CHAPTER III

_THE BAR AND JOURNALISM_

I. INTRODUCTORY

I have traced at some length the early development of my brother's mind

and character. Henceforward I shall have to describe rather the

manifestation than the modification of his qualities. He had reached

full maturity, although he had still much to learn in the art of turning

his abilities to account. His 'indolence' and 'self-indulgence,' if they

had ever existed, had disappeared completely and for ever. His life

henceforward was of the most strenuous. He had become a strong

man--strong with that peculiar combination of mental and moral force

which reveals itself in masculine common sense. His friends not

unfrequently compared him to Dr. Johnson, and, much as the two men

differed in some ways, there was a real ground for the comparison.

Fitzjames might be called pre-eminently a 'moralist,' in the

old-fashioned sense in which that term is applied to Johnson. He was

profoundly interested, that is, in the great problems of life and

conduct. His views were, in this sense at least, original--that they

were the fruit of his own experience, and of independent reflection.

Most of us are so much the product of our surroundings that we accept

without a question the ordinary formulae which we yet hold so lightly

that the principles which nominally govern serve only to excuse our

spontaneous instincts. The stronger nature comes into collision with

the world, disputes even the most current commonplaces, and so becomes

conscious of its own idiosyncrasies, and accepts only what is actually

forced upon it by stress of facts and hard logic. The process gives to

the doctrines which, with others, represent nothing but phrases,

something of the freshness and vividness of personal discoveries.

Probably ninety-nine men in a hundred assume without conscious

inconsistency the validity both of the moral code propounded in the

Sermon on the Mount, and of the code which regulates the actual struggle

for life. They profess to be at once gentlemen and Christians, and when

the two codes come into conflict, take the one which happens to sanction

their wishes. They do not even observe that there is any conflict.

Fitzjames could not take things so lightly. Even in his infancy he had

argued the first principles of ethics, and worked out his conclusions by

conflicts with schoolboy bullies. It is intelligible, therefore, that,

as Mr. Davies reports, the Sermon on the Mount should be his great

difficulty in accepting Christianity. Its spirit might be, in a sense,

beautiful; but it would not fit the facts of life. So, he observes, in

his autobiographical fragment, that one of his difficulties was his want

of sympathy for the kind of personal enthusiasm with which his father

would speak of Jesus Christ. He tried hard to cultivate the same

feelings, but could not do so with perfect sincerity.

A man with such distinct and vivid convictions in the place of mere

conventional formulae was naturally minded to utter them. He was

constantly provoked by the popular acceptance of what appeared to him

shallow and insincere theories, and desired to expose the prevailing

errors. But the 'little preacher' of three years old had discovered at

one and twenty that the pulpit of the ordinary kind was not congenial

to him. His force of mind did not facilitate a quick and instinctive

appreciation of other people's sentiments. When he came into contact

with a man whose impressions of the world were opposed to his own, he

was inclined to abandon even the attempt to account for the phenomenon.

A man incapable of seeing things in the proper light was hardly worth

considering at all. Fitzjames was therefore not sympathetic in the sense

of having an imagination ready to place him at other men's point of

view. In another sense his sympathies were exceedingly powerful. No man

had stronger or more lasting affections. Once attached to a man, he

believed in him with extraordinary tenacity and would defend him

uncompromisingly through thick and thin. If, like Johnson, he was a

little too contemptuous of the sufferings of the over-sensitive, and put

them down to mere affectation or feeblemindedness, he could sympathise

most strongly with any of the serious sorrows and anxieties of those

whom he loved, and was easily roused to stern indignation where he saw

sorrow caused by injustice. I shall mention here one instance, to which,

for obvious reasons, I can only refer obscurely; though it occupied him

at intervals during many years. Shortly after being called to the bar he

had agreed to take the place of a friend as trustee for a lady, to whom

he was then personally unknown. A year or two later he discovered that

she and her husband were the objects of a strange persecution from a man

in a respectable position who conceived himself to have a certain hold

over them. Fitzjames's first action was to write a letter to the

persecutor expressing in the most forcible English the opinion that the

gentleman's proper position was not among the respectable but at one of

her Majesty's penal settlements. His opinion was carefully justified by

a legal statement of the facts upon which it rested, and the effect was

like the discharge of the broadside of an old ship of the line upon a

hostile frigate. The persecutor was silenced at once and for life.

Fitzjames, meanwhile, found that the money affairs of the pair whose

champion he had become were deeply embarrassed. He took measures, which

were ultimately successful, for extricating them from their

difficulties; and until the lady's death, which took place only a year

or two before his own, was her unwearied counsellor and protector in

many subsequent difficulties. Though I can give no details, I may add

that he was repaid by the warm gratitude of the persons concerned, and

certainly never grudged the thought and labour which he had bestowed

upon the case.

Fitzjames having made up his mind that he was a 'lawyer by nature,' had

become a lawyer by profession. Yet the circumstances of his career, as

well as his own disposition, prevented him from being absorbed in

professional duties. For the fifteen years which succeeded his call to

the bar he was in fact following two professions; he was at once a

barrister and a very active journalist. This causes some difficulty to

his biographer. My account of his literary career will have to occupy

the foreground, partly because the literary story bears most directly

and clearly the impress of his character, and partly because, as will be

seen, it was more continuous. I must, however, warn my readers against a

possible illusion of perspective. To Fitzjames himself the legal career

always represented the substantive, and the literary career the

adjective. Circumstances made journalism highly convenient, but his

literary ambition was always to be auxiliary to his legal ambition. It

would, of course, have been injurious to his prospects at the bar had it

been supposed that the case was inverted; and as a matter of fact his

eyes were always turned to the summit of that long hill of difficulty

which has to be painfully climbed by every barrister not helped by

special interest or good fortune. This much must be clearly understood,

but I must also notice two qualifications. In the first place, though he

became a journalist for convenience, he was in some sense too a

journalist by nature. He found, that is, in the press a channel for a

great many of the reflections which were constantly filling his mind and

demanding some outlet. He wrote for money, and without the least

affectation of indifference to money; but the occupation enabled him

also to gratify a spontaneous and powerful impulse. And, in the next

place, professional success at the bar was in his mind always itself

connected with certain literary projects. Almost from the first he was

revolving schemes for a great book, or rather for a variety of books.

The precise scheme changed from time to time; but the subject of these

books is always to be somewhere in the province which is more or less

common to law and ethics. Sometimes he is inclined to the more purely

technical side, but always with some reference to the moral basis of

law; and sometimes he leans more to philosophical and theological

problems, but always with some reference to his professional experience

and to legal applications. So, for example, he expresses a desire (in a

letter written, alas! after the power of executing such schemes had

disappeared) to write upon the theory of evidence; but he points out

that the same principles which underlie the English laws of evidence are

also applicable to innumerable questions belonging to religious,

philosophical, and scientific inquiries. Now the position of a judge or

an eminent lawyer appeared to him from the first to be desirable for

other reasons indeed, but also for the reason that it would enable him

to gain experience and to speak with authority. At moments he had

thoughts of abandoning law for literature; although the thoughts

disappeared as soon as his professional prospects became brighter. His

ideal was always such a position as would enable him to make an

impression upon the opinions of his countrymen in that region where

legal and ethical speculation are both at home.

