LIBRARY University of California. Class " v^ h 'J MY EAELY LIFE It is hoped that this volume will be folloived shortly by another contahiing ' Annals of my Later Life ' — fro7n my settlement in Scotland^ 1847, to the present time. ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE 1806— 1846 WITH OCCASIONAL COMPOSITIONS IN LATIN AND ENGLISH VERSE BY CHARLES WORDSWOETH, D.D., D.C.L. BISHOP OK ST ANDREWS A>JPFEIA.0W OF WfSK^ESTKR COLLEGB SECOND EDITION LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST IG'" STREET 1891 All ru/his reserved Kmm ROOM PRINTED BY 3P0TTISW00DE AND CO., NEW-STKEET SQUARE LONDON TO .^'-'->^~- THOMAS LEGH CLAUGHTON LATE BISHOP OF ST ALBAN'S IN TOKEN OF A FRIENDSHIP WHICH HAS SURVIVED THE CHANGES AND CHANCES OF THREESCORE AND THREE YEARS YEARS NOTABLE FOR CHANGES OF ALL KINDS > PUBLIC AND PRIVATE THESE ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 216561 *lt)erita6' {Motto of the Wordsworth family) Hoc concede, Deus : nil ficti artisve dolosae, Nil nisi quod vermn est prodeat ore meo. Nee satis id ; quod mens agitet, quod lingua loquatur Imbuat sethereo nectare verus* amor. ^IDlgtlans^ {Motto of the Lloyd family, with a cock for the crest) En! capite erecto gallus cantuque salutat Aurorae rediens ex oriente jubar : Sic ego, Salvator, redituni bene corde parato Expectem, vigilans usque precansque,t tuum. January 1891 * ' Speaking the truth in love '—Eph. iv. 15. f 'Watch and pray always' — Luke xxi. 36. GENERAL INTRODUCTION I DO not know that I can better employ any leisure that may be granted to me during the short remainder of my days — being now near the end of my eighty-fourth year — than in looking back over the course of my past life, with the intention of recording its main occurrences; and in this belief I pray that God may graciously vouchsafe to bless the undertaking which I now begin. The chief advantages which I promise myself from the performance of it (so far as I may be enabled to carry out the design) are these two. It will give me occasion, on the one hand, to reflect more fully and seriously than I might otherwise do upon what- ever I shall discover that I have done amiss, through wilful- ness, or negligence, or ignorance, and to ask God's pardon for the same in the spirit of true repentance ; and, on the other hand, to renew and deepen my thankfulness for the numberless mercies I have received from the Giver of all good, from my youth up until now, notwithstanding my great and utter unworthiness, of which I am sincerely and sadly conscious. I shall endeavour to be strictly truthful — according to my family motto — and strictly jmt in what- ever I may record : just to others and just also to myself; viii ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE not shrinking from praise or blame when, to the best of my judgment, either may be due ; only, whenever I may be led to mention, or to allow others to mention, what may appear to tend to my own commendation, desiring never to forget that for any good thing done I owe both the will and the power entirely to the grace of God. So far the compilation of these memoirs has reference only to myself and to my own improvement. But the part which I have taken in various proceedings of more or less public interest, first as a Tutor at Oxford, then as a Master at Winchester, and still more and for a much longer period since I was invited into Scotland, has been of sufficient importance to justify one in thinking that the record of my experience, if communicated to the world, or even confined only to my family and friends, will not be without its use by supplying materials which may command the interest or improve the knowledge of those who are to come after me. Kydal Lodge : June 29, 1890. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE PEESENT VOLUME After I had entered upon the task proposed in the fore- going Introduction, it was not long before I came to the conclusion that it would be desirable to divide the work into two parts, to be published separately — and that for more than one reason. In the first place, what now appears as the former part completes the record of my English life, as distinct from my life in Scotland ; and will naturally appeal for its interest, in great degree, to a different class of readers from those who may be interested by reading about the latter ; and the same will hold good, vice versa, of the record of my Scottish life. In the next place, the mixture of lighter material in this volume, such as was to be expected in memorials of early life, requires to be kept apart from the graver tenor of the narrative which will form the staple of the volume which (if I should be spared, and favoured with sufficient health and strength) is to follow it. And so, I shall wish this portion to be read, as having been written not by an octogenarian Bishop, but in the character of one who is scarcely half that age — of one who can throw himself back into the past with something of the sprightliness and elasticity of early days — a result X ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE which, it is hoped, the introduction of occasional Nugce CanorcB written at the time may tend to promote — and with no claim to a position higher than that of a schoolmaster, whose occupation it had been hitherto, as a spiritual fisher- man, to catch — not men, but — boys. I venture, therefore, to request that my reader will judge it from that stand- point. If it should please God that we meet again, I shall hope to appear before him in a dress more appropriate to my present age. Meanwhile, what I have now written, while it may afford some entertainment, especially to the young, will not be altogether without its moral lessons for those who know how to look for them. It will tend to show, inter alia, that there is no difficulty which honest and diligent perseverance may not surmount, at least in some degree ; and that in every department of life it is the duty of us all — and not only of 'the Scribe instructed unto the kingdom of Heaven ' — to hri7ig forth out of our t7^easure things new and old ; paying to the old (as I learnt to do at Oxford, but stiU more at Winchester) all due reverence, and welcoming the new with cordiality and without suspicion, except so far as prudence and experience may seem to counsel caution. But I have another «and still more serious appeal to make to the candour of my reader. In the course of com- posing this volume I have been repeatedly conscious that I was exposing myself to unkind reflections on the part of those who do not know me, from the frequency with which I have occasion to speak — and still more to suffer others to speak — of my own performances. Yes : so it has been ; but then, when I have considered the matter, I have felt that the danger was unavoidable. It lies in the nature of the work itself. Autobiography is, and must be, essentially egotistical. It may be a question how far it is right or desirable that ADVERTISEMENT TO THE PRESENT VOLUME xi it should be written at all — and here I can plead the request of others rather than my own choice — but if it is to be written, the author must he his own hero. Moreover, it follows that he will seek to place himself upon terms of familiarity with his readers — be they who they may, old or young, learned or unlearned, — and he will not scruple to presume upon their interest and sympathy in a way and to an extent which would not be admissible in any other species of writing. And if he has to quote letters of friends he must be content to see himself spoken of, it may be, in terms of praise which, if possessed of an ordinary share of modesty, it would be impossible for him to use in his own person. Without the insertion of such passages, however, the sketch which he professes to give would not be a com- plete or impartial one. As it is, I can honestly say, I have done the best I could to minimise this danger. I have been strictly scrupulous not to exceed the truth of the record in any case, taking the matter simply as it came to hand. I have never suffered its laudatory phrases to minister to feelings of self-conceit : I have endeavoured to regard them, as far as possible, as if they had been written of some other man. In a word, for myself, I have lived long enough not to lay much store by any earthly commendation, from whatever quarter it may come : only so far as it has en- couraged me to any good and useful work, looking back upon it with pleasure and with thankfulness ; and for my readers, I give them full liberty to discount on the score of friendship and partiality all compliments to myself, as much, or as little, as they please. I have never been in the habit of keeping a journal for any length of time ; but, so far back as from my Oxford days, I have been unwilling to destroy letters of friends, xii ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE without anticipating that I should ever have occasion to make the shghtest use of them ; and so I have preserved — almost uninterruptedly — a vast accumulation of such letters, which I have kept in good order from year to year. Of these I have availed myself, as far as seemed desirable, in the present volume, without permission asked (except in one particular case) of the writers (who have doubtless forgotten their existence, as I have the existence of what I wrote to them) ; only taking care to confine myself to such extracts as I could feel morally certain they would themselves see again — and allo^v others to see — without displeasure. They will, I am sure, pardon the liberty I have taken for the sake of auld lang syne. It only remains to mention that, in consequence of a serious illness to which I was subject for some months, the appearance of this volume has been delayed longer than was hoped and intended. The delay has enabled me to add in a Postscript some further remarks upon the * Oxford Movement,' which appeared to be called for by the posthumous publication (after my MS. had been sent to press) of Newman's * Letters ' and Dean Church's ' Keminis- cences.' They serve to render more complete what I have said upon that subject in the closing chapter of the volume. KiLBYMONT, St. Andrews : July 9, 1891. CONTENTS CHAPTEE I. FEOM MY BIETH TO MY LEAVING HAEROW. 1806—1825. Lambeth — Baptism — Booking — Death of my Mother — Sundridge — School at Sevenoaks — The Manning family — Harrow — Cricket matches with Eton — First visit to the Lakes — Mr. Canning — School prizes — First cricket match with Winchester — Letter from my grandfather Lloyd — Private study — Confirmation — Letter from godfather, Archbishop Manners Sutton — The Speeches — Kegret at leaving Harrow — Schoolfellows— Poetical Epistle to my Grandfather Lloyd — Subsequent visit to Harrow in 1865 with Lord Kollo — Schoolboy reminiscences of two Archbishops : Richard C. Trench and Henry Manning CHAPTER II. FROM MY ENTRANCE AT OXFORD TO MY ELECTION TO THE SECOND MASTERSHIP AT WINCHESTER. 1825—1835. Differences between Cambridge and Oxford — Enter as commoner at Christ Church — Difficulty in obtaining rooms— System of educa- tion — University prize for Latin verse— College prize for ditto — Made student of Christ Church— Long Vacations at the Lakes, Guernsey, and Cuddesdon — Debate at the Union — Lent verses — Serious illness — Athletics — First cricket match with Cambridge — First rowing match — Letter to Charles Merivale — Tennis — ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Skating— Competition for Ireland Scholarship— B. A. degree— First Class — Letter from my uncle— Fragments of Journal — Long Vacation in North Wales with Hope and Popham — Eooms in Tom Quad — Smoking chimney — Change of rooms — Invasion of mice — Private pupils — William Gladstone — My interest in politics- Kef orm Bill— Debate in the Union — Letters from Gladstone, James Hope, Henry Manning, Walter Hamilton, Francis Doyle, Lord Lincoln, Thomas D. Acland, Charles Canning, Francis Popham — Latin essay prize —Visit to Scotland with Agar Eobartes— Eydal Mount — Election squib on Brougham— Southey's ' March to Moscow ' — Visit to Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford with my uncle — Letter from Hope Scott — Oxford friends —The Tribes — Bachelors' club— Tutor to Lord Cantelupe— Travels on Continent — Denmark — Copenhagen — Norway — Christiania — Excursion over Hardanger — Provost Hertzberg — Sweden — Stockholm — Northern Germany — Greiswald — Berlin — Professors Bockh, Schleiermacher, Neander, Henning, Bekker — Strauss— Gymnasia — Dresden— Leipzig — Letters from Oxford friends — Eeturn home — Visit to Paris — Engaged to be married — Ordained Deacon at Christ Church — Appointed by Dean Praslector Graecus, and Tutor — Candidate for second mastership at Winchester — Letter of con- gratulation on my appointment from my Uncle .... 35 CHAPTER III. FROM MY ELECTION AS SECOND MASTER AT WINCHESTER TO MY SETTLEMENT IN SCOTLAND. 1835—1847. Marriage— Four main points in school administration— (1) Eeform in Greek Grammar— Confusion from different Grammars then in use— Communication with Dr. Hawtrey— First edition of my ' Eudimenta ' published by Murray — Adopted at Winchester, Harrow, and Eugby — Eeviewed by Eoundell Palmer in ' British Critic ' — Article for the * Quarterly ' by my brother — The so-called Eton Greek Grammar proved to be a cast-off Grammar of West- minster—The publication of my Grammar transferred to Clarendon Press at Gaisford's suggestion — Long correspondence with Hawtrey — My Grammar adopted in 1866 by the head masters of the nine public schools — Scheme for the formation of a society for improvement and cheap publication of classical school books — (2) Eegulation for Private Prayers in College Chambers — History of its introduction — Sermons in chapel — Lectures pre- paratory to Holy Communion — Prefects accept and undertake to carry out my proposal for observance of evening private prayer— CONTENTS XV Preparation for Confirmation — Publication of ' Catechesis ' — (3) Instruction in Singing— Introduction of Hullah's system — Encouragements and the contrary — Three sermons on ' Commu- nion in Prayer ' — Letters from Archbishop Howley , Dr. Hook, Dean Butler of Peterborough, Dj:«_^awtrey, Kobert Scott, Mr. Norris, Edward Coleridge, &c.-^(4)yPARTiciPATioN in Games — Objects aimed at in intercourse with the boys — 'English Illustrated Magazine ' on Winchester — Improvement in school discipline — Midsummer holidays — Travels on the Continent — Birth of daughter — Death of my wife — Consolations — Death of my brother John — Miscellaneous notices of my life at Winchester— Emmeline Fisher — Ordained Priest — Letter from S. Wilberforce— Sermon on ' Evangelical Eepentance ' — Controversy to which it led — Letters from Archbishop Howley, W. E. Gladstone, H. Manning, K. W. Church, H. Norris, A. Grant, Isaac Williams — Intimate relations with the Warden — His character— Decline to come forward for mastership of Kugby on Dr. Arnold's death — In Switzerland with H. Liddell — Visits to the Lakes — My uncle on a letter of Moberly's in Stanley's ' Life of Arnold ' — My health begins to give way — Ketire to Brighton — To Leamington — Letters from H. Manning — Last year at Winchester — Resignation of second mastership — Death of my father at Buxted — Notices of his life and character by Miss Fenwick, Lord Houghton, Lord John Manners, &c. — Letters of condolence from Archbishop Howley, Mr. Quillinan, Dr. Moberly, Mr. Anderdon, Eoundell Palmer, William Palmer, &c. — My farewell Winchester sermon — * Christian Boyhood ' — Other publications — Occupy hired house at Winchester — Visit from Gladstone to induce me to accept wardenship of Glenalmond in Scotland — Second marriage — Travels in Italy, &c. — Eelations to the Oxford Movement — Pusey, Newman, Keble, &c. — Other influences — My father — his Charac- teristics as a Churchman — Previous movement at Cambridge under Charles Simeon 174 POSTSCRIPT. THE OXFORD MOVEMENT. 1833-1846. Newman — Constant flux in his opinions — Proofs of this — ' Library of the Fathers ' — Scheme of ' Anglo-Catholic Library ' not liked by Newman or Pusey — Newman's Sermons at St. Mary's — The Move- ment did not produce at Oxford the effect generally supposed — Cause of the failure — Newman's charges against Rome not answered by him — Motives for his secession — Lesson to be learnt from the Movement . . • 337 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE APPENDIX. PAGK 1. Harrow Prize Poem (Latin Alcaics) 1825, on the Death of Dr. Parr 357 2. Translation (English Verse) of the above by my Grandfather, Charles Lloyd, in his Seventy-seventh Year . . . 360 3. Oxford Prize Poem (Latin Hexameters) 1827, on Mexico . . 363 4. Oxford Prize Essay (Latin) 1831, on the Influence of Oratory at Athens 370 5. ' DuLCE DoMUM,' translated into English Verse in the same Metre as the Original at the Bequest of Mr. Hullah, 1843 393 6. EouNDELL Palmer's Verses on the 450th Anniversary op the Opening of Winchester College, 1843, translated into Greek Trochaics, 1846 396 NOTES TO THE APPENDIX 404 INDEX 411 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE CHAPTEK I FROM MY BIRTH TO MY LEAVING HARROW — 1806-25 I WAS born at Lambeth on August 22 (7.30 p.m.), 1806, but I was not baptised till six months afterwards, viz. on February 19 of the following year.' In the case of my younger brother, Christopher, the interval was still longer — born October 30, baptised June 29. Probably my mother, having been brought up as a Quaker, and herself not bap- tised (so I have been told) till the very day on which she was married to my father, was more indifferent about the matter than she might otherwise have been ; and my father, perhaps, was too much occupied with his duties as domestic chaplain to the Archbishop to be able to pay full attention to his own family concerns. Whatever the reason, so it was ; and to me, so far as I have thought about it, it has always been a cause of some uneasiness. It looks like a stumbling at the threshold, which even among the heathen was of bad omen.^ I may be deemed superstitious, but I * The baptism is registered both at Lambeth Palace (where it took place, see p. 5) and at Lambeth Church. '■^ See Tibullus, Lib. i. Eleg. iii. 19 : O ! quoties, ingressus iter, mihi tristia dixi Offensum in porta signa dedisse pedem. B 2 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE can well believe that from the first, as the result of baptism, a mysterious influence exists, which it is not wise to neglect, as thereby advantage may be given to evil tendencies. At all events, the requirement of our Church is plain and ex- press — ordering the curate of every parish to * often ad- monish the people, that they defer not the baptism of their children longer than the first or second Sunday next after their birth, unless upon a great and reasonable cause.' ^ And for two centuries and more after the Eeformation this order appears to have been generally observed. The following are instances among many that might be found : Shakespeare : born April 23 (?), 1564 ; baptised April 26. Thomas Wilson : ^ born Dec. 20, 1663 ; baptised Dec. 25. Samuel Johnson : born Sept. 18, 1709 ; baptised same day. ColHns : born Dec. 25, 1721 ; baptised Jan. 1, 1722. Martin Eouth : ^ born Sept. 18, 1755 ; baptised Sept. 21. William Wordsworth : born April 7, 1770 ; baptised April 15. Of my family on the father's side nothing need be said. My uncle William, the poet ; my aunt Dorothy ; my uncle John, captain of the Abergavenny, East Indiaman, ship- wrecked and drowned in the year before I was born ; ^ my father, Christopher (to be mentioned presently), are all known to fame, and particulars concerning them and the * Eubric prefixed to Office of Private Baptism. 2 Afterwards Bishop of Sodor and Man. He mentions it among ' special favours ' that ' he had an early right to the covenant of grace, baptised by Mr. Sutherland,' from which it would seem that attention to the rubric was already becoming more lax. And this is assumed, somewhat perhaps too unguardedly, by Mr. Keble, who remarks (see Life, i. 2) that * the greatness of the day may have been a reason for anticipating the usual time of christening.' 3 President of Magdalen College, Oxford. Eldest of a family of thirteen, six sons and seven daughters, of whom three were baptised on the first day after birth, one on the second, four on the third, two on the fourth, and one on the fifth. * February 5, 1805. See Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea, in. 414, and ' Elegiac Verses ' to his memory in Wordsworth's Poems, p. 218, ed. 1888. THE LLOYD FAMILY 3 family at large are to be found in the biographies of the poet, and of my brother the bishop. The family of my mother, though less distinguished, was also rather a re- markable one. It has been traced to royal blood in King Edward I.^ My grandfather, Charles Lloyd, of Bingley House, Birmingham, head of the banking firm of that name, a member of the Society of Friends, was well and widely known and esteemed as a man of singular simplicity and integrity of character, of great benevolence, and of literary tastes and acquirements unusual in a Quaker.^ He was a good classical scholar, and in his latter years employed his leisure in translating large portions of Homer (seven booka of the Odyssey, and the 24th of the Iliad), and the Epistles of Horace, privately printed in 1810 and 1812 respec- tively. My uncle, his eldest son, also named Charles, being of a highly sensitive and delicate constitution, gave himself up entirely to literary pursuits ; ^ was a good Italian scholar, as he showed by translating Alfieri ; and wrote original poetry, which gained for him a niche in Lord Byron's * English Bards &c.' in association with Wordsworth (so that my two poetical uncles, paternal and maternal, are there combined), and also with Charles Lamb. Speaking of the former, the young peer was saucy enough to write : Whose verse, of all hut childish prattle Doid, Seems blessed harmony to Lamb and Lloyd— a piece of criticism which, it is needless to say, posterity has hitherto declined to endorse. When I was a boy, ' In Mr. Joseph Foster's Noble and Oentle Families of Royal Descent, p. 14 sq., I am made a descendant, through my mother's family, of King Edward I. in the eighteenth degree. 2 There was an interesting notice of him in the Oentleman'' s Magazine, 1828. 3 In Professor Masson's De Quincey, Charles Lloyd, then living at Brathay, near Ambleside, is described as ' a man loved beyond all expres- sion by all his intimate friends ' (p. 47). B 2 4 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Bingley House, a comfortable mansion, with grounds about it of considerable extent, stood on the outskirts of Birmmg- ham. At my grandfather's death it was sold and pulled down, and the site and grounds have since been occupied by buildings and streets, which extend far beyond it ; but the name ' Bingley ' still survives, attached to a spacious * Hall,' famous now for the political meetings on a gigantic scale often held in it by the friends and partisans of Mr. Chamberlain and other great political leaders. * Mutat terra vices ' — changes of which my dear old grandfather little dreamt when he was smoking his long clay pipe, as he invariably did every night before retiring to bed, over his dining-room fire. It was through friendship with Charles Lloyd junior when at Cambridge that my father found his way as a guest to Birmingham and Bingley House, and eventually chose his wife out of that large ^ and highly interesting Quaker family. He took his B.A. degree as tenth wrangler, and, being also a good classical scholar, he was elected a fellow of his college. Trinity. These distinctions led to his becoming private tutor to Charles Manners Sutton, son of the then Bishop of Norwich, and afterwards Archbishop of Canter- bury. Both father and son became his patrons, the former presenting him first to the living in Norfolk, Oby cum Thirne, upon which he married October 6, 1804, and soon after, when he had become Archbishop, making him one of his private chaplains (1805), and transferring him first to Woodchurch, Kent (1806), and then (1808) to the Deanery of Bocking, Essex, to which Monks-eleigh was added in 1812 ; the latter, when elected Speaker, appoint- ing him to the chaplaincy of the House of Commons. > My grandfather Lloyd had fifteen children, seven sons and eight daughters, of whom Priscilla, my mother, was the eldest. I am now (1890) the only survivor but one of that generation, either on the Lloyd or on the Wordsworth siide. DEATH OF MY MOTHER 5 But to return to my own earliest days. I have spoken of my baptism. It took place in the private chapel of Lambeth Palace, my sponsors being the Archbishop (from whom I was named), my uncle the poet, and my aunt Mrs. Cookson, wife of Dr. Cookson, Canon of Windsor. My mother gave birth to six children, of whom three died in infancy, and she herself, alas ! at the age of thirty-three, in child- birth with the last, the only girl — an irreparable loss, which (especially having no sister, for the three survivors were all boys, and my father, as a widower, seeing little of ladies' society) I felt intensely throughout my early days ; so that I was wont to compare myself to fruit against a wall, ripened only upon one side. Happily, of later years I have enjoyed a compensating blessing ; my married life bringing me a family of eight daughters, besides five sons. Deo gratias I As a testimony to my mother's character and the esteem in which she was held, the following anecdote deserves to be recorded, and not for her sake only, but for the credit of human nature. About £ve- and- thirty years ago — I forget the precise year, but I think it must have been 1856 — I was staying at Earl's Colne, near Halstead in Essex, in the house of Mrs. Gee, a lady well known for the muni- ficence of her deeds of Christian charity ; and having mentioned my desire to see Bocking again, where I had not been since I left it as a boy of nine years old, she kindly offered her carriage to enable me to drive thither, a distance of eight or nine miles. On my arrival I went at once to the church and to my mother's grave in the churchyard. I was surprised to see fresh turf laid upon it — in those days flowers had not come into fashion ^ — and upon inquiry ' October 6, 1815, when I was nine years old. 2 In this anecdote, as communicated by me to my brother Christopher's Life (p. 13), ' fresh flowers ' were mentioned ; but my eldest daughter, who was with me, and whose recollection of the circumstances is better than mine, has corrected the mistake. e ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE I was told that this had continued to be done every year by an old woman, who cherished her memory, from the time of her death, more than forty years before. I have always regretted that, having still to visit the Deanery — the home of my childhood — and then to take the long return drive so as not to be too late for my kind hostess's dinner hour, I had no time to inquire further respecting this remarkable tribute of lasting gratitude. I was the second-born among my brothers, John being my senior and Christopher my junior, each by rather more than a 3^ear. * Medio tutissimus ibis f ' And so I am now the only survivor. Of my early extra-domestic education I have little to say, for in truth I remember very little, till I went to Harrow. It commenced with that of my brothers at a day school at Braintree, about a mile from Bocking. When my father left Bocking for the double preferment of Lambeth and Sundridge, given him by the Archbishop in 1815, it was carried on under Dr. Wilgress at Sevenoaks, about four miles from Sundridge ; my brother Christopher being at school there with me for a short time, and then joining my brother John at Woodford under Dr. Holt Okes, who was considered, I believe, a much superior master, especially as a classical scholar, so that they both had the advantage over me in that respect. And the same advantage was continued when, in(f826, they were both sent to Winchester, and I to Harrow. This arrangement was adopted, I believe, because my con- stitution was supposed to be weaker and more delicate than that of my brothers, and consequently less fit to undergo the rougher discipline then maintained at Winchester ; and Harrow was chosen not only as having the repute of a milder and more indulgent system, but as being near to Hampstead, where resided Mrs. Hoare — wife of Samuel Hoare, head of the banking firm of that name in Lombard SCHOOLING AT SEVENOAKS 7 Street — the best and kindest of ladies and of friends, who after our mother's death, having no children of her own, showed towards us all little less than a mother's care and affection ; so that Hampstead became to us all a second, and in many ways more attractive, home. Her husband, like my grandfather Lloyd, was a Quaker — and a close friendship was maintained between them — but she herself was a consistent, pious Church woman. If I owed anything to my previous schooling at Sevenoaks it was that I there picked up the rudiments of Latin versification, in prepara- tion for Harrow, which has been as a possession to me throughout my life ; and that I learned to play cricket, and to take an interest in the game — an interest which I still retain. Kent was then the foremost cricketers' county, and Sevenoaks a cricketing centre, and when matches were played on the well-known * Vine ' ^ ground, we schoolboys, marshalled by the usher, w^ere taken to see them. Dr. Wil- gress himself sometimes making one of an eleven. Dull as my memory then was, it enables me to recollect — and per- haps it is the pleasantest reminiscence of those days which I can recall — that once when we were playing a game in our school ground, I made a good catch, and that the Doctor happening to see it, as he was standing just then at his study window, threw me out a sixpence as a reward for my dexterity, and an encouragement to future achievements in the same line ! During the time that my father held the living of Sun- dridge (1815-20) he enjoyed the advantage of having as his chief parishioners the family of Mr. Manning, a well-known * The Sevenoaks Vine Club and the Hambleton Club, both formed about 1750, appear to be the oldest known. The Marylebone Club dates from 1787 (see Lillywhite's Cricket Scores, i. xvi). The oldest score on record is that of a match between Kent and All England, played in the Artillery Grounds, London, 1746, when Kent won by one wicket (see ibid. p. 1). •■V 8 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Director of the Bank of England, and Member of Parliament. Mr. Manning had purchased the fine house and estate of Coombe Bank shortly before my father succeeded to the living, and I well remember his saying that now my father had become rector of the parish he considered the value of his property much increased ; a compliment not less credit- able to the layman who paid than to the clergyman who received it. The eldest daughter of that family was married to Mr. Anderdon, the good * Layman' who wrote the Life of Bishop Ken. And thus it was that in early, boyhood I became acquainted with Henry Manning, now Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster — an acquaintance ripened into friendship, first at Harrow, where we were schoolfellows, though I was somewhat the senior, and afterwards at Oxford, and still maintained, I believe I may say, by mutual affec- tion and occasional correspondence, though not (unhappily) for very many years by actual intercourse. But of this more hereafter. Early in 1820 my father, on the recommendation of the Archbishop, was appointed to the Mastership of Trinity, Cambridge, by the then Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool,^ and thereupon gave up Lambeth and Sundridge, receiving in exchange the living of Buxted with Uckfield in Sussex. And after the midsummer of that year my two brothers entered upon their more advanced school life as commoners at Winchester, and I upon mine at Harrow. My tutor was - I find the following among my father's papers : ' June 28, 1820. ' My dear Brother, — Lord Lonsdale informs me that Lord Liverpool assured him yesterday that the Mastership of Trinity would not be disposed of without consulting the Archbishop of Canterbury. ' Ever your |iffectionate Brother, ' W. W.' It was rumoured that Monk, then Greek Professor, was to have the mastership, and the Duke of York had actually congratulated him upon his appointment. LIFE AT HARROW 9 William Drury, and, in order that I might be well taken care of, I was lodged at the house of a most motherly dame, good and kind Mrs. Leith. There was, I suppose, some ground for the parental anxiety on account of my health, to which I have referred. I used to suffer, not unfrequently, from bad headaches — which did not leave me till I was long past middle age — and I remember that Bowen, our Harrow doctor, once told me he did not believe I should live to be twenty ; but this was probably because I did not pay suffi- cient attention to his wholesome warnings against exposure to bad weather, and my pursuit of athletic exercises, which, it must be confessed, was rather excessive even for a more vigorous youth. I took intense pleasure in games of all kinds, doubtless chiefly for their own sakes ; but in some measure too for the sake of the distinction which success in them among boys — and, as the world now goes, among men and women too — never fails to bring with it. Happily in the school work at Harrow there was also a counter stimulus in the prizes given almost too freely, and consequently in the distinction gained, for composi- tion, especially in Latin verse. And hence it came to pass that the interest of my five years spent at Harrow turns almost entirely upon what I did in each of those two departments. To speak first of the games, which ought, of course, to /S"**^ have been our irdpspja, though I am not sure they were 'so regarded, at least by the boys themselves ; masters and 'tutors, though they did not slight, but rather encouraged, had not begun to place them on a par_ with, or even above, intellectual achievements. ^^XH^iet/J^a^quetB, andCJij^allJ) were the chief sports, and skating in the winter when the weather allowed. During each of my five years I was in the eleven, and the last year or two virtually captain. I say * virtually ' because, strictly speaking, there was then 10 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE no head, the management being in the hands of three (so- called) 'club-keepers,' of whom I was one during three years, 1823-25. In my first year^ '^IS^l, the idea of a match with Eton was first mooted, and everything was arranged for the meeting to take place on the Eton ground; even the postchaises ordered in which we were to have driven over, the distance being, I think, under twenty miles ; when a messenger came to say that Keate, the head master, had forbidden the match. To prevent a similar disappointment the next year, the match was fixed to take place at Lord^. In that first ^ regular encounter between the two schools — an encounter continued annually ever since — my left-hand bowling (I batted right-handed) proved so successful, and was regarded by our opponents as so formidable, that in the following year, knowing that I was to be against them again, they endeavoured to find a^professional who could bowl left-handed, to give them the practice which they considered necessary to prevent their being defeated a second time. We were not slow to follow their example, and so had a professional down from Lord's for the season ; Mr. Anderdon, Manning's brother-in-law, kindly under- taking to defray the expense. This, I believe, was the first instance of the introduction of coaching professionals ^ ^ (not, in my opinion, a desirable institution) at our public schools. The Eton and Harrow match soon became celebrated, and other public schools were anxious to enter into the lists ; a circumstance which brought to me, as supposed • I call it the ' first regular encounter ' because it is doubtful whether the two matches which are recorded to have taken place previously at Lord's — viz. in 1805, when Eton won, and in 1818, when Harrow won— were matches of the genuine school elevens. In the former Lord Byron played on the Harrow side, and scored 7 and 2. In Lillywhite's Cricket Scores, my name is mentioned among * amateur cricketers educated at Harrow,' and the next name to it is that of Lord Byron. See vol. i. p. xxv. LIFE AT HARROW 11 captain of our eleven, letters of challenge from other schools besides Eton, viz. Eugby, Charterhouse, and Winchester. Nothing came out of the correspondence with the two former ; but in 1825 a match with Winchester for the first time was arranged to take place at Lord's on the day after our match with Eton : their eleven had proposed to come to Harrow the year before, but our head master. Dr. Butler, following Keate's example in 1821, forbade us to receive them. That match was memorable because the names of two brothers were to be seen placarded in the printed bills opposite each other's at the head of their respective elevens, both being C. Wordsworth — * C in the one case standing for Charles, and in the other for Christopher. In the latter case, however, Christopher was not actually captain, nor was he one of their best batsmen, though excellent in the field ; but his name was placed at the top as being senior in the school. At the same time it must be added that in his score of runs on that occasion he was very successful — much more successful than his brother Charles,^ the Harrow captain, who had to bowl against him. The truth is, he quite understood my bowling, which happened that day to be at its worst, and he cut it about very unmercifully ! But what pleased him most, and what he always liked to tell of, when the events of that game were recalled to mind in his later years, was, that it had been his good fortune to * catch out Henry Manning,' ^ who in that year formed one of our Harrow eleven. * Though unsuccessful, as usual, at Lord's (my score was 17 and 5), for the reason mentioned below (p. 22), I find it stated, in a letter of mine to my brother Christopher (July 12, 1825), that 'I had got nearly double the number of runs of any other player ' at Harrow during the season. ^ So he said, and I cannot suppose that his memory, which was re- markably good, was at fault ; but in the printed reports of the match the entry stands : ' Manning, first innings— b. Templeton, 6 ; second innings — b. Price, 0.' It is to be remarked, however, that the record of the next batsman appears thus : ' Barclay, first innings — b. Bayley, 17 ; second 12 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Before I quit the subject of cricketing at Harrow, there are three or four incidents which stand out in my memory in connection with it, and which, for one reason or other, may deserve to be recorded. 1. My first incident is probably a unique one. On one occasion, as I was batting, I knocked the umpire down with a leg hit. Seeing the stroke I was about to make, he turned round ; the ball hit him on the back, and bounded off into the wicket-keeper's hands. Naturally enough, he gave me out ! and out I went — but under protest. The ball, it is true, had not touched the ground ; but if the umpire had not served as a twelfth man in the field, it would not have been caught. What would Dr. Grace or Lord Harris say to this ? 2. On another occasion I was myself in the field, stand- ing rather too close at point. A ball was hit sharp at right angles, and before I had time to put up my hand to stop it, it knocked off my low broad-brimmed straw hat and went on its course for three runs — a narrow escape of what, had the ball come an inch or two lower, might have been instant death, or at least have marred or disfigured me for life. Deo gratias I 3. On a third occasion, when an eleven of the Marylebone Club had come down to play against us, including Mr. William Ward, M.P. for the City of London, and then uni- versally acknowledged to be the best gentleman player in England, I had the good fortune to bowl him out before he had made more than three runs, whereas till then fourteen had been his smallest score during the season. In the second innings of that same match I had the good fortune to bowl not less than seven wickets. 4. The most memorable of these few incidents of my innings — c. Wordsworth, 4 ; ' so that my brother's name may have been misplaced. See his Life, i. 33. LIFE AT HARROW 13 Harrow cricketing days has been reserved for the last.^ It was on the occasion of my first visit to the Lakes in 1822. My father had rented * Ivy Cottage ' (as it was then called, now Glen Eothay), close to Eydal Mount, and I had joined him there to spend my midsummer holidays. One after- noon, quite (I believe) unexpectedly, a carriage drove up, containing Mr. Bolton of Storrs, the well-known Liverpool merchant, and Mr. Canning, who had just been appointed Governor-General of India, and had come to pay a farewell visit to the friend who had been one of his chief supporters in his Liverpool elections. They had driven over from Storrs, Mr. Bolton's residence on Windermere, to invite my uncle and Southey, then at Eydal Mount, and my father to return with them to dinner and stay the night. "While my father went upstairs to arrange his toilette for the evening, I had the honour of showing the great orator and statesman into the garden — a beautiful spot — and he walked by my side with his arm upon my shoulder (I was then a boy of sixteen) listening in the kindest manner and with keen interest to all the particulars I had to tell respecting the grand cricket match — then a novel occurrence^ — between Eton and Harrow which had been played only a few days before, and in which I had taken such a prominent part, with the result of defeat to Eton and victory to Harrow ; Canning's own sympathies of course being with the former, though he was too generous to disclose them. I need not say how much I was charmed with the simple grace and condescension of his manner. It was perhaps, in its small measure, the proudest moment of my young life. Only a few days later came the intelligence that Lord Castlereagh had committed suicide. The event caused Canning to give up his appointment to India, and opened the way first * This incident is told in my ' Chapter of Autobiography ' which appeared in the Fortnightly Beview for July 1883. -' See above, p. 10. 14 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE to his succeeding him as Foreign Secretary and eventually (1827) to his becoming Prime Minister. How little could I then foresee that before many years had passed I should become intimate at Oxford with his son Charles James Canning, who did go out as Governor to India ! Of the other games and athletics before mentioned, I remember nothing worthy of record, except that in skating on the lake at * Northwicks ' I had once a very narrow escape from drowning. I had another escape of the same kind afterwards at Oxford.^ I was too bold and venture- some as a skater. For both deliverances I ought to feel, and I desire to express, sincere and devout thankfulness to the merciful Providence which in those and other instances has so long spared and protected me. I may now proceed to the other subject of interest to me at Harrow which, as I have said, afforded happily a strong counter stimulus to that of games. The encouragement given to Latin versification throughout the school was very great, and on the whole very beneficent. Of the exercises * sent up for good,' specimens of each were read aloud by the head master when he examined the class once in every month or six weeks. But besides this and the prize books given, for every such exercise a boy was entitled to apply to his tutor or dame for a certain douceur in money, vary- ing from half a crown to half a sovereign, according to his position in the school. In my day there were only three greater (or * governors' ') prizes given annually. I call them greater to distinguish them from the lesser prizes given for ordinary verse exercises * sent up for good.' Of these prize books I possess ten, so that I must have been * sent up for good ' thirty times, a book being given by the head master for every three ' copies ' so distinguished. Of the greater prizes given by the governors, and consisting each of books to the ' See below, p. 62. LIFE AT HARROW 16 value of five pounds, one was for Latin hexameters, another for Latm alcaics, and the third for a translation into Greek iambics, similar to the Cambridge Porson Prize. The successful compositions were recited by their authors on the second, which was the principal. Speech Day. In 1823 I tried for the Latin hexameters, on the subject of ' The Raising of Lazarus,' but without success. My kind dame, Mrs. Leith, having heard of my unsuccess- ful attempt, made me a present of a book, a nicely bound copy of Milman's * Fall of Jerusalem,' in solatium. In 1824 I tried for the alcaic ode, on the subject of * Africa Mauro perfusa Oceano,' and succeeded. In 1825 I tried for all three, and again won the Latin ode, * On the Death of Dr. Parr ; ' and also came in second as a proxime accessity and was complimented by the head master with a handsome present of books for each of the other two. My more successful competitor, who gained both, was Arthur Martineau, captain of the school, while I was second ; and I have no doubt he fully deserved to beat me. He was no athlete, and had probably given more time to his produc- tions than I had done. Nevertheless, the result was a dis- appointment, and all the more because one of the masters, who had seen both Martineau' s compositions and mine, had been so indiscreet as to let it be known that he * expected Wordsworth to get all three prizes.' Of my own two successful compositions, I am tempted to preserve the latter (see Appendix, p. 357), though it possesses no great merit ; a defect which my vanity inclines me to impute, in sonie degree at least, to the character of the subject, which, it must be owned, did not lend itself readily to poetical treat- ment, as the reader by whom Dr. Parr may be still re- membered as the Whig and clerical counterpart of Dr. Johnson, on a smaller scale, with his habitual lisp, and pipe in his mouth, will readily admit. The ode of the 16 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE preceding year was better perhaps in some respects ; it was certainly more vigorous.