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SIR JAMES FITZJAMES STEPHEN
[Illustration: _Walker & Boutalls Ph. Sc._
J F Stephen
_From a drawing by G. F. Watts. R. A. 1863._]
London. Published by Smith Elder & C^o. 15 Waterloo Place.
THE LIFE OF SIR JAMES FITZJAMES STEPHEN, BART., K.C.S.I.
A Judge of the High Court of Justice
by his brother
LESLIE STEPHEN
With Two Portraits
London
Smith, Elder, & Co., 15 Waterloo Place
1895
[All rights reserved]
PREFACE
In writing the following pages I have felt very strongly one
disqualification for my task. The life of my brother, Sir J. F. STEPHEN,
was chiefly devoted to work which requires some legal knowledge for its
full appreciation. I am no lawyer; and I should have considered this
fact to be a sufficient reason for silence, had it been essential to
give any adequate estimate of the labours in question. My purpose,
however, is a different one. I have wished to describe the man rather
than to give any history of what he did. What I have said of the value
of his performances must be taken as mainly a judgment at second hand.
But in writing of the man himself I have advantages which, from the
nature of the case, are not shared by others. For more than sixty years
he was my elder brother; and a brother in whose character and fortunes I
took the strongest interest from the earliest period at which I was
capable of reflection or observation. I think that brothers have
generally certain analogies of temperament, intellectual and moral,
which enable them, however widely they may differ in many respects, to
place themselves at each other's point of view, and to be so far
capable of that sympathetic appreciation which is essential to
satisfactory biography. I believe that this is true of my brother and
myself. Moreover, as we were brought up under the same roof, I have an
intimate knowledge--now, alas! almost peculiar to myself--of the little
home circle whose characteristics had a profound influence upon his
development. I have thought it desirable to give a fuller account of
those characteristics, and of their origin in previous circumstances,
than can well be given by any one but myself. This is partly because I
recognise the importance of the influence exerted upon him; and partly,
I will admit, for another reason. My brother took a great interest, and,
I may add, an interest not unmixed with pride, in our little family
history. I confess that I share his feelings, and think, at any rate,
that two or three of the persons of whom I have spoken deserve a fuller
notice than has as yet been made public. What I have said may, I hope,
serve as a small contribution to the history of one of the rivulets
which helped to compose the great current of national life in the
earlier part of this century.
I could not have attempted to write the life of my brother without the
approval and the help of my sister-in-law, Lady Stephen. She has
provided me with materials essential to the narrative, and has kindly
read what I have written. I am, of course, entirely responsible for
everything that is here said; and I feel the responsibility all the more
because I have had the advantage of her suggestions throughout. I have
also to thank my brother's children, who have been in various ways very
helpful. My nephews, in particular, have helped me in regard to various
legal matters. To my sister, Miss Stephen, I owe a debt of gratitude
which--for reasons which she will understand--I shall not attempt to
discharge by any full acknowledgment.
I have especially to thank Sir H. S. Cunningham and Lady Egerton, Lady
Stephen's brother and sister, for permitting me to read my brother's
letters to them, and for various suggestions. Some other correspondence
has been placed in my hands, and especially two important collections.
Lady Grant Duff has been good enough to show me a number of letters
written to her, and Lady Lytton has communicated letters written to the
late Lord Lytton. I have spoken of these letters in the text, and have
in the last chapter given my reasons for confining my use of them to
occasional extracts. They have been of material service.
I have acknowledged help received from other persons at the points where
it has been turned to account. I will, however, offer my best thanks to
them in this place, and assure them of my sincere gratitude. Mr. Arthur
Coleridge, the Rev. Dr. Kitchin, dean of Durham, the Rev. H. W. Watson,
rector of Berkeswell, Coventry, the Rev. J. Llewelyn Davies, vicar of
Kirkby Lonsdale, Prof. Sidgwick and Mr. Montagu S. D. Butler, of
Pembroke College, Cambridge, have given me information in regard to
early years. Mr. Franklin Lushington, Mr. Justice Wills, Lord Field, Mr.
Justice Vaughan Williams, Sir Francis Jeune, Sir Theodore Martin, the
Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, Mr. H. F. Dickens, and the late Captain
Parker Snow have given me information of various kinds as to the legal
career. Sir John Strachey, Sir Robert Egerton, and Sir H. S. Cunningham
have given me information as to the Indian career. Mr. George Murray
Smith, Mr. James Knowles, Mr. Frederick Greenwood, and Mr. Longman have
given me information as to various literary matters. I have also to
thank Mrs. Charles Simpson, Mr. F. W. Gibbs, Mrs. Russell Gurney, Mr.
Horace Smith, Sir F. Pollock, Prof. Maitland, Mr. Voysey, and Mr. A. H.
Millar, of Dundee, for help on various points.
LESLIE STEPHEN.
1 MAY, 1895.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
FAMILY HISTORY
PAGE
I. JAMES STEPHEN, WRITER ON IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT 1
II. JAMES STEPHEN, MASTER IN CHANCERY 8
III. MASTER STEPHEN'S CHILDREN 25
IV. THE VENNS 33
V. JAMES STEPHEN, COLONIAL UNDER-SECRETARY 41
CHAPTER II
EARLY LIFE
I. CHILDHOOD 66
II. ETON 77
III. KING'S COLLEGE 86
IV. CAMBRIDGE 91
V. READING FOR THE BAR 114
CHAPTER III
THE BAR AND JOURNALISM
I. INTRODUCTORY 131
II. FIRST YEARS AT THE BAR 136
III. THE 'SATURDAY REVIEW' 148
IV. EDUCATION COMMISSION AND RECORDERSHIP 165
V. PROGRESS AT THE BAR 173
VI. 'ESSAYS BY A BARRISTER' 177
VII. DEFENCE OF DR. WILLIAMS 184
VIII. 'VIEW OF THE CRIMINAL LAW' 203
IX. THE 'PALL MALL GAZETTE' 212
X. GOVERNOR EYRE 227
XI. INDIAN APPOINTMENT 231
CHAPTER IV
INDIA
I. PERSONAL HISTORY 237
II. OFFICIAL WORK IN INDIA 246
III. INDIAN IMPRESSIONS 282
IV. LAST MONTHS IN INDIA 291
CHAPTER V
LAST YEARS AT THE BAR
I. FIRST OCCUPATIONS IN ENGLAND 298
II. 'LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY' 306
III. DUNDEE ELECTION 340
IV. CODIFICATION IN ENGLAND 351
V. THE METAPHYSICAL SOCIETY 358
VI. THE CRIMINAL CODE 375
VII. ECCLESIASTICAL CASES 381
VIII. CORRESPONDENCE WITH LORD LYTTON 386
IX. APPOINTMENT TO A JUDGESHIP 401
NOTE ON RESIDENCE IN IRELAND 405
CHAPTER VI
JUDICIAL CAREER
I. HISTORY OF CRIMINAL LAW 410
II. 'NUNCOMAR AND IMPEY' 428
III. JUDICIAL CHARACTERISTICS 437
IV. MISCELLANEOUS OCCUPATIONS 450
V. JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN 468
VI. CONCLUSION 477
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 483
INDEX 487
* * * * *
_ILLUSTRATIONS_
PORTRAIT FROM A DRAWING BY G. F. WATTS, R.A., 1863 _Frontispiece_
" " PHOTOGRAPH BY BASSANO, 1886 _to face p. 410_
LIFE
OF
SIR JAMES FITZJAMES STEPHEN
CHAPTER I
_FAMILY HISTORY_
I. JAMES STEPHEN, WRITER ON IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT
During the first half of the eighteenth century a James Stephen, the
first of the family of whom I have any knowledge, was tenant of a small
farm in Aberdeenshire, on the borders of Buchan.[1] He was also engaged
in trade, and, though it is stated that smuggler would be too harsh a
name to apply to him, he had no insuperable objection to dealing in
contraband articles. He was considered to belong to the respectable
class, and gave his sons a good education. He had nine children by his
wife, Mary Brown. Seven of these were sons, and were said to be the
finest young men in the country. Alexander, the eldest, was in business
at Glasgow; he died when nearly seventy, after falling into distress.