II. FIRST YEARS AT THE BAR

I will begin by some general remarks upon his legal career, which will

thus be understood as underlying his literary career. Fitzjames was

called to the bar of the Inner Temple on January 26, 1854. He had his

first brief soon afterwards at the Central Criminal Court, where

twenty-five years later he also made his first appearance as a judge. In

the same year he joined the Midland Circuit. He had no legal connections

upon that or any other circuit. His choice was determined by the advice

of Kenneth Macaulay, then leader of the Midland Circuit. He afterwards

referred to this as one of the few cases in which good advice had really

been of some use. In a letter written in July 1855 he observes that the

Midland is the nearest approach to the old circuits as they were before

the days of railways. It was so far from London that the barristers had

to go their rounds regularly between the different towns instead of

coming down for the day. He describes the party who were thus brought

together twice a year, gossiping and arguing all day, with plenty of

squabbling and of 'rough joking and noisy high spirits' among the idler,

that is, much the larger part. He admits that the routine is rather

wearisome: the same judgments and speeches seem to repeat themselves

'like dreams in a fever,' and 'droves of wretched over-driven heavy

people come up from the prison into a kind of churchwardens' pew,' when

the same story is repeated over and over again. And yet he is

profoundly interested. Matters turn up which 'seem to me infinitely more

interesting than the most interesting play or novel,' and you get

strange glimpses of the ways of thinking and living among classes

otherwise unknown to you. These criminal courts, he says in another

letter, are a 'never-ending source of interest and picturesqueness for

me. The little kind of meat-safe door through which the prisoners are

called up, and the attendant demon of a gaoler who summons them up from

the vasty deep and sends them back again to the vasty deep for terms of

from one week to six years, have a sort of mysterious attraction.'

Mr. Franklin Lushington, who was my brother's contemporary on the

circuit and ever afterwards an intimate friend, has kindly given me his

impressions of this period. It would have been difficult, he says, to

find a circuit 'on which the first steps of the path that opens on

general eminence in the profession were slower to climb than on the

Midland.' It was a small circuit, 'attended by some seventy or eighty

barristers and divided into two or three independent and incompatible

sets of Quarter Sessions, among which after a year or so of tentative

experience it was necessary to choose one set and stand by it. Fitzjames

and I both chose the round of the Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, and

Derbyshire sessions; which involved a good deal of travelling and

knocking about in some out-of-the-way country districts, where the

sessions bar is necessarily thrown into circumstances of great intimacy.

Even when a sessions or assize reputation was gained, it was and

remained intensely local. The intricate points relative to settlements

and poor-law administration, which had provided numerous appeals to the

higher courts in a previous generation, had dwindled gradually to

nothing. Even the most remarkable success, slowly and painfully won in

one county, might easily fail to produce an effect in the next, or to

give any occasion for passing through the thickset hedge which parts

provincial from metropolitan notoriety. The most popular and admired

advocate in the Lincolnshire courts for many years was our dear friend

F. Flowers, afterwards a police magistrate, one of the wittiest, most

ingenious, and most eloquent of the bar. Though year after year he held

every Lincolnshire jury in the hollow of his hand, and frequently rose

to a strain of powerful and passionate oratory which carried away

himself and his hearers--not Lincolnshire folk only--in irresistible

sympathy with his cause, Flowers remained to his last day on circuit

utterly unknown and untried in the adjacent shires of Derby and

Nottingham.'

A circuit bar, adds Mr. Lushington, 'may be roughly divided into three

classes: those who are determined to make themselves heard; those who

wish to be heard if God calls; and those who without objecting to be

heard wish to have their pastime whether they are heard or not.

Fitzjames was in the first category, and from the first did his utmost

to succeed, always in the most legitimate way.' No attorney, looking at

the rows of wigs in the back benches, could fail to recognise in him a

man who would give his whole mind to the task before him. 'It was

natural to him to look the industrious apprentice that he really was;

always craving for work of all kinds and ready at a moment's notice to

turn from one task to another. I used to notice him at one moment busy

writing an article in complete abstraction and at the next devouring at

full speed the contents of a brief just put into his hand, and ready

directly to argue the case as if it had been in his hand all day.'

Fitzjames not long afterwards expressed his own judgment of the society

of which he had become a member. The English bar, he says,[63] 'is

exactly like a great public school, the boys of which have grown older

and have exchanged boyish for manly objects. There is just the same

rough familiarity, the same general ardour of character, the same kind

of unwritten code of morals and manners, the same kind of public opinion

expressed in exactly the same blunt, unmistakable manner.' It would

astonish outsiders if they could hear the remarks sometimes addressed by

the British barrister to his learned brother--especially on circuit. The

bar, he concludes, 'are a robust, hard-headed, and rather hard-handed

set of men, with an imperious, audacious, combative turn of mind,'

sometimes, though rarely, capable of becoming eloquent. Their learning

is 'multifarious, ill-digested and ill-arranged, but collected with

wonderful patience and labour, with a close exactness and severity of

logic, unequalled anywhere else, and with a most sagacious adaptation to

the practical business of life.'

Fitzjames's position in this bigger public school had at any rate one

advantage over his old Etonian days. There was no general prejudice

against him to be encountered; and in the intellectual 'rough and

tumble' which replaced the old school contests his force of mind was

respected by everyone and very warmly appreciated by a chosen few. Among

his closest intimates were Mr. Lushington and his old schoolfellow Mr.

Arthur Coleridge, who became Clerk of Assize upon the circuit. At

starting he had also the society of his friend Grant Duff. They walked

together in the summer of 1855, and visited the Trappist Monastery in

Charnwood Forest. There they talked to a shaven monk in his 'dreary

white flannel dress,' bound with a black strap. They moralised as they

returned, and Fitzjames thought on the whole that his own life was

wholesomer than the monastic. He hopes, however, that the monk and his

companions may 'come right,' as 'no doubt they will if they are honest

and true.' 'I suppose one may say that God is in convents and churches

as well as in law courts or chambers--though not to my eyes so

palpably.'

Sir M. Grant Duff left the circuit after a year or two; but Fitzjames

found a few other congenial companions with whom he could occasionally

walk and often argue to his heart's content. Among his best friends was

Kenneth Macaulay, who became a leader on the circuit, and who did his

best to introduce Fitzjames to practice. Mr. Arthur Coleridge, too, was

able to suggest to the judges that Fitzjames should be appointed to

defend prisoners not provided with counsel. This led by degrees to his

becoming well known in the Crown Court, although civil business was slow

in presenting itself. Several of the judges took early notice of him. In

1856 he has some intercourse with Lord Campbell, then Chief Justice, and

with Chief Baron Pollock, both of them friends of his father. He was

'overpowered with admiration' at Campbell's appearance. Campbell was

'thickset as a navvy, as hard as nails,' still full of vigour at the age

of seventy-six, about the best judge on the bench now, and looking fit

for ten or twelve years' more of work.[64] Pollock was a fine lively old

man, thin as a threadpaper, straight as a ramrod, and full of

indomitable vivacity. The judges, however, who formed the highest

opinion of him and gave him the most encouragement were Lord Bramwell

and Willes.

In 1856 he observes that he was about to take a walk with Alfred Wills

of the 'High Alps.' This was the present Mr. Justice Wills; who has

also been kind enough to give me some recollections which are to the

purpose in this place. Wills was called to the bar in 1851 and joined

the Midland Circuit, but attended a different set of quarter sessions.

He saw a good deal of Fitzjames, however, at the assizes; and though not

especially intimate, they always maintained very friendly relations. The

impression made upon Wills in these early years was that Fitzjames was a

solitary and rather unsocial person. He was divided from his fellows, as

he had been divided from his companions at school and college, by his

absorption in the speculations which interested him so profoundly. 'He

was much more learned, much better read, and had a much more massive

mind than most of us, and our ways and talks must have seemed petty and

trivial to him.' Though there were 'some well-read men and good scholars

among us, even they had little taste for the ponderous reading in which

Fitzjames delighted.' Wills remembers his bringing Hobbes' 'Leviathan'

with him, and recreating himself with studying it after his day's work.

