PR 
 4453 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FROM 
 
 Anonymous 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 4453.C55Z3 
 
 Memories of men and books; 
 
 3 1924 013 463 694 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013463694 
 
MEMORIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
Photo by Elliott <& Fry 
 
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MEMORIES 
 
 OP 
 
 MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 BY THK 
 
 EEV. ALFRED JOHN CHURCH, MA. 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' STOR EES FBOII HOMES ' ETC. 
 
 WITH A PORTRAIT. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SMITH, ELDEE, & CO., 15 WATEELOO PLACE 
 
 1908 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
^ 
 
 3 3J^ 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPT1GR PAGK 
 
 I. EABLY DATS 1 
 
 n. early days (continued) 17 
 
 hi. my schools 34 
 
 iv. oxford . . 48 
 
 v. a country curacy 75 
 
 vi. schoolmaster .91 
 
 vii. st. peter's, verb street 105 
 
 viii. prom stickleback to salmon 114 
 
 ix. prom stickleback to salmon (continued) . . 126 
 
 x. literary beginnings 138 
 
 XI. HENLEY-ON-THAMES AND EAST RETFORD . . 147 
 
 XII. UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON ... . 156 
 
 XIII. A COUNTRY PARSON AGAIN 170 
 
 XIV. A GREAT OPPORTUNITY 197 
 
 XV. RICHARD HOLT HUTTON 202 
 
 XVI. REVIEWING 221 
 
 XVII. MY BOOKS ... 239 
 
 XVin. SEVENTY YEARS OF CRICKET 250 
 
 XIX. FRUIT FARMER 260 
 
 XX. SOME PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN 269 
 
 INDEX 285 
 
MEMORIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 EABLY DAYS 
 
 I was born on January 29, 1829, a Londoner of the 
 Londoners, my father, grandfather, great-grand- 
 father, and great great-grandfather, having been 
 natives of Cocayne. I cannot suppose that this 
 is any distinction — Cocayne and Cockney, according 
 to the dictionaries, are ' used contemptuously ' — but 
 it is certainly unusual. London is replenished from 
 the provinces, and sends her children back to them, 
 sends them, indeed, all over the world. Originally 
 the family, so runs our tradition, came from Essex. 
 A certain John Church, one of the two bailiffs of 
 Maldon in Essex, had granted to him, in 1557, a crest 
 and shield which we still use with a difference. 1 
 John Church had two sons. The great-grandson and 
 
 1 The crest is a ' demi-greyhound Sable, gorged with a collar Or, 
 charged with three lozenges Chiles, holding a trefoil of the second ' ; 
 the shield is ' argent, on a fess engrailed between three greyhounds' 
 heads, erased, Sable, collared and ringed Or, three trefoils slipped of 
 the last.' 
 
 B 
 
2 MEMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 last descendant of the elder was one Percy Church, 
 Groom of the Privy Chamber and afterwards Equerry 
 to Queen Henrietta Maria. The younger son had 
 male descendants whose succession we have not 
 been able tp trace. But the family tradition is 
 that one of them was Jeremiah Jedidiah Church, 
 born in 1688, married to Sarah Barber in St. Andrew's- 
 by-the- Wardrobe on July 16, 1716. His elder son, 
 John, was born on July 12, 1717, the father being 
 described in the register of St. Andrew's, Holborn, 
 as of ' Theobald's Rowe ' ; the house in which I was 
 born adjoined this street. A younger son, George, 
 was born in 1727, was appointed in 1762 to a post 
 in Chelsea Hospital, and died in 1792. He is buried in 
 the Hospital graveyard. His widow Miriam survived 
 him twenty-three years, dying in 1816, at the age of 
 ninety-five. George and Miriam Church had two 
 sons, Henry Edward, born in 1760, and Stephen 
 George, born in 1762. The younger son, Stephen 
 George, is the only one of the family who can be said 
 to have left his mark on English history. He died 
 in command of the frigate La Topaze on September 6, 
 1801. He served for eight years in the same ships 
 with Prince William Henry (afterwards William IV.), 
 who was three years his junior, and remained on 
 terms of friendship with him up to the end of his life. 
 James, in his ' Naval History ' (second edition), gives 
 this account of Stephen G. Church's chief achieve- 
 ment : 
 
EAELY DAYS 3 
 
 'On August 28 (1796), at 5 A.M., as a British 
 squadron, composed of the Resolution, 74 (Vice- 
 Admiral George Murray) ; the Assistance, 50 ; Thetis, 
 38; Topaze, 36 (Stephen G. Church); Thisbe, 28; 
 Bermuda, 14 ; was lying becalmed about four leagues 
 east-south-east from Cape Henry (off the coast of 
 Virginia), three strange ships made their appearance 
 in the east-north-east quarter. The signal was 
 made for a general chase, but the British ships 
 were unable to steer before noon. At 5.30 p.m., the 
 Topaze, which was considerably ahead of the re- 
 mainder of her squadron, brought the sternmost of 
 the enemy's ships to action. This ship, which was 
 the French frigate Elizabet, of 36 guns (twenty 
 4-pounders on the main deck, and twelve 8-pounders 
 on the quarter-deck and forecastle) and 297 men, 
 fired a broadside and hauled down her colours.' 
 James adds that the Elizabet was taken to Halifax, 
 Nova Scotia ; but having been found to have been 
 an Indiaman and a bad sailer bought for the French 
 navy, was not purchased for the British navy. This 
 doubtless diminished the value of my uncle's prize. 
 The Topaze had been captured from the French in 
 1793 ; possibly this accounts for her being so much 
 ahead of the rest of the squadron. 
 
 Captain Church was a man of remarkably devout 
 temper, and the privilege of serving on board his 
 ship was much sought after by serious parents for 
 their sons. More than one letter from the Reverend 
 
 3 2 
 
4 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 John Newton, the friend of the poet Cowper, testifies 
 to this fact. Newton writes, for instance, under 
 date of June 23, 1796, to Captain Church's wife, 
 about a commission with which he had been entrusted, 
 the procuring of some ' papers ' — tracts, I suppose we 
 should now call them — which might be ' useful to 
 those under his command.' ' I believe there are 
 none yet published,' he adds, ' expressly designed 
 for mariners.' 
 
 My grandfather, Henry Edward Church (6. 1760), 
 was a barrister-at-law, admitted at Gray's Inn, 
 March 1785. He was made Deputy-Clerk of the 
 Hanaper in 1783, and Clerk of Inrolments in Bank- 
 ruptcy in 1792. To this latter office my father 
 succeeded when my grandfather died, in 1825. A 
 tradition preserved in the family relates how Henry 
 Edward Church unwittingly amused the Lord Chan- 
 cellor's Court — there were in those days two Courts 
 only of Chancery, presided over by the Lord Chan- 
 cellor and the Master of the Rolls. He had given to 
 his daughter, Selina Elizabeth, of whom I shall have 
 to say a little hereafter, an old blue bag, which she 
 used as a receptacle for her dolls. This bag, leaving 
 home in a hurry one morning, he took with him into 
 Court, where he had to be present in some official 
 capacity. Asked to produce some document or will 
 he had in his keeping, he thrust in his hand, and 
 brought out a bald-headed doll. This daughter 
 married Jeremiah Jackson in 1806. Among her 
 
BAELY DAYS 5 
 
 grandchildren may be mentioned William Jackson 
 Brodribb (died October, 1905), my collaborator in the 
 translation of ' Tacitus ' and other works, Sir John 
 Robert Seeley, K.C.M.G., Professor of Modern History 
 at Cambridge (died 1895), and Richmond Seeley — to 
 whose good taste and good offices, generously shown 
 in the publishing of many of my books, I owe more 
 than I can express. 
 
 The family name, also, gave occasion for a time- 
 honoured jest, which Lord Eldon never failed to 
 produce for the amusement of a dutifully appreciative 
 audience. My father was one of the parties to a 
 friendly suit, ' Church v. King.' The suit, I need 
 hardly say, survived Lord Eldon, and not a few of his 
 successors. I believe that it still exists, in this 
 shape at least, that there are funds connected with it 
 still in the keeping of the Court, and, indeed, likely 
 to remain so, as the cost of claiming them and getting 
 them paid out would more than swallow them up. 
 
 My father served as a midshipman for a few 
 months, with his uncle mentioned above. On Captain 
 Church's death, this plan of life was changed. He 
 was articled to a solicitor, and in due course was 
 admitted to practise. His early experience was 
 unfortunate ; he entered into partnership with an 
 older man, whose name it is not necessary to mention. 
 This partner got into trouble, and left my father 
 responsible for the debts of the firm. Another 
 burden, always most cheerfully borne, was the 
 
6 MBMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 necessity of helping a relative who had been early 
 left a widow in narrow circumstances. To this 
 purpose he was accustomed to appropriate all the 
 income derived from his office in the Bankruptcy 
 Court, amounting, after the payment of a deputy, 
 to not less than 300Z. a year. 1 My father also held 
 the office of Vestry Clerk to the Parish of St. George 
 the Martyr, an office which, I imagine, gave him 
 far more trouble than was made up for by his salary. 
 The parish had raised money in by-gone years, 
 for the building or repairing of the church, or the 
 purchase of a burial-ground — anyhow, for some eccle- 
 siastical or quasi-ecclesiastical purpose. This it had 
 done in a very improvident way, granting annuities 
 for insufficient considerations. It must be remem- 
 bered, however, that the money had been raised 
 during the Napoleonic war, when high interest had 
 
 1 All the work that my father had to do was to sign the bankrupt's 
 certificate. I remember that the deputy used to bring from time to 
 time a bag full of these documents. Every creditor had to affix his 
 name with the amount of his debt. I remember one of them to which, 
 I suppose, he had specially called the attention of his family. It had 
 to do with a firm of West End bankers which had failed. I remember 
 the first signature on the list of creditors was ' Norfolk. 62,000?.' (I 
 cannotrecalltheexactsum). (This must have been the thirteenth Duke, 
 d. 1856). The Duke had, I believe, sold an estate — Worksop Priory, 
 I think — and deposited the purchase money a few days only before 
 the failure of the bank. The history of my father's office is curious. 
 By a change in the law enrolment was made optional. The conserva- 
 tive spirit which prevails in the profession kept up the practice for a 
 time, but it naturally diminished, as indeed might be expected, seeing 
 that the fees paid were money absolutely wasted. Then it was 
 abolished, but my father had the greatest difficulty in obtaining 
 compensation. 
 
EAELY DAYS 7 
 
 to be paid, the average price of Consols was 65l., 
 giving 4Z. 12s. 3d. per cent. The consequence was 
 that a heavy rate — as rates were reckoned in those 
 days — had to be raised under the unpopular name of 
 a Church rate. A fierce agitation was carried on 
 against it, unreasonable, of course, but not, therefore, 
 the less natural. People were paying for something 
 which had never been of any use to them, and they 
 could not or would not be convinced that they were 
 but fulfilling a legal obligation. Every parish contains 
 restless spirits to whom such affairs are, so to speak, 
 meat and drink. One fiery orator, of Eed Lion Street, 
 declared that ' the aristocrats of Bedford Row were 
 ready to ride with the blood of the people up to their 
 saddle-girths ' — a vehement way, to say the least, 
 of putting the hardship of even a shilling rate. I do 
 not suppose my father was much troubled by these 
 attacks, though he regretted, I know, the disturbance 
 of harmony in the parish. But he did suffer acutely 
 from an affair which was connected with this same 
 rate. The vestry determined to contest the validity 
 of the annuities which their predecessors had granted. 
 The annuitants were provokingly long-lived, after 
 the manner of their kind, and the anti-rate agitators 
 had probably obtained a majority on the vestry, 
 a very likely event, the friends of order being as 
 unwilling then as they are now to take any trouble 
 in local affairs. My father made strong representa- 
 tions against the resolution, but was over-ruled, and 
 
8 MEMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 the suit was brought. Perhaps he ought to have 
 resigned his office rather than act as solicitor in 
 such case ; but a connection of so many years is not 
 easily broken. The suit was brought in the Court 
 of one of the Vice-Chancellors — a legal office which 
 was created and abolished in the course of the nine- 
 teenth century — and this particular Vice-Chancellor 
 was Sir James Knight Bruce, a judge famed for the 
 pungent wit with which he enlivened his utterances 
 from the Bench. He made very short work with the 
 cause. It was a scandalous business, he said, and 
 one which no professional man ought to have con- 
 sented to take up. ' And who, pray,' he asked, ' is 
 the solicitor in this case ? ' My father had to stand 
 up from the seat which he occupied in the well of the 
 Court. And here I must explain that the judge and 
 he were on terms of something like friendship. Knight 
 Bruce had begun life in a solicitor's office, occupying 
 a clerkship of quite a humble kind; then he had 
 gone to the Bar, and my father had given him his 
 first brief. 'What! You, Mr. Church!' he said. 
 It was a compliment in a way, but it was a compli- 
 ment that pierced like a knife. 
 
 I must say a few words about my mother. She 
 was by birth a Booty, a Norfolk family, I believe, 
 and my father's second cousin, having a common 
 great-grandfather in Jeremiah Jedidiah. Never was 
 there a better wife and mother. I can truly say 
 that I never heard a word of difference between my 
 
EAELY DAYS 9 
 
 father and mother, and I was much at home from 
 the year of my leaving school (1843) till 1853, when 
 I was ordained and settled in Wiltshire. She managed 
 all domestic affairs, settling, for instance, the place 
 of our annual summer migration. 1 He never ques- 
 tioned or, I am sure, had any reason to question 
 her decisions. To her children she was all that a 
 mother ought to be, and she kept her servants for 
 periods of time which now might seem almost in- 
 credible. In 1859, when our cook left us, after 
 twenty-two years' service, to be married, our three 
 servants averaged a period of about seventeen years. 
 
 Six of my parents' children died in infancy or 
 childhood ; the six who survived were : 
 
 1. Ellen Douglas, born August 5, 1822, died, un- 
 married, February 24, 1897. She had considerable 
 literary ability, which displayed itself in the unpro- 
 fitable form of verse. What she wrote achieved the 
 honour of publication, but not, I take it, of payment. 
 
 1 It may serve as an interesting proof of the great increase of 
 expense of a summer outing to say that my father never paid more 
 than three guineas and a half per week for a furnished house, with 
 not less than six bedrooms, even at such favourite resorts as Henley 
 and Broadstairs. Once, in a later year, my mother, who always looked 
 out for the house, came back lamenting that she had been compelled 
 to exceed this sum. The landlord asked four guineas, she told us, 
 ' but,' she went on, ' he agreed when I offered to split the difference 
 and give him 3i. 15s.' She was genuinely distressed when we pointed 
 out to her that she had risen eighteen pence and he had come down 
 nine shillings. She died in her eighty-sixth year, after a long illness 
 from cancer, which did not make itself felt till she was nearly eighty. 
 This suggests that one of the causes of the greater prevalence of this 
 disease may be the increase in longevity. 
 
10 MEMOEIBS OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 2. Henry Francis, born April 29, 1824]f; solicitor, 
 May 6, 1846 ; Chief Clerk of the Court of Chancery, 
 Nov. 3, 1866 — (the title of this office was changed in 
 1897 to ' Master of the Supreme Court of Judicature '). 
 He died August 16, 1899. 
 
 3. Julien Eoberts, born March 23, 1826 ; Solicitor, 
 1851 ; died May 28, 1890. 
 
 4. Alfred John. 
 
 5. Arthur Herbert, born June 2, 1834; M.A. 
 Oxford, 1863 ; F.R.S., 1888 ; Professor of Chemistry 
 to the Royal Academy since 1879. 
 
 6. Maria Folgham, born July 23, 1838, married 
 July 7, 1857, John Fulford Vicary, of North 
 Tawton, co. Devon. She was left a widow in 
 1887. 
 
 Before I begin on my own experiences I should 
 like to say something about the London of my child- 
 hood — the London of the 'Thirties. The figures by 
 which the growth of seventy years is expressed 
 are striking enough. In 1831 the population was 
 something over a million and a half ; it is now more 
 than four millions and a half ; the houses have 
 increased from something under 200,000 to more 
 than 700,000. But figures cannot be realised; here 
 are two expressive facts. My father was in the 
 habit of taking a house in the country for the three 
 summer months ; commonly it was to some seaside 
 place that we went. We were at Margate, for in- 
 stance, in a cholera year in the 'Thirties — I remember 
 
EARLY DAYS 11 
 
 the dead flies that thickly covered the window seats. 
 In 1834 we made the accustomed migration, but it 
 was not further than to Sydenham. It will seem 
 odd to this generation to think of Sydenham as a 
 country spot. Yet it was so. I remember that we had 
 a picnic in Penge Wood. What has become of Penge 
 Wood now ? There was a canal at the bottom of the 
 garden of our house. The canal has been absorbed 
 by the South-Eastern and Chatham railway ; all 
 that now remains of it is a small pond at Anerley. 
 It may sound even more strange when I say that two 
 years later we spent the summer at Kentish Town. 
 And the house we had was, I remember, within a 
 hundred yards or so of the open country. I may 
 mention another reminiscence of these migrations. 
 This was as late as 1846, and our summer abode was 
 at Henley-on-Thames. My father hired the whole 
 of the Henley coach for the day — presumably some 
 other vehicle was put on for the public use — and it 
 was driven up to our house in Bedford Row, and 
 duly loaded with the family and its belongings. 
 I will jot down here a few of my other recollections. 
 The new buildings of the British Museum were, of 
 course, commenced some years before my birth — as 
 early, indeed, as 1820 ; but I remember well the old 
 Montague House, which was purchased by the 
 nation in 1754, and which finally disappeared in 
 1845. I seem to see, as I write, the stately staircase, 
 with the stuffed giraffes, lions and tigers set on either 
 
12 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 side. I used about this time to use the reading-room 
 of the Museum, consisting of two dingy chambers, 
 and haunted, it was said, by a peculiarly virulent 
 kind of flea. I have still a vivid remembrance of 
 some queer creatures who frequented the place. I 
 remember Madame Tussaud sitting at the receipt 
 of custom at the door of the exhibition called by her 
 name. What a change was this for the woman 
 who had been called in to take a plaster cast of the 
 severed head of the Princesse de Lamballe, and who 
 had received an elaborate compliment from the lips 
 of the great Robespierre himself ! Then there was 
 the Adelaide Gallery, with its steam-gun, an anticipa- 
 tion of the mitrailleuse and other quick-firing artillery 
 of recent days. Punch was a frequent visitor in the 
 streets. He is still to the fore somewhere; but London, 
 at least central London, sees him no more. And 
 what has become of the Broken Bridge, a peep-show 
 entertainment of those days ? One of the sights of the 
 year was when the Post Office mail carts turned out 
 on the Queen's birthday, their drivers resplendent in 
 their new scarlet coats. There were some twenty of 
 these which were kept in the mews behind Bedford 
 Row. What a review the carts and coaches of to-day 
 would make if they could be brought together ! 
 But I am speaking of ante penny post days, when a 
 letter from outside the London district cost any sum 
 up to a shilling, or more. My father, I remember, 
 had a monthly bill of postages from the authorities. 
 
EAELY DAYS 13 
 
 What a complication of accounts would such a plan 
 bring about nowadays ! 
 
 The amenity of London has been vastly increased 
 since the time of which I am writing. What may be 
 called the Holborn and Bloomsbury district was far 
 superior in cleanliness and respectability to others 
 that might be named. Yet here there were ' slums ' 
 which most people made a point of avoiding. No 
 one, certainly no lady, thought of following the 
 thoroughfare of Holborn past St. Giles's Church into 
 Oxford Street. (This was, of course, before the 
 construction of New Oxford Street.) The usual 
 route was to turn off up Southampton Row, into 
 Great Russell Street, and make one's way into 
 Oxford Street by Hanway Street. This last was a 
 most frequented and prosperous thoroughfare, filled 
 with good shops. When I saw it last, a year or so ago, 
 it was but the ghost — and the very shabby ghost — 
 of its old self. I should much like to know the 
 difference in the rentals between 1850 and 1900. 
 Drury Lane and Seven Dials made up a very un- 
 desirable neighbourhood. As late as 1846, when I 
 had to go from my home in Bedford Row to King's 
 College, I would make my way into the Strand by 
 Great and Little Boswell Court — both of them long 
 since vanished — in the morning and up to three 
 o'clock or so in the afternoon, but was careful to 
 take a safer route later in the day. I remember 
 that in Great Boswell Court there used to be a watch- 
 
]4 MEMORIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 man's box drawn up on the wall, a curious reminis- 
 cence of the days before Sir Robert furnished London 
 with a really efficient police — still called ' Peelers ' 
 by many who probably do not know the origin of 
 the nickname. 1 Then, at the bottom of Holborn Hill 
 there was Field Lane, with its flaunting show of silk 
 pocket-handkerchiefs, every one of them notoriously 
 stolen, a strange defiance of law to which time had 
 habituated the long-suffering Londoner. A notable 
 change of another kind may be seen in Bedford Row, 
 to which my father moved in 1839. The street 
 looked, I imagine, much the same then as it looks 
 now. The change is in the character of the occu- 
 pancy. At that time many of the houses were private 
 residences ; in others some part was used for offices, 
 and the rest served for a dwelling-house ; very few 
 consisted of business premises only. Our next-door 
 neighbour on one side was a gentleman of inde- 
 pendent means, who must have been born before the 
 ' 'Forty-five,' for he was then considerably over 
 ninety. I remember he showed us the neighbourly 
 attention of sending in a basket of grapes grown in 
 his own garden — I believe that the vine still exists. 
 On the other side was the private residence of a 
 coach-builder who had his factory in Holborn. He 
 was a wealthy man, who would now have his country 
 house twenty miles or so out of London. On the 
 other side of the road lived Mr. Tooke, a writer on 
 
 1 The police force, as it ia now constituted in London, is five 
 months, short of ten days, younger than myself. 
 
BAELY DAYS 15 
 
 political economy of considerable note ; immediately 
 opposite was some one whose name I forget, who 
 possessed a small gallery of pictures which must have 
 had something of a European reputation — I remember 
 the King of Prussia coming to see it. This must 
 have been in 1842, when he visited England for the 
 purpose of standing godfather to our present King. 
 
 I must say one word about another London 
 change, and this one that it is vastly for the better 
 — the keeping up of the parks. In the 'Thirties, 
 and, indeed, much later, these were left in something 
 like desolation — pleasant, as open spaces cannot but 
 be in the midst of a great city — but wholly uncared 
 for, and without ornament. The Green Park, in 
 particular, traversed by numberless paths and 
 tracks, was like an ill-kept village green. The only 
 one that was in any way cultivated was St. James's. 
 
 In other respects, also, London has been greatly 
 improved during the seventy odd years over which 
 my memory goes back. I can remember a maze of 
 mean little streets where Cannon Street now stands, 
 and Cannon Street itself looks somewhat paltry when 
 compared with the magnificence of more recent 
 improvements. And then there is the Embankment. 
 What an improvement on the waste of mud that 
 used to border the river ! And the river itself, 
 if not exactly pellucid, is greatly changed for the 
 better. Who that saw — and smelt — the blue-black 
 stream which flowed backwards and forwards under 
 
1.6 MBMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 the bridges in the summer of 1859 can forget the 
 offence to eye and nose ? But the change has cost 
 something. The London cricket grounds have 
 perished. Lord's and the Oval have, indeed, been 
 preserved, though both were at one time threatened 
 by the builder. But the Beehive ground at Wal- 
 worth, that on Copenhagen Fields, now occupied 
 by the Cattle Market, and the Eton and Middlesex, 
 near Chalk Farm, have disappeared. I have played 
 many a game on the two latter, and I remember 
 one visit to Walworth. I recollect how my brother 
 and I and one of my father's clerks carried our 
 wickets and bats down Fleet Street. It must have 
 been unusual then, or why should it have fixed 
 itself in my mind ? Then there were open-air racket 
 courts ; one at the Oval, others in the Kennington 
 Road, at the top of Battle Bridge and at the bottom 
 of Haverstock Hill. I have had many a game at 
 this last with my cousins John and Richmond Seeley. 
 Once I had the honour of ' crossing rackets ' — if the 
 phrase may be allowed — with Charles Stuart Calver- 
 ley, the ' C.S.C of the incomparable ' Fly Leaves,' 
 &c. A good many Londoners can only look on at 
 games in which their fathers used to share. I can 
 remember how, in the luncheon interval at Lords 
 — which used to be at three o'clock — the ground 
 was covered with wickets. It must be confessed 
 that this did not improve the turf, and that the 
 ground is very much improved from what it was then. 
 
17 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 early days — (continued) 
 
 And now for a few personal experiences and recol- 
 lections. First must come an incident which I 
 cannot, indeed, recollect, but which I have received 
 from a constant family tradition. In the year of 
 my birth my father, or, to speak more accurately, 
 my mother, chose Broadstairs for the scene of the 
 annual family migration. Near this place, then a 
 small seaside village, the Duchess of Kent was then 
 living with the Princess Victoria, and it chanced 
 one day that the two met the nurse who was carrying 
 me, then a baby, and as partial kinsfolk averred, a 
 fine baby of six months. ' What a lovely baby ! ' 
 cried the Princess — (I tell the tale as the nurse told 
 it at home, and as it was religiously handed on) — 
 ' May I kiss him, mamma ? ' And she kissed me. 
 Surely an auspicious beginning ! 
 
 My first distinct recollection, apart from certain 
 dim memories of a fall from some steps at Deal, 
 and of huge threatening waves, as they seemed to me, 
 on the Deal beach, is of the passing of the Reform Bill. 
 This takes me back to June, 1832, when I was some 
 
 C 
 
18 MBMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 four months over three. 1 I remember the crowds of 
 people passing up and down Theobald's Eoad, 
 and, though here I must draw on what I afterwards 
 was told, the illuminations at night. In those days 
 illuminations were not confined to the main streets 
 and to the chief premises among them ; everyone 
 had to make some display, and this was commonly 
 done by putting a candle behind every pane in the 
 windows. If the occasion was one which appealed 
 to popular feeling, and this the passing of the Reform 
 Bill assuredly was, the penalty inflicted on an irre- 
 sponsive house was to have the windows broken. 
 My father, who was ' as blue as they make them,' 
 certainly felt no delight in Reform, but he had to 
 follow the example of his neighbours and make 
 believe to be glad. 
 
 An early recollection of a definite kind is of the 
 newspaper, with the black lines dividing the columne, 
 in which the death of William IV. was announced. 
 Before this date, however, the Carlist war had come 
 to its height, and I was, I remember, a hot Carlist, 
 having a sympathiser in the brother next above me 
 in age, doubtless out of opposition to the older and 
 wiser sister and brother, who had taken up the 
 cause of the ' Innocent Isabella.' I cannot exactly 
 fix the date of this political fervour, for the Carlist 
 
 1 The Bill was read for the third time in the House of Lords, after 
 passing through more than one threatening crisis, on June 4, and 
 received the Royal Assent on June 7. 
 
EAELY DAYS 19 
 
 war lasted down from 1835 to 1840. England, it will 
 be remembered, took an informal hand, so to speak, 
 in the affair by sending, or permitting the sending, 
 of a Legion under Sir De Lacy Evans. For years 
 afterwards men in tattered uniforms who had, or 
 perhaps had not, served in Spain, might be seen 
 sweeping crossings, or frankly begging without even 
 that pretence. 
 
 Among my recollections of childish days are some 
 that are anything but cheerful. Most of them 
 have to do with an ailment of the dyspeptic kind, 
 which has troubled me, not without a salutary 
 warning, for the greater part of my life. For a year 
 or so I was fed on biscuit, dressed, I dare say, with as 
 much variety and ingenuity as domestic skill per- 
 mitted, but becoming horribly distasteful. I have a 
 vivid recollection of some odious mess in which the 
 food was mixed up with meat gravy. This ailment 
 doubtless was the cause of some dreadful dreams, 
 which I have never forgotten — in one I seemed to see 
 a hideous giant whose head reached to our nursery 
 windows on the third floor, walking up the familiar 
 thoroughfare of Great James Street — it is the 
 familiarity of the surrounding that gives its special 
 horror to the nightmare. This tendency was made 
 worse by vivid imagination. Did any other child see 
 the flames of hell in the convolutions of a sheepskin 
 binding ? A more present terror came upon me 
 when I heard, as I thought, the roaring of lions on 
 
 c 2 
 
20 MEMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 the staircase that led up to the nursery. I had 
 been put by a nurse, who certainly attained a ' record ' 
 in injudicious punishment, to say my prayers in the 
 dark. What horrors children suffer from the foolish 
 persons in whose charge they are sometimes put ! 
 And yet this woman was a kind-hearted, careful 
 woman, who tried to do her best for the children in 
 her keeping. 
 
 I have said that my father lived at his place of 
 business. One obvious disadvantage was that, except 
 in his actual holiday, which was very brief, he never 
 got away from his work. Clients often came in the 
 evening because they were pretty sure to find him at 
 home. He was accustomed, and this voluntarily, to 
 prolong his labours far beyond business hours — so he 
 wrote up his professional journal, which was always 
 very detailed, in the evening. I do not know whether 
 it was a good thing or not that his family knew 
 much more about the professional part of his life 
 than they would have known if the office had been 
 in town and the home in the suburbs. This gave 
 me an outside knowledge of legal matters, which I 
 have found useful for literary purposes. It was 
 thus, too, that I got into the way of frequenting the 
 law courts, such at least as were held at our end of 
 the town. I remember seeing Lord Lyndhurst sit 
 for the last time as Chancellor when Sir Robert 
 Peel went out of office in 1846. (It was probably 
 some day towards the end of June.) He delivered 
 
BAELY DAYS 21 
 
 a number of judgments which he had taken time to 
 consider. I was struck with his look of exhaustion 
 and suffering. One might have thought him a dying 
 man. But he lived seventeen years longer, dying 
 in 1863, in his ninety-second year. He added largely 
 to his reputation during this period of his life. He 
 was freed from the trammels of party and could 
 bring to the consideration of national questions an 
 intelligence which, always of the keenest, was now 
 without bias or constraint. It is noticeable that 
 during this later period he, once the obstinate oppo- 
 nent of Reform, was inclined to a Liberal policy. 
 The other Equity Court of which I have a vivid 
 recollection is that of the Vice-Chancellor of England, 
 Sir Lancelot Shadwell. The leading counsel in it 
 at that time were John Stuart, afterwards one of 
 the Vice-Chancellors, and Richard Bethell, after- 
 wards Lord Westbury. They were ill-matched as 
 far as ability and legal knowledge were concerned, 
 but Stuart had the advantage of never knowing 
 when he was beaten, and stood up to his formidable 
 antagonist with unfaltering courage. I can well 
 recall Bethell's somewhat affected utterance, which 
 was wont, however, to be forgotten when he was 
 carried along by the full tide of his argument. He 
 dominated the Court, or, if that expression is too 
 strong, exercised over it a most unusual influence. 
 Shadwell was not, I take it, a great lawyer, but he 
 was one of the most popular of men. He was, if I 
 
22 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 may borrow the expression from the Eton vocabu- 
 lary, a ' wet bob.' He was a patron of the boating 
 world, and was never so happy as when he was disport- 
 ing himself either on or in the river. A story is told 
 of how two solicitors who had to make an application 
 in some urgent matter during the Long Vacation 
 found that he was bathing. He swam up to the 
 boat, and held on to it while he heard the argument 
 and gave the necessary order. 
 
 I remember being present about this time at a 
 meeting held at Exeter Hall to promote the abolition 
 of the punishment of death. The arguments used 
 by the speakers I have forgotten, but I remember 
 some of the men. Lord Nugent (1788-1850) was, 
 I think, in the chair. He was well known as an 
 ardent friend of the cause of Polish Independence. 
 Daniel O'Connell was present and spoke, but ill-health 
 had taken away the vigour of his eloquence. He 
 could, indeed, scarcely be heard. I remember well 
 his full, red face, not unlike a full moon when it is 
 seen through a mist. He left England a few weeks 
 afterwards, dying at Genoa in 1847. Another orator 
 was Dr. Mortimer, then headmaster of the City of 
 London School. I remember that when he came 
 forward to speak he was greeted with angry cries of 
 ' Priest ! Priest ! ' On the same occasion I saw John 
 Bright — indeed, rode in the same omnibus with him. 
 
 The Exeter Hall audiences were commonly of a 
 very different temper. The May Meetings were at 
 
EAELY DAYS 23 
 
 their flourishing period. A young relative of mine 
 the other day, asked by a serious cousin whether 
 she had attended any of these, supposed that they 
 came off at Epsom. My memory brings back to me 
 one of these gatherings, when I heard two great 
 speakers of the time, Hugh Stowell and Hugh McNeile. 
 Curiously enough one detail of the latter's speech 
 has stuck by me. He was arguing that the appoint- 
 ment of Christian ministers need not necessarily 
 be by popular election, and that too much stress must 
 not be laid on the word x ei 'P 0T0V ^ v - Originally, of 
 course, it meant to vote by raising the hand, and 
 so to elect by show of hands, but in course of time it 
 came to signify choosing generally. So Appian 
 wrote that Alexander chose (exeiporovrjcrkv) Hephses- 
 tion as his friend. 
 
 One more recollection of Exeter Hall I must give. 
 It was a concert in the Great Hall for the benefit of a 
 singer named Genge, a tenor, if I remember right, 
 in the choir of Lincoln's Inn Chapel. The public 
 had their money's worth, for the concert lasted till 
 close upon midnight, and they heard some of the 
 most popular singers of the day. I remember that 
 the younger Lablache sang ' Figaro qua, Figaro la ! ' 
 Miss Poole ' Wapping Old Stairs ' — she died the 
 other day, at the age of eighty-three — and Miss Dolby 
 (afterwards Madame Sainton-Dolby) something which 
 I cannot remember. 
 
 One notable change that has come over the 
 
24 MEMORIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 district is to be seen in the churches and chapels. 
 I can enumerate seven parish or district churches or 
 chapels of ease which stood within a radius of a quarter 
 of a mile, some of them crowded, the others respect- 
 ably filled. There was St. Andrew's, Holborn, 
 served about the time of which I am speaking by the 
 Kev. J. J. Toogood, distinguished as the heaviest 
 man that ever rowed in the Oxford University boat — 
 he was No. 5 in the crew of 1827. Trinity, Gray's 
 Inn Eoad, was a district of St. Andrew's, and St. 
 Bartholomew, in the same locality, was a chapel-of- 
 ease within its borders. It had once belonged to a 
 somewhat notorious person of the name of Hunting- 
 don. Another chapel-of-ease was in Ely Place ; 
 this has disappeared. Another parish church was 
 St. George-the-Martyr in Queen's Square ; the rector 
 was Vowler Short, brother to a well-known Bishop 
 of Adelaide. Yet another St. George (Bloomsbury) 
 could boast of the largest congregations in London. 
 The preacher who attracted them was Montagu 
 Villiers, afterwards Bishop of Durham. The place 
 and the name suggests good things which I am loath 
 to leave untold. The steeple is meant to be a repro- 
 duction of the famous Mausoleum of Halicarnassos, 
 though it departs considerably from the true pro- 
 portions, which indeed, were at the time of building 
 known only from books. 1 This seems to be still 
 
 1 The remains of the actual building were discovered in 1820 by 
 Newton and Fellowes. 
 
EABLY DAYS 25 
 
 unknown to some people : a writer in the press, only 
 the other day, ridiculed the Bloomsburyites for not 
 having a better saint than George II., in whose reign 
 the church was built. His statue, it is true, sur- 
 mounts the steeple, but this was in accordance with 
 the original on the summit of which stood the statue 
 of Mausolus. Exigencies of space forbade the intro- 
 duction of the four-horsed chariot in which the king 
 stood. Ignorance of all this is, it is true, more 
 excusable than that indicated by a phrase which 
 I remember seeing, some forty years ago, in the 
 leading article of a great London daily : — ' When 
 Artemisia,' said the scribe, in his grandest style, 
 ' built the Mausoleum of the Pharaohs.' Dr. Villiers 
 was certainly less successful as a bishop than he had 
 been as a popular preacher. He appointed to one 
 of the best livings in his diocese — and some of the 
 Durham livings are very good — a gentleman of the 
 name of Cheese, whose most obvious qualification 
 was that he was the Bishop's son-in-law. This 
 brought upon him not a little invective and ridicule. 
 Of this latter one of the happiest specimens was an 
 epigrammatic translation attributed by Punch to 
 Samuel Wilberforce, of the Shepherd's complaint in 
 Virgil. He is telling his companions that in old days, 
 when his affairs were mismanaged by a careless 
 and slatternly wife, ' the rich cheese would be pressed 
 for the thankless town,' i.e. he did not get the fair 
 profit for the produce which he sent to market — 
 
26 MBMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 ' pinguis et , ingratse premeretur caseus urbi,' runs 
 the Latin, and this is the translation : 
 
 ' " Prophetic Virgil ! " now may Durham own, 
 " I've pressed my cheese upon a thankless town." ' 
 
 Another Anglican place of worship which was 
 always crowded stood at the northern end of Great 
 James Street — St. John's Chapel — of which Baptist 
 Noel was for many years the minister. With its 
 spacious galleries it must have held a congregation 
 of between fifteen hundred and two thousand, and it 
 was invariably crowded. Many of the worshippers 
 came, it is true, from a distance — I do not suppose that 
 as a rule a local congregation would have contributed 
 the 1,500?. which was raised on a single Sunday for 
 the Irish famine of 1846. The building has now 
 disappeared, and nothing has taken its place. I 
 often heard Baptist Noel preach. His sermons 
 would now be regarded as intolerably long — they 
 commonly lasted for an hour and a quarter. My 
 recollection of them is that for the first hour they 
 were but moderately interesting, but that in the 
 fifteen minutes that followed he warmed into genuine 
 eloquence. He always had the advantage of a 
 gracious presence and a silvery voice. In 1848 he 
 seceded from the Anglican Church, joined the Baptist 
 community, and became minister of John Street 
 Chapel, a mixed society of Baptists and Independents. 1 
 
 1 The history of this building is curious. It was constructed at 
 
EAELY DAYS 27 
 
 James Harrington Evans, his predecessor there, 
 had gone through a somewhat similar experience, 
 having once been a Fellow of Wadham College, 
 Oxford, and in Anglican orders. Of this church my 
 father and mother were members. This was another 
 crowded place of worship, for Mr. Evans was regarded 
 with great enthusiasm. His sermons were highly 
 ' experimental ' ; of dogma, beyond the Atonement, 
 they contained scarcely anything. Young as I was 
 when I attended there, I was greatly impressed with 
 the celebration of the ' Lord's Supper ' as it was 
 practised on the evening of the first Sunday in the 
 month. The Church members occupied the floor 
 of the chapel, the rest of the congregation sitting in 
 the galleries. The deacons carried about the plates 
 of bread and the flagons of wine. I have no doubt 
 that there was more of really primitive form in this 
 than in our Anglican ritual. The table was in front 
 of the pulpit ; under it was a baptistery ; I have a 
 dim recollection of once seeing a baptism by immer- 
 sion. Another ceremony left a very definite im- 
 pression on my mind ; this was the burial of a younger 
 sister of mine in the vaults beneath the chapel. The 
 gloomy crypt, with all the accessories of the scene, 
 I remember distinctly as I write. Probably I felt 
 at the time more curiosity than horror. We are apt 
 
 the expense of Mr. Drummond, afterwards well known as a pillar of 
 the ' Irvingite,' otherwise the ' Catholic and Apostolic,' community. 
 When Mr. Drummond changed his views he endeavoured to regain 
 possession of the building, but failed. 
 
28 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 to read into the mind of a child many of the thoughts 
 and feelings of maturer years. 
 
 My father was for many years a member of this 
 church, and in respect of social position and general 
 esteem stood as high as anyone. But he eschewed 
 any kind of prominence, never holding office as a 
 deacon, or taking any part in the management of 
 affairs. There was one office from which he was, I 
 think, peculiarly averse. It was the custom when any- 
 one applied to be admitted into membership to send 
 two ' messengers ' — whether this is the right term 
 I know not — to inquire into their experience, details 
 of conversion, and the like. This duty was seldom 
 imposed upon him, but I remember one occasion 
 of his having to discharge it, and I can recall, not with- 
 out a little compunction, how we amused ourselves 
 with his embarrassment. The applicant was a maid- 
 servant at a dwelling-house in Great James Street, 
 and we asked him how he was going to proceed, 
 and whether, as he was calling on a servant, he 
 ought not to ring the area bell. Never, I am sure 
 (to be serious) was a man whose life was more pro- 
 foundly and consistently governed by his religious 
 profession. We should think his rule of conduct now- 
 adays somewhat Puritanic. Dancing was a frivolity 
 sternly discountenanced ; none of us ever thought 
 of visiting a theatre, or of going to see a race. It was 
 even thought the right thing to express pleasure 
 when there was a downpour of rain on the Derby Day. 
 
EAELY DAYS 29 
 
 The only game that I remember was one played on a 
 map of England. It was a prototype of the ' racing 
 game ' of later days, but was of a more edifying kind. 
 We were supposed to be making a tour over England, 
 and our progress was determined by spinning of a 
 * teetotum,' a serious substitute for the dice-box. 
 Sometimes the spin landed on an obstacle. The 
 towns were numbered. York, for instance, might be 
 80. If you were at Wakefield, 75, a spin showing 5 
 would bring you to York, where you had to ' stay 
 three turns to admire the Cathedral.' When I 
 first saw the Minster in 1847 I remembered this 
 odious ' staying.' Though he was a solicitor, and 
 brought up two of his sons to the same profession, 
 he was accustomed to apply to the very courts in 
 which he practised St. Paul's words about ' going to 
 law before the unjust.' The whole machinery of 
 Government was regarded as worked by powers of 
 ungodliness. I imagine that there was a certain 
 conventionality in this language, that it expressed 
 a theory which had actually been discarded. Cer- 
 tainly there was in practice no lack of charity. My 
 father had left the Church of England, but he never 
 said anything unkind about it. One of his strongest 
 dislikes was that of the ' political Dissenter.' I 
 remember the horror with which he related how a 
 prominent Nonconformist divine, preaching on the 
 occasion of the funeral of the Princess Charlotte, 
 had taken for his text : L Write this man childless.' 
 
30 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 Still more odious was the custom which still survived, 
 not, it is to be hoped, extensively, of eating calves' 
 head on the anniversary of the execution of King 
 Charles ! 
 
 Our supply of books was small, limited in one 
 direction by the Puritan temper of the house. No 
 novel ever came within our reach. My father's 
 early manhood coincided with Sir Walter Scott's 
 nourishing period — he was in his twenty-seventh 
 year when c Waverley ' appeared — but no novel 
 was ever seen by us. There was a book society 
 connected with the chapel, to which my father 
 belonged ; but beyond the ' Edinburgh ' and ' Quar- 
 terly ' I cannot recall the titles of any of the book3 
 which it patronised. ' Blackwood's Magazine ' I 
 must have seen, perhaps in this way, for I sent a 
 poem as an applicant for admission. We took in the 
 ' Penny Magazine ' and the ' Saturday Magazine.' 
 ' Chambers' Edinburgh Magazine,' which was then 
 published in a folio shape, I made acquaintance with 
 at school. There was a series of annual volumes 
 entitled the ' Excitement to Read ' ! They contained 
 stories of adventure and travel. I did not want 
 any urging in this direction, but my mother used 
 to give it to me for a New Year or birthday gift. 
 Later on she chose for this purpose Southey's poems. 
 ' The Curse of Kehama,' ' Thalaba,' and ' Roderick 
 the Goth,' I read in this way. The first two made a 
 great impression on me, and I still think that they 
 
EAELY DAYS 31 
 
 do not merit the oblivion into which they have 
 fallen. The form is strange to the last degree — 
 ' Startled metre fled from Thalaba,' says Byron — 
 but there is great power in them. The modern boy 
 or girl has in a single year at least two or three times 
 as many volumes as I read in the whole time up to 
 my fifteenth year. I believe that I can recall the 
 names of nearly all, but among them were Bunyan's 
 ' Pilgrim's Progress ' and his ' Holy War.' I never 
 cared for the latter ; its allegory with the City of 
 Mansoul attacked by evil passions was too obvious 
 and didactic. Then there were the ' Indian Pilgrim's 
 Progress,' the ' Fairchild Family,' ' Little Henry and 
 his Bearer,' ' Evenings at Home ' by Mrs. Barbauld 
 and Dr. Aikin, an expurgated ' Arabian Nights,' 
 ' Bowdler's Shakespeare,' and, of course, ' Robinson 
 Crusoe,' with its not unsuccessful imitator ' The Swiss 
 Family Robinson.' We may laugh at the book now, 
 but I remember that it had an entrancing interest. 
 It would be ungrateful if I did not mention a very 
 squat quarto in yellow covers, which contained among 
 other delights ' The White Cat,' the ' Seven Cham- 
 pions of Christendom,' and the ' Adventures of 
 Philip Quarll.' If our reading on weekdays was 
 always scanty, on Sunday it approached starvation. 
 Two or three of those mentioned above were conceded 
 to us ; but our stand-by was Josephus's ' Antiquities 
 of the Jews,' especially his last book, with its story, 
 inexhaustible in its interest, of the last siege. Under 
 
32 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 the strict rule of earlier days — afterwards relaxed — 
 even a walk was forbidden. Titus, John of Gischala, 
 and Simon the Zealot helped me through many a 
 long Sunday afternoon. 
 
 Our festivities were limited to a solemn dinner- 
 party for the seniors, some three or four times in the 
 year, and a great entertainment, designed in the 
 first place for the children, but not a little enjoyed 
 by their elders, on Twelfth Day. There was a 
 gorgeous cake, and we drew for ' characters,' which 
 were managed, I remember, so as to be appropriate 
 to any little peculiarities in our behaviour. Then the 
 dining-room was cleared, and a grand game of ' blind 
 man's buff ' was played. The family party was 
 reinforced with sundry cousins who were sojourning 
 for one reason or another in London, and the fun was 
 fast and furious. One family of these, children of 
 my mother's only sister, were my father's wards, and 
 they were as elder brothers to us. Two of them had, 
 I remember, an adventure so ludicrous that I am 
 bound to introduce it, even if it is a propos de bottes. 
 They shared a lodging somewhere in our neighbour- 
 hood, and a country friend sent them up a sucking 
 pig to improve their Christmas cheer. Somehow, 
 possibly through the abundance of London hospi- 
 talities, they lost sight of it, till it recalled itself 
 to memory by appealing to another sense. What 
 was to be done with it ? They sallied forth when the 
 night was somewhat advanced, and dropped it down 
 
EAELY DAYS 33 
 
 into an area. Some two hours afterwards they were 
 roused by a bell — a policeman wanted to speak to 
 them. They had wrapped it up in the paper in 
 which it had come, and their address was on it. What 
 was their relief when the policeman said : ' If you 
 don't want this, gentlemen, I shall be very glad to 
 have it.' 
 
 As I have ventured to be discursive I will cap 
 this anecdote with another which will turn the laugh 
 against myself. In the early days of one of my 
 headmasterships I took proceedings against a butcher 
 who had sold me a piece of doubtful or more than 
 doubtful meat. The summons came on before the 
 magistrates of the town, and my case was proved 
 ' up to the hilt.' But they wished to see the offending 
 article, and my gardener, to whom it had been 
 handed, was called. He had cooked and eaten it ! 
 
