Thomas is, though modern, as good, I think, as the old ones. They
are making alterations in the quadrangle. Tait wants the schoolhouse
fellows to have single studies throughout, and is in consequence
building fresh studies over the cloister opposite the writing-school.
I am considerably inclined just now to set to work at Political
Economy, for the benefit of the rising generation, and to see if I
cannot prove the Apostle of anti-laissez-faire.
_To his Sister._
Patterdale: July 26, 1844.
I cannot say that I believe that the walk to the Orme’s Head, however
beautiful, was equal to what we have here; but then I am very fond of
lakes, and not very partial to the sea. There is no part of Wales equal
to this, except the immediate districts of Snowdon and Cader Idris, and
I am not sure that they are.
Yesterday we went to Helvellyn, meeting a party from Fox How,
Ambleside, and Grasmere at the top. I have been up three times before,
so that I had no objection to see the hills as they were yesterday,
namely, in a good deal of haze, and by no means distinct.
_To Rev. J. P. Gell._
Patterdale: July 31, 1844.
I came to Fox How about three weeks ago to meet Matt, and stayed one
day. Walrond joined us here after the first week; at the end of the
5th I depart, go home to see my father, who has just got home from
America, after a visit by the way, superinduced by south-easters, to
the vicinity of the Hebrides, and then I go to coach two pupils in
Yorkshire for a month or five weeks. The vacation then will be ‘welly’
(as they say here for ‘well-nigh’) run out, and I shall then presently
return to my tutorialities at Oxford.
Your request for a sermon cannot be acceded to. I am not, nor am likely
as yet, to be aught but a laic, and lay sermons I leave for Johnson and
Coleridge. You must, therefore, be content with such poor and scanty
_sermones repentes per humum_ as you get in my rare epistles. You shall
have one when I go into orders--oh, questionable when!
What, according to your experience, is the best division of the day in
this country? The question centres in that other momentous question,
‘What is the properest hour to eat?’ We began with--breakfast, 8; work,
9.30 to 2.30; bathe, dinner, walk, and tea, 2.30 to 9.30; work, 9.30 to
11. We now have revolutionised to the following constitution, as yet
hardly advanced beyond paper:--Breakfast, 8; work, 9.30 to 1.30; bathe,
dinner, 1.30 to 3; work, 3 to 6; walk, _ad infinitum_; tea, ditto.
M. has gone out fishing, when he ought properly to be working, it
being nearly four o’clock, and to-day proceeding in theory according
to Constitution No. 2: it has, however, come on to rain furiously; so
Walrond, who is working sedulously at Herodotus, and I, who am writing
to you, rejoice to think that he will get a good wetting.
_To the same._
Oriel: Nov. 25, 1844.
Your letter reached me just at the time of my father’s death. In
August, when I wrote, he was improving, and our alarm had ceased; but
he had a relapse not long after, and for a month before the end we were
in full expectation of such a result. He died on October 19, a few
hours after the arrival of my eldest brother from America.
Your letter was in answer to mine written exactly twelve months before,
when I was in doubt about subscription to the thirty-nine Articles.
It certainly was very curious getting an answer to feelings which
were of a year’s standing, especially as I had _pro tempore_ (perhaps
_tempori serviens_) laid them by almost completely; and indeed you know
already that I signed without demur, and have been working away in
the thoroughly terrestrial element of College tutorism, not to speak
of Mendicity Societies and the like. Nevertheless, I still consider
the old scruple to be a sort of St. Paul who ought not to be put off
by any, in however high place, to a more convenient season, or at any
rate ought to have a convenient season found him before long. And I
can’t profess myself one whit appeased by your burst of wonder and
opposition. So the sooner you come home the better, otherwise you
will perhaps hear of some very desperate step, though of becoming an
Independent minister I certainly have no present thought or desire.
My own justification to myself for doing as I am doing is, I fear,
one which would be as little approved of by you as my objections on
the other hand. However, it is simply that I can feel faith in what
is being carried on by my generation, and that I am content to be an
operative--to dress intellectual leather, cut it out to pattern, and
stitch it and cobble it into boots and shoes for the benefit of the
work which is being guided by wiser heads. But this almost cuts me
out of having any religion whatever; if I begin to think about God,
there arise a thousand questions, and whether the thirty-nine Articles
answer them at all, or whether I should not answer them in the most
diametrically opposite purport, is a matter of great doubt. If I am
to study the question, I have no right to put my name to the answers
beforehand, or to join in the acts of a body and be to practical
purpose one of a body who accept these answers of which I propose to
examine the validity.