To such studies I shall have to refer presently, and I will only say,

parenthetically, that if Mr. Justice Wills would read Hobbes, he would

find, though he tells me that he dislikes metaphysics, that the old

philosopher is not half so repulsive as he looks. Still, a constant

absorption in these solid works no doubt gave to his associates the

impression that Fitzjames lived in a different world from theirs. He

generally took his walks by himself, Coleridge being the most frequent

interrupter of his solitude. He would be met pounding along steadily,

carrying, often twirling, a 'very big stick,' which now and then came

down with a blow--upon the knuckles, I take it, of some imaginary

blockhead on the other side--muttering to himself, 'immersed in thought

and with a fierce expression of concentrated study.' He did not often

come to mess, and when he did found some things of which he did not

approve. Barristers, it appears, are still capable of indulging in such

tastes as were once gratified by the game of 'High Jinks,' celebrated in

'Guy Mannering.' The Circuit Court was the scene of a good deal of

buffoonery. It was customary to appoint a 'crier'; and Fitzjames, 'to

his infinite disgust, was elected on account of his powerful voice. He

stood it once or twice, but at last broke out in a real fury, and

declared he would never come to the Circuit Court again, calling it by

very strong names. If he had been a less powerful man I am sure that

there would have been a fight; but no one cared to tackle that stalwart

frame, and I am not sure that the assailant would have come out of the

fray alive if he had.' The crisis of this warfare appears to have

happened in 1864, when Yorkshire was added to the Midland Circuit, and

an infusion of barristers from the Northern Circuit consequently took

place. It seems that the manners and customs of the northerners were

decidedly less civilised than those of their brethren. A hard fight had

to be fought before they could be raised to the desired level. In 1867 I

find that Fitzjames proposed the abolition of the Circuit Court. He was

defeated by twenty votes to fifteen; and marvels at the queer bit of

conservatism cropping up in an unexpected place. In spite of these

encounters, Fitzjames not only formed some very warm friendships on

circuit, but enjoyed many of the social meetings, and often recurred to

them in later years. He only despised tomfoolery more emphatically than

his neighbours. Nobody, indeed, could be a more inconvenient presence

where breaches of decency or good manners were to be apprehended. I

vividly remember an occasion upon which he was one of a little party of

young men on a walking tour. A letter read out by one of them had the

phrase, 'What a pity about Mrs. A.!' Someone suggested a conjectural

explanation not favourable to Mrs. A.'s character. He immediately came

in for a stern denunciation from Fitzjames which reduced us all to

awestruck silence, and, I hope, gave the speaker an unforgetable lesson

as to the duty of not speaking lightly in matters affecting female

reputation. He collapsed; and I do not recollect that he ventured any

comment upon a letter of the next morning which proved his conjecture to

be correct. The principle was the same.

These characteristics, as I gather both from Mr. Justice Wills and from

Mr. Lushington, caused Fitzjames to be the object rather of respect than

of general popularity. His friends could not fail to recognise the depth

of his real kindness of heart. Mr. Justice Wills refers to one little

incident of which my brother often spoke. Fitzjames visited him at the

'Eagle's Nest,' in 1862, and there found him engaged in nursing Auguste

Balmat, the famous guide, who was dying of typhoid fever. The natives

were alarmed, and the whole labour of nursing fell upon Mr. and Mrs.

Wills. Fitzjames, on his arrival, relieved them so far as he could, and

enabled them to get some nights' sleep. I remember his description of

himself, sitting up by the dying man, with a volume of 'Pickwick' and a

vessel of holy water, and primed with some pious sentences to be

repeated if the last agony should come on. It was a piece of grim

tragedy with a touch of the grotesque which impressed him greatly. 'I

never knew anyone,' says Mr. Justice Wills, 'to whom I should have gone,

if I wanted help, with more certainty of getting it.' When Fitzjames was

on the bench, he adds, and he had been himself disappointed of reaching

the same position under annoying circumstances, he had to appear in a

patent case before his friend. Fitzjames came down to look at a model,

and Wills said, 'Your Lordship will see,' &c. 'He got hold of the hand

next his own, gave me a squeeze which I did not forget in a hurry, and

whispered, "If you ever call me 'my lordship' again, I shall say

something!"' That hand-grip, indeed, as Wills remarks, was eminently

characteristic. It was like the squeeze of a vice, and often conveyed

the intimation of a feeling which shrank from verbal expression.

It is plain enough that a man of such character would not find some

difficulties smoothed for him. He could not easily learn the lesson of

'suffering fools gladly.' He formed pretty strong views about a man and

could express them frankly. The kind of person whom Carlyle called a

windbag, and to whom he applied equally vigorous epithets, was

especially obnoxious to him, however dexterous might be such a man's

manipulation of difficult arguments. His talent, too, scarcely lent

itself to the art of indirect intimations of his opinions. He remarks

himself, in one of his letters, that he is about as clever at giving

hints as the elder Osborne in 'Vanity Fair'; of whom Thackeray says that

he would give what he called a 'hint' to a footman to leave his service

by kicking the man downstairs. And, therefore, I suspect that when

Fitzjames considered someone--even a possible client--to be a fool or a

humbug, his views might be less concealed than prudence would have

dictated. 'When once he had an opportunity of showing his capacities,'

says Mr. Lushington, 'the most critical solicitor could not fail to be

satisfied of his vigour and perseverance; his quick comprehension of,

and his close attention to detail; and his gift in speaking of clear

common-sense and forcible expression, free from wearisome redundancy or

the suggestion of an irony that might strike above the heads of the

jury. He gained the confidence of clients of all sorts--some of curious,

impulsive, and not over-strict character, who might, perhaps, have

landed a weaker or less rigidly high-principled advocate in serious

blunders; and I do not think that he ever lost a client whom he had once

gained.' But the first step was not easy. His solitary ways, his

indifference to the lighter pursuits of his companions, and his frequent

absorption in other studies, made him slow to form connections and

prevented him from acquiring early, if he ever fully acquired, the

practical instinct which qualifies a man for the ordinary walk of law

courts. When, says Mr. Justice Wills, 'he got you by yourself in a

corner--with no opportunity of dancing round him--in a single combat of

stroke for stroke, real business, conditions defined and mastered, he

was a most formidable antagonist, mercilessly logical, severely

powerful, with the hand of a giant.' But he was, says the same critic,

rather too logical for the common tricks of the trade, which are learnt

by a long and persistent handling of ordinary business. He did not

understand what would 'go down,' and what was of 'such a character that

people would drive a coach and six through precedents and everything

else in order to get rid of it.' He was irritated by an appeal to

practical consequences from what he considered to be established

principles. Then, too, his massive intellect made him wanting in

pliability. 'He could not change front in presence of the enemy'; and

rather despised the adaptations by which clever lawyers succeed in

introducing new law under a pretence of applying old precedents. As I

have already said, he was disgusted with the mere technicalities of the

law, and the conversion of what ought to be a logical apparatus for the

discovery of truth into an artificial system of elaborate and

superfluous formalities. His great ambition was (in his favourite

expression) to 'boil down' the law into a few broad common-sense

principles. He was, therefore, not well qualified for some branches of

legal practice, and inclined to regard skill of the technical kind with

suspicion, if not with actual dislike. Upon this, however, I shall have

to dwell hereafter.