 D 
 
34 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 CHAPTEK III 
 
 MY SCHOOLS 
 
 I have no recollection of learning to read. I must 
 have acquired the art at a very early age, because 
 I remember being set, when I was in my sixth year, 
 to learn the Propria Quce Maribus. I must pause for 
 a moment to explain to a degenerate race that these 
 words are the beginning of a Latin hexameter 
 (which may be Englished ' Proper names assigned 
 to males you may call masculine '), and that this 
 hexameter is the first of 143 crabbed verses by 
 which boys were supposed to learn the genders of 
 Latin nouns — ' crabbed ' I call them, though Keate, 
 of Eton, is said to have spoken of the Propria as ' a 
 noble poem.' I taught it myself at Merchant Taylors' 
 School as late as 1861 (I think), when it was super- 
 seded, along with the rest of ' King Edward VI.'s 
 Grammar,' by the ' Public School Latin Primer.' 
 It was part of a robust training which was not without 
 its good points, but was in itself a somewhat cumbrous 
 instrument, more useful, I take it, for those who 
 learnt it in after years than at the time of learning. 
 I never knew but one of the many scores of boys 
 
MY SCHOOLS 35 
 
 whom I have heard repeat, or attempt to repeat it, 
 who could say it without a fault, and he was excep- 
 tionally stupid. I have a dim recollection of the tears 
 which it caused me, and it will be allowed that for a 
 child of five it was a rigorous discipline. 
 
 A more pleasing recollection is Homer. Before I 
 was seven I had learnt by heart a great portion of 
 Pope's translation of the ' Iliad.' During my con- 
 valescence from a very severe attack of scarlet fever 
 I dictated copy-books full of it to my nurse. And I 
 used it in exercising a certain gift of quotation which 
 I have often found serviceable, and sometimes, I 
 fancy, a little dangerous. On one occasion, when my 
 mother sent me to bed for some offence, I faced 
 about on the first landing, and apostrophised her in 
 the line 
 
 ' Thy rage implacable too well I knew.' 
 
 I have a dim remembrance of being sent to a 
 girls' school in the neighbourhood for a few days, 
 and of being left entirely to myself. Probably some 
 domestic crisis made my absence desirable. 
 
 My first actual experience of school was in my 
 eighth year, 1 when I went to one in Kentish Town, 
 kept by a Mr. Bickerdyke, a minister of Lady Hunt- 
 ingdon's Connection. My memory of the place is 
 almost blank. I have no recollection of learning 
 
 1 My eldest brother was sent off before he was six. Our parents 
 were most careful and affectionate, but in those days children were 
 treated in a Spartan fashion. 
 
 » 2 
 
36 MEMORIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 anything there, though I must have made fair pro- 
 gress, to judge from my after experience. The one 
 vivid impression that remains with me is that we were 
 all set once a week to write a formal letter home, 
 beginning with ' My honoured Parents.' I can also 
 recall the personality of one school-fellow, Maurice 
 Day by name, and the fact of his making some answer 
 which put his elders to shame. This is likely enough, 
 for he afterwards won high distinction at Oxford, 
 being Hertford Scholar in 1847, and Ireland Scholar 
 in 1849. 
 
 I was some two months past my ninth birthday 
 when I went to my second school, kept by the Rev. 
 J. A. Barron, at Stanmore. It was then a school of 
 high and not undeserved repute. It had been set 
 up in 1771 by Dr. Samuel Parr when he left Harrow 
 in disappointment at not being appointed to the 
 Head Mastership. Whether it had been carried on 
 continuously from that time I cannot say, but Mr. 
 Barron had had it for some years, and it was in the 
 highest degree prosperous. And this prosperity it 
 deserved. Mr. Barron did not, I think, know very 
 much, though he had written, or, possibly, had had 
 written for him, a Latin grammar ; but he was an 
 admirable organiser. There were about sixty boys 
 in the school, the maximum' number which it could 
 receive, and there were six resident masters. Two 
 were graduates, and these must have been well paid, 
 for they could afford to live in houses of their own, 
 
MY SCHOOLS 37 
 
 and this without the help of taking boarders. The 
 food was plentiful and good. The boys were divided 
 into five ' shifts,' so to speak, numbering twelve, 
 which took it in turns to dine for a week at the Head- 
 master's table. One shift, it will be understood, 
 was migratory, taking its own week of honour, and 
 at other times filling the place of that which was 
 doing the same. We were worked hard, but we were 
 also energetic in play, and I have no remembrance 
 of suffering myself, or of any school-fellow suffering 
 from too much pressure. Boys well fed, under healthy 
 conditions of space and air, and with good oppor- 
 tunities of play, can work very hard without injury. 
 We were called all the year round at 5.45 a.m., and 
 had to be ready for school at 6.30. The class-rooms 
 were remote from the house, but connected with it 
 by a covered way, which also led to a large lavatory, 
 supplied with hot and cold water. There we always 
 washed, being subjected to a rigorous inspection to 
 ensure that the washing was properly done. It 
 was considered bad form to fail in this respect. 
 From 6.30 to 8 we had lessons, Scripture and French, 
 if I remember right. After breakfast we went into 
 school again for four hours, or, to speak more accu- 
 rately, for three hours and a half, as we were allowed 
 three intervals of ten minutes each. From 1 to 4 
 came dinner and play. From 4 to 6 school again, 
 with the usual interval of ten minutes between the 
 hours. Tea came at 6, and there was another hour 
 
38 MEMORIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 and a half of school between 7 and 8.30. Then, 
 after prayers, the younger boys went to bed ; the 
 elders had an hour's preparation, with a bread-and- 
 cheese supper. Some of us, then, had more than 
 nine hours' work, somewhat mitigated, of course, 
 in actual practice, for the boy who will always keep 
 his mind on the stretch may be said not to exist. 
 Still, it was an ample allowance. But, as I have 
 said, I have no recollection of overwork. We were 
 well fed, lived under wholesome conditions, and 
 played strenuously. 
 
 The teaching was, I have some reason to believe, 
 generally good. It is true that my only distinct 
 recollection of the lower forms through which I 
 passed is that, when we came in the Latin lesson to 
 the word id, we were told that it agreed with the 
 substantive negotium, understood. But I also remem- 
 ber that this master was not well thought of. From 
 him I passed under the instruction of a German, 
 Pfahler by name. He left on me a vague impression 
 that he knew what he was about. All that I clearly 
 remember is that he used to divide our work into 
 expositio and compositio, and that he made us, in 
 writing essays, use formal divisions — possibly they 
 are still used somewhere. We began with propositio, 
 i.e. the setting forth of the subject ; followed this 
 up by ratio, the main argument which was to support 
 one or other opinion ; then used exemplum, an instance 
 from literature or history which was supposed to be 
 
MY SCHOOLS 39 
 
 in accord with this opinion, and after this quotatio. 
 Then came confirmatio, an additional argument, 
 probably suggested by either the example or the 
 quotation, possibly by both. Last came the con- 
 clusio. But I must have prospered in my learning, 
 for I have still in my possession an edition of the 
 ' Alcestis ' of Euripides, bearing, in my handwriting, 
 the date of 1841. It was something to be able to 
 read a Greek play when I was but eleven, but it is 
 more significant of success that the page also bears 
 the handwriting of the master who taught classics 
 to the highest class. It gives a playful variation of my 
 name, ' A Heurke,' under a rough outline of a church. 
 This makes me think that when I became possessed 
 of the book I was not quite a new comer into his 
 class. I feel sure, therefore, that on the whole 
 I was well taught. I remember that the second 
 master, Woodmass by name, whose subject was 
 mathematics, was a man who inspired respect in all 
 of us. I have also a vivid recollection of a young 
 German, Bertsch by name, who spoke English with 
 absolute correctness and without a trace of accent — 
 boys are quite able to notice and appreciate such 
 things. There was also a French teacher who con- 
 trived to interest us, a thing which all French teachers 
 do not succeed in doing. He had been a soldier 
 in the army of Napoleon. Of French, certainly, 
 I managed to learn a fair amount. I never gave 
 up any time to it after leaving school, i.e. after the 
 
40 MBMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 age of fifteen ; but I can read it nearly as easily as 
 I can read Latin. One custom which I cordially 
 hated at the time, and not without reason, may have 
 contributed to this comparative proficiency — we had 
 to speak French during the day except at meals, 
 I think, and during the cricket hour or hours, and the 
 corresponding time when other games were in season. 
 An odious medal was passed to anyone speaking 
 English, and the unlucky boy who was the holder 
 at the end of the day had an imposition. This 
 imposition, I ought to say, was not the useless task of 
 writing out fifty or a hundred lines, but the learning 
 of some twenty or thirty lines of English poetry. 
 I loathed the whole business at the time, but I am 
 eternally grateful to the introduction which it gave 
 me to English poetry. The fact was that Mr. Barron 
 had ideas of his own about education, and was in 
 advance of his time. He had built a laboratory, 
 where we learnt chemistry. Herr Bertsch, of whom 
 I have spoken above, was our teacher. I did not 
 profit much by it, for my tastes were wholly literary, 
 but some of my fellows were keenly interested in our 
 work. We learnt mensuration by going out and 
 actually measuring fields. That I greatly enjoyed. 
 We had no prizes, no places in class, and no examina- 
 tions. These are, I think, Pestalozzian ideas. On the 
 whole we were interested in our work. 
 
 But I feel bound to render a special tribute of 
 gratitude to the man whose little pleasantry — still 
 
MY SCHOOLS 41 
 
 preserved on the fly-leaf of my ' Alcestis ' — I have 
 mentioned above. I owe more than I can say to 
 Walter Herbert Awdry. He had his faults as a 
 master : his temper was hasty ; his mood changed 
 rapidly from sunshine to storm. For myself, I found 
 the summers very brief and the winters very long. 
 He did not, I think, make sufficient allowance for my 
 years, for I was much younger than any of my class- 
 fellows. But he had the more than compensating 
 merit of enthusiasm, and this enthusiasm he was 
 able to communicate, if he found any receptive 
 power in his pupils. He taught me to love the 
 classics, and I owe him more than can be put into 
 words. I suffered not a little from him — from his 
 tongue, let it be understood, not from his hands — 
 but I count it a piece of excellent good fortune that 
 I was for some three years his pupil. 
 
 The discipline of the school was in some re- 
 spects barbarous. Every Saturday a Grand Inqui- 
 sition was held, and offenders were called up, tried, 
 and condemned — I do not remember any acquittals. 
 A minor fault was punished by two boxes on the 
 ear, administered by the chief himself, who was 
 an expert in the art of giving them without doing 
 harm. Medical authorities, I believe, declare such 
 blows to be dangerous, but I suspect that if they are 
 given on the cheek and not on the ear, they are 
 really harmless. Certainly I never heard of any ill 
 effects following. For graver offences a more serious 
 
42 MBMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 penalty was exacted. The culprit was conducted 
 after evening prayers by the chief and one of his 
 assistants to one of the schoolrooms, stretched 
 across a table, and solemnly caned. The silent 
 journey, the victim cut off from the sympathy 
 of his fellows, and abandoned, as it were, to his 
 executioners, the closed and deserted room — for the 
 school was, as I have said, remote from the house — 
 combined to make it a lurid experience. It seemed 
 to suit the Tartarus which the Sibyl described to 
 iEneas. 
 
 Mr. Barron was a B.D. of Cambridge (a ' ten years' 
 man '). He never preached ; still he was very careful 
 about our Sundays, and the parish church of Stan- 
 more did not satisfy him. The rector at the time 
 was a Mr. Chauvel, who had kept his jubilee some 
 time before, and must have been at the time nearly 
 ninety years of age. We were sent, accordingly, 
 to Harrow Weald, where B. Monro was the minister. 
 Monro was a fine preacher, a master of the rhetorical 
 style which, if it is good of its kind, appeals more 
 than all others to a boy audience — I may interject 
 the opinion that F. W. Farrar was as good a preacher 
 of this type as has been heard in my time. One phrase 
 of Monro's lingers in my memory. I heard it, not at 
 Harrow Weald, but in a London Church — ' and that 
 pale lily which gleams from your altar, Mary Magda- 
 lene.' We appreciated him ; it was common talk 
 among us how fine his sermons were. But the 
 
MY SCHOOLS 43 
 
 time of which I am writing was the heyday of the 
 Oxford Movement. Monro had been deeply touched 
 by it, and Mr. Barron became suspicious of him. 
 We left Harrow Weald, and went for a time to 
 Whitchurch, and afterwards to Bushey. Of Bushey 
 I remember nothing. The name of Whitchurch 
 recalls the curious decorations with which the Duke 
 of Chandos, satirised by Pope under the name of 
 Timon, had adorned the walls. Later on the elder 
 boys were sent to Stanmore in the afternoon. The 
 church, which is now a ruin, was encircled with 
 ' private boxes,' if the phrase may pass, occupied 
 by wealthy families in the neighbourhood, and nicely 
 graduated to suit their rank. A magnate of the 
 first rank had something like a drawing-room, duly 
 furnished with easy chairs and fireplace ; smaller 
 people had to be content with a little gallery — a 
 ' small thing, but their own.' One solitary memory 
 of a Stanmore sermon clings to me. The preacher, 
 in announcing a text from the parable of the Rich 
 Man and Lazarus, said that it was ' commonly 
 called the Parable of Dives and Lazarus.' I felt 
 something of wonder, if not of shame, that I had 
 never heard it before. 
 
 I left Mr. Barron's school when the Christmas 
 holidays of 1843 began. If I had stayed longer 
 I should have had no one to work with, and Mr. 
 Barron himself counselled my departure. In the 
 following January I was entered at King's College, 
 
44 MEMOKIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 London, though still wanting a little more than a 
 year of the regular age for admission. I cannot help 
 thinking that my father would have done better 
 if he had put me into the school. A lad of fifteen 
 requires a stricter discipline than the arrangements 
 of the College provided for. I was by disposition 
 something of a student, but I wasted no small amount 
 of time, not so much from idleness as from sheer 
 ignorance of how time should be used. And there 
 was very little supervision on the part of the authori- 
 ties and teachers. I was put at first into the lower 
 classical lecture. This was natural enough in view 
 of my youth, but it was a mistake, and I almost 
 wasted the first term. On the other hand, I was put 
 into the higher lecture in mathematics, another 
 mistake, and one for which I cannot account. It is 
 quite impossible that I should ever have shown 
 any aptitude for this study, and I am inclined to 
 think that the convenience of equalising the numbers 
 of the classes had something to do with it. I much 
 doubt whether I could have done any good in this 
 line Under any circumstances, or really profited by 
 any teaching. I certainly did not profit by what 
 I actually had, though Professor Hall, who had the 
 charge of the Upper Class, was eminently successful 
 with many pupils. I was pushed on till I reached 
 the Differential Calculus ; but I never understood 
 anything about it. My impression is that I never 
 really got any further, as far as real assimilation was 
 
MY SCHOOLS 45 
 
 concerned, than the first four books of Euclid and 
 elementary algebra. Half the morning of every day 
 was wasted in this way. Later on I was permitted 
 to specialise and give all the morning to classics. 
 
 R. W. Browne, formerly Fellow and Tutor of St. 
 John's College, Oxford, was then Professor, a scholar 
 of the ' elegant ' type — elegance was characteristic 
 of the whole man — who did his work conscientiously, 
 but was not an inspiring teacher. The best part of 
 his daily lecture was a viva voce exercise in Latin 
 Prose writing. One at least of the books which we 
 read with him would hardly be chosen now. This 
 was the ' Rhetoric ' of Aristotle, admirable in its 
 way, but not the right pabulum for lads who ought 
 to be occupied with the form and literary quality 
 of the language. The Lecturer was J. S. Brewer, 
 a scholar who is now remembered for his contribu- 
 tions to historical study. He was an excellent 
 teacher, touched by a manifest enthusiasm which 
 could not fail to move any but the ' Arcadicus iuvenis, 
 cui lseva in parte mamillse nil salit.' The Chair of 
 History and Literature had been occupied since 1840 
 by Frederick Denison Maurice. He was then the 
 centre of a gradually increasing group of disciples, 
 who looked to him as a theological teacher. I do 
 not remember being conscious of this fact at the 
 time. But the man greatly attracted me, and I 
 was a constant and attentive hearer at his lectures. 
 Of them I took copious notes, which I was careful 
 
46 MEMORIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 to write out at Ml length on the earliest opportunity. 
 It is possible that the time thus spent might have 
 been more profitably employed. But, then, the 
 word ' profitably ' would be used in a highly restricted 
 sense, a sense to be determined by Macaulay's 
 famous dictum that there is a time of life at which 
 writing Latin prose is the most lucrative employment 
 that a man can follow. Probably, in view of my 
 general mental growth, I could not have used the 
 time to better purpose. The Principal, Dr. Jelf, 
 used to lecture on the Articles, proving them in the 
 old fashion by ' texts.' I shall never forget the 
 sense of contrast when, two or three years afterwards, 
 I heard Mark Pattison lecture on the same subject. 
 His method was very different, as may be supposed, 
 from the ' proof by texts.' Allen, afterwards Arch- 
 deacon of Stafford, was the chaplain, a genial, simple 
 character, which few of us, I fear, appreciated. 
 One recollection only of his lectures has remained 
 with me. He was discoursing on Tertullian, and 
 was giving an instance of that father's imagery. 
 ' Orat avis extendens crucem alarum,'' and he stretched 
 out his arms clad with the black Master's gown. 
 I am afraid that we laughed. 
 
 I may mention a few of my fellow-students. 
 Alfred Barry, afterwards Principal of the College, 
 and Bishop of Sydney, and now Canon of Windsor ; 
 G. W. Kitchin, successively Dean of Winchester 
 and Durham ; Lord Stanley, who became fifteenth 
 
MY SCHOOLS 47 
 
 Earl of Derby in 1866, and filled before, and after, 
 various Cabinet offices, and Fitzjames Stephen. 
 I had the honour of being preferred to Stephen in a 
 competition for a classical Scholarship in my last 
 year, and I remember the surprise of the Classical 
 Class when Lord Stanley, who had during the session 
 successfully concealed his very considerable attain- 
 ments in scholarship, came out first in the examina- 
 tion. 
 
48 MEMORIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 OXFORD 
 
 My earliest acquaintance with Oxford was made in 
 the summer of 1846, when I stood for a scholarship 
 at Wadham. I did not distinguish myself further 
 than to be excused from being examined for matri- 
 culation. Indeed, my candidature was something 
 like a piece of presumption. I was a year under 
 the usual age for such efforts, and not more advanced 
 than my contemporaries ; and I had missed the 
 regular training which I should have received in the 
 sixth form of a public school. One of the successful 
 candidates was Benjamin Bickley Rogers, the author 
 of some quite admirable translations of Aristophanes ; 
 another was Octavius Ogle, 1 afterwards a dear 
 
 1 Oetavius Ogle was the youngest child of Dr. Ogle, Regius Pro- 
 fessor of Medicine, whose hospitable house in St. Giles's some few 
 veterans may still remember. He was Bishop's Fellow at Lincoln 
 College, succeeding his brother Richard, who died in his twenty -fourth 
 year. He was tutor, 1853-1855, and, after vacating his fellowship 
 by marriage, continued to reside in Oxford as a highly successful 
 ' pass-coach.' From time to time he filled the academical offices of 
 Master of the Schools and Moderator in Classical Honours ; to the end 
 of his life he was one of the Clerks of the Market, and, till he was in- 
 capacitated by illness, chaplain to the Warneford Asylum. He was 
 an excellent man of business, acting for many years as one of the 
 auditors of the University Life Assurance Society, and on one occasion 
 
OXFOED 49 
 
 friend of mine. I was matriculated at Wadham 
 in January, 1847, and elected to a scholarship at 
 Lincoln College in the following June, coming into 
 residence in the October of that year. 
 
 Oxford was then waiting to be reformed. Only 
 one important change had been made since the days 
 of Laud, viz. the abolition of the old Dissertations, 
 which had become merely formal, and the institution 
 of regular examinations, followed by the issue of 
 class-lists, in which the performances of candidates 
 were recorded. The subjects of examination were 
 classics and mathematics, 1 and there was also a 
 school of theology, to which examiners were duly 
 appointed, but in which no candidate ever presented 
 himself. Eesponsions, vulgo ' Little-Go,' were com- 
 monly passed at the end of the first year. This prac- 
 tically meant a loss of time to the more advanced men, 
 as there was nothing in the examination which they 
 could not have answered when they left school. 
 Moderations were instituted in 1850. But it does 
 
 serving his college by disentangling -with success some very com- 
 plicated accounts. He had a fine literary taste, as may be seen in his 
 IdyUs of Ilium, a volume of poems many of which first appeared in 
 the Spectator. In 1892, he published Royal Letters to Oxford. He 
 died, in 1896, at his house in Park Crescent, Oxford. His life of 
 67 years had been wholly spent in that city. Many generations 
 of Oxford men found a welcome there. To the young he was a 
 wise counsellor and friend. His contemporaries sometimes found him 
 abrupt and difficult. He was curiously plain spoken, but our friend- 
 ship, which is one of the dearest recollections of my life, was never 
 even jarred for a moment. 
 
 1 Disciplines Mathematicce et Physicce, by the latter word being 
 meant applied mathematics. 
 
 E 
 
50 MBMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 not come within my purpose to tell the story of 
 Oxford reform. One thing I may mention, that the 
 number of undergraduates has grown from the 
 1,300 of my time to nearly 3,000. Large additions 
 have been made to most of the colleges, while the 
 rule of residence has been greatly relaxed. New 
 College, Magdalen, Corpus, have grown from small 
 societies numbering less than twenty undergraduates 
 — Magdalen had thirteen in 1840 — to proportions 
 which sixty years ago only Christ Church and Exeter 
 had attained. 
 
 Lincoln College had done something in the way 
 of internal reform. It had thrown open some 
 twelve or fourteen scholarships, with very happy 
 results as far as the honours gained in the schools 
 were concerned. In the two decades ending in 1854 
 the number of these honours was much larger than 
 was proportionate to the size of the College, which 
 then counted some forty-five undergraduates only. 
 The Fellowships were still ' close,' some limited to 
 Lincolnshire, some to Yorkshire, some to the old dio- 
 cese of Lincoln, and one to Somersetshire. The 
 academical distinctions of the twelve fellows of 1847 
 did not present a high average — the test does not 
 serve for individuals, but it does well enough for a 
 number of men. One only had taken a First Class, 
 six had obtained Seconds, two Thirds, one a Fourth, 
 and two had been content with a Pass degree. The 
 rector belonged to the pre-examination era. The 
 
OXFOED 51 
 
 tutors, however, were as it happened, men of more 
 than average ability. The senior was Richard 
 Michell, who had once been the most successful of 
 Oxford ' Honour Coaches ' — the ' Father of Oxford 
 Logic,' he was called. At the end of my second term 
 he left to become Vice-Principal at Magdalen Hall. 
 The second was Mark Pattison; the third William 
 Kay, a man of real learning, who had taken his 
 degree — a first in classics, a second in mathematics, 
 at the age of nineteen. He was, however, an ineffec- 
 tive teacher, shy and awkward, and somehow con- 
 triving to put himself in the wrong when he adminis- 
 tered however well deserved a rebuke. He left at 
 the end of my second year to become President of 
 Bishop's College, Calcutta. Mark Pattison was 
 ranked by common consent among the ablest men of 
 his time, but the period during which he may be 
 said to have ' flourished ' was but short. As long as 
 Richard Michell remained in office he was over- 
 shadowed, and three years afterwards came a disas- 
 trous event, of which I shall shortly have to speak. 
 But for a time he was a great power in College. 
 He was not a patent machine for turning out ' firsts.' 
 One did not leave his lecture room equipped with the 
 definite conclusion and neat formulae which can be 
 put to such profitable use in the examination room, 
 He had, on the contrary, the habit of sending us 
 away charged with some dilemma from which there 
 seemed to be no escape. But he was an inspiring 
 
 K 2 
 
52 MEMOKIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 teacher, if to make one think is to inspire. And he 
 had a keen interest in any pupil who showed an 
 interest in his work. More than once he took with 
 him what may be called informal reading parties, he 
 charged no fee, and he did not teach the usual 
 degree subjects. He tried to encourage in his com- 
 panions, for such they were rather than pupils, 
 general intellectual interests. 
 
 I may be allowed to say a few words more about 
 this remarkable man. 
 
 His mental history is not a little remarkable. 
 He was a son of the parsonage, and was brought up 
 in the strictest school of evangelical tradition. Then 
 he came under the influence of the Oxford Movement, 
 and at one time it seemed likely that he would go as 
 far as any one in the direction of Rome. He lived 
 for a while in what we should now call a ' clergy 
 house,' of which John Henry Newman was the head, 
 and he was associated in the work of the ' Lives of 
 the Saints ' to which he contributed St. Edmund 
 and Stephen Langton, ' Free,' says his biographer, 
 ' from the puerilities and childish miracles common 
 to this kind of literature.' He also translated St. 
 Thomas Aquinas' ' Commentary on St. Matthew.' 
 He was accustomed to recite daily the ' Hours of the 
 Roman Breviary,' and he was once at least among 
 those who frequented Dr. Pusey's confessional. 
 Things even went so far that it was only an accident 
 that hindered him from following his great chief to 
 
OXFORD 53 
 
 the Koman communion. When I came up to Oxford 
 he was supposed still to belong to the High Church 
 party. He was unfailing in his attendance at morning 
 and evening chapel. But influences of change were, 
 I imagine, even then at work. In 1849, if not 
 before — my memory is not clear enough to allow 
 me to speak decisively as to the date — he contributed 
 the theological and philosophical summary to the 
 ' Westminster Keview.' This indicates a position 
 separated longissimo intervallo from that of a disciple 
 of Newman, and it is not likely that he had reached 
 it at once. 
 
 Pattison was not by any means a bookworm. 
 I have spoken in another place of his skill as a fly- 
 fisher. In my undergraduate days he used to keep 
 a horse in the College stables, and would even, it was 
 said, on occasion follow the hounds. He showed a 
 somewhat fitful patronage of the College boat. 
 I remember the general surprise when he sent a 
 donation of 5/. to the funds of the club when its 
 chronic poverty had reached an acute crisis. In later 
 life he became a devotee of croquet, and, I believe, 
 for I never saw him play, attained considerable 
 proficiency. That he was a member of the All 
 England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club at Wimble- 
 don I know, for he proposed my name when I wished 
 to join it. Social he never was. He was good enough 
 to admit me to his friendship, but I never felt quite at 
 ease in his company. What undergraduate could 
 
54 MEMOKIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 ever forget the disconcerting stare with which he 
 regarded him during the duty call which was paid 
 at the beginning of a term ? He did not attempt 
 to make conversation, but glared, so to speak, over 
 his spectacles at his visitor. The hardiest youth, 
 though he might be said to fear neither God nor man, 
 quailed before that speechless, petrifying look. My 
 own belief is that he was himself shy, but that was a 
 thought that, I am sure, never occurred to any one of 
 us in those days. I never met him in general society, 
 but in the College Common Eoom he was usually 
 silent. There were times, however, when he used his 
 tongue, and it was found to have a sharp edge. One 
 anecdote, which went the round of Oxford in my 
 time, was this : He sat with Jowett on the Board 
 of Classical Studies — Jowett and he were friends so 
 far as being on the same side in University politics 
 could make them so, but they were curiously different 
 in temperament, and in the general outlook on life. 
 Jowett proposed that Plato should be added to the 
 books which a candidate for honours in classical 
 moderations might take up. As a philosopher, of 
 course, Plato had his place among the subjects of 
 the final schools. But besides being a philosopher 
 he had also a supreme literary gift, and no one 
 who pretended to scholarship, it was argued, could 
 afford to neglect him. Jowett had recently pub- 
 lished, or was in course of publishing, that translation 
 of Plato which has become an English classic. ' Ah ! ' 
 
OXFOED 55 
 
 said Pattison, ' they've lately published a " crib " 
 to Plato, haven't they, Jowett ? ' 
 
 Still, help which is now given to an undergraduate 
 as a matter of course was then never thought of. 
 It was the fault of the system rather than of the 
 individual, but it caused a deplorable waste of time 
 and labour. I never received a word of advice as 
 to the disposition of my time. No questions were 
 put to me, no counsel was given as to the books 
 which I was to offer for my degree. And the lectures 
 were arranged in a very haphazard fashion. In my 
 second term, for instance, I was put along with men 
 who were more than two years senior to me into an 
 ' Ethics ' lecture. This was the doing of Eichard 
 Michell, who probably wanted to have men who 
 could construe Aristotle's Greek, but it was a waste 
 of time to a man who was still more than two years 
 off his Final. There was no attempt at specialising. 
 Pattison, who was not technically a scholar, used to 
 lecture on books for the treatment of which such 
 scholarship was essential. Such a man would now 
 be able to keep to his own subjects ; but the days of 
 inter-collegiate lectures were far distant. Every 
 classical tutor practically professed the whole subject 
 of classics. 
 
 A further provision for the intellectual discipline 
 of the College was the weekly exercise, sent in, if I 
 remember right, to the sub-rector, whether he was 
 one of the tutors or not. It was commonly an 
 
56 MEMOKIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 English. Essay, or a piece of Latin prose, with the 
 occasional alternative for such as preferred it, of 
 Latin verse. I remember sending in a copy on 
 ' The Dying Gladiator,' and being encouraged by 
 Kay to compete for the Chancellor's prize for Latin 
 verse. The subject for the year was Tubus Astrono- 
 micus. I remember my motto — Sic itur ad Astra — 
 and one line in which I spoke of Galileo lifting 
 catenatas ad conscia sidera f almas. This, I still 
 venture to think, was good. This weekly essay was 
 commonly, I fancy, something of a farce. There 
 was an essay club the members of which were bound 
 not to exceed two sides of a sheet of note-paper, 
 and always to introduce the words : ' Enough has 
 been said.' 
 
 Of organised sport there was very little ; nothing, 
 in fact, except rowing. The College was too small 
 and, I take it, too poor to have a cricket ground. 
 It was possible to belong to the Magdalen Club, 
 which was then practically the club for the Univer- 
 sity. But cricket was an expensive amusement, 
 and though there were two or three good cricketers 
 in Lincoln, no one ever played. We were more 
 zealous, consequently, about rowing. In 1848 the 
 boat ' took off ' on the third night of the races, if I 
 remember right. In 1849 we had great hopes of 
 success. The crew was one of the heaviest on the 
 river. I was bow, and a light weight, 9st. 7lb., but 
 the rest must have averaged 12 stone. They were : — 
 
OXPOED 57 
 
 (2) E. W. Marriott, afterwards Vicar of Aid- 
 borough, 1863-1886, and Shelton, Notts, 1886-1895 ; 
 
 (3) Richard Ogle, of whom I have spoken before ; 
 
 (4) R. B. Sanderson, now (1907) Incumbent of 
 St. Michael's, Brighton ; (5) C. D. Craven, who died 
 early ; (6) John lies, afterwards Archdeacon of 
 Wolverhampton ; (7) Frederick Shaw, afterwards 
 Vicar of Fen Drayton, Cambs. ; stroke, George 
 Barras, who died three years afterwards, of fever, 
 at Milan. (It may be worth mentioning that six 
 out of the eight graduated in honours — a very unusual 
 proportion in those days, when there were but two 
 honour schools.) 
 
 Shaw was one of the best oars I ever saw. He 
 was invited to take a seat in the University boat 
 of the year. He declined, greatly to the regret of the 
 College. He was poor, and was unwilling to take the 
 help which the College would gladly have given. 
 He was one of the best of men ; Shavius ille bonus, 
 as a poet of whom I shall have something to say 
 hereafter described him. He took Orders, and passed 
 the rest of his life at a small village in Cambridgeshire. 
 He was a fervent disciple of F. D. Maurice. Mark 
 Pattison said of him : ' None of my pupils developed 
 so much after leaving College — except John Morley.' 
 Pattison, it must be remembered, died in 1884, when 
 Mr. Morley had only just entered Parliament, but 
 most of his literary distinctions had been achieved. 
 I cannot say that I very much enjoyed my rowing 
 
58 MBMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 days. We — i.e. the crew — were too much together, 1 
 and the athletic habit, which Aristotle describes as. 
 ' leading to sleep,' also leads to shortness of temper. 
 Our hopes of a high place on the river were not 
 fulfilled. We made four bumps, but were, alas ! 
 ourselves bumped by Oriel. Barras, in fact, set 
 too slow a stroke. It would have done well for the 
 four mile and a quarter course at Putney, but did 
 not serve for that of Oxford, which is little more 
 than a mile. The boat was reconstituted with 
 another stroke, and did well at Henley. 2 
 
 I must say a few words about my contemporaries. 
 Among the scholars — we sat at the same table in hall, 
 and were naturally thrown much together — I mention 
 George Bampfield and Charles D. Morris. Both of 
 them took first classes. Bampfield was ordained in 
 the Anglican Church, but after a year or so joined 
 the Boman communion. I saw something of him 
 many years afterwards at Barnet, where he was chief 
 of the Roman Catholic schools. He had by that 
 time become a member of the Society of Jesus. 
 We were very good friends, but I was struck by his 
 curious want of interest in things and persons which 
 I should have expected him to care about. C. D. 
 
 1 They have, I see, more society now. They go to breakfast, day 
 after day, with outsiders. So the Olympian gods, Homer tells us, 
 went to feast with the blameless ^Ethiopians. 
 
 2 As I write I see that the Grand Challenge Cup has, for a second 
 time, gone to the Belgian crew, through its having specialised its style — 
 so say the experts — to suit the Henley course. 
 
OXFORD 59 
 
 Morris was a delightful person, and a dear friend of 
 mine. He was elected to a Fellowship at Oriel just 
 about the time when I took my degree, and I was 
 frequently his guest at the Oriel high table and 
 common room. It was a great privilege for a young 
 man to hear the talk, for it was a brilliant company. 
 There was Charles Neate, who afterwards sat in 
 Parliament for the city of Oxford ; x R. W. Church, 
 afterwards Dean of St. Paul's ; Burgon, afterwards 
 Dean of Chichester ; E. Marriott, a great authority 
 on ritual and vestments, and Chretien, a scholar 
 of considerable distinction. Morris and I planned an 
 index to the ' Ethics ' of Aristotle. It was to be in 
 Latin, and I still have a manuscript book containing 
 the little which we accomplished. We began with 
 the seventh book and did not get beyond it. Morris 
 afterwards became a Professor at the Johns Hopkins 
 University in Baltimore, United States. Some years 
 after he paid a visit to England, and was the same 
 dear fellow as of old. He died in middle age. 
 
 Possibly it was this friendship that suggested to 
 me the somewhat audacious venture of standing for 
 a Fellowship at Oriel. When I recall the names 
 of the men who during the first half of the nine- 
 teenth century were elected to the foundation of 
 
 1 A career at the Bar, which promised great things, was terminated 
 by a quarrel in Court with R. Bethell, afterwards Lord Westbury. 
 Bethell had been exceedingly provoking — and he could put almost 
 unbearable provocation into his voice and manner — and Neate struck 
 him. 
 
60 MEMORIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 this College I am not a little amazed at my pre- 
 sumption. I had at least the honour of being asso- 
 ciated with a brilliant company. Open fellowships 
 were very rare in those days, and there were naturally 
 a crowd of distinguished competitors. One note- 
 worthy detail of the examination may be mentioned. 
 The subject set for an English essay was : ' Has a 
 nation the right to isolate itself ? ' People were 
 then busy in discussing the future of Japan, which, 
 after centuries of seclusion, was considering the 
 question of entering into relations with the outside 
 world. And now Japan plays a part almost as 
 important as any in the politics of the world. 
 
 Of the other Lincolnians I can mention two only. 
 The first is Gowen Evans. I succeeded him in his 
 rooms, and afterwards — as I shall have to recount 
 hereafter — in a work which has been the main interest 
 of my life. He had the reputation of great abilities, 
 and of an indolence which scarcely permitted him to 
 do justice to them. Indolent he certainly was, as far 
 as a habit of rising late was concerned. He nearly 
 lost the chance of taking honours by being too late to 
 ' sit in the schools.' It was necessary in those days 
 for anyone who proposed to be a candidate for 
 honours to sit for a day and hear the examination. 
 Evans' friends had almost to drag him out of bed 
 on the morning of the day which was his last oppor- 
 tunity of sitting. I remember the unextinguishable 
 laughter which arose when a tradesman's cart drove 
 
OXFOKD 61 
 
 up to the College gate with ' A feather bed for Mr. 
 Evans.' I myself like, as did the cat in Theocritus, 
 to ' lie soft,' and I often blessed his forethought. By 
 a curious combination of circumstances he spent the 
 greater part of his life in the performance of what 
 would be called a ' soft job.' He went out to Aus- 
 tralia to represent the proprietor of a well-known 
 newspaper. It was his business, not to write, but to 
 see that the editor did not, so to speak, ' kick over the 
 traces.' The drag on the wheel, however, gets a 
 good deal of wear and tear. And certainly Evans 
 would never have been chosen if he had not 
 won a high reputation for sound judgment and 
 common sense. Such a reputation was all the 
 more credit to him seeing that he had a fiery Welsh 
 temper. The other contemporary whom I shall 
 mention is Henry Whitehead. He was always 
 something of an enigma, and indeed remains so to 
 me down to this very moment of writing. No one 
 who knew him at College would have thought that 
 he would turn out to be the man whom the friends 
 of his later life saw and admired. One of these 
 friends, Canon H. D. Rawnsley, has written his 
 biography. 1 I must not digress from the record of 
 my own experiences to tell long stories about my 
 friends. Still, I cannot refrain from a brief reference 
 to one signal service which Henry Whitehead rendered 
 to the community. He was curate of St. Luke's, 
 
 1 Henry Whitehead. (Maelehoae & Sons, Glasgow. 1898.) 
 
62 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 Berwick Street, a parish in the region of Soho, when 
 the cholera visited London in the late summer of 1854. 
 To say that he stuck to his post and did his duty 
 manfully to the sick and dying is not to praise him. 
 We may hope that any young Englishman in his 
 place would have done the same. His merit was that 
 in the midst of these distracting labours he main- 
 tained a power of keen observation, and discovered 
 the cause of this outbreak. The Broad Street Pump 
 has a notable place in the history of disease. I do not 
 suppose that it was then discovered for the first time 
 that cholera was disseminated by the pollutions of 
 water, but Whitehead's investigations had much to 
 do with the absolute and final recognition of the 
 fact. Broad Street was within the boundaries of 
 his parish, and its pump was locally famous for its 
 brilliant water. This is not the place for even an 
 epitome of the evidence by which it was proved 
 that this same brilliancy was itself a proof of a deadly 
 pollution. It will suffice to mention one fact. The 
 only case of cholera observed in one of the northern 
 suburbs of London was in a former resident of St. 
 Luke's, who had the water regularly supplied to her. 
 
 But I come back to lighter themes. Henry 
 Whitehead had a great reputation for ability among 
 all who were qualified to judge, but the character 
 in which he was best known was that of a humorist. 
 I must give one or two examples of his wit. 
 
 In the early days of my residence at Lincoln 
 
OXFOED 63 
 
 the College was divided on the question : Should the 
 undergraduates rise from their places when the 
 ' Dons ' left the High Table ? It seems a reasonable 
 mark of respect, but it was fiercely opposed by a 
 party which, for the nonce, at least, took up the 
 conservative attitude of doing what they had been 
 used to do, and resisting all change. 
 
 Bampfield and Morris, already mentioned, figure 
 as ' Bampager ' and ' Morrisia virtus,' and I myself as 
 ' iEdes Sacra,' a joke which, I need hardly say, was 
 not then made for the first time or the last. Two of 
 the references are so happy that I must give them. 
 His own attitude is well expressed by the vigorous 
 line : ' Nulla magistrorum Capiti reverentia Cano.' 
 The other is a very felicitous application. The senior 
 commoner was a man who had long exceeded the 
 usual term of an undergraduate's residence. He 
 did not feel equal to passing his examination, and 
 contrived to put off the trial, not without the favour 
 of the authorities, who commonly insisted on the 
 attempt being made when a certain standing was 
 reached. His Christian name, luckily for the poet, 
 was ' Felix.' So the lines in which Juvenal apo- 
 strophises Nestor suited the occasion : 
 
 ' Felix nimirum qui tot per secula mortem 
 Bistulit, atque suos dextra iam computat annos,' 
 
 translated thus by Gifford : 
 
 ' happy sire beyond the common rate, 
 Who warded off, so long, the stroke of fate.' 
 
64 MEMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 The resolve of the opposition not to give way is 
 expressed by a Virgilian reminiscence : — ' Sedet 
 aeternumque sedebit.' 
 
 I must give another specimen of Henry White- 
 head's humour. The occasion was an event, men- 
 tioned above — William Kay's leaving Oxford to take 
 up the principalship at Bishop's College, Calcutta. 
 Kay, it should be explained, was considered to be 
 over-frugal in the hospitality which he occasionally 
 showed to his pupils. I have been his guest at 
 breakfast, and I can testify that the meal was very 
 different from the abundant, doubtless too abundant, 
 repast with which the undergraduate is accustomed 
 to regale his friends. This was the failing which 
 Whitehead touched upon in the following stanza : 
 
 ' The breakfasts he'll give to the lads of Calcutta 
 Will be on a plan neither novel nor fresh ; 
 Each will bring his own commons of stale bread and butter, 
 And no Brahmin be asked to eat animal flesh.' 
 
 This, as far as I know, is the only surviving 
 stanza of a song with which Whitehead entertained 
 a college ' wine.' I do not know whether I need add 
 that Whitehead really respected his tutor, and parted 
 from him on excellent terms, and that Kay, for all his 
 frugal ways, was a really generous man. 
 
 One other name I must mention, because it is 
 that of the most distinguished pupil I ever had 
 — Richard Copley Christie. I did nothing to help 
 him to the gaining of these distinctions. I simply 
 
OXFOED 65 
 
 cleared an obstacle out of his way. Classics were 
 not his strong point, and I ' coached ' him for modera- 
 tions. Quite possibly he would have passed without 
 my assistance. He took in due course a first in the 
 new School of Law and Modern History. Shortly 
 afterwards he was appointed Professor of History 
 and Political Economy at Owens College, Manchester. 
 The Chair of Political Economy was added later on. 
 He was succeeded by A. W. Ward in the Chair of 
 History, by the Eight Hon. J. Bryce in that of Law, 
 and in that of Political Economy by Stanley Jevons, 
 M.D. It was well said : ' It is given to few men 
 to have three such successors.' He had a large 
 practice at the Manchester Bar, and was made 
 Chancellor of the Diocese by Bishop Fraser. He 
 was a munificent benefactor to Owens College. But 
 in even the briefest notice of his life his connection 
 with the Whitworth Company must be noticed. 
 A man whose whole interest seemed to lie in the 
 studies which are represented by books, he presided 
 with distinguished success over a concern which 
 was busied in the manufacture of armaments. His 
 great literary monument is his ' Life of Etienne 
 Dolet.' 
 
 I took my degree in 1851, being placed in the 
 Second Class in Classics by, I may add, four most 
 distinguished examiners : H. B. Wilson, W. Linwood, 
 Benjamin Jowett and George Butler. Ten were 
 placed in the First Class, among them being a future 
 
 F 
 
66 MEMOKIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 bishop (Gr. Bidding of Southwell), a judge (T. W. 
 Chitty), and a famous historian (Samuel Rawson 
 Gardiner). Next to me in the Second stood a name 
 dear to many generations of Marlburians, Charles 
 Bull. The last candidate in the Class, had a curious 
 experience. In the list as originally published his 
 name appeared in the Third Class. The next day 
 an amendment to this was posted up in which he had 
 changed places with a namesake at another College. 
 In the October term, after taking my degree, I availed 
 myself of an opportunity of becoming acquainted 
 with the working of a great public school, and gained 
 some experience which I afterwards found very useful. 
 It was then necessary for a Bachelor of Arts who 
 wished to proceed to the degree of Master to reside 
 for one term of three weeks. Henry Anstey, after- 
 wards a distinguished historical scholar, who was 
 then one of the masters of Bossall, wished to keep 
 his ' Master's term,' and I took his place for the 
 necessary time. The depth of winter is not the 
 best time for seeing such beauties as Rossall may 
 possess. Nevertheless I enjoyed my sojourn there, 
 and I formed a lifelong friendship with William 
 Lethbridge, afterwards the working partner in the 
 house of W. H. Smith & Son. 
 
 I cannot close this chapter without telling the 
 story of the election to the Rectorship of Lincoln in 
 1851. Dr. Radford died in the October of that 
 year. The vacancy had to be filled up within a 
 
OXFOED 67 
 
 month, and there were nine electors, two of the 
 fellows of Lincoln being out of reach, and one in his 
 year of probation. Keform was the question which 
 was fought out on this as on many other battlefields. 
 Richard Michell was the man whom most outsiders 
 would have named as the best man for the post. 
 But he was not eligible. He had been on the Somer- 
 setshire foundation, and it had been stipulated when 
 the Somersetshire Fellow had been admitted to the 
 privileges of the foundation that this right should 
 be barred. A certain Dr. Kay who had held a 
 Yorkshire Fellowship was accordingly chosen by the 
 conservative party in the College as representing 
 as nearly as possible the disqualified Michell. Five 
 votes were promised to him, one, however, as we shall 
 see, with a reserve. The five were Calcott, Gibbs, 
 Kettle, Metcalfe and West. On the other side was 
 the party of reform, made up of Pattison, Perry, 
 Andrew and Espin. These four were determined 
 to prevent, if possible, the election of Kay. I never 
 could understand why they were so antagonistic 
 to him. He had taken a First Class in his time. 
 They certainly went further and fared much worse. 
 On the night before the election the four went to 
 Calcott and offered to vote for him. Their votes, 
 added to his own, would have secured his election. 
 He very properly refused. He did not feel equal to 
 the post, and he had made a promise to Kay. Then 
 they went to West. West had made the same 
 
 p 2 
 
68 MEMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 promise, but with the reserve of which I have spoken 
 before. He had told James Thompson, who held the 
 College living of Cublington, that he would serve 
 him if the chance offered itself. This had now 
 happened. The four agreed, with what searchings 
 of heart I do not know, to support Thompson, and 
 he was accordingly elected the next day by five votes 
 to four. He was an absolutely unfit person — about 
 as illiterate as a graduate of the University could be. 
 I remember Thomas Fowler, who was sub-rector 
 under him for some years, telling me that he never 
 received a college notice from him in which he had 
 not to correct some error of grammar. 
 
 And what, it may be asked, was West's object ? 
 He wanted to clear a way to the best benefice that 
 the College had in its gift. The fellow immediately 
 above him in the list would take the living vacated 
 by the new Rector. Others were disposed of in some 
 way or another — it would be tedious to relate the 
 details. The end of it was that when the living 
 actually became vacant, Kay, who was his senior, 
 came back from India and accepted it. Years passed, 
 and it became vacant again ; was offered to West and 
 refused by him, and finally given to a graduate of the 
 College who had never held a Fellowship. It may 
 be worth while to add some figures which may help 
 to make the story more intelligible. In 1850 the 
 Tithe Rent of the benefice was worth about 850Z., 
 and 112 acres of glebe could probably be let for 150/. 
 
OXFOED 69 
 
 more. With tithe diminished by nearly 30 per cent., 
 glebe almost unlettable, and rates largely increased, 
 the situation became very different. 
 
 The affair became a matter of very fierce contro- 
 versy in and out of the newspapers. Pamphlets were 
 published, one of them by Henry Whitehead, under 
 the title of ' A Voice from the Common Room ' ; 
 there was an appeal to the Visitor, and the College 
 suffered not a little in reputation and in numbers. 
 In 1856, when I was looking for work, and thought 
 that I might find it at Oxford, I was able to get 
 rooms in College — there were not undergraduates 
 enough to fill them. My contribution to the contro- 
 versy was a set of Creek hexameters, some of which 
 I will venture here to quote. I spoke of how the 
 Fellows, during the fifteen days which intervened 
 between the funeral of Dr. Radford and the election 
 of a new Rector, 
 
 rjavypt sv fisydpoMTi /eaOrffisvoi sikairlva^ov, 
 hsl Baivvfisvoi Kpsa r' aairsra ical fiedv olvov 
 Iras 8' apa fitfSea irVKVa icaO' clvtov fit]Ti,6a>TO 
 fivdovs ts kXottiovs tcaX siSea ttoW airwrdoDV, 
 si 8?j ircos Eripaiv tf>peva (fxorcov KSpSaKeowiv 
 iijaTratJMiiT' hirssaai kcl\ avrm kvSos apoiro. 
 
