered by flower-beds, and partly carried through shrubberies and small groups of trees planted by my father — one of which clumps screened off the kitchen-garden. Such was Mixbury in my childhood. There was then no school of the modern sort ; my Father built one, long afterwards. The boys and girls of the parish were taught partly by the parish-clerk in a cottage, and partly by my 54 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i Father and Mother, wherever they found it most convenient. To Finmere, a pleasant footpath led across the fields. That village lay chiefly in a dip between risine ground on both sides ; the church, smaller © © ' than and architecturally inferior to that of Mixbury, standing at the highest point, at the north-east end. The Rectory house, a picturesque rambling thatched cottage, nestled below the church, on the slope from the east to the main street. Finmere had been much better cared for than Mixbury. It was not far from Stowe, the lords of which were at that time patrons of the church, and owners of nearly all the land in the parish. They were desirous that the benefices in their gift should be held by men of education and good social position as well as character. Some of those whom they presented to Finmere had been tutors in their own family : one, William Cleaver, became Principal of Brasenose, and afterwards a Bishop ; and my Father's predecessor there, with whom he exchanged from Beachampton, was Sir George Lee, then owner of Hartwell House, in which Louis XVIII. resided during his exile in England. © © When the pleasure-grounds of Stowe were laid out by " Capability " Brown, he was instructed also to try his hand at making as much as was possible of the garden attached to Finmere Rectory, and he did so to admiration. The house, standing at the foot of a slope of green turf, looked out upon cedars, spruce firs, groups of other well-chosen trees and shrubs, and pretty flower-beds ; all so disposed, as to produce the c E-i O (■! K chap, iv FINMERE 55 effect of a long perspective, and of considerable space where there was really little ; altogether pleasant to the eye. The place is now changed ; the thatched cottage has disappeared ; the new Eectory is, doubt- less, more convenient ; it stands higher, so as to overlook more of the surrounding country, and is not so close to the village ; but, to my eyes at all events, the old charm is gone. CHAPTER V MY FATHER AND HIS PEOPLE — CHILDHOOD AT MIXBURY MY BROTHER TOM'S DEATH IN 1823 I reckon it as one of the felicities of my life that I was enabled during my childhood and boyhood to acquire some knowledge of, and a strong interest in, the English agricultural poor ; and to see what a centre of love, of practical wisdom, and of help in every kind of need, a good conscientious parish clergyman may be. I will try here to give some account of what my Father was as a parish clergy- man, in those things which I could myself observe and understand. Much of his pastoral work, as a spiritual counsellor, was of course known only to himself and the souls to whom he ministered ; but even of this, some conception may be formed from the manner in which (as has been already seen) he performed the same office for members of his own family. So far as relates to the services of the church, he was always in advance of his time, as well in rubrical strictness (as he had learned, under the chap, v MY FATHER AND HIS PEOPLE 57 guidance of Bishop Horsley, to understand the rubrics) as in the reverence with which the duties of his office were performed. I do not think that the Holy Communion was ever celebrated in his churches less often than monthly, or that he ever omitted to baptize and catechise publicly during the afternoon service in the church. When the desire arose for more frequent Services and Communions, he was prompt in meeting it. His preaching was thoughtful, but not ambitious ; explaining Scripture and inculcating practical duties in an uncontroversial way. He relied more on the direct power of the Divine word, than upon his own way of presenting it. From his reading of the SciTptures in church (I may mention particularly such chapters as those about the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, the histories of Joseph, Jonathan, David, Absalom, Elijah, and Elisha — many parts of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel — the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son) I myself learnt more, and so must his hearers generally, than from many sermons. There was no thought of self; no aim at display. The combination of dignity and reverence in his reading — the way in which his hearers were enabled to realise what he read — were such as I have rarely known in any one else. If I were to disparage that part of a clergyman's duty which is performed in church, I should not be following my Father's precepts or his example. But a parish priest, if he realises the full nature of the pastoral duty and office, is not likely to place auy- 58 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i thing, in point of importance, above his personal relations with the individual men, women, and children committed to his charge. I have heard some people speak as if the care of a few hundred souls were insufficient employment for the zeal and energy of a clergyman of mark. My Father did not think so. There was no position in the church which he could not (in my belief) have worthily filled, which he might not have ennobled and adorned. But what God had charged him with was the care of those five or six hundred poor people at Mixbury and Finmere, for whom there was no one else to care, among whom there was no praise to be won, no distinction to be attained, no ambition to be gratified. He was content with this, and sought for nothing- more. These people he loved and willingly served, wisely also and discreetly, as a spiritual father and friend, who understood them, and was able to speak to them in a way which they could understand. There was not one, young or old, whom he did not per- sonally know, or whose character and conduct he did not observe and study. He was not demonstrative, nor a man of many words ; he kept his feelings, which were naturally warm and strong, quite under command. He knew what times were convenient, what were opportunities to be used, what manner of address would be acceptable and likely to make an impression. He watched over those who were in sickness, trouble, or any other need. He understood enough of medicine, and had sufficient store of drugs chap, v MY FATHER AND HIS PEOPLE 59 always at hand, to help them much in that way. He had always a kind and wholesome word, and an open hand, for those who wanted it. His temporal charities, distributed with discrimination and judg- ment, were so liberal, as to make churlish minds suppose that he must have been entrusted with funds especially devoted to that purpose. 1 His interest in individuals was not capricious or transitory, but 1 My Grandfather and Uncle held the living of Mixbury for over eighty years between them. The net income was £105 (in lieu of tithe) and sixty acres of glebe. After my Uncle left, during the incumbency of one of his successors, some of the benefits to which the parishioners had so long been accustomed were unavoidably discon- tinued. This caused, not unnaturally, considerable discontent, and an inquiry into the parochial accounts was demanded and, unfortunately, refused. A serious disturbance was the result, owing to the belief of the Mixbury peojue that they were being defrauded of bequests ; and it was with difficulty that they were persuaded by my Father and Uncle that all they had formerly received had been from their rectors' private purse. In the course of the arbitration, the source of the idea was traced to a tradition well known in the village, but never before known to any of the Palmer family. In the words of one of the villagers, " It were to Madam Bathurst's burying, I've heard grandfather tell it times. Madam Bathurst were the last of they Bathurstses, and the coaches and horses, and feathers and mourners was enough to make a stir in London, let alone Mixbury. There was folk who grudged the dead then as now, and some on them went on about the poor who was living, a-wanting the money more nor the rich dead. There was a pull up by the stocks as was standing in my time, not far from the church, to let the crowd settle. One of they as heard this grumble- ment, called out like a trumpet, ' Cease your complainings, and show respect to your betters, corpses or walking ; and for the matter of that, Madam has remembered you all, and your children after you, till Kingdom Come.' " The date in the register of Madam Bathurst's funeral is October 24, 1796, ninety years before the dispute referred to. She left no bequest whatever. — S. M. P. 60 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i patient and persevering. It was long before he despaired (if he ever did despair) even of those who went astray. And he had his reward in the effects of his ministry. There was not in his time a public- house in Mixbury. Nor was there in either parish any congregation of Nonconformists, though the vill- ages were sometimes visited by itinerant preachers, and there were always some to whom that style of preaching was attractive. In other respects, the conduct and reputation of his parishioners bore favourable comparison with most of their neighbours. To the weak and the old, as long as they could work at all, he gave employment suitable to their strength, rather than alms ; taking advantage, for this purpose, of his garden and glebe land. He respected them, and wished them to respect themselves. A farmer fell into the habits of intemperance, and was ruined ; my Father reclaimed him, took him into his own service, comforted him in severe affliction, and was enabled to keep him straight to the end. A clever artificer was in a like case, and died ; my Father so dealt with the family, that the children became examples of industry and good conduct, and rose in the world. These are but instances of the good done to many individuals by his discernment of character and constancy in kindness. He felt strongly the evils attendant on the bad administration of the old Poor Law, and did all he could to mitigate them ; but when that law was reformed, although greatly preferring the new system to the old, he thought the conditions on which relief chap, v MY FATHER AND HIS PEOPLE 61 was granted to the aged and infirm unnecessarily severe. The condition of the industrious agricultural poor was then far more depressed than it is now ; the rate of wages was much lower, all necessaries of life dearer, and many comforts which they now enjoy were unknown. My Father encouraged and assisted a considerable number of his parishioners, whom he thought likely to do well in a new country, to emigrate to Canada and Tasmania, inquiring personally into the arrangements for their voyages, seeing and corresponding with the ship-owners and agents, and sometimes accompanying the emigrants themselves on board ship. Many of those emigrants prospered, and have left descendants who prosper still. 1 When they were gone, it was not with my Father, " Out of sight, out of mind " ; he kept up a correspondence with most of them, and with some for years, following them still with his pastoral care and wise counsels, and finding out colonial clergymen and others to whom he recommended them for such good offices as he was no longer able to perform towards them him- self, and not unfrequently sending out presents to them from this country. In other relations of life he was the same man. 1 More than once in after years, sons and grandsons of these emigrants came to see my Father, and one, I remember, came im- mediately on his arrival in London, and said, " I gave my father my word, if ever I visited England, I would first find his old master's sons and thank them for all we owe him." After my Father's death in May 1895, letters came from Canada, Australia, and Tasmania, showing that the memory of the Palmers of Mixbury Rectory was still cherished in the homes of the writers. — S. M. P. 62 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i By nature and inclination social and hospitable, he regarded prudence in the management of his means as essential to the performance of his duty. He kept, therefore, regular accounts and a strict watch over his expenditure, retaining the Mixbury glebe of about sixty acres in his own hands, and making it help out his housekeeping. He avoided all extrava- gance, and incurred no debts, living plainly and simply ; keeping up old friendships, but seldom making new ; enteriDg into the society of a small circle of the neighbouring clergy and country gentle- men within distances of three or four miles from Mixbury, but not so much or so often as to interfere at any time with his proper duties. He was a county magistrate. In those days the general (and, on the whole, advantageous) rule against placing beneficed clergymen on the bench did not exist ; and it would hardly have been so well for Mixbury and its immediate neighbourhood if there had not been some magistrates who had that peculiar knowledge of, and sympathy with, the poor which is acquired by the discharge of pastoral duties. He attended diligently, for some years, to the duties of that office, and in that capacity he was quick in the detection of fraud and imposture, lenient towards such offences as might be due to the pressure of distress, or to ignorance or mere human infirmity, and vigilant to see justice done to all whom he thought in danger of suffering wrono;. Of his discretion and presence of mind I may mention an instance which occurred after I was chap, v MY FATHER AND HIS PEOPLE 63 grown up, during the terrible winter of (I think) 1831, when, from the combined operation of the abuses of the Poor Law and of political excitement, a sort of " Jacquerie " prevailed in the rural districts of that part of England, under a secret organisation designated by the name of " Captain Swing," which sometimes broke out in open riot and disturbance, but more generally manifested itself in incendiarism, particularly rick-burning at night. On one day in the Town Hall of Buckingham the magistrates assembled, with the Duke of Buckingham, the Lord- Lieutenant of the County, in the chair, under circum- stances of anxiety and general alarm. A mob was collected outside, clamorous for redress of grievances, and demanding admission. The magistrates con- sulted together as to what should be done, and my Father advised that the doors should be opened, and the leaders of the people outside invited to come in. The Duke and others gave him to understand that, if that were done, he must himself undertake the responsibility of managing the conference ; to which he agreed. The doors were opened accordingly, and the malcontents entered, saying that they came " to demand their rights." My Father asked, "What rights ? " and whether they were such as it was within the power of the magistrates to grant ? Upon this the leader made a speech, not clearly answering those questions, but declaring their loyalty and attachment to the throne. Taking him at his word, my Father at once declared that he was a fit and proper person to be sworn in as a special constable, which was forth- 64 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i with done, the man offering no resistance ; and the whole disturbance collapsed. My brother William, from his infancy, displayed uncommon signs of ability, and a marked individuality of character. He was the favourite at Gledstone, and I at Nazing. We were brought up together at home ; my brother Tom joining us in the school- room, when he was old enough. After we had mastered the first elements, my Father taught us himself, with great assiduity, and admirable regularity, patience, and judgment. We rose early, and began every day by reading with him the Psalms for that morning. We began Latin at five years old and Greek at six. We learnt the Latin accidence from Dr. Russell's short Charterhouse Grammar, and then passed to Phaedrus's Fables ; and, by the time we were nine years old, we were fairly well grounded in Virgil and Horace, and not unpractised in verse and prose translation, and had begun the Greek Testament. Pope's Homer and Dryden's Virgil were familiar to us ; and before we went to school we had made some progress in the original of Homer, and had read through the Prometheus of Aeschylus. Nor were we