William, the second son, studied medicine, and ultimately settled at St.
Christopher's, in the West Indies, where he was both a physician and a
planter. He probably began life as a 'surgeon to a Guineaman,' and he
afterwards made money by buying 'refuse' (that is, sickly) negroes from
slave ships, and, after curing them of their diseases, selling them at
an advanced price. He engaged in various speculations, and had made
money when he died in 1781, in his fiftieth year. His career, as will be
seen, was of great importance to his relations. The other sons all took
to trade, but all died before William. The two sisters, Mrs. Nuccoll and
Mrs. Calder, married respectably, and lived to a great age. They were
able to be of some service to nephews and nieces.
My story is chiefly concerned with the third son, James, born about
1733. After studying law for a short time at Aberdeen, he was sent
abroad, when eighteen years old, to Holland, and afterwards to France,
with a view to some mercantile business. He was six feet three inches in
height, and a man of great muscular power. Family traditions tell of his
being attacked by two footpads, and knocking their heads together till
they cried for mercy. Another legend asserts that when a friend offered
him a pony to carry him home after dinner, he made and won a bet that he
would carry the pony. In the year 1752 this young giant was sailing as
supercargo of a ship bound from Bordeaux to Scotland, with wine
destined, no doubt, to replenish the 'blessed bear of Bradwardine,' and
its like. The ship had neared the race of Portland, when a storm arose,
and she was driven upon the cliffs of Purbeck Island. James Stephen,
with four of the crew, escaped to the rocks, the rest being drowned.
Stephen roped his companions to himself, and scaled the rocks in the
dark, as Lovel, in the 'Antiquary,' leads the Wardours and Edie
Ochiltree up the crags of the Halket Head. Next day, the outcasts were
hospitably received by Mr. Milner, Collector of Customs at Poole.
Stephen had to remain for some time on the spot to look after the
salvage of the cargo. The drowned captain had left some valuable papers
in a chest. He appeared in a dream to Stephen, and gave information
which led to their recovery. The news that his ghost was on the look-out
had, it is said, a wholesome effect in deterring wreckers from
interference with the cargo.
Mr. Milner had six children, the youngest of whom, Sibella, was a lovely
girl of fifteen. She had a fine voice, and had received more than the
usual education of the times. She fell in love with the gallant young
stranger, and before long they were privately married. This event was
hastened by their desire to anticipate the passage of the Marriage Act
(June 1753), which was expected to make the consent of parents
necessary. The poor girl, however, yielded with much compunction, and
regarded the evils which afterwards befell her as providential
punishments for her neglect of filial duty.
James Stephen was a man of many prepossessing qualities, and soon became
reconciled to his wife's family. He was taken into partnership by one of
his brothers-in-law, a William Milner, then a merchant at Poole. Here
his two eldest children were born, William on October 27, 1756, and
James on June 30, 1758. Unfortunately the firm became bankrupt; and the
bankruptcy led to a lifelong quarrel between James Stephen and his elder
brother, William, who had taken some share in the business. James then
managed to start in business in London, and for some time was fairly
prosperous. Unluckily, while at Poole he had made a great impression
upon Sir John Webbe, a Roman Catholic baronet, who had large estates in
the neighbourhood. Sir John had taken up a grand scheme for developing
his property at Hamworthy, close to Poole. Stephen, it seems, had
discovered that there were not only brick earth and pipeclay but mineral
springs and coal under the barren soil. A town was to be built; a trade
started with London; Sir John's timber was to be turned into ships; a
colliery was to be opened--and, in short, a second Bristol was to arise
in Dorsetshire. Sir John was to supply the funds, and Stephen's energy
and ability marked him out as the heaven-sent manager. Stephen accepted
the proposals, gave up his London business, and set to work with energy.
Coal was found, it is said, 'though of too sulphureous a kind for use;'
but deeper diggings would, no doubt, lay bare a superior seam. After a
year or two, however, affairs began to look black; Sir John Webbe became
cool and then fell out with his manager; and the result was that, about
1769, James Stephen found himself confined for debt in the King's Bench
prison.[2]
Stephen, however, was not a man to submit without knowing the reason
why. He rubbed up his old legal knowledge, looked into the law-books,
and discovered that imprisonment for debt was contrary to Magna Charta.
This doctrine soon made converts in the King's Bench. Three of his
fellow prisoners enjoy such immortality as is conferred by admission to
biographical dictionaries. The best known was the crazy poet,
Christopher Smart, famous for having leased himself for ninety-nine
years to a bookseller, and for the fine 'Song of David,' which Browning
made the text of one of his later poems.[3] Another was William Jackson,
an Irish clergyman, afterwards known as a journalist on the popular
side, who was convicted of high treason at Dublin in 1795, and poisoned
himself in the dock.[4] A third was William Thompson, known as
'Blarney,' a painter, who had married a rich wife in 1767, but had
apparently spent her money by this time.[5] Mrs. Stephen condescended to
enliven the little society by her musical talents. The prisoners in
general welcomed Stephen as a champion of liberty. A writ of 'Habeas
Corpus' was obtained, and Stephen argued his case before Lord Mansfield.
The great lawyer was naturally less amenable to reason than the
prisoners. He was, however, impressed, it is reported, by the manliness
and energy of the applicant. 'It is a great pity,' he said, 'but the
prisoner must be remanded.' James Stephen's son, James, a boy of twelve,
was by his side in court, and a bystander slipped five shillings into
his hand; but the father had to go back to his prison. He stuck to his
point obstinately. He published a pamphlet, setting forth his case. He
wrote letters to the 'Public Advertiser,' to which Junius was then
contributing. He again appealed to the courts, and finally called a
meeting of his fellow prisoners. They resolved to break out in a body,
and march to Westminster, to remonstrate with the judges. Stephen seized
a turnkey, and took the keys by force; but, finding his followers
unruly, was wise enough to submit. He was sent with three others to the
'New Jail.' The prisoners in the King's Bench hereupon rose, and
attacked the wall with a pickaxe. Soldiers were called in, and the riot
finally suppressed.[6]
Stephen, in spite of these proceedings, was treated with great humanity
at the 'New Jail;' and apparently without much severity at the King's
Bench to which he presently returned. 'Blarney' Thompson painted his
portrait, and I possess an engraving with the inscription, 'Veritas a
quocunque dicitur a Deo est.' Not long ago a copy of this engraving was
given to my brother by a friend who had seen it in a shop and recognised
the very strong family likeness between James and his great-grandson,
James Fitzjames.