I will _not_ assert that one has no _right_ to do this, but it seems
to me to destroy one’s sense of perfect freedom of inquiry in a great
degree; and I further incline to hold that inquiries are best carried
on by turning speculation into practice, and my speculations no
doubt in their earlier stages would result in practice considerably
at variance with thirty-nine-Article subscription. Much as I like,
fond as I am of Oxford, and much as I should hate the other element
undisguised, I verily believe that, as a preliminary stage, it would
be far better to be at Stinkomalee (the London University acknowledges
that agnomen, I believe). Amongst the irreligious, I should have
Abdielitish tendencies; here, what religion I have I cannot distinguish
from the amalgamations it is liable to, and I am, right or wrong, as
matter of fact, exceedingly averse to act on anything but what I have
got from myself, or have so distinctly appropriated as to allow my
original tenants as it were time and space to state and vindicate their
claim against the new comers.
Without in the least denying Christianity, I feel little that I can
call its power. Believing myself to be in my unconscious creed in some
shape or other an adherent to its doctrines, I keep within its pale;
still, whether the spirit of the age, whose lacquey and flunkey I
submit to be, will prove to be this kind or that kind, I can’t the
least say. Sometimes I have doubts whether it won’t turn out to be
no Christianity at all. Also, it is a more frequent question with me
whether the master whom I work under, and am content to work under, is
not carrying out his operations himself elsewhere, while I am, as it
were, obeying the directions of a bungling journeyman no better than
myself.
As the great Goethe published in his youth the ‘Sorrows of the Young
Werther,’ so may I, you see, the great poet that am to be, publish my
‘Lamentations of a Flunkey out of place.’ You, perhaps, will say the
lamentations are more out of place than the flunkey. And certainly
Flunkey hath no intention of giving notice to quit just at present,
nor of publishing lamentations at all. Thou, however, in thy wisdom,
consider the sad examples and perplexities that encounter said flunkey
amidst all the most flunkeyish occupations of his flunkeydom, and in
the hope that at this time next year he will still be engaged in these
same occupations, transmit to him advice and good counsel as to those
same scruples and perplexities. In the meantime he must dress and put
on his livery for dinner.
[_Exit Flunkey._
_To the same._
Liverpool: April 2, 1845.
Easter vacation should furnish forth a letter, more especially as I
anticipate a singularly busy Easter Term, since one of our three tutors
is to be examiner in the schools. First of all; you will be glad to
hear that Matt Arnold is elected Fellow of Oriel. This was done on
Friday last, March 28, just thirty years after his father’s election.
Mrs. Arnold is of course well pleased, as also the venerable poet at
Rydal, who had taken M. under his special protection. Mrs. Arnold
I saw at Fox How; she was looking remarkably well, though the party
seemed strangely small, all the boys being away.
The beauties of Parson’s Pleasure, where we were wont to bathe in
the early morning, have been diminished by the unsightly erection,
by filthy lucre-loving speculators, of a bathing-house, and I have
therefore deserted it. But a substitute is to be found.
If you do not come soon, I shall perhaps have fled from my tutorial
bower and committed something ἀνήκεστον.
_To ----_
August 17, 1845.
About the National Debt, I believe the ‘Prospective’ reviewer is wrong.
Arnold, according to the best authorities on such matters, is quite
right in regarding it as a grievous burden. I can’t see that it can
be otherwise, but people have fancied it rather a blessing than the
reverse. The article on Blanco White seems to be temperate enough;
with the Inquisition hanging over him, he could not be otherwise than
he was--he could not but fancy throughout his life that he was being
bullied into a sham belief. At the same time I believe there is a
vicious habit of poking into intellectual questions merely for the fun
of it, or the vanity of it, only not quite so common as people make
out. At any rate, taking it easy and acquiescing in anything is much
more common. Perhaps every clergyman is not called upon to fit himself
for cases like Blanco White’s. How could it be?
_To Rev. T. Burbidge._
Calder Park, Glasgow: August 31, 1845.