ignorant of Shakespeare, Milton, and some other English classics. My Father was not technically an exact scholar, but, in a practical sense, he was a good one. He had a manly, cultivated taste for the best works of the best poets and other writers — Greek, Latin, and English. The books in his library (some of which had belonged to Bishop Horsley) included not only a good store of classics and theology, and chap, v MY CHILDHOOD 65 some scientific works, but also biographies, histories, voyages, travels, and a little lighter literature ; and he encouraged us, with few exceptions, to read what- ever we liked. In the elements of religious knowledge he carefully instructed us ; and on Sunday afternoons we were often publicly examined by him in the Church Catechism, together with the children of his parishioners. I do not think we could have been better prepared for a public school by any teacher then living in England. He often took us with him to see his parishioners, and in his rides and walks through the fields, or to neighbouring places ; sometimes also on fishing ex- cursions, in which art he was a proficient. He it was, I have no doubt, who first led us to find pleasure in the observation of nature ; he had globes, and a tele- scope, through which he sometimes showed us the moon and the planets ; he communicated to us his interest in the habits of birds and animals, and in chemistry and mineralogy, which he had to some extent studied ; some sense also of natural beauty, of which he had a very keen perception. He was not himself much of a botanist, or ento- mologist ; but in one of those subjects we were helped by my aunt, Mary Anne Eoundell ; and in the other by Harris's splendid work on British Lepidoptera, which my uncle Henry Roundell possessed, and which was an unfailing attraction to us at Fringford. The taste for those branches of natural history grew spontaneously during our rambles in the fields. There were not, indeed, any plants common at or VOL. I F 66 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS parti very near Mixbury or Finmere, which were elsewhere rare ; but several of the most beautiful English water- plants grew in the brook, such as the "Arrow-head" (Sagittaria sagittifolia), and the " Flowering -rush" (Butomus umbellatus) ; and the " Grass of Parnassus " (Pamassia palustris) was found in the meadows near it. Of insects, though in most seasons there was nothing more remarkable than the privet and the humming-bird hawk-moths, we were visited occasion- ally by broods of the black-veined white and clouded yellow butterflies (Pieris cratcegi and Colias edusa), and in some years the large caterpillars and chrysalises of the Death's-head Moth (Acherontia atropos) were found in the potato-fields at Brackley. We established for ourselves a botanical garden, and a " museum " in our schoolroom, for insects, fossils, and other objects of natural history. Before we knew their true names or classification, we had our own nomenclature for all the more common butterflies and wild plants ; and I remember surprising an old clergyman by giving him a name for everything, which he did not suppose to be of our own invention. As we grew, the faculty of imagination increased in power. It coloured all our childish pleasures ; it accompanied us upon the ice and into the woods ; it mixed dreams of the supernatural with the most ordinary things. Our resting-places when sliding over a frozen pool were the islands discovered by Columbus or Cook, in whose voyages we delighted. We carved out of cleft sticks what passed with us for images of humanity, and stuck them into the ROUNDELL PALMER, Jf.T\T. 8 chap, v MY CHILDHOOD 67 damp ground at night, hoping — almost believing, I am not sure that we did not pray — that we might find them endowed with life when we came to look for them in the morning. The Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver, Baron Munchausen, Don Quixote, Gil Bias, and all the fairy tales which we could get hold of, and the few novels (chiefly of the eighteenth century) to be found at Mixbury or Finmere were eagerly devoured. On one occasion, when I happened to be left alone for some days at Fringford, under the housekeeper's charge, I found in a closet there some loose sheets of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Never was solitude less lonely ; it was to me like the discovery of an inex- haustible mine of gold and precious stones. My Grandmother Mrs. Palmer, and my Aunts Mary and Elizabeth, then lived together in London, at No. 110 Gloucester Place, Portman Square. My Grand- father had died in the summer of 1821, when I was between eight and nine years old. I had often been under their care before they left Nazing; and was left with them for weeks together in Gloucester Place ; mainly, I think, for the sake of writing-lessons. For these, I and my brother William used to walk, either daily or several times in the week, to Kentish Town ; passing along the line of those terraces which now face the Regent's Park on the south and east sides, but which were then only half built. On every day that the British Museum was open to the public, I was permitted to go there having soon learnt the way, which indeed was easy enough, 68 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS parti almost in a straight line eastward from my Grand- mother's house. The old front of Montague House was then standing ; and the only sculptures which I remember, as open at that time to the public, were the Egyptian. But my interest in the Museum centred in the Natural History department ; in the minerals, shells, and birds, and the insects in one of the public rooms — (of the existence of the larger aud less public collection I was ignorant). Among these, I spent as many hours, on all those days, as the habits of Gloucester Place permitted. I always came away unwillingly, never tired. My Grandmother also sometimes took me with her to the seaside, and I remember that it was first with her, at Southend, that I experienced the horrors of being dipped into salt water by a bathing woman, and also saw a melodrama of the story of Bluebeard, represented by a strolling company in a barn. I was by no means pleased at the burlesque rendering of what was to me a very dreadful tragedy. The last time that I remember seeing that dear Grandmother was on the 27th of November 1822, my tenth birthday. The blessing which she then gave me, laying her hand upon my head, and praying that I might be a good — I think she also said a great — man, was the first spur to ambition which I received. To William and me, childhood at home was then drawing to its end. On the Gth of March 1823, the first breach was made in our happy circle at Mixbury. My brother Tom had received some accidental hurt chap, v MY BROTHER TOM 69 on the head, during some of our games. He was seized with the terrible malady called hydrocephalus, and in a few days, after suffering much pain, he died. The impression made upon me by seeing his earthly part in all the beauty and awfulness of death, so lately full of life and love — surrounded by snowdrops and hepatica flowers — has never faded away. The hearts of my Father and Mother were all but broken. My Mother's cheerfulness did not return for years ; my Father's health suffered so much that in the following year (I did not know it at the time) he was very seriously ill. The brother whom I had lost was a delicate engaging boy, with whose memory I do not associate a single fault. He was making good progress in Latin. As I write I have before me his last exercise, a translation into ten English verses of Horace's Ode to Leuconoe, on which is this endorsement in my Aunt Mary's handwriting : — " Dear Tom's first and only attempt at translating one of the Odes of Horace ; it was selected by himself a few days before he was taken ill." For a child of nine it is a remark- able performance, though not intrinsically excellent. The selection also, by a child whose days were then numbered, and who certainly had no presentiment (probably no conception of the meaning) of death, of a poem whose key-note is the uncertainty of life, and the wisdom of not reckoning upon time to come, adds to its interest. 70 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i TO LEUCONOE Seek not ('tis wrong) to know, Leuconoe, What fate the Gods shall give to me and thee, Nor to attempt the Babilonian strains. To bear the times how better would it be, Whether our age more circling years shall see Or this the last, which now th' Etrurian sea, Dashes against the foamy rocks, be wise Pour thou out wine nor think of what will come. While we yet speak, perhaps we'll speak no more, In joy what is, not caring what will come. (Exact Copy.) Hor. Oil I. xii. My Father, on that occasion, wrote to my Grand- mother, recalling the losses which she had in her time been called upon to bear. I fear not (he said) to call to mind him, after whom I fondly named the child that we have lost, and presumed to hope he would remind us also of his worth in manhood. ... I know that we ought to look forward still, and that looking back is but too apt to fill our minds with fruitless regret, and to unnerve them for the business of the present. But these are early days ; and, for once, I may be allowed to think upon the past. It is true that I have been wont to regard the child with more than ordinary warmth and quickness of feeling. In quickness of parts and strength of memory, he was certainly not equal to his elder brothers at the same age ; and the greater pains that it was consequently necessary to bestow upon him no doubt contributed to render him an object of greater interest. And I must say for him that he was sensible of the pains taken, and on a late occasion justified himself to his brothers for his love of me on that score. His progress of late had been more considerable, and his work easier to himself, and he most diligent to apply. But, what is of more value still, his strict obedience to his Mother, and wish to do what might be agreeable to her, within these few weeks, became remarkable. . . . Before, and at first in this last illness, he had always chap, v MY BROTHER TOM 71 shown himself a bad patient ; but on this occasion, from the time that I represented to him the necessity of medicine, he received the cup, and drank it at a word. When he was no longer able to repeat his own prayers, he answered "Amen," aloud, to my petition that I repeated by his side ; and it was one of his last acts of lucid reason to remind me of the prayer. Poor child ! he said to his Mama the same morning, " If I live — and I should like to live ! " And I now trust, my dearest Mother, that He "Who is wont to give more than either we desire or deserve," Who thought fit to take away from him the life on earth, has, by giving him an entrance to a better and eternal and spiritual life, given him even far more than he desired in that, which was then his natural and most earnest wish. God grant that in like manner we who remain may receive more than Ave deserve ! This day we have committed his mortal remains to the earth, in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection. Upon the simple gravestone, erected to record his name, birth, and death, under a sycamore tree opposite to the porch of Mixbury Church, and close to the gate by which the churchyard is entered from the Eectory, — the first of what is now a goodly group of family graves, — my Father engraved two verses, of which the motive is explained in that letter — His natural wish was life ; but God has given More than his wish — eternal life in heaven. Above them are emblems of mortality and im- mortality, suggested by our fondness for the study of insect life — the caterpillar, chrysalis, and perfect fly of the beautiful Ocellated Hawk-moth (Smerinthus ocellata). And the lower part of the same stone now serves as a cenotaph memorial of the brother next in age to him, the next to be taken from us. 72 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS parti October 1825. [Dear Willy — I and Roundell caught too Commas on Michaelmas Day, and the day after we caught a Painted Lady. Roundell says he is sure you really wont beleve they are what they are, so he has drawn them at the end of this letter. Mister Pearce comes from Tinsick every day twice to teach Roundell and me to write and to sum. The other day he brought Roundell a catterpillow and it is a verry curious one. Friday has given us two Coos, but mine died of the dropsi and Roundell has joined his property with me and we are breding it up for you. The Museum has been painted fresh and goes on verry well, but as to the moths, I can't say much for them, but we have put in a new moth a Bernished Brarse and Scarce Vapurer. That nasty, brown, soft, stinky stuff in the Museum that came from Gledstone is Naphthar or Asphaltus or bittumen or something, as Roundell calls it. The Bufticks are near turning Moth. As to the Privet and Attropas we expect them to turn before the end of this month. I have done a great deal of the rules for the formasion of the tenses of the Greek Verb, and papa is gone to Malvern and Roundel hears my lessons now. I am in the first bok of Ovid's Metamorphases. Papa has promised me and Roundel half a sovering if i have got through all six verbs, and am able to stand an examination in them by the time he cums back from Malvern. tm Henry. (cetat. 9.) chap, v FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS 75 P.S. — Dear Willy, these butterflies came to us quite by chance, and I have given you a very super- ficial drawing of them. I have drawn the Painted Lady too coarsely gaudy, and not simply beautiful and elegant as it really is. I have drawn the Comma with the same fault, namely, in by far too coarse and glaring colours. However, it is perfectly correct as to the angular shape of the wings. The Botany Garden, by my and Papa's orders, has been dug and trimmed up, and I have added to our collection of plants the Dwarf Lychnis, the Vernal Meadowsweet, and the Butterfly Orchis. To earn my half sovering (as Henry calls it) I have to make an abstract of the whole of the Clio of Herodotus. Aunt Mary's, Henry's (for I see he has forgot this part of his letter), and my love to you, and I hope you are well. I am, yours truly, R. Palmer. (cetat. nearly 13.)] CHAPTER VI RUGBY — FAMILY EVENTS 1823-1825 The time had come when it was necessary that my Father should have some rest from teaching, and that William and I should be sent to school. Rugby, then under Dr. Wooll, was chosen. It was of all the public schools the nearest to Mixbury ; and an old college friend of my father, Mr. Grant of Litchborough, near Towcester, with whom he always kept up his in- timacy, had a nephew in the schoolhouse to which we were sent nearly grown up and well placed in the school. To his good offices we were commended. We went there in the summer of 1823. Dr. Bloxam of Magdalen College, Oxford, has recorded in a memorandum, shown to me by the President of that College, his earliest recollection of me : — " I suppose that it was in the autumnal half-year that, walking up and down the school opposite the Great School, as Praeposter of the week, before the lessons commenced, I observed with great amusement an odd -looking little boy chewing a pen and making strange faces, chap, vi RUGBY 75 while his mind was occupied with intense thought. It was Roundell Palmer." And he adds, that at the end of that half-year he, with Claughton (Bishop of Rochester when that memorandum was written, after- wards of St. Albans), got up the play of TJte Critic ; and that, some of the actors wanting time to get up their parts, my brother William and I " under- took to compose several copies of verses (on one sub- ject) to be shown up as their exercises by certain of the actors." I well remember the acting of The Critic, in which Claughton was Tilburina. But as to the rest of the story my memory is less clear. [In a letter dated 9th December 1823, Mr. Moor, one of the masters, writing from Rugby, after recom- mending as a holiday task that " the boys should parse Greek with a minute application of the Eton Grammar, and a tracing back of each word to its root," goes on to say that " in all other respects they are equal to their place in school ; and indeed they have improved more than I should have expected in boys on first joining a class in a public school, where the novelty of all around them generally takes up their attention, and they rarely gain much ground for the first few months. Your