 I went on to describe the appearance of three 
 candidates — Calcott, Thompson and Pattison — and 
 related how the Fellows fidXa vrfrioi afipocrvinjo-i, 
 chose the second. The first and second descriptions 
 
70 MEMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 of these three I will omit, and give only the 
 third : 
 
 vararos air' slarjXOsv afiv/iav Hdrriov vlos, 
 oaye vswraros scrxs icaX ovKoraros yevsjjfa, 
 ov fiaXa osfivbs IBsiv fjev hifjuas, oiSs imyiyrrjS, 
 ovhs fiaX' olvoTroTctfce fisr' dvSpaa-t Sairv/ioveairi, 
 aXKa vo& <y' aweKaivvB' 6[ir)~Kucas it-oya iravras, 
 Kal croj>iri ftovKy re, Osos 8' as riero 8ij/j,a>. 
 
 It should be observed that I speak of three candi- 
 dates, whereas there were but two, and that I attri- 
 bute to Calcott a part which he declined to play. 
 Trifling as the matter is, it has a really important 
 bearing on some problems of the Higher Criticism. 
 We may imagine that if these verses chanced to 
 survive for some centuries a reader might say : 
 ' Clearly this writer was not contemporaneous ; he 
 lived at a time when the facts had passed out of 
 common knowledge.' As a matter of fact they were 
 written before the facts were known. Whatever 
 value they may have as a record is of the feeling of 
 the time only. 
 
 I have spent many happy hours in Oxford during 
 the time — fifty-six years and more as I write — which 
 has passed since I took my degree ; and I regard the 
 place with gratitude and affection. I remember once 
 hearing a preacher roll out from the pulpit : ' I love 
 the Church of England : not for its honours and 
 emoluments, of which, indeed, I have had but a 
 small share ' — and I thought at the time that he had 
 
OXFOED 71 
 
 had as much as he deserved. This is my own case : 
 it is not one of unrewarded merit. In 1882-3 I 
 was Moderator in the School of Classical Honours, 
 and greatly enjoyed the work. I remember being 
 struck with the more than respectable average of 
 scholarship. I have done much examining since 
 that time, and I feel sure that Oxford would show 
 up well in any comparison that might be made. I 
 venture to remark that it would be well if outside 
 examiners were regularly appointed ; this is done 
 by other universities, and, I believe, with good 
 results. Thorold Rogers used to say, more suo, that 
 the Oxford teachers used to ' audit their own ac- 
 counts.' One serious fault there was in the system 
 as it was then worked ; a ' cranky ' examiner could 
 do very serious injury to the candidates, especially 
 to those who came particularly under his ken. One 
 of my colleagues — he has been long since dead — 
 was of this temper; he had quite unattainable 
 ideals. What happened was this. As it was clearly 
 impossible that all the five examiners should read all 
 the papers of some hundred and eighty candidates, 1 
 each paper was assigned to the Moderator who had 
 set it to be marked by him. It was then ' backed ' by 
 another, and, possibly, by a third. In those days 
 
 1 I should explain that at this time Moderations were held twice in 
 the year, and that the candidates were unequally divided between 
 the winter and summer examinations. As most men come up in 
 October, an examination held in July gave a candidate six months 
 more. The winter men were ' fit and few.' 
 
72 MEMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 there was a viva voce examination, ten men coming 
 in every day, and two of them being allotted to 
 each of the five Moderators. All the papers of these 
 two were read and classed by his special examiner, 
 if I may so call him. In the summer of 1881 the 
 Homer papers were assigned to a Moderator whom 
 I will call X. Eighty of them, out of a total of about 
 180, were classed as First. In the summer of 1882 
 this paper was assigned to Y, and he classed three 
 only. This depressed all the candidates, and dimi- 
 nished each man's chance of a First. But the two 
 who fell at viva voce into Y's hands, and who had 
 all their papers marked with a low figure, suffered 
 more than the rest. 
 
 One of the experiences which I had during my 
 term of office may be worth recounting. One of the 
 candidates had manifestly used unlawful helps. 
 The Homer paper convicted him beyond all doubt. 
 His rendering of the first two passages set was 
 strongly flavoured with ' Butcher and Lang ' (I need 
 hardly say that this is the familiar name of a prose 
 translation of the ' Odyssey/ which has displaced 
 all rivals) ; I ought, perhaps, to say that it was 
 ' Butcher and Lang,' with a slight and not improving 
 flavour of the man's own. If there had been nothing 
 else to go by, it is doubtful whether we could have 
 acted. But in the third passage there was a convinc- 
 ing proof. The man had, it was evident, failed 
 to recognise it, and had attempted to translate it 
 
OXFOED 73 
 
 ' out of his own head,' so to speak. The result was 
 deplorable. Then he had come to a word or a phrase 
 which reminded him of its place in the book. The 
 first attempt was crossed out, and the third passage 
 was dealt with as the first and second had been. 
 We deputed the management of the affair to one of 
 our colleagues whose method and manner would, 
 we were confident, be all that could be desired. 
 The candidate was up that day for viva voce. He 
 
 was asked to come into the room by himself. S 
 
 took the bull by the horns. ' What books did you 
 
 bring into the schools, Mr. ? ' he asked. The 
 
 man laid down his arms immediately at this direct 
 attack. 
 
 ' Church and Brodribb's " Tacitus," ' he began ; 
 and I felt as if I were particeps criminis. 
 
 I had the good fortune to win a University prize — 
 I say ' good fortune,' for such this certainly was, as 
 will be seen when I tell the tale. 
 
 In 1851, or thereabouts, some anonymous donor 
 gave 1,000Z. to the University, the interest of which 
 was to be given every third year to the best ' Poem on 
 a Sacred Subject.' It was to be open to all graduates, 
 whatever their standing. I always intended to 
 compete for it, but never could finish my piece. 
 In 1870, however, when the subject was ' The Lake of 
 Tiberias ' I did manage to complete my exercise, 
 and sent it in — unluckily a month too late. The 
 appointed day was December 1 ; my poem went in 
 
74 MBMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 on December 31. Ibiomnis effusus labor, I thought 
 to myself. But fifteen years afterwards the same 
 subject was set again under the title of the ' Sea of 
 Galilee.' I revised my pOem, added a couple of 
 stanzas, and won the prize. I hope it was not 
 undeserved ; but good fortune had, as I have said, 
 much to do with it. Has such a thing ever happened 
 before ? 
 
75 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A COUNTRY CUEACY 
 
 I was ordained (as deacon) on Trinity Sunday, 1853. 
 The ordaining bishop was James Henry Monk, who 
 had held the See of Gloucester since 1830, and that 
 of Bristol since 1836. He was one of the ' Greek 
 play ' bishops, as they used to be called. A Fellow 
 and Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge, he had suc- 
 ceeded to the Professorship of Greek in that University 
 on the death of Richard Porson. From Cambridge 
 he went to the Deanery of Peterborough, which he 
 held together with a Canonry at Westminster. 
 ' Farthing Candle Monk ' was the name given him 
 by the hostile faction in the world of scholarship — 
 scholars in those days were only less bitter than 
 theologians — as being one of the commentators who 
 explain the obvious and avoid the obscure. I imagine 
 that he knew as much Greek as any of his contem- 
 poraries, though hardly as much as his great prede- 
 cessor. His annotation looks not a little dry and 
 jejune, but that was the fashion of his time. He had 
 the misfortune to come into collision with Sydney 
 Smith, but escaped with nothing worse than being 
 
76 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 described as ' the man who spitteth over the bridge 
 at Gloucester.' He had not contrived to learn 
 much about his diocese, at least about the manners 
 and customs of the rural part of it. I remember 
 his asking me, when there was a question of finding 
 a second curate for the parishes which I served, 
 whether part of the stipend might not be provided 
 by making him parish clerk as well as curate. Now 
 this arrangement might do in a town. There have 
 been, and may be now, parish clerks in Orders. In a 
 populous parish the statutable fees are considerable. 
 But in the country the idea is grotesque. I had to 
 explain to his lordship, and felt no little embarrass- 
 ment in doing so, that the parish clerk got the greater 
 part of his emoluments, which, after all, could not 
 have exceeded eight or ten pounds in the year, by 
 digging graves. But he was a kindly, dignified old 
 gentleman, who used to travel about his diocese 
 in a carriage and pair, attended by a body servant 
 who might have been taken for an archdeacon till 
 one saw his legs. 
 
 In the ordinations of those days matters were not 
 well arranged. Commonly the candidates were left to 
 shift for themselves, and unless they happened 
 to have private friends in the city, took up their 
 quarters at one of the hotels. This was a plan which 
 was hardly suitable to a solemn occasion, and it 
 cost more than some were well able to afford. Very 
 few of the bishops exercised the hospitality which 
 
A COUNTRY CURACY 77 
 
 was so obvious a duty — Sumner, of Winchester, was 
 one of the few. Then, again, the three days that 
 preceded the ordination were taken up with an 
 examination. It was not easy to spare thought for 
 anything but the papers with which we had struggled 
 or were about to struggle. It was not, it is true, a 
 severe ordeal for a moderately well-informed candi- 
 date, but then not a few of the candidates were 
 not even moderately well informed. And some of 
 those who were so were not therefore free from 
 anxiety. It is not always the ignorant candidate 
 who is most troubled about his prospects of success. 
 Anyhow, the examination diverted our thoughts 
 from more important matters. Here, again, there 
 has been a general change for the better. Dr. Monk 
 was accustomed to hold two ordinations in the 
 year — at Gloucester in the summer, at Bristol in the 
 winter. At Gloucester the episcopal palace was 
 deserted, and the only entertainment which we 
 received was a luncheon after the service of ordina- 
 tion. At Bristol, where I received Priest's Orders 
 after a diaconate of six months only, there was more 
 hospitality shown to us, but it cost us at least as 
 much as it saved. Luncheon we had in the interval 
 of examinations, but dinner was a formidable cere- 
 mony, and we had to return to Bristol to don our 
 dress clothes, and then journey out to the palace in a 
 fly. It must be explained that there was a curious 
 fancy at one time among those who managed the 
 
78 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 temporal affairs of the Church to build the residences 
 of the bishops at a considerable distance from their 
 cathedral cities. It looked as if the object was to 
 put them as far as possible out of the reach of their 
 clergy, but the real reason was probably to assimilate 
 their position to that of other county magnates. 
 Other Lords of Parliament did not live in the middle 
 of a city, and why should a bishop ? Thus it had 
 come to pass that the bishop's palace at Gloucester 
 had been abandoned, and ' an elegant and commodious 
 family mansion ' purchased at Stapleton, about four 
 miles from Bristol. The traversing these four miles 
 twice at least in the day was inconveniently expen- 
 sive. On the final day the dinner was, I remember, 
 of a more recherche kind. Claret was substituted 
 for port at dessert, and we had the honour of being 
 introduced to the Bishop's wife and daughters. 
 On this third day it was the successful candidates 
 only that appeared. The big country houses have 
 now for the most part disappeared. The Bishop of 
 Bristol does not live at Stapleton, nor the Bishop of 
 Lincoln at Biseholme. Danesbury, and Eccleshall, 
 once the residences of the Bishops of Rochester and 
 Lichfield, have been sold. Farnham Castle and 
 Hartlebury might be advantageously dealt with in 
 the same way. It would be too revolutionary, I 
 suppose, to oust the Archbishop of Canterbury from 
 Lambeth, and the Northern Primate from Bishop's 
 Thorpe, but these are expensive dwellings. The 
 
A COTJNTEY CUE ACT 79 
 
 fixtures of the two archiepiscopal houses are, I have 
 heard, most inconveniently costly. 
 
 In the curacy to which I was ordained I fared 
 better than I deserved. The Vicar had written to 
 the tutor of my College, asking whether he knew 
 of anyone who wanted a title to Orders, and the 
 tutor gave him my name. He came to see me in 
 London, and I went to see him in Wiltshire, but, as 
 far as I can remember, I asked him none of the 
 questions which, as it now appears to me, I ought to 
 have asked, and knew practically nothing of the 
 duties which I should have to discharge. 
 
 The parish, or, to speak more correctly, the two 
 united parishes of Charlton and Brokenborough, 
 contained about 8,000 acres (more than twelve 
 square miles), with an extreme length of nearly 
 eight miles. The population was not far from a 
 thousand, scattered, especially in Charlton, in groups 
 of two to five or six houses over the whole region. 
 The eastern end was in Braydon, an old forest long 
 since disafforested, a region of stiff clay — so tenacious 
 that it caused a special ailment of the horses' legs, 
 known as ' Braydon rash ' ; so wet that it was popu- 
 larly said never to have dried since the deluge, 
 and so cold that the hay was sometimes to be seen 
 still in the fields when the hunting season began. 
 It was occupied by a number of small dairy farms 
 held by tenants who employed but little labour 
 outside their own families. The western portion was 
 
80 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 far more fertile, and had a more genial climate, was 
 divided into larger farms, and was in every way more 
 advanced and prosperous. All this and the corre- 
 sponding difference in the character of the popula- 
 tion I had to find out for myself. My vicar, who was 
 a most indefatigable walker, took me round and did 
 his best to show me everything and everybody ; but, 
 of course, it took me no little time to make myself 
 acquainted with the scores of roads, lanes, and paths, 
 that traversed the parish, not to speak of the inhabi- 
 tants of the cottages and farms. The poverty of 
 the labouring class was great. The average wage 
 was nine shillings a week, with an allowance of beer. 
 With bread at 8d. the quartern — and it was seldom 
 less during the period 1853-56 — this meant very 
 spare living indeed. 1 Bacon was very seldom eaten ; 
 even tea was not for every day, water coloured with 
 burnt bread being a common substitute for it. The 
 chief luxury of the cottage was dripping, which was 
 sold at the kitchen of the great house. Coal was 
 obtained at something like half the retail price. 
 It was bought in the summer, hauled free by the 
 farmers, and stored in a place specially provided. 
 The wages were helped out by piecework, such as 
 turnip hoeing, and by extra work in the hay and 
 corn harvests. Some of the women earned a little 
 by field work. 
 
 Such was the place into which I was tumbled, so 
 
 1 Including the very bad harvest of 1853, and the Crimean War. 
 
A COUNTEY CUBACY 81 
 
 to speak, some fom months after I had completed 
 my twenty-fourth year. I doubt whether I had 
 ever before spoken to a labouring man other than a 
 Thames fisherman, and I felt shy, not to say tongue- 
 tied. When there was sickness in the house my way 
 was comparatively plain. I could read some verses 
 of the Bible and could pray ; but to say anything 
 really helpful seemed to be beyond me. I can only 
 hope that my goodwill made my very clumsy minis- 
 trations not wholly useless. The ordinary visit 
 made when there was no special occasion was a 
 greater trial. I was always tormented with the 
 thought — Ought I to bring in something religious ? 
 Probably they expected it, and would not have 
 noticed what I could not help feeling was bad taste. 
 I must have often seemed tiresome, interrupting 
 them in their work, but they were always patient and 
 polite. And it was the rarest possible thing for any 
 one to beg or even to hint at a gift — a most creditable 
 forbearance, considering how miserably poor they 
 were. I remember an old man frankly telling me 
 that the vicar commonly gave him half-a-crown when 
 he came to the Communion. But he was something 
 of a mauvais sujet. 
 
 Six weeks after my coming into the parish I was 
 left alone in charge of it. My vicar had a moor in the 
 Island of Lewis, and he took his departure in time 
 for the salmon, and to get his dogs into training for 
 the grouse shooting ; I did not see him again for six 
 
 G 
 
82 MEMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 months. This was, of course, irregular, but the 
 bishop made no difficulties. The fact was that the 
 vicar's wife had joined the Koman communion, and 
 the bishop thought that she might proselytise — a 
 thing which, I am sure, she had not the remotest 
 intention of doing. And there was another reason. 
 The vicar did not get on with the family at the Great 
 House. The fault was not altogether on his side. 
 The two had different ideas of Churchmanship. He 
 was of the ' High and Dry ' school. The Oxford 
 Movement had not touched him, but he had his 
 conceptions of clerical duty, and did his best to act 
 up to them. To see that the children learnt their 
 Catechism — they used to repeat it in church on the 
 Sunday afternoons in Lent — to bring the grown-up 
 people to church, to make himself acquainted with 
 everyone in the parish, to visit the sick, and to per- 
 suade anyone whose illness seemed likely to be mortal 
 to receive the Communion, was his pastoral ideal, 
 and he was indefatigable in trying to realise it — 
 when he was at home. And, after all, there is some- 
 thing to be said for it. But the ' family ' had other 
 ideas. Some of them had been deeply touched by the 
 
 Evangelical movement. Two of Lord S 's sisters 
 
 were so moved by what they regarded as the spiritual 
 destitution of the parish that they provided a Scrip- 
 ture-reader to relieve it. This the vicar could not 
 be expected to like. But as long as the reader 
 
A COUNTEY CUEACY 83 
 
 confined his ministrations to reading the Bible and 
 praying in the cottages, he could do nothing. Un- 
 fortunately the man in his zeal went on to gather 
 together small congregations to whom he preached, 
 and his employers did not forbid him. This pro- 
 ceeding brought him within reach of the law — it has, 
 I imagine, been altered since that time — and the 
 vicar took proceedings against him. The result was 
 
 that Lord S , who was Chairman of the Bench of 
 
 Magistrates, had to fine his own sisters' employe. 
 Relations were not absolutely broken off, but they 
 were, as may be supposed, anything but cordial. 
 This was not an agreeable condition of things for a 
 newcomer to find. Happily, I knew nothing, or next 
 to nothing, of what had happened, and I was treated 
 most discreetly by both parties to the dispute. The 
 vicar had the good sense not to attempt to enlist me 
 as a partisan on his side, and the ' Family ' did not 
 entertain any prejudice against me because I was 
 his nominee. I was happy enough to win and to 
 retain the friendship of both. I paid several visits 
 to the vicar after I had ceased to be his curate, as I 
 shall have occasion to relate further on. And I was 
 for many years a frequent guest of the ' Family.' 
 All the elder generation, and, with one exception, all 
 the younger generation also have passed away. To 
 elder and younger I pay the tribute of affectionate 
 recollection. To one a special expression of gratitude 
 
 a 2 
 
84 MBMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 is due. Lady S , a daughter of one of the 
 
 noblest of English, houses, was to me the kindest of 
 friends, the wisest of helpers and counsellors. She 
 gave the best of advice in the happiest way, without 
 a suspicion of patronage, and by her unfailing kind- 
 ness and sympathy made everything easy for me. 
 She passed away in a good old age by the quiet and 
 painless death which was the fitting end of a life 
 spent for others. She said good-bye to her servants, 
 thanked the doctors for all that they had done or 
 tried to do, bade her children farewell, and then, 
 with the words ' I will rest a little,' leant back on 
 her pillows, and drew without a struggle her latest 
 breath. 
 
 When my first year was about half through, my 
 work was very much increased by the illness and 
 death of my fellow-curate. I have spoken of the 
 two country parishes which were in my charge. 
 There was a third parish, a part of the town of 
 Malmesbury, in which stood the mother church. 
 Here there were, of course, two services on the Sunday 
 — Charlton and Brokenborough had to be content 
 with one, which was alternately in the morning and 
 the afternoon. The town church had a curate of 
 its own, who had also to come out to the country 
 churches for such services as a deacon could not 
 perform. This curate had to leave on account of 
 ill-health in October, 1853, and died a few weeks 
 afterwards. I thus became responsible for the 
 
A COUNTEY CUEACY 85 
 
 whole work of the parish. I can best explain the 
 situation by a diagram : 
 
 Charlton Vicarage 
 + 
 
 + + 
 
 Brokenborough Church Charlton Church 
 
 + 
 WeBtport Church 
 
 My plan was, on one Sunday to take a morning 
 service at C, walk over to B for the afternoon service, 
 and officiate at W in the evening, the morning service 
 in this church having been dropped for that day. 
 On the alternate Sundays I went to B at 9 o'clock 
 in the morning, took another morning service at W, 
 at 11, and officiated at C in the afternoon, the evening 
 duty at W being taken by one of the neighbouring 
 clergy. This was the more laborious day of the two. 
 Always I had to walk all the distances, except that 
 when I was at W in the evening I dined with a friend 
 in Malmesbury, and was driven home by my vicar's 
 brother-in-law, who spent the winter there, hunting 
 with the V. W. H. and the Duke of Beaufort's fox- 
 hounds. The hospitality of my Malmesbury friend, 
 Mr. Yarde Buller, father of the present Lord Churston, 
 and the companionship of Kobert Morritt, afterwards 
 of Rokeby, helped not a little to lighten my burden. 
 
 When I remember how dull and solitary the life 
 of a country curate often is, and how much kindness 
 
86 MEMOEIES OE MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 and friendship I had the good fortune to meet with, 
 I cannot feel sufficiently thankful. 
 
 In my day neither of the churches had been 
 ' restored ' ; of course they have now shared the 
 common fate, and are very neat and correct, with 
 everything in its proper place ; but very much like 
 other churches, and, to my mind, less interesting than 
 they used to be. In Charlton the pulpit stood half 
 way down the north wall, and just opposite the south 
 porch. It was a fine bit of seventeenth century 
 wood carving, with a text behind the preacher : 
 { Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel,' bearing the 
 date 1636. The situation was not according to rule, 
 but it was certainly convenient for the delivery of 
 the sermon. Then the ' Family ' had a stately pew, 
 also finely carved, which ran nearly across the 
 church, above the floor of which it was slightly 
 raised, being constructed on the crown of the family 
 vault. The north-east corner was the traditional 
 seat of the ruling Earl ; from that, in the careless 
 days of the eighteenth century, when one parson 
 
 used to serve four churches, the Lord S of the time 
 
 would read the prayers, if, as sometimes happened, 
 the minister failed to come. The other occupants 
 of the pew sat face to face. Below this was the 
 second-class pew, in which sat the upper servants — 
 housekeeper, butler, nurse, valet, and ladies' -maids, 
 all those, in fact, who had the privilege of being 
 called by their surnames. And then came the pew 
 
A COUNTEY CUEACY 87 
 
 to which were relegated footmen in livery, and maids 
 of the house, the kitchen, the scullery, the stillroom, 
 and the laundry. Along the south wall was a 
 peculiarly hideous wooden gallery for the school- 
 children. It was always an offence, but chiefly when 
 the village club kept festival on Whit-Monday, and 
 the brass band took possession of it, making such 
 an uproar of sound as almost to blow the roof off. 
 
 Brokenborough Church was an example of what 
 the neglect and carelessness of some three centuries 
 can bring about when an ancient building is con- 
 cerned. The lines of the architecture were obscured 
 by repeated coats of whitewash. The pews were 
 ugly structures of deal without paint or varnish. 
 No attempt was ever made to warm the building. 
 The music was primitive. Four of the village 
 fathers took their places just in front of the reading- 
 desk ; one had a flute, another a violin, the other 
 two instruments which I do not remember. There 
 are, I suppose, no such village choirs now. The very 
 smock-frocks, with their elaborate pleating, which 
 they all wore, have gone. It is the rarest thing 
 to see some survival of a past generation still clad 
 in one of these picturesque garments. They have 
 disappeared, as, I suppose, all national costumes will 
 disappear. I think kindly of these simple-hearted 
 musicians, who were, anyhow, very much in earnest — 
 all the more kindly, it may be, because I myself have 
 not much of an ear. The cassocked and surpliced 
 
88 MBMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 choirs of to-day are doubtless a great improvement 
 on their predecessors, but not in everything. 
 
 The school at Charlton was something like the 
 modern type. It was under Government inspection, 
 but as it was wholly supported by the ' Family,' 
 inspection did not go beyond friendly advice. The 
 master was not up to modern requirements. I re- 
 member hearing him give a lesson on astronomy, 
 and found that he had never heard of more than seven 
 planets. He sat for a certificate during my time, 
 and failed. I am not likely to forget the fact, for I 
 took his place for three days and found the work quite 
 sufficiently hard. Still, he was, on the whole, fairly 
 effective. The school was always in good order ; as he 
 had no other help besides what he got from a couple 
 of pupil teachers, this was no small achievement. 
 At Brokenborough there was a dame's school, kept by 
 as good an old woman as ever lived. I imagine that 
 plain sewing was the chief thing in the programme. 
 
 It may be interesting to some of my readers to 
 know that my stipend was 60l. I lived in the vicar- 
 age, paying seven shillings a week as board-wages 
 to a housekeeper-cook, and having the use of veget- 
 ables and fruit from the garden. This was fairly 
 good pay, as things were then. My fellow curate in 
 the town had to be content with a stipend of 801. 
 I opine that now the minimum stipend for a priest is 
 150L, and that a deacon, to whom a title is given, com- 
 monly has not less than 130Z. I contrived to live upon 
 
A COUNTRY CURACY 89 
 
 an additional 40/!. The foundation of my domestic 
 economy was the weekly purchase of a leg of mutton. 
 But my budget was greatly helped by the unstinted 
 hospitality which I received from my neighbours. 
 There was the Great House, at which, when the 
 ' Family ' was there — and they were seldom away 
 for more than six weeks in the year — I dined twice, 
 thrice, or even four times in the week. And there 
 was the ' Cottage,' the ' Dower House ' of the estate, 
 tenanted at that time by the B 's. Their occupa- 
 tion of it began, I think, on the very day on which I 
 came to Charlton — nothing was wanting to my good 
 luck in this respect — and I always found them the 
 kindest and most hospitable of friends. It is not a 
 bad test of a gentleman that he should give as good 
 wine — let me say it pace Sir Victor Horsley — to a 
 poor curate as to a duke. 
 
 Before I bring this chapter to an end I may 
 relate the curious incident of a great picture robbery 
 from this Charlton Park. It happened, if I remember 
 right, in the summer of 1856. One morning it was 
 discovered that twelve pictures had disappeared 
 from the two drawing-rooms, the canvasses having 
 been cut out of the frames. All of them were works 
 of repute and value ; one, I remember, was Le Raboteur 
 of Annibale Caracci. Curiously enough, the house- 
 maids had been at work in the rooms before six 
 o'clock but had observed nothing. For two years 
 
90 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 and more nothing was heard of the pictures. Then 
 the criminal was detected in exactly the way that 
 might have been expected. He found a difficulty 
 which he had not foreseen in disposing of his booty. 
 He had been a butler in the service of the family, 
 and had doubtless heard, while waiting at table, 
 that this or that picture was worth so many hundreds 
 of pounds. But the conditions on which this value 
 depended had never occurred to him : the picture 
 must have an authoritative pedigree. After waiting 
 for many months he took a picture to a dealer, 
 said that he wished to have it cleaned, and hinted 
 that he would be willing to sell it. The dealer recog- 
 nised it at once as one of those that had been stolen, 
 and gave information, with the result that the thief 
 was arrested, tried and found guilty. He afterwards 
 confessed that he had come down to Charlton — he 
 was a porter or messenger in one of the Government 
 offices — had hidden himself somewhere in the house 
 — a wood-cellar off the central hall, if I remember 
 right — had cut out the canvasses as soon as it was 
 light enough to see, carried them rolled up to the 
 nearest station (this was then Minety on the South 
 Wales branch of the Great Western) a distance of 
 between five and six miles. I remember that the 
 late Lord S., then Viscount A., told me that he had an 
 interview with the detective in charge of the inquiry 
 and had seen plainly enough that the officer suspected 
 him of having been concerned in the business. 
 
91 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 SCHOOLMASTER 
 
 After holding my curacy for three years I began to 
 suffer in health, chiefly, I think, because the employ- 
 ment did not suit me, and I began to look out for 
 work, which had always been more to my taste : 
 school-mastering. I had had a short experience of it, 
 as I have mentioned above, at Rossall, and found it to 
 my mind. Then I met with a great discouragement. 
 I had been troubled from childhood with stammering, 1 
 and this infirmity was objected to me, not, I confess, 
 without reason, by a headmaster with whom I 
 might otherwise have come to terms. I was un- 
 willing to suffer another rebuff of this kind, and gave 
 up the idea. By this time, however, I had practically 
 conquered the infirmity. A friend gave me a strong 
 recommendation to Mr. Dawson Turner, who was 
 then headmaster of the Royal Institution School at 
 Liverpool, and I began to work under him in January, 
 1857. The new employment suited me exactly. 
 
 1 When I was a boy'of fourteen I was operated upon by a surgeon 
 of the name of Yearsley, who professed to cure stammering by cutting 
 away the tonsils and uvula. I do not think that the treatment did 
 me any good. 
 
92 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 Liverpool, too, I found a very agreeable place of 
 residence. I was never wearied of the river, the 
 landing-stage, and the docks. I found lodgings at 
 New Brighton, on the Cheshire side of the Mersey, 
 near some old friends of my family. I remained at 
 Liverpool till October, when I was appointed fourth 
 undermaster of Merchant Taylors' School, London. 
 
 Merchant Taylors' School, as it then was — within 
 a few weeks of fifty years ago, as I write these words — 
 had some curious survivals to show in its buildings, 
 its arrangements, and its management. The building 
 was in the late Jacobean style, on the left hand as 
 one went down Suffolk Lane into Upper Thames 
 Street (the school was transferred in 1873 to Charter- 
 house, left vacant by the removal of that foundation 
 to Godalming). The name ' Suffolk ' suggests the 
 history of the site. Here had stood the town mansion 
 of the De La Poles. The Merchant Taylors' Company 
 bought part of the premises, with the gardens attached 
 to them, about the middle of the sixteenth century, 
 when, at the suggestion of Sir Thomas White, the 
 founder of St. John's College, Oxford, they had 
 resolved to establish a school. The buildings which 
 were then erected or adapted to school purposes 
 perished in the Great Fire, and those that were 
 in use in 1857 were erected in their stead. For more 
 than two centuries the only place where teaching 
 was carried on was the Great Schoolroom — its dimen- 
 sions were about seventy feet by twenty-five. It 
 
SOHOOLMASTEE 93 
 
 was lighted, very imperfectly, by windows on either 
 side, large enough, indeed, but obscured by the 
 heavy leading of the small diamond panes, and by 
 the year-long accumulations of dirt. A single fire- 
 place warmed a small part of it. The four class- 
 rooms were all more or less recent additions to the 
 school accommodation. Two were beneath the Great 
 Room. These had been used in earlier times as a 
 lodging for one of the undermasters. (The latest 
 occupant was, I believe, John Ellis, the historian of 
 the school, who had often entertained there Richard 
 Porson, at that time Librarian of the London Insti- 
 tution in Finsbury Circus). The other two had 
 belonged to the headmaster's house, which had 
 been utilised for school purposes shortly before my 
 coming. To this change the undermasters owed the 
 convenience of a common room. Up to that time 
 they had had no other accommodation but a cupboard 
 apiece, in which to keep cap and gown, the necessary 
 books, and the almost equally necessary cane. So 
 stern was the conservatism of the place that when a 
 new arrival, not an old Merchant Taylor, proposed 
 to introduce at his own expense a movable wash-hand- 
 stand, his older colleagues declared that they would 
 eject it. No undermaster ever had washed his hands 
 at school, and none ever should. 
 
 Other curiosities of arrangement were, at the 
 time of my coming, within quite recent memory. 
 There were then no desks in the school-room. The 
 
94 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 monitors (the eight seniors) had a table, the 
 prompters (the eight next to the seniors) had a 
 bench, furnished, I believe, with a desk. Everyone 
 else had to write, when there was occasion for writing, 
 with his paper on his knees. And there were no 
 lights. Every boy had to bring his own candle, 
 which was required to be of wax. These arrangements 
 existed up to about fifteen years before my time. 
 Not many years before this there was no fire — the 
 Great Fire of 1666 had presumably caused a ban to 
 be put upon this element. An old Merchant Taylor, 
 coming to pay his subscription to the Tercentenary 
 Fund of 1862, told Dr. Hessey, the headmaster at that 
 time, that he had been the occasion of the first putting 
 in of a fire-place. He had been a delicate boy, and 
 his father, having friends on the Court of the Com- 
 pany, had obtained this concession to modern 
 weakness. And, indeed, the boys of the older time 
 must have been — at least those who survived — of 
 heroic strength. Dr. Hessey told me, I remember, 
 that he had entered the school at the age of seven — 
 nine was the limit in my time— and that he came from 
 Hampstead, where his father, a publisher of note in 
 the days of Coleridge and Lamb, then lived, starting 
 in time for morning school, then commencing at 
 seven. He had, I believe, to walk, though this 
 sounds almost incredible. What would a present-day 
 mother think of turning out a child of seven at five 
 or half-past on a winter's morning for a walk of five 
 
SCHOOLMASTER 95 
 
 miles, for such must be the distance between Hamp- 
 stead and Suffolk Lane ? 
 
 Things were not so hard in my time, but they 
 were not luxurious. I taught my two forms, com- 
 monly numbering together about sixty — the maxi- 
 mum that I remember was sixty-eight — in one of 
 the class-rooms under the Great School, measuring 
 35 feet by 25, and, perhaps, 10 feet in height. Closely 
 packed together, sitting on benches about six inches 
 broad — there was no room for anything larger — and 
 allowed no time for play, they had not a happy time 
 themselves, and certainly did not allow their masters 
 to have one. Play, indeed, they could not have, 
 for there was no playground, only a paved yard, 
 in which the head form was allowed to walk for ten 
 minutes or so in the middle of morning school. 
 The noise made by even the involuntary restlessness 
 of sixty boys, sitting on uncomfortable benches and 
 cooped up without a recess for between three and four 
 hours, was almost overpowering. And every now 
 and then some huge waggon thundered down the 
 narrow, roughly-paved lane. Till it had passed 
 nothing could be done. Another distracting noise 
 came from the door. The Company would not 
 allow a porter, and the head boy of my upper form 
 had to discharge his functions. There was neither 
 bell nor knocker. An applicant for admission used 
 his foot — a classical method which suited the strictly 
 conservative traditions of the school. I remember 
 
96 MEMORIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 a lady, nearly related to myself, coming to make some 
 inquiry. She was standing perplexed, when a dray- 
 man, better acquainted with the custom of the place, 
 solved her doubts, and was good enough to administer 
 a kick which was heard to the furthest end of the 
 building. The young porter rushed to the door 
 and opened his eyes wide in wonder that so delicate 
 a foot had made so great an impression. But the 
 noise of the class-room was nothing to what I had to 
 endure when, as happened four times in the week, 
 the room was wanted for one of the French masters, 
 and I had to migrate upstairs. Three or four masters 
 were teaching there at the same time ; twice a week, 
 if my memory serves me, there were as many as five. 
 We shouted against each other, but the victory 
 remained with my good friend Eichard Whittington, 
 who, after thirty years' service, passed to the well- 
 earned ease of the rectory of St. Peter's, on Cornhill, 
 together with a seat on the Court of the Company. 
 He died in 1901. 
 
 Another survival of the past was to be found in 
 the system of appointing the undermasters. The 
 Company kept the patronage most jealously in their 
 own hands, and the electors had to be canvassed 
 in the old fashion. I am quite sure that I should 
 never have been chosen if it had not been for the 
 diligence with which my brother, who was practising 
 as a solicitor in London, canvassed the members of 
 the Court of Assistants. The one person to whom 
 
SCHOOLMASTEE 97 
 
 many, I might even say most, of them were unwilling 
 to listen, was the headmaster. When I was ap- 
 pointed, the advertisement limited the choice to 
 ' Oxford graduates who had been placed in the First 
 or Second Class in the School of Classical Honours.' 
 This, I was given to understand, did not mean a 
 special desire for a certain standard of scholarship ; 
 it was a delicate way of excluding a possible candidate 
 — a Cambridge man — whom the headmaster was 
 supposed to favour. The consequence of this arrange- 
 ment was an independence which, I am sure, was 
 mischievous; the headmaster left us almost abso- 
 lutely alone. Anything was better than the civil 
 war which any serious attempt at correction would 
 have produced. Nor had he any power to utilise 
 our services in such a way as he might think best 
 for the school. I was the only one of the under- 
 masters who had taken classical honours at the 
 University, but there never was any idea of putting 
 me to teach one of the higher forms. For the thir- 
 teen years of my stay at Merchant Taylors' I never 
 got beyond the rudiments. It was really a hardship 
 that when a vacancy occurred I lost the pecuniary 
 benefit because I was not competent to take a higher 
 class in mathematics. It should be explained that 
 in the morning the school was divided into forms, 
 in the afternoon into a mathematical and an arith- 
 metic and writing school. The mathematical school 
 was subdivided into classes. I taught the lower of 
 
 H 
 
98 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 these, not ill, perhaps, if it is a virtue in the teacher 
 to have a keen sympathy with the difficulties of his 
 pupils. But the limits of my knowledge did not 
 reach any further, and because I could not take the 
 upper class I received no increase of salary, though I 
 was promoted from the fourth undermastership to 
 the third. 
 
 The proportion of teachers to taught was, of course, 
 on the old inefficient scale. The numbers of the school 
 ranged between two hundred and sixty and two hun- 
 dred and seventy. The headmaster and his assistant 
 provided for about fifty of these ; the rest were divided 
 between the four undermasters. The place which 
 I filled was a recent institution, dating back, I think, 
 to 1840. (I was reminded of this every year when 
 each of my three seniors received, on ' Doctor's Day ' 
 — the day when the annual examination, or ' Pro- 
 bation,' as it was called, was held — the sum of two 
 marks and a half, 1Z. 13s. 4<L, as his fee, and I was 
 left out). Up to 1840, therefore, three masters must 
 each have had on an average seventy boys to teach. 
 Another addition to the staff, first made at the time 
 when I took up my appointment, was the head- 
 master's assistant. This appointment was the result 
 of a long struggle between Dr. Hessey and the Court. 
 The first point gained was, that he should have a 
 helper ; before, he had had to teach forty boys ! The 
 next, that he should choose this helper himself. 
 This was a bitter pill for the Court to swallow. They 
 
SCHOOLMASTEB 99 
 
 showed, I remember, their jealousy and dislike 
 by neglecting to include the assistant in their invita- 
 tion to the great festival of the c Election Day ' 
 dinner. At this our chief, a long-suffering man, who 
 ultimately got his way by an inexhaustible patience, 
 struck. He declared that he would not attend 
 himself, and we backed him up with a similar threat. 
 On this the Court gave way, moved somewhat 
 by the fact that they had just ended another feud. 
 ' Election Day ' got its name from the custom that, 
 on June 11, the President and two senior Fellows of 
 St. John's came to elect, with the assistance and 
 concurrence of the Court, Merchant Taylors' scholars 
 to such Fellowships as might be vacant. Their 
 labours finished, they were entertained at dinner. 
 Of course they were the guests of the evening, and, 
 as such, claimed the right to sit at the master's right 
 hand. On one occasion this place was given to the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury. The offended dons re- 
 fused to come till they had been guaranteed against 
 the slight. The quarrel was now made up, and it 
 would have been too absurd to begin another. The 
 result was that we all went to the dinner. 
 
 Another curious custom, that must have come 
 down from a remote past, was the way in which the 
 school fees were collected. These were called quarter- 
 ages ; each boy paid his to the master of his form. 
 We kept a proportion — 15s., if I remember right — 
 out of the quarterly fee of 21. 10s., and paid over the 
 
 H 2 
 
100 MEMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 rest to the headmaster, who, in his turn, paid it over 
 to the Company. Another survival, I fancy, was 
 an entrance fee of 5s. from every boy who was ad- 
 mitted to the school, paid to the master of the form 
 in which he was placed, and ' moving money,' 5s. 
 paid by every boy who was promoted from one 
 form to another. 
 
 There was not a little of the survival about the 
 teaching. There had, indeed, been a great advance 
 within quite recent memory. Hebrew, Greek, Latin, 
 Divinity, had been the curriculum. If any one 
 wanted to know how to write and cipher he had to 
 learn it out of school. Then mathematics and arith- 
 metic were introduced ; the former, at first, to little 
 purpose. A veteran undermaster was in charge 
 of this teaching. ' Ungrateful rascals ! ' he is said 
 to have exclaimed when his classes failed in the 
 examination, ' when I have given them the whole 
 half-year to work by themselves ! ' All this was 
 changed in my time. The mathematical school, 
 for which the forms were re-arranged in the afternoon, 
 was under most efficient guidance. The morning 
 was wholly given to the old studies, except, indeed, 
 for a couple of hours on Thursdays, when the two 
 lowest forms learnt geography — with the help of 
 blank maps and a very dry little manual of towns 
 and rivers — and modern English history, published 
 by the S.P.C.K., the work, if I remember right, 
 of Bishop Davys, of Peterborough, which would 
 
SCHOOLMASTBE 101 
 
 hardly come up to modern standards. Dr. Davys 
 was preceptor to the Princess Victoria, and the 
 book was presumably written for her instruction. 
 At this moment I can recall nothing more of its con- 
 tents than this fragment of a poem with which it 
 was adorned : 
 
 ' Where King Charles' horse 
 Looks down the street at Charing Cross.' 
 
 The Latin Grammar which I taught was c King 
 Edward's,' a variant of the ' Eton Grammar. ' Here I 
 met again that acquaintance of my childhood, the 
 ' Propria quae maribus,' and another masterpiece of 
 the same kind, known as the ' As in prsesenti,' a 
 memoria technica by which boys were expected to 
 learn the formation of Latin verbs. This was super- 
 seded by the ' Public School Latin Primer,' the work 
 of Dr. Kennedy, of Shrewsbury. All the forms above 
 the third had two hours per week of French, and 
 the head form, and that immediately below it, learnt 
 Hebrew. 
 
 In 1842 a great change was made in the relation 
 of the school to St. John's College. Before that date 
 boys went up to the College as ' Fellows ' — proba- 
 tioners at first, and after two years, full Fellows. 
 Something could be said for the plan. It was well, 
 in a place devoted to commerce, to be able to point 
 to great prizes which were awarded to learning. 
 ' This lad,' it might be said to some doubter, ' has his 
 future assured at nineteen because he has shown 
 
102 MBMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 himself a scholar.' Practically the system did not 
 work well. In one year there might be more vacancies 
 than it was possible to supply with worthy candidates ; 
 in another there might be none, and a really deserving 
 lad might be without provision. And there was always 
 the temptation to take things easily, to be content 
 with a minimum of attainment. The system was 
 changed to one by which three scholarships of 100Z. 
 tenable for seven years during residence were annually 
 given. The difficulty was that the money belonged 
 to the College. This made impossible what would 
 have been the most advantageous scheme for the 
 school, the establishment of scholarships which 
 might be held at any College at Oxford or Cambridge. 
 A boy who wins an 80Z. scholarship and goes up with 
 501. from his school is better off than the Merchant 
 Taylor with his 100Z. The change did not please 
 either the Company or the conservative party in the 
 College. 
 
 I remember Dean Mansel, a Merchant Taylor 
 and a Johnian, quoting, at the tercentenary dinner, 
 certain lines of Virgil, which he accompanied with a 
 free translation : Ter centum regnahitur annos — ' It 
 shall be ruled for three centuries ' ; gente sub Iliaca — 
 ' under the Merchant Taylors' Company ' ; donee 
 regina sacerdos — ' until the Queen's Government ' ; 
 Marte gravis — ' pressed by a hostile opposition ' ; 
 geminam partu dabit Ilia prolem — ' shall give birth to 
 a double Commission.' The ' double Commission ' 
 
SCHOOLMASTEE 103 
 
 was that of the public schools and that of the 
 Universities. 
 
 I cannot close this account of my sojourn at 
 Merchant Taylors' without relating the story of a 
 little difference which I had with Dr. Hessey. I will 
 say, before I begin, that, the first irritation abated, 
 I remained on terms of friendship with the arch- 
 deacon, as he afterwards became, up to the end of his 
 life. But the incident is curiously significant of a 
 change which has come over society in the last forty 
 years. At the end of one summer holiday, spent in 
 a remote part of the Scottish highlands, I came back 
 wearing a moustache. The chief was scandalised. 
 A beard I had worn for some time, finding it a pro- 
 tection against affections of the throat ; but a mous- 
 tache was too much. He did not like to make any 
 direct remonstrance, but appealed to the authority 
 of the Court ; and the Court ordered me to shave 
 my upper lip. It sounds absurd. But did not the 
 Court of Governors of the Bank of England about 
 this time issue an order that their clerks were not to 
 wear beards or moustaches during office hours 1 So the 
 story ran. Whether it was true or not I cannot say ; 
 but it is certain that, in 1858 or 1859, the Bishop of 
 London, coming to hold a Confirmation in one of the 
 churches of his diocese, refused to proceed unless the 
 Incumbent, who wore a moustache, consented to 
 efface himself, i.e. take no part in the service. And 
 this bishop was the sagacious and statesmanlike 
 
104 MBMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 Tait ! I had the better of Dr. Hessey in another 
 matter, which was of an appropriately trifling charac- 
 ter. His assistant took to wearing what I may call 
 a turn-down collar. This offended his sense of 
 propriety, and he ordered that the collars should be 
 discontinued. They were handed over to me, and I 
 wore them — in fact they were of exactly the same 
 pattern as those which I had used for years. But 
 if they were unbecoming in him, they were more so 
 in me, an older man and a clergyman. But the time 
 was intolerant in these matters. A gentleman could 
 not walk comfortably in London except with a tall 
 hat on his head. I remember that, in 1863, I was 
 hooted by some workmen at Eastbourne because I 
 wore knickerbockers. We have certainly become a 
 little more broad-minded in such matters. 
 
105 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 st. peter's, vere street 
 
 One of my most cherished wishes was fulfilled when 
 I became curate to F. D. Maurice, at St. Peter's, 
 Vere Street. This appointment was immediately 
 due to the good offices of Thomas Rowsell, at that 
 time incumbent of St. Peter's, Stepney, afterwards 
 vicar of St. Stephen's, Paddington, and canon of 
 Westminster. Mr. Maurice, however, knew something 
 of me. It is possible that he remembered me as a 
 diligent pupil in his King's College days, and I had 
 been brought into relations with him at the Working 
 Men's College in Great Ormond Street ; I had taken 
 a class for a time on my coming to London in 1857, 
 though I had given it up when I found that my work 
 at Merchant Taylors' School required all the strength 
 that I possessed. Evening teaching is best done 
 by those who have other occupations in the day. 
 Of course it is desirable that they should have some 
 practical acquaintance with a teacher's business ; 
 but a class of grown-up pupils who are all genuinely 
 anxious to learn is very easily managed. Mr. Maurice 
 was presented to the incumbency of St. Peter's in 
 
106 MBMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 July, 1860, the patronage being in the Crown, prac- 
 tically exercised by the Chief Commissioner of Works, 
 a post then filled by Mr. William Cowper, afterwards 
 Lord Mount-Temple. St. Peter's was originally the 
 chapel-of-ease to Marylebone Church ; at the time of 
 which I am writing it was a dependency of All Souls', 
 Langham Place, handing over to that church all the 
 offertories and collections, certain exceptions being 
 made by the goodwill of the incumbent of that 
 parish. There was no district attached to it, a want 
 felt very much by Mr. Maurice, who thought that 
 the ministrations of a clergyman so situated might 
 tend to be unpractical. There was also, he felt, 
 something lacking to a congregation which might 
 be said to have no unity or common interest except 
 that of worshipping together once a week in the 
 same building. He made a characteristic effort to 
 supply these wants by founding the Girls' Home, 
 a place where orphaned or destitute girls were taught 
 and trained for service and other occupations. The 
 congregation took up this good work with heartiness. 
 The home still flourishes, having not long since 
 been removed from the quarters long occupied in 
 Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, to more com- 
 modious premises elsewhere. The children, between 
 twenty and thirty in number, used to attend the 
 services in St. Peter's. They could have understood 
 little of what they heard, but their trust and 
 affection for the man, written plainly upon their 
 
ST. PETER'S, VEEE STEEET 107 
 
 upturned faces, well supplied what may have been 
 lacking. 
 