Stephen soon got out of prison. Sir John Webbe, at whose suit he had
been arrested, agreed to pay the debts, gave him 500_l._ and settled an
annuity of 40_l._ upon Mrs. Stephen. I hope that I may infer that Sir
John felt that his debtor had something to say for himself. The question
of making a living, however, became pressing. Stephen, on the strength,
I presume, of his legal studies, resolved to be called to the bar. He
entered at the Middle Temple; but had scarcely begun to keep his terms
when the authorities interfered. His letters to the papers and attacks
upon Lord Mansfield at the very time when Junius was at the height of
his power (I do not, I may observe, claim the authorship of the letters
for James Stephen) had, no doubt, made him a suspicious character. The
benchers accordingly informed him that they would not call him to the
bar, giving as their reasons his 'want of birth, want of fortune, want
of education, and want of temper.' His friend, William Jackson, hereupon
printed a letter,[7] addressing the benchers in the true Junius style.
He contrasts Stephen with his persecutors. Stephen might not know Law
Latin, but he had read Bracton and Glanville and Coke; he knew French
and had read Latin at Aberdeen; he had been educated, it was true, in
some 'paltry principles of honour and honesty,' while the benchers had
learnt 'more useful lessons;' he had written letters to Wilkes copied in
all the papers; he had read Locke, could 'harangue for hours upon social
feelings, friendship, and benevolence,' and would trudge miles to save a
family from prison, not considering that he was thereby robbing the
lawyers and jailors of their fees. The benchers, it seems, had sworn the
peace against him before Sir John Fielding, because he had made a
friendly call upon a member of the society. They mistook a card of
introduction for a challenge. Jackson signs himself 'with the
profoundest sense of your Masterships' demerits, your Masterships'
inflexible detestor,' and probably did not improve his friend's
position.
Stephen, thus rejected, entered the legal profession by a back door,
which, if not reputable, was not absolutely closed. He entered into a
kind of partnership with a solicitor who was the ostensible manager of
the business, and could be put forward when personal appearance was
necessary. Stephen's imposing looks and manner, his acquaintance with
commercial circles and his reputation as a victim of Mansfield brought
him a certain amount of business. He had, however, to undertake such
business as did not commend itself to the reputable members of the
profession. He had a hard struggle and was playing a losing game. He
became allied with unfortunate adventurers prosecuting obscure claims
against Government, which, even when admitted, did not repay the costs
incurred. He had to frequent taverns in order to meet his clients, and
took to smoking tobacco and possibly to other indulgences. His wife, who
was a delicate woman, was put to grievous shifts to make both ends meet.
Her health broke down, and she died at last on March 21, 1775. She had
brought him six children, of whom the eldest was nineteen and the
youngest still under four.[8] I shall speak directly of the two eldest.
Two daughters were taken in charge by their grandmother Stephen, who was
still living in Scotland; while the two little ones remained with their
father at Stoke Newington, where he now lived, ran about the common and
learnt to ride pigs. James Stephen himself lived four years more,
sinking into deeper difficulties; an execution was threatened during his
last illness, and he died in 1779, leaving hardly enough to pay his
debts.[9]
II. JAMES STEPHEN, MASTER IN CHANCERY
I have now to tell the story of the second son, James, my grandfather,
born in 1758. His education, as may be anticipated, was desultory. When
four or five years old, he was sent to a school at Vauxhall kept by
Peter Annet (1693-1769), the last of the Deists who (in 1763) was
imprisoned for a blasphemous libel. The elder Stephen was then living
at Lambeth, and the choice of a schoolmaster seems to show that his
opinions were of the free-thinking type. About 1767 the boy was sent to
a school near his mother's family at Poole. There at the early age of
ten he fell desperately in love with his schoolmaster's daughter, aged
fifteen, and was hurt by the levity with which his passion was treated.
At the same period he became a poet, composed hymns, and wrote an
epigram upon one of his father's creditors. He accompanied his father to
the King's Bench Prison, and there Christopher Smart and others petted
the lad, lent him books, and encouraged his literary aspirations. During
his father's later troubles he managed to keep up a subscription to a
circulating library and would read two volumes a day, chiefly plays and
novels, and, above all, the 'Grand Cyrus' and other old-fashioned
romances. His mother tried to direct him to such solid works as Rapin's
History, and he learnt her favourite Young's 'Night Thoughts' by heart.
He had no schooling after leaving Poole, until, about 1772, he was sent
to a day school on Kennington Green, kept by a cheesemonger who had
failed in business, and whose sole qualifications for teaching were a
clerical wig and a black coat. Here occurred events which profoundly
affected his career. A schoolfellow named Thomas Stent, son of a
stockbroker, became his warm friend. The parent Stents forbade the
intimacy with the son of a broken merchant. Young Stephen boldly called
upon Mrs. Stent to protest against the sentence. She took a liking to
the lad and invited him to her house, where the precocious youth fell
desperately in love with Anne Stent, his schoolfellow's sister, who was
four months his senior. The attachment was discovered and treated with
ridicule. The girl, however, returned the boy's affection and the
passion ran its course after the most approved fashion. The hero was
forbidden the house and the heroine confined to her room. There were
clandestine meetings and clandestine correspondence, in which the
schoolboy found the advantage of his studies in the 'Grand Cyrus.' At
last in 1773 the affair was broken off for the time by the despatch of
James Stephen to Winchester, where one of his Milner uncles boarded him
and sent him to the school. His want of preparation prevented him from
profiting by the teaching, and after the first half year his parents'
inability to pay the bills prevented him from returning. He wrote again
to Miss Stent, but received a cold reply, signifying her obedience to
parental authority. For the next two years he learnt nothing except from
his studies at the circulating library. His mother, sinking under her
burthens, did what she could to direct him, and he repaid her care by
the tenderest devotion. Upon her death he thought for a moment of
suicide. Things were looking black indeed. His elder brother William now
took a bold step. His uncle and godfather, William, who had quarrelled
with the family after the early bankruptcy at Poole, was understood to
be prospering at St. Christopher's. The younger William, who had been
employed in a mercantile office, managed to beg a passage to the West
Indies, and threw himself upon the uncle's protection. The uncle
received the boy kindly, promised to take him into partnership as a
physician, and sent him back by the same ship in order to obtain the
necessary medical training at Aberdeen. He returned just in time. James
had been thinking of volunteering under Washington, and had then
accepted the offer of a 'book-keeper's' place in Jamaica. He afterwards
discovered that a 'book-keeper' was an intermediate between the black
slave-driver and the white overseer, and was doomed to a miserable and
degrading life. It was now settled that he should go with William to
Aberdeen, and study law. He entered at Lincoln's Inn, and looked forward
to practising at St. Christopher's. The uncle refused to extend his
liberality to James; but a student could live at Aberdeen for 20_l._ a
year; the funds were somehow scraped together; and for the next two
sessions, 1775-76 and 1776-77, James was a student at the Marischal
College. The town, he says, was filthy and unwholesome; but his Scottish
cousins were cordial and hospitable, the professors were kindly; and
though his ignorance of Latin and inability even to read the Greek
alphabet were hindrances, he picked up a little mathematics and heard
the lectures of the great Dr. Beattie. His powers of talk and his
knowledge of London life atoned for his imperfect education. He saw
something of Aberdeen society; admired and danced with the daughters of
baillies, and was even tempted at times to forget his passion for Anne
Stent, who had sent a chilling answer to a final appeal.