elder son was removed a few weeks since into Mr. Birch's form, who speaks very well of him, though he complains that he takes it for granted that he understands things, without always ascertaining that fact with sufficient care. His brother is going on very well at the head of my form, and will, no doubt, stand first in the list for promotion at the close of the half-year. 76 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i If they go on according to the opinion I have formed of them, of their talents and conduct, it will be much to the satisfaction of all connected with them." I remained at Kugby for two years, after which my Father thought it prudent to make a change. William remained one year longer, and then went to Oxford, having obtained, wheu he was only just fifteen, a demyship at Magdalen College. When I left Eugby there was only one boy between us in the school, Edwin Martin Atkins, of Kingston Lisle, in Berkshire, " the Squire ' : of Tom Brown's School- days; and his younger brother William (then a great friend of mine) came next to me. My brother derived from Rugby more benefit than I did, and was fitter, morally as well as physically, to hold his own there. It might perhaps have been better for him to have remained there longer than he did ; for me it was certainly best to be removed, though I did not like it at the time. My Kugby recollections are chiefly of pleasant wanderings in the fields and lanes near Bilton and Newbold, or by the river-side ; of gaining some credit by verse exercises, and payiDg for it by being made to do those of other boys, an experience so disagree- able that I resisted it steadily when at Winchester. At Rugby also I had a taste of the birch-rod, in comparison with which the Winchester instrument of castigation was child's play ; and I had there my first and only pugilistic encounter with a Manx boy of about my own size, in which neither can be said to have come off victorious, for our backers made us go chap, vi RUGBY on till we were both fairly exhausted. Civilisation had not yet found its way into our public schools. I was sensitive to bullying, and was (no doubt for that reason) a good deal bullied. Notwithstanding the advantages of our home training, my character was childish and volatile, and my temper by no means good. The faults by which I gave most trouble arose partly from thoughtlessness, partly from ill temper. Our parents managed us upon a regular and methodical system, and we sometimes chafed at it. 1 had to be taught the government of my tongue and my hands by correction, more severe on some occasions than my conscience acknowledged to be just. I see now that the levity of speech and the tendency to meddle with things not belonging to me, which were so repressed, were not the less dangerous because I did not understand their danger or do the things for which I was punished with any consciousness that it was wrong ; and I am thankful that those aberrations were effectually checked, though at some cost to the openness and unreserve which is so important between parents and children. But the radical defect of character, the want of habitual self-government, of which these were symptoms, remained, and it made me much more liable than my brother (in that respect unlike me) to suffer from the contagion of bad example at school. Dr. Wooll was a good scholar of my Father's own type, a Wykehamist, a dignified gentleman of stately presence, and desirous, both as a teacher and as a Christian, to do his duty. Among the pupils whom 78 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i he sent to Oxford in his latter days (besides my brother William), were Leighton, afterwards Warden of All Souls' ; Claughton, Bishop of St. Albans ; and Henry Halford Vaughan, John Edward Walker, and John Frederick Christie, Fellows of Oriel. He was aided in his duties by a wife who was like a mother to the boys in the schoolhouse, universally respected and beloved. Nevertheless, the discipline and the numbers of the school declined under his government. My Father often wrote to my brother and myself, and encouraged frequent correspondence, interesting himself in all our school work, criticising copies of verses or translations which we sent him, and giving us, on all subjects, the benefit of his advice. If we spoke in our letters of anything disagreeable, he advised us to bear silently what we could not help, unless indeed it were of a corrupting as well as a tormenting kind ; in which case we were to consult the elder boy to whom we had been recommended as a protector in case of emergency, and in whose good principles he placed confidence. " Do not," he said, " forget these disagreeable things, but, when you come to be an older and bigger boy, then do not so to little boys, but be kind to them always, and use your best endeavour to protect them from the more ill- natured or the less considerate." He recommended us to aim principally at the regard and goodwill of boys of our own strength and standing, and not to pay court to those much older ; and, if we could not help doing some bigger boys' exercises, at least never to be guilty of the dishonesty of letting others do our chap, vi RUGBY 79 own, or passing off anything as our work which was not really so. He made a great point of our incurring no debt, and impressed upon us the importance of an early habit of keeping accounts. 1 My Father's experience of school life and of the world had, of course, made him aware of the moral evils, to the existence of which at Rugby (in a general way) our letters, more or less, bore witness ; and, while it was not without full consideration that he determined to incur those risks for the sake of what he thought greater good, he felt them much, and constantly endeavoured to strengthen us against them. He wrote a letter, such as became a father and a clergyman, to Dr. Wooll as to the necessity of vigil- ance concerning those things, which Dr. Wooll accepted and replied to in the same spirit. With reference to the heathenism of the classics, he wrote to us : — Never forget that we are Christians ; and, whenever we speak or write upon a subject connected with heathen worship, let it never be in the heathen character, but always as might become a Christian. When grave disorders in the school led to the expul- 1 William, one Easter holidays, brought home some cases of stuffed birds as presents for our elder sisters. My Father asked him if he had had enough money to pay for them. He stammered out that he should pay next half, as no doubt he shoidd have tips, and the man was willing to wait. My Father told him he was never to order any- thing he could not pay for on the spot, and sent him back at once to Rugby (a three days' journey, there aud back), in the gig, to return the stuffed birds to the dealer ; and with a letter to Dr. Wooll asking him to instruct the tradesmen not to supply his sons unless they paid ready money. This lesson the boys never forgot. — Emily F. Palmer. 8o FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS parti sion of certain boys, he wrote strongly in support of the masters, and urged upon us strict obedience to authority and discipline, enforcing his counsels by our Saviour's teaching, and reminding us of our lost brother. Bear this in mind, and think of one who has gone before you, and the blessing of God shall be upon you ; and some such as yourselves — perhaps yourselves — hereafter shall by their learn- ing and good conduct reflect as much honour upon the place of your education as may be the disgrace and disrepute which the ill behaviour of others now seems to bring upon it. One thing (he wrote to myself) I am most anxious about, — that you should not fall into the grievous mistake of thinking anything of yourselves, which would spoil all, and be an effectual bar to all improvement, and to the acquisition of true wisdom and sound knowledge. God bless you, my dear boys, worthy, I trust, of all my love, and of all the pains I have bestowed upon you ; for which I hope you will love me as dear Tom loved me, and not love one another the less either, or think that I love one more than another. In a later letter, of September 1824, addressed to us both, he repeated the same warning against self- esteem, and said : — We are not to judge too harshly of others, who may have had bad examples or other disadvantages elsewhere. If there were no evil in the world, there would be no reason why we should pray to be delivered from it. But so, you know, we have been taught to pray, and by Him, who Himself prayed His Father to deliver us from the evil, but not to take us out of the world. Even now you see, and you will still see (I trust more and more clearty), that we are living in the midst of it. This is therefore the point on which we are to be on our guard. And if we consent not to it, nor suffer ourselves to be led to do the thing we disapprove, God will deliver us from the evil that we behold, and from all its evil consecpiences, both in this world chap, vi FAMILY EVENTS 81 and in the next. And more than that, He will make us the happy means, if we earnestly seek to do His will, of extending the same deliverance to many, who shall learn to think or act otherwise than they now do. Depend upon it, such will he the result. But in this you must not forget that you are not called upon to he teachers yet, but you are now only to continue good boys, watchful, diligent, and attentive learners. " Discendo docebitis ; et, si salvi vos esse velitis, aliis saluti eritis." 1 While my brother William and myself were still together at Rugby, some family events of importance happened. My Grandmother, Mrs. Palmer, died on the 3rd July 1824, having survived the rest of her generation ; happy in death as in life, happy in all her children. On her death, the home in Gloucester Place was broken up. My Aunt Elizabeth, preferring to be within reach of friends, to whose society she had been accustomed in London, and of her brothers who lived there or in its neighbourhood, took a house in Great Cumberland Street, where, as long as she lived, she always gave a home to such of us as from time to time visited London. My Aunt Mary came to live in my Father's Rectory house at Finmere ; where she remained till the end of his life, full of good works and labours of love towards all his people, and a second mother to ourselves. I have known few women in whose character all the best qualities of human nature were so happily blended. She had an excellent understanding, and a good store of know- ledge, to which she added continually by readiDg. She was cheerful, sociable, hospitable, always the 1 You will teach by learning ; and if you would be saved your- selves, you will help to save others. VOL. I G 82 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i same; full of practical good sense and consistent piety, and absolutely unselfish. Her devotion to my Father and Mother, and her kindness and generosity to us, were unbounded. The atmosphere of her house was what Plato calls " a breeze bringing health from wholesome places " ; 1 it was impossible to be in her presence without being better for it. She was eleven years older than my Father ; and my recollec- tion of her only goes back to a time when she was no longer young ; but she had always a fine countenance, expressive of her character, and she must have been very attractive in her youth. There was a floating tradition among us, which I cannot trace to its origin, that there had been an attachment between her and Sir John Moore, the hero of Corunna, who certainly was acquainted with the Nazing family, and to whose good offices my Grandmother commended my uncle Edward in Egypt. If there was any foundation for that belief, we were gainers by her remaining single, what- ever the cause may have been. It tends to confirm the idea, that I do not remember her mentioning Sir John Moore's name, nor am I sure that my Father ever spoke of him to us, as he did of most other notable men whom he had personally known. It was shortly before my Aunt Mary settled at Finmere, at the beginning of 1825, that my uncle Ralph Palmer, the youngest of my Grandfather's family, went to India as Chief-Justice of Madras. He had been called to the Bar in 1808, and had 1 wcT7rep avpa (pepovcra cnro xP r ] a " r "' v T " 7rwv vyieiav. — Plato Republ. lib. iii. cap. 12. chap, vi FAMILY EVENTS 83 practised in the Court of Chancery. He was then a bachelor ; and, as is often the case with the youngest, was a favourite with all the family. Of his character and principles there is good evidence in prayers which he used daily, and which were found among his papers when he died. " Teach me " (he prayed) " the way to execute justice, and to maintain truth. Let no harsh, im- patient, or angry feeling ever enter my into heart, but clothe me at all times and upon all occasions with meekness, humility, and charity." And he concluded with a petition that, in whatever cases, civil or criminal, he might be called upon to sit in judgment, the administration of justice in his hands might shine to God's houour and glory, to the credit and praise of his country, to the lasting good of his fellow-creatures, and to the profit of his own soul, so that, as to all those things, he might have a good conscience when the time came to be himself judged. In another prayer he adapted to his own use one found among his mother's papers (dated in 1808, but left unaltered at her death), in which she implored God's blessing upon her children, that He would be pleased to unite them in the close union of unreserved friendship and affection, that all might be kindly indulgent towards the infirmities and failings of each other, and by reciprocal acts of kindness cement a union to end only with their lives ; and that He would enlighten their understanding and teach them His way, and not suffer the temptations and allurements of this world to seduce them from His service ; but that His 84 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i power might sustain and strengthen them amidst the difficulties with which they might be surrounded ; so that, continuing His faithful servants here, they might, through their Redeemer's atonement and mediation, be in the end partakers of the happiness of His kingdom. Such was my Uncle Ralph then ; and his later life was answerable to his own and his mother's prayers. CHAPTER VII WINCHESTER 1825-1830 In June of that year, 1825, I went with my Father to the annual election at Winchester College, as a candi- date for a place on the Foundation. There was no real examination at that time. Each candidate had to construe a few lines in some Greek or Latin book, in which he was prepared, and to say " All people that on earth do dwell" (without any pretence of intonation), in reply to an inquiry whether he could sing. The nominations were settled beforehand ; each of the six electors nominating in turn, according to their seniority, until a roll was completed, suffi- cient to supply all vacancies, which within the limits of reasonable probability might occur in the course of the following year. I was nominated, among others ; but the interest put in motion for me had not been sufficient to obtain a place on the list high enough to give me any real chance. I stood once, and only once again, with the same result ; which I did not on my own account regret, though, for the sake of my 86 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i parents, and my brothers and sisters, it would have been well, if the burden on my Father's means could have been diminished. After the election of 1825, it was settled that I was to enter the school as a Commoner, upon the first vacancy. The members of the school were then limited to two hundred ; seventy scholars on the Foundation, and one hundred and thirty Commoners, all of whom were boarders in a range of buildings connected with the Headmaster's house, and close to the College. No vacancy occurred till the end of November, about three weeks before the Christmas holidays ; but my Father thought it better to send me at once, though for so short a time. I was placed in the " Senior Part of the Fifth," the next class below the highest, where I was ex- empted from fagging, and not liable to change of place ; a position nearly corresponding with my last place at Rugby. Dr. Huntingford, Bishop of Here- ford (then very old), was Warden ; David Williams (afterwards Warden of New College), a man of admir- able taste, and a very good scholar for that day, — handsome, dignified, courteous, a