^ The following letter of my grandfather Lloyd will be found curious and interesting from more than one point of view. Although in regard to the time at which it was written, viz. in November of 1825, it more properly belongs to my Oxford life, and therefore to the next chapter, I insert it here because it relates to the Harrow Prize Poem * On the Death of Dr. Parr,' of which I have just been speaking. The translation mentioned will also be found in the Appendix, p. 360. Birmingham: 4.1 1""*, 1825. Dear Char es, — I thank thee for thy acceptable letter, and for the little book of Prize Poems. Thine pleased me much, and as the editor of the Warwick newspaper (who had inserted thy poem two months ago) wished for a translation, I ventured to attempt it, though my mind was irresolute about suffering my translation to be printed. I, however, gave way to the editor's wishes.^ I hope thou thinkest I have done it faithfully, though I purposely omitted to translate ' choreas,' thinking that it did not suit a clergyman's character : in Latin it did very well. I ordered a newspaper to be sent to thee at Harrow (not knowing of thy removal to Oxford), and I hope it was forwarded to thee. Thou hast probably heard that thy excellent aunt Anna Braithwaite ^ is gone on a second religious visit to America ; her husband accompanied her ; and I am anxiously expecting a letter from her to inform me of their safe arrival at New York. [Added in the margin : ' Since writing this letter I have received a letter from my dear daughter informing me of her and her husband's safe arrival at New York after a very stormy passage. The Bishop (I believe of Canada) was one of the passengers, and was most kind and attentive to her.'] ^ I made a translation of it into English verse at the request of my good dame, Mrs. Leith, but I have preserved no copy of it. "^ It did not appear with his name, but bore the signature of ' Amicus ' ■ — o, friend. 3 She lived at Kendal. The Braithwaites (then Quakers), as well as the other members of the large Lloyd family, are now nearly all Church people. LIFE AT HARROW 17 We should be glad to see thee and thy brothers at Bingley. I am old/ and cannot enliven you as I could have done some years ago, but I would do my best. I hope the temptations of Oxford will not lead thee astray. Remember that the crown of eternal happiness * vincenti dabitur,' and that if any man will be Christ's disciple, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily, the consequence of which will be such peace as the world can neither give nor take away. In respect to maxims of morality, they abound in the writ- ings of Cicero, and many of the ancient philosophers both Greek and Latin, but none of them have the unction of the Gospel. How excellent are these lines of Horace : Quisnam igitur liber ? Sapiens sibi qui imperiosus, Quem neque pauperies, nee mors, nee vincula terrent, Responsare cupidinibus, contemnere honores Fortis, et in se ipso totus teres atque rotundus. I wish to know how thou likest Oxford, and how thou art going on with thy learning. I have hitherto had great comfort in all your conduct, and hope I shall never have occasion for pangs of heart on your account. I had a very kind letter from my dear friend Sarah Hoare, with as good an account of her mother and herself as could be expected considering their great loss.^ I feel the loss of my dear friend much. We had been intimately acquainted for fifty years. I hear that my neighbour and friend, Dr. John Johnstone, is writing a life of Dr. Parr, in which I expect will be inserted many of his unpublished works. Dr. Johnstone likes thy poem, and I believe was not displeased with my translation. I attended a very large and genteel meeting here lately, being the anniversary of the deaf and dumb establishment. The Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry (Dr. Ryder) was in the chair, who was very attentive to me. The Committee unanimously requested me to move the first resolution, which with diffidence I did, and everybody seemed to be much pleased with what I said. How times are changed ! A Quaker to take the lead when a Bishop ^ He was then seventy-seven, and died three years afterwards. ^ The death of her father, Mr. Samuel Hoare. The mother here men- tioned was her stepmother, Mr. Hoare's second wife, our most kind friend, before mentioned. (See p. 6.) C 18 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE was in the chair, supported by many clergymen. I think the Bishop is an excellent man. With dear love and kindest good wishes, I am thy affectionate grandfather, Chaeles Lloyd. Charles Wordsworth, Christ Church College, Oxford. Can anything be more delightful than the naivete of the last short sentence ? The dear, good old man ! Being now older than he was when he died, I may be excused for speak- ing thus. Hitherto in these reminiscences the impression, I sup- pose, has been conveyed that, with the exception of some attention paid to composition, especially of Latin Verse, we Harrow boys, in regard to profitable study, had for the most part an idle time. But a letter of mine written to my brother Christopher, February 17, 1824 (which he had preserved, and which is now before me), would seem to show that this was not altogether the case ; that some of us at least were capable of diligence, though only perhaps by fits and starts. The following is an extract : It is now Saturday night, and I have come to the conclusion of as industrious a week as I ever spent in my life ; having done 120 Latin hexameters — subject, ' Bull Bait ' ; a Latin theme, fifty lines; a translation; lyrics, nineteen stanzas; besides thirty lines of Juvenal construed and learnt by heart every day — only this very night, since six o'clock, I have learnt 120 lines. . . . Fellows have taken it into their heads to sap terribly hard this quarter. Some do six or seven chapters of Thucydides, others of Herodotus, others Greek Play — besides Juvenal, Livy, Tacitus, &c. — every day, extra ! (That means beyond the ordinary school work.) Some have soared so far into the clouds as to read Aristophanes ; for the joke's sake, it must be the Nubes. It is true the same letter does not end without telling somewhat of a different tale. LIFE AT HARROW 19 The day I wrote to you last was Sunday fortnight. The next day, Monday, being a whole holiday, I went to town with Trench' early in the morning to play at tennis. Played two hours, and had to pull out eighteen shillings between us. Dined at Trench's, and returned here that night. The advantage you see of being at Leith's ! A hundred to one if I could have got leave at any other house without a note. Again : Another letter to my brother, March 23, 1825, speaks of works of supererogation which are fairly creditable. This, you know, has been a very short quarter (between Christmas and Easter); so I hope you will think I have acquitted myself tolerably, having read through two Greek plays— (Edipus Tyrannus and Alcestis — and having learnt by heart a Georgic, horis subsecivis ; especially as for more than the last fortnight I have not been able to open a book through a horrible succession of headaches, nan sine tussihus. It will be observed that both the foregoing reports refer to a time of year when cricket was not going on. In the winter months we had our football matches, between two and four on holiday afternoons, but that game did not engross our energies in the same degree. The absorbing interest which now attaches to it is of comparatively recent growth. What now occurs to me is a trifling matter, scarcely worth mentioning ; and yet it recalls the most enduring memorial of my Harrow life. I was an adept in cutting out names — more so, I believe I may say, than any other boy in the school ; and the accomplishment was attended with some little eclat, the oak panelling in the old schoolroom affording ex- cellent material for its display. Tokens of my skill are to be seen in my own name, cut out more than once, and in ' Francis Trench, elder brother of the late Archbishop. c 2 20 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE the names of E. H. Pitzherbert, C. Perry (late Bishop of Melbourne), and others. Byron's, Sheridan's, and Jones's (Sir William) are among the most celebrated that adorn the walls. It was half-suggested to me by Dr. Butler to cut out Temple's (Lord Palmer ston's), but seeing that, for some reason or other, I did not act upon the hint, he employed a carpenter to do it, as had been recently done in other instances of men who had become distin- guished after they had left school. This to my mind was scarcely legitimate, as the interest of such names (like that of * Thos. Ken ' in the Cloisters at Winchester) consists in their being looked upon as autographs ^ or at least engraved, if not by the boy himself, by some friend or con- temporary. But to come now to more serious matters. In my day there was no School Chapel at Harrow. That good work was first accomplished when my brother Christopher (in succession to Longley, who succeeded Butler) had become head master. We attended the parish church — so beauti- fully situated on the crown of the hill — and were stowed away, most of us, in close and unsightly galleries, little tending to promote in us a habit of piety or of attention. And in other respects — though prayer, morning and evening, was offered in school ; and in my own boarding house good Mrs. Leith read prayers, at which we were all required to attend, every evening before bed-time ; and thus a certain amount of outward decorum generally prevailed — it cannot be said that our religious training was sufficiently attended to. We should have been happier if we had been less indulged, and kept in better order. Why should we fear youth's draught of joy, If pure, would sparkle less ? Why should the cup the sooner cloy Which God hath deigned to bless ? LIFE AT HARROW 21 I was confirmed on May 14, 1824, by my godfather the Archbishop, Harrow being a pecuKar of the diocese of Canterbury. The next day, with his usual considerate kindness, he wrote the following letter, found among my father's papers : Lambeth Palace : May 15, 1824. Dear Wordsworth, — I confirmed at Harrow yesterday, and saw my godson. He had greatly distinguished himself at Speeches the day before. Dr. Butler assured me that he was altogether the best speaker of the day.^ The Doctor says he is excellent in the school business, and pre-eminent in gymnastic exercises. I could not help troubling you with this short note, FronjL, dear Wordsworth, your faithful friend and servant, Cantuae. I cannot remember whether the Archbishop gave us an address ; if he did I am afraid it made no impression, and previously there had been little or no preparation of the candidates. All that my tutor did for me was to ask whether I could say the Catechism ; to which I answered in the affirmative ! In no case, so far as I can remember, was Confirmation followed up by the reception of Holy Communion ; in short, as regards the school, it was, I fear, a thing unknown. This is melancholy. The present generation have great reason to be thankful that in this, as in other respects, things are very different now. My performance on the Speech Day, to which the Arch- bishop refers, requires some explanation. At that time there were three Speech Days, one in each of the three months of the summer quarter; and that in May must have been the first. The monitors, that is, the ten upper- most boys of the school, had to speak on each of those occasions, together with five out of the fifteen next in order ; so that each of these latter spoke only once. The drilling of ' My speech was the well-known reply of the elder Pitt, when a young man, to Sir R. Walpole. 22 ANNALS OF xMY EARLY LIFE the speakers, as well as the choice of the speeches, was en- tirely in the hands of the head master ; and it must be said that Butler did it admirably. Though somewhat too slight and short in figure for the great parts of Tragedy, he would have made a first-rate actor, and of this he was not perhaps altogether unconscious. Of many of the boys of course he could make very little or nothing ; but if any one was in- clined to take pains, and showed some aptitude as a speaker, there can be no doubt that the lessons which he gave us both in action and in elocution could not fail to be of real service. In my own case there was a peculiar disadvantage — I will not say to be overcome, for that I believe was impos- sible, but — to be encountered and borne with. Even in rehearsals, when no one else was present, the Doctor said he had never seen a boy so nervous, and he actually pro- posed to put me through a course of bark ! The weakness was constitutional (inherited, I suspect, from my mother, though I do not think either of my brothers suffered from it in the same degree), and it has attended me through life. In cricket its effect was such that I could never hope to do myself justice, or to make a good score in any great or exciting match. Even now in preaching — except on quite ordinary occasions, and where I am well known — it affects me pain- fully ; though no one, I believe, is able to discover it. That it should have rendered me very averse from platform and such-like appearances is only natural ; but this is perhaps no very serious cause for regret. When such appearances have been unavoidable, I have generally, from fear of failure, taken care to be well prepared ; although, when it has so happened that I have had to speak without the possibility of preparation, I have succeeded, I believe, as well as, or better than, at other times. But to return to our Harrow Speeches. It is true, coming so often as they did, they inter- fered in some degree with the ordinary business of the school, LIFE AT HARROW 2S and took up perhaps more of the time of the head master than he could well spare. But considering how valuable is the acquirement of the habits, not only of presence of mind, of confidence, and self-possession, but of a ready and distinct, and if it may be, graceful utterance, I doubt whether it was wise to reduce the three annual Speech Days to one, as has been the case since Butler's time. Or at least I would suggest, as the result of my own experience, both in myself and in others, that the practice of elocution should in some way or other be made a part of our education, more than (so far as I know) has yet been done. In an age like this, continually tending towards democracy, and when almost everyone is becoming more or less a public speaker,^ to say nothing of the constant necessity of public reading and preaching on the part of the clergy, we need to have some- thing to correspond with the ancient schools of Ehetoric at Athens and at Eome.^ I left Harrow with intense regret. It was the fashion for the upper boys on leaving to compose a Vale in verse English or Latin. Mine was in English, and founded, as regards metre, upon Byron's * Fare thee well.' It was com- mended by Butler and read over in school ; but I preserved no copy of it. I regarded it as a poor performance, my mind at the time being much more full of the two cricket matches, against Eton and against Winchester, which were to come on at Lord's within the following three or four days, than of the success of my composition. How great then was my surprise when, as I was paying a visit in Gloucestershire * It is recorded of Sir Stafford Northcote (Life of Lord Iddesleigh, i. 106) that, at the age of thirty-three, he took lessons in elocution from Wigan the actor. This he need not have done if he had been trained to speak at Eton. 2 If, as Eoger de Coverley (i.e. Addison) ' heartily wished,' the clergy are to * endeavour after a handsome elocution, they must begin at schooV Spectator, No. 106. See also in No. 147 a remark by Steele to the same eiSect. 24 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE eight years afterwards, a young lady in whose father's house I was staying, showed me the identical verses transcribed in her album ! How she had obtained them I do not re- member. The incident moved me to compose the following impromptu : On seeing in Miss L 's album a copy of verses which were written by me on leaving Harrow f and beginning * Fare thee well.' ' The evil that men do lives after them : * The nonsense that boys write full offc survives To shame the judgment of maturer years : — Or surely these poor despicable rhymes Had long since perished ! — ' Harrow, fare thee well ! ' Fare but as well as this my wish has fared, This unfledged ofi'spring of my boyish muse, Eescued too fondly from oblivion. Honoured by praise of ladies' lips, embalmed By fairest hands in wit and beauty's shrine ; Mayst thou but /are for thy deserts, as I For vile demerits have too richly fared. Then great, surpassing great, shall be thy glory ! All that is lovely and of good report Shall wait upon thee : Memory guard thy name : Celestial grace and bright-eyed honour vie To crown thee still with laurels ever green, And flowers undying till the end of time. When the time came that the midsummer holidays were over, and the school was to reassemble, for several nights I was tantalised with dreams in which I fancied I had re- turned once more to the scene and companions I had loved so well. I seemed to realise that I had been happier there than I could ever hope to be again. Not that my happiness would have borne the test of a strictly moral scrutiny, and still less of a religious one. It had not indeed made me proud or conceited ; but there was in it, I fear, no suffi- cient consciousness of Him to Whom I owed it. I was not LIFE AT HARROW 25 thankful as I ought to have been. In school, as I was second in the order of the sixth (the highest) form, so as a scholar I was only second in distinction to the one boy who was above me, while out of school I vfa,& facile princeps. In short, as a boy I was a greater man that I have been at any subsequent period of my life.^ Among the friends whom I left behind, and who in due time were to follow me to Oxford, was Henry Manning, to whom I sent a present of a cricket bat with a poetical epistle ; and I received from him in return a similar epistle in twelve stanzas. It is curious that I should have preserved them, for there was certainly no reason at that time to entertain any presentiment of the distinguished reputation which the writer subsequently won for himself, and still less of the extraordinary eminence which he has now attained ; and the verses themselves are a mere schoolboy's production. It may su£Qce to give one or two specimens. I. Harrow : Sept. 12, 1825. Dear Charles, I hope you'll make some small allowance, Being a poet of the brightest rate ; You would, I'm sure, be kind, if you could know once What pains I've taken to write verse of late. II. The bat that you were kind enough to send, Seems (for as yet I have not tried it) good ; And if there's anything on earth can mend My wretched play, it is that piece of wood. There is a pleasing humility in that last sentiment, though I think it will be felt that the youthful bard — the future Cardinal — jumps at his conclusion somewhat hastily, and upon evidence altogether insufficient. ' See Christian Boyhood, ii. 222. 26 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE I add the P.^., which runs as follows : The current story hereabout Sayeth that thou, old boy, art dead. Pray, write a word that thou art stout, And satisfy us on that head. I feel that I am in great measure responsible for this attempt of Manning's, as it appears that I had previously written to him a letter in verse. As a boy I was fond of writ- ing poetical epistles, and so provoked my correspondents to do the same. In my brother Christopher's *Life,' Vol. I. p. 24 sq. there is a youthful composition of his which begins : Your epistle, dear Charles, gave us all so much pleasure, So charming the verse, that now I have leisure, "With your letter before me, I sit down to try, To excel not e'en hoping ; but halt, by the bye, Well, now I remember an old Roman poet Says just what I mean, so his words here I quote : If to see them you wish, pray look in the note.^ In both those cases I have entirely forgotten not only what I wrote, but that I had written it. Whereas I do remember writing a long verse epistle to my cousin Dora at Rydal Mount, descriptive of my return journey from the Lakes with my father in 1822 ; also to Francis Popham, of Life and Society at Brighton in 1825 ; also (in Latin) to Henry Denison from Cambridge in 1828 ; also (in Latin) to John Thomas from Cuddesdon in 1829 ; also to Walter Hamilton, of the scenery in North Wales and my ascent of Snowdon, in 1831 ; but I can recall nothing further of any one of them. The only specimen of the misemployment of my time in this respect which I have preserved is the following letter to * Non ita certandi cupidus, quam propter amorem Quod te imitari aveo — Lucretius de Homero loquens, sic ego de te. My brother's memory was here at fault. Lucretius (iii. 4) is speaking not of Homer, but of Epicurus. LIFE AT HARROW 27 my grandfather Lloyd, written in my Christmas holidays 1823-4. It has not much to recommend it except in the record which it gives of my studies at that time. I have no recollection that I had previously written to him in English verse, but this letter shows that I had done so. It also shows, from the use of the Beppo and Don Juan stanza, the influence of Byron's poetry among boys at that time. Poetical Epistle to my Grandfather Lloyd. My dear grandfather, the' I've nought to tell, And all that nought ^ I fear told o'er and o'er, You'll see by this sheet that, remembering well My former kind reception, I've once more Ventured in Pindus Street to ring the bell. And Proebus civilly hath oped the door : Forthwith I've sent my card up to inquire For a short interview with Miss Thalia. I fancy now I see you by the fire Sitting in your own dressing-room ; a cousin Or two perhaps attending on their sire. Or, as 'tis Christmas time, say half a dozen : — Your guest, too, near the door,^ whom I desire Kindly to be remembered to, is oozing Just now, perhaps, with head from out his nook, who Sings hourly — Uke a veritable cuckoo. The door now opens ; my epistle enters ; The seal is broken ; on my wretched lay All the attention of the party centres : — * Who is it from ? ' the cousins whisper, * hey ?— From cousin Charles ? I wonder if he's sent us Another verse epistle. I dare say, 'Tis precious stuiff.' Amazed you eye the stanzas, And fear my case is worse than Sancho Panza's. ' Nil habuit Codnis ; quis enim negat ? et tamen illud Perdidit infelix totum nil.—J\i\. Sat. iii. 208. 2 The cuckoo clock. 28 ANNALS OF Y EAKLY LIFE See ! how sagacious the Cousins look, Pricking their ears. Sweet creatures, you were all, I saw — unless your faces I mistook — Determined to be nicely critical : But this time, tho' I prudence once forsook, I've hit upon a measure quite political : To avoid your censures it comes very pat in For me to talk to grandfather in Latin. I, Birminghamise fumosas expete turres, I, mea veloci littera vecta fuga ; Mox nostri — novus hospes — avi succedere tectis Prompta, et de domino multa referre tuo. Heus ! propera ; cursum nusquam suspende ; luenda si nostra foret, te properante, mora. Quem petis, invenies juvenih forte corona Stipante, ad nitidum, sit nisi mane, focum : — Nam bursas ^ dat mane operam, curaeque forensi, Qua vincit juvenes sedulitate senex : — Quippe supercilio nubem dempsisse molestam, Aut frontem innocuis explicuisse jocis, Non pudet hunc : Quoties Iseta admiransque juventus Indomiti senio pendet ab ore viri ! Auget laetitiam toties ; interque jocandum Ejffingit mores ad pietatis opus. Forsitan aut Flacci versantem carmina cernas, Aut sit Pindaricse captus amore lyrae ; Aut forte errantem comitari gaudet Ulyssem, Et scripta Angliacis reddere Graeca modis : ^ — Livenies cert^, invenias ubicunque locorum, Qualibet indutum laude decente senem. Cum tandem adstiteris coram, mandata memento Nostra verecundo protinus ore loqui. Camus ubi mundis praebet lutea oscula ripis, Vixque trahit pigras, fixus ut anguis, aquas, Hanc, ave care, nepos tibi gratus amansque salutem, Mensque voluntatis dat studiosa tuae. Sera quidem est, sed vera salus ; mea pignora amoris Ne, precor, haec quia sint sera, minoris habe. • The Bank. 2 gee above, p. 3. LIFE AT HARROW «29 Ah ! fateor culpam, et tardus lege arguor sBqua, Et pudet officium deseruisse meum : Hac autem quacunque utar pro crimine causa — (Causa satis quanquam non bona, vera satis) Me studiis horas gnavum impendisse frequentes Assiduaque libris incubuisse manu. * Quas studia ? ' hie quaeras fortassis, * quive libelli ? Si modo tu numeros perpetiare meos, Haud mora, jam responsa dabo : Juvenalis, Horati, Vatis et Andini, MaBoniique senis Carmina praecipue evolvi, dulcisque poetae Multa, Tomitano qui fuit exul agro. ^schyleo indutus per pulpita lata cothurno, Incessi ad fines vectus, Hymette, tuos ; Pomaque decerpsi foecundo Euripidis horto Aurea, mellifluas devius inter opes. Huic Thucydidis adde, Arpinatisque pedestres Scripturas — nostrum claudat et ille gregem — Cui vix Roma vetus, cui vix Facundia, dias Summa inter Charitas nympha, superstes erat. Hie, ni fallor, habes amplam satis, hercule, turbam ; Orat te veniam tota ea turba mihi. Ambiet haud iterum Musas f rater mihi major Ad ripam lehini Wiceamieamque domum ; At nondum res deereta est quo fleetere praestet In spatia admissos liberiora pedes. Hoe autem certum est ; Autumni ubi venerit hora, Ilium Granta sui seribet ab inde gregis. Corde simul massto laetantique ipse revisam Herganos ^ actis quinque diebus agros ; Et post non multis, renuant nisi fata, redibit Christophorus VentaB ^ maenia ad arcta suae. Aeeipit accipietque meas tua littera grates Et grates, tua quod charta ferebat, habet. ! utinam mehus quid gratibus addere possem, Nam verba offieiis cuncta minora tuis ! Semper sub memori tua munera mente reponam ; Hoc eerte pietas reddere, amorque potest. Herga — classical name of Harrow. See below, Appendix, p. 358. '^ Yenta, Winchester. 30 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Nos omnes rect^, natique, paterque, valemus, Utque etiam valeas tu ben^, vota damns. It is now upwards of twenty-five years since I have been at Harrow. My last visit there was in 1865. I was staying in London with my friend Lord Eollo, when it occurred to us that we could not spend a summer's afternoon more pleasantly than by making an excursion to a place which had so many attractions, especially for me, and which he had never seen. Accordingly we took a cab and drove down together, a distance of about ten miles. I felt no little pleasure in introducing my companion to the various objects of special interest. First we went to the school buildings, and to the gravel platform at the back, where racquets were played against the wall of the old schoolroom. F'rom thence we admired the extensive view of miles of rich meadow ground, spreading towards Windsor, which might be seen on a clear day. Upon the other side of the low wall which bounded the platform, I pointed out what tradition named as * the fighting ground ' (though I never saw it used for that purpose), upon a lower level, where the racquet court now stands. And I told how, once upon a time on that spot,Eichard Trench and I fell out over a game of quoits. He lost his temper, flew into an Irish rage, took up a quoit and threw it at my head. Such an outrage called for instant chastisement, and I am afraid it must be said that I administered it, as boys are wont to do, rather too savagely ; for the next day he had to go up to London to see a dentist, in order to have his teeth, which had suffered in the fray, put to rights. Who would have supposed that such an encounter could ever have taken place between the future sedate and amiable Archbishop and the future advocate of reconciliation among Christians ? Perhaps it was desirable for the formation and development of both our characters. LIFE AT HARROW 81 It maybe that the former, considering the temper that he often showed as a boy, had need to undergo some such experience ere he could attain to the perfection of mildness and equanimity which he displayed in after life ; and as regards the latter, I may venture to say that it was not in his nature to use violence unless the provocation had been somewhat more than ordinary ; that the injury done, what- ever it may have been, was unintentional ; and as it pro- ceeded from no ill-will, I have no doubt he was sorry for it afterwards.^ After examining the old schoolroom with its historic names cut but upon the oaken wainscot, and the names which I had cut out myself (of which some account has been given above, see page 19), Lord Eollo and I passed into the monitors' library, and were standing and talking there with the door open, when who should appear but Merilier, our old mathematical master (whose private pupil I had been for a few lessons), exclaiming ' I am sure that must be Words- worth's voice ! ' It was a most curious instance of vocal memory. He could not have seen or heard me speak for about forty years, and meanwhile countless voices of other boys must have been ringing in his ears during the long interval. He might indeed have just heard that I was in Harrow ; but even so the recognition was very remarkable. Leaving the school buildings, we went by the road further ^ The first time that I met Eichard Trench after I left Harrow was in 1858, when, as Dean of Westminster, having set on foot the course of evening sermons in the nave of the Abbey, he kindly invited me to preach in what, if I remember right, was the first series. The next time of our meeting was in 1864, when he, as Archbishop of Dublin, and I as Bishop of St. Andrews, preached the sermons— he in the morning, and I in the after- noon — at Stratford, on occasion of the Shakespeare tercentenary. That we two, who had been boys together at the same house, and in the same form at Harrow, should have been selected to occupy the pulpit on such an occasion, was a remarkable and a very pleasant coincidence. The last time we met each other was when we were both members of the New Testa- ment revision company, and he took part in some of the later sessions. 32 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE up the hill, and passing the house where I had boarded with my good old dame, Mrs. Leith, we entered the churchyard where the church embosomed among trees crowns the hill with its graceful spire. There we enjoyed, but in still greater perfection, the same charming and extensive view which I have before described as seen from the back of the school ; and there I pointed out on a monumental panel erected horizontally over a grave the following lines written in pencil, and said to have been composed by Lord Byron when a boy at Harrow : Beneath these green trees rising to the skies. The planter of them, Eichard Greentree, lies ; The time will come when these green trees shall fall. And Richard Greentree rise above them all. I do not feel sure about the Christian name of Mr. Greentree ; but otherwise I have a perfect recollection of the lines themselves. But the spot which interested Lord Rollo most was one at the other end of the village, where in the last year I spent at Harrow the adventure occurred which I will now describe. It was customary for parties of the boys on a Sunday evening to make a sort of promenade of the public road between * Northwicks,' as it was then called, and the turnpike gate upon the road to London. On one such occasion, when Manning and I were walking together, two young midshipmen who were out for a holiday, and who evidently had more money in their pockets than they knew what to do with, and were staying at the King's Head Inn, which stands slightly off the road on the lower side, came up to us, and asked us to favour them with our company over a bottle of champagne. Of course we readily consented. The Inn and its garden at the back were out of bounds, so that the escapade was not altogether irreproachable, and it LIFE AT HARKOW S3 is to be hoped that the future Cardinal and the future Bishop have long since repented of it. At the same time it is to be said in their defence that the rule about bounds was in general very laxly interpreted by both boys and masters ; and the olfence was understood to consist rather in being detected in the transgression than in the transgression itself.^ Un- fortunately it happened that the Doctor and Mrs. Butler were also taking their evening walk along the same road at the same time ; and he marked two of his boys entering the forbidden door, but without being near enough to distinguish who they were. Little suspecting that we had been ob- served, we were conducted by our new-made friends into the Inn garden to a large weeping ash tree which grew upon the lawn, and by its wide spreading boughs *high over arched ' and reaching to the ground, and its luxuriant foliage, formed a delightful bower for such a symposium. But no sooner had we taken our seats, and were beginning to feel happy at the prospect before us, than the waiter appeared with his tray of champagne and glasses in his hands, but with consternation in his looks, exclaiming, * The Doctor has seen you and is coming in ! ' Up sprang Manning and I like startled hares, and as quick as lightning rushed from under the tree on the other side, jumped over the hedge which was close at hand, dashed down the back side of the garden, and escaped into Hog Lane undetected, leaving the good Doctor to explain to our hosts the cause of our sudden and abrupt disappearance. But we were not to be disappointed of our promised treat. As soon as we found that the coast was clear, we returned to the scene we had left so precipitately, drank ^ See Quarterly Review on ' Eton College ' for October, 1890, and Life of Lord Iddesleigh, by Mr. A. Lang, who writes : ' At Eton, in Northcote'a time, if a tutor met a pupil where no pupil should be, it was technically sufficient to hide or " shirk " behind a lamp-post, and no notice was taken of the irregularity.' 84 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE our glass or two of champagne with increased relish, which made amends for the previous * slip between the cup and the lip,' and then, wishing good night to our kind entertainers, took our departure. Manning going off to his tutor's (Evans'), in Hog Lane, and I to my dame's at the top of the hill. It was not unusual for one of the assistant masters (I suppose in the order of a course) to come to the dames' houses soon after * locking-up time,' and require the names of the boys to be called over, in order to ascer- tain that all had come in by the appointed hour — 8 o'clock. But it was very seldom that this was done by the head master. On this evening, however, the Doctor himself made his appearance, and it devolved upon me, as the head boy of the house, to call over the roll in his presence, which accordingly I did, and — not having taken more champagne than was good for me — with such perfect propriety as to disarm all suspicion. If Thomas Bewick, of Newcastle, the talented engraver, who flourished a century ago, were now alive, and his services could be obtained to illustrate this volume, he might have made a very effective woodcut representing two school- hoys leaping over a hedge, with their master behind at a stand- still, which would have formed a charming vignette to close this chapter of the experiences of my life at Harrow. 35 CHAPTEE II FROM MY ENTRANCE AT OXFORD TO MY ELECTION TO THE SECOND MASTERSHIP AT WINCHESTER — 1825-35 It was a disadvantage to me, that my home being at Cam- bridge, I had there made some acquaintance with college life as an outsider before I went as an undergraduate to Oxford.^ On the one hand, there was an animation and energy in the student life of the former university, which at first, and more or less to the end of my residence, I did not find in the system of the latter ; so that even after Harrow, where there had certainly been no great pressure put upon study, I at once felt the want of stimulus to exertion. On the other hand, there was a stiffness and formality in the social life of Oxford, and especially at Christ Church, where I was entered as a commoner, which formed a striking, and to me by no means a pleasing, con- trast with the freedom and good fellowship which prevailed at Cambridge ; not only in the society of the undergraduates among themselves, but in the intercourse to which they were admitted with their tutors and other seniors. In each of those respects I might have much to say upon the distinctive characteristics of the two universities as I re- member them, if I did not apprehend that my remarks * My ever-partial friend Claughton, in a letter to me at Winchester, April 3, 1838, writes, in reference to a comparison of the Oxford and Cam- bridge systems, ' You have been nurtured in both soils, one may say ; I hope you have the good of both, and the harm of neither ; and I think it is so.' D 2 36 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE would now be out of date, and therefore of little interest or value, in consequence of the great and continual changes which both have undergone during the last half- century. I cannot, however, refrain from giving one specimen of the superior Donishness of Oxford, and especially at Christ Church, as I experienced it. In a letter of mine written to my brother Christopher, then at Cambridge, under date April 18, 1826, the following passage occurs : On my journey here, I had the pleasure of travelling the greater part of the way with one of our Christ Church Tutors. Though I was in lecture with him all last term, and am at pre- sent, and though for the last sixteen miles we two were the only persons outside, he did not favour me with a single syllable — no, not so much as * How d'ye do ? ' ! the amiableness of Oxford manners ! For the same reason as that stated above— viz. that such great changes have subsequently taken place, and, I am thankful to believe, for the better — I shall refrain from offering any remarks upon the provision made during my time for religious worship and instruction ; which, however it might wear a fair appearance of formal routine, was es- sentially deficient, and in no respect satisfactory. It was not to be wondered at that members of Parliament, our legislators and statesmen, who, as young men, had received no better training than was to be obtained under such a system, should in after life (through the fault of others rather than their own) so often show themselves utterly unfit to deal with Church questions ; so that even of such a man as Sir Eobert Peel (who had been a Gentleman Commoner at Christ Church) it could be said — and this too when he was Prime Minister — as Gladstone did once say to me, as we were walking together, and I was complaining of recent proceedings in Parliament, — and as he said it he LIFE AT OXFORD 37 kicked away a stone lying before him on the road — ' Peel knows no more about the Church than that stone ! ' r I did not obtain rooms of my own till my third term — that is till after Easter, 1826 — in consequence of the over- crowding at Christ Church, and, in the meantime, I was put into any rooms that might happen to be vacant through the non-arrival of the owner at the beginning of the term, who, however, might make his appearance, expected or un- expected, at any momeni?\ The letter above quoted proceeds to give a graphic description of results, which were liable to occur from such an arrangement, or rather, want of arrangement. You will be able to form some idea of the happiness and com- fort that awaited my arrival here, when I inform you that for four nights running I slept in four different beds ! Part of that time I was seized with such a dreadful attack of illness that I doubt if I ever suffered so much pain in the whole course of my life. I fancy it was something of the cholera-morbus kind. One of the nights I have mentioned, I was turned out of college to sleep at an inn, or where I could. This happened rather fortunately, for on that night the attack came on so violently, that I did not get a wink of sleep, but by being out in the town, I was enabled to send for some medicine from the inn where I lodged. However, I am now, I am happy to say, quite recovered from my complaint, with the exception of a slight cold, and am gradually striking a little lucid order out of the * chaos, indigestaque moles ' with which I have been lately surrounded. In short, I have at length got rooms of my own ; garrets to be sure, but then they are my own — in Peckwater. Some people might object to them as too high up, and too low when you get there : but one must not be squeamish at Christ Church. They may perhaps be apt to damp one's spirits, and depress one's imagination a little ; but that's quite a trifle. I have no doubt that in a very short time I shall be able to discover innumerable advantages in a garret ; at any rate, as Juvenal says : UUimus ardebit quern tegula sola tuetur A pluvia. 38 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Bating the journey upstairs, which, I allow, is rather trying to the understanding, I am very well satisfied, and like my own new apartments amazingly. Tell my father that I expect he will hear something about * the thirds ' ^ which we pay for furniture etc. etc. very shortly. At present I am in the dark. I am tempted to add, from a letter written towards the end of my undergraduate course, January 20, 1830, a further word a propos of the * benefits ' which a longer experience enabled me to discover in my garret, and also in illustration of the * comfort ' which a new comer into Christ Church might still expect to find, from the want of proper management in regard to the appropriation of rooms. It appears from what had gone before that the winter at the time was unusually severe. My health altogether is very much improved, notwithstanding occasional colds, which of course are indispensable in this weather : especially when one finds — as I did this morning when I awoke — snow on one's pillow enough to make half a dozen good- sized snowballs ! It had drifted through the window, which is close at the head of my bed, and, as you may suppose, anything but weather-tight. The anarchy and confusion this term in the disposal of rooms is beyond all precedent. Young Canning, who is just come up as a student, and is consequently entitled to have rooms of his own, was turned out of bed at half-past twelve the other night to go and sleep out of college, or where he could : a pleasant thing when nights are, as our sage friend Herodotus would express it, oTat cTcrtv ! I cannot say that I gained much instruction from either of the Tutors under whom" it was my lot to be placed, though both were unquestionably able men, and one became Archbishop of Canterbury (in succession to Sumner, who followed Howley and Manners Sutton) and the other a Bishop. The first was Longley, and when he left, having * The usual arrangement was that the incomer had to pay a third of the value of the furniture to the former occupant. LIFE AT OXFORD 39 been elected master of Harrow, I was transferred to Short. That I did not gain more from them was doubtless mainly my own fault; but it was partly also the fault of the system, which consisted not so much in communicating stores of knowledge, or in creating an interest in the subjects of study, as in endeavouring to secure — what I supi^ose was considered more important — that every man for himself did a certain amount of work. Consequently the lectures, so-called, were little more than mere schoolboys' lessons, which, being too often ill prepared, I felt for the most part to be dull and unprofitable. It was this which threw me more than was wise or right into the pursuit of athletics, in which I was sure to find at once a more exciting stimulus and greater room for distinction than were afforded by the formal individualising routine of our so-called * Collections ' — examinations held at the end of each term, in which any man who had been very idle or disorderly might incur a scolding from the Dean, but no man, however exemplary or industrious — as there was no competition or classification of any kind — could achieve eclat. Vowler Short did his best, in his blunt and kindly way, to check my excessive devotion to yvfjuvacTTiKr] by reminding me of Aristotle's axiom {Ethics, x. 5) that two strong energies cannot co-exist in operation at the same time, because one has a necessary tendency to thrust out — sKKpovstv — the other ; but, I am afraid I must admit, without much result. At the same time, however, I did not omit to become a candidate for prizes such as my Harrow training had enabled me to aspire to. In my first year (1836) I wrote for the College prize for Latin Hexameters, on the subject of * Mosquae Incendium ' ; and also for the University prize, likewise for Latin Hexameters, on the subject of * Montes Pyrensei ' ; but without success in either attempt. The latter was won by Leighton of Magdalen, afterwards 40 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Warden of All Souls, and when I read his verses I had the satisfaction of feeling that they had been deservedly preferred to mine. In the next year, however, I tried again for the same prizes, and won them both — the former on the subject of * Athenae ' ; the latter on * Mexico.' In each case the value of the prize was the same — viz. 201. to be spent in books ; and while the former composition had to be recited in hall, in the presence of all the members of the college, dons and undergraduates, the latter was spoken in the Theatre before the University and visitors assembled at Commemoration. The poem for the college prize, being of much less account, was composed hastily (for the first cricket match with Cambridge occurred in the same week), and has little or no claim to be preserved ; that upon 'Mexico,' with which I had taken all the pains I could, may be seen in the Appendix to this volume. One of the first intimations I received that the latter poem had been successful was from a man who came to my rooms in the name, as he said, of the University Bell Eingers, to ask for the usual fee of a guinea given by every prizeman for ringing the bells — I suppose of St. Mary's, the University Church. I demurred, at first, upon the ground that I had not heard any bells ringing. * Oh no,' he replied. * They used to be rung formerly, but the practice has ceased for some years ' — whether or not he explained the reason, I forget — * and we are still ready to ring them.' I gave him the money, perhaps foolishly ; but at such a moment it would have been difficult to refuse any demand. And this feeling, no doubt, he reckoned on. I wonder whether my successors on the prize roll are still subject to the same piece of extortion. My success as a University prizeman was the more gratifying because both my brothers at Cambridge precisely at the same time were also successful in the same way. LIFE AT OXFORD 41 I am not sure that the bulletins announcing them did not cross each other ; I am certain they were all issued within the same week. Something of the same kind had happened in 1824. When I was at Harrow, and my brother Christopher at Winchester, the prizes won by us both happened to be decided within the same twenty-four hours. In the present instance the successes were not only greater in themselves, but included my brother John. The follow- ing letters found among my father's papers exhibit a sample of the congratulations he received. From Longley, my Christ Church Tutor, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. My dear Sir, — Your son Charles's success in gaining the University prize for Latin verse must be so gratifying to you, that I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of congratulating you upon it. Of all our four prizes it is the one which is always looked upon as the most distinguished, and on the present occa- sion many very good copies came into competition with your son's, but his proved decidedly superior to them all ; and as I was myself, in my office as Proctor, one of the five judges, I can assure you of the testimony which all my colleagues bore to their sense of the superior merit of the composition. AUow me to add that in his general conduct as well as in his attention to his studies, he has been giving me increasing satisfaction. From Le Bas, Principal of Haileybury College. Why, Master, this really is quite magnificent ! The Porson Prize. The Latin ode, epigrams, and English verse. The Oxonian Latin verse. Surely this is a glorious division of spoils among your Trium- virate, such as must satisfy all your paternal cravings after their renown. The Oxonian I do not know, but you must nevertheless tell him how cordially I exult in his success. And pray give my fervent congratulations to the other two lads. 42 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE From Chief Justice Tindal. I scarcely know when I have received more satisfaction than when I heard of the signal success which your three sons have obtained in their respective contests at the same time — I believe I may say, almost on the same day. I trust, and I believe, it is only the omen and the auspice of future success in their walk through life. Kemember me most kindly to them, and believe that I take no ordinary interest in everything that concerns your- self and yours. From Monkj Greek Professor^ afterwards Bishop of Gloucester. I yesterday wrote you a note of congratulation which came very far short of the occasion, which must make you the happiest parent in existence.