It is too hot to go out (72° in the shade), and in Scotland we are
too sabbatic to read anything but sermons. It remains therefore that
I retire to my room and do as I am doing. We returned yesterday from
our Highland expedition. We went by steamer up Loch Fyne, across the
Mull of Cantire in a canal boat, and again in a steamer among the
multitudinous isles, the skirts of the Hebrides, up the great fiord of
Loch Linnhe, which narrows gradually, and at the headland of Ardgower
is transmuted into the inland lake, a salt Winandermere, of Loch Eil,
at the head of which stands Fort William, where begins the Caledonian
Canal. This, our most northerly point, we attained on Monday. Tuesday
was devoted by the rest to _Ben_, by me to _Glen_-Nevis. The former
hid his head in a cloud--the latter arrayed his woody sides for me in
glorious light and shade (!!)
It is really the most beautiful glen I ever saw. I went seven miles
up, and was still far from the end. You first go up what appears a
sort of glorification of Grisedale; then a sudden turn at right angles
leads you into a sort of magnified Hartsop--the birch-wood and ashes
being here accompanied with the native Scotch fir. And at the bottom
all along rolls a stream of the clear water over rocks and stones of
porphyry, which give it a most glorious yellow-red colour.
In the evening we moved southward by land to Ballahulish, on Loch
Leven; thence the next morning by Glencoe, a magnificent pass into
a moorland country, wherein are the sources of some feeders of the
Tay, running eastward. We descended into the glen of Loch Tulla and
the Orchay, which leads off to Loch Awe; Loch Awe is very fine but
rather cold. Ben Cruachan, which rises above it, is a very fine peaked
mountain. We crossed over and reached Inverary for bed. On Thursday, we
passed through Glencroe, descended on the fine salt Loch Long, crossed
the four miles intervening, and found ourselves on Loch Lomond, six
or seven miles from its head. We went up it about three miles in a
steamer, to ‘the rough falls of Inversneyd,’ crossed a high moor of
five miles, and found ourselves at the head of Loch Katrine, rowed
twelve miles down, and were landed in the Trosachs. On Friday T. A.
and T. W. crossed the hills to Loch Ard, and I went up the lake, and
there took a pony and joined them in a roundabout way, passing a very
beautiful water called Loch Chon. I came back and slept at Inversneyd;
they remained and attended a highland-reel party in a shoemaker’s
hut at Loch Ard, and after staying up dancing and drinking milk and
whisky till half-past two, rose at half-past four, walked eleven miles
to a hasty breakfast with me, and then took steam down to the foot
of Loch Lomond, and so by Dumbarton we came home, dirty, and dusty,
and bankrupt. Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond are both like Ullswater;
the former less beautiful the latter, I think, more so. Both are less
cultivated; Loch Katrine quite wild, and the little landlocked lakelet
at its foot, cut off by the Lady’s Island and one or two promontories,
is exceedingly beautiful. The heather also is a great accession to the
Highlands. So endeth my story.
At present there are staying here young Walter Scott Lockhart, who
is just leaving Cambridge to join the army in his uncle Sir Walter’s
regiment; also his sister. Young Walter is thought a good deal like his
grandfather, but, though far from dull, he is anything but literary,
and is going out to join his uncle’s regiment in India, rather against
his father’s wish, as he is heir to Abbotsford and to Milton Lockhart,
where his father’s elder brother lives, and where they are now staying.
September 5.
On Wednesday morning we started for the Falls of Clyde. We breakfasted
at Milton Lockhart, lionised Craignethan Castle, the original of
Tillietudlem, returned to luncheon, and to songs from Miss Lockhart,
and after this went on to see Stonebyres, Cora Linn, and Bonnyton, the
three falls, which are all very fine--nothing _new_ in feature, but
remarkable for size. We slept at Lanark, and came back to breakfast
here.
The ‘Quarterly’ was at Milton Lockhart, and I had some conversation
with him; he spoke of the prevalence of infidelity, even among the
country folk of Scotland, saying that all the small farmers in that
neighbourhood were avowed unbelievers. He ascribed it greatly to Burns.
Chalmers, he said, was once in a factory at Glasgow, and began to talk
to some of the work-people in his way, when he was interrupted by an
old woman, who told him that he ‘needna go on; there are nae Christians
in this ward, Doctor.’
In Monday’s ‘Times’ appeared a letter written by Ward to the ‘Oxford
Herald,’ announcing his intention of leaving the English Church at
last; and implying the like on Newman’s part, that indeed being his
own ground for changing his opinion. His defence of his position in
the English Church had rested, he said, on the facts--1st. That the
said Church allowed Romanist teaching.--2nd. That Romanisers (like
Newman) found themselves feel continually better satisfied with the
resolution of remaining in the English communion. The late decision of
the Ecclesiastical Courts had, he said, destroyed the former ground,
and Newman’s change the latter.