good Christian and Churchman, and a thorough gentleman, of sound judgment, and great kindness of heart, — had recently succeeded to the Headmastership, having been for some years previously Second Master. Charles Henry Ridding, father of my son-in-law, the Bishop of Southwell, shrewd, clever, and popular, and a very efficient teacher, was Second Master. Edward Twisleton, afterwards highly distinguished at Oxford, chap, vii WINCHESTER 87 and known in political and literary circles as one of the most accomplished men of his time, was " Senior Praefect in Commoners " ; and Frederick Wickham, one of a family of whom many members have done honour to Winchester and good service to the cause of education, and who himself in due time became Second Master of the school under Dr. Moberly, was senior in College, and " Praefect of Hall." I remained a Commoner at Winchester till the summer of 1830 ; obtaining my share of the honours of the school ; and, when I left, was captain of the school, and Senior Praefect in Commoners. Before describing the school as it then was, I will speak of some things which have since undergone less change. The genius loci was a powerful factor in my educa- tion there. Winchester lies in a hollow valley between the chalk hills through which the river Itchen, clearest of transparent trout- streams, makes its way ; a valley green with stately trees, especially round the Cathe- dral and the College, where the river divides itself into two main branches, one flowing under the College walls, the other navigable at that time for barges to Southampton. Each channel, after passing the College, gives off smaller branches, intersecting the water-meadows below the city with a shining net- work of streams. In the heart of the city, standing near to and due north of the College, is the Cathe- dral, externally plain, massive, and majestic, with nothing to break its long line from west to east except one low Norman tower, at the point where the 88 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i transepts meet the choir and nave. The interior is beyond description sublime ; of vast length, all (except the Lady chapel behind the great altar-screen) symmetrically and uninterruptedly seen ; the whole roof of the nave vaulted in rich stone tracery ; that of the choir decorated with coloured bosses and shields ; the high clustered piers and arches, both of the nave and choir, of the early and noble perpen- dicular style of Wykeham's time, and of such propor- tions as to give to the whole church the effect of great height, though it is not actually so high as Westminster Abbey, and some others. I well re- member the effect on my mind of this glorious build- ing, when I first went with the other boys to the Cathedral service. Nothing that I had seen before made a similar impression. It was like a heavenly revelation ; as if I had received the gift of a new sense. Nor did that impression 'fade away; it is renewed, in some faint measure, as often as I enter Winchester Cathedral to this day. There were also some things within that church, which (distracting, I fear, my attention from old Dean Rennell's sermons) used sometimes to set me dreaming of ancient days. Over our heads where we sat, on the ledges of two screens, dividing on either side the east end of the choir from its side aisles, was a row of antique -looking chests, with inscriptions telling us that they contained the bones of Anglo- Saxon and Danish kings. And before our faces, almost within touch, was the plain uninscribed tomb of arched stone, just below the steps rising towards chap, vii WINCHESTER 89 the altar, under which tradition reported the remains of the Red King, slain during his sports in the New Forest, and brought without honour to Winchester, to rest. Besides these objects, well calculated to excite a susceptible imagination, there was the chantry, enclosing the grave, with the noble recum- bent statue, of William of Wykeham, meeting the eyes of his scholars as often as they entered the Cathedral by the south door, as they did every Sunday ; and, behind the high altar, the richly- coloured and decorated altar-tombs of Waynflete, in whose college at Oxford I was soon to have an interest, and of Cardinal Beaufort, represented by Shakespeare as dying without a sign of hope ; but of whom better thoughts mio\ht be entertained at Winchester, where he founded a "hospital for noble poverty," in connection with the beautiful Norman church built at St. Cross by King Stephen's brother, Henry de BJois. On the east side of the valley of the Itchen an escarpment of chalk-cliff, called St. Giles' Hill, descends steeply towards the city ; and a little south of this, just clear of the town upon the same side of the river, was the Commoners' playground, a large field used for our games of cricket and football, which, except when certain matches were played, were then entirely separate from those of the boys on the Foundation. Less than a mile lower down the stream, and on the same side of it, is St. Catherine's Hill, a detached round eminence rising straight from the water's edge, grassy and flowery, with a deep 90 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i trench (British or Danish) encircling it near the top, and on the summit a clump of beech trees, with a few firs, conspicuous from afar. From this point the whole city and valley, with St. Cross below, and the opposite ranges of downs, — one of them called " Oliver's battery," where Cromwell's forces were posted during the civil war, — are distinctly seen. It was to this hill that we went, in those days, for exer- cise and pure air, at stated hours of the morning and afternoon twice in every week, College boys and Commoners together, two by two, all marshalled in regular file under command of the " Praefect of Hall," with an occasional roll-call on the way by the Headmaster. The College, founded for seventy scholars and a few choristers or servitor-boys (in which respects it still remains unchanged), was built of the chalk-flints of the country, originally, no doubt, in a style worthy of the founder ; and the hall, cloisters, and chapel retained their original character. But other parts of the buildings had undergone alterations for the worse. The great schoolroom, in which the College boys and Commoners met together for their daily class-lessons, was a brick building of the latter part of the seven- teenth century, in front of the College " meads," or playground. There, the work and the classification were the same for all ; but at other times (except at "Hills") the separation between those who were and those who were not on the Foundation was complete. Friendships were, of course, formed between some boys of both orders ; but their general lives, habits, chap, vii WINCHESTER gi and associations, were distinct and dissimilar ; and in each, as might be expected, a strong esprit de corps prevailed. The Commoners, whatever opinion they may have entertained of their own superiority, were in almost all respects worse off than the College boys. They were all crowded together in a large eighteenth- century brick building like a barrack, wholly destitute of architectural pretension, and of Spartan simplicity in all its arrangements. It formed, with the Head- master's house, three sides of a quadrangle ; a high wall, at the back of the Warden's stables, making the fourth side ; against which, within the " court," grew one or two large elm trees. Opposite to that wall was a cloister, with a sleeping-gallery above it ; and against the blank wall of the Headmaster's house, a small open space appropriated to the game of " fives," there played with the hand. On the south side, from which we passed into the College precincts at school- time only (being kept separate from them under lock and key at other times) were the kitchen and buttery, the stairs leading to the principal dormitories, the " Commoners' Hall," a small and inconvenient study for the " Commoner tutors," and another, smaller still, and still less convenient, for the six senior " praefects." Except the tutors' study (there were three "Commoner tutors," who helped the younger boys in the preparation of their lessons), there were then no class-rooms, and except that for the six senior praefects, there were no studies. At Rugby, every boy had his study, which was, no doubt, more com- 92 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i fortable ; but my experience of both systems leads me to think that, in that respect, the loss of comfort at Winchester was counterbalanced by the check im- posed upon some evils of a serious kind, detrimental to morals as well as discipline. The dormitories (two in long galleries over the hall and cloisters, and the third in a building called " Wickham's," forming with the Headmaster's house, the frontage towards College Street) were fairly well arranged, and shut off from access by the boys during the day. Some place for schoolboys to sit and prepare their lessons in there must, of course, always be ; and in Commoners of my time there was the large dining- hall used for all our meals. It was not well lighted, nor was it remarkable for sweetness or cleanliness ; and except at certain hours, when it was the duty of the "praefects" to keep order, and a tutor, or perhaps the Headmaster, might come in to see that duty performed, every kind of amusement, noise, and disturbance went on there, especially in wet or cold weather. It was the only sheltered place where the mass of Commoners could congregate within the walls, when driven by stress of weather from the open court or quadrangle. All round this hall were cupboards or bureaus, set against the walls, one for each boy, which we called toys ; with a massive fixed bench before them, on which we had to sit when in our places. There we kept our books, writing materials, and whatever else belonged to us (except clothes) ; there we read and wrote, all except the six senior praefects, who enjoyed the more commodious and chap, vii WINCHESTER 93 dignified accommodation of desks in the small study- already mentioned. What added to the discomfort of these arrange- ments was the length of time during which the boys were, on most days, confined within walls. Of their only playground, "Commoners' field," more than half a mile off on the way to St. Catherine's Hill, I have spoken when describing the city and its surroundings. To this, and to "hills," we had free access throughout the day on Saints' days, which were whole holidays ; and when these did not occur, during a considerable part of two days in every week, which we called "remedies" (they now spell it "remidays"); — some short lessons being required on such days. But on the other four days in the week we were only allowed one hour, from 12 to 1 p.m., to go to our playground, or elsewhere beyond the walls of Commoners, for air or exercise. When we did get out, the regulations as to bounds were reasonable enough. We might, practically, go where we pleased (so that we kept outside the city), on the left bank of the navigable branch of the river. The streets of the city (except one or two shops in the street where the College buildings stand, and which communicates with the city on one side only) were wisely prohibited to us, and the prohibition was strictly enforced. Our meals were not well managed. The breakfast hour was too late, after going to "hills" on holidays or " remedies," and on other days after a long lesson in school which followed immediately upon morning chapel. The hour for rising was early. The dinner 94 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i hour was too soon after the visits naturally paid to the pastrycook or the fruiterer during the one hour of freedom which immediately preceded it. The food (not delicately served) was, no doubt, good and wholesome ; the servants (not too numerous) were exemplary for their civility and patience ; but the whole accessories were disagreeable to those who were at all nice or fastidious, which boys, even rough boys, are very apt to be. It would be far from just to blame our good Head- master for what was defective in those arrangements. He was going on with a system long established, which had been very recently handed over to him by his predecessor ; he was by no means unwilling to improve it. The traditions of the place were, on some points, as inflexible as the laws of the Medes and Persians ; they knew only two masters, and did not recognise the possibility of any boarding-house not under the Headmaster's direct care and control. Even the boys for whose benefit improvements might have been made would have disliked and (as far as they could) resisted them, with the whole force of their strong, if irrational, conservative instincts. The one thing which they could not endure was to borrow anything from what they regarded as the manners and customs of private schools. One improvement Dr. Williams did make, which added not a little to the comfort of all, and especially of the younger and smaller boys ; but it was met, when introduced, by a positive insurrection. On our return to school one autumn after the holidays we found breakfast laid out chap, vii WINCHESTER 95 for us in civilised style, with tea, sugar, milk, bread and butter, etc., and all needful crockery, ready provided, and servants to wait upon everybody ; the former practice having been to serve out from the buttery to every boy his regulated allowance of bread, butter and milk, everything else being found by ourselves, and the little boys " fagging " for those of their elders who, by the custom of the school, had a right to such service. It might have been expected that the boys would be grateful for this change ; on the contrary, they rose en masse on the first morning, and broke the things designed for their comfort. Dr. Williams's sound judgment and kindness of heart persisted, notwithstanding this discouragement, in the much-needed reform, which extended to our suppers also. How he punished the principal offenders I do not recollect ; it was certainly not with any more than necessary severity. It is needless to add that the whole state of thing's which I have been describing has long since dis- appeared. In Dr. Moberly's time, the accident of a fire gave opportunity for a reconstruction of the Commoners' buildings, and for some other improve- ments ; and, under Dr. Bidding, the number of Commoners was increased from 130 to 330, distributed among nine boarding-houses built with all necessary arrangements for comfort in the outskirts of the city, within a convenient distance from the college, under as many " house-masters," — the Headmaster no longer taking boarders. The number of assistant masters was at the same time enlarged, so as to be made fully 96 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i equal to the wants of all the departments of instruc- tion in the school ; and the Commoners' building of Dr. Moberly's day has given place to an adequate number of class-rooms and lecture-rooms, an excellent library, and a limited number of studies, etc. A new and spacious playground by the river-side, adjoining to and communicating with the college " meads," was at the same time provided by Dr. Bidding's munifi- cence ; so that the two classes of boys are no longer separated in their games, and the compulsory walk up " hills " twice a week has been discontinued. A gymnasium, a covered fives court, and a good bathing- place not far from the College, have also been provided ; and other improvements have been made, which it would be much too long to enumerate. The College boys are now all chosen, after a strict examination, by merit ; and they constitute, in intellect and attainment, the elite of the school, which in my time was not the case with the greater number of them. The discipline of the school was in 1825-30 (and is to a great extent still) dependent on the " praefects" — a certain number of boys in the "sixth book" (as the highest form in the school was then called), to whom were entrusted definite powers with a corresponding responsibility. Of these there were then eighteen in College, but only eight — a number since from time to time enlarged — in Commoners. One of their privileges was a recognised power of fagging. Some persons confound this with bullying ; but there can be no greater mistake. A regulated system of fagging is the best security against chap, vii WINCHESTER 97 tyranny by the strong and thoughtless idlers, who are always to be found in a large school, and whose