^ I then knew only of the success of Chris- topher. I this morning learn that your three sons are severally decorated at the same moment with the highest honours which our two Universities have to bestow on excellence in Greek, Latin, and English poetry. This coincidence of success is so brilliant, and so perfectly unexampled, that I cannot adequately express my joy, or felicitate you in terms which the occasion calls for. The few who can now remember that elegant Eton scholar, and great favourite of all who knew him, Archdeacon Bayley, will not need to be told that when he pays me a personal compliment at the expense of my father and of my uncle, he is only indulging the good-humoured vein of playful banter, which he used in writing to his most intimate friends. * I remember Goulbum (Chancellor of the Exchequer and M.P. for Cambridge) telling my father that the Duke of Wellington had said to him that ' he considered the Master of Trinity to be the happiest man in England.' And being asked * why,' he replied, ' because each of his three sons had at the same time obtained such high distinction at their respective universities.' One would scarcely have expected the great Duke, even after he had become Chancellor of Oxford (which was not till seven years after- wards, viz. in 1835), to have sLown so much appreciation of academic honours. LIFE AT OXFORD 43 From Henry Vincent Bayley, Archdeacon of Stow, and Canon of Westminster. You say you shall look for me immediately after Tuesday. Why, you will be at Bosporus [Oxford, to be present at the reci- tation of the prize exercises in the Theatre] or ought to be ; so you will, I hope, see me on Saturday. ... I drink Charles to-day in a bumper of bad wine and good wishes. I cannot think how the fellow has contrived to add so much of the pulcrum corpus to his virtue, I do not think that Father ^Eneas, or Uncle Hector [see Virg. iEn. xii. 440], excited him : do you ? My successes as University and College prizeman in 1827 led to a reward still more substantial. At the follow- ing Christmas the Dean (Dr. Smith) named me for a studentship ^ in his gift honoris causa. I was, I believe, the first, or very nearly the first, in whose favour the system of mere patronage nomination, which had prevailed hitherto, was laid aside.^ This was a great cause for thankfulness, and it received a valuable accession from the circumstance that Walter Hamilton and Henry Denison, both Etonians, were made students — each on the nomination of a canon — a nomination which they themselves abundantly justified, at the same time with me, and we all three became intimate friends. Hamilton, who had been in residence a year, I had known before ; but Denison came up fresh from school. Here I may mention that from my first entrance upon college life I made two wholesome rules for my guidance, and, what is more, I strictly kept to them. One was, never to have a pack of cards in my rooms ; the other, never to give a supper party, and rarely, if ever, a breakfast party : * Peculiar to Christ Church; something between a scholarship and a fellowship at other colleges. 2 See * Chapter of Autobiography,' p. 12 sq., where I have endeavoured to show that the system of patronage had, upon the whole, worked far better than might have been expected ; indeed so well that much was to be said in its behalf. 44 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE the former, besides other not improbable objections, would break in upon the night, the latter upon the day. It is true that sometimes, but not often, I played whist, of which I was fond, in other men's rooms — e.g. at Trinity, in Herman Merivale's, and, I think, in Claughton's ; and that in vaca- tions at Cambridge I occasionally accepted invitations to a supper party ; but I cannot remember that I ever did this at Oxford, and certainly I never broke my anti- supper-party rule in my own rooms. In my experience of cards there was nothing, so far as I can remember, that could be called gambling : the utmost was sixpenny points at whist ; and, as for betting, which has now become so unhappily pre- valent in reference to athletics of all kinds, it was, I think, upon anything like its present scale, practically unknown. To the players, the game — cricket match or boat race — was, as it always ought to be, if it is to be truly healthy and uninjurious, sufficiently interesting in itself, and required no further stimulus. In short, it was, like virtue, * its own reward.' It has been satirically remarked that the best part of our university system is the length of the vacations ; and that much good work has been done, especially in the long summer vacations, more and better, perhaps, than would have been done during the same amount of term time spent in college, need not be denied. In my own case certainly, to a great extent, this was so. My long vacation in 1827 was spent in the Lake country, at Bowness, Windermere, under a Cambridge tutor — Martin, Fellow of Trinity — good in classics as well as in mathematics, and with a party almost entirely composed of Cambridge men, including my two brothers, Phillips, afterwards well known as Phillips Jodrell, and Tyrrell, afterwards Bishop of Newcastle. That summer Ivy Cottage was occupied by Blomfield, then Bishop of Chester. On one occasion, when my brothers LIFE AT OXFORD 45 and I had been invited over to Eydal to dine with him, I remember his telHng us, among other anecdotes, how hard he had read during the six months previous to taking his degree. Besides what he had done in the ear her part of the day, he invariably sat over his books from 4 p.m. (after Hall, which was then, I think, at 3) till 4 a.m., and yet was always up in time for morning chapel. And he added, as a warning to ourselves, that the strain then put upon his constitution had, he believed, taken away ten years of his life. He was naturally a very vigorous man, and it may be recollected that he broke down earher than there seemed reason to expect. In 1828 I went for my long vacation to Guernsey with Walter Hamilton. Our tutor there was Dr. Stocker, then principal of Elizabeth College, and well known previously in Oxford as a public examiner and Fellow of St. John's. He had been recommended to us by George Denison, who had been under him at Guernsey the year before. But to us he did not prove very efficient, though this, in my case, ought perhaps to be mainly attributed to the state of my health. The climate of the island did not agree with me, and I suffered continually from my old enemy — bilious head- ache. The following short letter, written to my brother Christopher, then at Paris for his Cambridge vacation, and found among his papers after his death, tells the story truly enough, though somewhat hyperbolically. Guernsey : Oct. 13, 1828. My dear Chris, — Vous ^crivez sur un papier si fin que je puis a peine lire votre vilaine lettre. I beg your pardon. I mean your letter had very little news in it, and that the paper made it almost illegible. But nevertheless I thank you for it very much, and if I had not been unwell every day since the receipt of it — by the bye it found me in the midst of an emetic — I should have displayed my gratitude on something more substantial than this 46 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE shabby piece of note paper. As it is, it is the only scrap remain- ing in my possession, and as we start to-morrow morning by the steamer, it would be hardly worth while to procure a fresh supply. So you have not read much ; but I am happy to hear you have enjoyed yourself. Pity me, who have neither read a word nor enjoyed a day. Thank Heaven my miseries are now nearly at an end, as I trust a little English air will soon set me right again. Did I say * nearly at an end,' while the equinoctials are puffing their cheeks, and to-morrow, blow what will, ' sequor arandum est ' — and that for four-and-twenty hours ! From Southampton I proceed straight to Oxford, as I must be there on Friday night — to-morrow being Wednesday — so that I have not a day to spare. When you write to John give him my best love. How soon does he intend to return to England ? If my health is not better at Oxford, I shall cut and ru7t, so you must not be surprised if you see me soon at Cambridge. I am very much obliged to you for your kind offer, but I am not aware that I want anything particularly in Paris. In great hurry and confusion, and dread of being sick, and perhaps lost, Believe me, my dear Chris, Your affectionate brother, Charles W, JEternum, male fida, vale, vale, insula ; quamvis Vix unum dederis mi valuisse diem. Sed lege hac sola tibi verba novissima dico — Sume tuum ' valeas,' et mihi redde meum. C. Wordsworth, Esq., No. 33, Rue d'Artois, Paris. My last long vacation (1829) was to have been spent at Cuddesdon with Saunders (then a Tutor of Christ Church, afterwards Master of Charterhouse, and ultimately Dean of Peterborough) ; with Acland (afterwards Sir Thomas), and Tancred (also afterwards Sir Thomas), as my fellow pupils. But there again my health became so unsatis- LIFE AT OXFORD ' 47 factory that to have remained would have been of little use. Consequently, when about half the vacation was over I took my departure, upon the understanding that I was to be allowed to return for the remainder of my time at Christmas, which I did ; and happily the place suited me better in frosty weather, so that, though Saunders himself was absent in London almost the whole of the time, and I was left alone, I was able to work with very good effect. In the churchyard at Cuddesdon I found a monument which Lowth, sometime Bishop of Oxford, had placed to the memory of his daughter Mary, with the following beautiful and touching inscription : Cara vale, ingenio prsestans, pietate, pudore, Et plus quam natae nomine cara, vale ! Cara Maria, vale : at veniet felicius aevum, Quando iterum tecum, sim modo dignus, ero. Cara, redi, Iseta tum dicam voce ; paternos Eia, age, in amplexus, cara Maria, redi : — which I thus translated during a walk on Shotover one Sunday afternoon : Mary, farewell ! with every virtue blest, With more than all a parent's love caressed, Farewell ! and oh ! hereafter may 1 prove Worthy to be with thee where aU is love. Mary return, I then with joy shall cry, And in thy bosom waft me to the sky. Xaipe jaaX', daTraa-ir} Ovyarep, KeSvrj re, aocfiy re, Kal TrXeov daTraa-crjv 17 Kara TratSa cficXr). Xatpc /zaA,'* dXXa XP^vo) iroXv ^e/orcpos ep^^erai alijiv Evt' av^ts fxera (TOvy\ a^to? tiv, tcro/xaL. 'EX^e ttolXlv, <^at8pos t6t€ cfiOe^o/jiai, wSe Trarpwovs Ev^vs cs dS'. fell into confusion and many of them had gone astray,' whereby the PKIYATE PUPILS AT OXFORD 99 literary world has to deplore the grievous, and, I fear, irre- parable loss particularly of two Lectures on Jason and Medea, and of one on the tragedy of Hamlet ; and I could not help making the reflection that if the wholesome and loving admonitions of his early friend Hope had been better attended to the loss might never have occurred.^ 6. Lord Lincoln, eldest son of the Duke of Newcastle, was by no means idle or incompetent as a scholar, though he took only an ordinary degree (Mich. 1831). A few months afterwards he was elected M.P. for South Notting- hamshire, and married a daughter of the Duke of Hamilton, sister of Lord Douglas, who was with him at Christ Church. All the intercourse I had with him as his private tutor, friendly and unaffected on his part as it always was, though somewhat alloyed by a constitutional stiffness and reserve, which, however, gave way upon closer acquaintance, led me to regard him with sincere esteem, and to entertain a highly favourable opinion of his sterling character and of his solid, if not brilliant, abilities. He was unfortunate : unfortunate in his marriage, and unfortunate as a Minister at the time of the Crimean war ; but I feel persuaded that the country never had a public servant more honestly devoted to its best interests, or more thoroughly and conscientiously anxious, at whatever cost of labour and trouble to himself, to do his duty ; and he was as brave and unflinching as he was laborious. The following letter shows that when at Oxford he had some thoughts of aiming at literary distinction. * Attila ' was the subject of the Latin Verse prize poem for 1832, and, with a view to it, I had recommended him to study Pitman's Excerpta a Poetis Latinis ; while the mention of reading ' * A good young man, whom I liked,' is Carlyle's description of Doyle, when he first met him in 1841 ; and no wonder, for no one could fail to like him. See Life of Lord Houghton, i. 256- h2 100 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE ' Khetoric ' (Aristotle's) is a proof that he then intended going up for a class in the final Schools. The letter was written to me when I was in Scotland with Agar Eobartes, under circumstances which will be described presently, and when he had heard that on our northward journey we had passed through Newark, and also had paid a visit to a Harrow and Christ Church friend at Gateshead. The * execrable Ministers ' of 1831 did not ' hurry us into a war '; but it is melancholy to think how the Ministry of Lord Aberdeen, of which the amiable young writer of those words became a prominent member, did ' drift into a war ' — and one of the most senseless and destructive wars of modern times — in 1854. Clumber: Aug. 15, 1831. My dear Wordsworth, — I have no right to complain of your delay in writing to me, as, from all I hear, you seem to have kept up as little correspondence with any of your Oxford friends, but I think it a great shame of you to pass so near, and not stop and pay me a visit. Both my father and myself would have been delighted to see you, if you could have made it convenient. Many thanks for the Pitman, though I had already procured one. I have only just begun my Attila studies, having hitherto been reading other things — Rhetoric, &c. And now in my turn may I hope that you have not given up your intention of favouring the world with an English Essay next year ? but from seeing your name in several matches at Lord's I much fear that you have. One of your friends the other day in a letter to me said that he supposed you were as idle as the day is long, and had substituted cricketism for criticism per metathesin. I hear that some of the select studious men, Gladstone, H. Denison, and John Button ! are reading away at Christ Church. S. Denison is gone to Cowes, as the Balliol Dons would not let him stay up. I heard from Canning a day or two ago ; he has returned from his tour in the north with Douglas, having left him in Arran, and has now gone to Wales to meet his mother, intend- ing there to read. PRIVATE PUPILS AT OXFORD 101 You may well be horrified at the present aspect of politics. The Home Department seems to be going on about as ill as pos- sible ; the Foreign has a little improved within these few days, as it no longer appears quite certain that these execrable Ministers will hurry us into a war. A pretty affair the settle^nent of Belgium has been. Leopold has good reason to be already heartily sick of his craven subjects. What a glorious fight old Wetherall, Croker, and two or three others have made against this crude, partial, misnamed Reform Bill. I yet hope that your friend Mr. Eobartes will not be able to stand for Cornwall (I mean if it depends on an increase of members), for some people seem confident that the Lords will throw out the Bill. If Mr. Eobartes does come in as one of a reformed Parliament, you will be doing him a great kindness by cautioning him not to take a gold watch, purse, or other valuable, into the House, for some (indeed many) of the members will possess the art of slight of hand in a very superior style. I hope you will not be tainted by your proximity to the would- be Whig rotten borough of Gateshead. My Lord Durham has managed to feather his nest pretty well, with all his anxiety for purity of election. I shall be glad to hear from you at any time of your success in trout-fishing and grouse- shooting. Ever, my dear Wordsworth, Yours very truly, Lincoln. 7. Thomas Dyke Acland, now Sir Thomas, and M.P. for North Devonshire, a Gentleman Commoner of Christ Church, after taking a double first (Easter 1831) was, like Doyle, elected Fellow of All Souls. I have not much remem- brance of him as a private pupil ; but among testimonials written for me when I became a candidate for the Second Mastership of Winchester (and still preserved), there is one from him in which he spoke most kindly of his * per- sonal experience of my qualifications as an instructor.' Though I was some years his senior, we had been friends and fellow cricketers at Harrow, and also (as I have said above) fellow pupils of Saunders at Cuddesdon during part 105 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE of the long vacation of 1829. While my memory is at fault to some extent, I have still, nevertheless, a vivid recollection of his highly esteemed father, and of his own amiable dis- position and exemplary character both at school and college. 8. Charles James Canning (afterwards Viscount Can- ning, and Governor -General of India) has been before referred to. He had a large measure of the fine abilities of his father, together with a certain charm of appearance and manner, though often embarrassed through constitutional bashfulness ; but he lacked his father's tall, manly presence, and the combined sweetness and majesty of his countenance. He greatly distingaished himself in taking his degree, coming out as a first-class man in classics, and a second-class man in mathematics (Easter 1833). There must have been a curious mixture of strength and weakness in his constitution. I have spoken above of his singular bravery during the Indian revolt, and of his break- ing down during our ascent of Snowdon. And, oddly enough, he was the only person whom I ever saw break down in a speech. It was in the House of Lords ; I was sitting in the gallery. The debate was, I think, upon some matter connected with Ireland. He had spoken fluently enough — but as if what he said had been carefully prepared — for about ten minutes, when he came to a standstill ; turned suddenly pale ; and, after vainly endeavouring, for a moment or two, to recover the thread of his argument, sat down. One supposed he had been taken ill ; but he did not leave the House ; and the debate went on as if nothing had happened. To me it was rather a distressing scene, but from what I remembered of him in earlier days, not altogether unac- countable. 9. Francis L. Popham, heir to the famous Elizabethan mansion of Littlecott in Wiltshire, has been already men- tioned as a companion with me and Hope in North Wales. PRIVATE PUPILS AT OXFORD 103 At Harrow he had distinguished himself by gaining (in 1827) two out of the three Governors' prizes, viz. for Latin Hexameters, and for Lyrics. He was also a good cricketer, making one of the eleven both at Harrow and Oxford, and a universal favourite. He took a second class in classics (Easter 1831), and, like Doyle, and like Acland, was elected Fellow of All Souls — in those days a certain stamp of a popular character. Of the above list of nine — Two took double firsts. One, a classical first and mathematical second. Three, classical firsts. Two (under peculiar circumstances) a common degree. Three were elected Fellows of Merton, and Three, Fellows of All Souls. I must now go back a little, in order to resume the thread of my narrative. In the spring of 1831, while I was taking private pupils, I found time to write for the University Latin essa}^ and obtained the prize, the subject being one in which I was much interested : * Quaenam fuerit oratorum Atticorum apud populum auctoritas.' My composition will be found in the Appendix. My taste for English composition was of later date and of slower growth. Unlike my friends, Claughton and Eoundell Palmer, who succeeded equally in English and in Latin, I made no attempt as an undergraduate or as a bachelor to compete either for the English verse or for the English essay, nor even for the Theological essay ; though for this last, being pleased and interested with the subject set (1832), namely, ' The Fulness of Time,' I read extensively and made large collections. That prize was won by my friend Antony Grant, afterwards author of one of the best 104 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE of the series of Bampton Lectures — a work which first gave an impulse to increased zeal, happily still maintained, in behalf of Foreign Missions. So far, I had rightly estimated my powers, in obedience to the advice of Horace, Versate diu quid ferre recusent, Quid valeant, humeri, that at Oxford I competed for no prize which I did not obtain. In regard to the formation of style in English prose composition, I observe in the ' Letters of Newman,' just published, that in writing to Mr. John Hayes (1869), he expressed the following opinion : ' As to patterns for imi- tation, the only master of style I have ever had is Cicero : I think I owe a great deal to him, and, so far as I know, to no one else' (vol. ii. p. 407). Without, of course, presum- ing for a moment to place myself in comparison with so great a genius either in that or in any other intellectual gift (though it does so happen that on one occasion I was com- pared with him as a writer of English), I may venture to say that I have often made precisely the same remark as applicable to my own case : so far as I have derived benefit from anyone in the matter of composition, it has been from Oicero. Both at Harrow and at Christ Church I was required occasionally to write English themes ; but little or no guidance or encouragement was given to the exercises when written, and in my case at least they produced no fruit what- ever. I do not underrate the advantage of a combined study of authors such as Addison, Swift, Bolingbroke, Johnson, Burke, Hume, Gibbon, Macaulay, and I may add Horace Walpole ; but I must repeat that I believe I got more good, not only for writing Latin but for writing English, from reading Cicero, and learning him by heart, than from any other source ; and, as a single model, though in a different language — and partly, perhaps, because he is in a different EXCURSION INTO SCOTLAND 105 language— I prefer him to them all. But to return from this digression. During the long vacation of that year (1831) I was free from private pupils. Agar Eobartes, a Gentleman Commoner of Christ Church, and an old friend and schoolfellow at Harrow, who had just taken his degree, offered me a place in his carriage if I would accompany him on a tour into Scotland. The offer was too tempting and agreeable to be declined. Eobartes's father, the wealthy proprietor of Llanhydrock, in Cornwall, had been dead some years ; but his mother was still alive, and he was, I believe, an only child. He had passed his undergraduate time in a quiet, exemplary manner, doing the work necessary to enable him to pass through the Schools without discredit, mixing little in society, but amusing himself with fishing and riding. In politics he was a Whig, as in duty bound to be from his family connections ; but this did not interfere with our friendly intercourse. The necessary prehminaries were soon arranged. In those days railways to the north were unknown. We set out from London, posting in an open barouche, with the faithful old family servant who had been with Eobartes during the whole of his residence at Christ ^Church, upon the box, to take care of us, or at least to relieve us from all care and trouble incidental to our journey. Scotland was then just beginning to be known to Englishmen, not only as the country of Burns and Walter Scott, but as the land of sport such as England could not afford ; and we had meant that our tour should be one not only like that of * Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque,' but a tour of sport. Accordingly, we had provided ourselves with guns and rods, and all other requisites for shooting grouse and catching salmon ; but, unhappily, in our youth- ful heedlessness and plenitude of hope, we had omitted to make any provision for obtaining access to places where 106 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE grouse and salmon were to be found — in other words, we took with us no letters of introduction. Eeaching Edinburgh by the great north road, and having duly admired what we saw of that Modern Athens, we posted on through Perth to Dunkeld. There we took up our abode for a few days at the inn of Inver, the proprietor of which had a lease of fishing in the Tay. So we put our rods together ; but the season was a dry one, and the water low, and we had no success. After visiting the pass of Killiecrankie and Blair Athol, which was the farthest limit of our tour, we turned our faces homewards ; travelling back to Perth, and thence to Stirling, Callander, the Trossachs, on to Glasgow and the west. I do not remember that, after leaving Glasgow, we stopped anywhere, except at Hamilton to see the Palace, till we reached my uncle's at Eydal Mount. While we were staying at Eydal — having heard that our tour, so far as ifc consisted in anticipation of sport, had come to little or nothing — my uncle very kindly took compassion on us, and, through application to the then Lord Lonsdale, obtained for us some grouse-shooting on Shapfells, his lordship having sent over a keeper and dogs to meet us there. Altogether the excursion, though not so well managed as it might have been, was a highly interesting and enjoyable one ; and Eobartes, as a travelling companion, was a pattern of good nature and equanimity. Soon after his return he was elected M.P. for Cornwall ; and eventually he was raised to the peerage by Gladstone, under the title of Lord Eobartes. We never met again, except, I think, upon one occasion at his house in London, and he has now been dead some years. But, though circumstances prevented our personal inter- course, the steadfastness of his friendship was such that some thirty years afterwards he not only contributed 10/. annually to a fund which it was thought by friends that my then circumstances required, but, when that supposed VISIT TO RYDAL MOUNT 107 necessity had ceased, in consequence of my election to a Fellowship at Winchester, left a direction in his will that the same sum should continue to be paid to me yearly during my lifetime. "While I was staying at Kydal Mount, my cousin Dora gave me a copy of the following political squib, which had been written by my uncle some years before on the occa- sion of a Westmorland election, when Brougham stood as the Eadical candidate against Lord Lowther and his brother the Colonel. I do not think it has appeared in any edition of my uncle's works ; but it is interesting and deserves to be preserved, because it shows beyond question (as the writer, through his intimacy with Lord Lonsdale, could not have been mistaken upon the point) that there had been a time when Brougham would have been content to join the Tory ranks provided the proprietor of Lo wither Castle would have taken him by the hand. I The Scottish ^ Broom on Birdnest brae, Twelve tedious years ago. When many plants strange blossoms bore That puzzled high and low, A not unnatural longing felt, — What longing would you know ? Why, friend, to clothe her supple twigs With yellow in full blow. II To Lowther Castle she addrest A suit both bold and sly, (For all the Brooms on Birdnest brae Can talk and speechify), That flattering breezes blowing thence Their succour might supply. And she would instantly hang out A flag of yellow dye. ' Because Mr. Brougham pretended that he was a native of England. 108 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE III But from the Castle's turrets blew A chill forbidding blast, Which the poor Broora no sooner felt Than she shrunk up as fast ; Her wished-for yellow she forswore, And since that time has cast Fond look on colours three or four. And put forth blue at last. IV But now, my friends, the election comes In June's sunshiny hours. And every bush in field and brae Is clad with yellow flowers, While factious blue from shop and booth Tricks out her blustering powers ; Lo ! smiling Nature's lavish hand Has furnished wreaths for ours. The following complete copy of Southey's celebrated * March to Moscow,' containing, I believe, some lines not hitherto published, was also given to me during my visit to Kydal Mount. The March to Moscoiv. The Emperor Nap he would set off On a summer excursion to Moscow ; The fields were green and the sky was blue* Morbleu! Parbleu! What a pleasant excursion to Moscow ! Four hundred thousand men and more Must go with him to Moscow ; There were Marshals by the dozen And Dukes by the score, Princes a few, and Kings one or two. While the fields are so green, and the sky so blue, Morbleu ! Parbleu ! What a pleasant excursion to Moscow ! VISIT TO RYDAL MOUNT 109 There was Junot and Augereau — Hey-ho for Moscow ! Dombrousky and Poniatousky, Marshal Ney, lack-a-day ! General Rapp, and the Emperor Nap : — Nothing would do While the fields were so green and the sky so blue, Morbleu ! Parbleu ! Nothing would do For the whole of the crew But they must be marching to Moscow. The Emperor Nap he talked so big That he frightened Mr. Roscoe ; John Bull, he cries, if you'll be wise, Ask the Emperor Nap if he will please To grant you peace upon your knees, Because he is going to Moscow ! He'll make all the Poles come out of their holes, And beat the Russians, and eat the Prussians, For the fields are green and the sky is blue, Morbleu ! Parbleu ! And he'll certainly march to Moscow. And Counsellor Brougham was all in a fume At the thought of the march of Moscow ; The Russians, he said, they were undone. And the great Fee-Faw-Fum Would presently come With a hop, step, and jump into London. For as to his conquering Russia, However some persons might scoff it. Do it he could, and do it he would. And from doing it nothing could come but good, And nothing could call him off it. Mr. Jeffrey said so, who must certainly know. For he was the Edinburgh Prophet. They all of them knew Mr. Jeffrey's review, Which with Holy Writ ought to be reckon 'd : It was through thick and thin to its party true ; 110 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Its back was buff, and its sides were blue ; Morbleu ! Parbleu ! A Prophet so wise and so doleful too Should be called Jeremiah the second. But the Eussians stoutly they turned to Upon the road to Moscow ; Nap had to fight his way all through ; They would fight, though they could not parley-vous, But the fields were green and the sky was blue, Morbleu ! Parbleu ! And so he got to Moscow. He found the place too warm for him, For they set fire to Moscow. To get there had cost him much ado, And then no better course he knew While the fields were green, and the sky was blue, Morbleu ! Parbleu ! But to march back again from Moscow. The Eussians they stuck close to him All on the road from Moscow, There was Tormazow and Jemalow And all the others that end in ow ; Milarodovitch and Jaladovitch And Karatschkovitch And all the others that end in itch ; Schamscheff, Souchosaneff, And Schepaleff, And all the others that end in eff ; Wasiltschikoff, Kostomaroff, And Tchoglokoff, And all the others that end in off; Eajeffsky and Novereffsky And Eieffsky, And all the others that end in effsky ; Oscharoffsky, and Eostoffsky, And all the others that end in offsky ; And Platoff he play'd them off. And Sliouvaloff he shovell'd them off, VISIT TO RYDAL MOUNT 111 And Markoff he mark'd them off, And Krosnoff he cross'd them off, And Tutchkoff he touch'd them off, And Kutousoff he cut them off, And Parenzoff he pared them off, And Warrowzoff he worried them off, And Doctoroff he doctor'd them off. And Eodionoff he flogg'd them off, And last of all an Admiral came, A terrible man with a terrible name, A name which you all must know very well. But which no one can speak, and no one can spell. They stuck close to Nap with all their might. They were on the left and on the right. Behind and before, and by day and by night, He would rather parley-vous than fight ; But he look'd white, and he look'd blue, Morbleu ! Parbleu ! When parley-vous no more would do, For they remember'd Moscow. And then came on the frost and snow All on the road from Moscow ; The wind and the weather he found in that hour Cared nothing for him nor for all his power — For him who, while Europe crouch'd under his rod, Put his trust in his fortune and not in his God. Worse and worse every day the elements grew, The fields were so white and the sky so blue, Sacrebleu ! Ventrebleu ! What a horrible journey from Moscow ! What then thought the Emperor Nap Upon the road from Moscow ? Why, I ween, he thought it small delight To fight all day, and to freeze all night ; And he was besides in a very great fright, For a whole skin he liked to be in. And so, not knowing what else to do When the fields were so white and the sky so blue, Morbleu ! Parbleu ! 112 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE He stole away, I tell you true, Upon the road from Moscow. 'Tis myself, quoth he, I must mind most ; So the Devil may take the hindmost. Too cold upon the road was he. Too hot had he been at Moscow ; But colder and hotter he may be, For the grave is colder than Moscovy, And a place there is to be kept in view. Where the fire is red and the brimstone blue, Morbleu ! Parbleu ! Which he may go to If he does not in time look about him. Where his namesake almost He may have for his host (He has reckoned too long without him) ; And if there he goes, he there may stay, For from thence there is no running away. As there was on the road from Moscow ! While I was still at Eydal Mount, after parting with Eobartes, who returned homewards alone, a letter arrived from Sir Walter Scott beginning 'Dearest Wordsworth,' and pressing my uncle to come and see him at Abbotsford before he set out for Italy, * and bring with you as many of your family as you possibly can.' All was soon arranged for my uncle and cousin Dora to accept the invitation, which was held as sufficient to include me.^ They were to travel leisurely in a pony carriage — my uncle's usual con- veyance — and I was to follow by coach. They reached Abbotsford on Monday (Sept. 19) at noon. Settmg out after them, I did not arrive till the evening of the following day, the memorable day on which ' Yarrow ' had been ' re- visited.' The next morning, however, I had the privilege of accompanying Sir Walter and a portion of his guests — ' See Professor Knight's Life, ill. 200. VISIT TO ABBOTSFORD 113 including his son-in-law, Lockhart — to * view fair Melrose/ which I trust we did ' aright ' (it would be strange if we did not with such a guide), though it was not ' by the pale moon- light.' In the course of conversation, I remember I asked him whether he had read Sotheby's Translation of Homer, then lately published, and what he thought of it. He replied, * I am sorry to say I know little or nothing of Greek, ^ but I cannot conceive anything better than Pope ; and then, by way of example, he quoted with great emphasis the render- ing of the famous passage which occurs twice in the Iliad, viz. in Book vi. 208, as the saying of Hippolochus to his son Glaucus, and in Book xi. 783, as the saying of Peleus to his son Achilles : atev apioTeveiv kol vTr€ipo)(Ov e/xfievai aAAwv. ^ The visit lasted three days, and the two poets parted, never to meet again in this world ; for Sir Walter returned from Italy only to die, at Abbotsford, Sept. 21 in the following year. The separation, affecting as it had been, was rendered still more so when we came to read the verses, consisting of four stanzas, which he had written, on the morning of our departure (Thursday) before breakfast, in my cousin's album. In giving back the book, he had said to her, * I would have done this for nobody but your father's daughter. ' The verses ^ I am afraid I was priggish enough not to think quite so well of Sir Walter when I had observed, quite conspicuous at his front door, a false qiiantity engraved upon the base of a statue of a favourite dog. I forget the former line of the distich, containing the dog's name. The latter ran thus — * Ad januam Domini : sit tibi terra levis.' The correction would have been easy — i.e. ' ante fores,' or * ad portam.' 2 Many years afterwards I told the above anecdote to Dean Stanley, and, after a further lapse of some years, I was agreeably surprised to see it introduced — with that power of memory and felicity of adaptation for which he was distinguished — in the first address which he delivered as Rector of the University of St. Andrews, d propos of the inscription, consist- ing of the same Greek verse, emblazoned over his head in the hall or upper library in which the address was spoken. I 114 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE were indeed the last lay of the great minstrel. I insert them here from the copy which my cousin gave me at the time. I 'Tis well the gifted eye which saw The first light sparks of fancy burn * Should mark its latest flash with awe, Low glimmering from its funeral urn. II And thou mayst mark the hint, fair maid, How vain is worldly esteem ; Good fortune turns, affections fade, And fancy is an idle dream. Ill Yet not on this poor frame alone. My palsied hand, and deafened ear, But on my country's fate The bolts of fate seem doomed to spend. IV The storm might whistle round my head, I should not deprecate the ill. So I might say when all was sped, ' My country, be thou glorious still ! ' W. Scott. Abbotsford : Sept. 22, 1831. It will be seen that there are several indications of de- fective sense and metre, as if the mind had given way for the moment in the process of composition, although nothing of the kind had been remarked in the writer's conversation during our visit. It may also be noticed how keenly, and ' When my uncle first made acquaintance with Walter Scott, at Lasswade, near Edinburgh, in September 1803, the latter ' partly read and partly recited, sometimes in an enthusiastic style of chant, the first four cantos of The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Scott's earliest poem, then not yet published.' See Lockhart's Life, i. 403. VISIT TO HOPE AT LUFNESS 115 yet with what truly noble and patriotic emotion, he was feeling the agitation caused by the Eeform movement which was then at its height, and in course of which, when he went to give his vote — I think at Kelso— he met with public insult. As Sir Walter, with his daughter and Lockhart, were to leave early on the Friday for London, we took our de- parture (as I have said) on Thursday at noon, my uncle and Dora for Edinburgh, and I for Lufness, near Aberlady, to spend a few days with my friend James Hope, who was then at his home there alone, reading for his approaching degree. On Sunday my host took me to the Parish Church (Presbyterian) at Aberlady, which he regularly attended. How strange the divergence and vicissitudes of lot to him and to me, which were in store for us both ! When I next visited Abbotsford, some twenty years afterwards, being then settled in Scotland, I was mvited and received as the warmly welcomed guest of Hope himself — he came out, I remember, and saluted me by my Christian name at his front door — who in the meantime, having married Sir Walter's only grand- child, Lockhart's daughter, had become proprietor of the estate. And how sad that within another twelve months he had joined the Church of Eome ; and we never met afterwards ! But, though personal intercourse had ceased between us for many years, shortly before his death I received from him a long and affectionate letter. I was anxious to obtain the precise date of the days of my uncle's memorable visit to Sir Walter, having observed that the details given concern- ing it in my brother's * Memoirs of Wordsworth ' (vol. ii. pp. 233, 244), and in Lockhart's * Life of Scott' (vol. vii. p. 309) do not correspond ; and I wrote to ask Hope to endeavour to clear up the matter for me from his private archives. His answer is of such interest on several accounts that I insert it here. I 2 116 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Abbotsford, Melrose : Sept. 19, 1871. My dear Bishop, — Your letter of August 8 would not have remained so long unanswered but for my own illness and the absence of my clerk, who has materially assisted me in solving the doubts raised by your letter. Comparing Lockhart's narrative with your uncle's dictated account of his visit to Abbotsford, the discrepancies resolve themselves entirely into questions of the time of the arrival of your uncle and what took place on particular days while he was here. Pray observe this limitation, since it excludes the question of the day on which Sir Walter left Abbotsford, which neither by Lockhart nor by your uncle is made to coincide with the day of your uncle's departure. Taking then this issue as raised by the two books, I have come to the conclusion that the account given by your uncle of his own arrival, stay, and departure, which accords with your own recollection, is the correct one, and that where Mr. Lockhart's differs it is incorrect. There seems to me to be no doubt that when Lockhart wrote this part of the Life he relied upon a diary which was kept partly by his wife and partly by himself, and in a very irregular manner ; and I am satisfied that the entries relating to Wordsworth were made by Lockhart at a period subsequent, perhaps considerably subsequent, to the events recorded. Moreover at the time at which he probably wrote this portion of the Life, he no longer had the assistance of the memory of his wife, which would have helped to correct his own. Add to this that the month of September 1831 was a period of great anxiety and occupation to him, and you have my reasons for distrusting Lockhart's dates. In Sir Walter's diary, which he recommenced after a long interval about this time, no days of the week or month are given, although it contains, as you will see hereafter, some passages which bear upon the question whether he wrote the stanzas on the day of his own departure or not.