“_The Bishop had been reading Mr. Samuel Butler’s enchanting book_ Alps
and Sanctuaries _and determined to visit some of the places there
described_. _We divided our time between the Italian lakes and the lower
slopes of the Alps and explored many mountain sanctuaries_ . . . _As a
result of this journey the Bishop got to know Mr. S. Butler_. _He wrote
to tell him the pleasure his books had given us and asked him to visit
us_. _After this he came frequently and the Bishop was much attracted by
his original mind and stores of out-of-the-way knowledge_.” (The Life
and Letters of Dr. Mandell Creighton _by his Wife_, _Vol. II_, _p._ 83.)
The first time that Dr. Creighton asked me to come down to Peterborough
in 1894 before he became Bishop of London, I was a little doubtful
whether to go or not. As usual, I consulted my good clerk, Alfred, who
said:
“Let me have a look at his letter, sir.” I gave him the letter, and he
said:
“I see, sir, there is a crumb of tobacco in it; I think you may go.”
I went and enjoyed myself very much. I should like to add that there are
very few men who have ever impressed me so profoundly and so favourably
as Dr. Creighton. I have often seen him since, both at Peterborough and
at Fulham, and like and admire him most cordially. {251}
I paid my first visit to Peterborough at a time when that learned
musician and incomparable teacher, Mr. W. S. Rockstro, was giving me
lessons in medieval counterpoint; so I particularly noticed the music at
divine service. The hymns were very silly, and of the usual
Gounod-Barnby character. Their numbers were posted up in a frame and I
saw there were to be five, so I called the first Farringdon Street, the
second King’s Cross, the third Gower Street, the fourth Portland Road,
and the fifth Baker Street, those being stations on my way to
Rickmansworth, where I frequently go for a walk in the country.
In his private chapel at night the bishop began his verse of the psalms
always well before we had done the response to the preceding verse. It
reminded me of what Rockstro had said a few weeks earlier to the effect
that a point of imitation was always more effective if introduced before
the other voices had finished. I told Rockstro about it and said that
the bishop’s instinct had guided him correctly—certainly I found his
method more satisfactory than if he had waited till we had finished.
Rockstro smiled, and knowing that I was at the time forbidden to work,
said:
“Satan finds some mischief still for idle brains to do.”
Talking of Rockstro, he scolded me once and said he wondered how I could
have done such a thing as to call Handel “one of the greatest of all
musicians,” referring to the great chords in _Erewhon_. I said that if
he would look again at the passage he would find I had said not that
Handel was “one of the greatest” but that he was “the greatest of all
musicians,” on which he apologised.