In 1777, Stephen returned to London, and had to take part of his
father's dwindling business. He thus picked up some scraps of
professional knowledge. On the father's death, kind Scottish relations
took charge of the two youngest children, and his brother William soon
sailed for St. Christopher's. James was left alone. He appealed to the
uncle, George Milner, with whom he had lived at Winchester, and who,
having married a rich wife, was living in comfort at Comberton, near
Cambridge. The uncle promised to give him 50_l._ a year to enable him to
finish his legal education. He took lodgings on the strength of this
promise, and resolved to struggle on, though still giving an occasional
thought to Washington's army.
Isolation and want of money naturally turn the thoughts of an energetic
young man to marriage. James Stephen resolved once more to appeal to
Anne Stent. Her father's doors were closed to him; but after long
watching he managed to encounter her as she was walking. He declared his
unaltered passion, and she listened with apparent sympathy. She showed a
reserve, however, which was presently explained. In obedience to her
parents' wishes, she had promised to marry a young man who was on his
return from the colonies. The avowal led to a pathetic scene: Anne Stent
wept and fainted, and finally her feelings became so clear that the
couple pledged themselves to each other; and the young gentleman from
the colonies was rejected. Mr. Stent was indignant, and sent his
daughter to live elsewhere.
The young couple, however, were not forbidden to meet, and found an ally
in James Stephen's former schoolfellow, Thomas Stent. He was now a
midshipman in the royal navy; and he managed to arrange meetings between
his sister and her lover. Stent soon had to go to sea, but suggested an
ingenious arrangement for the future. A lovely girl, spoken of as Maria,
was known to both the Stents and passionately admired by the sailor. She
lived in a boarding-house, and Stent proposed that Stephen should lodge
in the same house, where he would be able both to see Anne Stent and to
plead his friend's cause with Maria. This judicious scheme led to
difficulties. When, after a time, Stephen began to speak to Maria on
behalf of Stent, the lady at last hinted that she had another
attachment, and, on further pressure, it appeared that the object of the
attachment was Stephen himself. He was not insensible, as he then
discovered, to Maria's charms. 'I have been told,' he says, 'that no man
can love two women at once; but I am confident that this is an error.'
The problem, however, remained as to the application of this principle
to practice. The first consequence was a breach with the old love. Miss
Stent and her lover were parted. Maria, however, was still under age,
and Stephen was under the erroneous impression that a marriage with her
would be illegal without the consent of her guardians, which was out of
the question. While things were in this state, Thomas Stent came back
from a cruise covered with glory. He hastened at once from Portsmouth to
his father, and persuaded the delighted old gentleman to restore his
daughter to her home and to receive James Stephen to the house as her
acknowledged suitor. He then sent news of his achievement to his friend;
and an interview became necessary, to which James Stephen repaired about
as cheerfully, he says, as he would have gone to Tyburn tree. He had to
confess that he had broken off the engagement to his friend's sister
because he had transferred his affections to his friend's mistress.
Stent must have been a magnanimous man. He replied, after reflection,
that the news would break his father's heart. The arrangement he had
made must be ostensibly carried out. Stephen must come to the elder
Stent's house and meet the daughter on apparently cordial terms. Young
Stent's friendship was at an end; but Stephen felt bound to adopt the
prescribed plan.
Meanwhile Stephen's finances were at a low ebb. His uncle, Milner, had
heard a false report, that the nephew had misrepresented the amount of
his father's debts. He declined to pay the promised allowance, and
Stephen felt the insult so bitterly that, after disproving the story, he
refused to take a penny from his uncle. He was once reduced to his last
sixpence, and was only kept afloat by accepting small loans, amounting
to about 5_l._, from an old clerk of his father's. At last, towards the
end of 1780 a chance offered. The 'fighting parson,' Bate, afterwards
Sir Henry Bate Dudley, then a part proprietor of the 'Morning Post,'
quarrelled with a fellow proprietor, Joseph Richardson, put a bullet
into his adversary's shoulder and set up a rival paper, the 'Morning
Herald.' A vacancy was thus created in the 'Morning Post,' and
Richardson gave the place to Stephen, with a salary of two guineas a
week. Stephen had to report debates on the old system, when paper and
pen were still forbidden in the gallery. At the trial of Lord George
Gordon (February 5 and 6, 1781) he had to be in Westminster Hall at four
in the morning; and to stand wedged in the crowd till an early hour the
next morning,[10] when the verdict was delivered. He had then to write
his report while the press was at work. The reporters were employed at
other times upon miscellaneous articles; and Stephen acquired some
knowledge of journalism and of the queer world in which journalists then
lived. They were a rough set of Bohemians, drinking, quarrelling, and
duelling, and indulging in coarse amusements. Fortunately Stephen's
attendance upon the two ladies, for he still saw something of both, kept
him from joining in some of his fellows' amusements.
In 1781 there came a prospect of relief. The uncle in St. Christopher's
died and left all his property to his nephew William. William at once
sent home supplies, which enabled his brother James to give up
reporting, to be called to the bar (January 26, 1782) and in the next
year to sail to St. Christopher's. His love affair had unravelled
itself. He had been suspended between the two ladies, and only able to
decide that if either of them married he was bound to marry the other.
Miss Stent seems to have been the superior of Maria in intellect and
accomplishments, though inferior in beauty. She undoubtedly showed
remarkable forbearance and good feeling. Ultimately she married James
Stephen before he sailed for the West Indies. Maria not long afterwards
married someone else, and, to the best of my belief, lived happily ever
afterwards.
My grandfather's autobiography, written about forty years later, comes
to an end at this point. It is a curious document, full of the strong
religious sentiment by which he came to be distinguished; tracing the
finger of Providence in all that happened to him, even in the good
results brought out of actions for which he expresses contrition; and
yet with an obvious pleasure in recalling the vivid impressions of his
early and vigorous youth. I omit parts of what is at times a confession
of error. This much I think it only right to say. Although he was guilty
of some lapses from strict morality, for which he expresses sincere
regret, it is also true that, in spite of his surroundings and the
temptations to which a very young man thrown upon the London world of
those days was exposed, he not only showed remarkable energy and
independence and a strong sense of honour, but was to all appearance
entirely free from degrading vices. His mother's influence seems to have
impressed upon him a relatively high standard of morality, though he was
a man of impetuous and ardent character, turned loose in anything but a
pure moral atmosphere.
James Stephen had at this time democratic tendencies. He had sympathised
with the rebellious colonists, and he had once covered himself with
glory by a speech against slavery delivered in Coachmakers' Hall in
presence of Maria and Miss Stent. He had then got up the subject for the
occasion. He was now to make practical acquaintance with it. His ship
touched at Barbadoes in December 1783; and out of curiosity he attended
a trial for murder. Four squalid negroes, their hands tied by cords,
were placed at the bar. A planter had been found dead with injuries to
his head. A negro girl swore that she had seen them inflicted by the
four prisoners. There was no jury, and the witnesses were warned in 'the
most alarming terms' to conceal nothing that made against the accused.