^ On the other hand, in confirmation of your uncle's account ^ I had rather fancied I remembered that we had left Abbotsford on the game day, but earlier, on which Sir Walter himself was to leave it. And a note in my cousin Dora's album seemed to conjQrm this impression. LETTER FROM HOPE-SCOTT OF ABBOTSFORD 117 I have found a letter from him to Sir Walter, dated Carlisle, Friday evening, September 16, stating that he had left home the Tuesday previous (the 13th), hoped to sleep at Langholm on Saturday (the 17th), at Hawick on Sunday (the 18th), and on Monday (19th), if the distance was not greater than he supposed, to sleep at Abbotsford. He mentions his nephew as having taken the Newcastle road into Scotland, and as being likely to reach Abbotsford on Tuesday the 20th ; and these two dates exactly accord with his memoir and your recollection of what actually happened. Another circumstance confirmatory of this view of the dates is that your uncle records Mrs. Lockhart's chanting old ballads to her harp — a circumstance he could hardly have imagined — and which he places on Monday, the day of his arrival, while an entry in her own handwriting in the Lockhart diary, and evi- dently contemporaneous, places her departure for London on Tuesday the 20th, which is also the date assigned to it in the Life. I have thus, I think, very handsomely surrendered to you all the points in dispute connected with the stay of your uncle and yourself at this place, and in return I beg you will let me know at what date your uncle dictated the MSS. I. F., in which, although he evidently had read Lockhart's Life (see p. 236), he takes no notice of the inaccuracies of his dates. I now turn to the point which does not arise, although your letter implies that it does, from either Lockhart's Life or your uncle's Memoirs, namely, that of the identity of the day on which your uncle went away with that on which Sir Walter himself left Abbotsford. Here I should require more informa- tion about the note in your cousin's album before I could admit a doubt even as to Sir Walter's having remained over the 22nd and left for Rokeby * early on the 23rd.' My reasons are — 1. That neither your uncle nor Mr. Lockhart mentions that they both started on the same day. 2. It is improbable that they should have done so, for your uncle says that he did not start till noon, and there were ap- parently a number of other guests who left Abbotsford the same day.i * And one at least also who arrived — viz. Mr. John Ballantyne ; for so it appears from a letter of his copied from the Standard into the Scotsman, August 16, 1871 : ' I was one who dined in Abbotsford the last time the 118 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE 3. Sir Walter in his diary enters, without date, ' We had a pleasant party, and to-day were left by the Liddells (another name illegible), the three Wordsworths, cum ccBteris, A German or Hungarian Count Erdowe, or some such name, also retired ' — an entry not likely to have been made if he was himself starting that afternoon, i.e. the 22nd. 4. In respect to this journey Mr. Lockhart's diary, although I am satisfied it was carried to London by Mrs. Lockhart on the 20th, appears to have been posted up by him immediately on his arrival in London, and his entries (in different ink from those relating to Wordsworth) give the start from Abbotsford on the 23rd (Friday), the stay at Eokeby on the 24th (Saturday), the arrival at Boroughbridge on the 25th (Sunday), Scarthing Moor on the Monday, Buckden on the Tuesday, and London on Wednesday the 28th ; thus supporting the statement in the Life, which I beHeve to be the correct one. I must, however, give you the benefit of a passage in Sir Walter's diary, written after his arrival in London : ' Wordsworth and his daughter, a fine girl, were with us. On the last day I tried to write in her diary, and made an ill-formed botch. No help for it ' &c. ; ^ but I am far from conceding that the words * last day ' in this passage mean the last day any part of which Sir Walter was at Abbotsford. It is quite consistent with his starting early the next morning, which Mr. Lockhart in the Life great man ever sat at his own table there. It was on the day before Sir Walter left for the Continent. The party which assembled round his board on that day, September 22, 1831, consisted of all the members of his family then in Scotland, and several of his intimate friends, including his amanuensis (Laidlaw), Sir Adam Ferguson, Wordsworth, Sir William Allan, my father, Alexander Ballantyne, and one or two others whom I did not know, and do not remember, as I was only sixteen years of age at the time. Sir Walter sat at the centre of the table, his eldest son, then Major, and Lockhart at the head and foot.' No mention is to be found of this party in Sir Walter's Journal, and the editor makes no reference to Mr. John Ballantyne's letter, which is at least incorrect in stating that my uncle was still at Abbotsford and made one of the party. The same mistake is repeated in the following passage : * He (Scott) kept up a wonderful flow of conversa- tion throughout the time of dinner, and afterwards in the library, where his last conversation with Wordsworth took place. And after the party broke up I remember Sir Adam Ferguson saying to my father that he had never heard Sir Walter more brilliant, even in his palmiest days.' ' See the passage in Sir Walter Scott's Journal, now (1890) first pub- lished, ii. 414. ACQUAINTANCES AT OXFORD 119 says he did, and which would be necessary to reach Rokeby the same day. It is possible that I may find other materials bearing on this question, but I am too weak at present to search for them, and, on the same and other accounts, I am prevented from asking you to come here yourself just now. Later perhaps, I shall be more fit, as I shall always be happy to have a visit from you. Yours affectionately, James R. Hope-Scott. The Eight Eeverend Bishop Wordsworth. Alas ! the hour of greater fitness, which he scarcely Ventured to anticipate, never arrived. After my visit to Hope at Lufness, I rejoined my uncle and cousin at Callander. The former had then just com- posed his beautiful sonnet ' On Sir W. Scott's Departure from Abbotsford for Naples,' and he recited it to me as we were walking together on the banks of Loch Achray. I have spoken, with some detail, of my several private pupils. But besides these I had, both as an undergraduate and afterwards, a very large and varied acquaintance — probably no man at Oxford ever had a larger — partly in consequence of the different games and athletic exercises in which I joined, and partly because I made it an object of ambition to know everyone who, in other and more im- portant wa.ys, either was distinguished or gave promise of distinction in after life; and — what was then somewhat marked and uncommon in a Christ Church man (I trust it has ceased to be so now) — I showed no narrow prejudice in favour of men of my own College. For instance, I was specially intimate with Thomas L. Claughton (after- wards Bishop, first of Eochester and then of St. Albans), and with Eoundell Palmer (now Earl Selborne) ^ both ' See his speech at the meeting of the Wordsworth Society, held in the Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster Abbey, July 10, 1887. The speech is re- ported in the ' Transactions ' of the Society for 1887. 120 ANNALS OF MY EAELY LIFE scholars of Trinity, and both distinguished in the highest degree by University honours of many and various kinds ; with WilHam Palmer, elder brother of Eoundell, a Fellow of Magdalen, who took a first class, and gained the Uni- versity prizes for Latin Verse and Latin Prose ; with Edward Twisleton, Fellow of Balliol, and classical first- class man ; with Antony Grant, Fellow of New College, afterwards Archdeacon of St. Albans and Canon of Kochester; with John Eardley-Wilmot, of Balliol, now Sir Eardley, and late M.P. for South Warwickshire, who gained the Latin verse in 1829, after Claughton, as Claughton had gained it after me, and William Palmer had gained it in 1830 : with John Thomas of Wadham, who gained the Ireland Scholarship ; and with Stephen Denison of Balliol, a classical first ; while among Christ Church friends I may reckon Henry Liddell, now Dean, a double-first ; and Benjamin Harrison, afterwards Canon of Canterbury, clas- sical first, and mathematical second ; Kobert Scott, an Ireland Scholar, afterwards Master of Balliol and Dean of Eochester ; Eobert Phillimore, afterwards Sir Eobert ; Halford Vaughan, first-class man, afterwards Fellow of Oriel and Professor of Modern History ; Herbert Kynaston, first-class man, afterwards head master of St. Paul's ; William Jelf, first-class man ; James Bruce, first-class man, afterwards Lord Elgin and Governor -General of India. I was also acquainted with Bonamy Price of Worcester, after- wards Professor of Political Economy, and with Frederick Eogers, of Oriel, afterwards Lord Blachford, both of whom took double firsts ; and with Piers Claughton, first of Brasenose and then of University, afterwards Bishop of Colombo and Archdeacon of London, who took a classical first and won the English essay. In the above list will be found men of nine different Colleges, besides Christ Church. And it may be worth while to mention one of the ways ACQUAINTANCES AT OXFORD 121 in which these several friendships and acquaintances were maintained ; for Eardley-Wilmot and Liddell were, I think, the only ones among them all who could be called athletes in any sense. At Christ Church we had no Junior Common Koom. To remedy this defect on a small scale, a club was set on foot (mainly, I believe, at my suggestion and through my exertions), which was to consist of common friends, all of whom had some pretensions to be reading men.^ We called ourselves * The Tribes,' because we were to be twelve in number (though actually only ten) and because we met at the house of a Mr. Tribe — I think a tailor — on the oppo- site side of the street in front of Christ Church. Every day after Hall, in the room which we had rented, a table was to be laid out with a moderate supply of wine and dessert, for which only those who partook were to pay anything. Thus a pleasant opportunity was afforded for cheerful conversation and friendly intercourse, with the gentle stimulus of innocent conviviality for all who desired it. I find among my papers the following rough draft of an unfinished copy of verses, designed, in imitation of Gold- smith's * Ketaliation,' to give a description of the characters of the friends who composed the club, after it had ceased to exist. Unfortunately, it goes no further than to include four of them — Benjamin Harrison, late Archdeacon of Maidstone and Canon of Canterbury ; Henry Jeffreys, now Vicar of Hawkhurst and Proctor in Convocation for the Diocese of Canterbury ; Herbert Kynaston, late head master of St. Paul's School, London, who acted as our steward and treasurer ; and Henry Liddell, now Dean of Christ Church. * * Mr. Hope was not of standing enough to have been a member of a celebrated though private club brought together at Christ Church about the year 1831, " the twelve friends of Charles Wordsworth " (since President [W^arden] of Trinity College, Glenalmond, and Bishop of St. Andrews), though he certainly knew some of them intimately.' — Memoir of James Hope- Scott, i. 24 sq. 122 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE The remaining six members (including myself) were Walter Hamilton, late Bishop of Salisbury, Halford Vaughan, late Fellow of Oriel and Professor of Modern History ; Francis Doyle, late Fellow of All Souls, and Professor of Poetry ; Henry Denison, late Fellow of All Souls ; and James Kamsay, afterwards Lord Dalhousie. AlXlvov, acXivov ctTre, to 8' cv vlkolto). So, * the Tribes ' are dispersed ! — on the banks of the Isis I sat down and wept for the terrible crisis : Slow and sullen the waters beside me were rolling ; Deep and solemn the bells in the distance were tolling : — 'Tis the knell of the Club ! But they'll pull down the towers Ere they'll chime in as well as that dear peal of ours, When we met after Hall, a choice brotherly crew, And our tongues— they all rattled so fast and so true ! Descend, ye Nine ! Shall the shades of the young Pass downward unwept, unrecorded, unsung ? Nine brethren beloved — one for each of your choir ; So, let each in his praise sweep the strings of her lyre. 1. And first for her votary, let Clio arise, Think of all that is learned, and all that is wise, From the heights of her Pindus survey all the shore. To draw topics of praise for his classical lore ; Observe him still victor as onward he ranges From Bissus to Jordan, from Jordan to Ganges,^ Where science (erst cradled by orient rays) To eagle-eyed study her treasure displays ; Then regret with a smile, as she lags far behind. Her realm all too small for the grasp of his mind ; And, as lost in the distance he fades from her ken, Pronounce his encomium — kaee little Ben ! 2. With her harp ready strung as Thalia appears Jeffreys cocks up his spy-glass, and pricks up his ears ; Nor less was the muse at a loss to discover Whom to choose for her theme — rather say for her lover ; ' He early became assistant to Pusey as teacher of Hebrew. MEMBERS OF 'THE TRIBES' CLUB 123 So, hoping the Tribes wouldn't take it amiss, "While he mutters * you fellows ! ' she seizes a kiss — (A kiss, which proclaimed that she knew where to find, She — the muse of good temper — the best-tempered mind) ; Then aloof, as an artist, her subject surveys, And still as she looks she sees something to praise. First marks how his right honest features bespeak Within all that's cheerful and modest and meek ; How in eyes that would fain look demure as a nun, Lurk bursts of good humour and volleys of fun ; All the soul's purer graces next wonders to trace By the sunshine of conscience that beams in his face, While, with heart alike stranger to guile and to pride, He seeks nothing to show, and needs nothing to hide : — * Dear youth, not in vain,' then exulting she cries, * Have I watched o'er thy cradle and smiled on thy rise : Not in vain I complained to the fates that the race Of scholars and poets were grown commonplace ; And preferred a request that my favourite child May be artlessly polished and gracefully wild ; May combine in a compound both novel and quaint All the gay of the sinner and good of the saint — Now brewing rum punch, full of laughter and frolic, Now glum with ten sermons, and twinged with the colic ; Not quite strict enough at his neighbours to quibble. Nor so deep as to doubt, nor so smart as to fribble : For him let home-truth be eccentric, for him Let wisdom consent to be seasoned with whim ; Let science be free from pretence, and for once Let ingenuous sallies prove learning a dunce ; And so, your professed men of talent to pique, Let me form — worth them all — my own Jeffreys unique.' 3. Next comes a strange mixture of genius and skill ; With his head in the clouds he can make out a bill ; Let Euterpe compose an irregular lyric To do justice to Herbert's ^ well-earned panegyric ; Who, with knowledge so various and taste so refined, Could cater alike for both body and mind ; ' Herbert Kynaston, who, as our purveyor, kept the accounts. 124 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Though sometimes perplexed, so good-humoured and bland, He had always a balance of spirits in hand ; With his wit and his walnuts, his biscuits and banter, Kept our purses well emptied, well filled our decanter ; And we still must confess, if his charges were small, Put his worth in the bill and he'd beggar us all. 4. Let Melpomene next tune her sweet liquid voice, ^ And her harp take in hand for the youth of her choice. Tall and stately he moves, with a head on his shoulders Formed so picturesque that it charms the beholders : Much more would it charm them to see all alive The brains within working like bees in a hive ; The treasure, which labour to diligence yields, Stored up like the honey brought fresh from the fields ; The fields ever green of old Romans and Greeks, Or where x, y, and z play their manifold freaks ; The gardens in which with inherited grace His eye for Fine Art never misses its trace : — But hold ! let us note what his judgment approves, Nor break the reserve that his modesty loves : Enough, if already you've mastered my riddle : Can you tell who I mean ? — to be sure, Henky Liddell. {CcBtera desunt.) Later on, when I had ceased to be an undergraduate, I was the means of forming another club on a wider scale ; not that the number of members was much larger, but because it comprehended men of different colleges, and was not confined, as * the Tribes ' had been, to Christ Church. It was called * the Bachelors,' and met in a room at the Angel Inn (now swept away to give place to the new Schools) on every Saturday evening. Its raison d'etre was much the same as that of * the Tribes,' viz. to promote good fellowship, in the best sense, among our contemporaries, with the same festive provision for the same genial purposes ; ' Melpomene, cui liquidam Pater Vocem cum cithar4 dedit. — Horace, i. Od. xxiv. 3. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT 125 and the list of members included the names of several who are mentioned above as men of mark or men of promise.^ In the spring of 1833 I received a request through Dr. Cardwell, Principal of St. Alban's Hall, to become the travelling companion and tutor of a young nobleman — Viscount Cantslupe, son of the Earl of Delawarr — who was then leaving Oxford. The position was not one which I should have sought ; but it had great advantages in several respects. The remuneration to be given was more than ample, and my father, being acquainted with the young man's family — a family highly and most deservedly esteemed — was desirous that I should not decline it. Accordingly, the arrangement was made, and it was decided that we should take an extensive tour over the north of Europe, including Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the northern parts of Germany. A courier (Degarlieb) was to accompany us, who, being a Pomeranian by birth, was well acquainted with the languages of all the countries we were to visit, as well as with those of the South. My pupil was not one of whom much was to be made. He had no literary or artistic tastes, except that he professed a liking for Lord Byron's poetry, which was then fashionable. He had, however, as a travelHng companion, some good points. His temper was never ruffled. He was more indifferent than, I fear, I was, when the accommodation we met with was uncomfortable or insufficient ; and he was quite content to rough it when occasion required, as in the excursions * They may be set down pretty correctly, I believe, as follows : Hamilton, Harrison, H. Jeffreys, and Wordsworth of Christ Church ; Claughton and Twisleton of Trinity ; Hillyard and Ormerod of Brasenose ; Popham and Travers Twiss of University ; Walker of Balliol ; Grant of New College ; Dudding of Exeter ; and W. Palmer of Magdalen. Claughton, in a letter, October 31, 1837, referring to the club, speaks of me as having been its ' President.' I may have been so virtually, but not, I think, in any formal sense. 126 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE which we made through parts of Norway. We left London in July by sea for Hamburgh, and, having purchased there a commodious travelling carriage, drove across to Lubeck, whence we proceeded again by sea to Copenhagen. There we were joined by another young nobleman, also of Christ Church — Lord Hillsborough, son of the Marquis of Down- shire — who, though not placed under my charge, was to be permitted to accompany us, and, so long as he remained with us, which was only during the former part of our tour, proved by no means a disagreeable or unintelligent addition to our party. It will be no part of my object in these remi- niscences to attempt to describe the places which we visited or the country through which we passed, familiar as these have now become through the descriptions of more recent travellers, though I shall not, however, altogether refrain from occasional remarks on such topics ; and so it may be mentioned here that I was disappointed with Copenhagen, and with what we saw of Denmark in general ; though the old cathedral of Eoskilde — the Danish Westminster Abbey — from its semi-British monuments, and the ramparts of Elsineur, from their association with Hamlet, could not fail to be highly interesting to any Englishman. Having crossed the Sound, we landed at Helsingborg, on the Swedish coast, and there we had, for the first time, the experience of travelling in our carriage, with four small horses abreast, driven by our courier — like the chariot of Victory, to be seen over the Brandenburger Thor at Berlin ; and such continued to be our mode of conveyance over the smooth level roads which we traversed while we were in Sweden. Passing on from Gottenborg, we spent a day at TroUhattan, inspecting the famous falls ; and from thence paid a visit of several days, very agreeably passed, with Mr. Llewellyn Lloyd, the well- known author of * Northern Field Sports ' — a book which made a considerable sensation in its day — and also of TEAVELS IN NORWAY 127 * Game Birds and Wild Fowl of Sweden and Norway.' He was a distant relation of mine, on my mother's side ; and he received us at his house near Wenersborg very hospitably, and with him (we could not have had a better or more amiable guide and instructor) we enjoyed during two days some successful fishing on the lake, catching on each day with a minnow four salmon averaging 17 lbs. ; another day was devoted to shooting, and one of my young companions shot a capercailzie. I may also mention, as characteristic of our host, that he had a tame wolf in a kennel at his door to serve as a watchdog ; and in his stable he showed us a horse of which, in an encounter with a bear, the furious animal had bitten out a large portion of one of the flanks. We went with Lloyd on a Sunday to his parish church. Of course, we could not follow the service, though he, being master of Swedish, could do so perfectly. Men and women were separated, taking their places on different sides of the main aisle. There was a great predominance of singing, which seemed to me very good. But what gave an unfavourable impression at the last was that the minister, before leaving the pulpit, gave out a long succession of notices of the most secular kind, relating not only to births, deaths, marriages, but to auctions, markets, &c., which occupied not less than a quarter of an hour ! From Wenersborg we posted, as before, by Fredrickshald, the frontier town of Norway, to Christiania. There we spent some time, and, inter alia, had the honour of dining with the Crown Prince Oscar, who had come for the sitting of the Storthing — the Norwegian Parliament. I attended one of the sessions. There was a commonplace air about the proceedings, and the appearance of the members was such as was to be expected in a democratic assembly. Each member sat at a desk with pen and paper &c. before him. 128 ANNALS OF MY EAKLY LIFE like boys in a schoolroom. At Christiania I had the good fortune to fall in with a young Englishman, Eobert Latham, then a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, in whom I be- came much interested. He had set himself to travel from country to country, mastering language after language as he went along, and he was then deep in Norwegian. Eventually he became a universal linguist, and the author of works designed to advocate a system of pronunciation and spelling, which, if only it could have overcome the practical difficulties to be met, would have been of the greatest service to mankind. Through him I obtained access to the library of the University, and was intro- duced to the Botanical Professor, who put me in the way of obtaining some rare specimens of Norwegian flora, which I sent off as a present to my friend Eoundell Palmer, at Oxford (then a botanist among his other acquirements), but which, unhappily, never reached him. With another acquisition, made at Christiania, and intended as a gift to another Oxford friend, I was more fortunate, though the chances were much more against it. I allude to a pair of Norwegian snow skates, called * schees,' which, though mar- vellous in speeding the wearer over tracks of snow, were awkward to carry upon a long journey over terra firman being some five feet or more long ; but which, nevertheless, I contrived to bring home in safety ; and they are now, I believe, to be seen hung up among other curiosities in the grand old Hall of Littlecott. During our stay at Christiania, we fell in with Lord Kerry (who died before his father, the third Lord Lansdowne), and Colvile (afterwards Sir James, and Chief Justice of Bengal), whom I had known slightly as an undergraduate of Trinity, Cambridge. An old memorandum book contains the following : * Sunday, August 25. — Laid up with bad headache all the evening. Borrowed from Kerry, and read a good deal of Wilber- TRAVELS IN NORWAY 129 force's " Practical Christianity." Mem. — To get it on my return to England.' Leaving our carriage at Christiania, we set out for an excursion which was to carry us over the Hardanger Fjeld to Bergen. We started on the road to Drammen and Kongsberg, as a cavalcade of four ; I and my two younger companions driving each his own carriole, with his carpet- bag and a caddie-boy behind to take back the pony and vehicle ; while the courier followed in a sort of rough post- cart, which contained the remainder of our impedimenta. The following stanzas, composed as I went along, will show the exuberant enjoyment which the rapid pace and the singular ease and elasticity of our conveyance, together with the smoothness of the road and the varied beauty of the scenery through which we passed, combined to inspire. Stanzas composed tohile driving a Carriole for the first time on the road from Christiania to Kongsberg. I have journeyed by sea and by land — Who has not in this travelling age ? — I have lolled in my lord's four-in-hand, And have moped in a Paddington stage : But in coaches ^ I ne'er wish to move ; A steamer's a sad pitch- and- tar -j hole ; Would you know the conveyance I love ? 'Tis the little Norwegian carriole. In the days of yore all the world rung With the feats of Olympian fillies ; And Homer and Virgil have sung * The car of the gallant Achilles ; ' But crack as ye may of your chaises, Ye whips, Greek or Roman, I dare ye all To appear, and compete with the praises Of me and my snug Uttle carriole. ' Written before railways had come into use. 130 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Not swifter the Queen Amphitrite Skims over the waves in her shell ; Not gayer the goddess so mighty Turns out in her Cyprian dell : Or let Jupiter down from the skies Send Mercury post through the starry 01- Ympus, and, fast as he flies, I'll run him a race in my carriole. Willy Shakespeare has told how that Mab The smug little Queen of the Fairies, Used a nut- shell to drive for a cab, When o' nights she went out on vagaries ; — But her coach-makers, Squirrel and Grub, I think I may venture to hariole,^ When they built her the bonny wee tub, Took the hint from the sight of a carriole. * And pray what's it like ? ' My dear sir, why, Like a tiny canoe without keels — Like a bonnet turned up topsy turvy — Like a coalscuttle set upon wheels : But, although it don't run upon springs, You will err if you think it a jar-y hole ; Not smoother yon lark on hier wings Floats, than I on the shafts of my carriole. ' I'd not be a butterfly ' ^ — no ! — That I leave to my dear little coz ; — I'd not be a * bluebottle,' though It has nothing to do but to buzz : — But, methinks it would not be amiss To be whisked, without stopping to tarry, whole Years together through country like this, And in you, my Norwegian carriole ! ' Anglicised from the Latin haridlor, to divine, guess, conjecture. ^ This, and what follows, alludes to two songs well-known many years ago, one beginning with, ' I'd be a butterfly,' fashionable with young ladies ; the other about ' a bluebottle,' no less fashionable with young gentlemen. TEAVELS IN NORWAY 181 Now we wind by the fjord so blue — Now the darkUng pine-forest is past — Now the dashing cascade comes in view, Or the tall peak, with clouds overcast : — Now I * live,' now I * reign ; ' ^ not a care Rises up in my bosom to mar the whole, As I sit, and, all-buoyant as air, Shout * Huzza ! to my snug little carriole ! * To be sure, 'tis a selfish concern. And never would do for a couple ; And folks, when they marry, must learn Above all to be pliant and supple : — ! then if the day shall arrive. When, wedded, in carriage and pair I roll, May I ne'er long again for a drive In my little Norwegian carriole ! But supposing my fair one should frown, And should leave me to sigh and to pray ; And instead of a ' Yes ' and look down, Should turn from my suit, and say * Nay : ' In the heart which young Love would have broke, While I leave to old Time to repair the hole, Wrapping round me my bachelor's cloak, I'll canter through life in a carriole ! Soon after Kongsberg we left the road and our carrioles, and took to our feet, carrying with us provisions necessary during our proposed tramp over the Hardanger. The course which we followed was by Bolkesjo, Tind, Vaagen, &c. ; and, to those who know anything of the country, it need scarcely be told that parts of this excursion were of the roughest, offering no ordinary accommodation either of food or of lodging. It occupied altogether ten days, includ- ing detours to see both the Ejukanfos and the Voringfos — the two most celebrated waterfalls in Norway — and a fishing expedition at Argdohood. Eoad there was none, not even ' * Vivo et regno, simul ista reliqui, Quoe vos ad ceelum fertis rumore secundo.' — Hor. Ep. i. x. 8. K 2 132 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE mountain track, a great part of the way, after we had fah'ly entered upon the Hardanger range, so that we had occasion to hire guides ; and the scenery, upon the whole, though wild enough, was scarcely sufficiently grand to one who had seen the English, Welsh, and Scotch Lake Country, to make amends for the discomforts : consequently I was not sorry when we caught sight of the Eidfjord, with UUensvang lying at the foot of the mountain we had to descend ; and still better were we pleased when a lengthened row over the Sor-fjord brought us to the spot where we enjoyed once more not only two or three days of much required rest, but the comforts and accommodations of civilised life. I had heard of Provost Hertzberg — whose title indicates, I believe, a position somewhat similar to that of an English Eural Dean — from Lord Henry Kerr, who had made a Norwegian tour not unlike to ours the year before, and had kindly given me directions for our route, and also a letter of introduction, which he strongly recommended me not to neglect, as it would afford me the opportunity of making ac- quaintance with that interesting and remarkable clergyman, then in his seventy-fifth year.^ The picturesque situation of the Parsonage, apparently accessible by nothing more than a footpath, with its lawn reaching down to the banks of the fjord, and a full view of the Folgefond Glacier rising out of the water at some distance on the opposite side, formed a unique scene well suited to the appearance of its occupant, whom we found to be a fine specimen of an active and sprightly, and withal venerable old man. He received us graciously, and instantly assured us of a welcome recep- tion, though we had arrived without notice and late in the * Several notices of Provost Hertzberg have appeared in print. See especially Norway and its Glaciers, visited in 1851, by Principal Forbes, who describes him as * universally known in Norway as one of the most benevolent and best-informed of the clergy,' p. 140. TRAVELS IN NOEWAY 133 evening. We were soon invited to sit down to a plain but plentiful repast, at which, after the spare diet and hard exercise we had gone through, it will not be wondered if we performed feats of appetite which, I can well remember, were rather extraordinary (one of my companions despatched no less than ten boiled eggs one after another), but which our kind host appeared to regard only as matters of course. The next morning, when it was barely 7 o'clock, the Provost in propria persona woke me up ; entering into my bedroom sans ceremonie in his dressing-gown, and with a pipe in his mouth, and exclaiming, as he pointed to the window from which there was a full view of the mountain, * Ecce ! Folgefond non habet pileum tenebrosum ; dies erit nitidus.' Shortly after came in a young lady, his daughter, who, without any prudery or bashfulness, pre- sented me with a cup of coffee as I still lay in bed. The same day, if our appetites had not been previously appeased, they certainly enjoyed a splendid opportunity of receiving the most ample satisfaction, for early in the afternoon we were taken by our host to a marriage feast at a neighbouring house, where eating and drinking were carried on upon a scale such as I have never seen equalled before or since. It commenced with an antepast of brand- wein, cheese, and biscuits, handed round and partaken of equally by the guests of both sexes. This was presently followed by a most substantial dinner, to be itself followed after a short interval by a scarcely less substantial supper : all which, nevertheless, did not seem to produce any in- jurious effect upon the merriment, which amid music and dancing concluded the entertainment. My conversation with our host was mostly carried on in Latin ; but the difference in our mode of pronunciation formed a sad impediment. However, the dead language had its advantages; it enabled him to say some things 134 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE which he would scarcely otherwise have ventured on. For instance, his second wife, whom he had recently married, was quite young ; and though he showed no unkindness towards her, yet, speaking in her presence, he frankly acknowledged that he had made a mistake, and he warned us not to follow his example in our old age. On our second day we made an excursion to the Folgefond Glacier, and when we had returned, and were sitting together after dinner, he proposed our health in these terms : * Salus vobis, qui primi Anglorum ascendistis Folgefond.' I noticed that the walls of the principal room of the Parsonage were adorned with engravings, among which were portraits of Lord Teignmouth, Sir Walter Scott, Sir Joseph Banks, Sir Humphry Davy, and Mr. Wilberforce. The hospitality which we thus enjoyed was given in accordance with the custom of that remote part of the country, in which, there being no inn or other place of public entertainment, the minister of the parish takes upon himself to keep open house for all wayfarers. No payment was demanded, or (as we were told) would have been accepted ; only it was expected that we should * remember the poor,' which, it need scarcely be said, we were * forward to do.' It will not be thought surprising that a visit paid amid circumstances so unusual made a strong impression upon my mind, and that I parted from our host with no ordinary feelings of attachment and esteem — feelings which found utterance in some Latin stanzas, composed as I lay along the bottom of the boat in which we proceeded on our course over the fjords to Bergen. The voyage took us two days. After we had landed at Bergen, the men who had rowed us from Ullensvang gave me time to transcribe my verses, and then took the copy back with them, promising to deliver it as addressed to the Provost. The verses were as follows : TRAVELS IN NORWAY 135 Ad virum Beverendum N. Hertzherg, Ullensvangice Pastorem. lo, sodales, plaudite ! Montium Jam jam recedunt culmina ; jam caput Submittit Hardanger, feroxque Colla dedit pedibus premenda. lo, sodales ! Nos per inhospitos Tractus, et arcem rupibus horridam Ducente Natura, solutis Templa Dese patuere portis. Optata quantum, mox dabitur quies Fessis viarum. Panditur Eid-fiord Jam nunc, et Ullensvang supinus Cemitur inferiore nido.^ Tuque ! fidelis seu Genius loci Mavis vocari, seu populi Parens Pastorque, seu Praesul, colendus Voce pia et graviore plectro, Villam recepti protinus in tuam, Metu sacratos suspicimus lares, Clivosque, pendentemque silvam, et C^ruleas veneramur undas. Sed nee cubantes tam siliiae placent, Nee lauta tantum munditiis domus, Nee celsa tam pectus gelatae ^ Percutiunt juga Folgefondi Spectare mores quam placidos juvat, Et corda nullis oblita sordibus, Purumque mirari leporem Mentis amabiliter jocosaB ; ' Comp. ' Celsas nidum Acherontise.' (Hor. Od. iii. iv. 14). 2 The beautiful appearance of the glacier, as compared with an ordinary mountain -range, suggested the propriety of putting it in the feminine gender. Compare the Jungfrau of Switzerland, which may still defend its name on the score of beauty, though not for the reason commonly assigned. It was ascended by Principal Forbes and his adventurous companions in 1841— truly ' periculosse plenum opus aleaB.' 136 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Sive hospes, ut mos est, bene sedulus Tu fallis annos et senium grave, Seu blandus indulges benignse Colloquio leviore venae. Te teste, sensi qud caput innocens -^tate adauctum ; te juveniliter Ridente, quae frontem piorum Canities hilarem coronet. Fronti piorum non fera frigora Stinxere lauros, non Aquilo impotens, Non lustra ter septem virenti Decutiunt animo vigorem. Hinc est aquarum quod prope marginem Umbrosa flores ^ arbor uti, senex, Tendisque (quod fas est) potiri Ante diem propiore caelo. Nempe inter undas, inter et arbores, Plerumque praesens conspicitur Deus, Cui rite in Alpina sacerdos Fraude carens operaris ^ ara ; Norvegiorum rege beatior Urbis scelestae qui strepitu procul Effugeris curas sequaces, Luxuriamque operosiorem. His culta quondam moribus indoles Divina crevit Cecropii senis ; His, cujus exhausto refertur Saepe cado caluisse virtus Prisci Catonis ; quem neque, debilem -iEtate, Graecas discere literas Nee Thraciis ^ dextram pigebat Invalidam inseruisse chordis. » See Psalm i. 3. ^ gee Virg. Georg. i. 339. ' See Cic. De Senect. (c. ix.) In this latter respect the writer's memory deceived him, and he mistook the wish, which Cicero makes Cato to express, for the deed. TRAVELS IN NORWAY 137 Vosque, hospitalis praesidium domus, Herum (potestis si quid adhuc), Lares, Servate semper ! sic recessu Pulchra magis, potiorve sedes Haud uUa vestro, Isetior aut focus, Visatur : Euri, sic, quoties furant, Pineta clivosseque, vobis Sospitibus, quatiantur orni ! Quin et, supremum respiciens vale, Suspiret olim plurimus advena, Prius neque ascendat triremem Quam fuerit dominum allocutus — * Vivas ! et ! si me foveat senem Talis recessus ! sic sine nubibus Frons nostra, delabente vita. Sic niteat sine labe pectus ! ' I had the satisfaction of knowing that the verses — a humble tribute to a country parson not unworthy of the muse of Geoffrey Chaucer, or of George Herbert, or of Oliver Goldsmith — had duly reached their destination by a letter from the Provost himself, written not long after — Octo- ber 27, 1833 — which, full as it is of the kindest feeling and the most delightful playfulness and buoyancy of spirit, the classical reader will not, I think, be displeased to see : and again, nearly two years later, I received from him a short but touching and cheerful note, dated May 19, 1835, in which were the words ' adhuc vivo — tui semper memor.' Nls Hertzberg ad Garolum Wordsworth, M.A, UUenvang, Oct. 27, 1833. Legi, relegi, decies repetitum placebit, carmen tuum, quo me honorasti, Bergis Sept. 14 ; quo lecto voce Stentoris oa-ov akXoi irevTyKovra clamavi : — ' Heus tu, Mercuri facunde, deorum dearumque nuntie, adesto ! Ito ! arirovSalov, pete Elysium ; 138 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE curva tua lyra cane carmen istud immortali Horatio, ut audiat quantum musarum inter Britannos cultores adhuc post seculaundeviginti imbuti sintvernacula ipsius,ut non solum lingua loqaantur Eomana, sed etiam eademque pangant carmina. — Carmina ejusdem divino afflata spiritu.' Dixi : * Sane, mi Horati ! tibi gaudebis audiendo, dices que : *' Hocce carmen sapit ingenium meum ; hoc corculum meum sere perennius pangit carmen ! " ' Evax ! carissime Carole, macte ingenio tuo ; * didicisse fideliter artes emollit mores ; ' * sic itur ad astra.' * The real Bard whom native genius fires, whom ev'ry maid of Castaly inspires.' Ad me scribis : * At all events you will do me the kindness to receive the inclosed production as payment in kind for the favour of the perusal of your admirable Latin letter to Lord Clanwilliam &c., and hoping that it may afford you a hundredth part of the gratification, for which, on this and other accounts, I remain your debtor.' Crede mihi quod tu poemate tuo concinne pacto centies compensaveris. In memoriam jam mihi subit Earl Hills- borough mihi narrasse quod tu sis frater aut consanguineus Poetas Wordsworth, de quo Aristarchus quidam Imperial Maga- zine October, 1821, p. 812, refert : ' Yes, Wordsworth will be read when Homer, and Virgil, and Byron are forgotten — but not till then.' Quis eorundem primus, W. aut B. ? * Non nostrum tantas componere Utes.' Tu mihi Marcellus eris, — stat mihi. Quid quod centiesque insuper compensatus sum favore tuo mese epistolse ad Clanwilliam caeterosque Benefactores Orbatorum ; solatium est mihi, qui pene oblitus sum Komanae scribendaB linguae, quod tu, apprime gnarus, admireris. 0, quam me paenitet paenitebitque, non longius potuisse uti tua, sodaliumque, placida conversatione : honestorum usus virorum mihi est instar omnium. Longo meo jam asvo (74 J an.) multoties expertus sum, * II y a des hommes, dans le monde, qui, le plus on les connait, plus on les aimait, plus on les regrette.' Vestri me tenet desiderium. Differentia pronuntiationis latinae inter Anglos Norvagosque, pereat o si ! Benigne scribis : Te velle volenter mandatorum mihi esse gestorem Christianiae et Holmiae ; persuasus sum te velle ferre etiam in Anglia. Precor, si occurreris quibusdam eorum, qui me visere, meo nomine intime salutare, nempe Clanwilliam ; Kerr, Marquis of Lothian ; Shore, vice Presid. Societatis Britannicas TRAVELS IN NORWAY 139 SacrsB ScriptursB ; Scott, attorney in Scotia ; Baker ; Elves ; Elliott ; Gournay ; Fowler ; Penrhyn, M. of Parliament, Com. House ; qui omnes fuere digni qui amentur ; manent cuncti alta mea mente reposti. Jam jam manum e tabula. Claudite nunc rivos, pueri, sat prata biberunt. Iterum relegendo tuum elegans carmen, memini : The Country Minister, Supplem. to the Imperial Magazine, December 15, 1821, p. 1219. ' Yonder the cottage stands where once he dwelt ' &c., quem ministrum ecclesise imitari conatus sum. Talem me cecinisti, qualem te fore auguror ; certe beatus ille qui vivit rure sic occupatus. Dii tibi dent annos, cetera de te. Vive, vale, quam plurimum ! Impertimus tibi et commilitonibus multam salutem nos omnes. Valde haveo scire quid agas ; quod in buccam venerit, scribito. Dixi. Tuus totus Nls Heetzbeeg. From Bergen we returned by the high road — a journey which occupied a week — to Christiania, and from thence in a few days set out again, on October 6 (but no longer accompanied by Lord Hillsborough), in our carriage to post across Sweden, via Karlstad and Westeras to Stockholm. But I feel that I ought not to quit Norway without paying a tribute to the kindliness of disposition which we con- stantly met with in the natives, and not least among the lowest orders. In a memorandum book which I had with me during our excursion over the Hardanger, I find the following remark, suggested by the good nature which they exhibited even in places the wildest and most remote : * If a traveller, an Englishman especially, has too often occa- sion to notice the general depravity of human nature, he has also more frequent opportunities of witnessing one of 140 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE its most redeeming qualities. The philosopher who first adopted the notion of referring all our actions to the principle of selfishness could scarcely have been a traveller. The kindness and attentions so frequently lavished upon wayfarers by those who can expect no re- turn, nor hope ever to see them again, cannot, certainly, be assigned to the polish of civilisation, for they are met with still more unreservedly in rude states of society; nor to any other principles, as I believe, than those of sociality and benevolence.' If I had been disappointed by Copen- hagen, I found in Stockholm more than I had expected. In its situation and surroundings — romantic land and water scenery brought into close connection with its streets and buildings — it has striking points which resemble those of Edinburgh ; though, upon the whole, as a city it will not bear comparison with our Scottish capital. We spent two Sundays there. The only English place of worship was a Wesleyan Chapel, which I attended, and on the second Sunday, twice (so my memorandum book says). I trust, therefore, that I profited and was thankful for the privilege ; for throughout Norway we had met with no English service at all. Upon the whole, after passing a fortnight at Stockholm in the ordinary round of sight- seeing, &c. &c., we were not sorry to take our departure. Nor was there much to interest us in our journey of seven days through the South of Sweden. In short, we should have been better advised if the portion of our tour which included so much of that country — the scenery of which, unlike that of Norway, is for the most part tame and commonplace — had been omitted. At length we reached Ustad, and a very rough passage of thirteen hours across the Baltic — the last passage which the steamer was to make that season — brought us safe to Greifswald, on the coast of Germany. On the day after our landing (November 5), one of the TRAVELS IN GERMANY 141 professors of the university, Mr. Mandt, who had been in England, called upon us and offered to take us to a public ball that same evening. Accordingly, we went. There was a large assemblage. As I was standing among others looking on at a party of dancers, a fair Greifswaldese, who had been one of them, came up to me and offered me her hand. Not knowing who she was, or what she said (for she spoke in German), I could only make to her a low bow and look abashed. It was explained to me afterwards that the cotillon, which was the dance going on, allows any lady to offer herself as a partner to any gentleman whom she chooses, and that I had declined a very pretty compliment ! The occurrence had such an effect upon my sensitive nature that I determined forthwith to take lessons in dancing — a part of my education which, having had neither mother nor sisters to encourage or superintend it, had been too much neglected. And so I did, first at Berlin, then at Dresden, and ultimately at Paris. Thus I made myself — as became an athlete — an accomplished waltzer ; with the result that, a few years after this, on an occasion which I well remember — a Domum ball at Winchester — I caused quite a sensation ; and this, not only by the perfection of the saltatory movements which I displayed — doubtless beyond all expectation — but still more perhaps by the determination which I announced not to dance with any lady except my wife ! I had thought it my duty to be present at the ball in question (as it was given by the Winchester boys), and, being present, I could not resist the temptation of letting the company see what a charming wife I had, and how I could exhibit her to the best advantage.^ Nothing could be more kind and agreeable than the attentions and hospitality we received, though perfect ' It ought to be mentioned, perhaps, that I was not then in Priest's Orders. 