Meanwhile, he was deeply interested in the criminal cases, which were

constantly presenting ethical problems, and affording strange glimpses

into the dark side of human nature. Such crimes showed the crude, brutal

passions, which lie beneath the decent surface of modern society, and

are fascinating to the student of human nature. He often speaks of the

strangely romantic interest of the incidents brought to light in the

'State Trials'; and in these early days he studied some of the famous

cases, such as those of Palmer and Dove, with a professional as well as

a literary interest. In later life he avoided such stories; but at this

period he occasionally made a text of them for newspaper articles, and

was, perhaps, tempted to adopt theories of the case too rapidly. This

was thought to be the case in regard to one Bacon, who was tried in

Lincoln in the summer of 1857. The case was one to which Fitzjames

certainly attached great importance, and I will briefly mention it

before passing to his literary career.

Bacon and his wife were tried at London in the spring of 1857 for the

murder of their two young children. It was sufficiently proved upon that

occasion that Mrs. Bacon (who had already been in a madhouse) committed

the crime in a fit of insanity. Bacon, however, had endeavoured to

manufacture some evidence in order to give countenance to a theory that

the murder had been committed by housebreakers during his absence. He

thus incurred suspicion, and was placed upon trial with his wife. It

also came out that he had been tried (and acquitted) a year before for

setting fire to his own house, and reasons appeared for suspecting him

of an attempt to poison his mother at Stamford three years previously.

Upon these facts Fitzjames wrote an article in the 'Saturday

Review.'[65] He declared that the crime was as interesting, except for

the want of dignity of the actors, as the events which gave the plot of

some of the tragedies of Aeschylus. It reminded him, too, of the terrible

story of 'Jane Eyre.' For we had to suppose either that Bacon suffered

by his marriage to a mad woman who had poisoned his mother, burnt his

house, and cut his children's throats; or else that the wife's last

outbreak had been the incidental cause of the discovery of his own

previous crimes. In the last case we had an instance of that

'retributive vengeance' which, though it cannot be 'reduced to a very

logical form, speaks in tones of thunder to the imaginations of

mankind.'

The case came, as it happened, to the Midland Circuit. Bacon was tried

in Lincoln on July 25 for poisoning his mother. Fitzjames writes from

the court, where he is waiting in the hope that he may be asked by the

judge to defend the prisoner. While he writes, the request comes

accordingly, and he feels that if he is successful he may make the first

step to fortune. He was never cooler or calmer, he says, in his life,

and has always, 'in a way of his own,' 'truly and earnestly trusted in

God to help him in all the affairs of life.' He made his speech, and

suggested the theory already noticed, that the poisoning might have been

the act of the mad wife. The judge paid him a high compliment, but

summed up for a conviction, which accordingly followed. Fitzjames

himself thought, though he was not 'quite sure,' that the man was

guilty. He commented upon the case in another article in the 'Saturday

Review,' not, of course, to dispute the verdict, but to draw a

characteristic inference. Is it not, he asks, very hard upon a poor

prisoner that he should have no better means of obtaining counsel than

the request of the judge at the last moment to some junior barrister?

They manage these things, he thinks, better in France; though 'we have

no reason to speak with disrespect of the gentleman who conducted the

case.'

Whatever may have been thought of Fitzjames's judgment in this case, he

gradually, as I have said, came to be regularly employed upon similar

occasions. By slow degrees, too, more profitable briefs came to him; but

he was in the trying position of appearing on a good many occasions

which excited much interest, while more regular work still declined to

present itself in corresponding proportions. Now and then a puff of wind

filled his sails for the moment, but wearying calms followed, and the

steady gale which propels to fortune and to the highest professional

advancement would not set in with the desired regularity.

III. THE 'SATURDAY REVIEW.'

Here therefore I leave the story of his main profession to take up his

work in other capacities. When he left Cambridge, the 'Morning

Chronicle' was passing through a short phase of unprofitable brilliancy.

It had been bought by the 'Peelites,' who are reported to have sunk as

much as 200,000_l._ upon it. John Douglas Cook was editor, and among his

contributors were Maine and others of Fitzjames's college friends.

Naturally he was anxious to try his hand. He wrote several articles in

the winter of 1851-2. 'The pay,' says Fitzjames, 'was very high--3_l._

10_s._ an article, and I thought that I was going to make a fortune. I

was particularly pleased, I remember, with my smartness and wit, but,

alas and alas! Cook found me out and gradually ceased to put in my

articles. I have seldom felt much keener disappointment, for I was

ardently desirous of standing on my own legs and having in my pocket a

little money of my own earning. I took heart, however, and decided to

try elsewhere. I wrote one or two poor little articles in obscure

places, and at last took (as already stated) to the "Christian

Observer." 'I took great pains,' he says, 'with my articles, framing my

style upon conveyancing and special pleading, so that it might be solid,

well-connected, and logical, and enable me to get back to the Paradise

of 3_l._ 10_s._ an article, from which, as I strongly suspected, my

flippancy had excluded me.' 'Flippancy' was clearly not in his line.

Besides the 'Christian Observer,' I find that the 'Law Magazine' took a

few articles from him, but there is no trace of other writings until

1855. In that year was published the first number of 'Cambridge Essays,'

which, in alliance with a series of 'Oxford Essays,' lived for a couple

of years and contained some very good work. Maine became first known to

the public by an article upon Roman Law contributed in 1856, and a study

of Coleridge's philosophy by Professor Hort, another apostle, is one of

the best extant discussions of a difficult subject. Fitzjames, in 1855,

wrote a characteristic article upon 'The Relation of Novels to Life,'

and in 1857 one upon 'Characteristics of English Criminal Law.' The

articles roused some interest and helped to encourage him.

Meanwhile the 'Morning Chronicle' had changed hands, and its previous

supporters set up the 'Saturday Review,' of which the first number

appeared on November 3, 1855. John Douglas Cook, who took command of

the new adventure and brought some followers from the 'Morning

Chronicle,' was a remarkable man in his way. He was one of the

innumerable young Scots who go out to seek their fortune abroad. He had

received some appointment in India, quarrelled with his employers, and

came home on foot, or partly on foot, for his narratives of this period

were generally, it was thought, marked rather by imaginative fervour

than by a servile adherence to historic accuracy. He found work on the

'Times,' supported Mr. Walter in an election, was taken up by the Duke

of Newcastle, and was sent by him to inquire into the revenues of the

Duchy of Cornwall. He then appeared as an editor, and, if he failed in

the 'Morning Chronicle,' made ample amends by his guidance of the

'Saturday Review.' He was a man of no particular education, and

apparently never read a book. His language and manners were such as

recalled memories of the old days of Maginn and other Bohemians whose

portraits are drawn in 'Pendennis.' But besides other qualities which

justified the friendship and confidence of his supporters, Cook had the

faculty of recognising good writing when he saw it. Newspapers have

occasionally succeeded by lowering instead of raising the standard of

journalism, but the 'Saturday Review' marked at the time as distinct an

advance above the previous level as the old 'Edinburgh Review.' In his

fifteen years' editorship of the 'Saturday Review,' Cook collected as

distinguished a set of contributors as has ever been attracted to an

English newspaper. Many of them became eminent in other ways. Maine and

Sir W. Harcourt were, I believe, among the earliest recruits, following

Cook from the 'Morning Chronicle.' Others, such as Professor Freeman,

Mark Pattison, Mr. Goldwin Smith, Mr. John Morley, the late Lord Justice

Bowen, and many other well-known writers, joined at different periods

and with more or less regularity, but from the first the new journal was

wanting neither in ability nor audacity.[66] Two of the chief

contributors who became close friends of Fitzjames's enjoyed a

reputation among their friends altogether out of proportion to their

public recognition. The first was George Stovin Venables. He was a

fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. He had been a first-classman in the

Classical Tripos of 1832, when he was placed next to W. H. Thompson,

afterwards Master of Trinity. He too was an apostle and an intimate both

of Tennyson and Thackeray. Indeed, the legend ran that it was his fist

which, at Charterhouse School, had disfigured Thackeray's nose for life.

