“The Queen is a wife and a mother as happy as the happiest in her
dominions, and no one can be more careful of her charges. She
often speaks to me of the great task before her and the Prince in
the education of the royal children, and particularly of the
Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal.”
Before the troubles of 1847 and 1848, Bunsen was enabled to spend part of
his time in the country, away from the turmoil of London, and much of his
literary work dates from that time. After his “Church of the Future,” the
discovery of the genuine Epistles of Ignatius by the late Dr. Cureton led
Bunsen back to the study of the earliest literature of the Christian
Church, and the results of these researches were published in his
“Ignatius.” Lepsius’ stay in England and his expedition to Egypt induced
Bunsen to put his own materials in order, and to give to the world his
long-matured views on “The Place of Egypt in Universal History.” The later
volumes of this work led him into philological studies of a more general
character, and at the meeting of the British Association at Oxford, in
1847, he read before the brilliantly attended ethnological section his
paper “On the Results of the recent Egyptian Researches in reference to
Asiatic and African Ethnology, and the Classification of Languages,”
published in the “Transactions” of the Association, and separately under
the title, “Three Linguistic Dissertations, by Chevalier Bunsen, Dr.
Charles Meyer, and Dr. Max Müller.” “Those three days at Oxford,” he
writes, “were a time of great distinction to me, both in my public and
private capacity.” Everything important in literature and art attracted
not only his notice, but his warmest interest; and no one who wanted
encouragement, advice, or help in literary or historical researches,
knocked in vain at Bunsen’s door. His table at breakfast and dinner was
filled by ambassadors and professors, by bishops and missionaries, by
dukes and poor scholars, and his evening parties offered a kind of neutral
ground, where people could meet who could have met nowhere else, and where
English prejudices had no jurisdiction. That Bunsen, holding the position
which he held in society, but still more being what he was apart from his
social position, should have made his presence felt in England, was not to
be wondered at. He would speak out whenever he felt strongly, but he was
the last man to meddle or to intrigue. He had no time even if he had had
taste for it. But there were men in England who could never forgive him
for the Jerusalem bishopric, and who resorted to the usual tactics for
making a man unpopular. A cry was soon raised against his supposed
influence at court, and doubts were thrown out as to his orthodoxy. Every
Liberal bishop that was appointed was said to have been appointed through
Bunsen. Dr. Hampden was declared to have been his nominee,—the fact being
that Bunsen did not even know of him before he had been made a bishop. As
his practical Christianity could not well be questioned, he was accused of
holding heretical opinions, because his chronology differed from that of
Jewish Rabbis and Bishop Usher. It is extraordinary how little Bunsen
himself cared about these attacks, though they caused acute suffering to
his family. He was not surprised that he should be hated by those whose
theological opinions he considered unsound, and whose ecclesiastical
politics he had openly declared to be fraught with danger to the most
sacred interests of the Church. Besides, he was the personal friend of
such men as Arnold, Hare, Thirlwall, Maurice, Stanley, and Jowett. He had
even a kind word to say for Froude’s “Nemesis of Faith.” He could
sympathize, no doubt, with all that was good and honest, whether among the
High Church or Low Church party, and many of his personal friends belonged
to the one as well as to the other; but he could also thunder forth with
no uncertain sound against everything that seemed to him hypocritical,
pharisaical, unchristian. Thus he writes (II. p. 81):—
“I apprehend having given the ill-disposed a pretext for
considering me a semi-Pelagian, a contemner of the Sacraments, or
denier of the Son, a perverter of the doctrine of justification,
and therefore a crypto-Catholic theosophist, heretic, and
enthusiast, deserving of all condemnation. I have written it
because I felt compelled in conscience to do so.”