142 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE strangers, from Professor and Mrs. Mandt ; so that we were induced to remain at Greifswald a day longer than we had intended. I had much interesting conversation with him, especially about the wild and insubordinate habits of the students, which it would be now out of date to place upon record. Before quitting the town I happened to go into a bookseller's shop, where, to my surprise, I saw — and at once purchased — a copy of a reprinted edition of * Nares's Glossary,' in octavo. To find such a book, reprinted in such a place — a small town on the outskirts of Germany — struck me as a remarkable and highly gratifying proof of the extent to which the study of Shakespeare is encouraged and cultivated in that country. Leaving Greifswald, where I had picked up what infor- mation I could concerning the German system of education, we went on our way towards Berlin. It was our intention to pass the winter there. And the time was not ill spent. In the first place, we were fortunate in our German master, Adolph Heimann, a young man who had recently taken his Ph.D. degree, and consequently was now Dr. Heimann. He was a good scholar, and had mastered English so as to be able to read Shakespeare and to read Wordsworth. Though he was a Jew, and, without being bigoted, a conscientious and determined one, we soon be- came attached to each other : so much so that when I had settled at Winchester he followed me thither, and, on my recommendation, was appointed our German master. Subsequently he obtained a higher appointment of the same kind as Professor of King's College in London, and gained repute by a poetical translation into German of Henry Taylor's * Philip van Artevelde.' Through his in- tervention I was enabled to make acquaintance with other students, past and present, and became familiar with their mode of life. For instance, I was present as a guest when TRAVELS IN GERMANY 143 a party of them met on the eve of January 1, to usher in the new year. As the clock struck twelve, enveloped in a cloud of tobacco smoke, we all stood up, and each kissed his neighbours right and left round the table ! I did not undertake to attend any one course of lectures at the university, but I was desirous to see something of all the more eminent professors, and to have opportunities of judging for myself of their manner and style of lecturing. And in attaining both these objects I was helped greatly by Dr. Heimann, and partly also by Professor Bockh, to whom Hugh Eose, his fellow labourer on the subject of Greek inscriptions, had given me a letter of introduction. I called upon Bockh, well known by his learned work on the Public Economy of Athens, and by his edition of Pindar, and found him very courteous and agreeable. It seemed as if the tobacco-pipe, never out of his hand and always ready to be applied to his lips, had enabled him to retain a placid and benignant countenance, notwithstanding the constant and severe studies in which he must have been engaged. Afterwards, I received from him the following note: Geehrter Herr, — In Bezug auf Ihr gefalliges Schreiben bitte ich Sie ergebenst Morgen uni 11 oder 12 Uhr in das Sprechzim- mer der Universitat zu kommen, wo ich dann die Ehre haben werde Sie Herr Prof. Gans verzustellen. Was Herr Prof. Bekker betrifft, so werde ich noch heute, falls ich ihn, wie ich glaube, zu sehen bekommen sollte, mit ihm sprechen, und iibersende Ihnen zugleich eine Karte, wodurch ich Sie ihm empfehle. Nur mit iiberhauften Gesehaften mid schwankender Gesundheit kann ich es entschuldigen, dass ich Ihnen noch nicht meinen Gegenbe- such gemacht habe ; ich werde dies aber noch in diesen Tagen thun, falls es Ihnen nicht lieber sein sollte, mich noch einmal in meiner Wohnung zu sehen. Mit der Unterhaltung wollen wir schon fertig werden ; Sie brauchen bios Muth zu fassen, um Deutsch reden zu konnen. Dann wollen wir auch iiber den andern Gegenstand sprechen worauf sich Ihr Brief bezieht, und 144 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE ich will Ihnen dann, wenn Sie es woUen, eine Liste von Schriften geben, aus welchen Sie zu dem Zwecke, wovon Sie in Ihren Schreiben reden, eine Auswahl treffen konnen.^ SoUten Sie an Herr Rose schreiben, ehe wir uns gesprochen haben werden, so bitte ich mich besonders zu empfehlen. Ergebenst, BoCKH Berlin : 27. Febr. 1834. I am sorry that I kept no journal of my sojourn at Berlin; but the following sketches of lectures which I attended have been drawn out from some rough notes jotted down at the time, and may therefore be depended on as sufficiently accurate. The ' Ordinary ' theological pro- fessors then were Schleiermacher, Hengstenberg, Neander, Marheineche and Strauss. The hours kept were very diffe- rent from those to which I had been accustomed at Oxford ; or rather the work covered much more of the early part of the day, and continued, more or less, till 8 at night. Even in winter the lectures began at 7, and it was usual for the same professor to go on lecturing till 10, with only a few minutes interval between the hours sufficient to allow one set of students to retire and another to take their places. If a student came in late there was hissing and scraping of feet on the part of the class ; and on one occasion which I witnessed — at a lecture of Schleiermacher's, at 8 a.m. in December — a student who so transgressed was received with such a volley that he was constrained to withdraw ; the professor good-humouredly remarking — * Why so many? One or two would have sufficed.' 1. ScHLEiEEMACHEE, a little old man, weak and tottering, with flowing white hair and with spectacles through which his eye pierced with undimmed lustre, took his seat behind * This refers to books on the German universities and education in general — a subject upon which I had promised Roundell Palmer to write an article for a new magazine in which he was interested, and had helped to set on foot at Oxford during my absence. PROFESSORS AT BERLIN 146 a raised desk, on which as he pressed his arms, and thrust forward his wrinkled but animated countenance, one seemed to recognise the acknowledged leader of the new German school of theology. His manner was interesting and ener- getic rather than solemn or impressive ; and occasionally he was facetious, so as to elicit roars of laughter from his audience ; which was not large — not more than nineteen or twenty. He made scarcely any reference to his book, and there was no turning over leaves. 2. Neander. His lecture room, very spacious — formerly an apartment in the palace — and filled with between two and three hundred students, most of them with hats or caps on, exhibited a very different scene. Walking hurriedly up to his desk, by an instantaneous motion he put his left hand to his forehead, fixed his eyes upon his book, and removed neither — except in the act of spitting, renewed every five minutes — till the end of the lecture, so that it was impossible to obtain a distinct view of his features. Altogether his appear- ance was very incult ; and his coarse black hair, shaggy eyebrows, and dark brown complexion plainly indicated his Jewish extraction. He was lecturing on the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, and had no notes, only the Greek Testa- ment. He provoked a laugh from his young hearers by remarking that Paul was * nicht fertig ' with the use of his moods, because ha is found (1 Cor. iv. 6) with the indicative ; which according to Winer is * a faulty construction of later Greek.' 3. BocKH also had a very large attendance of students, and among them I counted with regret — regarding it as a symptom of excessive study — not less than twelve with spectacles.^ On one occasion when I heard him, he was ' I see that Lord Dufferin, in his St. Andrews Kectorial Address (April 6, 1891), attributes to the practice of fighting, so prevalent among German students, ' the disadvantage of putting a large proportion of the L 146 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE lecturing on the Antigone of Sophocles ; on another, his subject was the origin of the Amphictyonic Council. His personal appearance was in great contrast to that of Neander. Though his countenance bore marks of hard study, the expression was pleasing, with a mild lustre in the eyes, and now and then an agreeable smile. In manner he was quiet and gentlemanly, but constant reference to his notes gave to his delivery a cramped and awkward effect : although doubtless fully master of his subject, it did not carry him on in that free and easy way which renders attention a pleasure rather than an exertion. I noticed among his auditors an elderly gentleman, scribbling away with great perseverance, who, I was afterwards told, was the famous geographer and naturalist. Baron Friedrich Alexander von Humboldt. 4. Henning, a disciple of Hegel, impressed me more perhaps than any other professor whom I heard. His ap- pearance was that of a strikingly clever looking man, with dark hair and eyes, and bare forehead ; and his style and manner of lecturing, from the animation and energy with which he spoke, never clogged by reference to book or notes, further set off by a graceful delivery, resembled a piece of acting. His subject was the science of Ideas ; and he had a large and attentive audience. 5. The name of Immanuel Bekker, as a chief among Greek scholars, had been long familiar to me, and, if I had not been told beforehand what I was to expect from him, I should have been grievously disappointed. If Henning was a model of au animated and attractive lecturer, Bekker was the reverse; and consequently his lecture room was almost empty. The students (not above a dozen) treated him with scant respect, scraping and hissing when he was not loud enough to be well heard (for he often mumbled population into spectacles.' If he is correct, my inference was a mistaken one. PROFESSORS AT BERLIN 147 sadly), and he repaid their rudeness with marked in- difference. He was going through Thucydides — an author whom he had edited — and had arrived at the speeches of Diodotus and of the Platseans in Book III. Holding a small volume of the text in his right hand, and loose leaves of translated passages and notes in his left, he looked alter- nately from one to the other, but never for a moment lifted his eyes upon the class during the whole lecture, so that what he said had the effect of a soliloquy rather than of an address to them. To me his Greek was not easy to follow, as he laid more stress upon accent than we are wont to do. I took him to be about the age of Gaisford, perhaps rather younger, and there was, I fancied, a slight resemblance between them. Altogether it was distressing and melan- choly to see a man of European reputation exhibit himself to so little advantage, and to find him apparently without honour in his own country. I may add that in private he had the character of being remarkably reserved and taci- turn; so that, as he was known to be a great linguist, it was commonly said of him that he held his tongue in ten languages ! Steauss, who had come to Berlin to attend Schleier- macher's lectures, was still quite a young man, not more than twenty-six ; but he had been ordained, and I heard him preach in the Cathedral. On entering the pulpit, he made a bow to the Eoyal pew, though, if I remember right, it was unoccupied. The prayers used were from the * Agende,' or Prussian Liturgy, put forth by order of the king, Frederick William III., a few years before (1829), at the instigation of Chevalier Bunsen. I also heard Marheineche in his own church, where the service consisted of little or nothing besides singing and the sermon. Towards the end of a long piece of psalmody, he ascended the pulpit, and, having read eight or ten verses of the New Testament for his L 2 148 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE text, delivered an extemporary discourse upon Christ's entry into Jerusalem, from the Gospel for the Day, 1st Sunday in Advent, with a considerable degree of action, during rather more than half an hour, after which the congregation dispersed. Of Schleiermacher I have already spoken. I obtained an introduction to him through Dr. Heimann, shortly before his death ; and I took part in the procession of students and others, on foot and in carriages, who formed an almost interminable cortege at his funeral, so that it seemed as if the whole city had joined to pay him that last tribute of respect. The professor of whom I saw most in private was Neander. I was admitted to the quiet tea parties given to a select number of his students on Sunday evenings, at which his sister presided. On one occasion my presence and something I had said led to a con- versation in which the good professor expressed himself somewhat strongly in condemnation of what he considered the lax notions of literary morality prevalent in England. For instance, he could not understand how a man could venture to publish a book under the title of * The Diary of a Late Physician,' who had never been a physician at all. And he thought the public mind must be in a very unhealthy condition which could tolerate sach deception. I said what I could in justification of the practice, of which several other instances had then recently occurred, and had come to the professor's knowledge ; but it was evident that my defence made no impression. At Berlin I followed up the interest, which already at Greifswald I had begun to take, in the subject of German education. In this connection I do not remember that anything struck or pleased me more than a visit I paid to one of the largest of the six public gymnasia, named Zum Grauen Closter, then under Dr. Kopke. It was on occa- sion of a musical entertainment in which the pupils, upwards RESIDENCE AT BERLIN 149 of 500, all took part, and, so far as I could judge, with great success. They had all been taught to sing as an essential element of a good education. I could not help saying to my- self, * Why should not we in England do the same ? ' And it will be seen, in the sequel of these Annals, that the im- pression then and there made upon my mind was not allowed to pass away without producing practical results. Although the German Church is not in either of its branches, Lutheran or Reformed, episcopal in the ordinary sense of the term, it retains the use of the ordinance of Confirmation, and gives to it its due prominence. Indeed, it would be well if, in many instances, we Episcopalians would take a lesson from the thoroughness with which, as a rule, preparation for it is carried out. All boys in the public gymnasia at the age of fourteen are required by law to attend a Prediger for a year, once a week or oftener, to re- ceive religious instruction, and the masters of the several gymnasia are bound to see that this is done by all the boys under their charge. The Prediger is chosen by the parents. I noticed that a similar system prevailed in Norway. There, Confirmation, which can only be obtained after a lengthened course of teaching, and strict examination by the clergy, is indispensable for admission into any public office, and even for marriage. Besides our courteous reception by the English Ambas- sador, then Lord Minto, whose daughters also were pupils of Dr. Heimann, and a grand entertainment upon one occasion at the palace of the Crown Prince, afterwards King Frederick WiUiam IV., I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Canon Jelf (who had married a very agreeable German lady), and of his pupil Prince George, who afterwards became King of Hanover, and had some time before met with the sad accident which deprived him in great measure of his eyesight. He appeared to be a 160 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE very amiable youth, and his tutor spoke of him with great satisfaction. When the time came for leaving Berlin, early in the spring of 1834, we moved to Dresden. It cannot be said that Berlin is a city ever to grow fond of. It had no commanding feature to excite interest ; no grand river, no Tower of London, no Westminster Hall, no St. Paul's, no Westminster Abbey, no Houses of Parliament. But with Dresden I was charmed from the first. The Elbe alone, as it there flows, is sufficient to ennoble it. It has every advantage — social, natural, and artistic, and I may add, so far as my experience went, of climate — to make it a delightful place of residence. Seen at a little distance, when approached from the south, it reminded me of Oxford. Here we were again fortunate in our German master, and the German spoken is said to be as pure as is anywhere to be found. The man of most mark as a literary character was Tieck, the translator of Shakespeare. He was in the habit of re- ceiving company in an evening, to whom he gave readings. I was present on one such occasion, when he read his own German translation of a comedy of Goldoni. At Dresden I fell in with a Christ Church Student, Cyril Page, whom I mentioned before as one of our best skaters, and who had also been distinguished as a strong oar in our college boat. We had heard it stated that the current under the bridge over the Elbe was so strong that no boat had ever been known to surmount it. Our English pluck was at once aroused, and Page and I made up our minds that the thing was to be done, and that we would do it. We had a couple of oars made for the purpose, better than any that could be obtained on the spot, but we were forced to put up with the best boat we could find. Cantelupe undertook to act as our coxswain. The day came for the great exploit. We got our boat with its head DRESDEN AND LEIPZIG 161 well against the stream, and rowed straight on till we were just within the mouth of the centre arch, and fully expected to be able to succeed. Meanwhile, a considerable crowd had collected on the bridge to see two foolish young Englishmen attempt to do what was known to be impossible. We pulled and pulled with all our might, for some ten minutes or more, at the point we had reached within the arch's mouth, without advancing an inch ; and then there was nothing for it but to give in. Yirgil has well described how the matter ended : Haud aliter quam qui adverse vix flumine lembum Remigio subigit, si brachia forte remisit, Atque ilium in prcBceps prono rapit alveus amni. It was sadly ignominious, but we had done our best. The truth is, the ihmgwas impossible, but only, I believe, because our boat (like all others there used) had no proper keel, and so could not take hold of the stream, which passed under it at its own free will ; ^ whether the same experiment has ever been repeated since, and with greater knowledge of the problem to be solved than we had shown, I cannot say. From Dresden we thought it right and proper to pay our respects to Leipzig ; and we timed our visit so as to fall in with the famous bookselling fair. Here — it was, I think, on the evening of our arrival — I had the misfortune to com- mit a shocking enormity, though in parvd re, I did what I suppose no man has ever done before or since — I sat down upon a lady's bonnet ! It happened thus. Having gone for supper into the large salle-a-manger, laid out for some 200 guests, we made up to two chairs which appeared to be dis- engaged. A lady and a gentleman were sitting opposite. * When the above was written, I was not aware that the inter-university race is now, and has been since 1857, rowed with keel-less boats ; which leads me to fear that my theory, as stated in the text, may not hold good. 152 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE The lady imprudently had taken off her bonnet and placed it — not upon the chair beside her, but upon one on the opposite side of the table. That chair I had fixed on for myself, and without looking to see whether there was any- thing upon it, I sat down. The effect was instantaneous. I started up as if I had been sitting unawares on a bed of nettles or a nest of hornets. But who shall describe the face of that lady, or even the face of the gentleman, when, taking up the squashed bonnet— a smart new one, evidently bought to make a sensation at the fair — I presented it to the fair owner — an unsightly ruin ! The fault was not altogether mine. The bonnet had no business to be where it was. Nevertheless the untoward accident so discomposed me, that it entirely took away my appetite, and I retired supperless to my own room. I ought perhaps to have offered to buy the lady another bonnet ; but this, in my confusion, did not occur to me. At Leipzig, I availed myself of a letter of introduction, given to me, I think, at Berlin, to call upon Professor Hermann, the Greek scholar, Porson's antagonist. He made his appearance in top-boots, as if prepared to go out hunting, to which (strange to tell of a German professor) he was said to be much addicted. Our conversation turned upon recent appointments to English bishoprics — includ- ing Blomfield and Monk. And he was much puzzled to understand how the editing of Greek plays could prove a fitting prelude or recommendation for promotion to the episcopate. It was one of my greatest pleasures, while I was abroad, to keep up correspondence with my friends at Oxford, and to know that I was not forgotten by them. It would astonish young men — perhaps even young ladies — of the present day to see some of the letters which I received during my travels, and still preserve, occupying four closely LETTERS FROM OXFORD FRIENDS 153 written pages of quarto paper, and some of them crossed on every page, from Walter Hamilton, Thomas Claughton, Koundell Palmer, William Palmer, Antony Grant, Eardley- Wilmot, and others. I do not remember that I was myself quite a match for my correspondents in point of prolixity ; but it appears that such was the case from a letter of Claughton's (April 3, 1838), in which he writes : ' I have still in my possession some of those crossed and recrossed specimens of classical epistles with which you used to favour your friends in good old Baccalaurean times.' Again, September 7, 1840, he writes from North Wales: * I thought of you the other day at Tan-y-Bwlch, where I passed a night during a short tour I was taking. I remember re- ceiving from you when you were there one of those long and beautiful letters you used to write when earth wore a different garb to us both from what she wears now.' I have never been in the habit of taking copies of my letters except upon important matters of business ; and, so far as I know (but I have made little inquiry), they have not been preserved, except by my brother Christopher. From Eardley-Wilmot, before setting out, I had received, besides other letters, two epistles in Latin Elegiac verse, written from Naples, which are now before me, and which I prize as not unworthy to be compared to those of Milton, when a young man, to his friend Charles Deodate. Sir Eardley- Wilmot still cultivates his elegant gift of composition in Latin verse, which gained for him the Latin verse prize at Oxford in 1829, the year after Claughton had won it. In 1887 he pubhshed a collection of short elegiac poems, entitled * Mentoni Florilegium,' which, in token of our old friendship, and still congenial tastes, he kindly dedi- cated to me. I quote a few passages from the mass of correspondence to which I have referred. But, before doing so, let me 164 ANNALS OF MY EAELY LIFE insert the following, which I find jotted down in an old memorandum book just after I had arrived in Sweden : * Two great advantages of travel. (1) It quickens one's gratitude and affection towards absent friends, and piety and thankfulness towards God for the blessing of birth in a Christian country such as England. (2) Is the best school for acquiring a habit of observation.' In a letter from Eoundell Palmer, dated Oxford, October 30, 1833, and addressed to me (prematurely) at Leipzig, the first beginnings of the Tractarian movement are thus alluded to : Keble has been preaclung and publishing an assize sermon against ' National Apostacy,' which I should like to send you, if it were possible. And he and other Oriehtes are exerting them- selves very much to resist by all loyal and Christian means the expected attacks upon Church doctrine and discipline. They have printed and distributed a good many tracts upon these sub- jects, and wish a society to be formed of the friends of the Church for these purposes. For in truth, my dear friend, the political horizon does not look better than it did when you were last in England, and every one expects that the Church and the Uni- versities will be almost the first subjects taken in hand in the coming session. Again, from the same, December 14, to me at Berlin : Another subject which excites much conversation and interest just now in the Common Eooms and donnish circles of Oxford is the bold and decided manner in which a party in the Church, of which Keble is a leading member, are exerting themselves to occupy a high ground against any expected attacks or innovations from the State, They have not met with much warm co-opera- tion in Oxford, but have succeeded much better among the Vinegar Tops, as my Brother Porson [our sobriquet of William Palmer] used to call the country clergymen. Their first step is to be an address to the Archbishop of Canterbury, embodying their sentiments and breathing their resolution. How far this is or LETTERS FROM OXFORD FRIENDS 165 is not judicious remains to be seen. What do you think about it? The following sentences of a letter from the same cor- respondent, though of a date two years later (September 14, 1835, when I had just settled at Winchester), are of so much interest and of such high value that I cannot refrain from inserting them here. He had finished his university course with extraordinary eclat the year before. I go into a conveyancer's office early in November. I have been reading much more steadily all this summer than at any previous time which I can remember ; both at law, classics, and divinity, besides modern miscellaneous books. My love of the classics is much increased, and I have formed a deliberate resolu- tion to give them a certain portion of every day (except Sundays) hereafter ; by which means I hope in the course of a few years to become master of the whole range of ancient literature — not critically, but substantially. Even in law I take considerable pleasure and interest ; and I trust if God continues to give me grace, to make His glory the end and object of all my studies, by which a power is unquestionably gained for the right or wrong use of which all who possess it must be deeply responsible. May God grant, my dearest Wordsworth, that you may so use the . . . which He has given you, and the opportunities of your present situation, as to call down His blessing upon yourself and upon all within your influence ! Walter Hamilton to me at Berlin, under date January 13, 1834. He was then a Fellow of Merton, and preparing to become Tutor. We are now in most anxious expectation about the measure of Church Reform to be introduced by laer Majesty's Ministers. Of course any plan they may contemplate bringing forward will only affect the temporahties of the Church. They will not, I trust, touch the spiritualities. Should they attempt to do so, they will find that the clergy as a body are fully prepared to resist at all hazards such innovations. The claims of the Church of England as the true Church of Christ have been put forward 156 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE most strongly of late, and have excited great attention both among the clergy and society. Sinclair, the chaplain of the Bishop of Edinburgh, has written an admirable treatise on Episcopacy, and Newman and Keble &c. are constantly putting out small and well- written tracts on these subjects. The anticipated danger of any attempts to encroach on the rights of the clergy as ministers of Christ has caused a union of persons hitherto much separated, and I think all such distinctions as Evangelicals &c. are likely to die away. The general interest, and the vindication of our common principles, are uniting such men as the Wilberforces &c. and my cousin Hook for instance, or, I ought rather to instance to you, Hugh Rose. The result of these changes will be very advantageous to the true High Church party. Hitherto, they have been identi- fied with hunting parsons [the Vinegar Tops of William Palmer] and cold, unaffectionate preachers. They will now be stripped of these adventitious auxiliaries, and will be known only as the un- flinching asserters of the claims of the Church. I trust their zeal will not make them bigots, and that in their just reprobation of the popular principle of expediency they will not think it necessary to disregard prudence and sobriety ; for though double-minded- ness and instability be equally contemptible in the eyes of God and man, still foolhardiness and zeal without knowledge do not in consequence become virtues. In another of his letters Walter Hamilton mentions that he had been reading the ' Excursion,' which I had given him, and he admired it so much that * he valued it next to the Bible.' Thomas Claughton, who had become private tutor in Lord Ely's family, wrote to me at Berlin about the same date, January 10, from Ely Lodge, near Enniskillen in Ireland, a long letter, of which the following are extracts : I must thank you for your descant on the Hardanger Fjeld. Oh, that I could have been with you ! There is no deprivation which I would not have submitted to for the sake of seeing the glorious work of Nature uncontaminated, as it were, by man. Thirty miles without a single house ! No tea, sugar, candles ; no bread ! A bed in a hayloft ! I could have borne all this ; one LETTERS FROM OXFORD FRIENDS 167 hint you gave was the only thing which * blanched my cheek,* but you introduced it only in the way of illustration. I mean the Corinthians iv rot? o-rpw/Aao-t [the reader of Aristophanes will recognise the allusion]. In all speculations I ever indulged of foreign travel, those little gentlemen arose to my imagination — an insuperable obstacle — giant spectres, with which I should never have courage to contend. Elsewhere, in the same letter, there occurs a more serious strain. I pray that we may live to realise our hopes ; that we may strengthen and comfort one another ; or again, in your own words (for you cannot think how closely they answer to my feelings), that those who first assembled together for the purpose of inno- cent festivities at Oxford [in allusion to the Bachelors' Club] may be united into a Clerical Brotherhood to withstand the evil spirit of our time.^ Such a lot is almost too much to hope for — too* infinitely above our deserts — but I humbly look forward, under the blessing of a most merciful God. . . . While you have been reading Rose [Hugh Rose's University sermons, mainly intended for undergraduates] to Cantelupe, I have been doing the same here [to Lord Loftus and his younger brothers.] These coin- cidences are what Tennyson calls dualisms. Farewell, dearest Wordsworth. Write again soon. It has often been remarked that the beautiful combina- tion of elegance of manners with virtuous living in the midst of affluence is nowhere to be seen in such perfection as in many of the families of the British nobility. From several passages in their letters about this period, I should infer that both Claughton and K. Palmer would be prepared ^ The same sentiment is expressed more fully in a letter to me at Win- chester four years later, October 1838 : ' It is a blessing — a great blessing — dear Wordsworth, that those who tasted the sweets of literary leisure together, and indulged the innocent levities of youth in each other's society, are now linked together by a more endearing tie than 7}Sovf] ; are brought by God's good Spirit to a sense of His mercy and goodness towards them, and are being animated by this sense to a common zeal in His cause.' 158 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE to give the testimony of their own experience to the truth of that remark. My engagement with Lord Cantelupe ended early in June, and we returned to England just in time to enable me to be present at Oxford for the Grand Commemoration when the Duke of Wellington was installed as Chancellor, and when he made his famous false quantities, ' Doctores,' * Jacobus,' and ' Carolus.' ^ The second, however, was not quite so false as his critics supposed. See Quicherat's Thesaurus, s.v. Later on in the same summer I went abroad again on my own account, with William Palmer as my companion. Our first destination was Paris ; where I remained, after Palmer had left me to go on to Tours, and where I soon after fell in with Phillips, mentioned above as one of our party at Bowness in 1827, who the year before had travelled with my brother Christopher in Italy, and to whom he had dedicated his ' Inscriptiones Pompeiana3.' Yes — and I fell in, also, with one the sight of whom was destined to have an all-powerful influence over my future life, as the following verses, composed at the time, will suflSciently explain. Phillips was with me in the gallery of the Louvre, and we were examining the pictures together, when the incident occurred. Love at First Sight : an incident in the Louvre, Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might : Who ever loved that loved not at first sight ? As You Like It, act iii. sc. v. With slowly-pacing steps and gaze, Still lost amidst the enchanting maze, The pictured walls of Louvre, I looked : when lo ! in lovelier guise A nobler study meets my eyes ; 'Tis Nature's own chef-d'osuvrel * See Frank Buckland's Life, p. 6. VISIT TO PARIS 169 A giddy traveller's wayward flights, To run the gauntlet of strange sights, Had brought me late to France, Careless alike to stay or go, When Cupid, smiling, ' Say you so ? * Transfixed me with a glance. One instant, and the heart so sound Fell stricken by a mortal wound ; (So short the fatal strife !) One look, the affections captive ta'en Received the indissoluble chain, Close prisoners for life. Entranced I stood upon the spot. Nor saw the change come o'er my lot, All wrought in that brief minute ; Nor fancied, 'mid those gilded walls, Once caught, a cage alike enthralls The lover — and the linnet. Palace of Art ! in richest stores Thy still, still lengthening corridors Unfold their choicest treasure : No more upturned the inquiring eye Is fixed their beauties to descry With soul- absorbing pleasure. No more arrest my vacant stare Correggio's grace or David's glare ; E'en Raphael pleads in vain : Vainly great Titian spreads the lure Of jovial Monk or Nun demure, To ease the unwonted pain. Fair damsels from their several nooks Pursue me with imploring looks To win a passing smile ; Gay courtiers bow ; cavaliers bold Shoulder their arms and bid me hold Unheeded all the while. 160 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Vain art ! what can thy skill avail ? Old masters, your young mistress hail ; Bow down before your queen : Not Zeuxis dipped his magic brush In colours like that virgin blush, Or dreamt the form I've see7i. No borrowed grace, no mimic hue, Is pictured there to mock the true. No fancied light or shade : Fresh from the Almighty Artist's hands, Unique in native charms she stands, A modest, matchless maid. What wonder then the connoisseur Became thenceforth an amateur ? So quickly doth improve The taste which Hving forms inspire ; Enough, Art's beauties we admire ; But Nature 'tis we love. It was not long before I succeeded in obtaining an introduction to the lady, and the wished-for result soon followed. I was engaged to be married. She proved to be an orphan daughter of a Norfolk clergyman, of the name of Day, who and his wife had both died young, leaving rather a large family ill-provided for ; and she was then under the charge of an aunt, Mrs. Betson (the widow of an English of&cer), who had generously undertaken to provide for her education, and for that of a younger sister. For this purpose she had established herself in a comfort- able house in the Champs-Ely sees, where several other ladies also boarded with her en pension, partly for educa- tional advantages and partly for companionship. The names of her two nieces were Charlotte and Mary, the former about eighteen, the latter two or three years younger ; and, as I soon discovered, almost equally charming, though VISIT TO PARIS 161 in quite different ways. There was nothing to regret in the acquaintance which I had thus formed somewhat blindly, and, it may be thought, too precipitately. Mrs. Betson herself had seen a good deal of the world, and was a lady to be thoroughly esteemed and liked on every account. And the inmates of her house, both the older and the younger, formed a select and agreeable society, into which, when my purpose became known, I was received upon familiar and friendly terms. Some evidence of this appears in two other copies of verses ; which, together with a third and much shorter specimen, may be inserted here. It would seem as if love was bent upon making me a poetaster at that time. To Mrs. Betson. Lines written on being asked to apply to Mrs. B. to grant some addi- tional holidays to certain young ladies under her charge, and intended to be introductory to a longer copy of verses written about the same time, and entitled, ' Lines on a Balloon which was to have ascended from the Champ de Mars.' How oft, beneath thy cheerful roof, Thy kindness have I put to proof, Thy hospitalities enjoyed, And courtesies that never cloyed ! Therefore, dear madam, I make free T' address to you this jeu d' esprit — Verse— doggerel, call it what you will. The offspring of my sportive quill, To read — ^just as you please — or burn it, E^ep — if you'd rather — or return it. 'Tis all about the grand balloon That planned a voyage to the moon, But having met with sad disaster, Went up too fast, and came down faster. And now that I've my pen in hand, A favour I would fain demand, Or rather (that you mayn't refuse), 'Tis a petition from the Muse — 162 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE The Muse who looks with special favour On all young ladies' good behaviour — That to Miss Charlotte and Miss Polly Days You'll please to grant some extra holidays. To set my suit on firmer basis, That said balloon a striking case is, And proves (as I need scarcely mention) The danger of too great a tension ; For if 't had not been overloaded The gas, 'tis clear, had ne'er exploded. Nor deem it strange that I should class Thus in one image girls and gas ; Nor blame the parallel, if in it I Can trace 'tween both a close affinity. First, both are lighter far than air, As all philosophers declare. While learned and unlearn'd agree That both alike begin with G ; To both two magic powers belong, Charms subtle and enchantments strong, And hidden laws, and dehcate ties, With many a nicely-planned disguise, And sympathies more exquisite Than aught beheld by mortal sight, In equal right to both are given By special grant and grace of Heaven. Then, mark ! what kindred spirit passes 'Tween laughing gas, and laughing lasses ! To freaks elastic both inclined, Oft appear fickle as the wind ; And sometimes too, as I've been told, Like wind, they can blow hot and cold : Each in their sphere surpassing bright, Unfailing source of purest light. On earth to girls and gas 'tis given To shine like sun and moon in Heaven. By them alike it is we rise To nobler heights and clearer skies, And spurn this coarser world of clay. To soar where angels point the way ; VISIT TO PARIS 163 Aspire to reach (where fixed above Dwell bliss and ecstasy and love) By holier aims to brighter purity, And snatch a foretaste of futurity. Nor less of each the power withdrawn, We sink as fast, deprest, forlorn ; Beneath the blast of frowns azotic The fainting heart can scarcely go tick. Till vital smiles of sweetest oxygen Return, and all our bosom knocks again. Thus, duly trained, they both conduce Alike to ornament and use ; But let rash mortals still beware, And treat them with the nicest care ; Nor beat nor box empyreal essences. Nor harshly hold their spiritual presences ; For — seek too closely to compress — Or once apply them in excess, (Oh ! that excessive application 'Tis shocking quite, 'tis ruination !) No more the same delightful creatures, They pout, and spoil their pretty features ; Nor force can curb, nor art assuage The terrors of their bursting rage. Till Heav'n convulsed proclaims, alas ! The explosion of the ill-tempered gas. But to return from this digression. And urge the point I lay most stress on, 'Tis clear that nothing is more odious Than ladies when they're over-studious ; And yours are all so charming steady, 'Tis plain they've learnt enough already ; Indeed, to silence all objection, I'll lay my life they're quite perfection ; Why now, for instance, there's Miss B r, No one can meet and not remark her. Or fail (while others change) to find Her still the same — gay, good, and kind : And then. Miss H d, all agree She's quite accomplished — cap-d-iyie : m2 164 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Pray tell me too has not Miss Y g All lady-lore at tip o' tongue ? Then, school Miss Day ! 'twould be as silly To paint the rose or prune the hly, Perfume the violet, or set On daisy's crown a coronet, Instruct the nightingale to sing, Or chide the lark's sweet carolling, Direct the babbling brook to run, Or hold a taper to the sun. Or — talk of lessons for Miss Mary ! — Teach wiles and gambols to a fairy ! A spirit so serene and lively Learns ever best intuitively, As sweetest notes from Memnon's lyre Came, tho' no finger touched the wire. And now, methinks, no more is wanted : The suit is gained, the boon is granted. Or, if not yet, I still have store Of arguments — full half a score ; Besides, what matters that or this day With girls so very good as Miss Day ? Or, if you're stiU so very stingy, I hope Queen Mab may come and pinch ye, And fairies dance their merriest romps All in the midst of your accompts, So that, enough to turn your stomach. You shan't know how much two and two make ; And when you sit in th' abbess' chair Find nought but pins and needles there ! But stop, when fair persuasions fail. Foul words, methinks, will scarce prevail. Enough ! In youth, the poets say, 'Tis right that we should dance and play, Till old age comes to spoil our jolly days — And so, you'll grant some extra holidays ! VISIT TO PARIS 166 On Being Told that Miss Mary Day was Angry with me for calling her * Polly.'' ! naughty, naughty deed, Mary ; For pardon let me plead, Mary ; To call thee * Polly ' 'Twas worse than folly, 'Twas very rude indeed, Mary. To slight thy own sweet name, Mary, Fie on my muse for shame ! Mary, (A name more sweet. For thee more meet, From human lips ne'er came, Mary.) And not alone to slight, Mary, But in its stead to write, Mary, (0 ! fatal crime For one poor rhyme !) A name that's shocking quite, Mary. ! say then, only say, Mary, What penance I must pay, Mary, What course pursue My fault t' eschew. And thy just wrath allay, Mary. All prostrate — tout d coup — Mary, Forgiveness must I sue, Mary ? Or would it please. Upon my knees, Until they're black and blue, Mary ? Or upright on a stool, Mary, With cap yclept of Fool, Mary, Dost thou command That I should stand. Like naughty boys at school, Mary ? Or must I, every day, Mary, Ave Marias say, Mary, A countless score Of thousands— more Than pilgrims when they pray, Mary ? 166 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Or (more poetic lot) Mary, Must I teach grove and grot, Mary, Hill, dale, and all Sing 'Pretty Poll,' Like Orpheus — did he not, Mary ? Then tell me, prithee tell, Mary, How we may— by what spell — Mary, (To make amends) Be greater friends Than if 't had ne'er befell, Mary. I vow — nor think it vain — Mary, I would not give thee pain, Mary, For all the gold. In heaps untold, Of Peru, or of Spain, Mary. And when you fain would shrink, Mary, From me — I look and think, Mary, There's naught for you I would not do. Should you but only wink, Mary. And yet 'tis strange but true, Mary, I know not what to do, Mary, No bashful maid Was e'er afraid So much as I with you, Mary. There's something dread, I own, Mary, In Mrs. Betson's frown, Mary ; But one fierce look I could not brook From you : I should go drown, Mary. ! happy all the day, Mary, With thee to sport and play, Mary, With thee to dance — As, in a trance, I've danced with many a fay, Mary. VISIT TO PARIS 167 Thy simple look meanwhile, Mary, To soothe me, or beguile, Mary, More magic has Than laughing gas : — To see thee is to smile, Mary. I love to see the deer, Mary, Prick the quick- startled ear, Mary, Look coyly round — Then softly bound, Half smiles— and half in fear, Mary. But e'en the Eylstone Doe, Mary, So white and comme il faut, Mary, With thee compared, Would be declared As black as any crow, Mary. Sweetly the kittens play, Mary ; But sweeter far than they, Mary, The cottage child That still runs wild Yet never runs astray, Mary. You know the ' Highland Girl,' Mary, W^hom, sportive as a squirr'l, Mary, The Bard espied. More overjoyed Than if he'd found a pearl, Mary. Nor less, where'er I turn, Mary, Toward thee my fancies yearn, Mary, Thy figure haunts. Thy look enchants. In every brake and bourn, Mary. And oft beside the shore, Mary, When on the waves I pore, Mary, Their dancing glee Brings thoughts of thee To gladden and restore, Mary, 168 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE And where the willows bend, Mary, My course I often wend, Mary ; Their motions watch Until I catch The shapes that thee attend, Mary. Or if my path I trace, Mary, Deep in some shady place, Mary, Thou and the Breeze Still wave the trees And dapple all my face, Mary. And now that hours I've lain, Mary, Upon my bed in pain, Mary, While nothing cures, One smile of yours Would make me well again, Mary. Lines sent with the Gift of a French Neio Testament to Miss Charlotte Day. Farewell to my dear little volume ! nor fear : Though we part, 'tis a parting will make thee more dear : Henceforth other looks o'er thy pages will stray, Other fingers will touch, other eyes will survey ; — Then go, and I would that your fortune were mine, In the joy of her presence for ever to shine : Bave — but this you may whisper apart to herself — That I never, hke you, may be laid on the shelf. When the long vacation was drawing to an end, I returned home, and Miss Day remained with her aunt. Early in the following spring my friend Claughton, hap- pening to be in Paris, called, at my request, upon the ladies in the Champs-Elysees ; and it was no little pleasure to me, as may be supposed, to receive from him the follow- ing report, dated March 5, 1885, in commendation of my choice. RETURN TO OXFORD 169 I need not say, dearest Wordsworth, that I availed myself of the permission you gave me to see her whom you have chosen, and I think I need scarcely tell you how very highly I approve your choice. Miss Day is exactly the person I should have expected to please you, and it is not difficult to read in her eyes that which pierced a heart now proved susceptible of the most purifying and ennobling of all passions. A child of Nature she seems, shy and retiring, as you said. . . . And now I will describe the interview. I went on Monday, and found Mrs. Betson in the room, a very nice old lady. . . . By-and-by the lady herself appeared, blush- ing to be presented to your representative, who was at once con- vinced of the happiness of his principal ; but before much had passed an old Colonel Somebody called to take the ladies a drive. So I vanished. Upon my return to Christ Church I was appointed to a public tutorship by Gaisford, who had succeeded my old patron Dr. Smith as Dean in 1831. I attended Burton's course of Divinity Lectures ; and in the following December I was ordained Deacon by the then Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Bagot. My first sermon was preached on the Whitsunday of the next year, June 8, 1835. Eoundell Palmer begged me to supply his father's duty at Finmere, a village about eighteen miles from Oxford. We drove over together in a gig on the Sunday morning, and returned in the evening. My text was from the first words of the Gospel for the day, * If ye love Me, keep My commandments ' ; and as an instance of the pains which, in distrust of myself, I was wont to take upon any matter about which I was anxious, I may mention that in the course of preparing the sermon I read over the whole of the four Gospels in order to impress upon my own mind as fully as I could the all- important lesson of love to Christ which 1 was to endeavour to teach to others. I also remember that my constitutional nervousness on the occasion caused so much exhaustion that I was obliged to go to bed between the services. 