 Neither baptisms nor marriages could be cele- 
 brated in it. It was not a very valuable prefer- 
 ment, the income being derived entirely from pew 
 rents. The Crown had the charge of decoration 
 and repair, and, if my memory serves me, did not 
 display any great liberality in this respect. I entered 
 upon my duties in May, 1861. I had first preached 
 a sermon of which Mr. Maurice was kind enough to 
 express approval. It was certainly inspired by what 
 I had learnt from him. It would be a great mistake, 
 however, to suppose that he praised because he 
 recognised his own matter. His humility was such 
 that it would never have occurred to him to make 
 any such claim, or to imagine that the preacher had 
 taken from him his conceptions of truth. 
 
 My duties for a time were those of a reader, Mr. 
 Maurice preaching both in the morning and the 
 afternoon. This he found to be too much for him, 
 nor can I wonder when I think of the labour which 
 his sermons must have cost him. I had an oppor- 
 tunity from time to time of seeing his manuscripts. 
 The astonishing thing about them was the quantity 
 of matter which he crossed out. Most preachers 
 when they have written a page regard it as something 
 done, which they are not at all disposed to undo. 
 Mr. Maurice had the habit of striking through page 
 after page. Whenever it occurred to him that he 
 
108 MBMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 might have expressed his thought more clearly he 
 sacrificed earlier results without sparing. I imagine 
 that he very seldom preached an old sermon. After a 
 while I was called upon to occupy the pulpit occa- 
 sionally in the afternoon. During Mr. Maurice's 
 holidays — sometimes spent in taking charge of some 
 country parish — I was responsible for all the services. 
 Without going into detail, I may say that I had to 
 preach much oftener than I liked. It was an honour 
 to stand in the place of such a man ; it was, indeed, 
 the fulfilment of one of my dearest hopes, but it had 
 its disadvantages. The fraterculus gigantis is not to 
 be envied when he is called upon to play the part of 
 his big brother. I never shall forget receiving what 
 was, perhaps, the most direct ' snub ' that was ever 
 administered to me in this character. I was walking 
 with my cousin, W. J. Brodribb, when we met a 
 friend of his. I knew him by sight and name only, 
 and walked a few paces further on. I could not 
 help hearing the conversation which followed. 
 
 ' Hayman,' said Brodribb, ' have you been at 
 St. Peter's lately ? ' 
 
 ' No,' said Hayman, ' you see that the last time 
 I went, I heard the curate, and that was very dis- 
 couraging.' 
 
 I have sometimes caught fragments of talk to the 
 same effect as I have happened to follow visitors who 
 had come to the chapel in the hope of hearing the 
 great man, and were going away disappointed. 
 
ST. PBTBE'S, VBEE STEEBT 109 
 
 I could not but feel a certain sympathy with them. 
 It was quite reasonable that they should feel and 
 express disappointment ; but it was not therefore 
 the more agreeable to the innocent cause. Some- 
 times it was perplexity rather than disappointment 
 which was expressed. I had been taken for my chief, 
 and had failed to come up to their idea of him. I 
 was younger than had been expected ; I was generally 
 unlike. On the whole these expressions of opinion 
 were not more nattering than the other. Perhaps I 
 may be pardoned if I set down here the greatest 
 compliment that I have ever received. It was 
 certainly extravagant ; it might even be called 
 ludicrous. ' If I were to shut my eyes,' said a friend 
 to me, ' I could imagine that I was listening to 
 Maurice himself.' 
 
 The congregation of St. Peter's was indeed one 
 to which it was not easy to minister. It may be said 
 to have included two main elements : one local, the 
 other personally attached. Standing as it does in the 
 near neighbourhood of Cavendish Square and Harley 
 Street, an eminently medical quarter, it has been 
 called the ' Doctors' Church.' A clergyman, now risen 
 to eminence in the Church, relates that when he was 
 in treaty for the post, which I afterwards held, with 
 Mr. Maurice's predecessor, he was told that though 
 the stipend was small — it had been increased in my 
 time — there was this advantage to be taken into 
 account, that he might have the advice, should it 
 
110 MEMOEIBS OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 be needed, of thirty of the most distinguished physi- 
 cians and surgeons in England. It was largely then 
 from the chiefs of the medical profession that the 
 local part of the congregation was drawn. I fre- 
 quently received the hospitality of one of its most 
 distinguished members, Sir Thomas Watson. Sir 
 Thomas, who was born in 1792, had been a Fellow of 
 St. John's College, Cambridge, and was then one of 
 H.M. Physicians-in- Ordinary. He reached his ninety- 
 first year. Never was there a man who came nearer 
 to the ideal of the larpos TroXvireipoTciTos. His talk, his 
 manner, his very look, were full of the mild wisdom 
 which his profession, honourably and faithfully exer- 
 cised, is fitted to teach. I wish that I could remember 
 more of his talk. The one thing that has clung 
 to my memory is this : ' When I was young,' he said, 
 ' I was always keen to use new remedies ; in my old 
 age I have come back to the employment of a few, 
 and those well-known.' In the matter of diet his 
 habits were of the simplest. His luncheon, I re- 
 member, consisted of a glass of milk and a biscuit. 
 
 Dr. Radcliffe, of Cavendish Square, a specialist 
 of high repute in diseases of the brain, was another 
 regular attendant. To him also I was indebted for 
 much hospitality. 
 
 With the local congregation should be reckoned, 
 I suppose, the worshippers who came because the 
 chapel was conveniently near that part of London 
 which fills when the season commences and empties 
 
ST. PETEE'S, VEEB STEEET 111 
 
 more or less when it comes to an end. The pulpit 
 of St. Peter's was occupied by one of the greatest 
 theological teachers of the time. But it was always 
 most crowded in the fortnight between the Derby and 
 Ascot. 
 
 Of those who were drawn to St. Peter's by what 
 I may call personal reasons much might be said, 
 but I will mention a few names only, such as I may 
 feel pretty sure will be known to my readers. I seem 
 to see as I write the venerable white head of John 
 Lonsdale, Bishop of Lichfield (1843-1867). A not 
 infrequent visitor was Mr. Edmund Beckett, after- 
 wards Lord Grimthorpe, with his wife, Bishop 
 Lonsdale's daughter. Dean Stanley often came ; 
 as it was the afternoon that best suited him, he 
 was, I fear, not infrequently the victim of the dis- 
 appointment which I have described above. ' Tom 
 Hughes ' was a very familiar figure. I may be 
 pardoned if I repeat the praise — ' sound doctrine ' — ■ 
 which he bestowed on a discourse which I had 
 preached on the Communism of the early Church 
 at Jerusalem. The eternal truth, I said, was 
 in the principle that ' no man said that aught 
 of the things which he possessed was his own,' 
 but there was no obligation as to this or that 
 application of it. I must not forget to mention the 
 striking personality of George Macdonald. At that 
 time in the prime of his manhood — he was born in 
 1824 — he presented a most striking resemblance to the 
 
112 MEMORIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 traditional features of Christ. To see him kneeling 
 at the rails of the Communion Table made an in- 
 effaceable impression. A less pleasing recollection is 
 of the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, whom I have seen 
 at Macdonald's side. Among occasional worshippers 
 at St. Peter's, I remember Dr. Macdougall, Bishop of 
 Labuan, Henry Dodgson (' Lewis Carroll,' author of 
 ' Alice in Wonderland '), and Bishop Ewing (of 
 Argyll and the Isles). 
 
 My connection with St. Peter's was terminated in 
 1868, when Mr. Maurice accepted the Professorship 
 of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge. For a while he 
 resided at Cambridge, and came up to the Sunday 
 services in London. This was found too much for 
 his strength, and in October, 1869, he resigned the 
 benefice. His farewell sermon was preached on 
 November 7. The attendance at the Communion 
 on that day numbered, I find in his c Life,' 330. 
 About a year afterwards he accepted the Cure of 
 St. Edmund's, Cambridge. This he held for a little 
 more than a year, uniting with it, during part of 
 1871, the Cambridge preachership at Whitehall. He 
 died on Easter Monday, April 1, 1872. I was at his 
 funeral at the Highgate Cemetery on the Friday 
 following. I have never seen a more impressive 
 sight. 
 
 One other recollection of St. Peter's must be 
 given. I had been connected with the church for 
 something more than a year when Mr. Maurice 
 
ST. PETER'S, VEEE STEEET 113 
 
 declared to his friends his intention to resign. A great 
 storm had been raised by Bishop Golenso's book 
 on the Pentateuch. Mr. Maurice conceived the idea 
 that his resignation would serve as a protest against 
 Bishop Colenso's action. His reasons are not easily 
 stated, nor is it necessary that I should attempt to 
 do so. Of course the intended action was misunder- 
 stood, in fact was interpreted in a sense directly 
 contrary to its real purpose. It was supposed to 
 indicate sympathy, whereas it really meant apprehen- 
 sion. Meanwhile I had been not a little disturbed. 
 The resignation would have put an end to a connection 
 which I had learnt to prize highly. The loss of the 
 stipend was also a matter of no little moment, es- 
 pecially as I was looking forward to being married 
 in the course of a few weeks. Mr. Maurice was induced 
 by the absolutely unanimous opposition offered by 
 his friends to reconsider his course of action. He 
 lost no time in letting me know his decision. With 
 characteristic kindness and energy he found his 
 way to my chambers shortly after eight o'clock the 
 next morning. He knew that I had to be early at 
 school, and he was anxious to set my mind at ease. 
 
114 MBMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII 
 
 FROM STICKLEBACK TO SALMON 
 
 I am an angler by heredity; my grandfather was a 
 devotee of the art. A family tradition records that 
 he caught a six-pound perch at Loddon Bridge. 
 Commonly he frequented the Thames in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Hampton. Early in the 'Sixties I found 
 an old ferryman in that neighbourhood who remem- 
 bered, taking him out. My father was less keen on 
 the sport. In his boyhood he had angled in the eddies 
 that were to be found by the piers of old London 
 Bridge. Once only did we persuade him to come 
 fishing with us, and the day — it was in the later 
 summer of 1848, when the river was already rising 
 for a flood — was not very successful. 
 
 As to myself, my memory is very clear as to the 
 kind, the time, and the place of the first fish that 
 I caught. It was a stickleback, the time was July, 
 1842, and the place was a backwater of the Thames 
 at Caversham. A wandering angler, a tramp with 
 a sense of sport, asked us — my brother and myself — 
 what we had caught. ' Some small perch,' we said, 
 not knowing any better ; and, indeed, the creature had 
 
FEOM STICKLEBACK TO SALMON 115 
 
 spines. We generously pointed out the place : I am 
 afraid he was disappointed. We soon rose to better 
 things. I remember some real perch that we caught 
 at the island between Caversham Bridge and the 
 mouth of the Kennet. Two years afterwards we 
 had our real initiation into Thames fishing. Our 
 summer migration was to Marlow, and my brother 
 and I spent the whole of the three months on the 
 river. We made acquaintance with the sport of 
 gudgeon-fishing, under the guidance of one of the 
 Creswells, a noted name at Marlow in those days, 
 and caught roach, no one helping us, in the back- 
 waters of Temple (the lock next above Marlow). 
 I was not then equal to the management of a punt, 
 and I had to tie our boat in a quite unorthodox way 
 to the branches of trees. No professional fisherman 
 would have condescended to such doings ; but I really 
 think that we sometimes caught fish which the 
 professional would have missed. And we set trimmers 
 of the kind that is fastened to boughs overhanging 
 the water. This is an unlawful practice. I see that 
 a Welsh bench of magistrates decided the other day 
 that the bit of wood, possibly three inches long, 
 to which the trimmer line is fastened, may be regarded 
 as a rod. Perhaps the fact that the river, as to 
 which the question arose, belonged to Lord Penrhyn 
 may have had something to do with the decision. 
 Anyhow, it was overruled by the Superior Court. 
 I may plead, however, that we at least began the 
 
116 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 practice in innocence. We captured the very first 
 morning — the trimmers had been set overnight — a 
 very fine eel, some 3 lb. in weight, and showed it in 
 our pride at the ' Complete Angler ' a waterside inn, 
 still, I believe, in high favour. The landlord was not 
 a little astonished at our simplicity. After Marlow 
 we spent two summers at Henley-on-Thames, another 
 at Basildon (between Pangbourne and Streatley), 
 and shorter periods at other riverside places. The 
 thirty odd miles of the Thames between Wallingford 
 and Marlow I knew at one time with something 
 of the knowledge of the professional fisherman. 
 Those were happy days, the memory of which 
 is still delightful, and I could write much about 
 them. But I must limit myself to a few of my 
 experiences. My first Long Vacation I spent at 
 Basildon, almost entirely on the river, and for the 
 most part alone, for my brothers were commonly at 
 work, as indeed, I ought to have been. It was a 
 very wet year, and the gudgeon fishing, which is best 
 when the water is low and clear, was never good. 
 Of roach and chub, on the other hand, I caught 
 plenty, and the trimmers yielded well. I allow 
 that two wrongs do not make a right, but it may 
 fairly be urged that in those days the Thames was 
 illegally fished on all sides. The nets were univer- 
 sally made with too small a mesh ; one sweep of 
 these huge engines wrought more destruction among 
 the fish than my trimmers did during the whole 
 
FEOM STICKLEBACK TO SALMON 117 
 
 summer. The river is now more fairly treated, 
 and the excuse, such as it is, can no longer be urged. 
 One recollection I must put down — the sound of a 
 beast grazing is curiously like that of a man's foot- 
 step — or was it conscience that made a coward of 
 me? 
 
 The wet summer ended in a very early flood. 
 When the force of it was somewhat abated, my 
 brothers and myself made a three days' expedition 
 down the river, taking back the punt to the place 
 where it had been hired. It was an exciting time 
 and full of delights, though not very successful in 
 respect of sport. I must not leave Basildon without 
 relating how we took Kobert Lush — afterwards Lord 
 Justice Lush — on the river, and introduced him to 
 the amusement of angling. It was new to him, for he 
 wanted to know whether we employed the rake 
 used in gudgeon fishing to disturb the water, to ' dis- 
 lodge the fish from the bottom.' He was then a very 
 successful junior, and as hard- worked as a man 
 could be. I never saw a greater change in a man 
 than that which followed when he ' took silk.' ' My 
 mouth waters when I see your briefs,' said a lately 
 promoted judge to him. His practice, indeed, was as 
 great as ever, and, doubtless, more than twice as pro- 
 fitable ; but all the look of over-work had disappeared. 
 I venture to give here an anecdote which I heard him 
 tell — it has something to do with sport. He had 
 led successfully in an action against the Duke of 
 
118 MEMOEIES OE MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 Beaufort. Some one had been knocked down on a 
 racecourse by the Duke's horse. The plaintiff al- 
 leged that the Duke had ridden at him, and the 
 essential question was — Was the horse going at a trot, 
 or walking ? Mr. Lush argued that a walking horse 
 would not have knocked a man over, and the jury took 
 his view. After the trial the Duke said good humour- 
 edly to him : ' I can easily satisfy you, Mr. Lush, 
 that a walking horse can knock a man over, if you 
 like to try the experiment.' For some months 
 following Mr. Lush had his hands full of horse cases, 
 he knowing as little as a man well could about the 
 animal. 
 
 I remember, with peculiar pleasure, a fishing 
 holiday which I took for the inside of a week in the 
 
 late summer of 1855. I met my brother J on 
 
 Monday afternoon at Caversham. There we hired a 
 punt which I took up to the ' Eoebuck,' a waterside 
 public-house some three miles higher up the river. 
 (I call it waterside, but, as a matter of fact, it was 
 separated from the river by the Great Western 
 Eailway). The ' Roebuck ' still exists, but it is 
 greatly changed. When I last saw it, some twenty 
 years ago, it had developed a spacious coffee-room, 
 a menu, and waiters in dress clothes.. In 1855 it 
 was a public-house, pure and simple. The landlady 
 was doubtful whether she could make us comfortable ; 
 she was not used to taking in gentlemen. We fared, 
 however, sufficiently well. The next four days 
 
FROM STICKLEBACK TO SALMON 119 
 
 we spent in gudgeon fishing, giving the last hour 
 or so of daylight to the roach. I had never done 
 so well before, and I never had anything like it after- 
 wards. I have no complete record of our results, 
 but I remember that one day we caught five-and- 
 thirty dozen, eleven dozen of them being secured at 
 a single ' pitch.' We got a few roach, but very little 
 else. In fact, there was very little else at that time 
 in the river. The keeper of Mapledurham lock at 
 that time rented the net fishing of the river and 
 ' skinned ' it most unmercifully. The mesh of the nets 
 used was illegally small — I have said that all the nets 
 of that time were of this kind — but not so small as to 
 take in gudgeon. Nearly every pike, perch, or chub, 
 in the water being removed, that fish increased in a 
 marvellous degree. I dare say that if we had had 
 the help of a professional fisherman, we should have 
 done even better. But it was more pleasant and 
 much cheaper to do without him. 
 
 But the crown of my Thames fishing came to me 
 when I was at Henley-on-Thames. It is in the autumn 
 and winter that the best sport is to be obtained — the 
 pike feed more eagerly ; the perch gather in shoals ; 
 the roach are cleaner and stronger. And there is an 
 especially attractive kind of angling to be had in 
 winter fishing for chub in the Nottingham manner. 
 This means using a very long line with a float, the bait 
 being commonly graves from the tallow-chandler's 
 melting-pots. This does not come off every day or 
 
120 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 anything like it. The stream must be full, but not 
 near a flood, the water coloured, but not dirty ; 
 a semi-opaque green is the hue I liked to see. I 
 cannot look back to many successful days, but when 
 they came they were worth not a little. The fish 
 used to run up to four pounds or even higher. I had 
 a punt of my own at Henley, and had the loan of 
 another whenever I wanted it below Hambledon 
 lock, and a third at Bolney, thus getting the run of 
 some eight miles of river. In these expeditions I 
 never employed a fisherman, and — for I cannot help 
 thinking that for real sport, if the enjoyment of sport 
 comes from using one's own strength and own wits — 
 this angling might favourably compare with other 
 kinds which are more highly esteemed. To manoeuvre 
 a punt in a heavy autumn stream, seeking each kind 
 of fish in the place where it is most likely to be 
 found, is not inferior as an amusement to sitting 
 in a Loch Tay boat with spinning baits out for 
 salmon, or casting a fly with the wind always behind 
 one's back, thanks to the skilful manipulation of a 
 Highland keeper or gillie. And it must not be 
 forgotten that all Thames fish become more palatable 
 in autumn. A chub, especially, the most tasteless 
 of foods in summer, becomes good eating in winter. 
 His diet is changed from flies and minute insects 
 to small fish ; all the good tasted fresh-water fish are 
 carnivorous. 
 
 I left Henley in January, 1873, having had a 
 
PEOM STICKLEBACK TO SALMON 121 
 
 great day among the perch by way of farewell. 
 At East Ketford, my next abiding-place, I was lucky 
 enough to get some notable fishing in the lake of 
 Clumber, the seat of the Duke of Newcastle. The 
 lake is an artificial piece of water, made, I think, 
 in the second half of the eighteenth century by 
 constructing a dam across the Idle. It covers some 
 hundred acres, the lower half of which is admirably 
 suited to the breeding and feeding of fish. In those 
 days it was full of pike, perch, roach, and carp. 
 The carp I never came across, but I was told that 
 they existed ; one of the traditions of the place was 
 that a forty-pound pike had been found dead in the 
 shallows with a twenty-pound carp fixed in his jaws. 
 The pike were in such numbers, and averaged such a 
 size — I do not remember to have caught one under 
 four pounds — as I have never seen elsewhere. On a 
 day when they were feeding — and it was seldom 
 that they were not — there was scarcely a limit, 
 beyond that which the authorities imposed, to the 
 quantity which might be taken. Live-baiting (with 
 a snap hook) and spinning were the methods which 
 I employed, having recourse to the first when the 
 day was calm, to the second when there was a breeze. 
 My biggest fish weighed 22 lb. ; I assisted, however, 
 
 at the capture of another by my brother J 
 
 which turned the scale at 30 lb. It was hooked on the 
 outside of the mouth on a spinning tackle. It took 
 twenty minutes to get him into the boat, and I still 
 
122 MEMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 remember with pride the deftness, not unassisted 
 by good fortune, with which I put a not very spacious 
 landing-net under him. In the summer I pursued 
 the perch chiefly ; they gave excellent sport in the 
 deep water where the river Idle runs out of the lake 
 and about the keel and the moorings of a frigate-like 
 yacht which was moored some fifty yards from the 
 shore. I must not forget to say that in winter the 
 pike were as good to eat as any sea-fish. 
 
 I may give a few more ' coarse fishing ' experiences 
 before I finish with this part of the subject. In 1845 
 I spent a good many summer mornings on the banks 
 of the Serpentine. And very early mornings they 
 had to be, for there was very little use in fishing 
 after seven o'clock. By that time the traffic along 
 the shore had increased, and the fish were too shy to 
 bite. As the Park gates were not opened early enough 
 to suit me, I used to climb over the railings at the 
 Piccadilly entrance. I do not remember ever getting 
 any adequate result for all this trouble. But what 
 will not a boy do when the sense of sport is keen in 
 him ? Yet good baskets could be made by those 
 who had the proper tackle and the requisite skill to 
 use it. The further out the line could be got the 
 better the fish. I remember, in particular, one young 
 man who seemed to have a magical art of getting 
 good sport both here and in other places from which 
 most anglers returned disappointed. (He was one 
 Slack, the son of a hairdresser in the passage between 
 
FEOM STICKLEBACK TO SALMON 123 
 
 Queen Square and Southampton Row, and, therefore, 
 not ' to the manner born '.) He told my brother 
 J. that he made his paste with water in which a 
 heron's leg had been steeped. I am not learned 
 enough in angling lore to know whether or no this is 
 a recognised recipe. It sounds reasonable enough ; 
 does not the heron seem to attract fish to the shallow 
 water in which he stands ? In those days the water 
 in St. James's Park swarmed with fish, but angling 
 was strictly forbidden. ' Spoil the rod and spare 
 the child ' was the maxim which the ' Punch ' of the 
 day recommended to the keepers. I never ventured 
 to dare their wrath ; but I have seen some pretty 
 perch pulled out on the sly. The lake has now a 
 concrete bottom, which doubtless favours the pre- 
 servation of human life in a skating season, but 
 prohibits both fish and water plants. 
 
 A few years later I made acquaintance with the 
 Royal Military Canal. This curious work was con- 
 structed in 1805, and runs from the western end of 
 the Pitt level, under Fairlight Down, across the 
 Romney Marsh, to Sandgate in Kent. It was the 
 last, but scarcely the best of Pitt's contrivances 
 to secure the country against a French invasion. 
 Whether it was to serve as an obstacle to an army 
 landing on the coast, or as a means of putting the 
 marsh country under water, I do not know. Hap- 
 pily the occasion for using it never arose. The 
 ' Gazetteer,' I see, describes it as ' 90 feet broad, 
 
124 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 18 feet deep, and defended by a parapet.' At the 
 Sussex end, where I knew it, it was nothing of the 
 kind. I should put the breadth at 40 feet, and the 
 depth at four— I remember wading half across to 
 disentangle a line from a bed of weeds into which a 
 fish had carried it. Of the parapet no trace was to 
 be seen. Altogether its appearance justified the 
 jest which legend attributed to a local wit : ' I can 
 make just as good a defence against the French, and at 
 much less cost, by laying down my walking-stick.' 
 But it was not wholly useless, for there was excellent 
 fishing to be got in it. My brother J. and I used to 
 start from Hastings — if possible, as soon as it was 
 fight, so as to reach the canal at six — the sooner the 
 better was the rule, as indeed it is in most places. 
 The best sport was with the bream, which we caught 
 up to four pound weight ; roach were abundant ; 
 perch were fairly plentiful, and an occasional pike 
 came to hand. We fared sufficiently well on bread 
 and cheese, with water from a convenient spring — 
 the canal water was impossible. I still remember 
 the high, the very high, teas which we enjoyed when 
 we had finished the six-mile walk back to Hastings. 
 It is curious that people in Hastings professed to 
 relish the bream and roach which we used to bring 
 home, even to prefer them to sea-fish. They got them, 
 it is true, for nothing ; possibly that gave them a 
 savour which I never could detect. 
 
PEOM STICKLEBACK TO SALMON 125 
 
 I could mention scores of places where I have 
 dropped a line not without success — streams, canals, 
 pools of every kind and size. Some of them have 
 disappeared ; others are wholly void of lif e. The 
 roving angler of to-day is badly off as compared with 
 his predecessor of sixty years ago. 
 
126 MBMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 CHAPTERflX 
 
 FROM STICKLEBACK TO SALMON — (continued) 
 
 My first experience of trout-fishing was in the summer 
 of 1852, when I went an angling tour through part 
 of Scotland with Mark Pattison. The angling, as 
 far as I was concerned, was a failure. I had never 
 before cast a fly, and I am not one of the happy few 
 who can do a thing well on the first trial. Pattison, 
 on the other hand, could cast as good a line as any 
 man that I have ever seen — two or three excepted. 
 He had been trained on Yorkshire streams — he was 
 born at Hauxwell, near Bedale — where you must 
 fish fine if you want to catch anything. We met 
 at Dunkeld — in those days the railroad did not go 
 further north than Perth, and journeyed by stages 
 up to Inverness. Our longest stay was at Dal- 
 whinnie, where we found quarters in a very primitive 
 inn, which has now, I believe, been replaced by a 
 grand hotel. I remember Pattison having a great 
 catch of trout in Loch Bricht, fishing with a white 
 fly nearly up to midnight. From Inverness we 
 crossed to the west coast, tarrying awhile at Acha- 
 nault, from which we fished Loch Luichart. There 
 
PEOM STICKLEBACK TO SALMON 127 
 
 and there only did I drink of a ' stirrup cup.' A.stage 
 coach had just been started on the road, and our 
 landlord at the inn found his postchaise going out 
 of employment. He manoeuvred us into missing 
 the coach and hiring, by compulsion, his chaise, 
 and in his delight he presented us with the ' stirrup 
 cup,' for which, it will be remembered, the guest had 
 not to pay. The last stage of our journey, from 
 Strome Ferry to Kyle Akin, we travelled in H.M.'s 
 post-cart, and then crossing to Skye made our way to 
 Broadford. There, if I remember right, I caught 
 my first sea-trout. From Broadford we went on to 
 Sligachan. At Sligachan the landlord greatly ven- 
 turing had ordered a nine-gallon cask of bitter beer, 
 hitherto unknown in those parts, and was not a 
 little astonished to find it finished in a couple of days. 
 I remember no fishing here, but only a journey 
 accomplished on pony-back to Loch Coruisk. Portree 
 was our furthest point. 
 
 The summer holidays of 1857 I spent at the 
 shooting of my old vicar in the Island of Lewis. 
 This shooting comprised some eighty thousand acres 
 stretching from the Bast to the West coast with two 
 salmon rivers. The lodge was about eight miles 
 south of Stornoway, three miles further on was the 
 River Laxay, 1 which is here crossed by the high road. 
 The river runs in and out of Loch Voltos, a famous 
 place for salmon and sea trout. Its course between 
 
 1 Lax is the Norse for a salmon. 
 
128 MEMORIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 Voltos and the sea is about half a mile ; above Voltos 
 it measures about three miles, its starting point being 
 Loch Trialaval, a paradise of the trout fisher, with 
 numberless bays and islands. On the western side 
 of the island is the other river, the Blackwater, the 
 fishing ground of which is comprised in five or six 
 small pools. Both streams are very small, and the 
 salmon never large in them. Sixteen pounds is the 
 maximum weight that I ever heard of. For myself, I 
 never caught one above twelve. The smallness of the 
 rivers made the fishing less exciting than it often is. 
 When the water was at its usual level a salmon never 
 ran from one pool to another ; the stream between 
 them was too shallow. Once only did I have to run 
 with a fish, and that was when the Blackwater was 
 in spate. Nor did I ever but once have so long a 
 fight as my brother had with his big pike at Clumber ; 
 and that once was not really an exception. I was 
 casting from the shore in Loch Voltos and hooked a 
 fish very close in. He ran out the whole of my 
 fifty yards of line, and, not a little to my dismay, 
 some of the thin line underneath, put to make the 
 winding up quicker. Then he stopped abruptly ; 
 he gave no sign of life, and I began to think that I 
 was fast in a rock. I despatched my gillie to get the 
 boat. It was some way off, and he must have been 
 absent for more than half an hour. We rowed out 
 to the place ; and the fish came up almost imme- 
 diately, nearly killed. He had been hooked in the tail. 
 
PEOM STICKLEBACK TO SALMON 129 
 
 One consequence of the smallness of the rivers 
 was that the sport was more than usually dependent 
 upon rain. The only river in the island which has a 
 fairly steady flow of water is the Griemsta, which 
 flows out of Loch Langavhat, a great rain reservoir 
 between seven and eight miles long. My host did 
 his best with artificial spates, but the fish seemed 
 not to believe in them. They could be caught, how- 
 ever, in the salt water at the river mouth. A salmon 
 I never saw hooked in this way, though it has been 
 done. Sea-trout I have often caught ; a flamingo 
 fly was especially efficacious. They shone brilliantly 
 and fought most gamely ; sometimes, however, if 
 they remained too long before getting into the fresh 
 water they seemed to sicken. 
 
 The greater part of the shooting lay in the parish 
 of Lochs, an expressive name which a little know- 
 ledge of the country amply justifies. In the level 
 region there is almost as much water as land. The 
 lochs, small and great, may be numbered by hundreds, 
 and all of them contain trout. Practically, one's 
 fishing was limited to those waters on which boats 
 had been put. Time was wasted in fishing from the 
 shore ; wading, too, was frequently necessary, and 
 wading boots are cumbrous things to carry about. 
 To wade without boots for any length of time I 
 always found bring on an attack of diarrhoea. We 
 sometimes tried a Berthon collapsible boat, but the 
 results were not encouraging. A loch that had 
 
 K 
 
130 MEMORIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 probably never been fished in since the beginning 
 of things seldom yielded as much as those that were 
 frequently fished. Practically my trout fishing — to 
 which, indeed, no one but myself condescended — 
 was limited to five or six lochs. I should have been 
 well content never to go beyond Trialaval. 
 
 It was in the uppermost part of the Laxay just 
 below this loch that I caught my first salmon. My 
 host was accustomed to bar the passage above this 
 pool. If the fish got into Trialaval they were very 
 hard to find again. This they were prevented from 
 doing till the fishing season was over. The conse- 
 quence was that the uppermost pool was pretty well 
 crowded with them. It was within a short time 
 of the end of my stay, September 4 or 5. I had 
 hooked salmon before, but never succeeded in landing 
 one ; now my time was come. There was a spot of 
 a few yards square where the stream ran into the 
 pool, and a little ripple was caused by the wind 
 blowing the other way. The fish were rising here 
 in that quiet way that rejoices the angler's heart, 
 with the mouth barely showing above the water, not 
 with the great boisterous roll that means fun rather 
 than feeding. After two or three trials I managed 
 to get my fly into the region of the rising, and felt 
 myself immediately fast in a fish. In the course of 
 something less than an hour I landed five. They 
 were, it is true, small, averaging, perhaps, five pounds 
 apiece. Fish were moving all over the pool, which 
 
FKOM STICKLEBACK TO SALMON 131 
 
 was sixty yards long by twenty-five broad ; but they 
 did not rise anywhere else. As I was playing one of 
 the fish a curious thing happened ; a large eel came up 
 out of the depth and seemed to attack the salmon 
 as he turned in the water. I never saw the same 
 thing again, nor have I met with anyone who 
 has had the same experience. That was, indeed, 
 a dies creta notandus — five salmon in less than an 
 hour ! 
 
 My best year was, I think, in 1860. I caught in 
 five weeks — the Merchant Taylors' holidays had been 
 lengthened by a week — seventy-four salmon. I kept 
 no record of sea-trout ; but I can remember killing 
 five and thirty in one day, averaging a little over a 
 pound. An ordinary day's brown trout fishing 
 produced between forty and fifty, which, in a good 
 loch, averaged a quarter of a pound. It must be 
 remembered that I never got to throw a fly really 
 well. 
 
 One delightful week I must mention. I took up 
 my quarters at the keeper's house at Kinlochreasort. 
 Loch Reasort forms part of the boundary between 
 Lewis and Harris — two divisions of the same island, 
 belonging to the counties of Ross and Inverness 
 respectively. It was an out-of-the-world spot. 
 Wheaten bread and butcher's meat were unattain- 
 able, but barley cake made with cream, and abun- 
 dance of fish, helped out by a fowl, served us perfectly 
 well. From this place I was able, thanks to the 
 
 k2 
 
132 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 kindness of Lord Hill, 1 to fish the Harris lochs. 
 I have special recollection of Loch Washamit, with its 
 magnificent scenery, and Loch Asconrst. In Wash- 
 amit I caught my finest brown trout, weighing two 
 pounds, and a splendid pair of sea -trout, landed 
 from the same stone, and weighing seven pounds 
 each. 
 
 All this sport cost me about 301. I paid 20Z. 
 to my host and gave my gillie ten shillings a week. 
 My travelling expenses may have made up the 
 balance, perhaps a little more, but then the usual 
 cost of my living must be deducted. I wonder 
 whether there is any one nowadays who can catch 
 salmon at a cost of something less than 5s. 6d. apiece ! 
 I have heard of people spending twice as much as 
 my 30l. and coming back without a fish. 
 
 Things are now so utterly changed that it will 
 be interesting to give a few more facts about the 
 cost of sport in these bygone times. My host 
 paid a rent of 150Z. for his shooting and fishing. 
 The grouse were nowhere really plentiful ; in some 
 of the outlying parts there were very few. But a 
 man who did not mind walking could get his twelve 
 or fourteen brace in the day. There was always 
 a chance of killing a stag as he crossed from one 
 forest to another, and in the autumn and winter 
 
 1 Rowland, Second Viscount and Fourth Baronet (1800-1875). 
 He was nephew and successor of Wellington's great lieutenant in the 
 Peninsular. 
 
FEOM STICKLEBACK TO SALMON 133 
 
 there was an abundance of woodcock. A single 
 gun could sometimes get as many as twenty brace 
 in a day. I remember that in the autumn of 1856 
 when I was living at Oxford my vicar sent me a 
 box containing eight brace. There had never been 
 so many woodcock seen at once in Lincoln since the 
 College was founded. I read the other day that the 
 birds are now very rarely seen in the Lewis, though 
 they visit other spots in the Outer Hebrides. 
 
 A few words must be said about the friend whom 
 I have mentioned in this chapter under the names of 
 ' old vicar ' and ' host,' and of whose habits and 
 ways of thinking I have spoken more particularly 
 in Chapter V. There is no reason why I should 
 not mention his name — George Henry Hely Hutchin- 
 son. He tells us some things about himself and every- 
 thing that there was to be told about his abode in 
 the Hebrides in a volume, ' Eecollections of the 
 Lewis,' a republication of letters contributed to the 
 ' Field ' newspaper with the signature of ' Sixty- 
 One.' If the volume is inaccessible, its contents 
 may be found in a file of the ' Field,' and they are 
 certainly worth reading. He was meant by nature, I 
 should say, for a country gentleman, but circumstances 
 made him a clergyman. He had, as I have said 
 elsewhere, his conceptions of duty, and he did his 
 best to live up to them. He was a man of some 
 literary accomplishment, and a moderate Whig, 
 of the type represented by Brooks's Club, of which 
 
134 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 he was a member. But above all things he was a 
 sportsman. He was not more than a moderate 
 performer. He threw a fly almost as badly as I did, 
 and that is saying a great deal. And he had anything 
 but a fine touch in playing a fish. I have seen him 
 lose salmon more than once by keeping too hard a 
 hand. But he knew all that there was to be known 
 about the habits and haunts of the fish. Of his 
 capacity as a shot I cannot speak from personal 
 knowledge — I never saw him fire a gun as far as I can 
 remember. But I was given to understand by his 
 companions that here he was not more than mode- 
 rately good. He was handicapped by having lost 
 the sight of one of his eyes. But a more genuine, 
 enthusiastic, single-minded sportsman never lived. 
 I recollect as I write a curious little story which shows 
 the bent of his mind. I came across a book of 
 sermons in his library the work of a clergyman 
 described as ' Vicar of Cherry Hinton ' ; everyone 
 may not know that Cherry Hinton is a village 
 near Cambridge, and it was at Cambridge that 
 the vicar had pursued his studies and his shoot- 
 ing. I asked him how he had come to possess the 
 volume. His taste was for seventeenth rather than 
 nineteenth century theology. He thought for a while. 
 ' Ah ! ' he said, c I remember : there was capital snipe 
 shooting at Cherry Hinton.' The snipe, I believe, 
 have long since disappeared. The fens in which 
 they delighted have been drained. A cynic might 
 
FEOM STICKLEBACK TO SALMON 135 
 
 say that the site is not less favourable for the 
 culture of the sermon. 
 
 And now for a few words about the Lewis people. 
 I saw, it is true, but little of them, being not a little 
 hindered by the diversity of language. English 
 was taught, I believe, in the schools, but the teaching 
 certainly did not make the ordinary gillie fluent in 
 talking. It was difficult to get beyond fishing talk. 
 Still one felt that the man was a gentleman. There 
 was an instinctive courtesy about him which was 
 very pleasing. Sometimes it was a little incon- 
 venient. If one rashly expressed an opinion, as, for 
 instance, that a fish might probably be found at one 
 part or another, the gillie was far too polite to oppose. 
 He might be perfectly well aware that you were wrong, 
 and that a fish never had been seen anywhere near ; 
 still, he took you promptly to the place, and wasted 
 your time accordingly. Possibly he may have 
 been spoilt since, as I am given to understand he has 
 been in the much -frequented Highland routes, but he 
 was then a simple unsophisticated creature. Gener- 
 ally the Lewisians are of an early stage of civilisa- 
 tion, the stage when the women are the workers. The 
 men, it is true, often spent part of the year in the 
 herring fishery, but at home they seemed to be the 
 idlers. If one met a couple on the road, the woman 
 would be carrying the burden, the man contenting 
 himself with the umbrella. It was a perpetual wonder, 
 indeed, to see what the women did carry. It was 
 
136 MEMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 quite a common thing to see them stepping across the 
 moor, carrying each a huge bundle of grass on her head 
 — the grass is used to keep the cows quiet while they 
 are being milked — and knitting as she walked. They 
 often went barefoot — a man would have to be much 
 reduced to do such a thing. On Sundays, when they 
 made prodigious journeys to church, many times 
 as far as English people would dream of, the women 
 carried their shoes, and stopped to put them on when 
 they reached their church. The children went 
 distances not much smaller to attend school. The 
 Sabbath, was, of course, rigidly kept. At the risk 
 of serving up a ' chestnut ' I must tell the story 
 of the innkeeper at Callernish. 1 A party of anglers 
 from Glasgow had taken the Griemsta fishing and 
 arrived late on the Saturday evening. Warned that 
 the resources of the island were scanty, they brought 
 with them a store of provisions. Among these was a 
 ham. This was produced on the Sunday morning, 
 and it was arranged that it should be cut in half. 
 The landlord commenced with a knife, and, of course, 
 had to stop when he reached the bone. One of his 
 guests suggested a saw. He was struck with horror. 
 ' I wadna use the saw on the Sabbath,' he exclaimed. 
 I must not close the account of my Lewis days 
 without a word of recognition of the splendid hospi- 
 
 1 Callernish is on the west coast of the island and is famous for 
 a fine circle of Druid stones. The inn has since been moved to a more 
 convenient situation on the high road near the Blackwater. 
 
PEOM STICKLEBACK TO SALMON 137 
 
 tality of Sir James Matheson of Stornoway Castle. 
 Nothing could be more liberal and more stately. 
 He used to send down his major-domo to await the 
 coming in of the bi-weekly steamer, with instructions 
 to invite any likely-looking passenger, known or 
 unknown, to take up his abode in the Castle. And his 
 entertainments, with pipers in full costume marching 
 round the table were fine. He bought the island of the 
 Lewis for 180,0002. and had spent at least double that 
 sum in attempts to develop its agriculture and indus- 
 tries. I fear that much of the money was wasted. 
 Moorland was ' reclaimed ' only to relapse into moor, 
 the one thing, indeed, of which it was capable of 
 being ; and lochs were drained to add more unprofit- 
 able acres of stone and peat to the thousands which 
 were already there. Unhappily, he did not even gain 
 the affection of the people. I am no judge in such 
 a case, but I can at least assert my conviction that 
 Sir James was possessed with a sincere desire to do 
 justice to the Lewis and its inhabitants. 
 
138 MBMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 LITERARY BEGINNINGS 
 
 I was, I think, in my seventeenth year when I first 
 saw myself in print. It was in a periodical which 
 has long since ceased to exist, known as ' Sharpe's 
 Magazine.' It was a piece of very ornate poetical 
 prose, a kind of composition to which English and, 
 perhaps, I might say modern languages generally, 
 seem to lend themselves. I know of nothing in 
 Greek or Latin which could be so described. I 
 described myself as having fallen asleep in a library, 
 and seeing in a dream a shadowy procession of the 
 poets of Greece. The proprietors of the magazine 
 did not think fit to offer me any remuneration, nor, 
 indeed, did I expect it. I thought, however, that 
 they might have had the courtesy to send me a copy 
 of the number, and I wrote to tell them so. I am 
 not sure that I was altogether pleased when an 
 answer came addressed to ' Miss Church.' 
 
 About this time a friend at King's College asso- 
 ciated me with himself in the conduct of a magazine 
 which he was courageous enough to start under the 
 title of the ' Alembic ' — every one may not know that 
 
LITERARY BEGINNINGS 139 
 
 the word means an old-fashioned kind of still. My 
 friend had plenty of money and a large circle of 
 friends, out of whom he made a quite respectable 
 subscription list — soon to be scandalised, I fear, 
 by our youthful audacities. The ' Alembic ' survived 
 for some six months, he financing the affair, and I 
 doing most of the literary work. Of what this was 
 I have very little recollection, but I remember a 
 translation of the well-known epigram of Simonides 
 ' To a Swallow carrying off a Cricket.' I venture to 
 add it at the end of this chapter, with the remark — 
 for it is really ridiculous for the writer of an auto- 
 biography to affect modesty — that it seems to me 
 fairly good. Another recollection is that I reviewed 
 a cyclopaedia. Friends who know what I have 
 done, or attempted to do in this line since that 
 time, may remark that this is a case of ' the child 
 is father of the man.' My colleague went up to 
 Cambridge, and the ' Alembic ' came to an end. 
 My own time for Oxford soon came, and for some 
 years my literary ambitions were laid aside. In my 
 first long vacation after taking my degree (1851) 
 I took in hand a translation of the ' Histories ' of 
 Tacitus, and finished at least one book. The publisher 
 to whom I submitted it did not think well of it, nor 
 do I question his judgment. But, as I shall have 
 occasion to tell hereafter, the scheme was in the 
 end successfully carried out. In the years which 
 followed (1853-7) I wrote nothing but a few verses. 
 
140 MBMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 Actually my first independent publication was a 
 sermon which I preached in 1858 on the termination 
 of the Indian Mutiny. Such publications are a 
 common foible of young clergymen; but at least 
 I did not imitate the parson of whom Addison tells 
 us, who, he says, ordered twelve thousand copies 
 to be printed, taking it for granted that every parish 
 in England would call for at least one. I remember 
 it now only by a stupendous misprint, which, if it 
 had found its way into publicity, might have rescued 
 the discourse from oblivion. I was speaking of the 
 ' silver lining of the cloud,' the deeds of heroism 
 for which the peril had given occasion. We could 
 reckon ' new names added to God's book of martyrs.' 
 This was something of which .the printer had never 
 heard, and he substituted for it a more familiar title. 
 ' New names added to " Foxe's Book of Martyrs " ' 
 he made me say. How often have I vainly wished 
 that I had kept a list of the printers' errors to which 
 a very varied literary experience has introduced 
 me. My handwriting is fairly good, but not so 
 good, candid friends have told me, as it looks. I 
 once received a protest from the ' chapel ' of the 
 printing house to which most of my manuscript 
 went. It was whispered to me, however — with 
 what truth, I know not — that the protest was really 
 meant, not for me, but for a more important per- 
 sonage whom it was not thought prudent directly to 
 address. 
 
LITEEAEY BEGINNINGS 141 
 
 In 1858 I began, in collaboration with my cousin 
 William Jackson Brodribb (mentioned on p. 5), 
 the translation of Tacitus. Brodribb held a Fellow- 
 ship of St. John's College, Cambridge, to which 
 he had been elected two years or so previously, 
 and was a man of leisure — those were the happy 
 days of ' prize Fellowships.' I had a sufficiently 
 laborious employment in my mastership at Merchant 
 Taylors', and it was only in harmony with the usual 
 order of things that at this time I did most of the 
 work. The proportions were changed later on when 
 he also found regular employment — in 1860 he was 
 presented to the benefice of Wootton Bivers, near 
 Marlborough. 1 On the whole, when the work was 
 completed in 1877 the labour had I fancy been 
 equally divided. Our plan was for each to take so 
 many chapters, and make the rough draft of a 
 version. This we went over carefully together. 
 Brodribb was a very fine scholar, and our trans- 
 
 1 It is worth while to relate the curious circumstances which 
 gave him the offer of this living at an unusually early time. He 
 had been elected to a scholarship on the Somerset foundation, failing 
 a qualified candidate from Marlborough Grammar School. The 
 founders had left the right of presenting to Wootton Rivers to St. 
 John's, Cambridge, and Brasenose, Oxford, with the stipulations that 
 any Fellow who had held a scholarship on the Somerset foundation 
 should have a preference. The turn happened to come to St. John's 
 when none of Brodribb's seniors had the qualification. Consequently 
 he obtained the preferment eight years after graduation. This was 
 held in those days to be a piece of good fortune. Things are now 
 greatly changed, and it is comparatively rare for a Fellow to accept a 
 benefice. 
 
142 MEMORIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 lation owed more than I can express to this accom- 
 plishment. We made mistakes, though not many, 
 I hope, have escaped our repeated revisions. The 
 difficulty was not to see Tacitus' meaning, but to 
 give a literary expression to the meaning which we 
 saw. On some phrases we spent an almost incredible 
 amount of time, and were anything but satisfied 
 at last. One of these still haunts me. The historian 
 is speaking of the feud between Lugdunum and 
 Vienna — ' uno amne discretis connexum odium ' is 
 his expression. ' Separated only by a river (they) 
 were linked together by perpetual feud ' is our 
 rendering, but it is not by any means ideal. But it 
 is easier to criticise than to create, and I venture 
 to quote the conclusion of our ' advertisement ' 
 prefixed to the ' Translation of the Minor Works of 
 Tacitus ' : 
 
 ' When we have been told in general terms that 
 we ought to be more forcible, more faithful, or more 
 free, we have been obliged to be content with acknow- 
 ledging the excellence of the advice, and regretting 
 that we were not able to follow it.' 
 