He was tall, strikingly handsome, and of singularly dignified

appearance. Though recognised as an intellectual equal by many of the

ablest men of his time, he chose paths in which little general

reputation could be won. He made a large income at the parliamentary

bar, and amused himself by contributing regularly to the 'Saturday

Review.'[67] Stories used to be current of the extraordinary facility

with which he could turn out his work, and I imagine that the style of

the new periodical was determined more by his writing than by that of

any of his colleagues. The political utterances were supposed to be

supercilious, and were certainly not marked by any fiery enthusiasm.

Venables had an objection to the usual editorial 'we,' and one result

was that the theories of the paper were laid down with a certain

impersonal pomp, as gnomic utterances of an anonymous philosopher. I

need not, however, discuss their merit. Venables wrote, if I am not

mistaken, some admirable literary criticisms, and claimed to have been

one of the first to recognise the poetical merits of his friend

Tennyson, and, after a long interval, those of Mr. Swinburne, whom he

regarded as the next legitimate heir to the throne. Venables was warmly

beloved by his intimates, and Fitzjames through life frequently declared

that he felt for him a kind of filial affection.

The other Saturday reviewer with whom he became specially intimate was

Thomas Collett Sandars. He was a Balliol scholar and a Fellow of Oriel,

and is known as an editor (1853) of Justinian's 'Institutes.' It is, I

am told, a useful textbook, but the editor makes no special pretensions

to original research. Sandars was at one time a professor of

Constitutional Law in the Inns of Court, but he was much occupied in

various financial undertakings and did little to make himself known to

the outside world. He was a man, however, of great literary taste, and

overflowing with humorous and delightful conversation. He survived my

brother by a few months only, and in the interval spoke to me with great

interest of his memories of the old 'Saturday Review' days. He was in

early days on most intimate terms with Fitzjames; they discussed all

manner of topics together and were for some time the two principal

manufacturers of what were called 'middles'--the articles which

intervened between the political leaders and the reviews of books. These

became gradually one of the most characteristic facts of the paper, and,

as I shall presently explain, gave an opportunity of which Fitzjames was

particularly glad to avail himself.

The first contribution from Fitzjames appeared in the second number of

the paper. For a short time its successors are comparatively rare, but

in the course of the following spring he begins to contribute regularly

two articles a week, and before long there are sufficient indications

that the editor looks upon him with favour. Articles running to a length

of four columns, for example, show that he was not only pouring himself

out pretty freely, but that his claims upon space were not grudgingly

treated. In March 1856 he says that he is 'very nervous' about his

articles and doubtful of Cook's approval, but in the same month he is

greatly cheered by a conversation upon the subject with Maine, and

begins to perceive that he has really got a permanent footing. He used

to tell a story which I cannot perfectly recollect, but which was to the

following effect. He had felt very doubtful of his own performances;

Cook did not seem at first to be cordial, and possibly his attempts to

'form a style' upon the precedents of conveyancing were not altogether

successful. Feeling that he did not quite understand what was the style

which would win approval, he resolved that, for once, he would at least

write according to his own taste and give vent to his spontaneous

impulses, even though it might be for the last time of asking. To his

surprise, Cook was delighted with his article, and henceforward he was

able to write freely, without hampering himself by the attempt to

satisfy uncongenial canons of journalism.[68]

However this may be, he was certainly writing both abundantly and

vigorously during the following years. The 'Saturday Review,' like the

old 'Edinburgh,' was proud beyond all things of its independence. It

professed a special antipathy to popular humbugs of every kind, and was

by no means backward in falling foul of all its contemporaries for their

various concessions to popular foibles.

The writers were for the most part energetic young men, with the proper

confidence in their own infallibility, and represented faithfully enough

the main current of the cultivated thought of their day. The paper had

occasionally to reflect the High Church proclivities of its proprietor,

but the articles showing that tendency were in odd contrast to the

general line of argument, which more naturally expressed the contempt of

the enlightened for every popular nostrum. Fitzjames, in particular,

found occasions for energetically setting forth his own views. He had,

of course, a good many chances of dealing with legal matters. He writes

periodical articles upon 'the assizes' or discusses some specially

interesting case. He now and then gets a chance of advocating a

codification of the laws, though he admits the necessity of various

preliminary measures, and especially of a more philosophical system of

legal education. He denounces the cumbrous and perplexed state of the

law in general so energetically, that the arguments have to be stated as

those of certain reformers with whom the paper does not openly identify

itself.

As became a good Saturday reviewer, he fell foul of many popular idols.

One regular chopping-block for irreverent reviewers was Dr. Cumming, who

was then proving from the Apocalypse that the world would come to an end

in 1865. His ignorance of Greek and of geography, his audacious

plagiarisms from E. B. Elliott (a more learned though not a much wiser

interpreter), and his insincerity, are denounced so unsparingly as to

suggest some danger from the law of libel. Dr. Cumming, however, was

wise in his generation, and wrote a letter of such courteous and

dignified remonstrance that the 'Saturday Review' was forced to reply in

corresponding terms, though declining to withdraw its charges. The whole

world of contemporary journalism is arraigned for its subserviency to

popular prejudices. The 'Record' is lashed for its religious rancour,

and the 'Reasoner' for its vapid version of popular infidelity, though

it is contemptuously preferred, in point of spirit, to the 'Record.'

Fitzjames flies occasionally at higher game. The 'Times,' if he is to be

believed, is conspicuous for the trick of spinning empty verbiage out of

vapid popular commonplaces, and, indeed, good sense and right reason

appear to have withdrawn themselves almost exclusively to the congenial

refuge of the 'Saturday Review.'

There is, however, no shrine sacred to the vulgar in which the writer

delights in playing the part of iconoclast so heartily as in that

represented by the comic literature of the day. This sentiment, as I

have said, had grown up even in Eton schooldays. There was something

inexpressibly repugnant to Fitzjames in the tone adopted by a school of

which he took Dickens and Douglas Jerrold to be representatives. His

view of the general literary question comes out oddly in the article

upon 'The Relation of Novels to Life,' contributed to the 'Cambridge

Essays.' He has no fear of modern aesthetes before his eyes. His opinion

is that life is too serious a business for tomfoolery and far too tragic

for needless ostentation of sentiment. A novel should be a serious

attempt by a grave observer to draw a faithful portrait of the actual

facts of life. A novelist, therefore, who uses the imaginary facts, like

Sterne and Dickens, as mere pegs on which to hang specimens of his own

sensibility and facetiousness, becomes disgusting. When, he remarks, you

have said of a friend 'he is dead,' all other observations become

superfluous and impertinent. He, therefore, considers 'Robinson Crusoe'

to represent the ideal novel. It is the life of a brave man meeting

danger and sorrow with unflinching courage, and never bringing his tears

to market. Dickens somewhere says, characteristically, that 'Robinson

Crusoe' is the only very popular work which can be read without a tear

from the first page to the last. That is precisely the quality which

commends it to this stern reader, who thought that in fiction as in life

a man should keep his feelings under lock and key. In spite of his

rather peculiar canons of taste, Fitzjames was profoundly interested,

even in spite of himself, in some novels constructed on very different

principles. In these early articles he falls foul of 'Mdme. de

Bovary,'[69] from the point of view of the simple-minded moralist, but

he heartily admires Balzac, whom he defends against a similar charge,

and in whose records of imaginary criminals--records not so famous in

England at that time as they now are--he found an interest almost equal

to that of the 'State Trials' and Palmer's case. He could also, I must

add, enjoy Dickens's humour as heartily as any one. He was well up in

'Pickwick,' though I don't know whether he would have been equal to

Calverley's famous examination-paper, and he had a special liking for

the 'Uncommercial Traveller.' But when Dickens deserted his proper

function Fitzjames was roused to indignation. The 'little Nell'

sentimentalism and the long gallery of melodramatic deathbeds disgusted

him, while the assaults upon the governing classes generally stirred his

wrath. The satire upon individuals may be all very well in its place,

but a man, he said, has no business to set up as the 'regenerator of

society' because he is its most 'distinguished buffoon.' He was not

picking his words, and 'buffoon' is certainly an injudicious phrase; but

the sentiment which it expressed was so characteristic and deeply rooted

that I must dwell a little upon its manifestation at this time.