170 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE About the same time— i.e. in the spring of 18^5 — Dean Gaisford did me the further honour of designating me for the office of Praelector Grsecus, in succession to Robert Hussey. That lectureship, after a suspension of many years, had been revived by Gaisford, and Hussey had been the first to hold it. My duties in it were to commence after the long vacation. But the good providence of God in my behalf determined otherwise. My main desire and object now was, as may be sup- posed, to attain some position which would enable me to marry. And in this I succeeded almost beyond what it was possible to hope for. The Second Mastership of Winchester was to become vacant at Midsummer, by the resignation of Ridding, and my Wykehamist friends — es- pecially Roundell Palmer, Edward Twisleton, and Eardley- AVilmot — persuaded me to try for it. The appointment, worth some 1,400Z. a year, with a house and other per- quisites, was a most desirable one ; * in some respects, indeed, more desirable than the head mastership, as it did not involve the taking of boarders, or any but the slightest personal superintendence out of school hours ; and, upon the whole, I doubt whether there was any educational position in England which possessed so many recommenda- tions with so few drawbacks. But it had never been held by any one but a Wykehamist, and the prejudice on that account would be strong against me ; the election being in the hands of the Warden and Fellows, all, of course, Wykehamists themselves. However, ' Nil desperandiim ' has always been my motto ; and at least I could try what testimonials would do to overcome the prejudice. I had already the advantage of having made acquaintance with the Warden, Barter, as a tennis player, when he was at ' Since my time the circumstances of the office have been much altered, and the stipend greatly reduced. ELECTED SECOND MASTER OF WINCHESTER 171 New College, and I had reason to believe that he would re- gard my candidature without disapproval, perhaps even with favour. And so it turned out. Friends and acquaint- ances rallied round me most kindly, so that I was enabled to send in an array of testimonials — not less than a hundred — such as I suppose was rarely, if ever, seen before upon any occasion. They comprised, among other recommendations of my claims, letters from men of whom one became Archbishop of Canterbury, ten „ Bishops, eleven „ Deans, one „ Koman Catholic Archbishop and Cardinal, one ,, Prime Minister, two ,, Governor-Generals of India, four ,, Cabinet Ministers, one „ Lord Chancellor. The result was that I was elected. Deo gratias, quam plurimas, quam maximas ! Among letters of congratulation received upon the event, I insert the following to my father from my uncle, the poet ; without omitting the passages concerning my aunt Dorothy, because she is now so well known to fame, and there are many who will feel an interest in reading even the painful details which tell of her sad malady. Lowther Castle : Saturday, Sept. 26, 1835. My dear Brother, — I have this moment received your letter forwarded from Eydal, and should answer it at length but for a severe sprain in my right arm which makes it painful and injurious for me to write. As dear Charles seemed so much set upon marrying, there seems upon the whole good reason for congratulation that he has obtained the appointment at Winchester ; but I cannot but hold 172 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE to the opinion that his abilities would have rendered him useful, and eminently so, in a less restricted line of occupation. Pray present him my best wishes and kind congratulations. I would have written to him from this place but for the cause I have mentioned. I know not whether thanks have been sent to Chris for his valuable present and the copies of his ode, which arrived just before I left home ; if not he must excuse his friends. Writing is injurious to Dora — and poor Mrs. W. has so much to do, and is, besides, secretary to the whole family. Pray present this apology to him with my best love, and also to John, thanking liim for his letter. Tell him also that I have altered the pas- sages which he found obscure ; all but the last, in The power of sound. ' Ever she ' [stanza v.] — that is obscure solely on account of the omission of a note of interrogation immediately preceding the words, * Ever she,' viz. the Power of Sound, or, in this place, of harmony. Our dear sister is in bodily health undoubtedly much better. We have been able without injury to reduce the opiates more than one half, and she is gathering flesh ; but her mind received a shock upon the death of Miss Hutchinson from which it has never recovered. It is as sound as ever with regard to events past long ago, and also as to judgments and opinions, but her memory of passing events has greatly failed, and her judgment also in all that respects her disease, though not at all in other things. Indeed I think upon points of morals, character, litera- ture, &c., she expresses herself as well or better than ever she did ; but in regard to her own bodily powers, and to space and time as connected with these, she is almost childish. When, however, I consider how that she is not yet sixty-four years of age, I cannot but hope that if her strength should return, and her health go on improving, her faculties of mind may be con- siderably restored. I have always thought that this weakening of the mind has been caused by the op.um which was thought necessary on account of her great bodily sufferings. This has been as I have said much reduced, and will, I trust, be still more so ; but there is yet no restoration of the mental powers of recol- lection &c. Affectionately yours, W. W. GJFTS FROM OXFORD FRIENDS 178 I must not omit to mention the present of books which, upon leaving Oxford, I received from my friends there. It consisted of eighty-six vols, octavo, handsomely and uni- formly bound, and containing the works of Cranmer, Hooker, Pearson, Baxter, Bull, Beveridge, Barrow, Leslie, Bingham, and Waterland — a theological library in itself ; and in each volume was a printed label, * Carolo Words- worth dederunt Thomas Leigh Claughton, Franciscus Doyle, Antonius Grant, Gualterus Kerr Hamilton, Henricus Liddell, Gulielmus Palmer, Koundell Palmer, Thomas Tancred, Travers Twiss — amico amici.' This generous and magnificent gift was due, I believe, pre-eminently to the enthusiastic friendhness of Walter Hamilton and Eoundell Palmer. The former — always an enthusiast in everything kind and good — had previously presented me with Heber's edition of Jeremy Taylor's works, 15 vols., Pearson's edition of Leighton's works, 4 vols., and Casaubon's edition of Athenseus. 174 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE CHAPTEE III FROM MY ELECTION AS SECOND MASTER AT WINCHESTER TO MY SETTLEMENT IN SCOTLAND — 1834-47 * ' Quod munus reipublicas afferre majus meliusve possumus quam si docemus atque erudimus juventutem ? ' — Cicero. Trjs rixvns ravr-rjs ovk %(Ttiv 6.\Xt] fxei^oov tC yhp faov rod pvduiiaai ^vxh^, Koi 5to7rAa(rat veow ^idvoiav /— S. Chrys. Horn. lix. in Matth. vii. I ENTERED upon my duties at Winchester after the Mid- summer holidays of 1835. It was amusing to see the curiosity which the college boys showed to become ac- quainted with their new master, and I felt no less interest in becoming acquainted with them — an interest which did not diminish, but rather went on increasing during the whole time of my mastership. I have said 'the college boys,' because ' Publications during this period : Greek Grammar (Accidence). 1839. Sermon on 1 John v. part of v. 18. 1840. Sermon on Evangelical Kepentance. 1841. Appendix to ditto. 1842. Catechesis, or Christian Instruction preparatory to Confirmation and First Communion. 1842. Three Sermons on Communion in Prayer. 1843. Greek Grammar (Syntax). 1843. Latin Translations of Ken and Keble. 1845. Family Prayers. 1845. Christian Boyhood at a Public School : a collection of Sermons and Lectures delivered at Winchester College. 2 vols. 8vo. 184G. College of St. Mary, Wintou. Small 4to. Illustrated. 184G. LIFE AT WINCHESTER 175 with ' the commoners ' I had comparatively little to do, except during school hours. My residence was in college, and such domestic superintendence as I was expected to exercise was confined to them — the boys on the foundation : they were my special charge, as * the commoners ' were the special charge of the head master. Thus, in a certain sense, my sphere of duty was an independent one, only under the general control of the Warden. With him from the first my relations were upon the happiest footing. He was a man who might be truly described as one of a thousand ; and, being a bachelor, he soon admitted me to an intimacy which was like that of a son, or rather of a younger brother. During that which was called * the short half-year,' between Midsummer and Christmas, Dr. Williams was to continue on as head master to prevent the inconvenience of both new masters entering upon their ofiSces at once), and then to be succeeded by Moberly, whose election had taken place at the same time as mine, and whom I had known at Oxford as a Fellow of Balliol and a cricketer ; he and I having been at one time two of the three annually chosen so-called ' Treasurers,' but really managers of 'the Magdalen,' then the principal University club. Thus it happened, as I have before remarked in reference to the Warden and tennis, that my athletic associations proved not only a pleasure at the time, but also a pleasure, and sometimes even a benefit, afterwards. Dr. Williams had been already made a Canon of Winchester Cathedral by the Bishop, in token ol the esteem in which he was uni- versally held ; and his merits and services were soon to be still further recognised and rewarded by his election to the Wardenship of New College, in succession to Shuttle worth, appointed Bishop of Chichester. It may well be supposed that my first ' short half-year ' appeared to me a very long one, when I tell that the moment 176 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE it was over I hastened into Norfolk, and there, on December ^9, in Norwich Cathedral, was united to the dear affiances whom I had met with in Paris the year before ; the marriage ceremony being performed by her uncle, Mr. Sandby, of Denton Lodge, and the wedding entertainment given by her principal guardian, Mr. George Morse, of Catton Park, who had also a house in the Close. After spending a few days in London, we proceeded to our home at Winchester, where I was proud to introduce her to the Warden and other friends, and afterwards paid a visit to Mr. Hoare at Hampstead. The following letter of congratulation came from my uncle, the poet : Bydal Mount : Jan. 15, 1836. My dear Charles, — Your marriage was kindly announced to me by Chris, and I now write to congratulate you upon it, and to assure you how heartily we all wish for your happiness. I ought to have written sooner ; but there is Uttle courage in this house for writing to anyone : in fact, your aunt, Mrs. W., is the only one of us who can write at all without inconvenience, and she is engaged from morning to night. It gives us all much pleasure to learn that your situation at Winchester is so much to your mind, and I rejoice to find that you will have so much of the week at your disposal : that will leave you at hberty to add to your knowledge ; for it must be a most melancholy thing for a young man to be perpetually going over the same ground with little or no means of advancing in any direction. This, most happily, will not be your case, and I doubt not you will profit by your privilege. You are now with your bride, I understand, at Mrs. Hoare's. Pray give my love, and that of this family to her, and our sin- cere and ardent wishes for every earthly comfort that may further, and not stand in the way of, her eternal happiness. If I go to town in the spring, as not improbably I may, I shall certainly visit you at Winchester. Your affectionate uncle, W. Wordsworth. REFORM IN GREEK GRAMMAR 177 My life, during the ten years I spent at Winchester as second master, will be best described by reference to the main objects to which, over and above my ordinary school duties, I paid most attention ; and of these there are four which, on looking back, appear to me to stand out as most prominent, and to require to be spoken of in some detail. 1. Eefokm in Gkeek Grammak. Half a century ago, the elementary teaching of Greek in English schools was in a condition most unsatis- factory. The old Eton Grammar, so called, was in more general use than any other, but it had come to be regarded, not without abundant reason, as faulty and defective. The upgrowth of more accurate scholarship, mainly through the influence of critics such as Porson and Blomfield and Monk, at Cambridge, and of Elmsley at Oxford, had created a desire for something better — something at once more full and more correct. This had led to the introduction of a variety of Grammars compiled upon different systems, especially in regard to the number and arrangement of declensions of substantives and adjectives, and of conju- gations of verbs. Several public schools, such as Charter- house, had discarded the old Eton book in favour of a Grammar of their own, and not a few private and prepara- tory schools had naturally followed their example. The confusion which thence arose when a class of boys brought together from those latter schools, in which they had been learning not only different rules, but different systems of rules of perhaps not less than half a dozen various and dis- cordant kinds, had to be taught by us at Winchester, where the Eton Grammar was still in use, may be easily conceived ; the absence of a common standard to refer to causing equal perplexity to the master and to the boys themselves. This 178 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE was a state of things which, for their sake still more than for my own, I could not brook ; not to speak of the con- sciousness which I felt of something like dishonesty in continuing to teach from a book which I knew to be in many respects faulty and unsound. Moreover, the entire evil was one which, as I was more concerned with the elemen- tary teaching of the boys, naturally pressed itself upon my notice more than it would be likely to do upon the notice of the head master, and I determined to endeavour to provide a remedy. The best course appeared to be * not to attempt to introduce any of the more novel systems then prevalent in Germany, and already partially taken up in some of our English schools — a course which, if even desirable in itself (in my opinion a very doubtful point), would virtually amount to a revolution in our existing methods of instruc- tion, and as such would be little likely to be acceptable to the practical English mind — but to retain the old Eton Grammar as, for the most part, in present possession, and subject it to a searching and thorough revision. I had no desire to undertake such a work myself, and moreover I wished it to be undertaken by an Etonian ; if possible by an Eton master, because I was apprehensive that if it were to proceed from any other quarter, especially from any other public school, Eton would be jealous, and would never be induced to welcome the result, however competently and judiciously performed. Under this persuasion (only too well justified, as will be seen in the sequel), I entered into communication with the then head master of Eton — Dr. Hawtrey — and afterwards at his invitation went to Eton to pay him a visit, in order to talk over my scheme, and to urge upon him (which I failed not to do) the expediency of his inducing some Eton man to undertake the work, because from no other quarter would it be likely to meet with so ' See the Preface to the first edition of my Greek Grammar. REFORM IN GREEK GRAMMAR 179 ready and so general an acceptance. He received my representations very kindly and courteously ; considered my projected * reform ' quite a desirable one ; but — pro- mised nothing. In short, I soon perceived that if I wished to make sure of the work being done at all, I must do it myself. And in coming to this conclusion I could not but see that I had some advantages for the undertaking, which gave me more than ordinary ground for hope that it might eventually succeed. I could depend upon Moberly, our own head master, I could depend upon my brother Christopher, appointed head master of Harrow, in succes- sion to Longley, in 1836, as ready to encourage me in the work and to accept it when performed. Add to this, that in the then head master of Charterhouse (Saunders) I had a kind friend and former private tutor at Oxford. In the then head master of Westminster (Williamson) — who had been appointed by my father as Master of Trinity — I had good hope of at least a considerate hearing, and a hope, which was amply realised, of something more from the then head master of Kugby (Arnold), who had been a Wykehamist, and who, when I was younger, had invited me to become one of his assistants. Moreover, I was on terms of intimacy with both Liddell and Scott, my fellow-students at Christ Church, who were then at work upon their Lexicon, and whose noble example stimulated me to endeavour to perform a service, far inferior indeed, but such as might prove not altogether unworthy or unsuitable to range with theirs ; and another old Christ Church fellow student and esteemed acquaintance, Herbert Kynaston, had been not long before appointed to the head mastership of St. Paul's. But, more than all, I had in my brother John, then a Fellow of Trinity, Cambridge, a friend and counsellor to whom I could refer in all cases of doubt, and who was not only one of the most accurate Greek scholars that England has N 2 180 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE produced (as was shown by his review of Scholefield's ^schylus in the ' Philological Museum '), but equally judicious and amiable in communicating what he knew. With those more than ordinary advantages, then, I set to work ; and in January 1839, little more than three years after I had gone as a master to Winchester, appeared the first edition of my Grammar, which contained the Accidence only. It was at once received into use at Winchester, Harrow, and Eugby, besides other schools of less prominence ; and the acceptance which it met with from competent judges was gratifying in the extreme, infinitely more so than I had ventured to expect. To quote but a few of the compli- ments with which it was greeted, and first of those from my own old school : The second master of Harrow, — under my brother Christopher, — Harry Drury, a name memorable to all Harrovians during the former half of the present century, the tutor and friend of Byron, and also, as will presently appear, a friend of Hallam, the historian, wrote to me as follows : ' Your Grammar, as it deserves to be, is in general use among us. The old Eton one was quite worn out. I find yours most distinct, easy of conception for the boys, and lucidly arranged.' He had previously written to my brother : * I have completed a survey of the Greek Grammar, which I think admirably adapted to schools ; and,' he added, giving the precise testimony which I most valued, especially as coming from an old Etonian, to the conservative and yet efficient character of the reform which I had introduced, * I like it for the very reason Hallam disapproves, that it looks like my old horn book of Eton, while it has expunged its errors, and added all that is neoteric and useful.' But Harry Drury had done for the book more than this. He had gone over to Eton on purpose to endeavour REFORM IN GREEK GRAMMAR 181 to prevail upon the authorities to introduce it into that school ; but his mission had been unsuccessful. Thus he wrote to my brother, on his return : * Hawtrey says, he individually would most gladly make the change ; but . . . Of the Grammar itself he spoke in the highest possible terms, and thought it perfection. I was at Eton only an hour and a half, and returned to town with the Provost.' The objection was stated in the sentence I have omitted. It is so little creditable that I am unwilling to place it upon record ; further than this, that it proved to be very much of the nature which I had anticipated from the first, while at the same time it took the definite shape that Dr. Hawtrey did not consider it consistent with his position to accept of any book for use at Eton over which he, as head master, could not exercise absolute and entire control ; and this he did not think it reasonable to claim or expect in the case of my Grammar. In regard to Winchester, it was not to be expected that I should be able to produce any written testimony from MoBERLY, as I was in the habit of constant personal inter- course with him ; but it so happens that in the Christmas holidays 1839-40 he had occasion to write to me at Cambridge, and his letter contains a strong reiteration of what I had known to be his opinion in favour of the course which I had adopted concerning the language in which the Grammar had been composed, viz. Latin, and not English. He writes : I have this morning held a long argument with and on the point of Grammars written in Latin or English. They are strong in their opinion with that peculiar sort of firmness which is proper to people who have little to say in defence of it. They tell me that , a thorough-paced intellectuarian, a man who would convulse the globe for the sake of correcting a mis-spelling, has drawn up an English Introduction to your Grammar, which is already in the press. I urged in vain my strong conviction (with 182 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE the reasons for it) that explanations viva voce should be in English, for apprehension's sake, ^ndi formulce or rules should be in Latin for exactness' and recollection's sake, and that an introductory Enghsh Greek Grammar is equivalent to an entire and final Greek Grammar. Yield, however, all these people must, and will, if we — I mean, at Winchester, Harrow, and Rugby (Eton following when it may ^) — are clear, strong, and satisfactory in our opinion on the point. And this proved to be the case. Rugby was as strong upon the point as the other two. Arnold, at first, had been inclined to English, and had made an experiment with an abridged Matthise which Blomfield (I think) had drawn up some years before. But he had been dissatisfied with the result in both respects — that is, in regard to the language (English) and the system (German) of that abridgment — and he had cordially welcomed my under- taking from the first. He himself carefully went over the proof sheets, and he induced his assistant masters to send me any remarks or suggestions that had occurred to them in the use of the book, with the view to a second edition. I pass on to Westminster, which had long been using a Grammar of its own, with a history of which I shall have occasion to speak presently. Dr. Williamson received the proof sheets which I had sent to him (as I did to each of the head masters of our other public schools) very kindly ; favoured me with criticisms which showed the attention he * Later on, in one of his many letters to me, Dr. Hawtrey wrote : ' I am in favour of the vernacular as the language in which a Greek Grammar for boys should be written. However, as I can fiyid no one to agree with me, I suppose I must be wrong ; and if I should now, which I very much doubt, ever print a Grammar for boys, I should follow the established course.'' And in a subsequent letter : ' I should be very ready,' he writes, ' to allow that, in regard to all which may fairly be imposed as a task on the memory, Latin is the best for the purpose.' Before my Grammar was published, my brother had written to me from Harrow, November 7, 1836 : ' The more I see of boys and Grammars the more I am convinced that a bad Grammar written in Latin is infinitely better for them than a good one in English. Yours will be a good one in Latin, and that is what we want.' REFORM IN GREEK GRAMMAR 183 had paid to them ; and ultimately * begged to congratulate ' me ' on the distinguished success which had attended my labours, in introducing into the old Grammar the more accurate knowledge of our late critics.' It will be seen, in the sequel, that the Grammar was introduced at Westminster by Dr. Williamson's successor. I must not omit to mention Shrewsbuey, whose scholastic fame, which had been rapidly outstripping that of the more distinguished public schools, was now at its height under Kennedy, who afterwards became Greek Professor at Cambridge. Unfortunately, the first letter which I addressed to him appears to have miscarried ; otherwise I might have received still more assistance from that eminent and accomplished scholar. As it was, how- ever, I had to thank him for two kind and suggestive com- munications ; and, whilst in the former he frankly confesses that he would have preferred a reform more extensive than that which I had ventured on, in the latter he writes : * I have introduced your Grammar into my junior forms, deeming it an immense improvement upon the old Eton Grammar.' A letter which I received from William Sewell, then acting as the future first Warden of the new College of St. Columba in Ireland, contained the following very gratifying announcement : * We have already pledged our- selves to use your Grammar, and hope to introduce it into the other schools of Ireland.' To add one more auxiliary of my work — one with whom I had much pleasant and friendly correspondence though we never met — James Tate, the well-known ex-Orbilius of EicHMOND School, Yorkshire, editor of *Horatius Eesti- tutus,' and then Prebendary of St. Paul's. Hearing of the task which I had undertaken, he wrote : ' I hope that in recasting the Eton Greek Grammar you will use freedom 184 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE enough. It must not be touched with a delicate hand. . . . It is so full of old and bad matter, that I know not how any one is to set about the task of correcting it ; ' and then when my book appeared he kindly took the trouble to send me an * exact revision ' of it, with abundant tokens of en- couragement and approval, notwithstanding that he must have felt a quasi parental interest in another Greek Grammar — that of Professor Moor of Glasgow — w^hich he had edited with emendations and additions (' emendavit, auxitque ') for the use of his own school. I now pass on to circumstances which will tend, I hope, at once to enliven my narrative and enlarge its interest. After the publication of the second edition of the Grammar (early in 1840), and its acceptance by at least three of our most considerable public schools, I was anxious that one or two good notices of it should appear, in order to justify the course which had been taken, and to explain the principles on which the work had been per- formed. Two of the ablest and most distinguished scholars who have ever adorned either University, and both Wyke- hamists, were kindly willing to undertake the task, viz. my brother Christopher, of Cambridge, and my intimate friend, Eoundell Palmer, of Oxford, then rapidly rising in his profession of the law. My brother's article was to be written for the ' Quarterly ; ' Eoundell Palmer's for the 'British Critic,' then in high repute. The former, with characteristic energy, set himself in the first instance to inquire into the origin of the old Grammar. No one at Eton, no one at Harrow, no one anywhere, could tell him what w^as its history, or who was its author. At last, after ransacking the Public Libraries at both Universities, the British Museum, &c., &c., he discovered an old copy of the book which revealed the anxiously sought secret, and showed that the supposed and so-called 'Eton Greek REFORM IN GREEK GRAMMAR 185 Grammar ' was after all not the production of Eton, but of Westminster ; just as the so-called ' Eton Latin Grammar ' is known to have been the work of the famous Dean Colet, the founder of St. Paul's School (aided by his friend Erasmus, and by William Lilye, first head master of the same school), and to have been subsequently augmented and improved by Thomas Eobertson, Dean of Durham, and one of the framers of the Liturgy. The author of the Greek Grammar proved to be Camden, the famous antiquary, who was, when it first appeared, in 1595, head master of Westminster ; and Westminster in those days being the most celebrated of the public schools, the Grammar intro- duced there soon passed into general use, and was adopted at Eton as well as elsewhere. However, when the famous Dr. Busby succeeded to the head mastership — a post which he held for fifty-seven years ! — becoming, as we may con- clude, dissatisfied with the performance of his predecessor, Camden, he displaced it from Westminster by a Grammar of his own ; but, nevertheless, it maintained its hold at other schools, including Eton, and from Eton, in course of time, it received its name. In short, it was ascertained beyond a doubt that the ' Eton Greek Grammar ' was really one for which Westminster had been responsible, but had cast off more than two centuries back, some fifty years after it had been first introduced. The article which was to make known this discovery was, as I have said, to be written for the ' Quarterly.' It was accepted by Lockhart, the then editor, printed, cor- rected, and all ready to appear, when my brother was informed that the publication 2vould give offence^ and there- fore it must he abandoned ! The review had evidently been shown to Hawtrey, and not improbably to other Etonians, who might feel as he did, such as Hallam (who in his * Introduction to Literature,' published three years before, 186 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE viz. in 1837, speaks of the * Eton Greek Grammar/ and of *A Grammar by Camden, for the use of Westminster School,' as though they were different and distinct works, see vol. i. p. 457, and vol. ii. p. 59) ; and their influence with Lockhart was such that the said review, of which a printed proof copy is now before me, was not permitted to see the light. Altogether, as a piece of literary history, the narrative is a curious one ; curious more especially to us in Scotland because we have still a living parallel to it in the jealous national interest which Presbyterians feel for the Westminster Catechism and Confession, as though they had been their own ; whereas they were really the produc- tion of England, and in England were cast off very soon after they had been produced at Westminster. It is much to be regretted that my brother's article did not appear. It would have been interesting and valuable on several accounts. He lays stress upon the close con- nection between grammar and theology ; quoting Luther, and Melancthon, and Joseph Scaliger to that effect. He states that his * main object ' in writing the article was * to plead the cause of grammatical uniformityy to urge the necessity for the general adoption of one and the same National Elementary Greek Grammar.' And he goes on to argue the point in terms which, as they can be never out of date, I shall quote at length. This, it has been said, would be a difficult matter ; perhaps it might be ; xa^^Tra rd KaXd. Still when we consider the great benefits which would thence accrue ; when we count the advan- tages of concert and harmony in such a serious undertaking as that of instruction ; when we bear in mind the saving of expense, and above all, the saving of time, the TroAvrcXeo-TaTov amXw/Aa both to teachers and learners ; when we regard the remedy which would thus be applied to the evils now arising to schools from the change of masters, and to boys from the change of schools ; when we reflect above all that uniformity in grammar is no in- REFORM IN GREEK GRAMMAR 187 considerable step towards uniformity in Beligion . . . when we weigh all these things, we feel that we should be ill discharging the duty we have undertaken did we not raise our voice in behalf of grammatical uniformity in teaching the Greek Grammar, and, having done so, did we despair of the result. And, after stating his approval of the principles upon which my reformed Grammar had been constructed, and after mentioning some advantages which both the book and its compiler appeared to him to possess, he thus concludes : From this happy concurrence of circumstances we hope we may safely augur that the work now before us, which is constructed upon the principles of a common regard to Uniformity, Anti- quity, and Truth, will ere long be received in all our schools as the National Elementary Greek Grammar of this country. Eoundell Palmer's article had so far, at least, the ad- vantage over my brother's, that it was not strangled in its bii-th. It appeared in the * British Critic ' for October 1840. And the truth probably is that, having the precedence in time of publication, it was itself a main cause of that which was intended to be its companion article being so treated as I have described. For, on the 18th of that month Dr. Hawtrey wrote to me a letter in which, inter alia, he alluded to ' two reviews ' he had been reading of my book, and complains of them as ' written in a spirit of hostility to Eton.' One of those reviews had appeared in the ' Educa- tional Magazine ; ' I do not remember that I ever saw it, and I certainly did not know who was its author ; the other was the article of the * British Critic' I need scarcely say that the said article was in all respects an admirable one, saving only that it spoke far too highly of my labours, while certainly it did not spare the errors and shortcomings of the old book. This was not to be wondered at, and should not, one would have thought, have given offence in any quarter, considering what even such a staunch Etonian as Hallam 188 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE had already said of it (see ' History of Literature,' vol. i. p. 457, note), and still more what the * Quarterly ' itself had said fifteen years before (June 1825, p. 907), viz. that ' its many errors and defects may well excite a foreigner's astonishment ; ' adding in a note, ' it is decidedly ]:)ehind the present age,' and suggesting for its improvement the course which I had taken. I shall not go into any detail respecting the contents of E. Palmer's article, as it may be found and read by any who care to do so ; but besides the memorable and suggestive facts that it bore at its head the names, and undertook to give an account of the merits, of twelve other Greek Grammars then in use at different schools in addition to my own, there are two or three passages in it which for various special reasons I think it right to quote. The first will show that the evils arising out of the diversity of teaching then prevalent had impressed themselves upon the lay mind no less than upon the clerical. We are in a fair way to have, in place of one Greek Grammar for all the kingdom, as many Greek Grammars as there are schools. To us, it appears that this extreme want of uniformity is a serious evil. It threatens not only to deprive us of the whole conven- tional language of scholarship, but also to introduce among careless thinkers a general scepticism as to the certainty of any- thing in grammar. . . . We are quite at a loss to imagine how four gentlemen of moderate abilities, transferred respectively to Christ Church from Eton, Westminster, Charterhouse, and Bromsgrove, and meeting for the first time in the lecture-room over a Greek play, could make themselves intelligible either to their Tutor or to each other. . . . For all these reasons, it is most desirable that a standard Greek Grammar should be found which may be re- ceived into universal use. And, proceeding with his examination of the thirteen candi- dates before him, he eventually fixed upon mine, and pro- nounced it to be * such a book as we want,' and again, ' as a school book worthy of universal adoption, and fitted in REFORM IN GREEK GRAMMAR 189 every respect to become the standard of elementary Greek teaching in England.' A second passage of the same arti- cle notices my attempt to make the Grammar a complete repertory of grammatical facts. The hope which Mr. Wordsworth has expressed in the Preface that his labours may not be without their use to veteran as well as tyro students is amply justified by the performance ; and his work, short as it is, may be safely described as a more complete magazine of the facts of the language than can be found even in the elaborate volumes of the best among the German Grammarians. Such praise as this will be thought excessive, as indeed it is : and yet I may be excused perhaps if I say that it reminds me how I was told by Gaisford himself that he * kept my Grammar always at his side ' (where indeed I saw it), and how he — the great Grecian — added, unless my memory deceives me, who am scarcely willing to trust it for so great a compliment, * I find no occasion for any other.' ^ In a third passage our critic argues the question of Latin or English as the language more proper for the Grammar to be written in, and gives his judgment very decidedly in favour of the former, upon grounds similar to those which I have quoted above as alleged by Moberly. Once more, the main principle upon which, in the recon- struction of the book, I had taken my stand, is thus approved of : For all the purposes of elementary instruction we prefer the complex Eton method, which is contented with analysing and arranging under their ultimate divisions the actual phenomena of language, to tbe more philosophical and generahsing systems, first introduced by Vervey, and now universally adopted in the ^ Scarcely less valuable was the compliment paid to the book by that scrupulously exact and judicious scholar and divine, Professor Hussey, who, in sending me his work on Ancient Weights and Measures, wrote upon the title-page this quotation from Juvenal; • Quis offert Quantum grammaticus meruit labor ? ' 190 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE schools of Germany, as more congenial to the metaphysical spirit of that nation. So much of those two reviews. Meanwhile the Grammar continued to make its way, and, what may appear strange, my correspondence with Hawtrey did not cease to be kept up at intervals, and kept up in much kindness on his part (in all his conduct he was a model of courtesy), and with a real desire, as it seemed, to cultivate a good understanding with me in every way, except by frank concession of the point at which he must have known I was all along aiming, viz. the adoption of the book at Eton. Even in that letter of October 18, 1840, above referred to, in which he intimated his annoyance and displeasure at the * two reviews ' which he had seen, he wrote : * Your Grammar has already taken a position from which it would be unwise to remove it for any rival. I have strongly recommended its use to my elder scholars, and have found my advice attended to.' He repeats the same statement in terms still more compli- mentary in a subsequent letter, dated February 5, 184B, and again, writing on February 10, 1844. Under those circumstances, being happily of a sanguine temperament, and feeling that I ought not to despair of the ultimate accomplishment of my aim, I had recourse, in different communications with Dr. Hawtrey, to two separate proposals. One was a renewal of my original offer in regard to what still remained to be done to complete the Grammar, viz. that the Syntax should be compiled, not by me, but by any Eton man whom Dr. Hawtrey might choose to name. To this he replied, * I am quite sure the work could be by no hands more efficiently executed than yours.' The other proposal, which I have called mine, ought rather, perhaps, to be con- sidered Dr. Hawtrey' s, for (so far as I can now make out, not having my own share of any part of the correspondence to REFORM IN GREEK GRAMMAR 191 refer to, except in one or two instances where I took copies of my letters) it appears to have arisen out of some words of his in a letter dated January 20, 1843 : * I am more and more convinced that absolute uniformity is out of the question unless the two Universities would combine. If they would either edit or adopt a Grammar I would receive it without alteration, however I might differ about details.