_To the same._
Calder Park: September 11, 1845.
We went to Edinburgh on Tuesday; saw the Castle and Holyrood, including
Queen Mary’s apartments and Rizzio’s blood, the Calton Hill, and
Flaxman’s statue of Burns, which I admired much.
We went to dine and sleep at Houston, the house of Shairp, and
lionised the grounds of Hopetoun next day, which lie on the Forth, over
against Dunfermline gray, &c. &c. I liked the place very much; it is
a tall, perpendicular house, four storeys and attics; such peep-hole
windows in thick stone walls; all manner of useless little rooms on all
manner of unequally disposed levels; a stone staircase from bottom to
top. Wainscotted partition walls, and old folks by the dozen looking
down on you therefrom; among the rest, Archbishop Sharpe, who seems
to have been of the family, but is hardly acknowledged, as they are
now Presbyterians. And the second flower of Yarrow, really a beautiful
face, though in the picture rather faded, who lived at Houston with her
sister, who had married its owner. The garden, moreover, of flowers and
kitchenry without distinction, with high hedges of beech and yew, &c.,
running hither and thither about it, was very pleasant.
_To Rev. J. P. Gell._
Liverpool: September 21, 1845.
Is it news to you that Ward has at last gone over to Rome, wife and
all; is at this present moment at St. Mary’s College, Oscott, having
just received confirmation? Newman, it is said, will not go over
finally till Christmas, but his intention to do so is definitely
announced. It is thought that his immediate followers will not be many;
ten or twelve subordinates and Oakeley is large allowance. But a great
many will be rendered uneasy by his departure, and one may look out
for changes in one way or other: it will be ‘dropping weather’ in the
Romanising line for some time to come, I dare say. Newman’s Apologia,
entitled ‘Notes of the Church,’ is expected to appear soon. So also
the volumes of the reprint of Arnold’s Lives, in the ‘Encyclopædia
Metropolitana.’ The miscellaneous volume, including the Church Reform
and Catholic Emancipation pamphlets the Sheffield and Hertford letters
and other minora, has been out for a month. The Catholic Emancipation
I had never read till to-day; to-day I did so with great delight. My
last reading before that was (strong meat) the ‘Life of Blanco White’:
almost wholly from his own papers; a very striking production, which
has called out a review from Gladstone in the ‘Quarterly,’ and a more
powerful one by Mozley in the ‘Christian Remembrancer’ (Puseyitic
extreme). For me, almost it persuaded me to turn Unitarian, that is,
for the moment; and even now I feel no common attraction towards the
book and the party who have brought it out, viz. the high Unitarians,
such as Miss Martineau’s brother, a preacher here; Mr. Thom, his
colleague, the editor of book, &c., and others. They have a review,
the ‘Prospective,’ ‘Aspice, Respice, PROSPICE’ (sic) being the motto,
in each of the eight numbers of which Arnold’s volume, the Life, the
Fragment on the Church, and the last miscellaneous volume have received
an article; and in their particular section of the people they are, I
should think, doing a great deal of good.
I renewed my acquaintance at the Lakes this year with Hartley
Coleridge. The only thing worth recording from his lips is a saying
which he repeated as his father’s, that etymology is in danger of death
from a plethora of probabilities.
_To Rev. T. Burbidge._
Liverpool: September 23, 1845.
I have been reading ‘The Improvisatore,’ a Danish novel translated
by Mary Howitt. You know I hate Corinne. This is in the Corinne high
beauty-beatification style, Italy, art, and love à l’æsthétique; but
the thing is rendered truthful and sober in Dano-Gothic colouring. But
this kind of book makes me long for genuine live-and-act story, such as
the ‘Rose of Tistelön,’ which I recommend you.
Item.--I have bought a Cowley, rather a scrubby 18mo, but the first
edition after his death. I think Cowley has been Wordsworth’s model in
many of his rhythms, and some of his curious felicities.
I told you, perhaps, that I had some thoughts of laying down my toga
tutoria and going abroad for a year with a pupil; nor has the plan
evaporated wholly as yet.
Oxford: September 28.
I went to Rugby on my way. The school is in number 490. They have built
a new schoolroom at the back of the fives court, between the chapel and
the stables.
Jowett comes hither, having been Stanley’s companion in Germany. They
saw Schelling, who spoke to them of Coleridge with high praise, saying
that it was an utter shame to talk of his having plagiarised from him,
Schelling.