The war between the Saturday reviewers and their antagonists was carried

on with a frequent use of the nicknames 'prig' and 'cynic' upon one

side, and 'buffoon' and 'sentimentalist' upon the other. Phrases so

employed soon lose all definite meaning, but it is, I think, easy to see

what they meant as applied either by or to Fitzjames. The 'comic

writers' for him were exponents of the petty and vulgar ideals of the

lower middle classes of the day. The world of Dickens's novels was a

portrait of the class for which Dickens wrote. It was a world of smug

little tradesmen of shallow and half-educated minds, with paltry

ambitions, utter ignorance of history and philosophy, shrinking

instinctively from all strenuous thought and resenting every attack upon

the placid optimism in which it delighted to wrap itself. It had no

perception of the doubts and difficulties which beset loftier minds, or

any consciousness of the great drama of history in which our generation

is only playing its part for the passing hour. Whatever lay beyond its

narrow horizon was ignored, or, if accidentally mentioned, treated with

ignorant contempt. This was the spirit which revealed itself in the

paeans raised over the Exhibition of 1851, accepted by the popular voice

of the day as the inauguration of a millennium of peace and free trade.

But all its manifestations were marked by the same narrowness. The class

had once found a voice for its religious sentiments in Puritanism, with

stern conceptions of duty and of a divine order of the universe. But in

its present mood it could see the Puritan leaders represented by a

wretched Stiggins--a pothouse Tartufe just capable of imposing upon the

friends of Mrs. Gamp. Its own religion was that kind of vapid

philanthropic sentiment which calls itself undenominational; a creed of

maudlin benevolence from which all the deeper and sterner elements of

religious belief have been carefully purged away, and which really

corresponds to the moods which Mr Pickwick stimulated by indulgence in

milk-punch. When it came face to face with death, and sin, and

suffering, it made them mere occasions for displays of sentimentalism,

disgusting because such trifling with the most awful subjects shows a

hopeless shallowness of nature. Dickens's indulgence in deathbeds meant

an effeminate delight in the 'luxury of grief,' revolting in proportion

to the solemnity of the topic. This was only another side of the levity

with which he treated serious political and social problems. The

attitude of mind represented is that of the ordinary newspaper

correspondent, who imagines that a letter to the 'Times' is the ultimate

remedy for all the evils to which flesh is heir. Dickens's early novels,

said Fitzjames, represented an avatar of 'chaff'; and gave with

unsurpassable vivacity the genuine fun of a thoroughbred cockney

typified by Sam Weller. Sam Weller is delightful in his place; but he is

simply impertinent when he fancies that his shrewd mother wit entitles

him to speak with authority upon great questions of constitutional

reform and national policy. Dickens's later assaults upon the

'Circumlocution Office,' the Court of Chancery, were signal instances of

this impatient, irritable, and effeminate levity. Fitzjames elaborated

this view in an article upon 'the license of novelists' which appeared

in the 'Edinburgh Review' for July 1857. He fell foul of 'Little

Dorrit'; but the chief part of the article referred to Charles Reade's

'Never Too Late to Mend.' That novel was briefly a travesty of a recent

case in which a prisoner had committed suicide in consequence, as was

suggested, of ill-treatment by the authorities of the gaol. The governor

had been tried and punished in consequence. Fitzjames gives the actual

facts to show how Reade had allowed himself, as a writer of fiction, to

exaggerate and distort them, and had at the same time taken the airs of

an historian of facts and bragged of his resolution to brand all judges

who should dare to follow the precedent which he denounced. This

article, I may notice, included an injudicious reference to the case of

the Post Office and Rowland Hill, which was not, I believe, due to

Fitzjames himself, and which enabled Dickens to reply with some effect

in 'Household Words.' Dickens's attacks upon the 'Circumlocution Office'

and its like were not altogether inconsistent with some opinions upon

the English system of government to which, as I shall have to show,

Fitzjames himself gave forcible expression in after years. They started,

however, from a very different point of view, and for the present he

criticised both Dickens and some of the similar denunciations contained

in Carlyle's 'Past and Present,' and 'Latter-day Pamphlets.' The assault

upon the 'Circumlocution Office' was, I doubt not, especially offensive

because 'Barnacle Tite,' and the effete aristocrats who are satirised in

'Little Dorrit,' stood for representatives of Sir James Stephen and his

best friends. In fact, I think, Dickens took the view natural to the

popular mind, which always embodies a grievance in a concrete image of a

wicked and contemptible oppressor intending all the evils which result

from his office. A more interesting and appropriate topic for art of a

serious kind would be the problem presented by a body of men of the

highest ability and integrity who are yet doomed to work a cumbrous and

inadequate system. But the popular reformer, to whom everything seems

easy and obvious, explains all abuses by attributing them to the

deliberate intention of particular fools and knaves. This indicates

Fitzjames's position at the time. He was fully conscious of the

administrative abuses assailed, and was as ardent on law reform as

became a disciple of Bentham. But he could not accept the support of men

who thought that judicious reform could be suggested by rough

caricatures, and that all difficulties could be appreciated by the

first petty tradesmen who encountered an incidental grievance or by such

summary remedies as were to be suggested off-hand by anonymous

correspondents. The levity, the ignorance, the hasty and superficial

irritability of these reformers, their enormous conceit and

imperturbable self-complacency revolted him. English life he declared in

the 'Edinburgh Review' is 'too active, English spheres of action too

wide, English freedom too deeply rooted, to be endangered by a set of

bacchanals drunk with green tea and not protected by petticoats.

Boundless luxury,' he thought, 'and thirst for excitement, have raised a

set of writers who show a strong sympathy for all that is most opposite

to the very foundations of English life.' The 'Saturday Review' articles

enlarge upon the same theme. He will not accept legislators whose

favourite costume is the cap and bells, or admit that men who 'can make

silly women cry can, therefore, dictate principles of law and

government.' The defects of our system are due to profound historical

causes. 'Freedom and law and established rules have their difficulties,'

not perceptible to 'feminine, irritable, noisy minds, always clamouring

and shrieking for protection and guidance.' The end to which Dickens

would really drive us would be 'pure despotism. No debates to worry

effeminate understandings, no laws to prevent judges from deciding

according to their own inclination, no forms to prevent officials from

dealing with their neighbours as so many parcels of ticketed goods.'[70]

These utterances show the combination of the old Puritanic leaven, to

which all trifling and levity is hateful, and the strong patriotic

sentiment, to which Dickens in one direction and the politics of Cobden

and Bright in the other, appeared as different manifestations of a

paltry and narrow indifference to all the great historic aims of the

national life. Now, and to some degree always, he strongly sympathised

with the patriotism represented by Macaulay.