Stephen, disgusted by the whole scene, was glad to leave the court. He
learnt afterwards that the prisoners were convicted upon the unsupported
evidence of the girl. The owner of two of them afterwards proved an
_alibi_ conclusively, and they were pardoned; but the other two,
convicted on precisely the same evidence, were burnt alive.[11] Stephen
resolved never to have any connection with slavery. During his stay at
St. Christopher's he had free servants, or, if he hired slaves, obtained
their manumission. No one who had served him long remained in slavery,
except one man, who was so good and faithful a servant that his owner
refused to take even the full value when offered by his employer.[12]
Other facts strengthened his hatred of the system. In 1786 he was
engaged in prosecuting a planter for gross cruelty to two little negroes
of 6 and 7 years of age. After long proceedings, the planter was fined
40_s._
A lawyer's practice at St. Christopher's was supposed to be profitable.
The sugar colonies were flourishing; and Nelson, then captain of the
'Boreas,' was giving proof of his character, and making work for the
lawyers by enforcing the provisions of the Navigation Act upon
recalcitrant American traders and their customers.
Stephen earned enough to be able to visit England in the winter of
1788-9. There he sought the acquaintance of Wilberforce, who was
beginning his crusade against the slave trade. Information from a shrewd
observer on the spot was, of course, of great value; and, although
prudence forbade a public advocacy of the cause, Stephen supplied
Wilberforce with facts and continued to correspond with him after
returning to St. Christopher's. The outbreak of the great war brought
business. During 1793-4 the harbour of St. Christopher's was crowded
with American prizes, and Stephen was employed to defend most of them in
the courts. His health suffered from the climate, and he now saved
enough to return to England at the end of 1794. He then obtained
employment in the Prize Appeal Court of the Privy Council, generally
known as the 'Cockpit.' He divided the leading business with Dallas
until his appointment to a Mastership in Chancery in 1811.
Stephen was now able to avow his anti-slavery principles and soon became
one of Wilberforce's most trusted supporters. He was probably second
only to Zachary Macaulay, who had also practical experience of the
system. Stephen's wife died soon after his return, and was buried at
Stoke Newington on December 10, 1796. He was thrown for a time into the
deepest dejection. Wilberforce forced himself upon his solitude, and
with the consolations of so dear a friend his spirits recovered their
elasticity. Four years later the friendship was drawn still closer by
Stephen's marriage to the only surviving sister of Wilberforce, widow of
the Rev. Dr. Clarke, of Hull. She was a rather eccentric but very
vigorous woman. She spent all her income, some 300_l._ or 400_l._ a
year, on charity, reserving 10_l._ for her clothes. She was often to be
seen parading Clapham in rags and tatters. Thomas Gisborne, a light of
the sect, once tore her skirt from top to bottom at his house, Yoxall
Lodge, saying 'Now, Mrs. Stephen, you _must_ buy a new dress.' She
calmly stitched it together and appeared in it next day. She made her
stepchildren read Butler's 'Analogy' before they were seven.[13] But in
spite of her oddities and severities, she seems to have been both
respected and beloved by her nearest relations.
The marriage probably marked Stephen's final adhesion to the Evangelical
party. He maintained till his death the closest and most affectionate
alliance with his brother-in-law Wilberforce. The nature of their
relations may be inferred from Wilberforce's 'Life and Letters.'
Wilberforce owed much of his influence to the singular sweetness of his
disposition and the urbanity of his manners. His wide sympathies
interested him in many causes, and even his antagonists were not
enemies. Stephen, on the other hand, as Mr. Henry Adams says, was a
'high-minded fanatic.' To be interested in any but the great cause was
to rouse his suspicions. 'If you,' he once wrote to Wilberforce, 'were
Wellington, and I were Massena, I should beat you by distracting your
attention from the main point.' Any courtesies shown by Wilberforce to
his opponents or to his old friend Pitt seemed to his ardent coadjutor
to be concessions to the evil principle. The Continental war, he held,
was a Divine punishment inflicted upon England for maintaining the slave
trade; and he expounded this doctrine in various pamphlets, the first of
which, 'The Crisis of the Sugar Colonies,' appeared in 1802.
Yet Stephen owes a small niche in history to another cause, upon which
he bestowed no little energy. His professional practice had made him
familiar with the course of the neutral trade. In October 1805, almost
on the day of the battle of Trafalgar, he published a pamphlet called
'War in Disguise.' The point of this, put very briefly, was to denounce
a practice by which our operations against France and Spain were
impeded. American ships, or ships protected by a fraudulent use of the
American flag, sailed from the hostile colonies, ostensibly for an
American port, and then made a nominally distinct but really continuous
voyage to Europe. Thus the mother countries were still able to draw
supplies from the colonies. The remedy suggested in Stephen's pamphlet
was to revive the claims made by England in the Seven Years' War which
entitled us to suppress the trade altogether. The policy thus suggested
was soon embodied in various Orders in Council. The first was made on
January 7, 1807, by the Whig Government before they left office and a
more stringent order followed in November. The last was drawn by
Perceval, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. Perceval was a friend of
Wilberforce and sympathised both with his religious views and his hatred
of the slave trade. He soon became intimate with Stephen, to whose
influence the Orders in Council were generally attributed. Brougham, the
chief opponent of the policy, calls 'War in Disguise' 'brilliant and
captivating,' and says that its statement of facts was undeniable. I
cannot say that I have found it amusing, but it is written with vigour
and impressive earnestness. Brougham calls Stephen the 'father of the
system'; and, whether the system were right or wrong, it had undoubtedly
a great influence upon the course of events. I fear that my grandfather
was thus partly responsible for the unfortunate war with the United
States; but he clearly meant well. In any case, it was natural that
Perceval should desire to make use of his supporter's talents. He found
a seat in Parliament for his friend. Stephen was elected member for
Tralee on Feb. 25, 1808, and in the Parliament which met in 1812 was
returned for East Grimstead.
Stephen thus entered Parliament as an advocate of the Government policy.
His revolutionary tendencies had long vanished. He delivered a speech
upon the Orders in Council on May 6, 1809, which was reprinted as a
pamphlet.[14] He defended the same cause against the agitation led by
Brougham in 1812. A Committee of the whole House was granted, and
Stephen was cross-examining one of Brougham's witnesses (May 11, 1812),
when a shot was heard in the lobby, and Perceval was found to have been
murdered by Bellingham. Stephen had just before been in Perceval's
company, and it was thought, probably enough, that he would have been an
equally welcome victim to the maniac. He was made ill by the shock, but
visited the wretched criminal to pray for his salvation.