 Messrs. Macmillan undertook to publish the ' His- 
 tories,' but required a guarantee of 501. towards a 
 possible deficit. This was, of course, quite right, 
 for we were both unknown. My 251. was returned 
 to me in 1867 together with a like sum for my half 
 of the copyright (including that of a translation of 
 the ' Agricola ' and the ' Germania '). I may give a 
 
LITEKAKY BEGINNINGS 143 
 
 few figures from which the young author may learn 
 how much more profitable it is to retain an interest 
 in his work. Forty pounds may be put down as the 
 outside of the translators' remuneration for their 
 work on the ' Histories.' For the ' Annals,' which 
 they did not sell, they had received by October, 1907, 
 507?. 5s. 8d. This sum must be diminished by a 
 fifth in consideration of the fact that a royalty on the 
 ' Histories ' would leave one shilling as against fifteen 
 pence on the ' Annals.' It must also be remembered 
 that the 40Z. was present value. There still remains 
 a very significant contrast. 
 
 In the year 1858 I gave occasional help to my 
 friend Henry Whitehead in the carrying on of a 
 parish magazine, connected with Clapham Parish 
 Church, where he was then curate. It was not of the 
 type with which we are now familiar, a periodical 
 published at some central place and sent throughout 
 England, which is localised by the addition of a 
 special cover and a page or so devoted to parochial 
 news, notices, and, it may be, exhortations. It was 
 a genuine Clapham magazine from cover to cover, 
 owing much to the enterprise of a local printer and 
 stationer, Meaden by name, a man of great intellec- 
 tual power and breadth of view, and not unwilling, 
 I take it, to make sacrifices for adequate objects. 
 I had nothing to do with the finances or management 
 of the magazine, but I feel pretty sure from what 
 I know of such matters that it did not pay its way. 
 
144 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 Meaden was no common man, and Clapham had the 
 good sense to send him as its representative at the 
 Board of Works, si qua est ea gloria. Whitehead 
 had the gift of calling out the virtues and energies 
 of such helpers. I have kept no record of what I 
 did for the magazine, but I have before me as I 
 write, J. Baldwin Brown's ' Divine Life in Man,' with 
 the inscription, ' A. Church, from H. W.' This I 
 reviewed for the magazine. Baldwin Brown, who 
 was a minister of Clayland's Congregational Chapel 
 (near the Clapham Road), was one of the ablest 
 of the men who interpreted F. D. Maurice to the 
 world. He was afterwards my neighbour when I 
 lived in the Crescent, Clapham Common, and I look 
 back to his friendship as one of the blessings of my 
 life. 
 
 In 1860 I put together, under the title of ' Latin 
 Prose Lessons,' a reading-book for the lowest forms 
 in Merchant Taylors' School. During this decade 
 (1861-1870) I also made a collection of Latin render- 
 ings of Tennyson. This appeared in 1870, Messrs. 
 Macmillan being the publishers. It contains thirty- 
 eight versions, numbering in all 938 lines. T. E. 
 Kebbel, a college friend, and a well-known journalist, 
 who has within the last few months published ' Tory 
 Memories,' and Hans William Sotheby, some time 
 Fellow of Exeter, 1 who died many years ago, were my 
 
 ' It is worth while to relate a curious instance of what we may 
 call ' preciseness ' in the action of the Exeter dons in their dealing 
 
LITBRAEY BEGINNINGS 145 
 
 chief helpers. I owe a special debt to Kebbel in 
 suggesting many improvements in my verses. To- 
 gether we wrote about two-thirds of the whole. 
 John Conington, 1 then Professor of Latin, contri- 
 buted four pieces ; John, afterwards Sir John Seeley, 
 one ; and Archdeacon Hessey, three. The book never 
 paid. Some years afterwards I bought four hundred 
 copies for 201. and published another edition with 
 some changes. A week after its appearance the 
 whole stock was consumed by fire, and I thought 
 myself happy to escape with the loss of my 20l. 
 And here again comes in another story of a great 
 misprint. One of my own versions was of a portion 
 of ' The Palace of Art.' The English verses are 
 
 Or hollowing one hand against his ear, 
 
 To list a foot-fall, ere he saw 
 The wood-nymph, stayed the Ausonian King . . . 
 
 ' Foot-fall ' appeared as a ' foot-ball,' and so it stands 
 in the printed copies. 
 
 with Sotheby. He wanted to put ofi going into the schools — in those 
 days no limitation of time was imposed on candidates foi honours. 
 The authorities refused their consent ; he migrated to St. Mary's Hall ; 
 took a First Class, and in a short time was elected to a Fellowship at 
 Exeter. The college got back their man, but it lost the credit of his 
 First Class. 
 
 1 Conington died in 1876 of blood poisoning. A little pimple 
 on his lip developed into a malignant swelling which proved fatal. 
 I remember Pattison quoting Theocritus on the occasion : 
 
 ■m/KiKov 'iari to rpavfia kcA fjKiKov avSpa Bapd£ei. 
 
 I was told that in his delirium he spoke Greek incessantly. Curiously 
 enough, he had for some years almost confined his studies to Latin, 
 even reading Greek works in Latin translations. 
 
 L 
 
146 MEMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 I must not forget to mention one event which can 
 hardly fail to be an epoch in a young writer's life, 
 the first payment which I received for literary work. 
 I wrote an article for, I think, the ' London Quarterly.' 
 the subject I have forgotten, but it belonged to the 
 domain of theology, nor do I remember the amount 
 of the remuneration. 
 
 Daughter of Attica, on honey food 
 
 Most sweetly nourished, 'tis a cruel wrong 
 
 To bear the cricket to thy callow brood, 
 A songstress thou and he a child of song ! 
 
 0, harm him not ; the laws of song deny 
 
 That tuneful hearts by tuneful mouths should die. 
 
147 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 HENLEY-ON-THAMES AND EAST RETFORD 
 
 There seemed to be little prospect of advancement 
 in position or income at Merchant Taylors'. The 
 work, too, was hard, the hours long (five hours and 
 a-half daily, with but one half -holiday), and the 
 general conditions very exhausting, as has been 
 explained elsewhere. My health began to suffer, 
 and I looked out for a change. After two or three 
 disappointments — the Grammar School at Maccles- 
 field and the Crypt School at Gloucester, the latter 
 vacated by the Manx poet, T. E. Brown, among them 
 — I was elected to the Head Mastership of the ' Royal 
 Grammar School of Henley-on-Thames.' It had a 
 very slender endowment, to which, as far as I know, 
 the royal founder, James I., contributed nothing but 
 his name. What the income was I never knew with 
 any exactitude. It was managed by a board of 
 county magnates and clergy, who never took the Head 
 Master into council. I received nothing by way of 
 stipend, but had a house, with fairly good school 
 buildings, and playing field, rent and rate free, with 
 liberty to take as many boarders as the house could 
 
 J. 2 
 
148 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 accommodate, and the fees paid by the day boys. 
 The house was not particularly convenient. It had 
 been in old times a famous coaching inn, known as 
 ' The Bell ' — the adjoining street still preserves 
 the name — and had been made to serve the new 
 purpose without much change. And there was 
 something adverse to the interests of the school 
 in the circumstances of its tenure by the trustees. 
 It was held by them on a perpetual lease for a rent 
 of 501. per annum. This lease had been granted 
 by a former owner of Fawley Court — visitors will 
 remember this place, a Georgian house, which is a 
 conspicuous object on the left or Buckinghamshire 
 bank of the river. The new proprietor complained 
 that he had not been made acquainted with this 
 arrangement. He knew, of course, of the existence 
 of the lease, but was not aware of its perpetuity. 
 The consequence was that he regarded the school 
 with a somewhat unfriendly eye. Had he been other- 
 wise disposed, he might have been a most valuable 
 friend. In front of the house stood a most magni- 
 ficent elm, on one of the boughs of which, so local 
 tradition averred, Prince Kupert had once hanged 
 a Parliamentary spy. It was a grief to me that I 
 had, under urgent advice, to lop the tree, as having 
 become unsafe. The pollarded trunk is, I believe, 
 covered with luxuriant foliage. 
 
 My predecessor had been very prosperous, filling 
 the school house and Jwo adjoining dwellings with 
 
HENLEY-ON-THAMES AND EAST BETEOBD 149 
 
 boarders to the number of sixty. But these had all 
 departed with him, and I found, so to speak, an 
 empty cupboard. The day boys were but few. 
 My predecessor had looked upon them as little better 
 than a nuisance. Accordingly he had not encouraged 
 them. There was also a lower school on the foun- 
 dation, very ably carried on by its master, and 
 offering the education which was much more to the 
 taste of the townspeople than that given at the 
 Grammar School. Henley was a delightful place, 
 and but for the haunting sense that my financial 
 ends did not, and were not likely to meet, I should 
 have been very well content. There was as much 
 fishing as I had time for — of this I have spoken else- 
 where — and there was the inexhaustible pleasure of a 
 most beautiful country. I still remember the refresh- 
 ment which it was to walk some three or four hundred 
 yards to Henley Bridge and look down the reach 
 to the island. The people, too, were as friendly 
 and hospitable as any that I have ever come across 
 in the course of a somewhat wandering life. Among 
 my neighbours was Mortimer Collins. I did not 
 see much of him, for he had theories about the time 
 for work which did not suit the rules by which a 
 schoolmaster's life has to be bound, but he was 
 kindness itself. I found a most helpful friend in 
 John Hodges, of Bolney Court ; his house was always 
 open to me, and his boats were at my disposal. 
 When I left Henley, and there was a difficulty about 
 
150 MEMOEIBS OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 the fixtures of the school house, he paid a hundred 
 pounds out of his own pocket to settle the matter. 
 But first on the list must stand the name of North 
 Pinder, Rector of Rotherfield Grays. He had been a 
 Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Oxford, and was 
 a scholar of some repute. He left, indeed, little 
 behind him. I know of nothing but an edition, 
 executed for the Clarendon Press, of the { Less Known 
 Latin Poets ' — oddly enough including selections 
 from Ovid. He was one of the men of fastidious 
 culture who sit in their libraries and meditate, and 
 possibly plan, but seldom put pen to paper with any 
 practical result. But his friends, once a numerous 
 company, now almost all departed, knew him and 
 valued him. Among them were the historian Free- 
 man, an older contemporary at Trinity, Oxford, and 
 Freeman's biographer, W. R. Stephens, late Dean of 
 Winchester, who was his junior by some twelve 
 years. In ' Freeman's Life and Letters ' — one of the 
 most admirable biographies extant, I may say in 
 passing — we find Freeman writing to Dean Hook : 
 ' I was at Rotherfield Grays last Sunday ' — the 
 letter bears date December 19, 1866 — ' and sat under 
 my friend Pinder ; now I did not sleep a wink during 
 two sermons, but listened attentively, because Pinder 
 really had something to say.' That I can testify from 
 personal knowledge, as also that he said it admirably. 
 His harmonious voice, his clear, scholarly intonation, 
 commended by the refined, spiritual face, could not 
 
HENLEY-ON-THAMES AND EAST EETFOBD 153 
 
 fail to make a deep impression on any qualified hearer. 
 Another friend, and before his marriage, a frequent 
 visitor, was Auberon Herbert. I must tell the story 
 of Auberon Herbert's sudden conversion to Liberal 
 principles — if ' Liberal ' is the right word to give 
 to political convictions which it was not easy to class. 
 And I shall tell it as Pinder told it to me. He was 
 staying with other friends at Pinder's rectory. 
 When the party separated for the night after a long 
 debate in which Herbert had championed the political 
 faith which is set forth in ' Coningsby,' he asked his 
 host for a book which he might read, if the fancy 
 should take him, during the night or in the early 
 morning. Pinder supplied him with a volume of 
 Carlyle — unhappily I cannot remember, if, indeed, 
 I ever heard, what it was. He read it to such purpose 
 that he came down the next morning, politically 
 a ' new man.' 
 
 There was no special interest in my teaching 
 work at Henley. The material on which I had to 
 work gave no great opportunities. Neither boys nor 
 parents had ambitions such as it is a schoolmaster's 
 delight to foster. One exception I must make, where 
 a pupil grew up to be one of the friends of my life. 
 I had a notable lieutenant in Richard Prowde Smith, 
 known to Cheltenham boys in the three decades ending 
 with the middle 'nineties. One curious story seems 
 worth telling. One assistant, who was, indeed, of 
 higher standing than I had any right to hope for, 
 
152 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 left me rather suddenly to take up a tutorship at 
 Cambridge. He found a substitute for the rest of 
 the term. This gentleman's chief business was to 
 teach mathematics, but he also had undertaken 
 ' junior classics.' I put into his hands a little English 
 Latin exercise book with such sentences as ' The 
 Queen was carrying a sceptre,' ' The boy has lost his 
 book.' He came to me and said that to teach this 
 was beyond his power. ' I understood,' he said, 
 ' that I was not to do more than read some Virgil with 
 my class.' To read Virgil and not know an accusa- 
 tive from a nominative ; and he was a graduate ! 
 
 But Henley had to be given up. The duris urgens 
 in rebus egestas could not be resisted. I stood for 
 King Edward VI.'s School at East Retford — I had 
 been a candidate there some five years before — was 
 elected, and entered upon my new duties in January, 
 1873. The Retford foundation was of a more sub- 
 stantial kind than that which I had left at Henley. 
 Its endowments had, it is true, been misappropriated 
 by the Corporation of the town — not the highly 
 respectable body which now is so described, let it be 
 understood, but the unreformed Corporation of the 
 eighteenth century. But, after a long struggle, resti- 
 tution had been compelled, and the school had been 
 able to make a new start with fairly commodious 
 buildings, showing a handsome elevation, a good 
 dwelling-house, cricket-field, &c, and an income 
 of between five and six hundred pounds. My salary, 
 
HENLEY-ON-THAMES AND EAST EETPOED 153 
 
 reckoning as part of the day-boys' fees, was about 
 250?. ; an under-master was provided ; and an allow- 
 ance made for the salary of another assistant. 
 
 My work at Retford, where I stayed for a little 
 more than seven years, was not, on the whole, a 
 success, and it may serve a useful purpose if I 
 state as frankly as possible what I conceive to have 
 been the causes of my failure. First there was a 
 personal reason. I was unwilling to give up my 
 literary work. To do so was, I thought, to burn 
 my boats, and I lacked the courage, besides that 
 in my inmost heart I liked the books better than 
 the school. Still, it was a mistake ; both things 
 could not be done at the same time, especially when, 
 as is the case in a school of this kind, so little can 
 really be delegated by the Chief to anyone else. 
 Then external circumstances were adverse. The agri- 
 cultural interest was in a declining condition. The 
 income of the school came wholly from land, and it 
 was diminished by at least 20 per cent, during my 
 tenure of the headmastership. At the same time the 
 well-to-do farmers of Nottinghamshire and Lincoln- 
 shire, who were the most important clients of the school 
 in the way of supplying it with boarders — and it is 
 by boarders that such schools live — found themselves 
 with much diminished incomes. Even in the small 
 circle of my acquaintance I knew of two or three 
 bankruptcies. But the chief cause of my failure was 
 in myself. I did not recognise the limitations of 
 
154 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 my situation, or perceive what was and what was not 
 possible. My ambition was to link on my school 
 to the old Universities, to send up lads who might win 
 scholarships and exhibitions, and other academical 
 honours, and cover themselves, their school, and me 
 with glory. My friends and neighbours helped me 
 liberally to make this scheme possible. They sub- 
 scribed money for exhibitions which might tempt poor 
 boys to prolong their school time, turn from the attrac- 
 tion of immediate employment, and cherish the hope 
 of a rise in the world. A certain success I achieved. 
 I was able to keep the cleverer boys beyond the time 
 at which they would have left me. They preferred 
 the prospects which the University seemed to open 
 up to a clerkship in a bank, or a situation m a chemist's 
 shop — always a favourite resource because it gave a 
 definite value to the apparently useless study of 
 Latin. Scholarships were won ; academical honours 
 were gained. But I felt very doubtful whether the 
 individual scholars gained by this change in their 
 career ; I feel sure that the school suffered. The 
 fact is that during the last half-century the whole 
 situation of secondary education has changed. The 
 provincial Grammar School has a work of its own, 
 but any competition with the great public schools 
 is a hopeless waste of energy. The individual 
 scholar who has it in him to become another Porson 
 or Whewell has the educational ladder to help him 
 to his ambition, but the headmaster who tries to 
 
HENLEY-ON-THAMES AND EAST EETFOED 155 
 
 turn a second-grade school into a first grade is making 
 a great blunder. I was very angry with, local critics 
 who found fault with me, and, indeed, their criticisms 
 were not founded on facts. They did not make 
 themselves acquainted with the time-table of the 
 school, and talked great nonsense about the time given 
 to the classics. These had, as a matter of fact, 
 a quite moderate amount set apart for them. But 
 they were substantially right after all. The spirit 
 which I sought to create in the school was not that 
 which suited the conditions of the place. And now 
 that I have cried peccavi I will pass on. 
 
156 MEMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 
 
 In December, 1879, there happened a catastrophe 
 which brought my connection with Retford School 
 to an end. A serious case of diphtheria developed 
 itself in my household. The work of the school was 
 at once suspended ; the boarders were sent home, 
 and my children despatched to London under the 
 care of the nurse. My wife and I lived with open 
 doors and windows till we could complete some 
 necessary arrangements, and then took our depar- 
 ture. The report of the expert whom I called in 
 was such that it seemed my best course to resign, 
 carry on my duties as headmaster for the necessary 
 three months, and then seek employment elsewhere. 
 This employment I was fortunate enough to find 
 in the Professorship of Latin at University College, 
 London. This chair was then held, together with the 
 Professorship of Greek, by Alfred Goodwin, at one 
 time Fellow and tutor of Balliol College, Oxford, 
 a brilliant scholar who had won the Hertford, Ireland, 
 and Craven Scholarships. Goodwin had gone to the 
 College as Professor of Latin, and had consented 
 
UNIVEESITY COLLEGE, LONDON 157 
 
 to occupy the Greek chair for a time when this was 
 resigned by W. Wayte. But the arrangement was 
 not intended to be permanent. Goodwin elected 
 to retain the Greek Professorship, and that of Latin 
 was now to be filled up. The practice of the College 
 was that when a vacancy occurred a committee of 
 the senate was appointed to consider the claims of 
 candidates and make a report on them to the council. 
 I should explain that the senate consisted of the 
 professors with the headmaster of the school, and 
 that the council were the governing body. On the 
 committee appointed to deal with the Professorship 
 of Latin I had a very warm friend in Henry Morley, 
 Professor of the English Language and Literature. 
 When I say that he was a ' warm friend ' I do not 
 use the word in its ordinary sense. Personally we 
 were strangers. I had never so much as spoken 
 to him, nor did any communication pass between 
 us till after the report of the committee had been 
 sent in to the council. He was a man of letters 
 himself, and it was as a man of letters that I was 
 fortunate enough to obtain his support. This support 
 he gave in the most energetic way. Goodwin was 
 naturally the most influential member of the com- 
 mittee, and Goodwin, as I came to know, was not so 
 favourably impressed by my testimonials and ante- 
 cedents. Morley exerted himself to win him over 
 and succeeded. His bonhomie and geniality were 
 such that it was not easy to resist him. Accordingly 
 
158 MEMOKIEB OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 I was recommended by the senate and in due course 
 elected by the council. I am inclined to think, to be 
 quite frank, that Morley made something like a 
 mistake. Mr. Sonnenschein, whom I mention honoris 
 causa, was, I believe, one of the candidates, and he 
 would have been a better choice. Mr. Sonnenschein 
 was a scholar of the first class, as his learned editions 
 of Plautus testify, and he had devoted himself to his 
 subject with a singleness of mind which I certainly 
 could not claim. Of course I did not see this then 
 as clearly as I see it now ; indeed I did not see it at all. 
 I honestly thought that I was the best qualified 
 candidate ; and I may plead in my defence that 
 Henry Morley thought the same. 
 
 One dear friend strongly dissuaded me from 
 offering myself for the chair, and this was my cousin 
 John Seeley, who had himself occupied it for the 
 years 1866-68. The reason which he gave was that 
 as a Christian I should often find my position uneasy. 
 He gave me no details, nor did I ask for them, but 
 I cannot doubt that he spoke from experiences of his 
 own, and being a man of large tolerance — as all who 
 knew him will testify — it may be taken for granted 
 that he did not speak without cause. I have often 
 wondered what this cause may have been. It must 
 be remembered that my profession gave me a sort 
 of protection which he as a layman lacked. Common 
 courtesy would forbid the utterance in my presence 
 of sentiments and opinions which could not but be 
 
UNIVEKSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 159 
 
 offensive to me. Anyhow I never had the least 
 reason to complain on this score. 
 
 I might, indeed, have urged, had any one been 
 disposed to annoy me in thiB way, that I held by 
 the appointment of the senate an office for which 
 my profession of Christian belief was a qualification. 
 The case is interesting and even instructive. Some 
 years before a capital sum producing an income of 
 about fifty pounds per annum had been left to the 
 college for the purposes of the library by an old 
 student, Dr. W. G. Peere. The testator had accom- 
 panied his gift with the stipulation that the money 
 should not be used to purchase any book which was 
 hostile to the Christian religion. A nice question 
 was raised — could a corporation which professed 
 itself to be absolutely neutral in matters of belief 
 accept a legacy which was so restricted ? Augustus 
 de Morgan, who was then Professor of Pure Mathe- 
 matics, answered this question in the negative, 
 and felt so strongly on the matter that when the 
 council agreed to accept the legacy he threatened 
 to resign his chair. He saw, however, that the 
 matter was not of sufficient importance to demand 
 such action. He contented himself, therefore, with 
 a protest. It was then agreed that the senate 
 should appoint a committee of three which should 
 have a power of veto on all purchases which it was 
 proposed to make out of this fund. There was a 
 certain difficulty about making the appointment. 
 
160 MEMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 The senate could hardly say to one of its members : 
 ' Are you a Christian ? ' But the fact of a Professor 
 being in Orders offered a ready solution. Practically 
 there was no difficulty in making up the committee, 
 nor did we ever have to exercise our veto. De Morgan 
 was, perhaps, logically right ; but it would have been 
 a great pity if his scruples had prevailed, and the 
 library had lost its fifty pounds. How much it was 
 needed no one who has had the thankless task of 
 keeping a library up to date will need to be told. 
 
 It is not improbable that John Seeley's warning 
 had to do with another incident which I will now 
 proceed to relate. It is both curious and instructive, 
 as showing how very difficult it is to preserve an 
 absolute neutrality where religious belief is concerned. 
 In 1867 the Chair of Moral Philosophy became 
 vacant by the resignation of John Hoppus. A 
 committee of the senate recommended the appoint- 
 ment of James Martineau, chiefly under the influence 
 of George Grote, but the council set aside the recom- 
 mendation, giving as its reason that Martineau was 
 the acknowledged leader of the Unitarian body. 
 John Seeley took this very much to heart, and it 
 may have led him to believe that the college regarded 
 with dislike any pronounced belief. For myself, 
 as I have said before, I found no difficulties or dis- 
 agreeables. During the eight years of my tenure 
 of the Latin Professorship the college was only once 
 agitated by any serious question touching matters 
 
"ONTVEBSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 161 
 
 of belief, and this was argued out on moral rather 
 than on religious grounds. Two ladies whose names 
 were prominent in a movement adverse to accepted 
 beliefs applied for admission to one of the classes. 
 Female students had to furnish the lady superinten- 
 dent with a satisfactory account of their antecedents 
 — a necessary regulation where mixed classes are 
 held. The lady superintendent refused to grant 
 admission to the two applicants ; an appeal was made 
 to the council, and the council remitted the case 
 to the senate. There was a hot debate, of which it is 
 not necessary to give any account. Ultimately the 
 senate decided to report in favour of the action of 
 the lady superintendent. It is an interesting fact 
 that while the faculties of art and science were about 
 equally divided, the medical professors voted unani- 
 mously for the act of exclusion. 
 
 I enjoyed my work at the college greatly, though 
 I could not help feeling that I was scarcely a success. 
 It was an anxious moment when at the beginning 
 of term, and especially at the beginning of the 
 October term, I entered my class-room. Would 
 it be full or empty ? I commonly then had three 
 classes, so that this agitating experience was repeated 
 over and again. I have still a vivid recollection of 
 these painful times, all the more painful because, as a 
 matter of fact, the classes did fall off in numbers. 
 It must, of course, be remembered that the college 
 had lost its chief raison d'Hre. It was founded in 
 
 M 
 
162 MEMOEIES OE MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 days when Oxford absolutely shut its doors against all 
 who refused to accept the test of Anglican orthodoxy, 
 every undergraduate having, at matriculation, to sign 
 the Thirty-nine Articles, while Cambridge demanded 
 the same qualification for a degree. These restric- 
 tions had been long since removed, and the world, 
 or that part of the world which cares for such 
 things, was beginning to realise the fact more 
 and more. Who would forego the splendid oppor- 
 tunities of the ancient universities for all that 
 we, in our Gower Street poverty, were able to give 
 them? 
 
 Apart from this I found much to which I look 
 back after an interval of twenty years and more with 
 unmixed satisfaction. I was Dean of Arts for 
 three years — the college was then a republic with 
 chiefs of merely nominal powers — a dean in each 
 faculty ; it has now become a constitutional monarchy. 
 I was acting in this capacity, if my memory serves 
 me, when I helped to secure for the college one of its 
 most brilliant ornaments, Sir William Ramsay. 
 I was a member of the Committee of Selection, re- 
 presenting there the Faculty of Arts, and I had the 
 wit to see, not, I must say, without suggestion 
 from a very capable adviser, that he was the right 
 man for the place. Curiously enough, it was objected 
 to him in some quarters that he was too much of a 
 physicist, not enough of a pure chemist. But it is 
 on this side of the science of chemistry that he has 
 
UNIVBESITY COLLEGE, LONDON 163 
 
 made the brilliant discoveries which have immor- 
 talised his name and shed lustre on the college. 
 
 Another of my recollections is that of the yearly 
 festivals, if I may so call them, when the University 
 of London conferred its degrees. It was my duty 
 as Dean to present students of University College 
 who graduated in arts, and my good fortune to hear 
 some excellent addresses. 
 
 With one lighter reminiscence I will conclude this 
 chapter. The scheme of a teaching University of 
 London, now happily materialised, was then in the 
 air, and the two Colleges, University and King's, 
 which had important interests at stake, began to 
 draw closer together. We dined together, more 
 Anglicano — whether we were hosts, or guests, or 
 shared a common feast, I cannot remember — and it 
 fell to me, as Dean, to return thanks for one of the 
 toasts. By good luck I had heard that morning two 
 of the science professors talking in the Common Room 
 about the future of literary studies. Greek, they said, 
 would still be in demand, if only to construct names 
 for the new discoveries of science. I told the company 
 what I had heard, and professed myself consoled 
 by the prospect, for Latin, too, I hoped, would still 
 be kept alive by its technical usefulness. ' But,' I 
 went on, ' men of science, do not be too proud. 
 Your Jupiter may be about to dethrone the Saturn 
 of the Humanities, but his own term of power will 
 come to an end. He will have to acknowledge the 
 
 M 2 
 
164 MBMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 sway of Gymnastic. It is to Gymnastic that the 
 future belongs.' 
 
 The college vacations at Christmas and Easter 
 were brief ; that in the summer was of generous 
 length. The latter I sometimes utilised in examining 
 schools for the Joint Oxford and Cambridge Board. 
 I had some very pleasant experiences in this line. 
 I went to Brighton, where I met that most genial 
 prelate, Dr. Durnford, then recently appointed to 
 the See of Chichester ; to Wellington, then ruled 
 by Dr. Wickham, now Dean of Lincoln ; to Shrews- 
 bury, where Dr. Moss happily carried on, as he still 
 continues to do, the great Kennedy tradition. I 
 have no intention of instituting any comparison 
 between these schools. It would be in bad taste to 
 do so, even had I the necessary qualification, and this 
 I cannot suppose to be supplied by the experience 
 of a single visit. I will venture, however, to record 
 what still remains a vivid impression on my mind, the 
 admirable work done by the classes which I examined 
 at Dulwich. I do this for two reasons. The first is 
 that I believe in day schools, as indeed an old Merchant 
 Taylors' master should. The second is that Dulwich 
 is one of the happiest examples extant of the good 
 result effected by modern reform in the province of 
 secondary education. It has been practically created 
 within the memory of many now living. About 
 sixty years ago — I am not sure as to the time — all 
 that remained of Dulwich School, an old foundation 
 
UNIVBESITY COLLEGE, LONDON 165 
 
 dating from the early part of the seventeenth century, 
 was this. A dozen scholars used to gather day by 
 day round the bed of the master and say their 
 lessons while the old man smoked his pipe. Another 
 school where I found excellent work being done was 
 Christ's Hospital. I had examined the Lower School 
 when I was at Retford. Mr. G. C. Bell was then 
 Headmaster. His successor, Mr. R. Lee, appointed 
 me to examine the Upper. It was a heavy piece of 
 work, but I greatly enjoyed doing it. 
 
 My resignation of the Professorship meant a change 
 of abode. For eight years I had been living at 
 Hadley, a populous village on the Hertfordshire 
 boundary of Middlesex. It is a delightful spot, if one 
 does not object to a somewhat rigorous climate. 
 In the coaching days Hadley Green had the reputa- 
 tion of being the bleakest spot between London and 
 York, and in one of the winters of my sojourn there 
 the skating lasted till past the middle of March. 
 The great attraction of the place is Hadley Common, 
 otherwise known as Hadley Wood. The history of 
 this place is interesting. When Enfield Chase was 
 disforested compensation was given to certain parishes 
 which possessed forest rights. This compensation 
 was in the form of portions of the enclosed land. 
 The other parishes, as time went on, sold their 
 portions ; Hadley, which was always inhabited by a 
 wealthy class, kept its bit of the old forest. It 
 remains as unspoilt a bit of ground as one could expect 
 
166 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 to find within so small a distance of London. It 
 would be vain to look there for any of the rarer 
 plants of the Middlesex flora, but it is a charming 
 place. It belongs to the freeholders of Hadley, and 
 the income derived from the occasional sales of timber 
 is used for keeping it up, practically for the benefit 
 of the public. The freeholders have certain grazing 
 rights, of which probably very few avail themselves. 
 I believe that when a considerable portion had to be 
 alienated for the construction of the Great Northern 
 Railway a substantial sum of money was divided 
 among them. 
 
 The house which I occupied was an interesting 
 place. It was known as the Pymlico or Pymblicoe 
 House, and appears under that name in the Hadley 
 Register 1 of 1670, as a ' house for Travellers.' There 
 is a theory that it occupied the site of the Chantry 
 which Edward IV. founded after the battle of Barnet. 
 There would be a certain congruity in the dis- 
 established Chantry being turned to this purpose. 
 I utilised the notion in one of my stories, ' The Chantry 
 Priest of Barnet ' ; very possibly this gave the idea 
 in my eyes a verisimilitude which it did not really 
 possess. 
 
 Barnet has a good Grammar School (of the second 
 grade). This was, indeed, one of the reasons which 
 determined my choice. Five of my sons received the 
 whole or part of their education there, and I had 
 
 1 It was in South Mymms parish. 
 
UNIVEESITY COLLEGE, LONDON 167 
 
 the pleasure of making some little return for benefits 
 there received by acting as the Governor representing 
 University College. I completed one term of office 
 (six years) and two-thirds of another, resigning 
 when I found the labour of attending an afternoon 
 meeting and getting back to a home thirty miles 
 on the other side of London was too much for me. 
 
 I have many reasons for a pleasant remembrance 
 of my life at Hadley, for I received much kindness 
 from my neighbours. First among them dignitatis 
 causa I will mention the second Earl of Strafford. 
 I saw him, indeed, on one occasion only, but he was 
 most courteous and agreeable. Two of my sons, 
 who were crazy just then about egg-collecting, had 
 the audacity to write for permission to go birds'- 
 nesting in his park. I have a vague idea that I 
 called to apologise for their impudence. The per- 
 mission he could not give, he said, for he kept his 
 park as an asylum for wild creatures, but he gave 
 them some other privilege, which was the nearest 
 thing to it. We talked about other things, but the 
 only distinct recollection that I have beyond a general 
 impression of his courtesy was his remark about 
 the names of a grandchild. ' They have called him 
 Strafford Byng,' he said, ' as if they wanted him to 
 die by the hands of the public executioner.' Next 
 must come our learned antiquarian rector, the Rev. 
 Frederic Cass. I remember saying of him that he 
 felt no interest in his parishioners till they had been 
 
168 MEMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 dead a hundred years. It was probably as unjust 
 as such epigrams commonly are. I have no reason 
 for saying that he was careless of his duty ; but he 
 certainly lived more in the past than in the present. 
 His local histories of Bast Barnet and Hadiey are 
 marvels of careful research. I can never forget the 
 mitis senectus, the generosity, the goodness, the 
 kindly humour of Mrs. Wilde of The Grove. 
 She was by birth a Martineau, and had the vigour, 
 physical and mental, characteristic of that family. 
 James Martineau was her first cousin, and in early 
 days the two households had been on terms of the 
 closest intimacy. I remember her telling a story of 
 the childhood of her famous relative. He had been 
 set one day, at his own request, to ' top and tail ' 
 some gooseberries. He was then four years of age, 
 and the task exhausted his childish patience. Still 
 he stuck to it, and his cousin overheard him mur- 
 muring to himself the lines of a hymn : 
 
 That which my gracious Master bore 
 Shall not His humble servant bear ? 
 
 (I am not sure that the lines are correctly quoted, 
 but this is their general meaning.) She died, some 
 little time after we left Hadiey, in her ninety-fourth 
 year. A few hours before her death she made, in 
 speaking to one of her daughters, a humorous allusion 
 to something in Jane Austen. The daughter failed 
 to understand. ' Ah ! ' she said to another daughter, 
 
UNIVEBSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 169 
 
 ' I. . . . never knew her Jane Austen.' Her con- 
 stant kindness to me was shown especially on the 
 occasion of two heavy visitations. The first was when 
 I was laid aside for six months from my work by an 
 attack of typhoid contracted on a fishing tour in 
 Scotland ; the second when seven of my children — 
 the eldest an undergraduate at Oxford in his first 
 year, the youngest a girl of four — were down at once 
 with scarlet fever. Another good friend was Gr. W., 
 a friend of early days who had been a neighbour 
 at Clapham, and by a happy chance became a neigh- 
 bour at Hadley. I could not omit mention of him 
 in any story of my life, and having mentioned him, 
 I must let my readers have the benefit of two good 
 stories which occur to me as I write. Gr. W. had the 
 reputation among his friends of being unusually 
 lucky. Once he met with a serious driving accident 
 which threatened at one time to leave permanent 
 ill effect. It so happened that two or three days 
 before he had effected an insurance on his life. ' Ah ! ' 
 remarked a friend, ' it would have been like your 
 confounded luck, W., if you had been killed.' It was, 
 I believe, the same friend who told this story of 
 himself. His vote for one of the metropolitan 
 boroughs had been objected to on the ground that he 
 was dead. He attended the Court of the Revising 
 Barrister, and when his name came up, and the objec- 
 tion was lodged, he stood up. ' Who are you ? ' 
 asked the judge. ' I am the corpse,' he said. 
 
170 MEMOBIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A COUNTRY PAESON AGAIN 
 
 After leaving Hadley, I spent a year or so at Bexhill, 
 and then took up what I intended at the time should 
 be a permanent abode at Austford, a very small 
 hamlet in south-eastern Sussex. It was a delightful 
 spot, with woods all round it, woods in which the 
 primrose was in almost yearlong bloom — I have 
 picked them freshly flowered on Christmas Day — 
 indeed, it was only in the late summer that there 
 was no chance of finding them. It was a land of 
 oak and chestnut — the elm was very rare — and of 
 hop gardens. These last were, I may venture to say, 
 not the less agreeable because they were picked 
 by the villagers, not by the swarms which come 
 down from East London. A pasture field of some 
 ten acres sloped down in front of the house, a place 
 always to be remembered with delight, and especially 
 for the reason that there I tried my prentice hand 
 on golf. Beyond the prentice stage I have never 
 got, but that matters nothing. The game has done 
 marvels for me in making life sweet and healthy. 
 Like Vestricius Spurinna, the veteran soldier of whom 
 
A COUNTEY PAESON AGAIN 171 
 
 the Younger Pliny has left so charming a description, 
 ' I ward off old age by playing ball.' It was in 1890 
 that I learnt this precious secret. And to think 
 that I missed the chance some fifteen years before ! 
 In 1875 I was the guest for a week or so of John 
 Blackwood at Strath Tyrum, close to the old golf 
 links of St. Andrews — the Strath Tyrum domains in a 
 way included them — and I never saw the game or so 
 much as asked about it. My sojourn was a pleasant 
 time, and I have interesting recollections of it — 
 I remember John Blackwood saying that a magazine 
 could not possibly pay at a smaller price than half-a- 
 crown — but to think that I lost all those years of 
 golf ! One thing, however, must be said — I could 
 not easily have found links to play on in England. 
 At the bottom of the field ran a delightful brook, 
 with baby trout in it which could be caught by 
 ' tickling ' — they were always restored to the water. 
 In 1892 there came to me the offer of the Rectory 
 of Ashley St. James, in Wiltshire. The benefice 
 is in the gift of the Crown, the presentation being 
 exercised by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lan- 
 caster. The parish is part of the Estcourt property, 
 and the wishes of the reigning proprietor are com- 
 monly consulted, at least, if his friends are in power. 
 The Estcourts are staunch Conservatives, and a 
 Conservative Government was in power in the summer 
 of 1892, though tottering to its fall. Anyhow, the 
 offer was made to me, primarily through the good 
 
172 MEMOKIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 offices of the Suffolk family, whose friendship I had 
 been fortunate enough to possess since the days 
 described in Chapter V. I called on the Duke of 
 Rutland, the Lord John Manners of an earlier time, 
 and the ' Lord Harry Beauclerk ' of Coningsby. 
 He was the beau ideal of a nobleman of the Old 
 School. I said something about the life pictured 
 in Disraeli's great novel. ' Ah,' he said, ' all 
 that seems to me now as if it had happened a 
 century ago ! ' 
 
 To go to Ashley was to return, after an interval 
 of thirty-six years, to the country with which I had 
 become acquainted in my first curacy. The eastern 
 border of the parish was separated by a distance 
 of little more than two miles from the western limit 
 of Brokenborough, one of the two chapelries which 
 I had served from 1853 to 1856. The conditions of 
 life were much the same as they were in my old 
 parish, and I had a most instructive opportunity of 
 seeing the changes which time had wrought, of 
 comparing the Wiltshire of the fifties with the Wilt- 
 shire of the 'nineties. 
 
 Ashley St. James has an area of 960 acres with a 
 population of about eighty. There is a Rectory, two 
 farmhouses, one of them the old manor house of the 
 Gorges family, and still showing something of ancient 
 dignity, and fourteen cottages. The income, as I 
 find it returned by myself in ' Crockford's Clerical 
 Directory ' for 1895, was 189J. gross and 1291. net. 
 
A COUNTRY PAESON AGAIN 178 
 
 (The tithe rent charge was 2101., which was then, 
 worth 1511., and there were thirty acres of glebe, 
 which were let at 291.) The house, which had been 
 greatly altered and increased by my predecessor, 
 contained twelve bedrooms and four sitting-rooms, 
 with a coach house and stabling for four horses. 
 It was by far the most commodious and pleasant 
 residence that I have ever occupied, but possibly 
 a little out of proportion to the value of the benefice. 
 The income was still charged with the repayment of 
 the money which my predecessor had borrowed. 
 
 (I believe that the Commissioners of Queen Anne's 
 
 i 
 
 Bounty do not now permit unreasonable expenditures 
 of this kind.) 
 
 Here I may interject some remarks on what is a 
 sore subject with many of my brethren — dilapidations. 
 My predecessor had availed himself of what is, I 
 believe, called the four years' system. The incum- 
 bent puts the house, premises, glebe buildings, &c, 
 into such repair as satisfies the diocesan surveyor, 
 and obtains from him a certificate to that effect. If 
 he resigns within five years from the granting of the 
 certificate he is not liable to any further payment. 
 When I resigned the living my dilapidations came to 
 about 180Z., which seemed to me then and seems 
 now an excessive sum, for I had spent on the place 
 as much as a tenant commonly spends on his holding. 
 Something in the way of restoration is expected at the 
 termination of a tenancy, but to have to pay about 
 
174 MEMORIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 one and a-half times the net income of the benefice 
 was, I venture to think, a hardship. 1 There was one 
 special grievance which, as it is not unlikely to occur 
 in a rural benefice, I may mention. There was a 
 shed on the glebe which I found in a ruinous condition 
 when I came. Perhaps I ought to have protested at 
 the time, but the whole thing was new to me, and I 
 did not. The fact was that the building had never 
 been seen by the surveyor in my predecessor's time. 
 He had taken over and adopted the report of the 
 resigning surveyor. To make a long story short, I 
 had to rebuild the place. I do not fail to appreciate 
 the difficulty of the situation. The diocesan surveyor 
 has got to see that the property is handed on from 
 incumbent to incumbent without any diminution 
 of value, and he does his best to make the outgoer 
 or his representatives make it as good as new. It is 
 as if, to take a humble simile, the repair of a pair of 
 shoes being in question, a new sole, not to say a new 
 upper leather, were to be ordered where the usual 
 proceeding would be to have a new heel, or even a 
 few fresh nails. ' Eeasonable wear and tear ' are not 
 allowed, and, to be candid, cannot well be allowed 
 for. The only suggestion that I can make is that 
 the whole matter should be managed by a central 
 authority, and that there should be no dealings 
 between outgoing and incoming incumbent. In 
 
 1 Of course, if I had been there fifty years instead of five the sum 
 would have been far smaller in proportion. 
 
A COUNTRY PARSON AGAIN 175 
 
 these dealings there is too often the element of the 
 sordid and the unseemly. 
 
 The church had not escaped the restorer, but it 
 had suffered less than others which I have seen. 
 The Norman porch and chancel arch, both of the 
 earliest style, remained unharmed, as did the Early 
 English pillars and arches within the church. But 
 the restoring architect had removed the Perpendicular 
 windows which had once existed in the north wall, 
 substituting for them what he imagined to be more 
 in keeping with the Early English work mentioned 
 above. They were, as a matter of fact, deplorably 
 feeble. It was curious to see how the nineteenth 
 century workman had been unable to imitate the 
 very simple dog-tooth ornament of the chancel arch 
 in two or three places where the stone had been 
 broken away. But the misdoing which most moved 
 my wrath was this. A small vestry had been added, 
 and outside the door there was a flagstone on which 
 were the words : ' Here lieth the body of John 
 Barrett, M.A., Bector of this Parish, who died 
 August, 1667.' As a matter of fact, John Barrett 
 had been buried under the tower, and the stone 
 which marked his grave had been removed from 
 its place to save the few shillings that would have 
 been spent in making an approach to the vestry 
 door. 
 
 The name of John Barrett suggests the mention 
 of a curious fact of which I should be glad to have 
 
176 MBMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 an explanation. . He was rector from 1640 up to his 
 death in 1667. Whether it was that he made his 
 peace with the authorities or that Ashley was too 
 insignificant and remote to be disturbed, he held the 
 benefice without any interruption (as far as can be 
 discovered) during the Civil War, the Commonwealth, 
 and the Restoration. On the first and second pages 
 of the parish register is a list of ' Marriages solemnized 
 in Ashley' during the years 1658-1662. They 
 number forty-two. In one only were the parties 
 Ashley folk, and one marriage in four years was 
 about the usual average. The others came from 
 some ten or twelve parishes in the neighbourhood, 
 the town of Tetbury, which is about three miles 
 distant, naturally contributing the largest number. 
 The list is not in the rector's handwriting, of which 
 there are several specimens of a later date. It 
 is in an indifferent clerical hand, and it has the 
 look of having been written at the same time. Why 
 did these people come to this out-of-the-way Ashley ? 
 And who was it that performed the ceremony ? 
 At that time, as I have said, the parish belonged 
 to the Gorges family, and the Manor House, now 
 turned into a farm, was occupied by them. Have 
 we here, then, a list written out in the parish book 
 by some scrivener in the lord's employ, when the 
 old order of things had been restored ? Is it the fact 
 that magistrates continued to perform marriages 
 for as much as two years after the Restoration ? 
 
A COUNTEY PAESON AGAIN 177 
 
 The latest date in the list is June 1662. Or did the 
 rector officiate, though he did not make the entries ? 
 The earliest date is June 22, 1658, and the Protector 
 died in the September of that year. By that time 
 the rigour of the anti-episcopal rule had begun to 
 abate. I am inclined to the Lord of the Manor 
 theory. The register books contain little else that is 
 curious. In 1656 there is the entry of the death of 
 ' Widow Moss, the last that held by Popery in these 
 parts,' and in 1826 is recorded the death of a cen- 
 tenarian aged 101 years. 
 
 I remained for five years at Ashley, and left it 
 with regret. In some respects it suited me exactly, 
 for, as my readers will readily understand, I had 
 plenty of other work with which I could occupy 
 myself without neglecting my parish. But the 
 climate was too rigorous for some of my family — 
 Ashley lies on the eastern slope of the Cotswolds — 
 and the situation was exceedingly lonely. This did 
 not trouble me, but I had to think of others. 
 
 These very small parishes, which are not to be 
 found, I take it, in any country but England, 1 present 
 a question of no little difficulty. There is an evident 
 absurdity in giving one man five thousand people 
 to look after, and to another a hundred or less. 2 
 
 1 The parishes in Ireland average between seven and eight thousand 
 acres, those in England and Wales little more than three thousand. 
 The Scotch parishes are even larger than the Irish. This is a rough 
 calculation, but it sufficiently represents the facts. 
 
 - There are more than twenty parishes with a hundred people or 
 
 N 
 
178 MEMOKIES OF MEN AND BOOKS \ 
 
 There is a waste of money and of energy generally, 
 and the effect on the man who is set to do this inade- 
 quate work is not likely to be good. Such a place 
 may suit a man who has other things to occupy him ; 
 to another with a more limited range of interests 
 it may bring stagnation or even disaster. On the 
 other hand, the system has its advantages. It is 
 quite safe to assert that the village which has a 
 resident parson is more civilised than the hamlet 
 which is without one. And the people certainly 
 like it. They may not have any special affection 
 or respect for the particular clergyman, but they 
 appreciate the status which his presence gives them. 
 And they would certainly resent any change that 
 would replace the separate possession by what I may 
 call a combination. This I may illustrate by my own 
 experience. The Parish Councils Bill was brought 
 into Parliament during my tenure of Ashley. I 
 thought it right to call the householders together 
 and explain to them the proposed legislation. They 
 were good enough to come to the meeting, for they 
 were always polite and obliging. They evidently 
 felt, however, no interest in the matter. But when 
 I told them that though Ashley was too small to have 
 a Parish Council of its own, and must be content with 
 
 less under one letter of the alphabet (M) which constitute a separate 
 charge. I took this letter at random for the purpose of the enumera- 
 tion. If the same proportion holds good for the rest of the alphabet 
 there would be more than four hundred such charges in England 
 and Wales. 
 
A COUNTEY PAESON AGAIN 179 
 
 a parish meeting, it could combine with a neighbour- 
 ing parish and be represented on its Council, I roused 
 them. They were quite resolved to have nothing 
 to do with any neighbour. So we had our parish 
 meeting, to which, of course, no one ever came, 
 once in the year. It was necessary, or I thought 
 it necessary, to have a quorum. The tenants of the 
 two farms into which the parish was divided, came, 
 and so did my gardener-groom, who considered it to 
 be part of his work. As a fourth was wanted, I used 
 to send him out into the highway to bring in by force, 
 so to speak, any one whom he came across. He was 
 discreet ; the villager was, as I have said, obliging, 
 and our parish meeting was constituted. 
 