I need only notice at present certain theological implications. The

positivists were beginning to make themselves known, and, for various

reasons, were anything but attractive to him. He denounces a manifesto

from Mr. Congreve in January 1857, and again from the patriotic side.

Mr. Congreve had suggested, among other things, the cession of Gibraltar

to Spain, in accordance with his view of international duties. The

English nation, exclaims Fitzjames, 'cannot be weighed and measured, and

ticketed, and classified, by a narrow understanding and a cold heart.'

The 'honest and noble passions of a single nation would blow all Mr.

Congreve's schemes to atoms like so many cobwebs. England will never be

argued out of Gibraltar except by the _ultima ratio_.' These doctrines,

he thinks, are the fruits of abandoning a belief in theology. 'We, too,

have a positive philosophy, and its fundamental maxim is that it is wise

for men and nations to mind their own business, and do their own duty,

and leave the results to God.' The argument seems to be rather

questionable; and perhaps one which follows is not altogether

satisfactory, though both are characteristic. The Indian Mutiny had

moved him deeply, and, in an article called 'Deus Ultionum'[71] he

applies one of his doctrines to this case. He holds that a desire for

revenge upon the perpetrators of the atrocities (of which, I may

observe, exaggerated accounts were then accepted) was perfectly

legitimate. Revenge, he urges, is an essential part of the true theory

of punishment--a position which he defends by the authority of Bishop

Butler. The only alternative is the theory of simple 'deterrence,'

which, as he holds, excludes every moral element of punishment, and

supposes man to be a mere 'bag of appetites.'

I have dwelt upon these utterances, not, of course, to consider their

value, or as representing his permanent conviction, but simply as

illustrating a very deeply rooted sentiment.

His work in the 'Saturday Review' did not exhaust all his literary

activity. Between 1856 and 1861 he contributed a few articles to the

'Edinburgh Review,' of which I have already mentioned one. He very

naturally turned to the organ in which his father's best-known writings

had appeared, and which still enjoyed a high reputation. I believe that

the 'Edinburgh Review' still acted upon the precedent set by Jeffrey,

according to which a contributor, especially, of course, a young

contributor, was regarded as supplying raw material which might be

rather arbitrarily altered by the editor. I express no opinion as to the

wisdom of that course; but I think that, as a matter of fact, it

alienated this contributor in particular. Meanwhile, the father in whose

steps he was treading was constantly giving him advice or taking counsel

with him during these years. He praised warmly, but with discrimination.

The first article in the 'Edinburgh Review' was upon Cavallier, the

leader of the Protestant revolt in the Cevennes. The subject, suggested,

I fancy, by a trip to the country taken in 1852, was selected less with

a view to his own knowledge or aptitudes than by the natural impulse of

a young writer to follow the models accepted in his organ. He had

selected a picturesque bit of history, capable of treatment after the

manner of Macaulay. 'I have read it,' says my father, in words meant to

be read to Fitzjames, 'with the pleasure which it always gives me to

read his vigorous sense, clear and manly style, right-minded and

substantially kind-hearted writings. My respect for his understanding

has been for a long time steadily increasing, and is very unlikely to be

ever diminished.... But I shall best prove that respect by saying

plainly that I do not like this paper as well as those in which he

writes argumentatively, speculatively, and from the resources of his own

mind. His power consists in reasoning, in the exposition of truth and

fallacies. I will not say, for I do not know, that he wants the art of

story-telling, but, taking this as a specimen, it seems to me deficient

in the great art of linking together a series of facts in such a manner

that the connection between them shall be at once perceptible to the

most ignorant and inattentive reader, and shall take easy and

irresistible possession of the mind. That is Macaulay's pre-eminent

gift.' He goes on to apply this in detail. It may be useful to point out

faults now; though his criticisms upon anything which Fitzjames may

publish in 1890 shall be 'all saccharine.'

In a letter of April 27, 1856, he shows an alarm which was certainly not

unnatural. Fitzjames has been writing in the 'Saturday Review,' in

'Fraser,' the 'National Review,' and elsewhere, besides having on hand a

projected law-book. Is he not undertaking too much? 'No variety of

intemperance is more evidently doomed to work out its own ill-reward

than that which is practised by a bookseller's drudge of the higher

order.' He appeals to various precedents, such as Southey, whose brain

gave way under the pressure. Editors and publishers soon find out the

man who is dependent upon them for support, and 'since the abolition of

West India slavery the world has known no more severe servitude than

his.' 'Can a man of your age,' he asks, 'have the accumulated capital

of knowledge necessary to stand such a periodical expenditure?' 'What I

have read of your writing seems to me to be singularly unequal. At times

it is excellent in style and in conception, and evidently flowing from

springs pure, copious, and active, and giving promise of great future

eminence. At other times the marks of haste, of exhaustion, and being

run out of breath, are perceptible to an eye so sensitive as mine is on

this subject. I see no reason why you should not become a great writer

and one of the teachers of your country-folk, if you will resolve never

to write except from a full mind--which is just as essential to literary

success as it is to success in singing never to sing but out of well

inflated lungs.' He ends by the practical application of an entreaty to

make use of the family purse.

The reference to a law-book is explained by a correspondence which is

going on at the same period in regard to various literary proposals. My

father sketches several plans; he disapproves of a technical treatise,

in which he thinks that Fitzjames would be at a disadvantage from the

inevitable comparison with his uncle, the serjeant; but he advises some

kind of legal history, resembling Hallam's history inverted. In the

proposed book the legal aspect should be in the foreground and the

political in the background. He expounds at length a scheme which has

not been executed, and which would, I think, be exceedingly valuable. It

was suggested by his own lectures on French history, though it must be

'six times longer and sixty times more exact and complete.' It is to be

a history of the English administrative system from feudal times

downwards, giving an account of the development of the machinery for

justice, revenue, ecclesiastical affairs, war, trade, colonies, police,

and so forth. Each chapter should expound the actual state of things,

and trace the historical development of one department, and would

involve a variety of parenthetical inquiries, which should be carefully

subordinated to the main purpose. Various hints are given as to the

course of investigation that will be necessary. Fitzjames began to work

upon this scheme; and his opening chapters fill two or three large

manuscript books. The plan was abandoned for one more suitable to his

powers. Meanwhile, the literary activity which had alarmed his father

was not abated, and, indeed, before very long, was increased.

IV. EDUCATION COMMISSION AND RECORDERSHIP

Another employment for a time gave him work, outside both of his

professional and his literary career, though it remained something of a

parenthesis. On June 30, 1858, a royal commission was appointed to

investigate the state of popular education. The Duke of Newcastle was

chairman and the other members were Sir J. T. Coleridge, W. C. Lake

(afterwards Dean of Durham), Professor Goldwin Smith, Nassau Senior,

Edward Miall, and the Rev. William Rogers, now rector of St. Botolph,

Bishopsgate.[72] The Duke of Newcastle was, as I have said, the patron

of the editor of the 'Saturday Review,' and perhaps had some interest in

that adventure as in the 'Morning Chronicle.' He probably knew of my

brother through this connection, and he now proposed him, says Mr.

Rogers,[73] as secretary to the commission. The commission began by

sending out assistant-commissioners to the selected districts: it

afterwards examined a number of experts in educational matters; it sent

Mark Pattison and Matthew Arnold to report upon the systems in Germany,

France, and Switzerland; it examined all the previous reports presented

to the Committee of the Privy Council; it collected a quantity of

information from the various societies, from the managers of government,

naval and military schools, from schools for paupers and vagrants, and

from reformatories; it made an investigation into the state of the

charitable endowments, and it compiled a number of statistical tables

setting forth the results obtained. 'The man to whom more than to anyone

else the country owed a debt of gratitude,' says Mr. Rogers, 'was

Fitzjames Stephen.... Though under thirty, he brought to the task a

combination of talents rarely found in any one individual. To his keen

insight, wide grasp, accurately balanced judgment, and marvellous

aptitude for details, was due much of the success with which we were

able to lay down the future lines of popular education. I have often

thought it strange that this recognition has not in time past been more

publicly made.'