* In consequence of the avowal thus made, I at once put myself into communication with my old patron, the then Dean of Christ Church, Dr. Gaisford, who entered cordially into the matter, and was willing to attempt all that could be done with the view of meeting Dr. Hawtrey's implied sugges- tion. The communication with Gaisford was first made through the intervention of my old friend Liddell, then a Tutor at Christ Church, who eventually became Gaisford' s successor, and who thus informed me of the result : ' He was gracious virsp fiirpov ... At the mention of the pro- posal he immediately brightened up, said at length what I will repeat in brief: that the suggestion was admirable, that uniformity in grammar teaching was a national concern, was of the greatest consequence to the Universities, and so forth. . . . He wished you to come and dine with him either on Wednesday or Thursday.' Accordingly, I went to Oxford, and had several conver- sations with the Dean. He pointed out what seemed to be the only feasible plan for the accomplishment of the proposed arrangement, viz. that the book should be printed by the Clarendon Press (for it would be idle and a useless expense to print it at two places), but that it should bear the imprimatur and recommendation of the Greek Professors of both Oxford and Cambridge. This, to my grievous dis- appointment, did not satisfy Dr. Hawtrey, and negotiations were again dropped. This last attempt, however, futile though it proved in 192 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE itself, led at least to one important result. I refer to the subsequent publication of the Grammar at Oxford by the University Press, under Gaisford's auspices — not from any dissatisfaction with Mr. Murray, who had materially assisted the first launching of the book, and from whom, both on this and other accounts, I was sorry to part company, but because it was urged upon me by the Dean and others as an indispensable step towards the accomplishment of the great end which I had in view. Accordingly, the fifth edition of the Grammar bore upon its title-page Oxonii e typographeo ClarendonianOf 1843. In the summer holidays of that year I had the pleasure of travelling into Switzerland with Liddell, and it was with him for a companion and invaluable referee that the greater portion of my Syntax, which had been so long due, was at length composed while we were staying together at Thun and Interlachen — of all places in the world the least suitable, it will be thought, for such an employment ; but my conscience troubled me with the reflection that my work had already been allowed to remain too long incomplete ; and, except in vacation time, with my health beginning to give way, I could scarcely hope to find strength or leisure to enable me to finish it. When at last the work was completed and set up for press, the proof sheets were sent to Dr. Hawtrey, whose kind sympathy and interest in the undertaking at once revived with all their former friendliness and warmth. ' I have seen,' he wrote (Nov. 24 of the same year), 'nothing of the same kind which has given me more pleasure than the perusal of your Syntax. It contains more valuable information in less compass than anything I have seen in English or German. ' ^ ^ This favourable opinion was shared by my old head master of Harrow, Dr. Butler, who wrote to me, October 21, 1843 : ' Accept, dear friend, my best thanks for your learned, and much wanted, and most ably executed Syntaxis Vocum, which will, no doubt, place you at the head of school Greek grammarians.' REFORM IX GREEK GRAMMAR 193 This complimentary language was followed by other letters in the same strain, dated Nov. 24, Dec. 1, and Jan. 2, 1844 ; while a fourth letter, of Jan. 23, brought me the gratifying intelligence that my correspondent ' had no doubt with regard to the Syntax,' meaning its adoption as an Eton school book. Thus the sole principle for which he had been so long contending appeared to be surrendered. This, in a letter of the following year, Jan. 10, 1845, he was half — but only half — inclined to admit. His explanation must be given in his own words. * I have no doubt whatever about the Syntax, which will remain, as it is at present, the only estabhshed Grammar at Eton. I see nothing in it which I would wish otherwise in principle ; and should a few trifling details occur from time to time, which might require change or addition, I do not think we should ever disagree about them.' And after thus expressing his concurrence so far in my scheme, he adds : * I feel that I have been consistent throughout in my declaration that I could admit nothing at Eton over which I had not an unlimited control. I gladly make an exception to the Syntax, which is a step to- wards unity made without the least regret or reserve, nay, rather with a sentiment of very pleasing obligation.' The letter concludes with a still more gratifying expression of friendship which I forbear to quote. Once, and only once more, my kind and indefatigable ^ correspondent reappears, writing on Christmas Day, 1846, a year after I had resigned my office at Winchester, and when I had set out for Italy, whither the letter followed me, reaching me at Eome, Jan. 8, 1847. The object of it was to ask permission to make use of certain portions of my ' I received from him not less than twenty-four letters, which I have preserved, all upon the subject of the Grammar, and many of them extend- ing to several sheets. They range from February 24, 1839, to December 25, 1846. I mention this as a proof of the continued interest which he took in my work ; for previously I had not been known to him. O 194 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Accidence, with a view to their being incorporated or rather bound up with the (Eton) Rudimenta Minora, which Hawtrey himself had drawn up and introduced, as a sort of Primer for junior boys ; ' always intending,' as he said, * to use your larger Rudimenta as a book of reference for those who are in the upper part of the school.' To this request I readily gave my consent, only stipulating that a Lectori monitum should state the source whence the portions of my Gram- mar which it was proposed to adopt verbatim had been derived ; in order that the world might know hoiv far the catholic cause of one single Grammar had at last, even at Eton, made its way. That the book itself had made its way so far as to Eome, I happened to have, while staying there, ocular evidence. When I went into Monaldini's shop to ask for an Italian New Testament, the first book which I saw, to my great surprise, lying on the counter, was my own Greek Grammar. I could have bought my own Grammar ; but the New Testament was not to be obtained ! I had indeed been told that the Bible, except in an edition with notes, and consequently in a large and expensive form,^ was forbidden to be sold in Eome. But this I could scarcely allow myself to believe. Upon application, however, to other booksellers, I found it to be only too true. It is due to other Eton masters who were Hawtrey's assistants to mention that some of them at least did not agree or sympathise with the objections which he raised. The names of Okes (then lower-master and afterwards Provost of King's), of Cookesley, of Abraham (afterwards Bishop of Wellington), of Pickering, and of Harry Dupuis will be remembered by many. All of them wrote to me more or less kindly and encouragingly about the Grammar ; while the ablest scholar, perhaps, of them ' I bought Martini's N. T. in royal 8vo, as the most compendious I could find. REFORM IN GREEK GRAMMAR 195 all made no secret of his regret that it had not been adopted at Eton from the first. * The non-adoption of your Gram- mar/ he wrote, * seems to me downright infatuation '; and so, so far from seeing any cause to take offence at E. Palmer's article in the * British Critic,' he gave the following laudatory and very just description of it : ' Eoundell Palmer's review was to me a rich treat. The true Elmsleian vivacity and fun, independent of its sound scholarship, are worthy of all praise.' I need scarcely add, what everyone who knew my brother will readily believe, that his article for the * Quarterly ' was not only equally free from all reasonable objection, but entitled in a high degree to similar commen- dation. And now I have arrived at the culmination of this long history. Since my last communication to Hawtrey from Kome, twenty years save one had elapsed when, in January 1866, a letter received from Moberly, still head master of Winchester, informed me that the head masters of the nine Public Schools ^ had met and concurred in a resolution, which he had been requested to communicate to me, to the effect that Kennedy's Grammar for Latin and mine for Greek (after certain minor modifications which they trusted I would consent to make) were to be used in all their schools. Thus at length the object for w^hich, during my life at Winchester, I had laboured so assiduously, appeared to be accomplished. What was done at the time to give effect to that resolution by the several head masters who were parties to it, and how far it had since been acted on in their respective schools, I am unable to say ; for I was not ' The nine Public Schools into which the Commission appointed in 1862 was to inquire were Eton, Winchester, Westminster, Charterhouse. St. Paul's, Merchant Taylors', Harrow, Eugby, and Shrewsbury. The Com- missioners were Lords Clarendon, Devon, and Lyttelton, Messrs. Twisleton, W. Hepworth Thompson, H. Halford Vaughan, and Sir Stafford Northcote. Their Eeport was issued in 1864. o2 196 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE informed, and I have never made inquiry. Head masters are busy people, and no doubt each of them thought that he had done more than enough for me in undertaking to use my book ; while, for my own part, other interests, arising out of my settlement in Scotland, which led me on to labours of a cognate character in an infinitely higher and more important sphere, disinclined me to renew communications upon matters over which I could no longer reasonably hope to be able to exercise any control. But, to judge from the fact that for some years the sale of the Grammar has not been increasing, but rather the contrary,^ I am afraid it must be inferred that not only has the resolution in ques- tion not been faithfully adhered to and put into practice, but that, in a word, there has been hacksliding . Nor is this greatly to be wondered at. In an age like the present, of universal change and unsettlement of opinion upon so many points, it was scarcely to be expected that an excep- tion would be made in favour of a settled and generally accepted method of teaching Greek. And so it may come to pass ere long that the same work at which I laboured may have to be done again, when the evils which I sought to remedy shall have again made themselves felt as pain- fully as I had only too much occasion to feel them, between fifty and sixty years ago. The success which had attended my endeavour after reform in Greek grammar encouraged me to devise a scheme upon a larger scale, the nature of which will be seen from the following draft, and from the letters which it elicited. It never came into operation ; but the framework of it has since been adopted in the annual meetings of the masters of the larger English schools. ' A Primer, in Englisli, which, against my own judgment, I was pre- vailed upon to put out in 1870 has greatly tended to cheek its circula- tion. SUGGESTIONS FOR A SOCIETY OF SCHOOLMASTERS 197 Suggestions for the formation of a society, to consist of the Head and Assistant Masters of Public Schools — ivith a vieiu to the i7nprovement and cheap publication of classical school books dc. Under the conviction that much might be done, by means of co-operation among the masters of our several public schools, to raise the standard of books employed in classical education ; to furnish them to the public at a cheaper rate, with a fuller security at the same time for the due remuneration of competent editors ; and moreover to produce a greater degree of uniformity among the different systems pursued, and books adopted, in private schools, whereby great and daily ificr easing, evils and confusion are entailed, not merely upon those schools themselves, but upon our own and other large institutions, to which they generally are, and profess to be, preparatory ; We, the undersigned, desire to form ourselves into a society upon some such scheme as the following : 1. The society to consist, in the first instance, of such head and assistant masters of the schools of Eton, Westminster, Winchester, Harrow, Charterhouse, and Rugby, as are willing to join it. 2. The business of the society to be conducted by a commit- tee, to consist of all the head masters who belong to the society — together with half the same number of assistant masters, to be elected annually. 3. The committee to meet not less than four times annually — and not less than three members present to form a quorum. Those absent to have the power of voting and expressing their opinion either by writing or by deputing any other member to act as their proxy. 4. The committee to appoint a secretary and a treasurer of their own body : their duties to be relieved by the assistance of a paid official, if thought necessary. 5. The office of the committee to consist (a) in receiving and deciding upon all proposals for the publication of new books upon subjects of education — editions of classics, works of history, geography, &c. ; (b) in approving of such books, when prepared for publication — suggesting alterations and corrections — or, if necessary, rejecting them altogether ; (c) in fixing the price of 198 AXXALS OF MY EARLV LIFE sach works, and the mode or amount of remuneration for the author or editor. 6. All members of the society bind themselves to employ the books which come out under its auspices, except where pre- existing vested interests are concerned : in which case they whose interests, collective or individual, are affected, are left to act on their own discretion. 7. Proposals for the authorship or publication of books admissible from all persons, whether members or not ; upon the distinct understanding that any work lohen finished is hable to rejection, if not approved of by the committee. 8. In new editions of the classics, the text and notes to be printed separately in different volumes of the same size (so as to admit at will of being bound together), except where the com- mittee see good cause for the contrary. The committee to decide whether the notes shall be written in Latin or English, according to the nature and objects of each particular work. 9. Preliminaries to be considered by the committee, or by the society at large, as may be thought most expedient : (1) To settle the amount of subscription payable by each member. (2) To fix upon a publisher, printer, &c. (3) To fix the place and days of meeting for the committee. From Dr. Moherly. Dear Wordsworth, — In reading over your paper carefully it occurs to me that your sixth proposed rule is too strong a good deal. It would, I think, be wrong for any head master to bind himself to use the books prescribed by the majority of a commit- tee, he himself having perhaps been absent (or perhaps in the minority) at the decision. And I am not sure whether my feeling of the impropriety of establishing this rule is not equi- valent to a feeling of the impropriety of establishing so distinct and formal a society as is proposed. For, if it becomes optional for the masters of the separate schools to adopt or decline the books edited under the direction of the committee, the constitu- tion of the society is at once broken into a mere agreement to put out particular books which all equally approve. And indeed I cannot but think that this would be the most feasible SUGGESTIONS FOR A SOCIETY OF SCHOOLMASTERS 199 and advantageous plan. Instead of foregoing our independent discretion, and formally uniting into a sort of federal union, we might communicate together, and resolve, if we pleased, to employ some particular person upon some particular book — it remaining with individual schoolmasters to use it, or decline the use of it, as they think proper. I therefore am disposed to doubt the prudence of so formal a society, with its apparatus of treasurer, secretary, paid assis- tant, &c. The objects which your paper holds forth are all, I think, very desirable ; and I should be much pleased if we and any one or two other schools could agree to employ competent persons to undertake one or two books which are much wanted. I should, however, suppose that our sale, and that of Harrow and the Charterhouse (for example), would be sufficient to enable us to effect our purpose. For instance, I very much want a book of Greek prose extracts, of sufficient length — done in a scholarlike way — with not too much, nor too little, of help ; and should be ex- tremely pleased to see some competent person employed upon it. BeUeve me, dear Wordsworth, Yours very faithfully, Geoege Moberly. From Bev. T. H. Steel. The Grove, Harrow : Thursday. My dear Wordsworth, — As it seems very unHkely you will wade hither through the snow, I return your prospectus. In the list of the schools I would also insert Shrewsbury and S. Paul's, both of them too important to be omitted. With respect to article (6) I should propose that no exception should be made to the uniform use of the same books (on the same subjects) in every school ; but to avoid the loss likely to be incurred in certain cases I should propose the paying off the value of books thus disused by the profits obtained in the publi- cation of the new books. But this is a subject open to considera- tion. The other several articles seem to be just such as one would desire. The society itself, however, when once formed, will of course put everything into a more definite shape than is 200 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE possible at present. Y^our statement, however, embodies fally every object. . . . I write in haste, that this may reach you at Hampstead. Mrs. Steel is quite recovered, and desires her kind remem- brances. Ever yours very truly, Thos. Heney Steel. 2. Kegulation for Private Prayers in College Chambers. The most anxious of the duties which appertained to my office as second master was that, when the Holy Commu- nion was to be administered in the College Chapel, I had to deliver a lecture on the evening before to the College prefects, as the head master was expected to do for those in Commoners. The circumstances under which this duty was to be performed were far from satisfactory.^ To receive the Communion was a matter of virtual compulsion to the boys of a certain standing in the school — that is, to the twenty-eight seniors,^ or so-called * prefects,' and only they were in the habit of communicating ; the times of administration were few and far between — viz. only thrice in the scholastic year ; ^ at such intervals the delivery of a single lecture, and so close upon the Celebration as the ' See Christian Boyhood, i. 149. '^ Compare ibid. p. 369. Lecture on Easter Eve, 1842 ; and p. 423, Tjecture on Palm Sunday Evening, 1845, my last year. It is a remarkable fact that Charles Simeon traced the origin of his religious earnestness to the regulation at King's College, Cambridge, which required all under- graduates, fit or unfit, to receive the Holy Communion at Easter. He repre- sents that previously Satan himself was not more unfit than he had been ; but he had timely notice to prepare, and he did so. (Carus' Memoirs, p. 501.) The ' compulsion ' with us was gradually relaxed as communicating became more frequent, and the Communicants more numerous. It may be mentioned that of the eighteen prefects the ten seniors had more power than the rest. See ibid. ii. 224. =* See ibid. p. 413 and p. 416. REGULATION FOR I'RIS^ATE PRAYERS 201 night before, could scarcely be expected to produce any- very real or lasting effect ; and at no other times was there any opportunity for intercourse upon religious matters between me and the said Communicants, who in all school business were entirely under the instruction and superin- tendence of the head master. I soon began to feel a desire to bring about some improvement in this state of things. The first step in the right direction had been already taken by the good Warden, very soon after his accession to the ofifice in 1832.^ Before his time there had been no special preaching addressed to the boys. On Sundays they had been used to attend the College Chapel for morning prayer at 8 ; the Cathedral for Litany, Ante-Communion, and Ser- mon at 10.30 ; and the College Chapel again for evening service at 5 ; but at the latter there had been no sermon. Warden Barter was the first to undertake the responsibility of providing a sermon for the boys, and he generally preached himself, but was always glad to receive assistance, and when Moberly became head master, in 1836, such assistance of the most valuable kind was rendered by him not unfre- quently. The same permission to address occasionally the whole body of the school was extended to me ; ^ and, though as yet without experience as a preacher, and only in Deacon's orders, I was thankful to avail myself of it as often as I could. By this means I was led to feel more interest in the spiritual welfare of my College Communicants, and was enabled by degrees to acquire more influence over them than could have been the case had I been still shut up merely to the rare occurrence of the delivery of my Sacra- ment lecture. At the same time, the more frequent recurrence of Confirmations which began with Moberly's head mastership, and the admission to them of boys of a ' See Christian Boyhood, i. 381. The sermons were begun in 1833. - See Preface to Christian Boy liood, i. 7 . 202 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE younger age and lower in the school, naturally produced a considerable increase in the number of Communicants,^ so that my pastoral charge in College was no longer confined to * prefects,' but extended to many of the * inferiors ' also. It was under those circumstances, and previous to the Easter Communion of 1838, that I felt emboldened by my closer relations with the college boys, to endeavour to in- troduce among them in their several chambers the regular organised practice of private prayer. My first step was to deliver my usual Sacrament lecture, not on Easter Eve, but a week earlier, on the evening of Palm Sunday. In that lecture I set myself first to expose as thoroughly as I could the fallacy which I did not doubt would be lurking in the minds of some of my young hearers, viz. that inas- much as they were obliged to communicate, they were not responsible for receiving unworthily; that the onus — the guilt — of their being unfit to receive was removed, so to speak, from their own shoulders to the shoulders of the authority by which the duty was imposed.^ Next, I took occasion to point out how idle it was to expect that a single lecture could suffice to enable them to prepare themselves for so solemn an ordinance unless they w^ere really living, or intending to live, in the practice of duty and piety towards God. My words were these : ' All that I have said, or can say — all that you may hear or read elsewhere — will be to no ' In 1844, the year before I resigned my office, the number had increased so as to comprehend ' two-thirds or one-half ' of the whole body of the boys, then about 200 — 70 college boys and 130 commoners. (See Christian Boy- hood, i. 163, also ibid. p. 409, ' On the Introduction of more frequent Com- munion,' lecture delivered July 3, 1841, and p. 436 note.) ' The largest number of Communicants which the author has known at one time among the 70 college boys was 51. The average number of late years has been between 30 and 40.' (Lecture on ' Encouragement from Increase of Com- municants,' delivered on the evening of Palm Sunday, 1845.) - See Christian Boyhood, i. 301-308. REGULATION FOR PRIVATE PRAYERS 203 purpose for those among you who have hitherto lived in a thoughtless and ungodly course, unless they shall come prepared not only to flee and abandon their youthful lusts, but to present and dedicate themselves from henceforth to God's service ; to begin now in good earnest the work of their reformation ; to remember now their Creator in the days of their youth ; remember him by holier motives, by dutiful obedience, by purity of thought, word, and deed, by reverence of His holy name and word, above all by prayer ; and this not as the result of a transient and occasional impulse, but as the first fruits of a rising and growing habit of piety and devotion. Extraordinary calls and particular seasons, like the present, for the practice of religious duty, produce no real good, but rather great evil, if they lead only to the assumption of an ephemeral seriousness that blossoms and fades with the occasion that gave it birth.' After pursuing this train of exhortation at some length,^ in the course of which I assured my hearers that * I knew well, and could not attempt to disguise, the difficulties of the undertaking which I required them to perform, but that salvation was a prize too great indeed to be gained by any efforts of our own, but which none of us must expect to gain without an effort,' I intimated that the remainder of what I had to say would be reserved to the conclusion of the week, when I hoped to have an opportunity of addressing them again. Thus the way was cleared, and the foundation laid for the proposal which I desired to make. When Saturday night came, and I was to meet my young friends again, I felt, it will easily be believed, no common anxiety. The argument of the lecture ^ which I then delivered scarcely bears compression ; but the following extracts may suffice to give the substance of it. ' See Christian Boyhood, i. 311 sq. 2 j^^^^ j^ 115-138. 204 ANNALS OF MY EARLY IJFE After dwelling upon the duty of the right employment of time, whether in secular or sacred things, I proceeded thus : ' I come now to the second topic which I proposed to speak of in this lecture, viz. the practice of private prayer : a duty no less precise and particular than the one we have been considering is general and comprehensive. But, before I go on to express my own opinion, I am willing freely to anticipate yours, not only upon what is to follow, but also in reference to several particulars of what has been already said. I fancy, then, I hear an answer whispered in some such language as this : " We only take things as we found them. It has never been the practice to consider these trifling matters in such a serious light. There is as much study now and as little fagging as ever there was. The Juniors can have no reason to complain ; on the contrary, they are treated in almost every instance with kindness and consideration. You cannot expect us to say our private prayers in the noise and confusion of a public chamber ; ^ but no one can deny that the attendance at Chapel is more regular, and the attention to the service more orderly and devout, than it was formerly." I assure you, my young friends, I believe all this of you and more than this. Indeed, I should not address you as I now do, if I did not believe it. But surely no boy who is truly zealous for his own or his schoolfellows' improvement would give me such an answer as that which I have imagined. Where are the characteristics of that noble and Christian spirit with which I am so anxious to see you quickened and adorned, if you are content to stand still and be no worse than others ? . . . Let it be confessed, if necessary, that your predecessors — I confess it with deep concern of my own con- temporaries at another school ^ — were not so zealous as they ' There were seven chambers for the seventy college boys, so that there was an average of ten in each chamber. - See above, p. 20. REGULATION FOR PRIVATE PRAYERS 205 should have been in the great cause of their own and of others' salvation. They did not set God always before them. They regarded the praise of men rather th^n the praise of God and of their own conscience. And if this ivere so, then this is the very reason why I call upon you, and upon your contemporaries, to stay the plague ; ... to say valiantly, but firmly and resolutely, to the spirit of ungodli- ness, " Thus far shalt thou go, but no further ; " to snatch, as it were from God's altar, the torch of a good example, and, like the youths of the ancient Festival, to pass it down from hand to hand, and from generation to generation. Let it be granted even that other public schools may be deficient in the same all-important points of a Christian education to which I have alluded. From whence, but from this ancient and religious foundation — the first of all in the honoured precedence of time, and second to none in every accomplish- ment of worldly wisdom — from whence, I say, but from among us ^ should this holy flame be kindled, and passing as it were like a beacon fire from hill to hill throughout the land, announce the glad tidings that this, our stronghold, had been wrested from the power of the adversary, and become a citadel of the most High God ? ' But I should wrong this noble institution if I were to lead you to imagine that the adoption even of stricter views and practices than such as I could now venture to recom- mend would be anything novel or unprecedented in its annals. There was a time when that good and saintly man, ' It is due to the memory of Dr. Arnold, himself a Wykehamist, to mention here that the above was written in entire ignorance of the great things which he was doing, and had already done, at Kugby School. It may seem strange — and indeed it is felt to be so by the author himself now that he has read Dr. Arnold's Life — that up to this time (Piaster 1838) he had certainly not seen nor, so far as he believes, heard of Dr. Arnold's Sermons Preached at Bugby, the first volume of which appeared in 1832.' (Note in Christia7i Boyhood, i. 124. See also below, p. 277). 206 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Thomas (afterwards Bishop) Ken, who had been himself a scholar, and was then a Fellow of this College, could find within these walls, perhaps in this very chamber, an attentive and willing audience for lessons of a purer and more devout piety than either I am competent to offer, or you able to receive.' I went on to prove this by reference to his * Manual of Prayers for the use of Winchester Scholars,' and by details derived from it, for which I must be content to refer to the lecture itself (pp. 125-128) — details which, I might have added, were the more remarkable because the moral condition of society in England, or at least in the metropolis, was at that time — in the reign of Charles II. — sunk to a lower ebb than perhaps it has ever reached either before or since. * But,' I continued, ' not to dwell with unavailing regret upon the blessings we have forfeited, we have still more than enough in those that remain, at the same time to excite our gratitude and to enhance our responsibility. I will venture to say that no similar insti- tution can boast of such a blessing and benefit as we possess in the distinction of our ranks, and especially in the just influence and authority, the superior privileges and duties, of the "order " which I am now addressing.^ "Is Ordo vitio CARETO ; CETERIS SPECIMEN ESTO." ^ Noble words ! How should they incite in us emotions of thankfulness to Almighty God for that large portion of his Spirit which presided over the birth of this charitable and munificent foundation, and especially for the wisdom which penned and enacted that golden rule ! . . . And this leads me to explain more dis- tinctly the point at which I am aiming. It is never my ^ The ' Order ' of prefects was instituted by the founder, and is prescribed in the college statutes. (See Christian Boyhood, i. 483.) 2 From the ' Tabula Legum ' emblazoned on the east wall of the large schoolroom. (See Christian Boyhood, i. 481 sq.) Besides the general authority of the ' prefects ' over the ' inferiors,' each junior boy had a prefect whose duty it was to act as his 'tutor,' to 'promote his improve- ment and prevent his idleness.' (See ibid. p. 348 sq. and pp. 494-6) REGULATION FOR PRIVATE PRAYERS 207 desire or intention to recommend what I cannot fairly ex- pect you to perform ; still less to press upon your obedience any command which I myself believe to be impracticable. And as regards the practice of private prayer, in the present state of things I am ready to confess that (much as I wish it) I dare not hope to be able to persuade the generality of you — perhaps not one individual— to kneel down singly by his bedside and say his prayers. All I can now hope is that many of you are in the habit of praying secretly as you lie down in your beds ; and, though I consider this as unsatis- factory, if not insufficient, on many accounts, still any method of prayer, provided it be regularly and devoutly performed, will prove, I doubt not, an acceptable service in the sight of God. Unhappily, in the method I have men- tioned, the occasion and attitude are themselves temptations to irregularity and irreverence. You are content by degrees to think over your prayers instead of saying them. You fall asleep again and again in the performance, and are gradually led to break off the habit. What I do wish, then, is, to put it to you as prefects tvhether the present state of things in this respect might not he improved ? I wish you to consider whether by some simple regulation among your- selves the practice of this unquestionable duty, which is now so full of difficulty and temptation, might not be rendered easy and delightful ? The proposal which I have to make to you is in strict accordance with your position as prefects. It will not expose you to any just imputation of affecting an extraordinary piety which you do not feel. I take it indeed for granted that after the preparation of the past week, and on the eve of coming to the Holy Sacrament, whatever you may have been formerly, you are noiv at least sincere and firm in your resolutions to live henceforth as becomes good Christians. But, resolve as firmly as you may, you know already— and let me repeat it again and again — 208 ANNAI.S OF MY EARLY LIFE to make the attempt in your own strength, and without call- ing to God at all times, by diligent prayer, for His special grace and the assistance of His Holy Spirit, is worse than useless. Here, then, is the test of your sincerity. Say your own prayers openly and at a stated time on your knees, and require those who are committed to your charge to do the same. Let the prefect in course in each chamber preserve the same quiet and order before you retire to rest for the short space of five or ten minutes of prayer time as he is accustomed to do during the longer period of * toy time.' But I do not wish to enter into the details of such a proposal. Having said enough to explain the nature of what I would recommend, I had rather leave its adoption entirely in your own hands. Or if, after due and serious deliberation, you conscientiously feel that this saying is too hard for you ; if you find with regret that you cannot carry it into execution ; if you truly believe that it would produce more mischief than good ; if you fear that if attempted for a time it could not be maintained and persevered in— come openly and tell me so. But I put it to yourselves as a distinct trial of your Christian principle to weigh the matter fairly, and to decide it honestly. I propose it as a test of your good faith before God and your own conscience, by which you may show at once the reality of your repentance and the sincerity of your solemn promise and pledge — which you will renew to-morrow — to become henceforth God's faithful soldiers and servants unto your lives' end.' The remainder of the lecture was devoted to the sug- gestion of a ' few considerations ' which might assist those whom I was addressing to come to a right conclusion. First, I dwelt upon their duty as prefects to the younger boys, and upon their influence over them, as of greater moment than any instruction which a superior authority could impart. I gave them to understand that my REGULATION FOR PRIVATE PRAYERS 209 proposal, for the present at least, was not intended to apply to the morning, as I had no wish to hazard its fate by pressing it to an extent beyond what I myself could venture to expect, and which would appear to others alto- gether hopeless and impracticable ; but that eventually perhaps it might be so extended, if not in their own time, in that of their successors.^ I touched upon the many benefits and blessings which could not fail to result to them all from the course which I had recommended. It would tend to Christianise their intercourse with each other. It would gradually put a stop to many bad practices, such as profane or indecent language, which are derogatory to the dignity of a man, much more of a Christian. It would enlist in God's service those natural feelings of regard to the conduct and opinions of others which had thitherto been the greatest allies in the cause of Satan. The very shame which they would before have felt in saying their prayers, they would thenceforth feel in omitting them. Instead of weakening and undermining each other's religious habits and principles, they would mutually help to strengthen and confirm them. They would show that the offering of themselves was a free- will offering, such as the Lord loveth, and not one of grudg- ing or of necessity. Every other act of their devotion was imposed by the discipline of the place ; this would be the inward self-regulating discipline of their own hearts. They w^ould experience no difficulty in doing simultaneously that which singly they might have almost despaired to attempt. Nor was there any reason to fear that by thus improving upon their own past habits and upon those of their im- mediate predecessors, their existence would be less happy, their career less distinguished. On the contrary, their religious improvement would serve to impart new energy to ' This was done, partially at least, if not fully, within five years after- wards. See below, p. 213. P 210 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE their studies, new pleasure to their amusements. They would be the more happy, the more honoured, in proportion as they realised such improvement. They must not, indeed, suppose that 1 expected them all to become at once good Christians by the adoption of that or any other practice : good habits were not so easily formed, nor bad ones, alas ! so speedily laid aside. But what I did hope and trust was that not one of them would still persist in the open con- tempt of God's commands, in the wilful deliberate practice of acknowledged sin. Finally, having exhorted them to take sweet counsel together, and to walk in the service of God as friends, I summed up the lecture with these words : * The scholars for whose use the Manual of Prayers of which I have spoken was composed were once buoyant with the hopes of life and all the animation and enjoyment of youth. They, no less than the holy man who instructed them, have long since gone to their account, where they will have to answer for the use of the talent he had put into their hand. You and I, my young friends, must follow them ere long, to make way for another generation of masters and scholars. May God of His infinite mercy grant that when we shall meet again before His Judgment Seat on the last day, it may be with the happy consciousness of having performed our duties towards each other, and with the jo^^ous recognition of blessed spirits, thenceforth to be taught^ to leai'n, and to taste together those good things which pass man's understanding, and to become schoolfellows in one bhssful, never-ending holiday, which He has prepared for them that love Him in the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.' While the boys were engaged in deliberating upon the answer they should give to the proposal which I had thus submitted to them, I was praying that they might be rightly guided ; and my prayer was heard. I had left them REGULATION FOR PRIVATE PRAYERS 211 upon the understanding that as soon as they had made up their minds, the ' officers ' — that is, the five senior prefects — were to come and let me know the result. * After a few minutes ' consultation the officers came. They expressed on behalf of the whole body their full concur- rence in what I had said, and at the same time thanked me for having brought the matter before them as I had done. It was at once arranged to establish the following regula- tion in all the chambers. Upon retiring at night, after Chapel,^ when the clock struck, prayer-time was to be called, and the prefect in course in each chamber was to hold himself responsible for keeping order during a short interval, sufficient for each boy to say his prayers with- out fear of disturbance or of interruption. The prefects bound themselves to say their prayers openly either at the same time with the rest, or at their own proper time for going to bed.' Such were the words in which in my Sacrament lec- ture delivered 1843,^ on the anniversary of that memorable Easter Eve of 1838, I reminded the prefects whom I was then addressing, of what their predecessors had done five years before. And I went on to say : * I shall never cease, I trust, as long as I live, to thank God for the events of that evening. I shall never cease to remember with especial interest and regard the behaviour of the prefects, who acted in that instance with a spirit and ' This refers to a short form of prayer read at 8.45 p.m. by the Second Master in the ante-chapel, at which all the college boys were required to be present : and after which they returned to their respective chambers — the juniors to go to bed, while the prefects were allowed to sit up, if they pleased, an hour longer. The form of prayer was the same as that used in Com- moners. It consisted of short portions taken from the Prayer Book, with a special prayer (composed by Moberly) for each evening in the week. In my last year I added short Scriptural readings, mainly from the Epistles. "^ See Christian Boyhood, i. 145-158. The same lecture contains a short summary of the arguments I had used when the regulation for Private Prayer was first proposed, in 1838. P2 212 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE a zeal truly noble, truly Christian. And probably there will be no act, no occurrence in their lives, to which they will look back with greater satisfaction when they come to die than the adoption of that regulation by which they eman- cipated themselves, their younger schoolfellows, and I trust all their posterity in this place, from the thraldom of an habitual impiety and neglect of God, and of the means appointed for obtaining His grace and favour. . . . Many a name has been emblazoned on the roll of fame for deeds less worthy than that which they achieved, and we, at least, are bound from time to time to commemorate them as our benefactors. . . . Surely their success must be a great encouragement to you all, in case you should ever be called upon to act in similar circumstances ; and above all things you will be careful lest under your administration one jot or one tittle of the good which they effected fall to the ground. Little is required on your part but to reap diligently and thankfully what they have sown. . . . Let me add that I hope none of you who have more recently been made prefects will omit to join your names to theirs in the place provided for that purpose.^ I should be sorry to think of any prefect having gone from amongst us without his name appearing as a fellow worker in that holy cause. . . . Having said so much in this lecture upon the subject of your private prayers, you will naturally expect me to make some allusion to the attempt which, I have understood, many of you have made — and made successfully — to extend the practice, before ' ' A copy of Bishop Ken's Prose Works, handsomely bound and with an appropriate inscription, was placed by me in the school library to comme- morate the first establishment of the practice spoken of, and blank leaves were inserted to receive Ihe names of the then prefects, and of their suc- cessors from time to time who should be willing to maintain the practice, and who, by enrolling their names on the same list, were understood to bind themselves to do so. I am not aware that any omissions have occurred in the enrolment since the beginning.'- IS[ote in Christian Boyhood, i. 154. See also ibid. p. 177, lecture on the evening of Palm Sunday, 1844. REGULATION FOR PRIVATE PRAYERS 213 observed only in the evening, to the morning also. I need not tell you how truly delighted I was when I first heard of that attempt, how sincerely I rejoice over what has been already done, and how heartily I wish you God-speed in carrying out the same (if it be not yet wholly and uni- versally established) still more effectually.' I have quoted in extenso the foregoing extract * because it exhibits in the most authentic shape what had been the immediate issue of my appeal. But it must not be sup- posed that I had waited for five years without giving pubHc expression to the satisfaction I had felt at that result. In my Sacrament lecture for Easter Eve, 1839 — that is, on the first anniversary after the appeal had been made ^ — I spoke as follows : ' I cannot conclude this lecture without express- ing the sincere gratitude which I feel at the absence among you, for some time past, of anything like notorious or flagrant offences that might call for censure, and at the observance, for the most part, of such regular discipline and good order— I might add, of zealous application to study — as reflects the greatest credit upon yourselves, and leaves me little to perform in any remarks that I might make upon your conduct generally but the agreeable duty of commendation. But there is one point upon which I am more particularly anxious to pay to you, one and all, the just tribute of my warmest praise. A year has now elapsed since the prefects, as a body, undertook to introduce and establish in their respective chambers, so far as their own example and legitimate authority could effect it, a regular ' See also the third sermon on ' Communion in Prayer,' in Christian Boyhood, i. 274, and p. 275, note 2, and lecture delivered in the latter part of 1844. ' You have attained to daily prayer in private, I hope, twice a day.' {Ibid. p. 364.) 2 I had referred to it also still earlier — viz. in a lecture given on October 27 of the previous year. See ibid. p. 349 sq., also lecture delivered July 3, 1841, ibid. p. 412. 214 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE practice of private prayer. Obstacles, no doubt, must have occurred, and doubts arisen, both then and since, in the minds of several of you, to thwart the performance of such a plan, to aggravate its difficulties, or to question its ex- pediency, in addition to the numerous temptations which Satan never fails to suggest, in every case, to obstruct the formation of a virtuous habit ; but, thanks be to God, I have the best authority for beheving that by your firm and honest adherence to the engagement into which you had entered, those doubts and difficulties and temptations have een all withstood and surmounted, and that your regula- tion of private devotion has been uniformly observed, and continues to be maintained in all the order and efficiency in which it was first established. Again, therefore, I repeat, let me praise you for this. ... I have before thanked you for the cheerful and ready willingness with which you ac- ceded to my proposal ; I now thank you still more cordially for the firmness and constancy with which you have adhered to it. And this I do not only in my own name, and in the names of higher authorities (who, as they have proved their anxiety to increase your temporal comfort, so they are still more anxious to promote your spiritual welfare), but also, and especially, in the names of the parents of the younger boys, who owe it mainly to you that their sons are now enabled to persist in the pious course which they had learned to practise at home, it may be under a mother's eye, instead of contracting a habit of impiety and forgetful- ness of God, which, after its rank growth and long con- tinuance here,^ they might never in after life have regained the grace or summoned the resolution to eradicate. And ^ It must be borne in mind that expressions such as this are to be under- stood only of the personal and spontaneous habit of prayer. Not only were the boys all required to attend the chapel services on Sundays and in the morning on week-days, but a short prayer was said in school at the close of the work of every day. See also above, p. 211, note 1. REGULATION FOR PRIVATE PRAYERS 216 here I cannot refrain from mentioning an occurrence which corroborates what I am now saying, and at the same time redounds most highly to your honour. It came to my know- ledge quite accidentally, and I shall relate it as nearly as I can in the words in which I myself heard it. A parent of a boy who has lately come into college, who, in the anxious moments of parting with his son, who was now to leave his home for the first time, had strongly impressed upon him the duty of continuing to say his prayers, warn- ing him, however, at the same time of the almost insuper- able difficulties he must expect to encounter in its perform- ance. . . . What was his pleasure and surprise, when on receiving the first letter from his son he read words to this effect. " I continue, as you bade me, to say my prayers ; but I have found none of the difficulties you told me of. On the contrary, if I had not said them of my own accord, the prefect in my chamber would have required me to do so." The incident itself is a simple and trivial one, but it speaks to a fact which I would rather have recorded for the honour of you all, which will do you all, and will do this college, more honour in the sight of both God and men, than the greatest feats of learning and genius it has ever witnessed, or the proudest trophies of academical distinction it has ever won. . . . And that prefect, whoever he was, who thus secured for an anxious parent that which probably no influence of parental care or authority would have been able to effect, will one day experience more heartfelt joy at this simple testimony to his piety and zeal, than at the remembrance of the loudest praise or the most complete success that can ever crown his cultivation of mere earthly accomplishments.' ^ • Christian BoyJiood, i. 141 sq. In my Sacrament lecture on the Easter Eve of the subsequent year (1844) the subject of Private Prayer was again taken up, and particular directions were given for its use. See ibid. pp. 161-176. Also p. 358 sq. 216 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Thus I have spoken fully of the duty which devolved upon me, as second master, to prepare the boys in college for the reception of Holy Communion. It was also my duty, as may indeed be inferred from what has been already said, to prepare them for Confirmation. In order to discharge my responsibility in this latter respect as thoroughly as I could, I was led to draw up my smaU volume entitled * Catechesis, or Christian Instruction Preparatory to Con- firmation and First Communion,' which appeared in 1842. Previously I had used as my text book with the boys Bishop Ken's ' Exposition of the Catechism, or Practice of Divine Love,' which, like everything else in prose that has come to us from his pen — it is much to be regretted that we have not more* — is admirable. I say 'in prose' because, with the exception of the three hymns, for morning, evening, and midnight, which were originally published at the end of his ' Manual of Prayers for the Use of Winchester Scholars,' when the author was a Fellow of the College, and of which the two former (or rather portions of them) are universally known, there is little in the four volumes of his poetical works that can stand the test of modern criticism, not- withstanding that the late Dean Plumptre, in his recent most interesting and valuable life of Ken, has done his best to rescue them from oblivion. ^ But I soon found that I required for my catechumens something more than Ken's treatise — something at once more comprehensive and more * Macaulay, with the inaccuracy into which he is apt to fall in writing about Ecclesiastical matters, speaks of the ' Folio ' volumes of Bishop Ken ; whereas all that has been ever published of his in Prose scarcely suffices to fill one thin Octavo. 