place in it is generally low in comparison with their growth. It was from this class of boys that all the bullying of which I ever had experience, either at Rugby or at Winchester (and it was sometimes trying enough), proceeded. All praefects, of course, are not equally good-natured, or equally discreet ; but I remember only one instance of a very intem- perate use of power by a Commoner praefect, and that was under circumstances of great provocation and sudden excitement. The system always worked well when the praefects had physical strength and moral courage, as was generally the case. It was only when those conditions were wanting (the latter of which was rarely found in that position without support from the former) that it broke down. This happened in 1829, when I was myself a praefect. We were a weak set altogether — I do not mean intellectually, but physically — and none of us had that skill or reputation in school games which among schoolboys goes further than intellect. William George Ward (destined to celebrity in the field of ecclesiastical controversy) was senior praefect ; good- humoured, and not until then unpopular, but awkward, eccentric, and unlike other boys ; a butt for practical jokes rather than an object of fear. Some of the bolder juniors resolved to try their strength with him, and when one day he called for fagging in the hall a spirited and popular junior boy, he found himself defied. When he attempted by VOL. I H 98 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i the usual means to enforce his authority, the whole mass of juniors rose in rebellion, rushing upon him, springing upon his neck, and clinging to his legs and arms, so as to make it difficult for him, even with the assistance of his weaker colleagues who were present (he was himself able-bodied enough, but unskilful in all bodily exercises), to get out of the hall without suffering worse damage than the loss of his coat-tails. This affair resulted in some unfortunate expulsions, and a public controversy between the late Sir Alexander Malet (whose brother was one of the victims) and Dr. Williams ; and (what was worse still) in a long-continued breach of good-feeling and friendly intercourse between the praefects and their juniors, the consequence of which was that discipline permanently suffered, and the praefects deservedly lost, and did not in my time regain, the confidence of their kind Headmaster. I pass from the rough bark and thorns of the tree of knowledge, as then planted at Winchester, to the intellectual training which constituted its life. Of this the general method, and probably much of the detail, had been transmitted from the last century — perhaps from remoter times. Those who profited by it may be pardoned if they feel less sure of its inferiority within the range of its aims to the method which has replaced it, than they do of the improve- ment of manners and refinement, which admits of no doubt. It is probable that there may be in the teachers greater attainments and more exactness of knowledge, and upon the scholars a somewhat higher chap, vii WINCHESTER 99 pressure, and the range of subjects in which in- struction is given has been much and very beneficially enlarged. But if much has been gained in some directions, it is not impossible that in others something may have been lost. Dr. Arnold, gener- ally acknowledged to have been the leader in the reform of our public schools, received his own training at Winchester, and to a considerable extent recognised in the Winchester system of his day a model worthy of imitation. The classification of the school was a survival from some period when there were six classes, some of them (if not all) subdivided. In my time also there were six divisions, which were called (reckoning downwards) "Sixth Book," "Senior," "Middle," and " Lower," parts of the Fifth, and " Senior " and " Middle," parts of the Fourth. The lowest part of the Fourth, and the Third, Second, 1 and First forms had all become extinct. The Founder was desirous that his scholars should be religiously brought up ; and accordingly we went every morning (rising early) to his beautiful chapel, and twice a day on Sundays and other festivals, when there was choral service, etc., and sometimes a sermon ; we also went to the Litany and morning sermon on Sundays in the Cathedral. But the Cathedral sermons were above our mark, and those in the College chapel (by the chaplains) were, perhaps, below it. The Warden and masters did not 1 In the printed " rolls," or lists of the college and school, the choristers were called "Secunda Classis." ioo FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i then preach to the boys, as has been since done with excellent results. The religious instruction (except when boys were prepared for confirmation) formed part of the ordinary course of lessons in the school, particularly on "remedies." The Diatessaron 1 was read regularly ; and in Lent we sometimes read Bishop Lowth's lectures upon the sacred poetry of the Old Testament, and sometimes Grotius, or some other Latin writer, on the evidences of the Christian religion. More, perhaps, might have been done than was then attempted to counteract the levity and thoughtlessness, and to strengthen boys against the moral temptations, which must always be dangerous elements in the atmosphere of a public school. This, however, cannot be done by books only ; and it would be unjust to the memory of Dr. Williams, and of such tutors as the late Mr. Edward Wickham, not to acknowledge that their personal influence was always felt as an encouragement to what was right, and a protection from evil to those who had courage to make a stand against it. For secular learniDg (except Longinus, and some modern Latin literature, such as Vida, and Trapp's lectures on ancient poetry, in which we were, I think, singular) our books were much the same as those used in other schools ; but in their selection especial regard was paid to two considerations — the cultivation of taste, and the exclusion, as far as possible, of offensive matter. The greatest pains were bestowed upon Homer, Virgil, and Horace, whose whole works (with 1 A synoptic arrangement of the text of all the four Gospels. chap, vn WINCHESTER 101 a few omissions in the case of Horace) we read over twice or oftener while I was there. Next to these came Cicero, Livy, and Juvenal ; to which were added, in the upper part of the school, Pindar, and some of the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek orators, and parts of the Greek historians. Of Ovid, and the other elegiac poets, we read little ; and Tacitus (I know not for what reason) was not read at all in the school. Great reliance was then placed on composition, original chiefly, though translations from the Spectator, etc., into Latin prose, were also required. We had to do a " verse task " and a " prose task " every week, the former in Virgilian hexameters, or in " longs and shorts," or some Horatian metre, for which we were permitted, and indeed encouraged (if so inclined), occasionally to substitute English verses. We were also required, on two or three evenings in the week, to produce upon a set subject an epigram of six or more lines, called a " Vulgus" in elegiac metre, for which exercise we found models in Martial (though not read in the school), and in a tasteful collection of Oxford academical compositions in that style, of the age which preceded prizes and examina- tions for honours, called " Carmina quaedam Quadra- gesimalia." l The Musae Etonenses were also not unknown to us. "Vulgus writing" was no bad discipline for condensation of thought and terseness of expression ; and it cultivated, in boys who possessed them, the gifts of wit and humour. Other 1 Lent exercises in verse. FUW * ; SW^ 102 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i characteristic exercises of the Winchester of that day were called " Declamations," and " Gatherings." The declamations were in the same form with the old disputations at the universities and the Inns of Court. Three boys in the upper part of the school were appointed, two to maintain or contradict, and the third to leave in doubt, a thesis proposed to them, in Latin prose of their own composition, which they recited publicly in the school. A dull performance it almost always was ; but it -required some use of the logical faculty, and formed the habit of inquiring into and arguing about the reasons of things. "Gatherings" were English notes, compiled or collected by ourselves, on certain portions of our school lessons ; the choice of matter and manner being left entirely to our own taste and discretion. This exercise (which I always found interesting) led us to search for information on the subjects of which we had been reading, wherever we could find it in books accessible to us ; it stimulated also the critical faculty. These kinds of exercises were for boys in the two highest forms ; but there was another peculiar and remarkable exercise in those days for the "middle" and "junior " parts of the Fifth, called " Standing-up." This consisted in learning by heart, and repeating to the Second Master, during the interval (which we called "cloister- time") between Easter and the summer holidays, as many lines of some Latin or Greek poet, selected by ourselves, as each boy chose ; construing also such parts of them as might be chap, vii WINCHESTER 103 required, in order to test our knowledge of their meaning. At the end of " cloister-time," the better performances of this kind were rewarded by promotion in the class or in the school, and the best of all by prizes, which it was an object of considerable ambition to obtain. Very extraordinary indeed were some of those performances, especially when the age of the boys (seldom more than fourteen or fifteen) is taken into account. I remember more than one instance of a boy taking up the whole Mneid, and passing suc- cessfully through every test of his memory or his in- telligence which the Second Master (and Mr. Kidding was not a man to be imposed upon) thought fit to apply. The most wonderful case of all was that of Henry Butler, a younger son of the then Earl of Carrick, who afterwards went into the army, acquired early fame by the heroic defence of Silistria, and was among the gallant Wykehamists who died in the Crimean War. He took up, and passed well in, all Homer's Iliad. There were no open scholarships, or rewards of that nature, at Winchester in those days. But the class prizes (valuable books, given by the first Duke of Buckingham and Chandos) and two gold medals given annually by the King — which Her present Majesty continues — for the best verse and prose compositions on set subjects, Latin and English in alternate years, were objects of keen competition. The successful compositions, and two speeches (Latin and English), for which silver medals were given, were recited at election time before the whole school, and 104 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i a numerous company of visitors ; and at Easter also we had annual " speeches," — recitations, such as are still usual at most other schools, of selected pieces from classical authors in various languages, and of voluntary verse exercises (called " Easter tasks "), written by the more ambitious praefects for those occasions. These " speeches " at Easter have been now discontinued ; and the prize recitations at election time have become a dull and spiritless affair. In these respects change does not seem to me to have been improvement. 1 When I entered the school I was backward in physical growth, and of unformed character. My mind was facile, and open to all sorts of impressions, and I yielded too readily to the impulses of self- gratification. I was soon interested in the studies of the place, and formed friendships with several of my schoolfellows, happily with those whose own conduct was exemplary. Three of these— Ward, whom I have already named, Lowe (next to whom I had been placed in the school, and who for some time slept in the same chamber), and Cardwell, one of my most intimate friends through life, about a year my junior — afterwards attained great distinction at Oxford, and still greater in the world. I had been commended to Ward, who was my senior, when I first came to the school. His uncle, Mr. George Henry Ward, of Northwood, in the Isle of Wight, then lived at Twyford, two or three miles below 1 My Father won the King's Gold Medals for English Verse and the English Essay in 1829 and 1830. — S. M. P. chap, vii WINCHESTER [05 Winchester, on the river-side, and within a morning's run from St. Catherine's Hill. When I stood for College in 1825, my Father had been his guest, and his nephew and I had a general invitation to come over on any morning when we could from hills, and get before our return an early, and to us luxurious, breakfast. Of this we often took advantage ; and on Saints' days Mr. Ward frequently asked " leave out " for us. He had a good library, including all Scott's novels and other light standard literature of that day, and the Elizabethan dramatists, reading; which was, on these days of leave out, my greatest delight. It was thus that a friendship arose between me and his nephew, with whom I had little else in common. He was very musical, always humming airs from catches, glees, and operas. I (to my great loss) had no ear at all for music. He had, or professed, a contempt for verses and poetry, delighting to make his own school exercises in that line as ridiculous as possible ; and in my other tastes he did not sympathise. But his remarkable ability manifested itself in Latin prose writing before he left school ; and his total absence of pretension and simplicity of character made it im- possible not to like and esteem him, notwithstanding an uncouth exterior, and a total neglect of the graces, which accompanied him through life. To Robert Lowe (afterwards Lord Sherbrooke) I was under greater intellectual obligations. Both from our place in the school — next to each other — and from other circumstances, we were very much thrown together. I worked hard when it was necessary ; but 106 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i I found, with the grounding which I had received at home, that a little work went a long way, and that I could hold my own generally by merely doing what I liked best. It was fortunate for me that I had the stimulus of a close competition with Lowe, — ambitious, like myself, and possessed of powers which were afterwards to be displayed upon a wider field. A successful rivalry with him was not possible without effort, and the effort was constantly made. We did not always agree, for he was capable then, as since, of saying pungent things ; and certain physical dis- advantages under which he laboured, and which he bravely overcame, sometimes overtasked his high spirit and his naturally generous temper. But our friendship did not suffer upon the whole because we sharpened each other's wits. Cardwell was too far below me in the school to exercise any such influence ; and he left it before his powers had come to sufficient maturity to give promise of his later distinction at the university and in life. But we were early attracted towards each other ; and his family approved and desired the growth of our intimacy. I fear it was not then my habit to do conscientious work for duty's sake as much as for success and praise ; but I desired success, and took pains with my exercises, especially verses and " gatherings," — often beyond the requirements of the school. Of books which did not interest me I read only what I was obliged ; and having no turn for mathematics, and not then appreciating the value of an acquaint- ance with modern languages, I did not attempt them, chap, vii WINCHESTER 107 or anything else which had no bearing, intelligible to me, upon the ordinary course of school lessons. That neglect I have since had much reason to regret. My voluntary reading was English literature — Johnson, Addison, and the whole works of Dryden and Pope, among the rest. It was very much the same with me as to recrea- tion. I did not take pains to excel in games, except football towards the end of my time ; I enjoyed bathing, lazily and luxuriously, in safe places, alone or with one or two companions, but I did not learn to swim. I never cared to be in a crowd, and I liked wandering by myself, or with some kindred spirit, exploring chalk -pits for fossils, or the hills and meadows for the rarer flowers of the chalk