_To his Sister._
Oriel: October 1845.
What shall be done in the summer? Shall we go to Switzerland together,
see the Italian lakes and Milan, taking the Seine and Paris one way,
and the Rhine and Belgium the other? Alas! I fear there will be no
money to spare. Potatoes and all ‘bread-stuffs’ are like to be terribly
dear; and we shall have to live on butcher’s meat for lack of cheaper
food. Or have you laid in a stock of rice? Government, it seems, will
not open the ports for foreign corn: the free-traders are outvoted
in Privy Council, and for the present, at any rate, we must let our
neighbours buy for themselves without any interference of ours.
Moreover, I think it very likely I may give up this tutorship (quod
tamen tu tacere debes), and as private tutor I could not, without more
work than I should like, make the same sum per annum which I now
receive from the College.
_To Rev. T. Burbidge._
Oxford: October 19, 1845.
There is a good article (a portent) in the ‘Quarterly,’ pronounced to
be Milman’s, on the ‘Relation of Clergy to People,’ against priestcraft
and authority, and extolling marriage; it is really very well done.
There is also (a portentous portent) another article not at all to be
despised, on the ‘Moral Discipline of the Army,’ specially in regard of
Chaplains; in a postscript to which announcement is made that certain
improvements have just been ordered by Government, as for instance the
building of chapels for barracks.
The poet Faber, men say, will go, but the ultra-Puseyites in general
seem inclined not to take headers à la Ward, but to sneak in and duck
their heads till they are out of their depth.
Liddell, it appears, is standing for the Moral Philosophy chair. I hope
he will get it; he is a man who will work, and who will be listened to.
October 28.
I have, however, in the last three days found time to read ‘Jeanne,
par George Sand,’ the most cleanly French novel I ever read, and not
cleanly only, but pure. If I knew French well enough, and was not a
college tutor, I would translate it, and I believe it would take; for
one thing, the hero is an Englishman, and by no means a common, but a
very veritable hero.
31st.
Liddell, thank Heaven, is elected Professor of Moral Philosophy. The
election brought Vaughan up, and we had the pleasure of seeing him. He
is very agreeable, converses very well, and I wish sincerely he was up
here always.
November 1.
Potato-disease, and abolition of corn-laws--at any rate, immediate
opening of ports for foreign corn, which ports it may be found somewhat
hard to close again; panic in the railway market gradually dispelled
again, not unlikely howbeit to reappear; such is the news of the week.
Cobden sounds a note of triumph at Manchester, and dubs Hudson with the
title of ‘King of Spades,’ in joint allusion to his innumerable army
of navigators and his gifts at shuffling and card-tricks. O’Connell,
called upon by the Saxon press to do something more for his starving
countrymen than vapouring at the Conciliation Hall, comes out with a
10 per cent. tax on all landowners, and 50 per cent. on absentees.
London, meantime, fearless of lack of funds, proposes to adorn itself
with a grand verandah system--at least for all shopping streets. A very
desirable plan, I think. I have often wondered that the hint of Chester
rows had not been taken long ago.
_To his Sister._
Oriel: November 23, 1845.
Another convert is gone over to Rome--Faber, the poet, who used to
excite admiration when preaching some seven years ago at Ambleside; and
at Cambridge a flitting from the Camden is expected.
The Irish Colleges are to be, I believe, at Belfast, and certainly at
Cork and Galway. This last would be wholly Roman Catholic, I suppose,
otherwise I should like it, for the country near it is very beautiful.
There is a great lake, some forty miles long, Lough Corrib, the upper
part of which they say is like Wastwater.
Belfast would be chiefly Presbyterian; at any rate, Protestant. Cork is
to be under a Dr. Kane, a chemist and I fancy a very able and sensible
man. I think it possible I may some day find myself at one of these
places. I don’t much mind which. But they won’t be ready for two years,
I should think.
_To the same._
Rugby: December 23, 1845.
I hope you will forgive me. I am not coming home before Monday. It
appears that F. Newman (Newman’s brother) is coming here on Friday; and
I am very desirous to see him, and my hosts urge me to stay.
F. Newman, by-the-by, is the author of the paper in the ‘Prospective
Review,’ on Arnold’s Miscellaneous Works. I really think I ought not
to miss this opportunity of seeing him; so I trust you and mother will
forgive my truancy for once, though I fear that you will have but a
meagre Christmas party.
_To Rev. T. Burbidge._