Stephen, according to Brougham, showed abilities in Parliament which
might have given him a leading position as a debater. His defective
education, his want of tact, and his fiery temper, prevented him from
rising to a conspicuous position. His position as holding a Government
seat in order to advocate a particular measure, and the fact that
politics in general were to him subsidiary to the one great end of
abolishing slavery, would also be against him. Two incidents of his
career are characteristic. The benchers of Lincoln's Inn had passed a
resolution--'after dinner' it was said by way of apology--that no one
should be called to the bar who had written for hire in a newspaper. A
petition was presented to the House of Commons upon which Stephen made
an effective speech (March 23, 1810). He put the case of a young man
struggling against difficulties to obtain admission to a legal career
and convicted of having supported himself for a time by reporting. Then
he informed the House that this was no imaginary picture, but the case
of 'the humble individual who now addresses you.' Immense applause
followed; Croker and Sheridan expressed equal enthusiasm for Stephen's
manly avowal, and the benchers' representatives hastened to promise that
the obnoxious rule should be withdrawn. When the allied sovereigns
visited London in 1814 another characteristic incident occurred. They
were to see all the sights: the King of Prussia and Field-Marshal
Bluecher were to be edified by hearing a debate; and the question arose
how to make a debate conducted in so august a presence anything but a
formality. 'Get Whitbread to speak,' suggested someone, 'and Stephen
will be sure to fly at him.' The plan succeeded admirably. Whitbread
asked for information about the proposed marriage of the Princess
Charlotte to the Prince of Orange. Stephen instantly sprang up and
rebuked the inquirer. Whitbread complained of the epithet 'indecent'
used by his opponent. The Speaker intervened and had to explain that the
epithet was applied to Mr. Whitbread's proposition and not to Mr.
Whitbread himself. Stephen, thus sanctioned, took care to repeat the
phrase; plenty of fire was introduced into the debate, and Field-Marshal
Bluecher had the pleasure of seeing a parliamentary battle.[15]
Whitbread was obnoxious to Stephen as a radical and as an opponent of
the Orders in Council. Upon another question Stephen was still more
sensitive. When the topic of slavery is introduced, the reporters
describe him as under obvious agitation, and even mark a sentence with
inverted commas to show that they are giving his actual words. The
slave-trade had been abolished before he entered Parliament; but
Government was occasionally charged with slackness in adopting some of
the measures necessary to carry out the law, and their supporters were
accused of preserving 'a guilty silence.' Such charges stung Stephen to
the quick. 'I would rather,' he exclaimed (June 15, 1810), 'be on
friendly terms with a man who had strangled my infant son than support
an administration guilty of slackness in suppressing the slave trade.'
'If Lord Castlereagh does not keep to his pledges,' he exclaimed (June
29, 1814, when Romilly spoke of the 'guilty silence'), 'may my God not
spare me, if I spare the noble lord and his colleagues!' The Government
declined to take up a measure for the registration of slaves which
Stephen had prepared, and which was thought to be necessary to prevent
evasions of the law. Thereupon he resigned, in spite of all entreaties,
accepting the Chiltern Hundreds, April 14, 1815.
Brougham warmly praises his independence, and wishes that those who had
spoken slightingly of his eloquence would take to heart his example.
Stephen had in 1811 been rewarded for his support of the Orders in
Council by a Mastership in Chancery. Romilly observes that the
appointment was questionable, because Stephen, though he was fully
qualified by his abilities, was not sufficiently versed in the law. His
friends said that it was no more than a fair compensation for the
diminution of the prize business which resulted from the new
regulations. He held the office till 1831, when failing health caused
his retirement. He lived for many years at Kensington Gore on the site
of the present Lowther Lodge; and there from 1809 to 1821 Wilberforce
was his neighbour. His second wife, Wilberforce's sister, died in
October 1816. After leaving Parliament, he continued his active crusade
against slavery. He published, it is said, four pamphlets in 1815; and
in 1824 brought out the first volume of his 'Slavery of the British West
India Colonies delineated.' This is an elaborate digest of the slave
laws; and it was followed in 1830 by a second volume describing the
actual working of the system. From about 1819 Stephen had a small
country house at Missenden, Bucks.[16] Here he was occasionally visited
by his brother-in-law, and a terrace upon which they used to stroll is
still known as 'Wilberforce's Walk.' Stephen had a keen love of country
scenery and had inherited from his father a love of long daily walks. I
record from tradition one story of his prowess. In the early morning of
his seventieth birthday, it is said, he left Missenden on foot, walked
twenty-five miles to Hampstead, where he breakfasted with a son-in-law,
thence walked to his office in London, and, after doing his day's work,
walked out to Kensington Gore in the evening. It was a good performance,
and I hope not injurious to his health, nor can I accept the suggestion
that the old gentleman may have taken a lift in a pony carriage by which
he used to be followed in his walks. He certainly retained his vigour,
although he had suffered from some serious illnesses. He was attacked by
yellow fever in the West Indies, when his brother William and another
doctor implored him to let them bleed him. On his obstinate refusal,
they turned their backs in consultation, when he suddenly produced a
bottle of port from under his pillow and took it off in two draughts.
Next day he left his bed and defended a disregard of professional advice
which had been suggested by previous observations. He became a staunch
believer in the virtues of port, and though he never exceeded a modest
half-bottle, drank it steadily till the last. He was, I am told, and a
portrait confirms the impression, a very handsome old man with a
beautiful complexion, masses of white hair, and a keen thoughtful face.
He died at Bath, October 10, 1832. He was buried at Stoke Newington by
the side of his mother. There Wilberforce had promised to be buried
by his friend; but for him Westminster Abbey was a fitter
resting-place.[17]
The Master and his elder brother had retrieved the fortunes of the
family. William returned to England, and died about 1807. He left a
family by his wife, Mary Forbes, and his daughter Mary became the wife
of Archdeacon Hodson and the mother of Hodson of 'Hodson's Horse.' The
Master's younger brother, John, also emigrated to St. Christopher's,
practised at the bar, and ultimately became Judge of the Supreme Court
of New South Wales in 1825. He died at Sydney in 1834. John's fourth
son, Alfred, born at St. Christopher's, August 20, 1802, was called to
the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1823, became in 1825 Solicitor-General of
Tasmania, in 1839 judge, and in 1843 Chief Justice, of New South Wales.
He retired in 1873, and was for a time Lieutenant-Governor of the
Colony. He received many honours, including the Grand Cross of the Order
of St. Michael and St. George, and a seat in the Privy Council; and,
from all that I have heard, I believe that he fully deserved them. He
took an important part in consolidating the criminal law of the
colonies, and near the end of his long career (at the age of 89) became
conspicuous in advocating a change in the law of divorce. The hardships
suffered by women who had been deserted by bad husbands had excited his
sympathy, and in spite of much opposition he succeeded in obtaining a
measure for relief in such cases. Sir Alfred died on October 15, 1894.
He was twice married, and had five sons and four daughters by one
marriage and four sons and five daughters by the other. One of his sons
is a judge in the colony, and I believe that at the period of his death
he had considerably more than a hundred living descendants in three
generations. He was regarded with universal respect and affection as a
colonial patriarch, and I hope that his memory may long be preserved and
his descendants flourish in the growing world of Australia. To the very
end of his life, Sir Alfred maintained his affectionate relations with
his English relatives, and kept up a correspondence which showed that
his intellectual vigour was unabated almost to the last.
III. MASTER STEPHEN'S CHILDREN
I have now to speak of the generation which preceded my own, of persons
who were well known to me, and who were the most important figures in
the little world in which my brother and I passed our infancy. James
Stephen, the Master, was survived by six children, of whom my father was
the third. I will first say a few words of his brothers and sisters. The
eldest son, William, became a quiet country clergyman. He was vicar of
Bledlow, Bucks (for nearly sixty years), and of Great Stagsden, Beds,
married a Miss Grace, but left no children, and died January 8, 1867. I
remember him only as a mild old gentleman with a taste for punning, who
came up to London to see the Great Exhibition of 1851, and then for the
first time had also the pleasure of seeing a steamboat. Steamboats are
rare in the Buckinghamshire hills, among which he had vegetated ever
since their invention.