formation, or for fine lepidopterous insects (there not uncommon), such as the Puss-Moth, the Ocellated Hawk-moth, and the Scarlet Tiger-moth. It is with feelings very mixed indeed, that I look back upon that part of my life. Intellectually I made progress, sufficient to satisfy and please my parents and friends, and to give me a start at Oxford, in my eighteenth year, better than my brother William had in his sixteenth. For this and for the friendships I formed, and for the fatherly kindness of my teachers, especially Dr. Williams, I am very grateful ; but there were things of more importance than intellectual advancement, as to which I did not deserve the good opinion which others entertained of me. io8 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i To Ralph Charlton Palmer "The Gart, Callander, 1th September 1855. " You are now, I believe, in Sixth Book, and (I suppose) a Praefect. When I look back, through the last twenty-seven years (for it is as long ago as that) to the time when I was first made a praefect, I am much tempted to wish, that the time might come over again, as the recollection of many things which I did, or left undone, then, is painful to me even now, and will be so (I have no doubt) as long as I live. There is, however, no use in such wishes ; but, possibly, it may not be without use for one who recollects, with so much regret, his own faults and errors, to offer a little advice, which may help to save you from having any like cause of regret hereafter. "At a Public School so much depends upon the state of discipline, feeling, and opinion, among the boys, and this is liable to vary so much at different times that what is a comparatively easy position at one time may be an extremely difficult one at another. When I was made praefect, the state of discipline was low and the state of moral opinion and practice in the school was certainly very far from good ; and the praefects, as a body, were then young, and not physic- ally strong, nor looked up to as leaders in the games and popular exercises of the school ; though they were, perhaps, most of them above the average, in point of intellect and intellectual ambition. The result was, that their position was a most difficult one ; I think I chap, vii WINCHESTER 109 have never, in my whole subsequent life, been in a position of anything like equal difficulty ; and the difficulty was, in fact, too much for us all. We failed to overcome it, and it overcame us, not without a serious injury, for some time at all events, to the moral principles and practice of some. Whether your circumstances are likely to be similar, I (of course) do not know ; I hope and trust they may not be quite so bad ; but I am sure there will be plenty of room for the application of some hints which I wish to give you ; and, if you will but write to me confidentially, and will tell me unreservedly of any particular trials or difficulties which may at any time occur to you, I am sure I shall be able to help you, by my experience, to find the right way out of them. " Even under the most favourable circumstances, it cannot be very easy for a youth of sixteen or seven- teen to use authority with good sense, moderation, conscientiousness ; to avoid any foolish assumption of dignity, unsuitable to his age and personal weight among his schoolfellows, and yet to maintain the proper respect due to his real position ; to be honest and keep faith with masters, and at the same time to be on friendly and comfortable terms with all classes of his schoolfellows. Yet this is what a praefect must do, if he would wish to be happy, and to possess the good opinion of himself and others. The younger and smaller a boy is, when he is made a praefect, the greater becomes both the difficulty and the necessity of observing the right line, in all these respects ; for his position, without adequate personal strength to no FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS parti back it, is, unavoidably, in some degree a false one, and is likely to be so viewed by the inferiors. His inexperience and immaturity of character may tempt him either to be unduly elated by the position of power, and to use it rashly, jealously, and without consistency or discretion ; or else to shrink weakly and timidly from exercising it upon those occasions on which duty calls for its exercise. The consequences of failure, in either of these two lines, at sixteen, will never cease to be felt, as long as a boy remains at the school ; and the loss of self-respect, and of inward comfort, which such a failure brings with it, is likely to be accompanied by a great diminution of the power of resistance in the presence of every other kind of temptation. " 1. The first thing I would recommend to you is, to make as sparing a use of your authority, in all respects, at the beginning, and to continue to make as sparing a use of it as you possibly can, till you feel that the novelty of the position has worn off, and (that in your own eyes and those of the inferiors) you are no longer a ' new praefect.' This line of conduct should be adhered to, very carefully, during the first half-year at all events. Afterwards, I should still advise you always to take care that you are on the side of moderation, rather than the reverse ; but this rule is more especially necessary at first, when inferiors will be apt to suspect you of making too much of your power. "2. The next rule is, to make as little use of your hands or stick as possible, at all times ; and when you chap, vii WINCHESTER in call 'junior,' or tell a junior to do anything, to re- member that you and he are both gentlemen's sons, and speak in the tone of a gentleman ; and always avoid the least approach to bullying, or to harshness and unkindness of manner, especially towards little boys. " 3. The next rule is, to associate, as much as you have the opportunity of doing, with the praefects, and especially with those of them whose reputation for principle, good sense, and good nature stands highest in the school ; but, at the same time, on no account whatever to cut, or withdraw yourself from the society of, those among the inferiors who were in the habit of associating with you before you were a praefect, but make as little difference as possible in your behaviour to them, consistently with the prin- ciple that you must not separate yourself from the praefects, or acquire the reputation of forsaking their society for that of inferiors. " 4. When you see an inferior committing any serious breach of morals or discipline, of which you ought, as a praefect, to take notice (and I need not tell you what sort of cases I refer to, for your own conscience will), I should advise you first to speak to him about it privately, and tell him that, if it happens again, you will be obliged to punish or report him ; and, as a general rule, to be satisfied with this sort of warning the first time. If the case is unusually serious, or if the same thing happens more than once, so that you cannot (without being yourself in fault) avoid doing something more, I U2 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS parti should recommend you to mention it, either to the Commoner Praefects as a bod}", or to any one of the older and more experienced Commoner Praefects who is generally respected in the school, and whom you know to be in the habit of doing his duty. Avoid the necessity of either using corporal punishment, or of reporting the case to Moberly, if any milder course will do ; but do not shrink from either of these ex- tremities (of which I should always prefer the latter to the former, unless the public opinion and practice of the school obliged me to do otherwise), when your own conscience plainly tells you that it is your duty. " 5. Do not make much of trifling offences, or petty breaches of rule or discipline which involve no moral fault on the part of inferiors. A few words, or one or two very light touches of the stick or hand at the utmost, will always be enough for such faults as these ; and, if at any time an inferior provokes you by any apparent want of respect towards yourself, be very much on your guard against punishing him under the influence of pride, passion, or any other unworthy personal feeling. It is much better, in all these small matters, to avoid seeing the fault, or taking the offence, if you possibly can. But, in cases of any plain breach of morals (such as drinking, or the like), or of any great and wilful breach of discipline (such as shirking out, or staying out, in school-time or when the gates are locked, or going up into the town without leave), or of cruelty to the smaller boys or habitual bullying {especially at night and in the bedrooms), in all these cases, you cannot chap, vii WINCHESTER 113 be too strict, or too conscientious ; though, in these cases, as all others, there will be constant need of discretion ; and no case can be so serious, that, if the end (which is prevention for the future) can be attained by a kind admonition in private, better than, or as well as, by giving up the offender to punishment, this course may not be honestly taken, provided no scandal follows. " I have not thought it necessary to say anything about personal cleanliness and neatness in dress, etc., because the importance of this must be obvious to you ; nor about the expediency of your playing games, etc., because all boys are not, naturally, alike as to that; nor about the example which you ought to set in your own conduct, in and out of the school. All that I can safely leave to your own good sense. — Ever your affectionate cousin, " Roundell Palmer. "P.S. — I have hardly left myself any room to say that you may, at any time, ask me for any little help which you may want in your money matters ; and you shall always have it. I should like you to keep yourself out of debt ; and, if you now owe any debts, I will gladly pay them for you." vol. 1 CHAPTER VIII OXFORD — OLDER FRIENDS THERE — " UNION "- " RAMBLER " 1830-1833 I was matriculated at Oxford, as a Commoner of Christ Church, in the spring of 1830; but after- wards, while still at school, I stood for an open scholarship at Trinity, and was elected. After the long vacation of that year, I began my residence in the University. The transition from Winchester to Oxford was like a new beginning of life. The liberty and independence, the refinement amounting to luxury, the society, the intellectual atmosphere, the higher tone of opinion and feeling, were all delightful. No young man could have gone up to Oxford with greater advantages ; none, certainly, could have enjoyed more than I did the years of undergraduate life. There I met again my principal school friends. Lowe was at University and Ward at Christ Church ; Cardwell, in 1831, got a scholarship at Balliol. Hal- chap, viii OXFORD 1830-1S33 115 ford Vaughan, who had taken a liking to me at Rugby, and Liddell — a Charterhouse man, whose father and my uncle, Henry Roundell, had been friends from their youth, and whose acquaintance I made at Fringford — were at Christ Church, of which Liddell was afterwards Dean. My brother William had just taken his degree with high honour (a first in classics), obtaining about the same time the Chancellor's prize for an unusually good Latin poem on " Tyre." Among his intimate friends were two of the most brilliant men of their time — Charles Wordsworth, student of Christ Church, and Thomas Lesdi Claugh- toD, the glory of Rugby, and of my own College. They admitted me, from the first, to a share in their affections. Others of that generation of Trinity scholars, with whom I at once formed friendships to be dissolved only by death, were John Thomas (elected at the same time with myself), the cleverest and most attractive representative of Shrewsbury, then foremost among the public schools in critical learning ; Nutcombe Oxenham, from Harrow (after- wards Fellow of Exeter, and Vicar of Modbury in Devonshire), singularly bright and pure-minded ; and George Kettilby Richards, a typical Etonian, who wore, in a green old age, honours won by many years of public service. Corpus, Balliol, and Trinity, were the only colleges in Oxford, whose scholarships were then open to free competition. The Corpus men did not mix much with the rest of the University ; their best days, the days of Keble, Arnold, and John Taylor Coleridge, n6 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS parti were past. Balliol had an advantage in its open Fellowships, which, like those of Oriel, attracted the best men from all Colleges. But the Trinity scholars held their own against all comers. From their ranks, Herman Merivale and Edward Twisleton had lately taken Balliol Fellowships ; and, not very long before, John Henry Newman had been elected to Oriel. If the prize exercises recited in the theatre might be taken as a test, there was no college whose scholars for some time before, and for several years after, the beginning of my residence obtained so large a share of those distinctions. Among our tutors at Trinity were two remarkable men — in almost every respect the opposite of each other — Thomas Short and Isaac Williams. Short was a naturally clever man, of shrewd masculine sense, and a caustic ready wit, of great generosity also, and kindness of heart. He was not a perfect scholar, but he understood what scholarship was, and was a very good judge of it in others. He had been idle when young, fishing when he ought to have been reading ; afterwards, he was for some time an assistant master at Rugby. 1 He was an old- fashioned Tory and Churchman ; rather too un- clerical a clergyman ; his life was blameless, but his speech was not always decorous. But we liked him, and thought much of his criticism, his praise, or blame, and he never lost our respect. He continued tutor during all the best days of Trinity, 1 Short was one vote behind Arnold, when the latter was elected Headmaster of Rugby. chap, viii OXFORD 1830-1S33 n 7 and retained his Fellowship till he died, a very old man. 1 Isaac Williams was not his equal in the gifts necessary for understanding and managing young men, nor was he a man of so strong and manly a natural constitution ; he was not, therefore (unless to a few), so good a tutor. In genius, however, and acquirements, and in. those moral qualities which raise men above the general level of their kind, he stood higher. He was a Welshman, of shy but warm temperament, subdued by religious fervour and con- stant self-discipline to great modesty and humility. He had gained a Chancellor's prize for a Latin poem of much originality and power, and was a first-class 1 In a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost, with illustrations by John Martin, 1827, now in the Library of Trinity College, Oxford, is inscribed — Niso Rev. Thomae Short, A.M. Amico, praeceptori, Optimo, carissimo, d. d. Roundell Palmer, June 1834. and this letter is inserted — My dear Sir — I hope you will not refuse to accept the book which accompanies this note, as a slight proof of the sense which I have, and which I hope I ever shall have, of the exceeding kindness which I have found at your hands, since I have been a member of the College. Few things, I assure you, have contributed so much to the happiness of my undergraduate life ; and there are few things from which I promise myself more pleasure than the continuance of your friendship hereafter. — Believe me, my dear sir, ever most affectionately yours, Rouxdell Palmer. 17th May 1834. n8 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS parti man ; distinctions of which Short could not boast, He was learned in the Fathers, author of several devotional works esteemed by a large circle of readers, and a contributor of essays, some of which raised a storm of controversy, to the Tracts for the Times. He was also an EDglish poet, worthy (in the opinion of some) to be placed by the side of Keble ; whom, however, he did not resemble, being unequal, and often diffuse, though at other times rising to heights which ought to preserve his works from oblivion, and which his admirers, of whom I was one, thought equal if not superior, as poetry, to Keble's best passages. It was expected by all his friends that he would succeed Keble in the Pro- fessorship of Poetry.