 The parish was divided, as has been mentioned 
 above, into two holdings. Both the farmers were on 
 the best of terms with me. One of them was church- 
 warden — we were content with one of these officials — 
 as he had been during nearly the whole of my pre- 
 decessor's incumbency ; the other rented my glebe. 
 There was no difficulty about their imposing on them- 
 selves a voluntary Church rate to meet the church ex- 
 penses. The churchwarden's sons and daughters 
 helped me in various ways. One of the daughters, 
 an accomplished musician, and medallist of the 
 R.A.M., trained a choir that many parishes might 
 have envied. The sons, among other services, helped 
 to make our annual cricket week a succession 
 of triumphs or not discreditable defeats. Of the 
 
 N 2 
 
180 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 labourers I have spoken already. They were divided 
 into two classes: the stationary, of whom I have 
 nothing but what is good to say, and the migratory, 
 hired at the autumn fair in Tetbury and seldom 
 remaining more than a year, who were less satis- 
 factory. I think that I may say that during my 
 incumbency of five years I never said or heard an 
 angry word in all my dealings with them. All used 
 to come to church, some with scrupulous regularity. 
 
 This seems to be the place for saying something 
 about the difference which I had the opportunity 
 of observing between the Wiltshire of the ' fifties 
 and the Wiltshire of the 'nineties. The labourer, to 
 begin with, was distinctly better off. His wages were 
 increased. No one had less than eleven shillings a 
 week, and he had it regularly, whatever the weather. 
 This was something, but a more important fact 
 was that the money went much farther. The average 
 price of bread had fallen from eightpence to fivepence 
 a quartern, a*id both tea and sugar were materially 
 cheaper. The consequence was that articles of food 
 were habitually used which the labourer of forty 
 years before had regarded as the rarest of luxuries, 
 if, indeed, he ever saw them. Both the grocer's and 
 the butcher's carts made a regular round of the 
 village (to this the abolition of turnpikes and tolls, 
 which were in the 'fifties most burdensome, had 
 contributed). 1 One Saturday afternoon the butcher 
 
 ' I remember paying in the old days two shillings in the course of 
 
A COUNTEY PAESON AGAIN 181 
 
 failed to come, the attractions of a ' public ' appro- 
 priately named ' Trouble House ' had been too 
 strong for him, and there was a cry of distress through- 
 out the village. Forty years before his absence 
 would have made no difference. And as the labourer 
 was more comfortable, so he was more civilised. In 
 the old time the annual dinner of the Village Benefit 
 Club was anything but a pleasing affair. It was the 
 one day in the year in which the labourer could feed 
 to satiety, and he enjoyed it as a savage. The 
 quantities of food devoured were nothing less than 
 appalling, and the manners of the guests were most 
 barbarous. I have seen young men before the dishes 
 were set on table take up the vinegar-cruets and toss 
 off their contents. The club festival of the later 
 period was a very different affair. The diners had 
 a sufficiently good appetite, but there was nothing 
 brutal in their way of feeding. The club itself, too, 
 was greatly changed for the better. It used to be 
 an annual arrangement, dividing up any surplus that 
 it might happen to possess, and forming itself again, 
 sometimes with the exclusion of the older members. 
 It had become a permanent, businesslike, and solvent 
 institution. 
 
 It may not improbably be asked — how is it that 
 the wage of the labourer has increased when the 
 condition of agriculture has become distinctly less 
 
 a drive of eleven miles. It so happened that I traversed two turnpike 
 trusts, and payment at one gate did not clear another. 
 
182 MBMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 prosperous ? The farmer's profit is less ; the land- 
 lord's rent has been diminished, in some instances 
 by 50 per cent, or more. 1 Labour-saving machines 
 are extensively used, and the proportion of grass 
 land to arable has greatly increased (in 1840 the 
 acreage was about equally divided ; in 1895 the arable 
 had diminished from a half to a quarter). 2 How 
 is it then, that though all the conditions are adverse, 
 the wages of the labourers have increased ? The 
 answer is, I believe, of the simplest, but it is in strict 
 accord with what regulates wages elsewhere. The 
 demand is less ; even the arable land is less carefully 
 cultivated, for the wheat and the turnips are not 
 hoed so often. But the supply has diminished in a 
 large proportion. For this reason I cannot but look 
 with a certain doubt on the ' Back to the Land ' move- 
 ment. The land simply cannot pay for more labour. 
 If Ashley had half as many labourers again it might 
 easily follow that all of them would receive less and 
 some be actually out of work on wet days and in 
 long frosts. And as I am delivering my soul on this 
 
 1 One farm in a parish adjoining to Ashley and belonging to the 
 same estate was let during my incumbency at Is. Qd. per acre, the 
 landlord paying the tithe, which amounted to 3s. 4d. 
 
 2 A fifty-acre field on which I was accustomed to play golf had 
 quite recently gone out of cultivation — this better describes what had 
 taken place than to say that it had been laid down to grass. An old 
 parishioner, my churchwarden's shepherd, told me that he had helped 
 to harvest some twenty years before a magnificent crop of barley of 
 some six quarters to the acre. In my day it afforded pasture to a few 
 sheep for two or three months of the year, and I paid 11. a year for my 
 golfing privilege. 
 
A COUNTEY PAESON AGAIN 183 
 
 subject — with no desire, let me say emphatically, to 
 serve one party or another — I will add that the 
 small holder, if he is greatly multiplied, will very 
 likely help in bringing about a depression of wages. 
 There is no man who is more likely to do this than 
 he who ekes out the scanty livelihood which his 
 holding earns for him by ' working out.' 
 
 As to the comparative morality of the two periods 
 I speak with hesitation. Advance in this respect is 
 bound to be slow ; but that there is advance I am 
 convinced. It is certainly one change for the better 
 that the outdoor work of women has greatly dimi- 
 nished. The milking of cows, for instance — Wilt- 
 shire is largely a dairy country — has passed almost 
 wholly from the hands of women into those of men. 
 
 The schools have been greatly improved. This, 
 indeed, was bound to happen, seeing that the public 
 expenditure upon them had increased more than ten- 
 fold. In the 'fifties such a place as Ashley would 
 certainly have had to be content with a dame's school. 
 In my time it was as well off in this respect as any 
 parish in the county. It was not easy, it is true, to 
 keep the finance of the school in a solvent state. 
 We drew some children from a neighbouring hamlet 
 which was nearer to us than to its own parish, but 
 even with their help we could seldom muster 
 more than sixteen children. The Government grant 
 together with the allowances made to a parish with 
 a population of less than two hundred came to 
 
184 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 something between 30/. and 40/. The landowner 
 gave 11/. and I contributed 5/. and made myself 
 responsible for any deficit. By great good luck I 
 secured a really efficient teacher for the very modest 
 salary of 45/. For reasons which I need not give 
 here she was glad to come. But an equilibrium 
 between receipts and expenditure could only be 
 secured by obtaining the additional grant accorded 
 for special efficiency. This we succeeded in doing, 
 but it was not easily done. The burden of the labour 
 fell, of course, upon the schoolmistress, but I had 
 my share. 
 
 One curious instance of the inscrutable ways of 
 public offices I cannot refrain from giving. One of 
 the provisions of the Education Code was that in case 
 of necessity an uncertificated teacher might be em- 
 ployed for a period of not more than three months. 
 Such a case arose. The alternative to employing 
 such a teacher was closing the school. I found a 
 young friend who was willing to undertake the work. 
 I took her into my house ; I gave her twice as much 
 help as I should have found it necessary to give a 
 duly qualified teacher, and as her employment 
 ceased within the three months' limit, I thought that 
 I had solved the problem satisfactorily. The regular 
 school holiday came at its usual time, and when this 
 was finished I had contrived to fill the vacancy with 
 a duly certificated person. But when the Government 
 orant came I found myself fined 10/. for transgressing 
 
A COUNTKY PAESON AGAIN 185 
 
 the provision which regulates the employment of 
 the uncertificated. By ' three months,' it was ex- 
 plained, is meant not three actual months, but three 
 months diminished by a proportionate deduction 
 of the time given to holidays. The school year 
 consists of ten months of actual work, i.e. twelve 
 months minus one-sixth ; the ' three months ' accor- 
 dingly means ninety days with the same deduction 
 of a sixth, i.e. seventy-five. ' You employed your 
 uncertificated teacher fifteen days too long,' so said 
 the Education Office, presided over at that time, I 
 remember, by Mr. Acland. The fine was ultimately 
 remitted. 
 
 Finally, I will say, not without a certain mis- 
 giving, a few words about the clergy. I can affirm 
 without hesitation that the generation with which 
 I made acquaintance during my second sojourn 
 in Wiltshire was professionally far better equipped 
 for their work than their predecessors had been. 
 In the old days the abuses of non-residence and 
 pluralism still continued. They had been forbidden 
 by law, but the vested interests of surviving clergy- 
 men had, of course, been respected. One parish 
 had not been visited by its rector for forty years, 
 and the curate eked out his stipend by taking charge 
 of lunatics. The vicar of another held a living 
 some ten miles distant, which he saw once or twice 
 only in the year. I remember his telling the guests 
 at a dinner party how on applying to the Archbishop 
 
186 MBMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 for his license he had been required to write a Latin 
 essay — to show, I suppose, that he was a learned 
 man for whom an extra income might be not impro- 
 perly furnished out of Church revenues. ' Have you 
 preserved that essay, Mr. P. ? ' I asked with an 
 impudence that was scarcely befitting a young 
 curate. Mr. P. was not supposed to be a scholar. 
 I once overheard this characteristic compliment 
 paid to him : ' Ah ! ' said a passer-by to his com- 
 panion, ' he never kept a poor man waiting for his 
 dinner.' He had, I remember, a strong objection to 
 the presence of more than one clergyman at a service. 
 ' Cut to waste ! ' he would say, ' Cut to waste ! ' 
 This kind of parson has disappeared. With the 
 better professional equipment and increased sense 
 of duty have come other changes which are less 
 to be admired. The clergy are commonly more 
 ecclesiastical than they were ; they are more sharply 
 divided into parties. The old friendliness, and the 
 old hospitality have disappeared. The lower incomes 
 and increased rates are, doubtless, largely responsible 
 for the latter loss. But on the whole the Church is, 
 I am sure, better served than it was. 
 
 This is, perhaps, as good a place as any for putting 
 together a few experiences which have occurred from 
 time to time in my clerical life, now extended to 
 between fifty and sixty years. They may be classed 
 as stories of ' Sunday Duty.' The first refers to a 
 Worcestershire village, some twenty-five miles from 
 
A COUNTKY PAESON AGAIN 187 
 
 Oxford, which I may call E. A day or so after the 
 first Sunday I received a letter from one of the 
 congregation, the writer of which thanked me for 
 my ' truly evangelical discourse,' but regretted that 
 I had thought fit to make so pointed a reference to 
 himself. As he, and indeed everyone else in E., were 
 entirely strangers to me, I was not a little perplexed. 
 I found on inquiry that the writer was a relative of 
 the rector of the parish, and believed himself to have 
 been wronged by him. He was accustomed, I was 
 told, to sit directly in view of the pulpit with a 
 placard hanging from his neck on which was inscribed 
 in large capitals the word ' EOBBED.' He did not 
 address this pointed rebuke to me, but he evidently 
 thought that I had taken the rector's side. I was 
 entertained by the rector's mother, an old lady 
 who had passed her ninetieth year. She was a very 
 polite and hospitable person, in full possession of 
 her faculties except the memory of recent events. 
 She could recollect what had happened seventy 
 years before — how, for instance, she and her father 
 had been stopped by highwaymen on Maidenhead 
 Thicket — but she did not remember what she had 
 said within the last few minutes. Politely anxious 
 to make conversation, she asked me again and again 
 the same three questions. One of these I have 
 forgotten ; one was, ' did I think that a college life 
 fitted a man for matrimony ? ' I felt a little em- 
 barrassed, as a pretty young woman, her grand- 
 
188 MBMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 daughter, was sitting by. The third question was : 
 ' Did I know Dr. Green of Magdalen Hall ? ' As 
 Dr. Green had died at least twenty years before 
 I was born, I could only answer with a negative 
 in as many varieties as I could devise. After 
 I came to London in 1857 a good deal of this 
 kind of work came in my way. I have officiated 
 in some City churches which have since disappeared. 
 In more than one I found in the vestry a hospitable 
 provision of a decanter of port and another of sherry 
 with biscuits, &c. This custom has, I take it, also 
 disappeared. One disconcerting experience I had 
 at St. Philip's, Stepney. The parish had been in 
 the charge of a disreputable clergyman whose misdeeds 
 had become so flagrant that he had had to fly the 
 country. T. J. Rowsell, afterwards a canon of 
 Westminster, then vicar of the adjoining parish of 
 St. Peter's, had undertaken the charge, and I went 
 down to help him. I never saw so deplorable a 
 place as the church. The grass was growing among 
 the broken flagstones with which it was paved. 
 When I went up into the pulpit, the clerk stood 
 with his shoulder under the stairs to prop them up, 
 and when in the course of my sermon I leant for- 
 ward, the pulpit moved with me. After that my 
 action was very restrained. St. Philip's can now 
 boast, thanks to the munificence of Mr. Vatcher, one 
 of the most beautiful churches in London. 
 
 After my connection with St. Peter's, Vere Street, 
 
A COUNTEY PAESON AGAIN 189 
 
 of which I speak elsewhere, had ceased, I had fre- 
 quently the privilege of ministering in the Parish 
 Church of Clapham (I was then living in the 
 Crescent), a place associated with many eminent 
 names of ministers and worshippers, among them the 
 Venns, the Thorntons, the Wilberforces. One Sun- 
 day afternoon I saw Alfred Tennyson in the congrega- 
 tion, in company with his host, the late Sir James 
 Knowles. The first lesson was the Song of Deborah, 
 and I pronounced the name with the ' o ' long. I 
 noticed an interchange of looks between my two 
 hearers, and saw that the poet somehow gave his 
 companion to understand that my pronunciation was 
 right. 
 
 In 1870 I left London for Henley-on-Thames, 
 as I have stated elsewhere. The School House wanted 
 repair and decoration, and while the work was going 
 on, I had the charge of Highmore, a newly constituted 
 parish on the edge of the Chiltern Hills, between 
 four and five miles north of Henley. My stay here 
 lasted through July and part of August. The whole 
 of that time was one of unbroken drought, 1 and the 
 experience was not a little painful. A townsman, 
 used to a mechanically regular supply of water, is 
 
 1 Unbroken as far as Highmore was concerned, though the neigh- 
 bourhood was visited by more than one thunderstorm. I remember 
 being overtaken by one as I was returning from Henley with my wife. 
 We were both more thoroughly drenched than we had ever been in our 
 lives before, but were not a little disappointed to find that not a drop 
 had fallen at home. 
 
190 MEMORIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 disturbed when he practically realises what a drought 
 means. The parsonage had been providently fur- 
 nished with large rain-water cisterns ; but these 
 were exhausted before we left. All the wells in the 
 parish were dry except one that had been sunk into 
 the chalk to the depth of some 150 feet. This never 
 quite gave out — that is, though emptied in the day, 
 it filled in to a certain depth during the night. It was 
 kept locked. One key was at the parsonage ; another 
 was in the hands of one of the farmers. This guardian 
 was found to have drawn some buckets full for the 
 use of his horses. It was a scandalous piece of selfish- 
 ness, though the man probably did not quite realise 
 what he was doing, and only felt that it was a great 
 trouble to have to haul water from the Thames. The 
 poor were greatly distressed ; one suicide which took 
 place during my stay was commonly attributed 
 to this cause. I shall never forget the incessant 
 crying of the cattle in the fields. How these parishes 
 fared before these deep wells were made it is impos- 
 sible to imagine. One in the neighbourhood of 
 Highmore, Stoke Kow by name, came by its well 
 in a way that is worth recording. A native of the 
 village had entered the service of an Indian rajah 
 (of Benares, I think), and had done good work which 
 his employer had been anxious to specially recognise. 
 ' What shall I do for you ? ' said the rajah to his 
 minister. The man, who doubtless remembered such 
 periods of suffering as I have described, replied, 
 
A COUNTKY PAESON AGAIN 191 
 
 ' Cause a well to be sunk for the English, village 
 where I was born.' It was done ; and I happened to 
 see it when the rajah's birthday was being kept with 
 feasting and fireworks. 
 
 It was at Highmore that I witnessed a picturesque 
 celebration, an Oxfordshire ' Cherry Feast.' The 
 cherry is one of the staple products of this part of 
 the Chilterns, including the parishes of Eotherfield 
 Greys, Rotherfield Peppard, Checkendon and Nettle- 
 bed. I do not suppose that it is of any great financial 
 importance. The crop is a very uncertain quantity. 
 A frost at blossoming time, bad weather when the 
 fruit begins to ' stone,' or when it is ready for picking, 
 may injure the crop past remedy, or, if it escapes 
 all dangers, its abundance may almost destroy its 
 value. Still the cherry has its charms for the growers. 
 It is like the hop ; the element of chance in its cul- 
 tivation appeals to a universal human instinct. 
 Now and then comes a bumper year, when a man 
 may sell an acre of fruit as it stands for 501. The 
 cherry orchards are mostly unenclosed ; private 
 property, of course, belonging to the owners of the 
 neighbouring fields, but not shut against the way- 
 farer. There is a popular belief that on one day in 
 the year the passer-by may pick as much fruit as he 
 chooses. Probably the truth is that so long as he 
 does not climb into the tree or pelt it with stones, 
 he may pick without fear of penalty what he can 
 reach from the ground. This is, of course, very little. 
 
192 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND. BOOKS 
 
 The labour of picking, practised by help of very broad 
 based ladders, is highly popular. Here is doubtless 
 how comes the institution of this ' Cherry Feast,' kept 
 on the three last Sundays in July. The people come 
 from the neighbouring villages to visit friends and 
 kinsfolk. There are stalls and all the usual accom- 
 paniments of a village fair (I am speaking, it must be 
 remembered, of nearly forty years ago). A jour- 
 nalist has a passion for ' copy ' almost as unbridled 
 as that of prehistoric man for marrow, and I wrote 
 an article on the subject. This brought me, I am 
 sorry to say, into a passing trouble with the good 
 man whose place I was filling for the time. To him 
 the ' Cherry Feast ' was an abomination ; and he 
 had reason for so regarding it. I saw it as a stranger, 
 and from the outside. I do not suppose that my very 
 moderate expression of interest in the affair really 
 did much harm — I cannot suppose that any of the 
 feasters ever heard of it. Still, it was indiscreet. 
 If my old friend — still living, I am glad to know — 
 sees this apology he will, I trust, forgive me. 
 
 I had a curious experience on the occasion of my 
 undertaking for my friend Octavius Ogle his duty 
 at the Warneford Asylum. I betrayed some appre- 
 hension, for the congregation was of an unusual 
 character. He reassured me : ' You would not know 
 that they were lunatics,' he said, ' except from their 
 being so attentive.' I soon saw what he meant. 
 The service and the sermon especially was a great 
 
A COUNTEY PAESON AGAIN 193 
 
 event to these poor people, and they bent upon me 
 an eagerly attentive gaze. 
 
 Another case of clerical duty which I was called 
 upon to undertake during my residence at Henley 
 brought me face to face with a rather puzzling 
 question in practical morals. The vicar of Med- 
 menham, a village some three miles from Henley, 
 died suddenly, and I was asked to take charge of the 
 parish during the vacancy of the benefice. The 
 easiest way to reach the place was by water, and I 
 had a boat of my own. I could have rowed down to 
 Hambledon Lock (the next below Henley), and found 
 myself within ten minutes' walk of the church. 
 But to be seen in a boat on Sunday was scarcely to 
 be thought of. Every one would not know my 
 errand. I might be amusing myself, even fishing. 
 I was afraid of public opinion and had to hire a fly, 
 robbing a man and a horse of their Sunday rest, and 
 putting the parish to a needless expense. I am not 
 sure even now what I ought to have done, though 
 I have not any doubt what I should do now in a 
 similar case. 
 
 I once found, or rather put myself — for the fault 
 was all mine — in a somewhat embarrassing position. 
 I had engaged to preach at a harvest festival in an 
 outlying hamlet of the parish in which I was then 
 living. The hamlet had a temporary church which 
 was served by a very zealous minister ; the rector 
 was an absentee whenever he had a chance. Proper 
 
 
 
194 MBMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 lessons had been chosen, and the paper was handed 
 to me when I was about to take that part of the 
 service.; Possibly it was badly written ; certainly 
 the light was bad. Whatever the cause, I found 
 myself reading a wrong chapter. When I came to the 
 words — they are to be found in Zechariah, xi. 17 — 
 ' Woe to the idol shepherd that leaveth the flock,' 
 I was distinctly uncomfortable. Fortunately the 
 rector was not there. ' Idol ' sounded much the 
 same as ' idle,' and as far as the sense is concerned, 
 is not more flattering ; the alternative rendering is, 
 I see, ' worthless.' Quite possibly no one in the 
 congregation observed that there was anything out 
 of the common in the passage selected. 
 
 During the last year of my tenure of Ashley, and 
 for some time afterwards, I had the good fortune to 
 occupy a haunted house. I should say that none of 
 us had heard a word about the legends connected 
 with the place, and that our experiences were entirely 
 without suggestion of this kind. I pass over sundry 
 strange sounds which might be accounted for in 
 various ways, and record only two of the more 
 definite sensations. One of my daughters felt some 
 creature leap on to her bed. She thought it was 
 one of the two dogs which slept in her room ; but 
 lighting a candle found that they were both fast 
 asleep in their basket. One day my wife saw an 
 old man carrying along a path through the wood (the 
 house stood among pines) what she supposed at 
 
A COUNTBY PAESON AGAIN 195 
 
 first to be a bundle of wood, but afterwards saw 
 to be a long narrow box. Some time later we 
 heard that one of the rooms was haunted by a 
 spectral cat, and that the figure of a man carrying a 
 child's coffin was seen among the trees. I will here 
 relate a similar story, which I heard from my dear 
 friend, W. Brameld, some time Rector of East Mark- 
 ham, near Retford. When he came into residence, 
 some five and twenty years before, a little girl of three, 
 then his only child, said to her mother, ' Who is the 
 pretty lady who comes and sits on my bed in the 
 morning ? ' — it was high summer. The nurse, when 
 questioned, said that she had seen nothing. The 
 child repeated the question on several other occasions 
 during the next few weeks. A little later on, while 
 some alterations were being made in the garden, the 
 workmen came on a shallow grave, in which was 
 the skeleton of a young woman, who had, it ap- 
 peared, been hurriedly buried or thrown into the 
 ground. The bones were interred in the churchyard, 
 and the child never mentioned her visitor again. 
 And now for a curious experience of my own. In 
 November, 1857, I came home (to my father's house 
 in Bedford Row), from taking a class in the Working 
 Men's College. I went upstairs to the third floor to 
 change my coat, and came down to smoke, as was my 
 custom, in the kitchen in the basement. On my 
 way down, at the landing between the ground and 
 first floor, I met the cook, who stood aside to let me 
 
 o 2 
 
196 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 pass. Going straight on to the kitchen I saw her 
 again — the figure I had seen on the stairs was an 
 apparition or hallucination. There were three women 
 servants, and two of these were in the kitchen when I 
 entered it. Had I mistaken the person whom I met 
 on my way ? Was she the third servant ? It was 
 hardly likely, as both the cook and this same third 
 servant had been with us for many years. However, 
 I asked my mother to find out where No. 3 was 
 at the time. What the woman said was this : 
 ' I heard Mr. Alfred come up stairs and go down 
 again ; I had come up half an hour before.' The thing 
 means nothing — nothing happened ; the woman 
 married after an engagement of five-and-twenty 
 years ; I performed the ceremony, and my mother 
 gave her a set of false teeth as a wedding present. 
 
197 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 A GREAT OPPORTUNITY 
 
 I have now reached the summer of 1897, and what 
 I may call the conclusion of my professional life. 
 I had been, with an interval of about three years 
 and a half (January 1889-June 1892), parson, school- 
 master, professor and parson for forty-four years, 
 and I had also been for about three-fourths of that 
 time a journalist. I will now take the opportunity 
 of going back some thirty odd years to tell the story 
 of how this came about. It was, indeed, as I have 
 described it in the title of this chapter. 
 
 At the beginning of the summer holidays of 1865 
 there came to me the 'great opportunity,' and I 
 was happily able to avail myself of it. It is a good 
 instance of what luck, as it is commonly called, 
 does and does not mean. The chance, if I may use 
 the term, would, as will be seen, have been of no 
 use to me if I had not possessed certain qualifications ; 
 on the other hand, it might have come to someone else 
 not less qualified, and I should have missed all that 
 it brought to me, and that all has been no small part 
 of my life. (I ignore, it will be understood — that is, 
 
198 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 neither affirm nor deny — the directing power of a 
 ' something not ourselves ' which moves us this way 
 or that : such a discussion would here be out of place.) 
 On July 31, 1865 — I note the day, for it is one ' very 
 much to be remembered ' by me — I called on a friend 
 who had chambers in Gray's Inn. Whether I had any 
 special reason for going I do not remember ; all that 
 I remember is that I was about to start for Whitby, 
 where I was to spend the holiday with two Merchant 
 Taylor pupils. My friend said to me : ' Here is a 
 book which I have to do for the " Spectator " ; it is 
 not much in my line ; will you take it ? I will make it 
 right with Hutton.' The book was the ' Magna Vita 
 S. Hugonis Lincolniensis,' edited by the Eev. J. N. 
 Dymock, one of the Master of the Rolls series of 
 ' Chronicles.' I spent, as may easily be imagined, 
 a world of pains upon it, and sent it in due course. 
 To my delight, for I had not been without apprehen- 
 sion on this score, it was accepted. It appeared 
 in the ' Spectator ' on November 12, 1865. I read 
 it the other day, forty-two years after it was written, 
 and it seemed to me very much what I should write 
 now. I called, by my friend's advice, on Mr. Hutton 
 at the office, and was received in a very friendly way. 
 He gave me another book to review, and invited 
 me to come in from time to time to take away others. 
 I did this, perhaps, once in six weeks, being very 
 careful not to be too frequent in my visits. I had, 
 among other books which I do not remember, sue- 
 
A GREAT OPPORTUNITY 199 
 
 cessive volumes of Dean Hook's ' Lives of the Arch- 
 bishops of Canterbury,' and a volume of Mazzini's 
 works with a biographical notice. I wrote this in the 
 summer holidays of 1867, and Mr. Hutton was more 
 than usually kind in his appreciation of it. 
 
 And now there comes into the story a very curious 
 circumstance, one which I am not able to discriminate 
 from luck pure and simple. I must preface the 
 narrative by saying that in 1868, H. L. Mansel, who 
 had been Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History 
 at Oxford since 1866, was promoted to the Deanery 
 of St. Paul's, vacant through the death of Henry 
 Hart Milman. When Mansel was appointed to this 
 Professorship there were many who thought that it 
 would have been more fittingly given to R. W. 
 Church (whom I mention in Chapter IV.). R. W. 
 Church was known by those competent to judge to 
 be a master of the subject, while Mansel had given 
 no particular attention to it. It is not showing any 
 disrespect to the memory of a very able man when 
 I say that the appointment was conferred as a reward 
 for political services. A day or two after the appoint- 
 ment to the Deanery was announced, Hutton said to 
 me : ' So the man who beat you for that Professorship 
 is coming to St. Paul's.' He had mistaken me for 
 my namesake ! He had credited me with the 
 knowledge for which my namesake had a well- 
 deserved reputation ! It was a curious error and 
 one which an Oxford man could not have made. 
 
200 MBMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 R. W. Church, had been the protagonist in a memor- 
 able scene nearly a quarter of a century before, when 
 he and his fellow proctor, Guillemard, vetoed in 
 the Oxford Convocation the proposal to condemn 
 Tract XC. But it must be remembered that he was 
 then very little known. All the works which really 
 made his reputation, as far as the general public 
 was concerned, the ' History of the Oxford Movement,' 
 for instance, were published during the last twenty 
 years of his life, later, therefore, than the time of 
 which I am speaking. Without doubt this was 
 a mistake which served me well. It had led Hutton 
 to think that I was an expert in ecclesiastical history, 
 and the belief seemed to cling to him after the error 
 had been discovered. I did my best to justify it ; 
 but the mistake was certainly a piece of good fortune. 
 And, curiously enough, something of the same seemed 
 to follow me. 
 
 Early in 1868 my college friend, Gowen Evans, 
 of whom I have spoken in Chapter IV., went out to 
 Australia to take up the appointment there described. 
 Before leaving England he came out to Clapham, 
 where I was then living, to bid me good-bye, and to 
 make a suggestion which was in the end to put into 
 my hand work which has been one of the great 
 delights of my life. ' I am giving up my work on the 
 " Spectator," ' he said ; ' you had better write and ask 
 for it.' Delightful thought ! How often had I 
 envied him the crowd of books which lay scattered 
 
A GEEAT OPPOETUNITY 201 
 
 on the floor of his chambers in Gray's Inn ; and now 
 that enviable litter would be mine, or something 
 as like it as the domestic powers would permit ! 
 Well do I remember the winter morning — it must 
 have been early in January, for our short holiday at 
 Merchant Taylors' had not come to an end — when he 
 and I walked round Clapham Common, then covered 
 with snow, and talked the matter over ! I wrote 
 to Hutton without delay. He replied that the place 
 had been filled up. I had to put up with the dis- 
 appointment; but a few months afterwards came a 
 letter to the effect that the man who had been doing 
 the work wished to give it up, and that I had better 
 call upon him. I went and the matter was settled, 
 how much to my delight I remember well, now that 
 nearly forty years have passed. 
 
202 MBMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 RICHARD HOLT HUTTON 
 
 In the preceding chapter I have mentioned several 
 times the name of Mr. Hutton. It may be as well to 
 explain that in 1865 he had been for some four years 
 literary editor of the ' Spectator.' When I say this 
 I do not mean that his activities were limited to the 
 literary part of the paper. He and his colleague, 
 Mr. Meredith Townsend, shared the conduct of the 
 whole. They discussed questions of policy, and 
 jointly determined the line which the 'Spectator' 
 should take. But it represents the arrangement 
 which continued during the whole of a partnership 
 of thirty-six years to say that Mr. Townsend was 
 the political, Mr. Hutton the literary editor. But it 
 will make the statement more exact if I add that the 
 province of ' books ' was more exclusively committed 
 to the charge of Mr. Hutton than was that of politics 
 to Mr. Townsend. 
 
 Before I go any further I may express a hope that 
 in writing something about Mr. Hutton I am not 
 doing that which would have displeased him. He 
 had a remarkable dislike of publicity. I remember 
 
EIOHAED HOLT HDTTON 203 
 
 that when I had to notice a new edition of ' Men of 
 the Time ' I was struck by what seemed to me an 
 unaccountable omission of his name. I mentioned 
 it to him, and he told me that he had refused to give 
 any information, and indeed had specially requested 
 that his name should not be included. Only a few 
 weeks before his death he laid a strict charge upon 
 his colleague that nothing should be said about him 
 in the ' Spectator,' adding in a way that was quite 
 as much serious as it was playful : ' If you do, I will 
 haunt you.' But silence in such cases is really 
 impossible. If the ' Spectator ' said nothing about 
 him, every other newspaper of any standing here 
 and in the United States said much, for never was 
 journalist so unanimously honoured. Nor did he 
 ever impose, or hint at imposing, silence upon me. 
 I take it that his objection was in the first place 
 to any biographical notice of a living man — that 
 objection is shared by many — and in the second to 
 what might possibly be regarded as a panegyric 
 in the journal with which he had been so long iden- 
 tified. 
 
 I have said that Mr. Hutton was not an Oxford 
 man, in explanation of a curious mistake which he 
 made in confusing me with my namesake, the late 
 Dean of St. Paul's. As a matter of fact he was shut 
 out from the older Universities by his inherited creed 
 of Unitarianism — both his father and his grandfather 
 were Unitarian ministers. In 1841, when he was 
 
204 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 fifteen, he entered University College, London, Laving 
 previously been in the school. This was an insti- 
 tution which may be said to have been founded 
 for the relief of such cases. Here he remained for 
 four years. His name appears among the Prizemen 
 in Latin, Greek, German, mathematics and natural 
 philosophy. One year's list shows him to have 
 received a ' Certificate of Honour ' in Greek when 
 the prize was not awarded. I imagine that this 
 represents fairly well his classical attainments. He 
 knew Greek and Latin well enough to appreciate 
 thoroughly the literature of the two languages, but 
 his scholarship, in the technical sense of that word, 
 was not great. I have always understood that his 
 mathematical ability was of a high order, but his 
 life work did not lead him to prosecute mathematical 
 study. He was thoroughly at home in German. 
 His chief academical honour was the Gold Medal for 
 Philosophy, which he gained when he graduated 
 in the University of London. From University 
 College he went to Bonn, where he attended the 
 lectures of Theodor Mommsen. I quote from Mr. 
 T. H. S. Escott the great German historian's opinion 
 of his pupil : ' That young man took away from 
 my lectures not only all the knowledge that I could 
 give him, but much mental nutriment for which he 
 was indebted to his own genius.' These words were 
 spoken in 1883, as much as thirty-six years after 
 Hutton's sojourn in Bonn ; it is clear, therefore, 
 
EICHAED HOLT HUTTON 205 
 
 that the impression made upon the Professor was 
 great and permanent. Doubtless his pupil's famili- 
 arity with German had attracted his attention. 
 He also studied at Berlin. On returning to England 
 he went to Manchester New College to prepare for 
 the ministry, and had a brief experience as a preacher. 
 The work could not have been much to his taste. 
 He had no liking for rhetoric. Sometimes, I could 
 not but think, he did it but scanty justice, even 
 when it was good of its kind, and exercised in pro- 
 vinces of literature, where its presence is justifiable 
 and even necessary. Nor did he possess the personal 
 gifts of the preacher, which, if not essential to use- 
 fulness, certainly show off more substantial acquire- 
 ments to advantage. Anyhow, he did not receive 
 a ' call ' from any congregation. After this came 
 a short time of reading for the Bar, but this also 
 failed to attract him. But he was soon to find an 
 opportunity of exercising his special gifts. He became 
 one of the two editors of the ' Inquirer,' the organ 
 of what may be called ' Young Unitarianism.' He 
 wrote also for the ' Prospective Review.' But in 
 those publications he expressed with characteristic 
 vigour opinions which offended and alarmed the 
 conservative wing of the Unitarian body. He advo- 
 cated the introduction of a liturgy which should 
 protect the worshippers from the vagaries of the 
 extempore prayer ; he thought that the sermon 
 might with advantage be largely retrenched. In 
 
206 MEMOEIBS OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 1855 he founded the 'National Review.' This he 
 did in conjunction with Walter Bagehot, a friend of 
 college days, whose name occurs in frequent proximity 
 in lists of honours, and with whom he remained on 
 terms of close intimacy to the end of Bagehot's life. 
 The two volumes of ' Essays Theological and Literary ' 
 contain his principal contributions to this review. 
 It was a quarterly and lived for nine years. No 
 one, I suppose, will confound it with the publica- 
 tion which now bears the name. I imagine that this 
 literary work did not bring in any great remuneration. 
 He was glad to earn something by teaching mathe- 
 matics and arithmetic in the Bedford College for 
 ladies. One of his pupils retains a vivid recollection 
 of the humorous patience with which he bore himself 
 in the performance of this trying task. ' And what 
 do you make it, Miss B. ? ' he would ask after collect- 
 ing the other answers to a sum, confident, as he 
 somehow contrived to show without any kind of 
 rudeness, that he would receive a yet more extrava- 
 gant answer, and, indeed, seldom disappointed. 
 ' You will never be able to add up your butcher's 
 bills, Miss B.' was the severest censure which he 
 permitted himself to use. 
 
 In 1861 came the occasion in which he found 
 the great work of his life. Early in that year Mr. 
 Meredith Townsend, who had for some years been 
 editor of the ' Friend of India,' returned to England, 
 and purchased the ' Spectator.' This journal, which 
 
EICHAED HOLT HUTTON 207 
 
 is just>six months older than myself — the first number 
 appeared on July 5, 1828 — had had a period of great 
 prosperity, notably under the editorship of J. KentouL 
 but was then in a depressed condition. For about 
 six months Mr. Townsend took the whole charge of it, 
 but found the work too exhausting. He looked about 
 for help. A mutual friend suggested that he would 
 find a satisfactory colleague in E. H. Hutton. An 
 interview was arranged, and an agreement was 
 arrived at. As Hutton was going away, Mr. Town- 
 send called after him : ' Have you any money ? ' 
 Hutton explained that he could find some. A joint 
 proprietorship was then arranged, a clause being 
 inserted in the deed which gave the original pro- 
 prietor the final voice in any matter where there 
 might be a persistent difference of opinion. I have 
 been told that this power was exercised once only, 
 and was then accepted in the frankest and most 
 ungrudging way. 
 
 Evil days were before the new partnership. By 
 the end of 1861 the Civil War between North and 
 South in the United States of America was in full 
 course, and the ' Spectator ' took the unpopular 
 side. It is difficult for us to realise at the present 
 time how almost universal was the English sympathy 
 with the South in the early days of the war. It was 
 expressed almost equally by both parties. No one 
 was more pronounced in this expression than Mr. 
 Gladstone, who by this time had ceased to be a 
 
208 MEMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 Conservative. Recalling as far as I can my own 
 feeling at the time, for, indeed, I was not wiser or 
 more far-sighted than my neighbours, I find that it 
 was moved first by a vague belief that the South 
 was the weaker side and was making a gallant struggle 
 for national existence, and secondly by resentment 
 of affronts which the United States Government 
 had more than once offered to Great Britain. There 
 was even a vague hope, so threatening to peace had 
 the language of the United States sometimes been, 
 that it would tend to the safety of our trans- Atlantic 
 dependencies if this formidable power were split up 
 into two. I do not pretend that these conclusions 
 and hopes were justified. I and those who thought 
 with me certainly forgot that the United States 
 policy had been very largely guided by Southern 
 statesmen. And then there was a suspicion, not 
 wholly without reason in view of the early declara- 
 tions of Lincoln, that the North was not fighting for 
 the emancipation of the slaves. But whatever the 
 reason, it is certain that the dominant feeling in 
 England was in favour of the South. To this the 
 ' Spectator ' set itself from the first in resolute 
 opposition. The two colleagues did not, indeed, 
 regard the situation from precisely the same point of 
 view. Mr. Townsend regarded it in its political 
 aspect. He felt that if the greatest republic in the 
 world should suffer disintegration, the great cause 
 of human freedom would receive an almost paralysing 
 
RICHARD HOLT HUTTON 209 
 
 blow. Hutton, on the other hand, was filled with 
 a passionate hope for the extinction of slavery. 
 Should the seceding States contrive to secure their 
 independence, slavery would receive a new lease of 
 existence, of which no living man, it was probable, 
 would see the end. These views were different, 
 but there was nothing contradictory about them. 
 In one there was the vision of political freedom as 
 the supreme good, in the other another vision, 
 still of freedom, but of the personal kind. There 
 was nothing to hinder combined action ; to one the 
 emancipation of the bondman might be a primary, 
 to the other a secondary object. The difference did 
 indeed but exemplify the way in which two minds 
 travelling on lines so distinct might yet combine for 
 the bringing about of a consistent result. But the 
 consequences to the paper were for a time nothing less 
 than disastrous. Subscribers fell off, and advertisers 
 became aware that it was proscribed by the classes 
 which they were most anxious to reach. Proscribed 
 it was. I myself — for if the writing of such a book 
 as this compels self-glorification it also gives oppor- 
 tunities for confession and self-humiliation — I myself 
 own to having said that ' the " Spectator " was right- 
 minded but wrong headed ' ; but it held on its way, 
 not careless of pecuniary loss, for of that the two 
 editors could not but be acutely conscious, but quite 
 resolved that this must not interfere with the asser- 
 tion of principle. Happily there could not be one 
 
 P 
 
210 MEMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 of those conflicts between proprietary rights and 
 editorial convictions that sometimes make such 
 painful — it would hardly be too much to say such 
 discreditable — episodes in newspaper history. It is 
 pretty certain that if the ' Spectator ' had belonged 
 to a proprietor of the ordinary type the editors would 
 have been dismissed. 
 
 It was when the losses from this cause had been 
 fully recovered that I became connected with the 
 ' Spectator ' (I judge from the fact that it was in 1865 
 that Hutton resigned his post of lecturer at Bedford 
 College). But the two editors continued to do a 
 very large part of the work of the paper. Hutton 
 was in the habit of working in the evening at home. 
 (He was then living at Englefield Green.) He 
 managed the finance of the paper, writing out all the 
 cheques with his own hand. It was a perpetual 
 wonder to me how he contrived to get through all the 
 reading which he managed to accomplish ; the 
 mechanical process of reading must, one would think, 
 have been most laborious. He had to hold book or 
 writing within two or three inches of the one eye 
 which was left to him, passing before it what 
 he had to read. But he was remarkably accurate. 
 As a proof-reader he was unfailing, an accomplish- 
 ment which I often envied him — my proof-reading 
 has always been lamentably bad. For a considerable 
 time he was in the habit of a weekly attendance in 
 the House of Commons. He gave a sketch of the 
 
EICHAED HOLT HUTTON 211 
 
 proceedings ; I used to think these sketches highly- 
 illuminating. It might be worth while even now to 
 make a collection of them. His attendance at the 
 office was from ten to four or half-past for three days 
 of the week. On Fridays he stayed late, seeing that 
 the paper went duly corrected and prepared for press. 
 This going to press was much later in those days 
 than it is now. He used to sleep in town (at the 
 office) on Friday. On Saturday morning he settled 
 any outstanding business, literary or other. My 
 recollection is that he took no interval in the middle 
 of the day. One afternoon in the month was given 
 to meetings of the Senate of the University of London, 
 of which he was a member for many years. And he 
 frequently spared an hour or so in the morning to the 
 Committee of the Girls' Friendly Society. Of this 
 he was for some years a most punctual, diligent 
 and effective member. Not infrequently he gave 
 dinners at the Devonshire Club to political and other 
 friends, and was wont to invite members of the staff 
 to meet them. This was a pleasure which I was 
 seldom able to share as I was not a dweller in London. 
 But I have very agreeable recollections of these 
 entertainments. I wish I could remember more of 
 the good .things which I heard at them. Here are 
 two or three. The first was told, I think, by General 
 Maurice. It must belong to the period between the 
 time when Goschen was estranged from the Liberals 
 by a difference of opinion as to the extension of the 
 
212 MEMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 Franchise and his taking office under Lord Salisbury 
 as Chancellor of the Exchequer. ' What the Tories 
 want,' said someone to him, ' is a bowler. Why don't 
 you join them ? ' 'I prefer to play with my own 
 eleven,' answered Goschen. But it was not long before 
 he followed the advice. The other anecdotes which 
 I shall tell belong to a time after Gladstone's death. 
 Hutton was entertaining Mr. Chamberlain and 
 asked the members of the staff and others to meet 
 him. Mr. Chamberlain compared Gladstone with 
 Sir William Harcourt. ' Gladstone,' he said, ' is a 
 Crusader, Harcourt a Condottiere ; I think that, on the 
 whole, the Crusader does more harm.' In the course of 
 the evening I myself asked him : £ Whom should you 
 call the best debater in the House of Commons ? ' 
 The company was, I think, somewhat taken aback, 
 for Mr. Chamberlain had himself as good a claim to 
 that distinction as any one ; but Hutton knew what I 
 was going to say, for I had, so to speak, rehearsed 
 the effect with him. ' It lies,' he replied, ' between 
 Mr. Balfour and Sir William Harcourt ; I should say 
 Mr. Balfour, because he knows more.' I went on : 
 ' Perhaps you will now listen to a little anecdote 
 from Eoman history. Scipio the Elder, talking 
 with Hannibal some little time after the end of the 
 second Punic war, asked him whom he believed to 
 be the greatest general in history. " Alexander the 
 Great," said Hannibal. " And the second ? " " Pyrr- 
 hus," was the answer. " And the third ? " " Un- 
 
EICHAED HOLT HUTTON 213 
 
 doubtedly," replied Hannibal, " myself." " And 
 what," Scipio went on with a smile, " if you had 
 defeated me at Zama ? " intimating, it is to be sup- 
 posed, that he would like to know where he came in. 
 " If I had conquered you at Zama," said Hannibal, 
 " I should have put myself before Pyrrhus, and 
 even before Alexander." ' 
 
 Hutton's holidays, some six weeks or so in summer, 
 were spent sometimes in a driving tour in England, 
 sometimes in Germany, France, or Switzerland. 
 Even then his pen was not idle, and it was when 
 employed in this way that it performed a most 
 remarkable tour de force. In the catalogue of the 
 British Museum Library the name of Mrs. R. H. 
 Hutton is formally enrolled as one of the authors of a 
 book entitled : ' Holiday Rambles in Ordinary Places 
 by a Wife and Her Husband.' The book appeared 
 originally in the shape of letters addressed to the 
 " Spectator." The critics made, I believe, without 
 exception, the same mistake as did the gentlemen 
 who compiled the Museum catalogue. The author 
 of ' R. H. Hutton of the " Spectator," ' for instance, 
 is amusingly acute in discerning the several con- 
 tributions of ' Husband ' and ' Wife.' ' All through,' 
 he writes, ' there are delightful feminine freaks, 
 and Mr. Hutton's contributions are evidently written 
 up, so to speak, as far as his heavier tones will allow, 
 to his wife's soprano.' As a matter of fact, every 
 syllable of the ' Holiday Rambles ' was written by 
 
214 MEMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 Mr. Hutton. (It will be observed that the title is 
 ingeniously ambiguous. We may read it that the 
 ' rambles ' were rambled, not written about, by 
 ' husband and wife.') All that delightful chaff 
 about the ' cobwebs at the bottom of his dear addled 
 old brain,' about his picking a potato flower as a fine 
 specimen of the Alpine flora, about his dangerous 
 likeness to a German spy, was his own chaff of his own 
 oddities. And no critic need be ashamed of being taken 
 in, so admirably done was the deception. Another 
 significant instance of this versatility was the fact 
 that though the two partners had each an easily dis- 
 tinguishable style of his own, though Mr. Townsend's 
 sentences were short, clear, and incisive, Mr. Hutton's 
 ' went tottering,' to borrow the image of a writer in 
 the ' Pall Mall Gazette,' ' bent double under all their 
 burden of thought,' no one could detect, when the 
 one or the other went on his annual holiday, which 
 had ceased to contribute. 
 
 No account of Mr. Hutton's life as a journalist, 
 even though it be so brief and imperfect as mine, 
 could pass over the crisis of 1886, when Mr. Glad- 
 stone took up the cause of Irish Home Rule, and 
 the editors of the ' Spectator ' felt constrained to 
 part company with him. The decision, though 
 Hutton did not hesitate for a moment in making it, 
 was nothing less than a personal grief to him. There 
 was no small element of private affection in the 
 support which he had given to Mr. Gladstone, and 
 
EICHAED HOLT HUTTON 215 
 
 the severance of the political tie affected him with all 
 the grief of a private loss. It is not easy to estimate 
 the extent to which the action of the ' Spectator ' 
 affected the result. Some one went so far as to say 
 that if it had but observed a benevolent neutrality — 
 which was, of course, impossible — the Bill of 1886 
 would probably have passed the House of Commons. 
 This seems to me an exaggeration. Still, without 
 doubt the opposition of the ' Spectator ' was a 
 powerful anti-Home Rule influence. I have always 
 thought indeed that the breach of 1886 was not an 
 isolated event in the history of Hutton's mind and 
 thought. I remember that in the early days of our 
 connection he used to speak of me as a ' crypto-Tory.' 
 In the 'seventies he was a Radical, and, in theory, 
 almost a Republican. In the last fifteen years of his 
 life he moved considerably to the Right. But to be a 
 Radical before the great electoral change of 1885, and 
 to be a Radical after it, were two very different 
 things. I venture to print here an apologue which 
 appeared in the ' Spectator ' on July 27, 1889, 
 and met with his approval : 
 
 THE PEAE-TEEE 
 
 AN APOLOGUE 
 
 ['Why have the Kadicals lost heart ? '— ' Spectator,' July 20, 1889. 
 