Henry John, the second son, born January 18, 1787, was at the Chancery
bar. He married his cousin, Mary Morison, and from 1815 till 1832 he
lived with his father at Kensington Gore. A nervous and retiring temper
prevented him from achieving any great professional success, but he was
one of the most distinguished writers of his time upon legal subjects.
His first book, 'Treatise on the Principles of Pleading in Civil
Actions,' originally published in 1824, has gone through many editions
both in England and America. Chancellor Kent, as Allibone's dictionary
informs me, calls it 'the best book that ever was written in explanation
of the science,' and many competent authorities have assured me that it
possesses the highest merits as a logical composition, although the law
of which it treats has become obsolete. The reputation acquired by this
book led to his appointment to a seat in the Common Law Commission
formed in 1828; and in the same year he became serjeant-at-law. His
brother commissioners became judges, but his only promotion was to a
commissionership of bankruptcy at Bristol in 1842.[18] In 1834 he
published a 'Summary of the Criminal Law,' which was translated into
German. His edition of Blackstone's Commentaries first appeared in 1841.
It contained from the first so much of his own work as to be almost an
independent performance. In later editions he introduced further changes
to adapt it to later legislation, and it is still a standard book.
He lived after the Bristol appointment at Cleevewood in the parish of
Mangotsfield. He retired in February 1854, and lived afterwards in
Clifton till his death on November 28, 1864. I remember him as a gentle
and courteous old man, very shy, and, in his later years, never leaving
his house, and amusing himself with speculating upon music and the
prophecies. He inherited apparently the nervous temperament of his
family with less than their usual dash of the choleric.[19] My uncle,
Sir George, declares that the serjeant was appointed to a judgeship by
Lord Lyndhurst, but immediately resigned, on the ground that he felt
that he could never bear to pass a capital sentence.[20] I record the
anecdote, not as true (I have reasons for thinking it erroneous), but as
indicating the impression made by his character.
The fourth brother, George, born about 1794, was a man of very different
type. In him appeared some of the characteristics of his irascible and
impetuous grandfather. His nature was of coarser fibre than that of his
sensitive and nervous brothers. He was educated at Magdalene College,
Cambridge; and was afterwards placed in the office of the Freshfields,
the eminent firm of solicitors. He had, I have been told, an offer of a
partnership in the firm, but preferred to set up for himself. He was
employed in the rather unsavoury duty of procuring evidence as to the
conduct of Queen Caroline upon the Continent. In 1826 he undertook an
inquiry ordered by the House of Commons in consequence of complaints as
to the existence of a slave trade in Mauritius. He became acquainted
with gross abuses, and resolved thereupon to take up the cause with
which his family was so closely connected. He introduced himself to
O'Connell in order to learn some of the secrets of the great art of
agitation. Fortified by O'Connell's instructions, he proceeded to
organise the 'celebrated Agency Committee.' This committee, headed by
Zachary Macaulay, got up meetings and petitions throughout the country,
and supported Buxton in the final assault upon slavery. For his services
in the cause, George Stephen was knighted in 1838. He showed a versatile
ability by very miscellaneous excursions into literature. He wrote in
1837 'Adventures of a Gentleman in search of a Horse,' which became
popular, and proved that, besides understanding the laws relating to the
subject, he was the only one, as I believe, of his family who could
clearly distinguish a horse from a cow. A very clever but less judicious
work was the 'Adventures of an Attorney in search of Practice,' first
published in 1839, which gave or was supposed to give indiscreet
revelations as to some of his clients. Besides legal pamphlets, he
proved his sound Evangelicalism by a novel called 'The Jesuit at
Cambridge' (1847), intended to unveil the diabolical machinations of the
Catholic Church. An unfortunate catastrophe ruined his prospects. He had
founded a society for the purchase of reversions and acted as its
solicitor. It flourished for some years, till misunderstandings arose,
and Sir George had to retire, besides losing much more than he could
afford. He then gave up the profession which he had always disliked, was
called to the bar in 1849 and practised for some years at Liverpool,
especially in bankruptcy business. At last he found it necessary to
emigrate and settled at Melbourne in 1855. He found the colonists at
least as perverse as the inhabitants of his native country. He wrote a
'Life of Christ' (not after the plan of Renan) intended to teach them a
little Christianity, and a (so-called) life of his father, which is in
the main an exposition of his own services and the ingratitude of
mankind. The state of Australian society seemed to him to justify his
worst forebodings; and he held that the world in general was in a very
bad way. It had not treated him too kindly; but I fear that the
complaints were not all on one side. He was, I suppose, one of those
very able men who have the unfortunate quality of converting any
combination into which they enter into an explosive compound. He died at
Melbourne, June 20, 1879.[21]
The Master's two daughters were Sibella, born 1792, and Anne Mary, whose
birth caused the death of her mother in December 1796. Sibella married
W. A. Garratt, who was second wrangler and first Smith's prizeman in
1804. He was a successful barrister and a man of high character, though
of diminutive stature. 'Mr. Garratt,' a judge is reported to have said
to him, 'when you are addressing the court you should stand up.' 'I am
standing up, my lord.' 'Then, Mr. Garratt, you should stand upon the
bench.' 'I am standing upon the bench, my lord.' He had been
disinherited by his father, I have heard, for preferring a liberal
profession to trade, but upon his father's death his brothers made over
to him the share which ought to have been left to him. He was for many
years on the Committee of the Church Missionary Society, and wrote in
defence of Evangelical principles.[22]
His houses at Hampstead and afterwards at Brighton were among our
youthful resorts; and my aunt remains in my memory as a gentle, kindly
old lady, much afflicted by deafness. Mr. Garratt died in 1858, aged 77,
and his wife at the same age on February 7, 1869.
Anne Mary, my other aunt, married Thomas Edward Dicey. He was a
schoolfellow and college friend of my father. I may observe, for the
sake of Cambridge readers, that, after passing his first year of
university life at Oxford, he came to Cambridge ignorant of mathematics
and in delicate health, which prevented him from reading hard. In spite
of this, he was senior wrangler in 1811--a feat which would now be
impossible for a Newton. He was the calmest and gentlest of human
beings, and to his calmness was attributable the fact that he lived till
1858, although when he was twenty the offices refused to insure his life
for a year on any terms. Those who knew him best regarded him as a man
of singular wisdom and refinement. He lived, till he came to London for
the later education of his boys, in a small country house at Claybrook,
near Lutterworth, and was proprietor of the 'Northampton Mercury,' one
of the oldest papers in England, founded, I believe, by his grandfather.
This Claybrook house was the scene of some of our happiest childish
days. My aunt was a most devoted mother of four sons, whose early
education she conducted in great part herself. In later years she lived
in London, and was the most delightful of hostesses. Her conversation
proved her to possess a full share of the family talents, and although,
like her sister, she suffered from deafness, a talk with her was, to my
mind at least, as great a treat as a talk with the most famous
performers in the social art. After her husband's death, she was
watched by her youngest son, Frank, who had become an artist, with a
tender affection such as is more frequently exhibited by a daughter to
an infirm father. She died on October 28, 1878, and has been followed by
two of her sons, Henry and Frank. The two surviving sons, Edward and
Albert Venn Dicey, Vinerian professor of Law at Oxford, are both well
known in the literary and political world.