- But the opportunity did not come till a time of great religious excitement, when the tide was fast turning against the " tract-writers " ; and although Isaac Williams was zealously supported (I shall mention hereafter the part which I myself took on that occasion), a gentleman not known to have any poetical gifts, though a man of fine scholar- ship and undoubted ability, was, for theological reasons, preferred to him. He married, fell into bad health, and died prematurely. To be a teacher of under- graduates was not his vocation, but he was loved by those who knew him best, and held in reverence by all. In my Oxford recollections, the pleasures of friendship take the first place ; and the dividing lines, which separate the first from the second part of my undergraduate life, were determined, more than anything else, by the departure from the chap, viii OXFORD 1830-1833 119 University of my older friends — those of my brother William's Oxford generation — after taking their degrees ; and by the succession to them of new friends, younger than myself. As long as those of the older generation remained, I sat at their feet ; when they were gone, I seemed to become a magnus Apollo to others. Each time had its charms ; the earlier friendships had in them more of reverence, or, to use the Greek word, of alSws, they were certainly not the least permanent. The later had, perhaps, more of impulse and excitement ; imagination had more place in them. Here, at the outset of my Oxford life, I must dedicate a few pages to those who were my brother's friends as well as my own : to Charles "Wordsworth, Thomas Legh Claughton, and John Thomas. My Father well understood the value of such friendships. Writing to me of Claughton, in the summer of 1833, he said : ; ' It has often been the fashion to say, the days spent at college were among the happiest of a man's life ; and I feel assured the friendships you have both formed will make you and William consider it so." He wrote also to my Uncle Ealph in India, on the occasion of my brother gaining in that year one of the University prizes, while Claughton was not equally successful in the competition for another : " Nothing in all these things gives me more satis- faction than the strict and warm friendship that subsists between these young men, and some others who have equally distinguished themselves in the University, such as Mr. Charles Wordsworth. . . . i2o FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i They seem each to exult more in his friend's success than in his own. Claughton wrote to me last year, in answer to my congratulations on his getting the Latin essay, in which William failed : ' But it would have given me the greatest pleasure, I assure you, to have seen the two brothers 1 in opposite rostra.' And all that William now writes to me, for the first news of his own success, is : 'I am disappointed extremely by the result of the prizes.' " Claughton's name is prominent in that letter of my Father. I will speak first of him, and of Thomas, both, like myself, scholars (Claughton soon became a Fellow) of Trinity. Thomas Legh Claughton (afterwards Bishop of Rochester and then first Bishop of St. Albans) was the elder of two distinguished brothers. He had a great charm of countenance and manner, and a dis- position which nobody could help loving. Seldom in any man have the highest qualities of head and heart been so happily attempered, so attractively combined. One of my younger 2 friends justly described the first 1 I had obtained the " Newdigate " prize, for English verse, in 1832. The prize-exercises were recited from pulpits, called "rostra," projecting from the lower gallery of the University theatre ; that for the English exercises on the left, and that for the Latin on the right, of the Vice-Chancellor's seat ; the recitation being at the annual " Com- memoration " of Founders and Benefactors. (My Father had won the prize for Latin verse the year before, and in 1832 besides the " Newdigate " he won the " Ireland " scholarship. He took a first- class in classics in 1834. My Grandfather ends the letter to Sir Ralph Palmer, quoted above : " But enough of this, lest you say in earnest what my neighbour Littlehales said in jest, ' What a bore you are, Palmer ! one is tired of wishing you joy !' " — S. M. P.) 2 Frederic William Faber. chap, vin OXFORD 1830- 1S33 121 impression made by him, as that of "intellectual gracefulness " ; but the gracefulness was not only intellectual, and he was not deficient in strength. His natural temperament was buoyant and elastic, with a lively, though chastened, flow of animal spirits ; but this was the bright surface of an undercurrent of serious thought and feeling, the actuating principle of a pure life. He was incapable of any levity by which the most sensitive or fastidious taste could reasonably be offended. But he had a quick sense of humour, and an inexhaustible command of playful irony, which only enhanced his affectionateness. Neither reserved nor effusively demonstrative, not going beyond the simplicity of truth, having more in his heart than he put into words, equable, full of sympathy, constant, and faithful, the same at all times, without jealousy, irritability, or caprice, a favourite of fortune, but never elated by prosperity, bearing those troubles from which humanity cannot be exempt as a Christian ought, not shutting up within himself the light and warmth which were in him, but letting them radiate for the benefit of others, naturally, and without assumption or pretension, he was the ornament of our society, and the perfection of a friend. Such as he was then, he has always remained through life, and letters which I received from Claughton bring vividly before me, as I read them, his constant affection through all later years, down to the day when we stood together to take our last farewell of the mortal part of her who is dearer to me than life. He wrote to me : " God bless and 122 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i keep you and yours, dear friend of my earliest days. I hope we may so pass out of this world into a better, linked together in a holy bond of everlasting union, we and ours together. God grant it." Claughton was a lover and a very fine reader and reciter of poetry, having, among his other natural gifts, a rich and well-modulated voice. In his under- graduate days he was much captivated by the fancy and music of Shelley ; but he was not long in learning to appreciate Wordsworth, describing his poetry to me in the winter of 1833 as " the most 2 :)Ur ify^ n 9 ne could think of." It was he who initiated me into the beauties of Tennyson's two first small volumes, and induced me to purchase the earliest editions of them, which, now enriched by notes in Lord Tennyson's own hand, are treasured in my library. Nor was Claughton himself without the poetical gift. He not only gained both the University prizes for verse- exercises (as well as that for the Latin essay), but there are passages in his prize poems of more than common excellence. It is natural to pass from Claughton to Thomas, for my college memories of the one are associated with the other, and the association extends to their later lives. Thomas was the only surviving son of a magistrate and country gentleman, residing on a small property near Llandilo, in South Wales. When I first saw him, in the Whitsun week of 1830, while the examination for the Trinity scholarship was going on, he was about nineteen, full of life and spirits, as playful as a fawn, with a handsome, frank, engaging chap, vni OXFORD 1830-1833 123 countenance ; bright, careless, affectionate, petted and caressed by my brother William and his friends, who had all taken a fancy to him, for he was already residing at Wadham. Shrewsbury, where he had been one of Dr. Butler's pupils, was then at the height of its reputation. For five successive years, beginning in 1837, Shrewsbury men had an absolute monopoly of the Ireland " Scholarship," carrying it in some cases against those who were really much their superiors, such as my brother William, with whom it was a favourite object of ambition which he never attained. Thomas did not do this ; nor was his success in the University equal to his talent, in which he was not below the very ablest of his school- fellows. But he was not a solitary instance of Shrewsbury men of that day at Oxford, beginning well and failing afterwards to fulfil in the " schools " the expectations which had been formed of them. The fault, I suspect, lay somewhere in the system of high pressure, from which a reaction followed, for Thomas and some others, whose University course was similar, had a mastery of the elements of learning as well as powers of mind which might have accom- plished anything. But they were like the hare in the fable. Thomas was the liveliest member of our society at Trinity ; and with that liveliness he united a warm heart, a fastidious taste, a mind extremely free from prejudice, much sagacity, and a quick discernment of character. His judgment was never warped by passion or enthusiasm, impulsive as he seemed to be ; 124 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i lie saw rapidly through unrealities, and never failed to find out the weak points of a system or an argu- ment. His spirits, high as they were at times, were not equable ; and he was a severe critic of himself. It would have been difficult to discover an occupation which would have given scope for his peculiar gifts, without any element of repulsion to the critical spirit within him. What was actually in store for him, — to be the son-in-law and examining chaplain of an Archbishop, and Canon of a Cathedral Church, — was perhaps the last thing which his friends at that time would have imagined. His intellectual influence with myself was considerable ; and intercourse with him, both personally and by letter, helped me to preserve the balance of my judgment when it might otherwise have been disturbed. The third of the friends with whom I became most intimate in those early days at Oxford, and not the least eminent for thorough scholarship, intellectual vigour, and other high qualities, was Charles Words- worth, afterwards Bishop of St. Andrews. It was indeed in his rooms at Christ Church that I first had a taste of that sort of friendship which, according to Aristotle, neither springs out of the necessary relations of life, nor has any motive of personal advantage, but comes from the mere pleasure of it. He took a fancy to me partly because he saw me once, in broad daylight and in the High Street, carrying a basketful of wild plants which I had been collecting at Shotover, — so small are the occasions which sometimes lead to useful results. This disregard of the conventionalities of chap, vin OXFORD 1830-1833 125 time and place pleased him, and his approval confirmed me in the habit of doing for myself, when convenient, things which some people think beneath their dignity — a habit learnt at Winchester which was perhaps among the best fruits of the rougher part of my training there. Charles Wordsworth was the second of three re- markable sons of Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, then Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. If he did not fill that important office with marked distinction in other respects, Dr. Wordsworth is memorable among Masters of Trinity as the father and grandfather of eminent bishops, and brother of a poet among the greatest of his age and nation. Of the three sons, John (the eldest) and Christopher (the youngest) had their school education at Win- chester, and Charles at Harrow. The two former went to Cambridge, and there gained all possible honours, except in mathematics. John devoted him- self to classical studies, in which he obtained a hioh reputation, and, if he had lived, would probably have rivalled the fame of a Porson or a Bentley. But he died young. Christopher, after being for some years Headmaster of Harrow, was made Bishop of Lincoln, and filled that post with exemplary simplicity and virtue. Both Christopher and Charles in their youth were distinguished by physical as well as intellectual prowess. They were captains of the opposing elevens in the match played between Harrow and Winchester on Lord's cricket ground in 1825; and Charles had been, before I knew him, one of the crew of the 126 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i University boat in the race (then annual) at Henley with Cambridge. There was probably no more complete scholar among the Oxford young men of that day than Charles Wordsworth in all that constitutes the essence of true scholarship. He obtained two of the Chan- cellor's prizes, with Latin compositions of such unusual merit as none but a really accomplished Latin scholar could have produced ; and he took a brilliant first- class degree. Not even George William, Lord Lyttel- ton, the best Latin verse writer of this century, could have approached nearer to the spirit and melody of Virgil than Charles Wordsworth did in some passages of his poem on " Mexico " — that, for instance, on the first sight of the Spaniards by the Mexicans : — At rudis a patriis descendens incola sylvis Prodigium stupet, et subeuntes ostia nautas ; — Qui fuerint ; quae vasta volans pernicibus alis Per fluctus tulerit moles ; unde humida mundi Moenia transierint, aut quas via tendat in oras. Talia, collecta stipantes littora turba, Inter se rogitant ; dum vasto pondere naves, Dum dubios vultus, et plusquam humana virorum Corpora, mirantur. Pavor exultantia pulsat Pectora, et obtutu tacito circum omnia pendent : Incerti Genios ac Numina magna locorum, An maris immensi prolem, Solisne nepotes, Esse putent : tantum ore jubar ; sic Candida flamma Membra nitent ; tanti rutilis e crinibus ignes Collucent. Quid non mortales improba suasit Relligio ? En ! studiis, quae cuique est copia, laeti Dona ferunt, totaque Deos venerantur arena. Charles Wordsworth was so well read in Latin and Greek authors that classical quotations and allusions chap, vin OXFORD 1830-1S33 127 upon all subjects came naturally to his lips, and even in his most familiar letters flowed from his pen. Nor was he less conversant with the best English poetry, especially that of the generation and school to which his uncle belonged. I used to sit in his room evening after evening listening to his animated talk about his uncle and Sir Walter Scott and Southey and Coleridge, all whom he had, I think, known personally, and of whom he had heard much from others. He was in person not unlike his uncle the poet, only of a stronger frame ; and from his uncle's works he read to me, almost in the same tones that the poet himself might have done, many favourite passages. All this was pure pleasure at the time ; but it was a pleasure which strengthened, enlarged, and refined my own poetical taste. I spent thus much of my time, until his Oxford residence was interrupted in 1833. He had early lost his mother, and had no sister. His father's life, after he became a widower, had been severed from the world as much as was possible in the position which he held. His brothers were scholars, occupied in their own pursuits ; and, proud as he was of his uncle, " the pride of an illustrious relationship " was, he said, "but a poor substitute for the blessings of a sympathetic one." These family circumstances made him the more disposed to be an enthusiastic friend. He was a man of impetuous feelings and great energy, but liable (partly from physical causes, for his health always suffered from anxiety or exces- sive exertion) to alternations of lassitude and de- 128 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS tart i pression. Whatever he set his hand to clo, he did it with his might. If book-learning, he made himself thoroughly master of it ; if teaching, he spared no pains to inform, raise, and stimulate the hearts and minds of his scholars ; if government, he was lavish of his strength, and of his means also, for the advance- ment of the work in hand ; if controversy, he put on his armour in right earnest, and girded himself to the battle without favour or fear. His intellectual temper was eager and anxious, even to restlessness ; and in conversation about serious matters he was sometimes too argumentative for his own or other people's comfort. He had an ardent zeal for truth, from which no attachment to party, no respect of persons, could turn him aside. If his health had been better and his temperament less sensitive, if he had hus- banded his strength more, and had been less willing to spend and be spent ; if he had been less self- sacrificing and single-minded, and had lived more in the world and less in his library, he must have done Greater things than it was his lot to do. I do not remember to whom I was indebted for