 ' We always call ourselves Badicals.' — ' Spectator,' passim, before 
 
 1885.] 
 
 'So, " they lose heart, the Badicals," you say, 
 Eejoicing, you a Eadical self-styled, 
 Within this decade, if my memory serve. 
 
216 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 What is it ? Age, that cools the zeal of youth 
 
 And breaks its hopes ? or growing wealth, that brings 
 
 Content with things that are and fear of change ? ' 
 
 So Charles to Philip, pacing to and fro 
 
 In Philip's garden-walks ; fast friends the two, 
 
 Once comrades who had fought on party fields, 
 
 Shoulder to shoulder ; comrades now no more, 
 
 Since that ill day that brake our host in twain. 
 
 And Philip paused to answer. Near him stood 
 
 A pear-tree, laden with such bounteous store 
 
 Of fruitage, gathering now its autumn gold, 
 
 That scarce the props some careful hand had set 
 
 Could help it bear its burden. ' See,' he cried, 
 
 ' This tree, how wealthy ! Yet when first I came, 
 
 Though April left a pyramid of bloom, 
 
 Still August found a barren waste of leaves. 
 
 " Prune it," a neighbour cried. I plied the knife, 
 
 But plied in vain. " Cut at the root," he said ; 
 
 " Go always to the root." I cut, in fear 
 
 Lest severed roots should mar the source of life ; 
 
 But lo ! this plenty. James, my man, a boor 
 
 Caught from the plough — the wealth at which you guess 
 
 Allows no costlier help — would cut again. 
 
 " Sure it was this that cured her." " True," I said, 
 
 " But cure contents me ; cut again, we kill." ' 
 
 Not less interesting is the change which took place 
 in his theological views. He was by inheritance, 
 as has been said, a Unitarian ; for some time after 
 reaching manhood he contemplated an active exercise 
 of that form of belief. A change began to work when 
 he was approaching his thirtieth year, bringing him 
 to a different view of the Person of Christ. This 
 
EICHAED HOLT HUTTON 217 
 
 was largely due to the influence of P. D. Maurice, 
 himself the son, it is interesting to remember, of a 
 Unitarian minister. Mr. Hutton published a tract 
 on the ' Incarnation ' in the series entitled ' Tracts for 
 Priests and People.' But he had not accepted the 
 orthodox creed in one particular, the Virgin Birth. 
 In 1869 when I asked him to stand godfather for one 
 of my sons he told me that he could not conscien- 
 tiously join in repeating the Creed as it stands in the 
 Baptismal service. I am under the impression that 
 he added words to the effect that the wording of the 
 Nicene Creed, used in the Communion Service, did 
 not present the same difficulty. 1 I must own that I 
 see little difference between the two. Possibly a 
 more important point is that the sponsor at the font 
 directly avows his acceptance of the form of words 
 dictated by the minister while the intending com- 
 municant gives it only a tacit assent. Two years 
 afterwards when the tract on the Incarnation was 
 reprinted, a clause which seemed to imply a rejection 
 of the Virgin Birth belief was omitted. As time 
 went on, Hutton appeared to be drawing nearer to 
 Rome. Any one who will compare the language 
 used in the ' Spectator ' on matters of controversy 
 between the two Churches in the 'seventies will see 
 that it differs much from that which appeared in the 
 
 1 The Baptismal Creed has : ' He was conceived by the Holy Ghost : 
 born of the Virgin Mary ' ; the Nicene, ' Incarnate by the Holy Ghost 
 of the Virgin Mary.' 
 
218 MEMOEIBS OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 'eighties and 'nineties. I remember a significant 
 omission which he made in dealing with a notice 
 of mine written, I think, in 1890. I had commented 
 on the strange contrast that might be observed 
 between the anti-clerical policy of the French Govern- 
 went at home and the pro-clerical action of many of 
 its administrators abroad, as seen in the hostility 
 shown to Protestant missionaries. I asked the 
 opinion of the Secretary of one of the great missionary 
 societies, and found that it fully confirmed my view ; 
 but Mr. Hutton refused to believe it, or, it may be, 
 was unwilling to say anything that might seem 
 disparaging about the Roman hierarchy. It was 
 frequently asserted from time to time during the 
 last fifteen years or so of his life that he was about 
 to secede, or even had seceded to Rome. These 
 assertions were false. I put the question to him 
 more than once by word of mouth and by letter, 
 and received the assurance that he had no intention of 
 taking this step. What he said on the subject gener- 
 ally amounted practically to this, that Rome was 
 better than unbelief, and that a choice between 
 the two was a possible contingency. There is no 
 Christian, I imagine, who would hesitate to say as 
 much, though many, I imagine, never contemplate 
 the possibility of having to face this dilemma. As a 
 matter of fact, Hutton remained to the end of his 
 life a communicant of the Church of England : for 
 some years, however, it was his custom to attend 
 
EICHAED HOLT HUTTON 219 
 
 High Mass on Sunday morning. What may be 
 supposed to have brought him to the position, 
 somewhat ambiguous, it must be owned, which 
 he occupied ? That is a question beyond my 
 answering. But I should say that he was moved by 
 a deep discouragement and depression, caused by 
 the divisions of the Anglican Church — it must be 
 remembered that he had all his life taken a most 
 lively interest in matters of religion; secondly, by 
 admiration of the solidity and consistency of the 
 Eoman system; and lastly, and not least, by his 
 hero-worship, to put the matter very briefly, of 
 John Henry Newman. The last years of Hutton's 
 life were clouded by a great trouble. An accident 
 happened to the pony-chaise in which he and Mrs. 
 Hutton were driving. He received an injury which 
 appeared to be more severe than it really was. The 
 alarm of the incident was such that it caused an 
 irreparable injury to Mrs. Hutton. She lost her 
 reason, and never recovered it. From thenceforward 
 her husband withdrew from all society, and devoted 
 himself to the care of her. For some time before his 
 death he suffered from a painful internal disease 
 which had threatened him at intervals for many years. 
 In June, 1897, he ceased to take any part in the 
 management of the ' Spectator ' ; on September 9 he 
 died. I was present at his funeral. A more impressive 
 scene I never saw, except, perhaps, the funeral of 
 F. D. Maurice five and twenty years before. In the 
 
220 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 gathering of men who came to pay the last honours 
 to the dead were to be found representatives of 
 many creeds, great writers, soldiers, and statesmen. 
 
 The tributes paid by the Press were remarkable 
 in their unanimity and their fervent praise. The 
 world seemed to awake to a consciousness of the great 
 man who had passed from its midst. One curious 
 result followed — it seems scarcely possible to regard 
 it as other than as a result. The paper which had 
 suffered so great a loss in his death — and of the 
 greatness of the loss no one could doubt — rose con- 
 tinuously in circulation. It seemed as if thousands 
 of people became for the first time actively conscious 
 of its existence. 
 
 It would be ungracious and ungrateful if I were 
 to close this chapter without expressing my sense of 
 the unceasing kindness which I received from Mr. 
 Hutton during the many years of our connection. 
 He was patient, considerate, helpful in all that 
 concerned my work. If he had to criticise, he did it 
 in the most considerate way. Of praise he was ever 
 most generous. Of the private kindnesses which I 
 received from him and his colleague"I must make 
 only a most general acknowledgment. I can but 
 say that they were ever ready for the need. 
 
221 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 REVIEWING 
 
 It is the English custom that reviewing should be 
 anonymous, and after an experience which for 
 variety and duration has seldom, I take it, been 
 surpassed, I am convinced that the custom is a good 
 one. Of course there may be exceptions, the advan- 
 tage of which all of us would at once recognise. 
 When a great book has been written on an important 
 subject — we need hardly take books not great into 
 account — we should all be glad to see what some 
 person of acknowledged authority in this same 
 subject has to say about it. If Mr. Arthur Balfour, 
 to take a capital instance, were to write an account 
 of his parliamentary experience during the last 
 twenty years, there is no one who wo aid not be 
 intensely interested in reading what Mr. John Morley 
 might have to say about it. But it is obvious that 
 it would be Mr. Morley's judgment on the politics 
 of the book that would chiefly interest us. No man, 
 as it happens, would be better able to appreciate its 
 literary qualities, but this is not what we should be 
 thinking of. Similarly, if Signor Marconi would 
 
222 MEMORIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 give the world his opinion of a treatise on the tele- 
 graph, or Sir Walter Gilbey his views of a manual of 
 stock-breeding, we should feel that we had got 
 something very much to the purpose. As a matter 
 of fact, these experts are never, or next to never, 
 available. They have got something else to do. 
 But, apart from this consideration, the more purely 
 literary a book is, the less occasion there is for the 
 services of the expert. But I need not pursue 
 the subject. I say so much because I feel a certain 
 obligation to justify a practice which I have followed 
 for many years, and always, I hope, without any 
 desire to abuse any of the opportunities or facilities 
 which it may be supposed to afford. What, indeed, 
 I am now doing, is to throw aside this veil of anony- 
 mity, to avow that I have been for many years a 
 reviewer, and to name the journal in which I have 
 followed my craft. 
 
 This, indeed, is not the first time that I have made 
 this avowal. A little more than eighteen years ago 
 (in November 1889) I wrote an article in the ' Nine- 
 teenth Century ' entitled ' Criticism as a Trade,' and, 
 in accordance with the unvarying rule of that peri- 
 odical, signed my name to it. I wrote then : ' I am 
 not indeed the dean of my craft, but I cannot be very 
 far off that dignity.' Eighteen years must have still 
 further diminished this distance, may have even 
 brought me actually to that place of honour. That 
 there are men who have been longer engaged in 
 
REVIEWING 223 
 
 reviewing is possible ; but I doubt whether any can 
 match me in the total of which I can boast, or to 
 which — should I not rather say ? — I have to confess. 
 Eighteen years ago I wrote : ' I have exercised the 
 profession, or, if Professor Knight 1 insists upon 
 the word, the trade, of a critic of books for more than 
 thirty years. During the last twenty years it has 
 formed a very considerable part of my daily occupa- 
 tions.' These figures have to be made larger. The 
 thirty years have grown to very nearly fifty ; the 
 twenty to very nearly forty. Nor is this all. Since 
 1888, when I resigned my Professorship at University 
 College, reviewing has occupied a yet larger part of 
 my time. Five years, indeed, I spent, as has been 
 stated elsewhere, in a country parish, but my parish 
 work there was much less than that which I had 
 had to do as a schoolmaster or a professor. I have, 
 therefore, still more seriously to increase the figures 
 which follow. ' I am almost afraid to estimate the 
 number of books which have come under my review 
 during that time. It cannot be less than twenty 
 thousand. Possibly it is more.' I was afraid to 
 own to twenty thousand. What must I feel 
 when I have to double that number ? I have 
 put down the figures in their enormity, for indeed 
 they will seem nothing less than enormous. It 
 gives, and this without making any allowance for 
 
 1 Professor Knight had written in the preceding September an 
 article entitled ' Criticism as a Trade,' to which I was replying. 
 
224 MEMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 Sundays and holidays, or for the rest enforced by 
 sickness, something like three books for every day. 
 To read these books every day might well seem a 
 superhuman task, but to read and write about them 
 is little less than impossible. 
 
 And I must allow that such a comment on the 
 statement would be natural. Of course there are 
 deductions to be made which go some way towards 
 reducing this prodigious total. New editions are 
 almost always passed over with a bare record. When 
 I have to deal with one of the admirable series which 
 the publishers are giving us nowadays, with ' Lintot's 
 Classics ' or ' Tonson's Best Books ' — I borrow the 
 names of long extinct magnates of the book mart, 
 lest a preference or an omission should perchance 
 offend — I can do it very easily. I have no call to 
 pronounce on the merits of Shakespeare, or Milton, 
 or Pope, or Cowper, of Bacon or Addison. Little 
 beyond enumeration is wanted. Perhaps there may 
 be noticeable omissions, or the inclusion of some 
 author out of the common. This may call for a word, 
 and there is something to be said about paper and 
 print. We may take the author for granted, but can 
 we read him with comfort ? Is the type clear ? 
 Does the printing on one page show through to the 
 next ? These are, in such cases, the most impor- 
 tant points to be noticed, and these can be disposed 
 of in a very brief time. Then there are technical 
 books, of which, it may safely be said that the re- 
 
EEVIEWING 225 
 
 viewer would not know anything worth knowing if 
 he were to read them from cover to cover. Here he 
 must be strictly a reviewer, not a critic. His notice 
 must be descriptive only. Of course it may sometimes 
 happen even with these that he may chance to be 
 well informed on some detail. He will turn to this, 
 and if he is not satisfied with what he finds, he will 
 have to consider his course ; perhaps the safest on the 
 whole is to leave the book alone. There is, indeed, no 
 inconsiderable number of books with which this 
 leaving alone is the only possible course. There are 
 volumes which probably no one sees except the 
 author, some of his long-suffering friends, the com- 
 positor, and the critic. The publisher, who under- 
 takes them on commission, never troubles himself 
 about their contents. He protects himself against 
 legal consequences, makes himself reasonably sure 
 of his money, and is satisfied. A very moderate 
 amount of experience enables the reviewer to detect 
 these biblia abiblia with the least possible waste of 
 time. There still remains, after all deductions made, 
 a very large number of books which have to be 
 more or less read. These words ' more or less ' 
 indicate the problem. I will frankly confess that 
 it is impossible to deal with these books with any- 
 thing like an ideal completeness. The exigencies of 
 space forbid; it has been said that the reviewing 
 staff of a newspaper are always confronted with the 
 problem of putting a quart into a pint pot. And 
 
 Q 
 
226 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 then there are the exigencies of time. The notice, 
 to be of any service, must be reasonably speedy. 
 A book is soon out of date, except it be of the best 
 quality, dealing with a subject of permanent impor- 
 tance and interest. What is to be done ? The 
 Duke of Wellington said on a famous occasion : 
 ' The King's Government must be carried on.' The 
 editor has to make a similar pronouncement, and to 
 see that his staff puts it into practice. The pile of 
 books, almost always considerable, and sometimes, 
 as in the early spring, and in October and 
 November, attaining huge dimensions, has to be 
 cleared. A few books can be at once singled out for 
 special notice. These are easily disposed of ; they are 
 handed over to the man who is, or is supposed to be, 
 best qualified to deal with them. The mass remains, 
 containing, it may be, ten, twenty, even thirty 
 volumes. And they have to be read. I think that 
 the charge that critics write about books which they 
 have not read, though it has been formally brought 
 by more than one writer of repute, may be dismissed, 
 so far, at least, as any kind of censure is concerned. 
 To say that an author is ' slovenly,' and that he 
 ' shows ignorance of elementary facts ' without 
 having read his book, seems to me incredible. The 
 man who does it runs a very serious risk, not to take 
 conscience into account. A much more serious 
 danger is that idleness or weariness will suggest 
 a few words of undeserved praise. That will seem 
 
EEVIEWING 227 
 
 a safe course to follow, one that will more or less 
 satisfy the author, and do no one any harm. But 
 that a reviewer is bound by the necessities of his 
 work to ' skip,' I willingly concede. There is a 
 limit of speed with even the most rapid reader, and 
 I fancy that there are few readers more rapid than 
 myself. There are cases in which the most exigecmt 
 critics of critics would concede that to skip is per- 
 fectly justifiable. There is the novel, for instance. 
 The change of the form of publication from the three 
 more or less loosely printed volumes at a guinea 
 and a-half to a single volume into which as much 
 matter is crowded has brought about a considerable 
 increase of production. Sometimes twenty or even 
 more than twenty novels will come in during a 
 single week. The number seldom fails to reach 
 double figures. What is to be done with them ? 
 One man, two men, could not cope with them. A 
 preliminary sifting gets rid of some. That sifting 
 is an art in itself, and — though I know something 
 about it — as it does not come within my province, 
 I will leave it alone. But the residue ? A few 
 pages will be sufficient to show whether the author 
 can write good — or shall we say fair ? — English. Two 
 or three chapters enable us to discover whether he 
 can make his characters talk like real men and 
 women, whether he has anything wise or witty to say 
 for himself. After this it will suffice to keep hold 
 of the thread of the plot, and to see by a little more 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 attention when some critical situation occurs whether 
 the tale is really good or not. If, as sometimes 
 happens, one does not want to skip, if one actually 
 sees with a certain reluctance the pages that are 
 yet to be read growing fewer and fewer, then it 
 will be safe to say that it is more than good, that 
 it is admirable. For one thing I can honestly 
 say : I may be more impatient than I once 
 was of the feeble and the dull ; moderate 
 merit may appeal to me less than it did ; but 
 of the best work I am as keenly appreciative as 
 ever I was. In dealing with a school-book — and 
 school books make a very serious part of the publish- 
 ing of the year — it is quite permissible to skip. 
 One turns in an edition of a Greek play or a book of 
 Virgil or Livy to some crux. If that is adequately 
 dealt with, to a second or a third. Thus the book 
 has been adequately sampled. The presence of 
 scholarship soon makes itself felt. Nor are books 
 of verse hard to dispose of. Not a few may be 
 rejected at once. The verse does not scan, the 
 rhymes are vulgar or false. And the rest — they often 
 show good, even excellent workmanship, but does 
 one want to read any more of them ? That is the 
 fatal question which so seldom has to be answered 
 with a yes. But ' skipping ' is an art only to be 
 acquired by long practice, and quite beyond all 
 description. And a reviewer always feels that he 
 practises it at his peril. He may pass over some- 
 
EBVIBWING 229 
 
 thing which he ought to have noticed, and in so 
 passing make a fatal mistake. Did not the practised 
 reviewer who had the handling of Byron's ' Hours 
 of Idleness ' thus pass over something in which he 
 ought to have detected the possibilities of the Fourth 
 canto of ' Childe Harold ' ? 
 
 The question of competence is one which it is not 
 so easy to settle. I will frankly say that I have 
 often felt myself incompetent for tasks which I have 
 been asked to undertake. Sometimes I have been 
 able to suggest a better qualified person ; commonly 
 I have to do my best. I will give an instance which, 
 though itself imaginary, represents more or less 
 exactly a very considerable part of the work which 
 I have been doing for the last forty years. A book is 
 sent for review which has for its subject a certain 
 town which I will call Noborough. It contains a 
 sketch of its history, a chapter on the surrounding 
 district with sections on its fauna and flora, an account 
 of its principal buildings, its manufactures, its 
 churches, schools, &c. It is not an important book. 
 Only a small portion of space can be allotted to it, 
 if justice is to be done to the claims of other volumes. 
 The outside limit would be, say, a quarter of a 
 column. What is to be done ? Of course the ideal 
 plan would be to find some person who knows No- 
 borough well, who is free from all jealousy, stands 
 apart from local factions, and has the gift of making 
 into fair literary form what he has to say. Is it 
 
230 MEMOEIBS OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 likely that such a person could be found ? Could 
 he be adequately remunerated ? Fourpence a line — 
 I beg pardon for going into such vulgar details — 
 would be a good remuneration for the reviewer of all 
 work ; but what would it be, working out at say 
 six shillings and eightpence, for the local expert ? 
 One thing is nearly certain, that the said expert 
 would probably write three or four columns. I have 
 taken this instance from the literature of topography. 
 It would be easy to find the like in other provinces of 
 the vast world of letters. To cover as wide a range 
 as possible I will take the case of an encyclopaedia. 
 How is a work of this kind to be reviewed ? I will 
 quote what I said about this particular case in the 
 article referred to above. 
 
 ' Is the criticism to be entrusted to a band of 
 experts ? These surely would be working under 
 every disadvantage. In the first place the editor 
 of the encyclopaedia has had the benefit of first 
 choice, and has taken advantage of it, we may suppose, 
 to secure the best services available. It is quite 
 possible that only experts of inferior eminence and 
 skill would be available for the criticism. Then the 
 volume has been for many months, in a way, even for 
 years, in preparation, whereas the review would have 
 to be put together in haste. Finally, many hundreds 
 of pounds will have been expended on the original 
 articles, while the most prosperous and munificent 
 journal could afford only a few pounds to remunerate 
 
EEVIEWING 231 
 
 the labour of estimating them. After saying so 
 much, I am not ashamed to confess that I have 
 myself reviewed various volumes of encyclopaedias. It 
 is, of course, a case of reviewing rather than criticising. 
 It is just conceivable that one may have such an 
 acquaintance with one or other of the subjects treated 
 of as to be entitled to express an opinion about the 
 article which deals with it. But apart from this 
 chance, it is possible for an ordinary mortal to write 
 something about even an encyclopaedia (though it 
 may be admitted that it is not a desirable subject), 
 something that shall not be arrogant, and may be 
 even instructive. There may be omissions to point 
 out, for even writers are mortal * ; there may be a 
 disproportion, sometimes better seen by an outsider, 
 in the space allotted to various subjects. And, in 
 any case, there is something to be done in the way of 
 description. The general reader does not gain any very 
 clear idea of the character of the principal contents 
 of a volume when he sees that it includes, say from 
 " Basilisk " to " Equations " ; and a writer who does 
 not even know whether a basilisk is a fabulous 
 creature or a real, and who could scarcely solve a 
 quadratic equation, may be able to enlighten him. 
 He can give a general classification of the principal 
 subjects, and name the writers, and if he does nothing 
 
 1 I remember that Aurelian, one of the greatest Emperors of the 
 decline and fall of Borne, was not noticed in the ninth edition of the 
 Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
 
232 MEMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 more, but does this with the literary touch which it 
 is so difficult to describe, and so easy to recognise, 
 he will really have done what was wanted, will have 
 called the attention of the public to a work the 
 general merit of which he is quite safe in taking for 
 granted.' 
 
 And now that I am talking of experts, let me 
 change my character for the moment, and appear as 
 the injured author. I wrote some twenty years ago 
 a story of the Civil War told in the first person by a 
 young Cavalier. It had the honour of being noticed 
 in one of the weekly reviews by no less a person than 
 Samuel Rawson Gardiner. He was, above all others, 
 an expert in the subject. I yield to no one in admira- 
 tion of his work as an historian of the period. And 
 yet I cannot help feeling that he did my little book 
 an injustice. He said that the view taken of the 
 questions between Royalists and Roundheads was not 
 correct. Of course it was not. It would have been a 
 monstrous anachronism if it had been correct. How 
 could a young Cavalier have attained to the calm and 
 philosophic attitude of the nineteenth century his- 
 torian ? 
 
 I have made, I acknowledge, stupendous mistakes, 
 the remembrance of which makes me feel uncomfort- 
 able to this moment. Once — to give what is, perhaps, 
 the worst example — I accused the author of a cer- 
 tain volume of essays, of attributing the authorship, 
 of ' Ecce Homo ' to Mr. Gladstone ! There was a 
 
REVIEWING 233 
 
 certain ambiguity of phrase, I remember, but the 
 thing was so preposterously absurd that it still 
 remains unaccountable to me. I knew what atti- 
 tude Mr. Gladstone had taken up as to the book, 
 and yet I wrote this utter nonsense, and passed 
 it for the press. 
 
 So much for competence, and now for conscience. 
 Do reviewers deliberately say the thing that is not — 
 passing, for instance, censures which they know to 
 be unjust, from motives of personal spite or party 
 animosity ? Some authors seem to think so. Editors 
 are familiar with letters in which the motives of the 
 critic are impugned. ' I cannot conceive ' — such is 
 the general tenor of these communications — ' how 
 anything but personal spite could have dictated 
 this most unjust review.' It would be idle to deny 
 that such things have been. Unless Mr. Croker 
 was very much maligned, the literary ability of a 
 Whig would not have had much chance of recog- 
 nition from him. Nor do I suppose that the millen- 
 nium of a purely impersonal justice in the matter 
 has yet arrived. There is a writing world, so to 
 speak, in which personal dislikes and the animosities 
 that are created by political divisions are not un- 
 known. I saw something of it in early days, but I 
 was then an outsider. I have lived wholly apart from 
 it during the whole period of my active literary life. 
 That personal motives often exist in the crude form 
 which is supposed in the author's letter quoted 
 
234 MEMORIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 above I do not believe. But that there are less 
 pronounced varieties of it I cannot doubt. As long 
 as there are antipathies, the bitterness of failure, 
 the jealous dislike of success, such things will be. 
 And there is a style of reviewing which has a look of 
 ambiguity, but to which 'unscrupulous' is the 
 worst epithet that can be applied. I will give an 
 instance from my own experience, for I am an author 
 as well as a reviewer ; I have felt the lash ; I have 
 had my suspicions of the hand that wielded the 
 scourge. In one of my classical stories the name 
 of Xenophon occurred some scores of times, and once 
 it was spelt Zenophon. The reviewer singled this out, 
 and intimated not obscurely that I was an ignoramus 
 who had no business to write about such a subject. 
 I do not suppose that he had any personal feeling 
 against me, but he was certainly unjust. 
 
 I am convinced, however, that on the whole, if 
 injustice is done, it is by way of favour rather than of 
 any other feeling. Now and then, but very rarely 
 in view of the great total, a book written by a friend 
 has come under my notice. I may say that I 
 have never given praise which I did not believe to be 
 deserved. Possibly, if praise could not be given, 
 I have been silent altogether, when in an ordinary 
 case I should have expressed adverse opinions. 
 And I have been guilty of favouritism — to make a 
 clean breast of my misdoings — so far as to pick the 
 friend's book out of a row of candidates for notice 
 
EEVIEWING 235- 
 
 when it had no special claim for priority. But it is 
 very seldom indeed that any such occasion has. 
 presented itself. I could almost count the cases on 
 my fingers, and certainly should not have the need to 
 use my right hand. 1 
 
 One or two stray recollections occur to me which 
 I may put on paper before I conclude this chapter. 
 I was, I believe, the first of English critics to call the 
 attention of English readers to the surpassing merits 
 of Miss Louisa Alcott's stories. The remembrance 
 of ' Four Little Women ' — this was, I think, the 
 particular volume which I reviewed — is still fresh in 
 my mind ; and this is to say something, where impres- 
 sions have been so numerous, and where so many 
 have been necessarily effaced. Another vivid recol- 
 lection is the first Lord Lytton's ' Translations of the 
 Odes of Horace.' There is some fine work in it, 
 though it is certainly unequal. But probably my 
 recollection is made more distinct by a curious 
 incident connected with it. Not long after my 
 review on the c Horace ' appeared, Lord Lytton sent 
 an advance copy — in sheets stitched together — of a 
 dramatic sketch entitled ' Walpole,' with a request 
 that it might be reviewed by the critic who had dealt 
 with the ' Horace.' It was a strange request, but 
 Lord Lytton was, or considered himself to be, a privi- 
 leged person. But I must hold my hand. I have 
 made a general confession of authorship, but to claim 
 
 1 Used in antiquity when the number exceeded a hundred. 
 
236 MBMOEIBS OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 this or that review, except in very occasional cases, 
 would be to transgress the rule of anonymity. 
 
 And yet even of this rule a transgression may be 
 allowed when the reviews concerned are so remote 
 in time as the early 'Seventies. A book has been 
 preserved at the office in which my contributions 
 for the years 1870-1873 have been recorded — it is, 
 I believe, in the handwriting of Mrs. Hutton. There 
 are between seventy and eighty reviews, and seven 
 leaders or sub-leaders. Among the reviews I find 
 Plumptre's translation of iEschylus, Anna Swanwick's 
 ' iEschylus,' Merivale's translation of the ' Iliad,' 
 Mrs. King's 'Disciples,' Renan's ' Antechrist,' T. 
 Hughes' ' Alfred the Great,' Stephens' ' Chrysostom,' 
 Conington's * Satires of Persius,' Tristram's ' Land of 
 Moab,' Lucas Collins' ' Homer ' (in ' Ancient Classics 
 for English Readers '), King's translation of Ovid's 
 ' Metamorphoses,' and L. M. Alcott's ' Little Men.' 
 
 I wrote on ' Sunday Reading,' ' The Civil Service 
 Supply Association,' ' Rugby School ' (when Dr. 
 Hayman was appointed to the headmastership), 
 ' Saddle and Sirloin ' (the work of that prince of sport- 
 ing writers, the ' Druid ' alias Henry Dixon), and on 
 ' Grunflints ' (telling of the industry at Brandon in 
 Suffolk, which seems to have begun in prehistoric 
 times and still continues to supply the West African 
 trade). I have often thought of going through my 
 old contributions and picking out from them anything 
 of my own that might seem worth preserving, and 
 
KEVIEWING 237 
 
 the many good things which I have had the oppor- 
 tunity of quoting. One difficulty is that my memory 
 fails me. Of some of the books mentioned in Mrs. 
 Hutton's list I have no recollection. Anyhow the 
 present occasion does not serve. Still I cannot resist 
 the pleasure of quoting a beautiful epigram of Eichard 
 Crashaw which I found in a volume of ' Eton and 
 Charterhouse Verses ' : 
 
 Ludite jam pisces secura sub asquora ; pisces 
 Nbs quoque diversa sub ratione sumus : 
 
 Non potuisse capi vobis spes una salutis; 
 Una salus nobis est potuisse capi. 
 
 I will add my own rendering, apologising as I did 
 then for the execrable rhyme in the third line : 
 
 ' In realms that know not care, ye fishes, sport ; 
 We too are fishes of a different sort ; 
 Ye perish, we are saved by being caught.' 
 
 I must add a few extracts from a review which, 
 with a plainness of speech now unusual, I called 
 ' A Blundering Dictionary of Dates ' — certainly the 
 extracts go some way to justify the strong language. 
 The readers of the Dictionary were told that ' Persia 
 was founded by the Medes in 880 B.C. : and subjugated 
 by the Greeks in 238 B.C.' ; that St. Mark wrote his 
 Gospel in a.d. 28, and that the Forum of Trajan was 
 completed in a.d. 14. The Passover, too, was said 
 to get its name from the Destroying Angel having 
 passed over the houses of the Egyptians. 
 
238 MBMOEIBS OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 I might have more certainly ministered to the 
 amusement of my readers if I had kept, as I have 
 often thought of doing, a list of misprints. ' Printers' 
 errors ' we writers commonly call them, but the 
 printers think that we have more to do with them 
 than they. Here are two which have happily been 
 preserved. One of them was that in noticing an 
 article in a review — for such, I think, it was — I ex- 
 pressed my satisfaction that the writer could speak 
 well of the ' recent decorations ' of St. Paul's Cathe- 
 dral. The printer turned it into ' desecrations,' and, 
 I dare say, in doing so followed my manuscript. 
 The other occurred in the notice of a narrative of 
 Shelley's last days and death. The little yacht by 
 the capsizing of which he lost his life seems to have 
 been the outcome of some rather crazy notions of its 
 owner about boat building. I quoted from ' Lycidas ' 
 
 the lines : 
 
 ' that perfidious bark 
 Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark. 
 
 ' Curses dark ' became ' the Union Jack,' and when 
 the copy was brought to me I had to own that my 
 written words were amazingly like the printer's 
 reading of them. 
 
239 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 MY BOOKS 
 
 I have written something on this subject in Chapter 
 IX. ; but there is more to be said if I am to give 
 anything like a complete account of my ' memories of 
 books.' In 1870 the idea of a series of ' Cheap School 
 Books ' occurred to me, and Messrs. Seeley agreed 
 to undertake it. I acted as editor, and contributed 
 seven volumes, three of which have been a decided 
 success. A ' First ' and a ' Second Latin Exercise 
 Book,' and a volume of ' Selections from Ovid ' 
 (Elegiac) have had an aggregate sale of about eighty 
 thousand and have brought me in, I find, 466Z. lis. Id. 
 The returns from the other four have been something 
 less than 40Z. A book published at 8d. must have 
 a very large sale to be really profitable. Some thou- 
 sands must be disposed of before the outlay is repaid. 
 Still, a really successful school-book is a good property. 
 I remember hearing that the books of M. Delille, 
 the senior teacher of French in Merchant Taylors' 
 School, when I went there in 1857, brought in an 
 income of 700Z. But this value is a transitory thing. 
 The best copyrights are valued at but five years' pur- 
 
240 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 chase. In 1876 I entered upon what has been the 
 happiest venture of ' My Books ' — the ' Stories from 
 Homer.' Mr. Richmond Seeley was meditating a 
 volume of Flaxman's outline illustrations of Homer, 
 &c, and it occurred to him whether they might not be 
 made more attractive by giving them in red, buff, 
 and black, a quite legitimate proceeding, seeing that 
 they had been suggested by vase paintings in which 
 these colours are used. It would be well, he thought, 
 that they should be accompanied with some letter- 
 press. My first thought was to do something to 
 Charles Lamb's ' Tales from the Odyssey.' But 
 when it came to the point, my courage failed me. 
 To meddle with Lamb ! Whether I could do it to 
 any purpose or not, I knew — who should know 
 better ? — what the critics would say. I was on the 
 point of giving up the whole scheme, when my wife 
 encouraged me to persevere. There was the ' Iliad,' 
 which Lamb had not touched. And there were 
 various details where change might be introduced 
 with advantage. Lamb, for instance, always uses 
 the Latin names of the gods. So I set to work, 
 and before the holidays were ended — we were spending 
 them at Bridlington, of which I shall always have a 
 kindly recollection, both on this account and because 
 of the excellent sea-fishing — the book was practi- 
 cally finished. It had an immediate success — four 
 thousand were sold before the end of the year. The 
 total sale up to the time of writing has been between 
 
MY BOOKS 241 
 
 20,000 and 30,000. After a while it occurred to me 
 that I should have done better if I had made a 
 book out of each of the two epics. This was about 
 the time when American copyright was granted. 
 I wrote ' The Story of the Iliad ' and ' The Story 
 of the Odyssey,' and obtained copyright in the 
 United States. Both volumes have been printed 
 in cheap editions both here and on the other side 
 of the Atlantic. I find that I have received for 
 them about five sixths of what I have had for the 
 original book. The number of copies sold has been, 
 of course, very much larger. The total for all three 
 can hardly be less than 100,000. This is not all. 
 I have written a ' Children's Odyssey ' and a ' Chil- 
 dren's Iliad,' changing the style from the archaic 
 to one of colloquial simplicity. A change was made 
 at the same time in the colouring of the illustrations, 
 hues more attractive to young eyes than the austere 
 colours before used being employed. It is possible 
 that some of my readers may be interested in the 
 money side of the matter. After all, the first use of 
 money is to supply a standard of value, and there is 
 no visible and tangible thing which may not fairly 
 be tried by it. It is when we try to buy or sell, 
 or bring into the market in any way, the invisible 
 that we go wrong. I find, then, that the ' Stories from 
 Homer,' published in October 1876, had brought me 
 in by the sales up to June 30, 1907, the sum of 821?. 
 I find that for the two volumes of the ' Iliad ' and the 
 
242 MBMOBIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 ' Odyssey ' I have received 702?. 15s. 5d. In 1906- 
 1907 the receipts for the ' Stories from Homer ' were 
 111. 8s., as against 4:01. 13s. 5d. for the other two. But 
 then the newer volumes have had, as I have already 
 remarked, the advantage of American copyright. 
 They have been reprinted in several shapes, and 
 at various prices, both here and in the States. 
 The Homer books stand, in respect of profit, far 
 above the rest ; next to them comes ' Stories from 
 Virgil.' My receipts from this book have been 
 616?. 16s. 8c?., of which about 25?. is to be credited to 
 an edition of 10,000 published at sixpence. Then 
 follows ' Stories from the Greek Tragedians ' with 
 330?. 2s. lid. This was published in 1881, and, 
 considering that the subject is not especially attrac- 
 tive, it has done fairly well. It is supported, in 
 common with many of its fellows, by prize-giving. 
 Should the Trojans who are threatening Greek, as they 
 threatened it in the latter half of the fifteenth century, 
 prevail, this, with others, will, I suppose, disappear. 
 Some years later I followed this up with ' Stories from 
 the Greek Comedians,' for which I used Aristophanes as 
 representing the Old Comedy and Plautus and Terence 
 as representing, at second hand, the New. This was 
 a great disappointment. It was at least as good a 
 book as its predecessors, better, I might say, inasmuch 
 as I was able to avail myself of Frere's admirable 
 translation of Aristophanes, and it was better reading 
 — so at least I should have thought. But the total 
 
MY BOOKS 243 
 
 sale has fallen short of three thousand,* and I see 
 that it has brought me in only 65l. Possibly the 
 word ' comedy ' has had a less edifying sound in the 
 ears of parents and guardians than ' tragedy,' and 
 parents and guardians have, naturally, much to say 
 in the matter. I have been told that authors of boys' 
 books are sometimes more popular with those who 
 give but commonly don't read than with those who 
 receive and do read. The tastes of the public have, 
 indeed, to be carefully studied, and in this study 
 something over and above pure reason is wanted as 
 a guide. One of my books bore for a time the title 
 of ' Story and Song.' The publisher told me the 
 other day that he had retrenched the word ' song.' 
 It repelled, he was told, the public. Another dis- 
 appointment I have had in a little book which 
 I called ' The Political Odes of Horace.' In one 
 of the early numbers of ' The Classical Review,' of 
 which I had the honour of being one of the sub- 
 editors, there was an article on classical teaching in 
 German schools. ' All intelligent teachers,' said 
 the writer, ' read Horace with their classes, not by 
 books but in chronological order.' I thought it an 
 excellent idea. Among the beauties of Horace 
 there is something of frivolity and even worse. 
 To get a class book which should be free of this, 
 and which might serve as an illustration of Roman 
 history while it introduced the student to some of the 
 noblest of Latin poetry, would, I thought, be an 
 
 B 2 
 
244 MEMOEIBS OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 advantage. I did not find it easy to obtain a publisher, 
 and I fear that the firm which undertook it has 
 had far more trouble than profit from it. I calculate 
 from the amount of royalty received that the sales 
 have not exceeded 1,200. 
 
 A little anecdote will show how little even well- 
 informed people know about the cost of books, and 
 the prices from which authors may get a fair remunera- 
 tion for their work. A lady who was evidently a person 
 of some reading wrote to me suggesting that I should 
 write a book similar to my ' Story of the Iliad ' on 
 some subject which she suggested. She had bought 
 one of the cheap editions bound in leather and sold 
 at two shillings net. ' If, as I suppose, it is published 
 at the same price, I shall certainly purchase a copy.' 
 I wrote to her, pointing out that I got 5l. per thou- 
 sand, or not quite a penny farthing per copy for the 
 edition of which she was speaking, and that I must 
 sell twenty thousand to get the not very extravagant 
 remuneration of 100?. I might have added that, 
 to judge by recent accounts, I could not reckon on 
 a first sale of more than 1,500, bringing in a remunera- 
 tion of 151., or about four shillings for a thousand 
 words, a little over three times what I might earn by 
 typewriting them. I find that 2,500 words is a good 
 day's work, so that I should have to be content with 
 ten shillings a day. The American sales make, it will 
 have been perceived, a considerable difference. In 
 the pre-copyright days Messrs. Scribner, of New York, 
 
MY BOOKS 245 
 
 undertook the sale of my ' Stories ' in the United 
 States, ordering considerable numbers, and on these 
 orders I received a royalty. But the books were 
 largely reprinted by what I may call ' pirates ' — 
 I was amazed the other day to see how many of these 
 enterprising people found it worth while to do this. 
 From one of these I did receive something. The story 
 of how I got that is worth telling. I observed among 
 the advertisements of a monthly magazine published 
 by an American firm with which I was in friendly 
 relations the titles of some ten of my books under the 
 name of a certain New York firm. I said to my 
 friend the senior partner, who happened to be in 
 
 England, ' So Messrs. have been publishing 
 
 a number of my books. They have never given me 
 anything ! ' ' Oh ! ' said he, ' that can hardly be. 
 
 Why, Mr. ' (naming one of the firm) ' is an 
 
 elder in a Presbyterian Church.' I referred him to the 
 cover of his own magazine. ' Write,' he said, ' and 
 see what you can get.' I wrote something of this 
 kind : ' Gentlemen, I see you have done me the 
 honour of reproducing in the States some of my 
 books. Might I venture to remind you of the 
 author, whose interest it is, I am told, your custom 
 to consider ? ' A few weeks afterwards I received a 
 /cheque for a hundred pounds, with a letter in which 
 the firm expressed the pleasure which they had in 
 forwarding me the money, and said at the same time 
 that their only regret was that my application had 
 
246 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 anticipated a long cherished intention. It is hard, I 
 know, to part with cherished intentions, but perhaps 
 not quite so hard as to part with cash. , The only- 
 other payment that I ever received for an unprotected 
 book in pre-copyright days was 101. for a reprint 
 of my ' Stories from Virgil.' I say ' unprotected,' 
 because towards the end of the non-copyright period 
 a partnership or collaboration with some American 
 citizen was invented. The partner did not contribute 
 much ; sometimes, I imagine, his or her share was 
 nominal ; but the device served its purpose. Whether 
 it was ever subjected to a legal test I do not know ; 
 obviously it was a kind of case that a ' pirate ' 
 would not be anxious to bring into court. At the 
 same time it was not always available. Tennyson, 
 for instance — and no writer lost more than he by 
 the want of copyright protection — could hardly 
 have put on his title-page ' with the collaboration of 
 . , . .' I certainly should have been richer — or 
 shall I say ' less poor ' ? — if American copyright 
 had been given twenty years sooner. For the sale 
 in the States is in many cases, as far as my experience 
 goes, better than it is this side the Atlantic. But 
 the popular taste differs considerably from our own. 
 Two of my smaller books, ' Three Greek Children ' 
 and ' To the Lions ! ' may serve as examples. Here 
 they are now practically forgotten, but while they 
 had a sale, and in both cases it was considerable, 
 the latter, a story of the persecution in Bithynia 
 
MY BOOKS 247 
 
 of which we hear from the letter of the Younger 
 Pliny to Trajan, had a decided advantage. It has 
 never been so in the States. My last American 
 account gave 41. 6s. 5d. for the ' Greek Children,' and 
 15s. 6d. for the other story. Sales are sometimes 
 much influenced by such institutions as the Cha- 
 tauquan University, a very important summer meet- 
 ing. I wrote a story, ' The Fall of Athens,' to serve 
 for the study of a certain period of Greek history. 
 For this I was paid 180Z. The total English sales 
 have not exceeded 601., and the book is now out of 
 print. 
 
 I must not leave this subject without express- 
 ing my gratitude to George Haven Putnam, the 
 American publisher, to whom more than to any 
 other one man the boon of American copyright 
 is due. It was not of his doing that this boon was 
 encumbered with the somewhat vexatious restriction 
 that no book can enjoy copyright unless it has been 
 manufactured in the States. This manufacture, as 
 might be expected, is inferior in quality and higher 
 in price. 
 
 I am not going to inflict on my readers a complete 
 list of all the books which I have written. So far I 
 have mentioned twenty-five of one kind or another. 
 The total is something about seventy. I feel a certain 
 amount of pride in the association with distinguished 
 men which I owe to contributions to certain series. 
 For Messrs. Macmillan's c Men of Action ' I wrote 
 
248 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 ' Henry V.' ; for Messrs. Putnam's and T. Fisher 
 Unwin's ' Story of the Nations ' ' Carthage ' (which, 
 as Dr. Garnett showed me at the British Museum, 
 has been translated into Spanish), and ' Early 
 Britain ' ; for Messrs. Blackwood's ' Ancient Classics 
 for English Beaders,' 'Pliny the Younger' (in 
 collaboration with W. J. Brodribb) and ' Ovid.' 
 
 I have now mentioned thirty books and five pub- 
 lishing houses. I will complete the list of the latter 
 by adding the names of Messrs. Longman, George 
 Bell and Sons, Hutchinson & Co., Cassell & Co., 
 Smith, Elder & Co., who are good enough to bring 
 this work before the world, and Mr. Blackwell, of 
 Oxford, who published for me the prize poem men- 
 tioned in Chapter IV., together with some occasional 
 verse scattered over a period of nearly forty years. 
 I have had, it will be seen, an extended experience of 
 a relation about which unpleasant things have been 
 lately said, as indeed they have been said many 
 times before. I am not going to enter into the 
 matter now ; I said what I had to say about it at 
 some length in the ' Nineteenth Century and After ' 
 last May. But I will repeat emphatically what I 
 then affirmed, that my relations with publishers 
 have been satisfactory. I have had to do in the 
 course of a long life with lawyers, and professional 
 and commercial men of many degrees and kinds and, 
 on the whole, I have been better treated by the 
 publishers than by anybody else. And I will add 
 
MY BOOKS 249 
 
 this, that my very large and long experience or books, 
 many of them books which were wholly beyond the 
 knowledge of the ordinary reader, has convinced 
 me of this, that there is a very numerous class of 
 persons who write books which have no possible 
 chance of succeeding, and that there is thus generated 
 a great mass of discontent which finds a vent in 
 utterly unreasonable complaints. That there are 
 black sheep among publishers I do not deny ; such 
 creatures are likely to be found in every occupation. 
 But I am convinced that in the vast majority of 
 cases, where they are charged with misdealing, with 
 extortion, ignorance, neglect, and what not, the fault 
 really lies with the incompetent client ; they are 
 blamed as the lawyer may be blamed who cannot 
 win in a bad case, or the doctor who cannot cure a 
 hopeless disease. 
 
250 MEMORIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 SEVENTY YEARS OF CRICKET 
 
 ' Seventy ' is here a round number, a use to which, 
 indeed, ifc is accustomed. It is a fact, however, that 
 I played cricket when I was nine, and that in this 
 my seventy-ninth year I have looked on with interest 
 more than once at Kentish men and boys keeping 
 up the old tradition of the county. A good, even 
 a passably good cricketer I have never been, and yet 
 all that precept and example could do for me I had. 
 The two masters whom I have mentioned at Mr. 
 Barron's school, Messrs. Woodmass and Awdry, were 
 painstaking instructors, and I had among my school- 
 fellows the four eldest of the Seven Walkers. But 
 every man has his natural limitations, in cricket as in 
 other things. Instruction and practice will do some- 
 thing for him, but beyond a fixed point they will never 
 carry him. But I was always eager about the game, 
 in the days when I was still able to play it, and 
 I am still interested in it. Perhaps someone may 
 ask who were the ' Seven Walkers.' Let me explain 
 that they were a great Middlesex cricketing family — 
 the brothers and sisters made up an eleven which 
 
SEVENTY YEAES OP CEICKET 251 
 
 no family in the world, it is safe to say, could have 
 beaten. John, the eldest, played in the Cambridge 
 University Eleven, and afterwards rose to be a 
 cricketer of the first rank, as he was chosen more 
 than once in the Gentlemen v. Players match (I 
 saw him make 99 at the Oval, a score which he 
 might have largely increased if he had been able 
 to run even moderately fast) ; Alfred, the second, 
 was, I believe, a choice for the Cambridge Eleven — 
 he died early ; Frederic was captain of the same 
 Eleven in, I think, 1848 ; V. E., who was unquestion- 
 ably the best of the seven, was among the first players 
 of his day. He was a ' lob ' bowler of the very 
 best, besides being a first-class bat. Nothing could 
 possibly have been better than the way he fielded 
 to his own bowling. A. H. was a good second-class 
 player ; R. D. played in the Oxford University 
 Eleven ; and I. D., the youngest, after being one of 
 the chief supports for many years of the county 
 eleven, captained for some time the Harrow Wan- 
 derers. I should say that the four youngest all 
 did good service in their time for Harrow School. 
 At Stanmore they were strong enough to make 
 ' Ws ' against the school quite an interesting event. 
 We never played outside matches ; if we had we 
 should have been, I fancy, hard to beat. For myself 
 my greatest attainment was to become one of the 
 regular bowlers. This was in my last year. I 
 vividly remember the first wicket that I took, and 
 
252 MEMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 the praise which Mr. Woodmass gave me. ' It was 
 hard on him to give him such a ball for the first.' 
 