I must now tell so much as I know, and is relevant to my purpose, of my
father's life. James Stephen, fourth at least of the name, and third son
of the Master, was born January 3, 1789, at Lambeth, during his father's
visit to England. He had an attack of small-pox during his infancy,
which left a permanent weakness of eyesight. The Master's experience had
not taught him the evils of desultory education. James, the younger,
was, I believe, under various schoolmasters, of whom I can only mention
John Prior Estlin, of St. Michael's Hill, Bristol, a Unitarian, and the
Rev. H. Jowett, of Little Dunham, Norfolk, who was one of the adherents
to Evangelicalism. The change probably marks the development of his
father's convictions. He entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 1806. At
that time the great Evangelical leader at Cambridge was Isaac Milner,
the President of Queens' College. Milner's chief followers were William
Farish, of Magdalene, and Joseph Jowett, of Trinity Hall, both of them
professors. Farish, as I have said, married my grandfather's sister, and
the colleges were probably selected for my father and his brother George
with a view to the influence of these representatives of the true faith.
The 'three or four years during which I lived on the banks of the Cam,'
said my father afterwards,[23] 'were passed in a very pleasant, though
not a very cheap, hotel. But had they been passed at the Clarendon, in
Bond Street, I do not think that the exchange would have deprived me of
any aids for intellectual discipline or for acquiring literary and
scientific knowledge.' That he was not quite idle I infer from a copy of
Brotier's 'Tacitus' in my possession with an inscription testifying that
it was given to him as a college prize. He took no university honours,
took the degree of LL.B. in 1812, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's
Inn November 11, 1811. His father had just become Master in Chancery,
and was able to transfer some of his clients to the son. James the
younger thus gained some experience in colonial matters, and 'employed
himself in preparing a digest of the colonial laws in general.'[24] He
obtained leave from the third Earl Bathurst, then and for many years
afterwards the head of the Colonial Department, to examine the official
records for this purpose. In 1813 Lord Bathurst, who was in general
sympathy with the opinions of the Clapham sect, appointed James Stephen
Counsel to the Colonial Department. His duties were to report upon all
acts of colonial legislature. He received a fee of three guineas for
each act, and the office at first produced about 300_l._ a year. After a
time the post became more laborious. He was receiving 1,000_l._ a year
some ten years after his appointment, with, of course, a corresponding
increase of work.[25] The place was, however, compatible with the
pursuit of the profession, and my father in a few years was making
3,000_l._ a year, and was in a position which gave him as fair a
prospect of obtaining professional honours as was enjoyed by any man of
his standing. The earliest notice which I have found of him from an
outsider is a passage in Crabb Robinson's diaries.[26] Robinson met him
on July 10, 1811, and describes him as a 'pious sentimentalist and
moralist,' who spoke of his prospects 'with more indifference than was
perhaps right in a layman.' The notice is oddly characteristic. From
1814 my father was for nine years a member of the committee of the
Church Missionary Society, after which time his occupations made
attendance impossible. I have already indicated the family connection
with the Clapham sect, and my father's connection was now to be drawn
still closer. On December 22, 1814, he married Jane Catherine Venn,
second daughter of the Rev. John Venn, of Clapham.
IV. THE VENNS
My brother was of opinion that he inherited a greater share of the Venn
than of the Stephen characteristics. I certainly seem to trace in him a
marked infusion of the sturdy common sense of the Venns, which tempered
the irritable and nervous temperament common to many of the Stephens.
The Venns were of the very blue blood of the party. They traced their
descent through a long line of clergymen to the time of Elizabeth.[27]
The troubles of two loyalist Venns in the great rebellion are briefly
commemorated in Walker's 'Sufferings of the Clergy.' The first Venn who
is more than a name was a Richard Venn, who died in 1739. His name
occasionally turns up in the obscurer records of eighteenth-century
theology. He was rector of St. Antholin's, in the city of London, and
incurred the wrath of the pugnacious Warburton and of Warburton's friend
(in early days) Conyers Middleton. He ventured to call Middleton an
'apostate priest'; and Middleton retorted that if he alluded to a priest
as the 'accuser,' everyone would understand that he meant to refer to
Mr. Venn. In fact, Venn had the credit of having denounced Thomas
Bundle, who, according to Pope, 'had a heart,' and according to Venn was
a deist in disguise. Bundle's reputation was so far damaged that his
theology was thought too bad for Gloucester, and, like other pieces of
damaged goods, he was quartered upon the Irish Church.
Richard Venn married the daughter of the Jacobite conspirator John
Ashton, executed for high treason in 1691. His son Henry, born March 2,
1724, made a more enduring mark and became the chief light of the
movement which was contemporaneous with that led by Wesley and
Whitefield, though, as its adherents maintained, of independent origin.
He was a sturdy, energetic man. As a boy he had shown his principles by
steadily thrashing the son of a dissenting minister till he became the
terror of the young schismatic. He played (his biographer says) in 1747
for Surrey against all England, and at the end of the match gave his bat
to the first comer, saying, 'I will never have it said of me, Well
struck, Parson!' He was ordained a few days later, and was 'converted by
Law's "Serious Call."' While holding a curacy at Clapham he became a
friend of John Thornton, father of the better known Henry Thornton. John
was a friend of John Newton and of the poet Cowper, to whom he allowed
money for charitable purposes, and both he and his son were great lights
at Clapham. From 1759 to 1771 Venn was vicar of Huddersfield, and there
became famous for eloquence and energy. His 'Complete Duty of Man'--the
title is adopted in contrast to the more famous 'Whole Duty of Man'--was
as the sound of a trumpet to the new party. For three generations it was
the accepted manual of the sect and a trusted exposition of their
characteristic theology. Venn's health suffered from his pastoral
labours at Huddersfield; and from 1771 till near his death (June 24,
1797) he was rector of Yelling, in Huntingdonshire. There his influence
extended to the neighbouring University of Cambridge. The most eminent
Cambridge men of the day, Paley, and Watson, and Hey, were tending to a
theology barely distinguishable from the Unitarianism which some of them
openly adopted. But a chosen few, denounced by their enemies as
methodistical, sought the spiritual guidance of Henry Venn. The most
conspicuous was Charles Simeon (1759-1836), who for many years was the
object of veneration and of ridicule for his uncouth eloquence in the
pulpit of Trinity Church. Even to my own day, his disciples and
disciples' disciples were known to their opponents as 'Sims.'[28]
John Venn, son of this Henry Venn, born at Clapham in 1759, was brought
up in the true faith. He was a pupil of Joseph Milner, elder brother of
the more famous Isaac Milner, and was afterwards, like his father, at
Sidney Sussex College. Simeon was one of his intimate friends. In 1792
Venn became rector of Clapham; and there provided the spiritual food
congenial to the Thorntons, the Shores, the Macaulays, the Wilberforces,
and the Stephens. The value of his teaching may be estimated by any one
who will read three volumes of sermons published posthumously in 1814.
He died July 1, 1813; but his chief claim to remembrance is that he was
the projector and one of the original founders of the Church Missionary
Society, in 1799, which was, as it has continued to be, the most
characteristic product of the evangelical party.'[29]