2 Their fate in this respect — i.e. the oblivion into which they have fallen — may be compared to that of Keble's Psalter, which, notwithstanding the pains spent upon it, both by himself and by Dr. Pusey, in order to secure its fidelity to the original Hebrew, and notwithstanding also the universal popularity of the Christian Year, fell almost still-born from the press, and is now never heard of. PREPARATION FOR CONFIRMATION 217 close in its application — to meet the wants and the duties, the trials and the temptations of boys at a public school. And, no such manual being then in existence, I determined to set to work to compile one, with the hope and intention (as in the case of my Greek Grammar) of making it not only as accurate but as complete as possible. For this purpose I examined carefully, in addition to Ken's, all previous works upon the Catechism of any merit, including those of Dean Nowell, Hammond, Bishop Nicholson (one of the best), Bishop Beveridge, the so-called Oxford Tyatechism, Bishop Wilson, &c. &c. ; and while using the book with my class I went on improving and enlarging it in the second and third editions. I had rather hoped, that being adapted, as it is, specially for their use, it might have found its way into other public schools ; but, though this was not to be — and I took no step to effect it — I have had abundant reason to be satisfied with the favourable testimonies which the book has received from highly competent judges at various times during the long interval — now nearly half a century — that has elapsed since its publication.^ Among others, Canon Jelf, Principal of King's College, London, wrote to me as follows : ' Including Dean Burgon and Chancellor Leeke ; of whom the former told me how useful it had been during the whole of his ministry at St. Mary's, Oxford, and the latter the same in his intercourse with young men at Cam- bridge. Nothing could be kinder than the letters which I received in acknow- ledgment of it from Dr. Williams, then "Warden of New College, and from Francis Martin, my old Bowness tutor, Fellow and Bursar of Trinity, Cam- bridge. It has also been required as a text book for Deacon's Orders by some of the English Bishops. And my brother (late Bishop of Lincoln), in his Theophilus Anglicanus, speaks of it as ' specially to be commended among manuals preparatory for Confirmation.' It is now in the fifth edition. ' This is now an old book ; but it is an uncommonly good one, as we can personally testify, having had it in more or less constant use for some sixteen years.' — Literary Churchman. ' The whole work is a masterly one.' — English Churchman. ' Should be in the hands of every teacher.' — Scottish Standard Bearer, November, 1890 ; from which I may infer that it has not been super- seded by more recent works. 218 ANNALS OF MY EAELY LIFE I have read your * Catechetical Questions ' ^ attentively, as they came to hand just as I was seeking for some manual for the Confirmand of King's College, London. I am happy to say that the work is entirely satisfactory to me, and that it appears to me to fill up a gap which has been more sensibly felt since the publication of your brother's admirable Theophilus Anglicamis. I have given the best proof of my satisfaction by recommending this manual of yours to the candidates for Confirmation. Dr. Williamson, head master of Westminster, also wrote to me that he should use it with his boys for the same purpose. It has indeed one advantage which, so far as I know, no other Manual of the kind possesses, viz. that it contains in an Appendix, besides the Catechism itself, the Baptismal, Confirmation, and Communion Offices, upon which all catechetical instruction, in order to be sound and trust- worthy, ought to be based.2 3. Insteuction in Singing. The statutes of the founder of Winchester College require that every boy admitted on his foundation shall be, inter alia, ' in piano cantu competenter instructus ' — that is, able to sing ; doubtless in order that he might be com- petent to take his part in the frequent services, always choral, of the College Chapel.^ Since the Eeformation this wise requirement had been gradually relaxed more and more till at length it had dwindled to the farce — almost incredible, but still actually enacted, when I became second master — that ^ The title of my ' Catechesis ' in its first two editions. 2 See my charge for 1886 on ' The Study, Uses, and Value of the Book of Common Prayer,' p. 8. ^ See Christian Boyhood, i. 278 sq. note, and the passage from St. Augustin's Confessio7is (x. 33) there quoted: ' Cantandi consuetudinem approbavit in Ecclesia, ut per oblectamenta aurium infirmior animus in affectum pietatis assurgat.' INSTRUCTION IN SINGING 219 every boy who was nominated^ a candidate for admission, before he went into the election chamber to be examined, was told that when the acting examiner asked him whether he could sing, all he had to do was to say, * All people that on earth do dwell ' — that is, recite the first verse of the Old Hundredth metrical Psalm — and that when he had so done, the examiner would say to him, ' That will do ! ' It appeared to me that, in order to rectify this shocking abuse, the least that was necessary was to require, by an ex post facto regu- lation, that every boy in college, having been admitted upon the understanding that he was able to sing, should be taught to do so. And in this I had the full sympathy of the good Warden. Those were the days in which Mr. John Hullah was carrying everything with his new system of musical in- struction in large classes. I put myself into communication with him, and invited him to come and stay with me. He came, and we set to work to organise singing classes for all the college boys. He had already done this at Charter- house, and partially at Eton. And afterwards from time to time he repeated his visits to me — always a welcome and agreeable guest — in order to superintend the progress of the experiment as it was being carried on by an assistant whom he appointed. At first the lessons were attractive from their novelty, and, it must be added, from the remarkable skill and tact which Hullah himself exhibited as a teacher, as well as from his zeal and confidence in the cause which he had in hand. A letter of his to me, dated December 26, 1844, contains the following passage : ' I do not believe there lives a human being who could not be taught to sing if he wished to learn. That there may be persons to whom the result would not ' The nominations were in the hands of the ' Electors ' — viz. the Wardens of New College and Winchester, the Head Master, the Sub-warden of Win- chester, and the two ' Posers ' appointed by New College. There was then no bond fide examination. 220 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE repay the effort they were making to attain it, I most fully beUeve. But these are people in advanced life, not children. If a premium be put upon incapacity, either in the form of indulgence or admiration, doubtless there will be abundance of incapables. But if it were once considered a settled thing — a thing not admitting of discussion — that every boy in the kingdom under (say) twelve years of age, was able to sing, and was to learn, learn he would.' ^ I quite concur in that view of the case. Supposed musical inability, like any other defect, as of memory, or indistinct utterance, is to be amended, if not altogether removed, by cultivation. Unless this were so, the precepts of St. Paul upon the duty of our joining in ' psalms and hymns and spiritual songs ' would be unreasonable. I remember that when I was at Ems, and had a boy for a guide to one of the Castles on the Ehine, in the course of conversation which I had with him on the way, I inquired whether in the school which he attended all the boys were taught to sing ; and when he had answered in the affirmative, and I had further asked, ' But what if a boy has no voice ? ' he archly replied, * Er muss eine finden.' I was always present in person at the lesson given to the upper boys, and took my place in the class, partly to learn and partly pour encourager les autres ; but it was not long before it became no easy matter to keep the boys in good humour with the scheme,^ especially as the .time given to it had to be taken almost entirely out of the hours, not of school business, but of play. And Moberly, though he did not oppose it, gave it little or no encouragement. He was content that any of the commoners should attend the classes ' Since the above was written, I observe that my friend, the Dean of Salisbury, gives a similar testimony in a lecture delivered on December 8, 1890 : ' When I was a boy at Charterhouse, my old music master, Mr. Hullah, used to contend that almost everybody could sing.' '^ See Christian Boyhood, ii. 288. INSTRUCTION IN SINGING 221 who wished to do so ; but he himself was too advanced and accomplished a musician, both in theory and in practice, vocal and instrumental, to show much favour to a mode of instruction which he was secretly inclined to look down upon as little removed from a species of quackery. Happily, I in my ignorance had no such misgivings. I was satisfied to look no further than to what was i^ossibU, and to make the best of it. Eestat ut his ego me ipse regam solerque elementis. Non possis oculo quantum contendere Lynceus, Non tamen idcirco contemnas lippus inungi ; Nee, quia desperes invicti membra Glyconis, Nodosa corpus nolis prohibere chiragra. Est quadam prodire tenus si non datur ultra. Such was my view of the matter, and it was justified by the results. Our services in Chapel were immensely im- proved — at least in the sense of being more congregational, more hearty. The boys learnt to take more interest, more pleasure in them. In short, we had begun fairly to realise what our founder wished and intended, and the scene I had witnessed in the gymnasium at Berlin had not been thrown away upon me.^ I have preserved several compositions written at this time, which show how keen was the interest I felt in the attempt I have now recorded — how pleased I was when everything went well, and how much I took to heart the contrary tendencies which manifested themselves from time to time. The following is a specimen of the former quality.^ ' See above, p. 148 sq. ' Compare Christian BoyJwod, i. 398, Lecture given December 3, 1843 : * I desire to commend you for the marked improvement which I think has latterly taken place in . . . the increased attention paid by most of you to the singing lessons, even though they may be contrary to your own natural tastes and inclinations.' 222 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Teaching against Time. * Take time by the forelock,' said one to another ; * Take time by the key,' said his musical brother : * Take time by the loch, and take time by the hey, And heep time, and heat time! ' — 'Nice tidings for me,' Quoth Time ; * I had better be off on the wing, Or those urchins will catch me as sure as they sing : Up, down, right, and left ; ^ 'tis poor fun, I tell ye, For me all the while to be heat to a jelly ; So I'll leave Johnny Hullah in Wykeham's old hall To teach the boys singing in 710 time at all.' But here is another specimen, which tells a different tale.2 On a Singing Lesson in the College Hall. ' Tempora mutantur, nos et,' &c. &c. Time was when Thracian Orpheus sung. The stocks and stones could find a tongue. The unlettered brutes, a motley throng, Erect and vocal marched along Beneath gay Music's banners. But now, alas ! at Music's call. Another scene in Wykeham's hall : The classic youth, erect before, Drooping their heads retain no more Their voices or — good manners. Orphea cantantem silvse (sic fama) sequentes, Duraque inassuetos saxa dedere modos ; Vocales ipsae capita erexere, rudesque Ad numerum mores dedidicere feras. At species diversa tibi nunc, Musica, surgit, (Proh ! pudor) in nostra conspicienda domo ; Demittens caput, et mores bene culta Juventus Dissimulans, mutum se gerit ecce ! pecus. ' The constant movements required under Hullah's system in the class exercises. '^ See Christian Boyhood, ii. 204, and note, Sermon preached in the long half-year 1844. SERMONS ON COMMUNION IN PRAYER 223 A translation, which I made at Mr. Hullah's request, of the Latin Wykehamical song, ' Dulce Domum,' in the metre of the original, to he sung by his classes in London, will be found in the Appendix. Before I quit the subject of this section, it may be proper to mention that in the latter half of 1842 I preached to the boys in Chapel three sermons on ' Communion in Prayer,' in which my object was to prevail upon them not to omit, but carefully and regularly to fulfil, the part which the Eubrics of the Prayer Book assign and prescribe- to every member of the congregation in public worship. The sermons were published at the time in a small, neatly- printed volume, with an elegant cover, bearing the arms of William of Wykeham emblazoned on the front — a design for which I was indebted to my artistic friend, Henry Liddell, now Dean of Christ Church — and subse- quently incorporated in ' Christian Boyhood ' (see vol. i. pp. 207-280). I notice this in connection with the fore- going narrative because it will be obvious that I could not reasonably have insisted upon the performance of the duty referred to on the part of all the boys in the case of choral services, unless they had all previously been taught to sing. The letters which I received from various quarters in acknowledgment of that little volume of sermons were highly gratifying to me ; but I should not have thought it necessary or proper to print the samples of them which I am about to produce merely on that account. I am led to do so mainly because they tend to show that the interest already felt in the improvement of the religious training in our public schools was more or less generally diffused, and not confined, as I think has been too commonly supposed, to the work and influence of Arnold at Eugby, great and admirable as that work undoubtedly was — a subject on 224 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE which I shall have occasion to say more in a subsequent part of this chapter. From the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Howley. Lambeth : February 6, 1843. My dear Sir, — I have read your discourses on Communion in Prayer with more than ordinary satisfaction. The points you insist on are of the greatest importance ; and if you succeed in prevailing on the young persons addressed to attend to what is passing in the Chapel, and to lift up their hearts as well as their voices in confession and prayer, in praise and thanksgiving, when they are assembled in the holy place, the effect, I cannot but think, would be visible on their dispositions and conduct, both at school and in after life. It gives me great pleasure to find that religious instruction forms so considerable a part in the system now adopted at Winchester. I have heard very favourable reports of the in- fluences of a similar proceeding at Eton ; and I trust that all our great schools, pursuing the same course, will, with the blessing of God, prove to be nurseries of sound religion and virtue, supplying the Church and the State with a succession of pious and well-principled men, to the unspeakable benefit of the country. I remain, my dear Sir, Your faithful and obedient servant, W. Cantuak. Eev. C. Wordsworth. From Dr. Hook, late Dean of Chichester. Vicarage, Leeds : March 1, 1843. My dear Sir, — As an old and attached Wykehamist, I thank God that I have lived to see the day when three such Sermons as those you have so kindly sent me have been preached in the dear old Chapel. But no words can express the deep feeling of gratitude with which I have read the note at p. 52. It was very different in my time. I wish you had given us the whole of that Latin Poem ; it would be very interesting to Wykehamists.^ I do very often think of Winchester when I am in my own » It is given in my illustrated work, College of St. Mary Winton, 1846. SERMONS ON COMMUNION IN PRAYER 225 Church, where we have adopted completely the choral service. I have, unfortunately, no ear for music, and therefore I am attached to that kind of service entirely by sentiment and by my feeling that it is a humble imitation of what is going on in the triumph- ant Church. And this is one of the many things I owe to Winton. . . . Remember me most kindly to the Warden and Dr. Moberly, and believe me to be, My dear Sir, Your truly obliged W. F. Hook. From Dr. Butler, my old master at Harroiv, then Dean of Peterborough. The Deanery, Peterborough : March 7, 1843. My dear friend * The Author,' — Most truly and heartily do I thank you for your delightful little volume on Communion in Prayer, which greeted me on my arrival here. I have read it with extreme gratification, — and it is the only book that I have as yet found leisure to read. How great must have been your satisfaction on witnessing the effect, the blessed effect, which, by the mercy of God, your appeal to the unsophisticated minds of the young Wykehamists has produced ! . . . There is now another topic upon which I would gain your attention. Your brother and you have done and are doing great things for us in the way of classical learning by your new Gram- mars : they are adopted, I understand, at several of our most distinguished schools. But they ought to he adopted at all. Would it not be possible for you, by communication with heads of houses and tutors at our two Universities to obtain such a sanction, such an expression of approval, as should at once throw overboard all other Grammars ? I am now comfortably settled here with my wife and daughters : the male progeny are at school or college. Were it possible that business or amusement should bring you to Peterborough, it would give me very great delight to welcome you to the Deanery. Believe me, Ever yours faithfully and affectionately, George Butler. 226 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE From Dr. Hawtreyj Head Master of Eton. Sunday Evening, Eton College : Feb. 4, 1843. My dear Mr. Wordsworth, — I have to thank you for your Sermons, which I have read with unmixed pleasure. I never met with any more admirably suited to the purpose for which they were intended. The result of one of your Ex- hortations must have been very gratifying to you. I remember hearing of it at the time, and, as it reached me through the parent of a Wykehamist, there can be no doubt of it. It is a great moral advantage to all public schools — except Eton — that the masters are permitted to appear before their scholars in the clerical character — an advantage not to the scholars only, but to the master. At Eton— though the Statutes allow it — the custom long established by the authorities does not allow any master admission to the pulpits, and in any case which may occur of a Fellow's indis- position one of the conducts, who may be a very young man unacquainted with the place or its habits, is always preferred. I had not finished your volume when I sealed my note — and it is my rule never to thank for a book which I feel pretty certain I shall like before I have read it. I remain, My dear Mr. Wordsworth, Yours sincerely, E. C. Hawtrey. Eev. C. Wordsworth. From Bobert Scott, late Dean of Bochester. Duloe : Feb. 6, '43. My dear Wordsworth, — I hope that Liddell thanked you properly from me for your former kindness in sending me your Sermon on Repentance. I begged him to do it, because it was lying in his rooms for me ; and, alas, lay there until a few months ago. I have now, besides, to acknowledge another mark of your kindness, in your little ' Communion in Prayer ' ; which reached me a few evenings since. Outside and in, I have seldom seen so SERMONS ON COMMUNION IN PRAYER 227 pleasing a volume ; and I thank you most warmly for thinking of sending it to me. The first of the three Sermons I shall certainly preach here some day or other, with the needful adaptations to my own congregation. I am ashamed to offer the brazen armour after you have given me the golden : but I hope that you will take the enclosed as ' all I have ' ; and as a sample of what we have to contend against here. Ever yours, Egbert Scott. From Bev. H. H. N orris, of Hackney, Grove Street : Feb. 2, 1843. My dear Wordsworth, — I have made no delay in the perusal of your little volume, which enters so fully and so impressively into that department of rubrical conformity which has respect to the congregation, and is enforced in a manner so peculiarly adapted to your own pastoral charge. Nothing could be better conceived than the building your argument upon the Dialogue between Socrates and Alcibiades, and you have pressed it home upon your auditory in a manner that cannot fail to carry powerful conviction along with it, and to give free course to their hearts. I was much pleased to see a recognition of this effect, which I trust will be permanent, and then the generation coming after us may have their hearts gladdened by having the destinies of the nation administered by statesmen of a higher order than the Gallios who are conducting our affairs. The notes are a complete commonplace book for those who wish to find out where the subject is best treated of, and the only thing to be desired is that it may obtain an extensive circulation. Pray accept my best thanks, and believe me to be , Your affectionate friend, H. H. NoERis. I am anxiously expecting to receive from Mr. Watson the news from Cambridge ; but the reports received yesterday were of a lowering character. Q 2 228 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE From Edward Coleridge, of Eton. Eton : Feb. 11. My dear Wordsworth, — In the midst of many cares which have pressed very heavily on my mind and body of late, I have omitted thanking you as quickly as I desired for the little volume of Sermons which you sent me, and which I think so excellent, right-hearted, and calculated to do real good in the best way, that I shall at once place a copy in every one of my pupils' hands. You did well to send such a memento hither, as our boys are sadly deficient in the duty of expressing orally those feelings of devotion which a great majority of them do, I really believe, entertain, and according to which they do in a great measure act. May God bless this and all your other endeavours to do good. I have seen your note to Pickering de re grammaticce, and I beg to assure you that I for one firmly believe you to have acted throughout in that matter in a single-hearted desire to do good and to serve the cause of classical education. Will you thank Dr. Moberly very heartily for his letter, and bid him expect an answer from me shortly? Also give my kindest remembrances to the Warden, in whose friendship I rejoice, for he is dTrXoTiys, in its best sense, personified. Ever yours heartily, Edwakd Coleridge. From Bev. C. J. Heathcote. Upper Clapton, Middlesex. Eev, Sir, — I have read with the greatest pleasure the three Sermons on Communion in Prayer put into my hands by Mr. Joshua Watson. Will you pardon my asking whether it would not be possible to have them thrown into a cheap form for circu- lation ? I would willingly have distributed them largely among my people had the price permitted it, and I know no book that I should better like to put into the hands of every young person whom I send up for Confirmation ; but it must be in another shape and price before this could be done by some of us ^overpaid Clergy of the Establishment.^ Excuse my thus intruding myself upon you. My name may be a little known to you through a quondam coadjutor of mine, PARTICIPATION IN GAMES 229 Mr. Robertson ; but I must make the importance of the object to be attained by the Sermons (and most important it is) my excuse for thus addressing you, and subscribe myself, Rev. Sir, Very faithfully yours, C. J. Heathcote. 4. Pabticipation in Games. The system of fagging was organised and carried on at Winchester in a more thorough manner perhaps than at any other public school. It had its advantages, and anyone who wishes to see these discussed and balanced with the disadvantages may consult the Preface prefixed by Moberly to the second volume of his Winchester Sermons.^ There can be no doubt that in former times, whatever may be the case now, it had pressed harshly and severely upon the junior boys in many respects, and especially in connection with games. My habit of mixing with the boys in play- time and of taking part in at least some of their games, such as cricket and bat-fives,^ not unfrequently enabled me to acquire over them in such matters an influence which I could not otherwise have gained, and which I endeavoured to employ so as to correct whatever I observed of undue harsh- ness and w^ant of consideration toward those whose position in the school made them liable to be fagged. The prefects would know that in my Sacrament lectures addressed to • See also Christian BoyJiood, ii. 222, 225, for a defence of the system. 2 I might add rowing. I bought an Oxford four-oar and had it conveyed to Winchester, in order that I might teach some of the boys to row on ' leave-out ' days, the part of the river (Itchen) available for that purpose being at a short distance above the town, and out of bounds. I also hired a part of the river below the college which was preserved for fishing, so that, by paying a small sum for a ticket of leave, any ' contemplative ' boy who wished might follow his own ' recreation,' no less than those whom nature had formed for more active sports. The Itchen is one of the most beautiful trout streams in England. Frank Buckland, a boy sui generis, had also sufficient scope for the indulgence of his peculiar tastes, as the readers of his interesting Life will be well aware. 230 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE them there was no point upon which I was wont to lay greater stress than the duty of their setting a good example to the inferiors, and a fortiori of abstaining in their own persons from all acts of tyranny and hiillying towards them.^ They would also know that, much as I enjoyed associating w^ith them in * Meads,' and witnessing their games even when I did not join in them, I had always an ulterior object in view, viz. to check anything amiss that I might see or hear, and especially to prevent any inconsiderate or excessive exercise of power on the part of the seniors over the juniors, or of the strong over the weak.^ It was in this way that I suc- / ceeded in putting a stop to the practice of * kicking in,' ^ ^ which consisted in a number of the juniors being required / to stand, often shivering with cold, for an hour or more at j a time, on the confines of a game of football in which the ^ / seniors were engaged, in order merely to lack in the ball / when it had passed beyond the limits prescribed for the V combatants. The following compositions will scarcely be intelligible ex- cept to "Wykehamists ; but I am led to insert them as serving to show even to the uninitiated, at least in some degree, how thoroughly I delighted to identify myself with the boys on all occasions, to sympathise with them in their sports not less than in their studies, and in their performance of duty of all kinds ; and how earnestly I desired to train them up more especially in the practice of that grace upon which their Founder has laid in his Statutes such peculiar stress — jpeace and unity and brotherly love one towards another,'^ > See Christian Boyhood, i. 344, 371, 376, 398, 485, 491, 501 ; ii. 50, 220, 223, 257 sq., 400-402, 414, 416-419. 2 See ihid. pp. 120-122, and 348. 3 See ibid. p. 449. * See the concluding words of my Farewell Sermon, preached on Quinquagesima Sunday, 1846 ; incorporated in Christian Boyhood, ii. 439-489. I PARTICIPATION IN GAMES 231 Lines in imitation of a * Vulgus ' — a short exercise so called, generally in four or six Latin Elegiac verses — which the boys tinder me luere required to compose upon a stthject set overnight, and to shoiu uj) the first thing in scJwol the next morning. Laudant aliena sequentes. Corda bominum variis usque indulgentia votis Ut juvat ex animo fingere fata suo ! llic sibi divitias, magnos ille optat bonores, Kure alius modicos, otia tuta, lares. Me quoque (quid probibet quod sensi mente fateri ?) Saepius instabilem sors aliena movet. ! si prseteritam liceat revocare juventam, In sexta ^ camera Junior esse velim ! Vimine quadrifido posito, petasoque severo, ^ Ligna addam veteri dimidiata ^ foco : Ostia •* doctrinsB qui vult mibi grandia servet ; Ipse sed ante fores stans puer ' bora ' ^ vocem ! What follows refers to a peculiar custom of the college boys, who, after the short evening prayer in the ante-chapel said by the second master, and before separating for the night to their respective chambers, were wont to shake hands each with his neighbour all round as they stood in their respective places — much in the same way as I have seen in St. Peter's at Eome on special occasions the Cardinals ranged on each side of the Pope pass on to one another the kiss which the first in order has received from him. * The ' sixth chamber ' was considered of most dignity, being the one in which ' the prefect of hall ' — the senior boy of the school — had his bed. - Flogging was administered by the master with a rod of four twigs, and with his trencher cap on. * Faggots ere placed in the chambers, and, to keep up the fire on the open hea , it was the junior's duty to put on 'a half faggot' when required. * The statutable name of the second master was ' Ostiarius,' as if to represent the keeper of the door of the house of learning. * The junior was required to stand outside the chamber door and to call ' hour ' when the chapel clock struck in an evening. 232 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE ♦Oremus . . . et dextras tendamus.' — Virg. jEu. xi. 414. Ut procul umbroso Pastor resupinus in antro Circum pascentes cernere gaudet oves, Et cujusque notans faciem, moresque, modosque, Spectando totum discit amare gregem ; Sic mea vos, cari, quoties contemplor, alumni, Pectora laetitia tangitis usque nova : Laetor, graminese seu scena decora palaestraB Et ludo fervens area tonsa ^ patet ; Seu matutini parvas ascendimus Alpes, Et duco Poenos Hannibal ipse meos.^ Sed longe ante alias oculis pulcherrima nostris Miranti species ilia placere solet, Ad sacras spectanda fores, temploque sub ipso, Cum vespertinse conticuere preces : — Mixti inter sese pueri amplectuntur in orbem, Et nulla est manui non bene juncta manus. ! ego Pastorum turba felicior omni, ! fortunatum terque quaterque pecus, Si qualis dextras jungit pia copula, talis Nectat amor certa pectora vestra fide ! On hearing the Chapel funeral bell at a time of unkind words among the boys. Campanae moerens non est sonus iste quod angit ; Angit, si qua sonat vox inimica, pios. Another copy of Latin Verses, addressed to a young friend who had lately gone up to Oxford from Winchester, may be inserted here. It shows that the affectionate in- terest which I felt in the boys while they were under my charge continued to follow them after they had left. ' The cricket ground in ' Meads.' ^ It was part of the duty of both the masters occasionally to see that all the boys were present ' at Hills,' by requiring the prefect in course to call over their names, either on the way, or when they had reached their des- tination, about half a mile from the college. It fell to me more especially to do this in the early morning, and I often walked with them the whole way. ! PARTICIPATION IN GAMES 233 Ad Amicum adolescentem, nuper Wintoniensem nunc Oxoniensem. Quo tendis sestu fervido desideri Impulsa, Musa, non levis ? Quo, carmen auspicata desuetum diu, Me jam senescentem rapis ? Quem mente puerum prosequebar anxia Oculoque plus-septennium, Quem junxit ejusdem usus hospiti laris, Junxere communes preces, Juvat remotum nunc ab aspectu procul Sic voce (quod possum) sequi, Qua, doctiori ascriptus Academi choro, Eipam Isidis sacram colit. Juvat, togatum nuper, aggredi virum, Juvat loquente colloqui, Et (si qua forsan parva consolatio Adsit vel huic munusculo) Miscere fletum, si licet, fletu juvat, Et vota votis addere.^ Morimur, amice, Morimur et dum vivimus ; Nee quid relictum jam manet Vitae prioris, sive jucundos dies, Seu mgestiores egimus. At non piget vixisse : Quid ? quod in locis, Quos Iseta quondam noverat, Mens haeret ultro, pristinae dulcedinis Indocta sensum ponere. Quoties imago, cum schola convenimus, Carissima assurgit tui Etiam sedentis, ut sedebas ante^, Adversus adverso mihi Discens docenti, parietem ad notissimum : En ! ora querneam super Pendentis arcam : En ! lumina, et fixum caput ; En ! diligentem dexteram Nunc calamum agentis, nunc revolventis libros Hinc unum, et illinc alterum ; * A younger brother, whom I had attended during his illness, had lately died at ' Sick House ' — the college sanatorium. 234 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE Non sine loquelis circiter mussantibus Sociorum idem discentium. Hsec me tuentem quale tacito pectore Credis fovere gaudium ? Quid? quod labores fallere liinc disco graves, Quot quot magistrum distraliunt ; Et nescio quid fronte contracts minax Externus, intus rideo. Tuque, interim, dilecte, nutricis domus Non prorsus oblivisceris ; Quin nos amore motus interdum pio Ventamque respectas tuam ; Tu rite ludorum, et memor sodalium, Tu literarum et artium ; Nee aure pura quicquid hausisti puer Servare te piget virum. Piget — pigebit — si quid aut deliquimus, Aut segnius perfecimus : Nee sat pigere : — rectiora in posterum Summis sequemur viribus. Cetera, perenni laude tollentes Deum, Omnis Datorem muneris, Animo et quod actum est recolimus gratissimo, Et spe futurum non mala. Jan. 1, 1844. Since the foregoing pages were written there has appeared in the English Illustrated Magazine (for Nov. 1890) an article entitled 'Winchester College.' The author, Frederick Gale, is now well known as an authority among athletes, especially upon cricket. He was a boy in college during 1836-41 inclusive, which were the first six years of my mastership. If I remember right, we were not always upon the best of terms as teacher and disciple ; but this only proves the amiableness of his disposition, for he is so good as to speak of his old master in the kindest manner — so kind, indeed, that I should be ashamed to quote the passage were it not that it mentions several particulars which had quite escaped my memory. PARTICIPATION IN GAMES 235 * And now I should like to say a word about the Bishop of St. Andrews when second master. No finer athlete ever entered a school, and no master ever did more to promote all that was noble and manly amongst boys ; and no man had more tact in proposing changes. In my time during my later years at Winchester, Mr. Wordsworth, as he then was, took an immense interest in cricket and all manly sports, and played a great deal both in practice and in matches, and brought elevens against us. In 1836 he was mainly instrumental in getting the college to form a new ground in " Meads " by digging out the peat soil over an area of eighty yards square, and filling it up with a substratum of chalk, faggots, new soil, and down turf ; and the work was so well done under his eye that it is as firm to-day as it was over fifty years ago. He also laid out a smaU ground for the junior boys, and in my later days he always gave leave from every roll- call for fellows playing in matches. He took great interest in his old pupils when they went into the upper school, and if he thought that any of them were too much devoted to amusement, he would try and enlist them as candidates for a prize which he gave to any boy in the Upper Fifth who would learn in play hours four hundred Hues of Cicero by heart : '^propter operam in exercendd memorid horis siihsecivis optime positam.''' He was the originator of making all boys in Middle Part the Fifth learn thirty lines of Cicero by heart every morning ; and I believe he was as fond of Cicero as he was of cricket, and he certainly made many boys like both and understand both. He never meddled with old- established customs ; but his suggestions were generally accepted ; and when he suggested to prefects that quiet should be kept in chambers at nine o'clock p.m. for ten minutes, to enable boys who wished to do so to say their prayers (in 1838), it was carried out at once ; as was another suggestion that on half-holidays, when leave from roll-calls was given from two o'clock till eight for matches, prefects should discontinue the twelve o'clock practice and give the fags a rest.' I had quite forgotten the improvement of the cricket ground in ' Meads ;' but I can now recall the circumstances. The ground required a thorough draining. The turf on the surface was good ; but (the subsoil being of a marshy character, and having never been drained) it could not be 236 ANNALS OF MY EAELY LIFE lively, or fair to the bowler, even in a hot season. Its character was much the same as that of the Oxford ground at Cowley Marsh, which I had taken in hand, and subjected to much the same process as that described in Gale's article (in imitation of what had been done not long before for Lord's ground at London), and thereby a very great im23rovement had been effected at a cost of 2001., subscribed by members of our then (so-called) Magdalen club. At Winchester the expense was undertaken by the college, through the influence of the good Warden. I had also forgotten the fact of the prize which my old pupil mentions ; but I can easily recog- nise it — indeed the words of the Latin inscription inserted in the prize books are enough to recall it to my recollection ; and I know I desired to introduce among the boys the learning by heart of Latin Prose. The repetition of VersCf both Greek and Latin, had always been a strong point at Winchester. As to Cicero, I still retain my fondness for the works of that author, especially his De Officiis, De Amicitid, and most of all his De Senectute ; to which, in my opinion, we have nothing of the kind at all equal in our own language. It was, I believe, owing in no small degree to my inter- course with the boys in their play hours that our school discipline, meanwhile, underwent a great change for the better. In an article on ' Eton College ' in the * Quarterly Eeview ' for the present month (July 1890) we are told that * Keate's propensity for flogging boys sixty years ago was scarcely less common at other schools. Gabell of Winchester flogged boys daily ; so did Butler of Shrewsbury and Butler of Harrow. The urbane Longley flogged fifty boys one morning for going to see a steeple-chase. It was the recognised method of dealing with boyish offences.' And no doubt my predecessor Bidding was equally ' plagosus ' with his superior * Orbilius,' Williams, who succeeded Gabell : for the second master equally with the head master had the power of the rod. It was not, I believe, unusual for TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT 237 him, after morning school, to castigate in that manner not less than four or five boys at a time who had been * tardy chapel.' But I can remember when, in replying to the toast of my health in the Warden's Gallery at a Domum Festival, I had the satisfaction of stating that not a single boy had been flogged by me during the whole of the long half-year which was then ended. And certainly there had been no relaxation — but quite the contrary — in the needful discipline of the school. Having thus disposed of the four prominent topics which, as I have said, marked the administration of my office at Winchester, I may now proceed to others of a more general character, taking them for the most part in their natural order — that is, the course of time. So long as my dear wife was spared to me our mid- summer holidays were spent abroad : in 1836, in a tour through Holland and Belgium, accompanied by my brother John ; in 1837 at Spa, and afterwards at various places on the Ehine ; in 1838, chiefly at Schwalbach, for the benefit of the waters, on my account : while our Christmas holidays were varied by visits to my dear friend Mrs. Hoare at Hamp- stead, and to my father at Cambridge. Of my foreign travels during those years what I remember with most interest was the journey which we took from Spa to Treves, and thence down the Moselle to Coblentz ; and our various excursions on the banks of the Ehine, always in a private vehicle, the only satisfactory way of making acquaintance with those delightful scenes. Treves, I think, is less known to tourists than it deserves to be. It is a most interesting town, both from its historical associations and from the abundance and variety of its Eoman remains. But its glory is now quite departed, and it appeared almost to have for- gotten that it had a history. Among other proofs of this, I was much disappointed at not being able to find a single 238 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE copy of Ausonius in any of the booksellers' shops, as I had hoped to have renewed my acquaintance with his poem of the Mosella as we were descending that beautiful river during two days in a barque. In May 1889 came the sudden blow — so sudden that I had no apprehension of it an hour before — which deprived me of my dearest Charlotte, in giving birth to our only child, a daughter, who still lives. All that human sympathy could do for me in my overwhelming affliction was done by the kindness of the good Warden and other friends upon the spot, but especially of Mrs. Hoare, who came at once to Winchester (bringing carriage and servants with her) to minister consolation in person in the first agonies of my bereavement, and remained with me for a fortnight ; and every topic of condolence which the truest affection could suggest was poured into my wound by the letters which I received from absent friends, and which I still preserve — especially from Hamilton, Claughton, Eoundell Palmer, William Palmer, and Liddell. Altogether they form a com- plete manual for a mourner on such an occasion. My Charlotte was buried within the Cloisters of the College, and a marble tablet to her memory on the south-east wall of the Ante-chapel (as it then was) bears the following inscription : M.S. Conjugis dulcissimaB Carolettse Wordsworth, quae, vixdum facta mater, ex amplexu mariti sublata est nocte Ascensionis Domini, Mai« X. MDCCCXXXIX. iEtat. xxii. I, nimium dilecta, vocat Deus ; I, bona nostr^e Pars anima3 : maerens altera, disce sequi. DOMESTIC BEEEAVEMENTS 239 Attention has been drawn to the Latin couplet by vari- ous attempts made to translate it ; among the rest, by one of the late Lord Derby, which appeared in the * Guardian ' newspaper on May 1, 1867, and is as follows : Too dearly loved, thy God hath called thee ; go, Go, thou best portion of this widowed heart : And thou, poor remnant lingering here in woe, So learn to follow as no more to part. It has also been rendered into couplets, both English and Greek, by Professor Lewis Campbell.^ Let me humbly recognise the Will and Wisdom of God in ordering that a union, however happy, which had begun, I feel, precipitately should be abruptly ended. The infant who thus came into the world was baptised in the College Chapel under the name of Charlotte Emmeline by my father on May 26 (Trinity Sunday) ; the sponsors being my sister-in-law Mrs. Abbot Upcher, my cousin Mrs. Fisher of Salisbury, Mrs. Hoare, and the Warden. The stroke which had smitten me so sorely in the spring of that year was followed in the winter by another, less sudden but also deeply afflictive — the death of my elder brother John, on Dec. 31. He was naturally of a delicate constitution, and for some years had rarely, if ever, been in the enjoyment of robust health. Both bereavements are referred to in the Preface to the second edition of my Greek Grammar, which came out at the beginning of 1840 ; and the following Greek epigram composed by my brother Christopher will show the affecting circumstances in which my experience of the latter visitation was combined with that * Three years ago I received a letter from a gentleman living in Glasgow, a stranger to me personally, and a Presbyterian, requesting me to allow him to make use of that inscription for a monument he was erecting to the memory of his wife. I gave my consent. 240 ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE of the former. My motherless babe arrived at Trinity Lodge the very day of my brother John's death. rjXOe^ aSaKpvTio <^at8pov yeXdoia-a 7r/oo(rto7ra) a\}/avorT60Si dXXd (TV x^tpe, LXov ' KCtvovS' ctti TVfx/3w wo-T€ poSov $dXXoLvpeoLrfTrjv, ^lA', iyoi fid\' oX/Sid^iDf fjidXa 8 €V)(OjxaL ttXccdv cot ;(a/3ts el