 At King's College I was as diligent in practice as 
 a lad could be, but I never achieved, and I doubt not 
 never deserved to achieve, the honour of playing in 
 the College Eleven. Oxford was, as I have said, 
 a blank in this respect. The twenty years from 
 1853 onwards brought me plenty of opportunities. 
 I remember at Charlton a delightful weekly excursion 
 to the cricket meeting at Kingscote. Later on 
 we had a cricket ground in Charlton itself, and 
 found some players among the natives, though 
 cricket does not commonly flourish in Wiltshire. At 
 Liverpool Dawson Turner was a very keen cricketer ; 
 he used often to break up school an hour in advance 
 during the summer time to get a longer spell at the 
 game, and I was the only one of his masters who could 
 help him. At Merchant Taylors' I played for the 
 School Eleven during most of the thirteen years. 
 We were never a strong team — it must be remembered 
 that there was no playground — and a master's help 
 was welcome. I remember, if I may interject a 
 story, that the captain asked whether it was not 
 true that Mr. Mitchinson (now Bishop Mitchinson and 
 Master of Pembroke, Oxford), who was the new 
 Headmaster's Assistant, was not a good cricketer. 
 ' I have heard,' he said, ' that he is a great hand 
 at " slow twisters." ' ' That,' I said — for Mitchinson 
 had never, I believe, had a bat in his hand — ' refers to 
 
SEVENTY YEAES OP CRICKET 253 
 
 the questions which he will put in examinations.' 
 At Henley I had a heavy responsibility. My pre- 
 decessor had been able to turn out a fair eleven, but 
 all the players had departed with him, and I had to 
 make the best show I could with very poor and 
 scanty material. We did very little, but we should 
 have done still less if it had not been for the admirable 
 cricket of my assistant, E. P. Smith (mentioned in 
 Chapter XI.). He was an excellent cricketer, and 
 would have been of the first class if it had not been 
 for defective sight. It was his practice to use a single 
 eyeglass when he batted, and to drop it by a slight 
 shake of the head when he saw the pitch of the ball. 
 He told me that he never felt quite at ease after 
 four o'clock, so sensitive was he to the waning of the 
 light. But I never saw him fail, and he was an 
 excellent bowler. When I went to Retford I 
 was some way on in my forties, and that is an age 
 when a man whose life has to be mainly indoors 
 has to abate outdoor activities. My cricket was 
 brought to an end by an accident, the compound 
 dislocation of a thumb. It did not happen in a 
 match, but on a chance visit to the cricket-field 
 from trying to catch a ball in a f ailing light. 
 
 Now for a few recollections of what I have seen. 
 The first great match that I remember was the 
 Oxford v. Cambridge at Lord's of, I think, 1846. 
 I was thinking of Oxford at the time, and my old 
 schoolfellow, John Walker was keeping wicket for 
 
254 MBMOEIBS OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 Cambridge. The affair was nothing like what it has 
 now grown to. There was, if I remember right, 
 scarcely a ring of spectators round the ground. 
 Pads were then an unfamiliar sight, and when a 
 Cambridge man came out with his legs so protected 
 the obvious academic joke went around : euK^/AtSes 
 'Axaioi (well-greaved Greeks). The first batting 
 gloves I had seen some years before ; one of the 
 Walkers brought them to school when he came back 
 after the holidays. They were like boxing gloves, 
 and cumbrous in the extreme. The next university 
 match that I remember was played at Oxford during 
 my residence there. In those days term had to be 
 kept for three weeks after the Wednesday following 
 Whit Sunday and absence from Oxford was impossible. 
 I have often thought that it would be well if all 
 the inter-university matches could be played in 
 this way, by alternate visits to Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge. There would be one great fashionable gather- 
 ing the less, but true lovers of cricket would profit. 
 Still, I am conscious that many deserving spectators 
 would be shut out. The university match may con- 
 veniently be an incident in a visit to London when it 
 could hardly be an object in itself. And it is only 
 fair to say that for some years past the Marylebone 
 Club has behaved very handsomely to the public. 
 Anyone who will take the trouble to go early can 
 be sure of a good place for nothing more than the 
 shilling paid for entrance. Five and twenty years 
 
SEVENTY YEAES OP CEICKET 255 
 
 ago things were very different ; I remember standing 
 for a whole morning looking over the middle of a 
 barouche, and thinking myself fortunate to be so 
 placed. There were two ladies in the carriage, nobody 
 came to speak to them while I was there, and they 
 never looked at the game. I wonder what they came 
 for. 
 
 The Oxford cricketers of my own time whom I 
 best remember were the Biddings, John of New 
 College, Charles of Magdalen, and, a little later, William 
 of New College. William was an excellent bat — he 
 scorned gloves and leggings — and a most brilliant 
 wicket-keeper, the best, I think, that I ever saw. 
 A fourth brother was George, afterwards Fellow and 
 tutor of Exeter, Headmaster of Winchester and 
 Bishop of Southwell. I venture to point a moral. 
 The three first mentioned went up to Oxford pro- 
 vided for, two by Fellowships of New, the third 
 by a demyship and Fellowship at Magdalen, for 
 which he was eligible by being born in the diocese 
 of Winchester. For George Ridding nothing hap- 
 pened to be vacant, and he was the only one who 
 had a career. 
 
 I saw in after years many university matches, 
 but have few distinct remembrances of them. I can 
 recall the fierce bowling of Lang for Cambridge, 
 which seemed to terrify even experienced cricketers, 
 and a magnificent innings of Buckland, of which 
 Mr. Andrew Lang said that no prose could do it 
 
256 MEMORIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 justice. 1 I recollect also the curious fiasco of a 
 young gentleman who matriculated at Oxford, solely, 
 I heard, for the purpose of playing in the University 
 Match. He was bowled out first ball in each innings. 
 Yet he was a very good cricketer, as he had shown 
 before, and as he showed afterwards. 
 
 The cricket hero of my boyhood was Fuller Pilch, 
 an adopted son of Kent — he was a native of Norfolk. 
 The county of Kent, where the game is more widely 
 spread than it is elsewhere, was then in its most 
 flourishing period. Four batsmen of unusual ex- 
 cellence, Pilch, Alfred Mynn, Felix, and Wenman (the 
 wicket-keeper) came in succession to the wickets, 
 and broke the hearts of hostile bowlers. Mynn was 
 also an effective bowler. A man of great physique, 
 he stood at the wicket without taking any run, and 
 ' slung ' the ball in at a great pace. His brother 
 Walter was long stop — an office which has now been 
 improved away from first class-cricket. I saw the 
 elder Lillywhite bowl in the last year of his life (1854). 
 He was then sixty -three. Box (of Sussex) had the 
 reputation of being the best wicket-keeper in England, 
 but he never dealt with any balls that did not come 
 either over the wicket or on the off side. After 
 Pilch the championship came to George Parr (of 
 
 1 I remember also seeing an Oxford bowler (Willes, I think, by 
 name), who, after he had effected the object of separating two Cam- 
 bridge batsmen was taken off, apparently because the long stop was 
 beaten by him. I was a little alarmed when I had to stand up to 
 his bowling some years afterwards ; but it had lost its sting. 
 
SEVENTY YEAES OF CEICKET 257 
 
 Nottinghamshire). I saw him play for the first time 
 at Lord's. His style was in notable contrast to 
 Pilch's. Pilch used to play forward ; Parr never 
 moved his bat more than a few inches beyond the 
 crease. The change had something to do, I suppose, 
 with the improvement in the character of the ground. 
 If the batsman can calculate exactly what the ball 
 will do when it rises, he leaves himself more freedom 
 for his stroke by not playing forward. Parr was 
 greatest in leg hits. It cannot be said that the leg 
 hit has disappeared from cricket, but it has certainly 
 become more rare. After Parr again came Grace, 
 the greatest of a great cricketing line of brothers. 
 His most emphatic praise is that he changed the 
 issue of the Gentlemen v. Players match. It went 
 as often for the Gentlemen after he had joined the 
 team as it had gone against them before. But I am 
 coming down to a time of which my readers must 
 have a better remembrance than myself. 
 
 Two unusual incidents, so unusual that a man 
 may look on at cricket for many years without 
 seeing them, I may here record. One was the 
 giving out of a player by the umpire for hitting 
 the ball twice. The case was perfectly clear. The 
 ball was well off the wicket, and the batsman, an old 
 Oxford player I think, attempted to hit it to leg. 
 It struck his pad and fell almost dead on the ground. 
 He struck it as it lay and hit it nearly to the boun- 
 dary. Then he started' to run. That, of course, was 
 
 s 
 
258 MEMORIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 the fatal mistake. The batsman is, of course, 
 allowed, though he had already struck the ball, to 
 prevent it from rolling into his wicket. I do not 
 know that there is any limit as to the force which he 
 may use in this second stroke, nor could the umpire 
 attempt to say whether there was any need for using 
 the bat in this way ; but obviously he must not attempt 
 to make a run. The batsman recognised his blunder, 
 and laughed at himself. The other incident was of a 
 different kind. A batsman, an old Cambridge bat 
 this time, was given out for obstructing the field. 
 This happened at the Oval. The batsmen were 
 ' stealing a run,' and one of them came into collision 
 with point, I think, when he tried to field the ball. 
 On the rights and wrongs of the question I have 
 nothing to say. The spectators could not possibly 
 judge of them, and I was sorry for the umpire who 
 had to give the decision. There was a great uproar, 
 and I fancy that the general feeling was against the 
 player who made the appeal. An Oval crowd, 
 though less tumultuous than some that can be seen 
 in the Midlands, can make a great noise if it be so 
 minded. So, indeed, can the fashionable cricketers 
 who assemble at Lord's, as anyone can testify who 
 was present when the Cambridge bowler delivered, 
 of set purpose, two wides in order to prevent an 
 Oxford ' follow-on.' 
 
 The change, perhaps I ought to say the improve- 
 ment, in cricket has been great since I first came to 
 
SEVENTY YEARS OF CRICKET 259 
 
 know anything about it. The ground is incom- 
 parably better, the bowling more straight, the batting 
 more scientific, and the game is played in places 
 where it was never heard of. But there have been 
 also losses, sometimes caused by the very advance 
 made in the game. The Vine Cricket Ground at 
 Sevenoaks used to be famous. It is now never used 
 except for local matches of an insignificant kind. 
 Why is this ? It is too small for the masterly hitting 
 which used to be rare, but is now common. And it is 
 unenclosed. There can be no ' gate,' and first-class 
 cricket without gate money seems to be impossible. 
 But the chief change for the worse is in this : that 
 people who used to be players have become spec- 
 tators, and they are exactly the class which most 
 needs a change from the monotony of life. One of 
 our annual migrations from town to country took us 
 in 1841 to Bessels Green, a hamlet near Riverhead 
 and Sevenoaks. Daring the three months of our 
 stay some seven or eight formal matches were played 
 on the { Green.' The elevens came from neighbouring 
 villages, and the hamlet could bring a respectable 
 team to meet them. The players were small trades- 
 men and farmers or their sons, gentlemen's servants 
 and labourers. All this has disappeared. There is no 
 cricket on the Green beyond what is played by a 
 few school children. It is a desolate looking waste. 
 The genuine old village festival, followed by a 
 cheerful supper at the village inn, is gone. 
 
 s 2 
 
260 MBMOEIES 01 MEN AND BOOKS' 
 
 CHAPTEK XIX 
 
 FRUIT FARMER 
 
 An Oxford friend, who knows his Virgil, speaks of me 
 as a ' Corycian old man.' I hope that he does not 
 intend all that the phrase might he taken to mean. 
 I will explain. Virgil tells us in the Fourth Georgic, 
 that he knew a ' Corycian old man ' who had culti- 
 vated a bit of waste land near Tarentum, land not 
 good for cattle or sheep or the plough, and had 
 turned it to good account by growing fruit and 
 flowers. Now the only Corycus that we know is a 
 cape in Cilicia. It has been conjectured accordingly 
 that the epithet ' Corycian ' has something to do with 
 this. But how ? Cilicia was a great country for 
 pirates, and piracy had become a quite unendurable 
 plague in the first half of the first century b.c. Pom- 
 pey was commissioned by the Roman Republic to put 
 an end to it, and accomplished the task in an in- 
 credibly short time in the year 70. A number of the 
 prisoners who fell into his hands he settled in Italy, 
 and Virgil, writing some thirty years after, may very 
 well have come across one of them. Now a pirate 
 is by common consent ' an enemy of the human race,' 
 
FBUIT FAEMEE 261 
 
 and the term has been applied to. a reviewer. Was 
 there this sting in my friend's remark ? But this 
 may pass. I write a few words about the business, 
 which is really a very delightful and interesting affair 
 if one does not need to live by it. 
 
 In the autumn of 1901 we bought a small holding 
 of which, as it stands at present, about 4| acres (out 
 of a total of 5|) are under fruit. This is divided 
 as follows, the measurements being approximate : 
 2 J acres are occupied with cob 1 nuts — a variety of the 
 nut which is almost peculiar to a region of Kent 
 between Sevenoaks and Maidstone ; and lj acre 
 with apples, plums, and pears. The rest is kitchen 
 garden, a considerable part being occupied with 
 black currants, which are grown for sale. I am not 
 writing a manual of fruit growing, a task for which 
 I am indeed wholly unfitted. I shall not therefore 
 attempt any details of cultivation, but be content 
 with giving some general rules. Keep the ground 
 clean. I never quite realised the force of the prim- 
 eval curse, ' Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth 
 to thee,' till I began fruit growing. Thorns and 
 thistles are not the particular form in which it makes 
 itself felt with us. Our special plague is couch grass. 
 It is not like the ordinary weed which can be got rid 
 
 1 ' Cob,' a word applied to various substantives, seems to convey 
 the idea of ' stoutness.' The customary legend has sprung up attri- 
 buting the first growth to a certain ' Cobb.' The variety was, I believe 
 first introduced by a grower in Ightham of the name of Usherwood 
 about a century ago. 
 
262 MEMORIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 of with the hoe. It has roots of the most amazing 
 leagth — I have seen them as much as eighteen inches 
 or two feet long. It will be worth while to entirely 
 eradicate it — the word is exactly appropriate, for it 
 must be rooted out, and this cannot be done without 
 deep digging. 1 Have only the best kinds of apples, 
 pears, and plums. We found our land well planted 
 on the whole, but it was quite surprising how many 
 quite worthless trees there were. No inferior fruit is 
 really saleable ; if it is small, however good in flavour, 
 it will bring in small returns. The prince of apples 
 is the Cox's Orange Pippin. Nothing, I think, can 
 touch it for delicacy of flavour, set off by a very 
 agreeable texture — it is less hard than the variety 
 which comes next to it, the Ribston Pippin. The 
 Worcester Pearmain is a valuable apple, and it has 
 the merit of coming in early before the market is 
 flooded with Canadian and American growths. The 
 June-eating (Jeanneton) is a useful apple. I should 
 hardly advise the planting of them, but the trees 
 may be profitably retained if they are in existence. 
 Lady Suffields and Julians are serviceable. They 
 are good bearers — the Julians especially flourish in the 
 worst seasons. The Lord Derby is a fine apple of 
 commanding size, a most valuable quality for market 
 purposes. In plums the Victoria, the Goliath, and 
 the Pond's Seedling may be mentioned. The last of 
 these three has the merit of coming in late, when the 
 
 The couch is valued, I bear, in Australia for its quality of endur- 
 ance. Droughts do not injure it. 
 
FBUIT FAEMEE 263 
 
 market has begun to thin. Do not be sparing of 
 manure, and let it be of good quality. Be careful 
 about the analysis, and see that it suits the special 
 quality of the ground. Not a little is sold that is 
 of no value to anyone, and it is quite possible to buy 
 what is really valuable, but not of the kind that is 
 wanted by this soil or that. These are the chief 
 points. Of pruning I say nothing. The matter is 
 sub judice. I believe that the last conclusion of 
 experts is that apples as a rule should not be pruned, 
 though, of course, cross growths should be cut away. 
 If cobnuts are grown, pruning is absolutely necessary, 
 and it should be done by a really experienced hand. 
 It is an art which is not easily acquired, and much 
 damage may be done in a very short time by an 
 inexperienced person. 
 
 Now for results. I will begin by saying that I 
 have not looked only to profit. My predecessor had 
 little love for the amenities of country life. The 
 cobnuts grew up to within a few feet of the house. 
 We cleared away enough to make a lawn-tennis 
 ground. Paths have been broadened, flower beds 
 .and borders established, and the agreeable generally 
 attended to. I will now summarise the results. 
 
 
 Expenditure 
 
 £ „-. a. 
 
 Receipts 
 £ s. d. 
 
 1902 . 
 
 89 13 
 
 116 11 9 
 
 1903 . 
 
 . 74 11 
 
 70 18 
 
 1904. 
 
 . 103 1 
 
 126 12 4 
 
 1905 . 
 
 . 83 16 
 
 82 12 
 
 1906 . 
 
 . 109 17 
 
 159 3 11 
 
264 MEMORIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 This gives a balance on the credit side of 95L, or 
 191. per annum. The accounts for 1907 have not 
 been made up at the time of writing, but they show, 
 to speak roughly, a loss of 201., so that the average 
 profit for six years works out 12?. 10s. I should 
 say that the farm is credited with 261. annually for 
 fruit and vegetables supplied to the house, being 
 debited with any potatoes that may be bought — we do 
 not attempt to grow a main crop — and with apples 
 that may be purchased when our own store is ex- 
 hausted. 
 
 It will be said, and said with perfect truth, that 
 the financial result is not satisfactory. Nothing, it 
 will be observed, has been allowed for interest on 
 the purchase money of the land. This, taken at 
 4 per cent., would leave but little out of the profit 
 of our best year, for the land can hardly be reckoned 
 at less than 700Z. On the other hand, it must be 
 remembered that profit has not been made the 
 main object, that the garden of a country house 
 commonly costs, after allowing for fruit and vegetables 
 at the rate mentioned above, not less than 35Z. I feel 
 sure that a man cultivating this five acres for a live- 
 lihood would make a living out of it. The living 
 would not be very abundant ; the work would be 
 very hard ; but he would have the great satisfaction 
 of feeling that he was his own master and was working 
 for himself. I must own, however, that I do not see 
 how he could get on without some small capital. 
 
FRUIT FARMER 265 
 
 Even without paying wages there is a considerable 
 balance against the farm till the returns begin to 
 come in. And it may be said that on such a farm 
 as this nothing, or next to nothing, comes in before 
 August. The cultivator, if he is not to stint the 
 land in the matter of manures, &c, must have some 
 ready money. 
 
 A few interesting facts may be given. The com- 
 paratively good balance in 1902 was brought about 
 by a splendid crop of cobnuts. We grew 64001b., 
 and realised by the sale 72Z., after deducting the cost 
 of conveyance to market and expenses of sale. 
 The excellent 1906 balance was due to a general 
 success, but especially to the fine crop of Cox's 
 Orange Pippins. The failure of 1907 was equally 
 distributed, except that our few pear trees yielded a 
 great crop. Two trees which had practically borne 
 nothing since we came had produce which was sold 
 for \l. 10s. besides some smaller fruit which we 
 kept for our own use. Curiously enough, in view 
 of the abnormal character of the year, and especially 
 the want of sunshine, the fruit was of far superior 
 flavour to anything we had noticed before. But the 
 plums of 1907 were the marvel. The trees every- 
 where were laden with them, laden to and beyond the 
 breaking point. They were propped up to the best 
 of our ability, but this did not prevent much mischief 
 being done. The same abundance prevailed every- 
 where, or almost everywhere, and the consequence 
 
266 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 was a great ' slump ' in prices. On our little farm 
 where the plums do not occupy quite half an acre 
 — it is not easy to estimate the area as they 
 are scattered over the place — we grew seventy- 
 five bushels, as against one bushel in the preceding 
 year. 1 Plums being a highly perishable fruit must 
 be sold at once. The markets were fairly choked, 
 and prices fell almost to zero. For our crop we 
 received about 51., and at least half of this must be 
 credited to private custom and to a small bottling 
 industry which we conduct on the spot. Fifty 
 bushels we sent to market, and for these we received 
 about as many shillings. The fruit was mostly picked 
 by amateur labour. If we had had to pay for the 
 picking, as, of course, large growers had to do, it 
 would have been as well to leave most of the trees 
 alone. The damsons, in particular, fetched less 
 than it would have cost to pick them after carriage 
 and commission had been deducted. A shilling a 
 bushel was the gross price, and threepence the net, 
 whereas the ordinary charge for picking a bushel is 
 nmepence — and, as I can personally testify, the 
 labour is not too highly paid. I may mention, 
 by way of contrast, that two years before, when our 
 damsons happened to fare better than those of our 
 neighbours, we received as much as eighteen shillings 
 
 1 Seventy-five bushels means half as many hundredweights, not 
 much short of two tons, making four tons to the acre. This would 
 be equivalent to 142 bushels of wheat, or three times an exceptionally 
 good crop. 
 
FEUIT FAEMEE 267 
 
 for a bushel. This would show a net gain of 16s. Qd. 
 as against a loss of 6d. This excessive fluctuation 
 in price is distinctly a drawback to an agreeable 
 pursuit. So is the sight of good things wasted, a 
 sight sure to come with a bountiful season. It is 
 really painful to see the ground covered with fruit 
 which would be welcome to thousands if one could 
 only get it to them. It might often be that a grower 
 would give the ' falls ' from his trees, or even the 
 fruit on some of them, if they could be collected or 
 picked without putting him to expense. I have 
 wondered whether some scheme might not be con- 
 trived to meet this case. And then another dis- 
 agreeable is a certain feeling of what Aristotle called 
 e7rix<"pe/caKta — rejoicing in the troubles of others 
 — a vice which he rightly stigmatises. The fruit- 
 grower certainly feels temptations to it. The dweller 
 on the hill, for instance, must be more than human 
 if he is without a sensation — let me hope, an 
 involuntary sensation — of satisfaction, when he finds 
 that some late frost has touched the orchards in the 
 valley. And now I will describe a discovery which 
 has compensated me for a certain disappointment. 
 Have any of my readers ever wondered why the 
 Unjust Steward in the parable gives to the first 
 of his master's debtors a reduction of 50 per cent., 
 and to the second a reduction of 20 per cent, only ? 
 The man who owed one hundred measures of oil he 
 bids put down the amount at fifty, the hundred 
 
268 MEMOETES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 measures of wheat are reduced only to eighty. The 
 man would certainly do his best for both of the 
 tenants. He would know that they would compare 
 notes, and that the debtor who had had a smaller 
 allowance made to him would resent the difference, 
 unless there was a conclusive reason for it. That 
 reason would be found in the necessity for doing 
 nothing that would excite the landlord's suspicion. 
 The justification for the difference of treatment then 
 must have been this, that a fruit crop is habitually 
 more precarious than a com crop. A good wheat 
 season may bring forty bushels or more to the acre, 
 but a bad one will not reduce the crop below twenty- 
 five. I cannot make out that any commentator 
 or interpreter has ever figured this out. It shows 
 that in this, as in every other province of life, it is 
 good now and then to leave the study for the field. 
 
269 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 SOME PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN 
 
 First, to follow the usual order of procession, which 
 inverts the order of dignity, shall come the tramps. 
 Of these I have had no small experience. I have 
 been in many places, some of them traversed by 
 roads which tramps generally frequent. My parson's 
 dress marks me out as one to be accosted — a parson is 
 supposed to be professionally charitable. Possibly 
 I have the look of being soft-hearted or soft. But the 
 chief cause of the somewhat extensive knowledge 
 that I have gained of this class is my own readiness 
 to stop and talk to them. 
 
 My first tramp — the first, I mean, to get beyond 
 the customary : ' Can you spare a copper for a poor 
 man ? ' — I made acquaintance with at Henley-on- 
 Thames some six-and-thirty years ago. He intro- 
 duced himself to me by a letter which was well 
 composed and well written, and commended itself 
 specially to me — I was then a schoolmaster — by a 
 correct quotation from Ovid. When I went out to 
 talk to him I saw a curious figure. He was a man of 
 about sixty, so bent as to be almost deformed, with 
 
270 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 about as villainous looking a face as I ever set eyes on. 
 But he had the manners and spoke with the accent of 
 a gentleman. The result of our interview was that I 
 agreed to give him work. I found quarters for him 
 in an outbuilding, where he was made comfortable 
 with bedding, &c. — my hospitality was not equal 
 to taking him into the house. He stopped with me 
 two months and more, making himself generally 
 useful. The special work that he did was to bind 
 books, magazines, in a rough but quite effective 
 way — I have some of them to this day, and they are 
 as strong as ever. As far as I knew, he had no 
 tools beyond a knife. 
 
 I had many talks with him, but could never make 
 out what he really was. That he did not always speak 
 the truth I soon found. He had been, he said, at 
 Queen's College, Oxford, but the Provost told me, 
 in answer to my inquiry, that he could not find the 
 name in the books. It was strange that the man 
 should have told a falsehood so easily detected. 
 It seemed to show that his knowledge did not go 
 very far. But his manners were unmistakably good. 
 The bow which he made to my wife was a master- 
 piece. His manner of going was curious. He wrote 
 to a former employer, Lord W., telling him that he 
 had found work. Lord W. imprudently sent him 
 5l., to help him, I fancy, to get clothes. The money 
 was too much for him, and he came back that night 
 tipsy. I told him in the morning that I would 
 
SOME PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN 271 
 
 overlook it, but that it must never happen again. 
 But he did not take the chance. ' You have lost 
 confidence in me, sir,' he said, ' and I had better go,' 
 and he went. I never heard of him again. 
 
 I came across another such man not long ago. 
 He was working for a neighbour, and at his suggestion 
 came to me for books. My daughter offered him 
 some story of adventure. ' I am much obliged to 
 you, Madam,' he said, ' but I should like to have 
 Newman's " Apologia," or a volume of " Carlyle." ' 
 I do not know what he got, but he went away without 
 returning it, and without paying for his lodgings. 
 
 On the whole the educated, or quasi-educated, 
 tramp is the worst of his class. He has had his 
 chances and has not used them. Such a man begins 
 with a great advantage over the labourer or artisan. 
 In all ranks the wandering temperament is to be 
 found, sometimes so greatly developed that its 
 impulses seem to be irresistible. Was there not a 
 case not long ago of such a man, the holder of an 
 ancient title and the owner of a great estate, who 
 would not be content till he had shipped as a sailor 
 before the mast, and came to his end by being swept 
 overboard in a storm near Cape Horn ? Such a 
 man in the upper or middle class need not become a 
 vagabond, or his vagabondage is dignified by at 
 least the semblance of work. For the labourer such 
 chances are, to say the least, far more rare. And when 
 we think of how labour is specialised nowadays 
 
272 MEMOEIBS OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 we wonder less that some men find this monotony 
 of labour intolerable, and take to the road, the 
 4 grand tour,' so to speak, of the poor. Then there 
 is another thing to be considered. It may well be 
 that the vast majority of these wanderers are brought 
 to this mode of life by folly or wrong-doing. But it 
 must be remembered that a poor man has not the 
 same opportunity of recovering from a slip that is 
 given to his better-born fellow. The friends and 
 kinsfolk of a prodigal make many efforts, for their 
 own sakes, if not for his, to redeem him. I do not 
 know whether I should class among the educated a 
 very recent acquaintance. He was certainly a very 
 inferior performer to my Henley friend. He held 
 out his hand with three stumps of lead pencils in it : 
 ' Believe me, sir,' he said, ' these are all that I have 
 in the world.' ' What is your occupation ? ' I asked. 
 ' By this time ' — he looked to be not less than sixty — 
 ' you ought to have some settled work.' ' I write, 
 sir,' was his reply, ' I write articles for the news- 
 papers. But I cannot get them taken ; everything 
 is so crowded now.' We talked a little more, and he 
 got, I fancy, a little beyond his prepared phrases. 
 ' I have wrote,' he said, ' for the " Times " and the 
 " Evening News." ' ' But,' I said, ' is that the 
 English you used in your articles ? — " I have wrote " 
 is not usual. ' He was a little taken aback. I went on, 
 ' I don't wish to be rude ; but it is my business to be 
 a critic' ' If you hadn't been a critic, sir, I should 
 
SOME PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN 273 
 
 not have spoken to you,' he answered. And he 
 went off with fourpence added to his property in 
 pencils. Perhaps it was wrong to give the money, 
 but I thought that the story was worth it. 
 
 I have often regretted that I have not taken 
 down from the lips of some of these wanderers the 
 story of their life. One such record I obtained, not 
 many months ago, and I think it is worth preserving. 
 The man was sitting by the roadside one Sunday 
 morning. He did not beg — he told me afterwards 
 that he never did beg — but his look was an appeal. 
 He explained to me when I questioned him that he 
 had got some days' work to begin on the following 
 Wednesday — he thought it necessary, or perhaps 
 only polite in consideration of my cloth, to apologise 
 for having applied for it on a Sunday. I offered him 
 employment for the two intervening days, and he 
 returned to me after his other job was finished, and 
 worked for about a week, fully earning the three 
 shillings a day which I paid him. He had begun life, 
 on leaving school — he could write well, I found, and 
 knew something about books — as an apprentice in a 
 grocer's shop in a small Kentish village. Then he 
 went to work in the brickfield at Sittingbourne. 
 From there he ' drifted ' — I use his own word — 
 to a farm near Minster, in the Isle of Sheppey (to be 
 distinguished from Minster in Thanet), where he was 
 employed in threshing. Here he saved some money, 
 and naturally turned to London, where people go 
 
 T 
 
274 MEMORIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 both to make money and to spend it. Here he got 
 a situation in an upholsterer's shop. Apparently 
 this did not please him, for he next found himself 
 a cab-driver at Bangor. From Bangor his next 
 move was to the stone quarries at Normanby, and 
 then next to the Staffordshire potteries ; and after 
 this came a job as outside porter at the L. & N. W. 
 station at Oxford. Then he returned to Kent, 
 where he took up what I gathered to be his usual 
 occupation, fruit-picking, hop-picking, and harvesting. 
 ' On one occasion,' he put it, ' being hard up, I got 
 into a butcher's shop, carrying out meat and helping 
 in the slaughter-house, at a place called Canterbury. ' 
 What a volume of meaning there is in these words ! 
 Can one imagine what it would mean to be without 
 all that Canterbury signifies to us ? The man's 
 next venture was as cook on board a coasting vessel. 
 Three journeys with cargoes of pipeclay and oil-cake 
 were enough for him. During the third a storm came 
 on off Beachy. ' It frightened me, and when I came 
 to Plymouth I asked to be paid off. This the cap- 
 tain denied me,' and he had to walk home from 
 Plymouth, a fortnight's job ; but he got his money in 
 the end. He tried droving, but so many took it 
 up that it was no livelihood, and wagoner's work, 
 but he was not used to it. Two weeks in a lime-kiln, 
 a winter's work in London sawing wood, picking peas 
 in Essex when the summer came round followed, 
 and then brickmaking again, ' the first work I did,' 
 
SOME PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN 275 
 
 he says, ' after leaving the counter.' Employment 
 in a foundry at Strood (Kent) was cut short by 
 slackness of work. The man's last occupation before 
 I fell in with him was carrying the flag before a 
 steam roller. He left me, he said, to work on a 
 neighbouring brickfield, but I cannot make out that 
 he ever went there. This is a fairly varied record for 
 a man of forty-one. 
 
 My general conclusion is that among the tramps 
 are many honest workers, not of the first class, 
 and not without reproach, but still of fair average 
 merit. ' I won't pretend that I have been a good 
 boy,' said one of them to me. But who is there that 
 would ? 
 
 The ' people ' of whom I have spoken so far have 
 not been wanting in interest, but I cannot say that 
 they have made me happier. Of those whom I am 
 now going to mention I can affirm exactly the oppo- 
 site. To know them has been a pleasure ; they 
 have never grieved me, except when they died. 
 These ' people ' are my dogs. My earliest friend of 
 this class was an English terrier, ' Jerry ' by name, 
 who was given to me when I was a curate at Charlton. 
 Leaving the country to dwell in a town I thought of 
 him rather than of myself, and transferred him to 
 my sister in Devonshire. My brother-in-law kept a 
 pack of otter-hounds, and Jerry, who was an accom- 
 plished animal, was promoted to the post of terrier 
 to the hunt. It was an honourable place, but not 
 
 &':\ 
 
276 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 without perils, for the otter in his earth is a formidable 
 antagonist. After a brief experience Jerry made 
 up his mind to retire from it. He was missing; 
 his admiring friends had no doubt that he was 
 stolen. 
 
 About a year afterwards my sister, calling at a 
 somewhat distant house, found Jerry installed, the 
 idol of the whole place. He had presented himself at 
 the door a year before — the very day of so fortunate 
 an arrival had been remembered — had been admitted, 
 and had soon found his way to every heart. He 
 expressed to my sister his willingness to overlook the 
 past ; but it was understood that the otter hounds 
 must do without him. I remained a solitary man, 
 except, indeed, for wife and children, till I went to 
 Henley. Then came two deerhounds, Bran the First 
 and Bran the Second, both of them gifts of my dear 
 friend Harry Jones. The deerhound is a prince 
 among dogs, but he does not lend himself to pic- 
 turesque narrative. One achievement of Bran the 
 First I do not forget. There was brought to me one 
 day a clothes-basket half full of fragments of school 
 books which he had torn up. Of Bran the Second, 
 however, I remember how when I was away from 
 home he transferred himself from the landing on which 
 he was wont to sleep to the mat outside my wife's 
 bedroom. I have had dogs of many kinds, but of 
 all kinds the one which somehow most appeals to me 
 is the dachshund. As an anonymous poet in an 
 
SOME PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN 277 
 
 amusing little book, ' The Brown Ambassador,' 
 
 sings : 
 
 There's an empty place in a tired heart 
 Which only a dachs can fill. 
 
 Of one old friend belonging to this race I have often 
 thought of becoming the biographer. He never was 
 my own, but I had for many years the privilege of 
 giving him a second home. His real home was at 
 St. Leonards, but he did not like it ; for the family 
 to which he belonged he had a great affection, but 
 the place he hated. The stone pavements hurt his 
 feet, and there were no rabbits, and every well-ordered 
 place contains rabbits. So he paid long visits to 
 me at Austford, and afterwards, as long as I re- 
 mained at Ashley, regularly spent his summer there. 
 His business in life was ratting. In this pursuit he 
 was an adept. He has been known to kill scores of 
 rats in a morning when the game was abundant. 
 And he was most conscientious in doing his duty. 
 He has been known to steal away in the evening, 
 after a long day's work, and watch for an hour or so 
 at a hole which he thought had not been properly 
 attended to. And he was a very useful assistant at 
 rabbit shooting. But his ideal — never, I am sorry 
 to say, attained — was to catch a rabbit for himself. 
 It was pathetic to see him duly ' quartering ' some 
 such place as a potato patch where he had detected 
 or suspected the presence of a rabbit. After a while 
 the creature would bolt, unseen by him. He con- 
 
278 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 scientiously finished his examination, hit upon the 
 scent, and followed the track, full of hope ; the 
 rabbit meanwhile had long since reached its hole. 
 In the early days of our friendship I was much 
 flattered when, after he had been taken home at the 
 end of a long visit, he found his way back to Austford, 
 arriving late one night, with bleeding feet and almost 
 wearied to death. He had traversed the ten miles 
 or so between the two places in about three hours, 
 though he had never passed over the road before. 
 Doubtless he preferred the country to the town home. 
 But I found afterwards that he was sometimes 
 visited by a passion for wandering. One summer he 
 disappeared for a few days from our Ashley house. 
 My wife was sure that he had gone away to die. 
 But that was not in his mind ; we found him at our 
 butcher's in the neighbouring town of Tetbury. 
 And in the last year of his life — his twenty-first — he 
 left his home to take up his quarters in a remote 
 part of Hastings, in a house where, as far as his friends 
 were aware, he had never been before, and with people 
 of whom he knew nothing. They were of the small 
 shopkeeper class. Perhaps he wished to enlarge his 
 views of human life before he died. A dear dachs of 
 my own was distinguished to the last — and he lived 
 to be nearly thirteen — by a passionate love of toys. 
 In pursuit of a toy rabbit or monkey he would steeple- 
 chase over chairs, quite regardless of the danger of a 
 fall. He shared his basket with a whippet who 
 
SOME PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN 279 
 
 still survives. 1 The distinction of a whippet is speed, 
 not intelligence, but in her tenth year she taught 
 herself to beg under pressure of competition. She 
 still looks with interest when a dachs comes in sight. 
 One more story and I have done. A neighbour 
 keeps a little pack of dachshunds. Two of them 
 have a ceaseless feud. One is a red dog, who had 
 for some years a black-and-tan enemy. The enemy 
 died, but the quarrel was too large a part of his life 
 to be given up. He fastened it at once on an animal 
 of the same colour who had given him no offence. 
 In their mistress' room they are the best of friends, 
 sleeping on the same rug, and eating out of the 
 same dish. Outside the door they are deadly enemies. 
 I was born with a love of animals, but in my 
 London days had to be content with cats, squirrels 
 and birds (we had an aviary in Bedford Row, 
 to which birds which one would not expect to see in 
 London — hawks and owls, for instance — were at- 
 tracted). This love has naturally been strengthened 
 by the avocations of later life. Without it one would 
 hardly feel at home at the ' Spectator,' which has 
 for many years welcomed contributions to the 
 literature of animal life. We are by no means 
 ashamed, not even when we are hoaxed, a fate which 
 from time to time overtakes all enthusiasts. No one 
 was offended when someone, wishing to buy a book 
 entitled ' Cat and Dog Stories from the " Spectator," ' 
 
 1 Alas ! she has passed a way since this was written. 
 
280 MEMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 asked for ' Cock and Bull Stories.' The vexation is 
 not permanent even when quite audacious hoaxes 
 somehow have escaped our vigilance. It at least 
 made our readers laugh when they heard how a 
 ' semi-Bombay duck ' had had a fierce fight with a 
 goose in the Zoological Gardens at Durban, or how 
 an animal-loving undergraduate was always followed 
 through the streets of Oxford by a dog and a hen, 
 and how when he reached the College gates, the dog 
 was permitted to enter with him, but the hen by an 
 inexorable rule excluded. 
 
 I hope that I shall not seem frivolous if I go on 
 from the people of the road and the dog people to 
 speak of the friends whom I have made during a life 
 of not a few changes and wanderings. I can feel 
 as I look back that my experience has been on the 
 whole a happy one. There are two opposite views 
 of life. There are some to whom it seems full of 
 disappointments ; they have hoped and failed to 
 receive ; they have trusted and have been deceived. 
 Some, on the other hand, are familiar with surprises 
 of a better kind. They find a quite unexpected 
 amount of good in those with whom they have to do. 
 Men and women are more truthful, kind, and even 
 generous than they could have hoped for. It is with 
 these that I am glad to rank myself. I have been 
 brought into relations with many persons of many 
 kinds, but there are very few whom I cannot re- 
 member with pleasure. To take a very common- 
 
SOME PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN 281 
 
 place test — I never made but one bad debt in my 
 life. And I do not think that anyone ever wilfully 
 tried to injure me. I have had hard things said 
 to me and, possibly, about me. A gentleman, whose 
 boys did not get all they wanted or all he thought 
 they ought to have, said that my school was a slaugh- 
 ter-house. Another was very angry when I had to 
 move somewhat suddenly from Henley to Retford, 
 because I could not give his son another quarter's 
 schooling. He thought that I ought to have given 
 him a quarter's notice, as I should have expected 
 him to give me. I felt that there was a certain 
 amount of logic in his contention, though all the 
 redress that I could offer him was to take his boy 
 with me, and this he did not choose to accept. And 
 when I left Retford because the schoolhouse had 
 become uninhabitable from defective drainage, a 
 parent made a similar complaint. But he listened 
 to reason as set forth in a lawyer's letter, and I 
 had no more trouble. After all, these are not very 
 serious matters in a life which has been extended 
 not a little beyond the three score years and ten. 
 
 As my story has taken me from place to place, 
 from school to college, from college to a country 
 parish, from a parish, again, to one school or another, 
 I have had occasion to mention a few names of 
 friends. If these recollections should fall into the 
 hands of others who knew me in those long past 
 days let me assure them that they are not forgotten 
 
282 MEMOEIES OP MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 though they are not named. For the most part, 
 indeed, I have spoken only of those who have passed 
 away. To this rule I shall keep in the very few 
 words which I have yet to write. These will be 
 about a little society to which I had the happiness 
 to belong during the brief sojourn near London from 
 1880 to 1888, and, in an irregular fashion, for some 
 years more. This was and still is known as ' The 
 Brotherhood,' for it happily continues. It consisted 
 of ten or eleven clergymen, and we used to meet for 
 dinner once a month, August, September, and 
 latterly October, being menses non. I shall not say 
 what We talked about — I hope that the man who 
 should abuse such social confidences may never be 
 sub isdem trahibus with me — but I know that some of 
 the brightest hours of my life have been spent at these 
 gatherings. The ' Father ' of the Brotherhood was 
 E. C. Hawkins, for some years Headmaster of the 
 Clergy School at Leatherhead, afterwards Vicar of 
 St. Bride's, Fleet Street, a man of great ability, who 
 was content to do, and do, I believe, extremely well, 
 the work that came to his hand. There was also 
 Harry Jones, Rector of St. George's in the East, then 
 of Bartonmere in Suffolk, then of St. Philip's, Regent 
 Street, one of the most genial of men, who wielded 
 as ready and as pleasant a pen as any writer of his 
 time. He was always delightful, but at his best in 
 his country house at Barton Mere. Then there was 
 A. J. C. Ross, once a Presbyterian minister, expelled 
 
SOME PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN 283 
 
 from his charge at Brighton for teaching which no 
 one nowadays would dream of visiting with such a 
 sentence, and afterwards finding a shelter in the 
 hospitable Anglican communion (I remember that 
 his biographer complained of a lack of incident 
 in his life — one would have thought this sufficient). 
 He was for some years a frequent contributor to 
 the ' Spectator.' Finally there was J. W. Shepard, 
 whom all Old Paulines between 1858 and 1900 will 
 remember with respect and affection. To them and 
 to the unnamed host of departed friends I would say 
 
 AVETE ATQUE VALETE. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Acland, Rt. Hon. A. H., 185 
 Aloott, Louisa, 235 
 Awdry, W. H., 41, 250 
 
 Bampfield, George, 58 
 Barron, J. A., 36 seq 
 Barry, Bishop, 46 
 Bell, G. C, 165 
 Bickerdyke, J., 35 
 Blackwood, J., 171 
 Brameld, W., 195 
 Brewer, J. S., 45 
 Bright, John, 23 
 Brodribb, W. J., 5, 141 
 Brown, J. Baldwin, 144 
 Brown, T. E., 147 
 Browne, R. W., 45 
 Bruce, J. Knight, 8 
 Bull, C, 66 
 
 Calveelby, C. S., 16 
 Cass, F., 167, 168 
 Christie, R. C., 64 seq 
 Chamberlain, Joseph, 212 
 Church, family of, 2 seq 
 Church, R. W., 59, 199 
 Colenso, Bishop, 113 
 Collins, Mortimer, 149 
 Conington, J., 145 
 Croker, Rt. Hon. J. W., 233 
 
 Delille, M., 239 
 De Morgan, Augustus, 159 
 Derby, 15th Earl of, 46 
 Dhuleep Singh, 112 
 Durnford, Bishop, 164 
 
 Eldon, Loed, 5 
 Evans, De Lacy, 19 
 Evans, Gowen, 60, 61, 200 
 Evans, J. H., 27 
 
 Gaedlneb, S. R., 232 
 Garnett, Dr., 248 
 Goodwin, A., 157 
 Gosohen, Lord, 211, 212 
 Grace, W. G., 257 
 Grimthorpe, Lord, 111 
 
 Hall, T. W., 44 
 
 Hawkins, E. C, 282 
 
 Herbert, Auberon, 151 
 
 Hessey, J. A., 94 seq 
 
 Hodges, J., 149 
 
 Hughes, T., Ill 
 
 Hutchinson, G. H. H., 81 seq, 133 
 
 seq 
 Hutton, R. H., 198 seq, 202 seq 
 
 Jelf, R. E., 46 
 Jones, Harry, 276, 282 
 Jowett, B., 54 
 
 Kay, William, 51 seq 
 Kebbel, T. E., 144 
 Kent cricketers, 256 
 Kitchin, Dean, 46 
 Knowles, J. T., 189 
 
 Lablache, Signor, 24 
 Lee, R., 165 
 Lethbridge, W., 66 
 Lincoln boat, 57 
 
286 
 
 MEMOEIES OF MEN AND BOOKS 
 
 Lincoln reotorship, 66 seq 
 Lonsdale, Bishop, 111 
 Lush, Lord Justice, 117, 118 
 Lyndhurst, Lord, 20 
 Lytton, Lord, 235 
 
 Macdonald, G., Ill, 112 
 McNeile, Hugh, 23 
 Mansel, Dean, 102, 199 
 Matheson, Sir J., 157 
 Maurice, F. D., 45, 105, 168 
 Meaden, T., 143 
 Michell, R., 51, 53 
 Mitchinson, Bishop, 252 
 Mommsen, T., 204 
 Monk, Bishop, 75 seq 
 Monro, B., 43 
 Morley, H., 157, 158 
 Morley, J., 57 
 Morris, C. D., 59 
 Mortimer, Dr., 22 
 
 Neate, C, 59 note 
 Newton, J., 4 
 Noel Baptist, 26, 28 
 Nugent, Lord, 22 
 
 O' Connell, Daniel, 22 
 Ogle, Octavius, 48 note, 192 
 Oriel Common Boom, 59 
 
 Pare, George, 256, 257 
 Pattison, Mark, 46 seq ; 51 seq, 
 
 126 
 Pinder, North, 150, 151 
 Poole, Miss, 23 
 Putnam, G. H., 247 
 
 Radclyffe, Dr., 110 
 Ramsay, Sir W., 162 
 Biddings, family of, 255 
 
 Rogers, Thorold, 71 
 Ross, A. J. C, 282 
 Rowsell, T. J., 188 
 Rutland, Duke of, 172 
 
 Sainton-Dolby, Madame, 23 
 Seeley, J. R., 5, 145, 150, 160 
 Seeley, Richmond, 240 
 Shadwell, Sir Lancelot, 21, 22 
 Shaw, ^Frederick, 7 
 Shepard, J. W., 283 
 Short, Vowler, 24 
 Smith, R. P., 154, 155, 253 
 Sonnenschein, Mr., 158 
 Sotheby, H. W., 144 
 Stanley, Dean, 111 
 Stephen, Sir J. ¥.. 47 
 Strafford, Earl of, 167 
 Stuart, Sir J., 21 
 
 Tait, Bishop, 104 
 Tennyson, A., 189 
 Toogood, J. J., 24 
 Tooke, J., 14 
 Townsend, M, 206 seq 
 Turner, D. W., 91 seq 
 Tussaud, Madame, 12 
 
 Victoeia, Princess, 17 
 Villiers, Montagu, 24 seq 
 
 ' Walker, The Seven ' 250 seq 
 Watson, Sir Thomas, 110 
 Westbury, Lord, 21, 59 note 
 Whitehead, H., 61 seq 
 Wilberforce, Bishop S., 25 
 William IV., 2, 18 
 Wilde, Mrs., 168, 169 
 Woodmass, A., 39, 250 
 
 Yarde Bttller, T., 85 
 
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