my introduction to the " Union " debating society ; but I became a member of it, and attended its debates, and made my first essay in speaking there, during my first term. It was then at its zenith ; William Ewart Gladstone was President. He was a student of Christ Church, prince of the Etonians of his time, and at the head of the literary society of his " house." He must have been then in the third year of his university course. He had been a frequent speaker chap, vin OXFORD 1830-1833 129 at the " Union" since the beginning of 1830, always on the Tory side, but attached to the memory of Canning, and opposed to the Duke of Wellington and his government. Sidney Herbert, Lord Lincoln (afterwards Duke of Newcastle), James Bruce (after- wards Earl of Elgin), Henry Edward Manning (after- wards Cardinal), Frederic Rogers (Lord Blachford), Benjamin Harrison (afterwards Archdeacon of Maidstone), and Frederick Denison Maurice, were among other occasional speakers ; but Gladstone was as pre-eminent then as he has since been on a larger field. In May 1831, during the crisis of the first Reform Bill, we had a three nights' debate on a motion of want of confidence in Lord Grey's Ministry, to which Gladstone moved, and carried by ninety-four to thirty-eight, this " rider " : — " That the Ministry has unwisely introduced, and most unscrupulously forwarded, a measure which threatens not only to change the form of government, but ultimately to break up the very foundations of social order, as well as eventually to forward the views of those who are pursuing this project through- out the civilised world." His speech in support of this proposition (which might perhaps have been repeated without change of a word by those who dissented from his own Irish measure of 1886) was one of extraordinary power and eloquence. In Thomas Mozley's Reminiscences — a pleasant book, not remarkable for accuracy — it is said that George Anthony Denison (the redoubted Archdeacon), then a junior fellow of Oriel, vol. 1 K 130 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i and one of the few professed Liberals in the common-rooms of the University, prophesied, from the nature of the arguments used, that the speaker was on the high road to Liberalism. I do not think that any one else who heard the speech saw so far into futurity, but we anticipated from it a splendid career in public life, and in that we were not disappointed. Until I joined the " Union," I had no political opinions beyond the hereditary Toryism of my Father and other members of my family, who remembered the days of the first French Ee volution, and looked upon the second as likely to end in a new dissolution of the existing order of society. But from that time I began to interest myself in politics, as did many of my more intimate friends, particularly Cardwell, Lowe, and Tait, who were upon the Liberal, and Richards and Ward, who were (like myself) upon the Conservative side. We were frequent speakers, and we all attained in turn to the office of president. After Gladstone and his contemporaries passed from the mimic into the real Parliament, or into other spheres of life, my friends for some time enjoyed an almost undisputed supremacy at the Union. Cardwell and Ward entered into its business with as much serious- ness, and with as grave an estimate of the importance of its parties and its contests, as if the fortunes of the nation depended upon it. At last, in the autumn of 1833, the " Opj)osition " triumphed, and carried against them its candidate for the presidency, Massie of Wadham, a clever man and pungent speaker, chap, vin OXFORD 1830-1833 131 Eadical in his doctrines, who did not belong to our set, though Lowe went with him. My defeated friends consoled themselves by developing into a rival debating society, a private literary club called the " Rambler," which had been accustomed to meet in Balliol. I was myself indifferent to the dispute in the Union, but in the new society I gave my friends all the support I could. It had a short existence, but it enlisted some recruits of ability, such as John Wickens and George Mellish, afterwards eminent Judges ; and while it lasted, its debates eclipsed those of the Union, at which the ruling party there was greatly offended. They called an extraordinary meeting, which was held, on account of the numbers who attended it, in the large assembly-room of the Star Hotel, at which they proposed that we should all be expelled. The motion was defeated by a large majority after a long and very lively debate, and our victory was celebrated in doggerel Homerics (mixed Greek and English), in a jeu d' esprit called Unio- machia, of which the authorship was attributed to William Sinclair, son of Sir John Sinclair, the noted Scotch agriculturist, one of our party, and an older man, who had seen more of the world than most of us. The piece was a success in its way, and some- body thought it worth while to translate it into English verse. Both the original and the translation, and some other fugitive pieces written upon the same occasion, found their way to Mixbury ; and when my Father read, in some lines relating to my own part in the debate, that 132 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS parti Sudden Minerva, bending from on high, Soft counsel whispered from a gaslight nigh, In gentle Mayow's form — the warrior heard, Knit his stern brows, and loth obeyed the word — he was not altogether comfortable, supposing that a lady might be in the case. It was a relief to him to learn that " gentle Mayow " was only the disappointed candidate for the presidency of the Union. Some of our friends, who had stood aloof from this contest, or had observed it from a distance, dis- liked the antagonism between the two societies, and thought that the younger ought to give way. My Father was of that opinion. Negotiations followed, which ended next year in the dissolution of the " Rambler," and in the return of the dissidents generally (I myself had other things to think of) to the Union. Cardwell, who took a leading part in those negotiations, wrote to me about them in just the same style as he might have done about political affairs years afterwards, when the fate of ministries and parties, and established reputations, were hanging in the scale. Ml CHAPTER IX OXFORD — YOUNGER FRIENDS — STUDIES AND THEIR RESULTS 1833-1834 The time of the "Kambler" controversy coincided very nearly with Charles Wordsworth's leaving Oxford to travel abroad with a pupil. Claughton also had gone to Ireland as tutor to a son of Lord Ely. Not long after they were gone I made the acquaintance, which soon ripened into friendship, of two men of a younger generation, who about that time began their residence at Balliol — John Wickens, an Eton man, who gained a scholarship there, and Frederic William Faber, from Harrow, who was less fortunate. My brother William had also left the University, to which he did not return for several years. He obtained a fellowship in his own College, and was appointed one of the first tutors in the new University, then just founded, of Durham. Other changes had taken place at Trinity, and I was thrown more than before upon my own resources. My Winchester friends I continued often to meet ; chiefly, 134 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i however, in connection with those societies of which I have spoken. Wickens had at Eton acquired an extraordinary reputation, and was a kind of idol there, although he did not excel in games, and had not any comeliness of person. He abounded in wit, had read many uncommon books, and had much information on many subjects, of a kind rare in undergraduate circles. He was equally proficient in mathematics and classics ; was strong in conversation, and not deficient in knowledge of men and of the world. To his Eton contemporaries he seemed a universal genius, and intellectually was not very far from deserving that reputation. His disposition was sociable and affec- tionate, and his rare powers and easy command of them made him a very agreeable companion, except to those who could not endure smoking, to which he was inveterately addicted. I had myself endeavoured to acquire that art by a painful experiment of three days at Winchester, and had (happily for myself, as I have always since thought) failed ; but I had no such aversion to it as to make me intolerant of it in others. It was through his elder brother (then a Com- moner of Exeter), with whom I had been at Win- chester, that I was first brought into contact with John Wickens. I found him the centre of a group of pleasant Etonians of his own standing, with some of whom I was connected or acquainted through members of my family. To one of them, Hungerford (afterwards Sir Hungerford) Pollen, my uncle Horsley chap, ix OXFORD 1833-1834 135 was related by marriage ; and the parents of another, Henry Traill Erskine, were frequent visitors at his house. A third, Charles Wynne (who afterwards married Pollen's sister), was the eldest son of an old friend of my Father. I liked them all, Pollen parti- cularly, who was very sprightly and cheerful. Being thus attracted to their society, I soon felt the charm of Wickens's mind and character. Our intimacy was cemented by a visit which we paid together to Eton, in the Christmas vacation of 1833, and it continued without interruption till his death. He took a double first-class, and ought to have been a Fellow of Balliol ; but smoking, which Dr. Jenkyns, the then Master, thought a heinous misdemeanour, stood in his way. He did not offer himself at any other college, but went to London, and worked quietly and unambitiously at the Bar. He was universally popular in that profession, and became eventually an eminent judge ; it is a pleasure to me to have been instrumental in obtaining for his merits that recognition. In his last illness (for the country was too soon deprived of his services) we took leave of each other at a house which he had built for himself in one of the hollows of the Sussex Downs, with all the warm affection of our youth. Frederic William Faber, the youngest son of a solicitor at Stockton -upon -Tees, and nephew of George Stanley Faber, a controversial divine of some reputation, was a favourite pupil of Dr. Longley at Harrow. He was there an ambitious, dreamy, precocious boy ; desultory in reading ; already 136 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i pluming his wings for authorship in poetry and prose, but in scholarship not well grounded. He thought his superiority among his schoolfellows uncontested, and was humbled in his own eyes when he came to Balliol, in 1833, and found it no longer so. But he soon made his mark. In person, he was extremely prepossessing — of good height, slender figure, fair complexion, bright blue eyes, well -formed features, almost feminine grace. The attraction of his looks and manners, and our agreement in poetical tastes (particularly in appreciation of Coleridge and Wordsworth), soon made us friends, and our affection for each other became not only strong, but passionate. There is a place for passion, even in friendship ; it was so among the Greeks ; and the love of Jonathan for David was " wonderful, passing the love of women." Evening after evening, in Frederic Faber's rooms, we spent together in reading, and comparing our impressions of our favourite poets; and it is from that time that I date the practical influence of Wordsworth's poetry upon my mind, though his nephew had introduced me to it, and taught me to admire it. I know no other reading (except the Bible) of which the influence upon myself has been so profound and lasting. From Wordsworth I learnt, in Frederic Faber's company, large human sympathies. Wordsworth interpreted to me the language of nature, as speaking to the heart of man ; the beauty of everything real and true, the Divine voice everywhere, the worthlcssness of whatever is chap, ix OXFORD 1833-1834 137 artificial and conventional, in comparison with the common bond and the common heritage of mankind. In his insight into the harmonies of things, natural and revealed religion seemed to bear witness to each other. The dogmatists of the schools might find Pantheism in Tintern Abbey, and call in question the doctrine of the Intimations of Immortality as to the Divine illumination of the natural human soul. Those who so judged did not seem to me to under- stand either the poet or the man. His mind was consistent with itself, when it produced those wonderful works, and when in The Excursion, the Ecclesiastical Sonnets, and the Ode to Duty, he spoke the language of Christian faith. Neither in those Oxford days, nor since, have I felt the presence of any discord in his works. A few of them, taken apart from the rest, may be thought trivial ; but I think there are none which have not moved my feelings, and helped to strengthen my heart. Frederic Faber, my companion, and to some extent my hierophant, in those studies, was a poet himself; a man of genius, though not of that kind in which strength predominates. His nature was tender and emotional : he thought and felt in superlatives ; and, though his thoughts and feelings were real and true, they were surrounded by a nimbus of artificial light. It was a saying of his, that " a man has many biographies, moving in parallel lines." He meant, I suppose, that (besides the differences made by place, time, and changes of occupation) the outward life of business and duty, 138 FAMILY AND PERSONAL MEMORIALS part i the domestic and social life, and the moral and spiritual life, run in distinct lines, in more currents than one ; and that the ordinary course of those lines might be described as parallel, though it cannot be denied that they sometimes conflict with each other. This may not be true of all men, but a man draws, in such sayings, from his own consciousness ; and I think it was true in his case. His usual flow of spirits was great ; and in con- versation he was positive, sometimes paradoxical. There was in his mental nature an element of waywardness and inconstancy of which in his earlier years he was conscious. It manifested itself some- times in a rapid change of opinion, from one extreme to another ; and at other times (though this never happened to myself), in his relations to particular persons. The key to this was doubtless in some law of sympathy, which, whenever it drew him towards those from whom he had differed, repelled him from others with whom he had agreed. But those sym- pathies which depend upon the beauty and mystery of nature were always active within him. On such subjects he could speak and write rhapsodies, colouring with his vivid imagination all the objects of sight and sense, and finding in all nature an esoteric meaning, correlative to man's reason and moral intelligence, and to the truths which Divine revelation has made known concerning the spiritual world. This was, to a great extent, common ground between us, though my imagination was not equally unrestrained. His opinions, originally Calvinistic, chap, ix OXFORD 1833-1834 139 then, as the phrase was, " Tractarian," and finally Eoman Catholic, underwent great changes; but his religion under each phase of opinion was intensely earnest and sincere, and his life and conversation pure and without reproach. These were my Oxford friends, with whom I most associated during the latter part of my undergraduate life. 1 The activities of those who had been associated together in the "Bambler" found other employment when that society was dissolved. An Oxford Uni- versity Magazine was started, under the editorship of Wall, a Bachelor of Arts and Chancellor's Prizeman, 1 Of these friends my Father wrote to his brother, Edwin Palmer : — House op Lords, 8th May 1876. I cannot write to-day, without speaking of the death of my dear old friend Frank Faber. He is the third of the friends of my youth who have been taken away from us ! his brother Frederic, and John Wickens, being the other two. But how nearly the separations of life approach to, and prepare us for, that of death ! From Frederic Faber, ever since he left our Church, the separation (though affection was unchanged) was complete ; for there was no possibility, in his case, of continued intercourse unless upon the footing of a catechist and catechumen, which my convictions, of course, did not permit. I saw him, in fact, once only — soon before he died — after the lapse of the first year from his secession. With Frank I have had a correspvi£o/x€vois, kgu jxr] Aei7rwyu.e#a twv Trpo