The Commission lasted till June 30, 1861. It published six fat volumes

of reports, which are of great value to the historian of education. The

progress made in subsequent years gives an appearance of backwardness to

what was really a great advance upon previous opinion. The plan of

compulsory or free education was summarily dismissed; and a minority of

the Commission were of opinion that all State aid should be gradually

withdrawn. The majority, however, decided that the system rather

required development, although the aim was rather to stimulate voluntary

effort than to substitute a State system. They thought that the actual

number of children at school was not unsatisfactory, and that the desire

for education was very widely spread. Many of the schools, however, were

all but worthless, and the great aim should be to improve their quality

and secure a satisfactory teaching of elementary subjects. They

proposed that provision should be made for allowing the formation of

boards supported by rates in towns and counties; and that the national

grant should be distributed on better principles, so as to secure more

efficient results. As Mr. Rogers points out, the 'revised code' soon

afterwards issued by Mr. Lowe, and the principles adopted in Mr.

Forster's Act a few years later, carried out, though they greatly

extended, the proposals of the Commission.

It is impossible to say precisely what share my brother had in these

results. I find, however, from a correspondence with his old friend

Nassau Senior, that he was an advocate of the view finally adopted by

the Commission. He also prepared the report, of course under the

direction of his superiors, and the labour thrown upon him during the

three years of this occupation must have been considerable. He was,

however, writing with his old regularity for the 'Saturday Review,' and

was attending sessions and circuits with slowly improving prospects. In

a letter written at this time I find him remarking that he is at work

all the day and half the night. This is in reference to a case with

which he was much occupied during 1858-9, and which is characteristic

enough to deserve a few words. His articles in the 'Saturday Review'

show the keen interest to which he was aroused by any touch of heroism.

He is enthusiastic about arctic adventure, and a warm review of Kane's

narrative of the American expedition in search of Franklin brought him

the friendship of the author, who died during a visit to England soon

afterwards. Another arctic explorer was Captain Parker Snow, who sailed

in the search expedition sent out by Lady Franklin in 1850. The place in

which the remains were afterwards discovered had been revealed to him in

a dream; and but for the refusal of his superior officer to proceed he

would have reached the spot. In the year 1854 Captain Snow was sent out

by the Patagonian Missionary Society to the place where the unfortunate

Allen Gardiner had been starved to death. His crew consisted entirely of

'godly' sailors, who, he says, showed their principles by finding

religious reasons for disobeying his orders. Finally Captain Snow was

dismissed by an agent of the Society, and, as he maintained, illegally.

He published an account of his explorations in Tierra del Fuego, which

Fitzjames reviewed enthusiastically. It was long, he said, since he had

seen a 'heartier, more genuine, nobler book'; he was tempted to think

that Captain Marryat and Kingsley had 'put their heads together to

produce a sort of missionary "Peter Simple."' This led to a long

correspondence with Captain Snow, who was trying to enforce his claims

against the Missionary Society. Fitzjames strongly advised him against

legal proceedings, which would, he thought, be fruitless, although

Captain Snow had a strong moral claim upon the Society. Captain Snow,

however, was not easy to advise, and Fitzjames, thinking him

ill-treated, obtained help from several friends and subscribed himself

to the Captain's support. After long negotiations the case finally came

into court in December 1859, when Fitzjames consented to appear as the

Captain's counsel, although he had foreseen the unsuccessful result. He

continued to do what he could for the sufferer, to whose honourable,

though injudicious conduct he bears a strong testimony, and long

afterwards (1879) obtained for him a pension of 40_l._ from the Civil

List, which is, I fear, Captain Snow's only support in his old age.[74]

In August 1859 Fitzjames was made recorder of Newark. The place, which

he held till he went to India in 1869, was worth only 40_l._ a year; but

was, as he said, a 'feather in his cap,' and a proof of his having

gained a certain footing upon his circuit. It gave him his first

experience as a judge, and I may mention a little incident of one of his

earliest appearances in that character. He had to sentence a criminal to

penal servitude, when the man's wife began to scream; he was touched by

her grief, and left a small sum with the mayor to be given to her

without mention of his name. The place was, it seems, practically the

gift of the Duke of Newcastle; and Bethell, then Attorney-General, wrote

to him in favour of Fitzjames's appointment. I am not aware how Bethell

came to have any knowledge of him; but Fitzjames had formed a very high

opinion of the great lawyer's merits. He showed it when Bethell, then

Lord Westbury, was accused of misconduct as Lord Chancellor. He thought

that the accusations, if not entirely unfounded, were grossly

exaggerated for party purposes. He could not persuade the 'Pall Mall

Gazette,' for which he was then writing, to take this view; but upon

Westbury's resignation he obtained the insertion of a very cordial

eulogy upon the ex-chancellor's merits as a law reformer.

The appointment to the recordership was one of the last pieces of

intelligence to give pleasure to my father. Fitzjames had seen much of

him during the last year. He had spent some weeks with him at Dorking in

the summer of 1858, and had taken a little expedition with him in the

spring of 1859. My father injured himself by a walk on his seventieth

birthday (January 3, 1859), and his health afterwards showed symptoms of

decline. In the autumn he was advised to go to Homburg; and thence, on

August 30, he wrote his last letter, criticising a draft of a report

which Fitzjames was preparing for the Education Commission, and

suggesting a few sentences which would, he thinks, give greater

clearness and emphasis to the main points. Immediately afterwards

serious symptoms appeared, due, I believe, to the old break-down of

1847. My father was anxious to return, and started homewards with my

mother and sister, who had accompanied him. They got as far as Coblenz,

where they were joined by Fitzjames, who had set out upon hearing the

news. He was just in time to see his father alive. Sir James Stephen

died September 14, 1859, an hour or two after his son's arrival. He was

buried at Kensal Green, where his tombstone bears the inscription: 'Be

strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed:

for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.' The words

(from Joshua i. 9) were chosen because a friend remembered the emphasis

with which my father had once dwelt upon them at his family prayers.

With the opening words of the same passage my brother concluded the book

which expressed his strongest convictions,[75] and summed up his

practical doctrine of life. What he felt at the time may be inferred

from a striking essay upon the 'Wealth of Nature,' which he contributed

to the 'Saturday Review' of September 24, 1859.[76] It may be considered

as a sermon upon the text of Gray's reflections in the 'Elegy' upon the

'hearts once pregnant with celestial fire' which lie forgotten in the

country churchyard. What a vast work has been done by the unknown! what

must have been the aggregate ability of those who, in less than thirty

generations, have changed the England of King Alfred into the England of

Queen Victoria! and yet how few are remembered! How many actions even,

which would be gladly remembered, are constantly forgotten? 'The Indian

Empire,' he says characteristically, 'is the most marvellous proof of

this that the world can supply. A man died not long ago who, at

twenty-five years of age, with no previous training, was set to govern a

kingdom with absolute power, and who did govern it so wisely and firmly

that he literally changed a wilderness into a fruitful land. Probably no

one who reads these lines will guess to whom they allude.' I can,

however, say that they allude to James Grant Duff (1789-1858), author of

the 'History of the Mahrattas,' and father of his friend Sir

Mountstuart. Fitzjames had visited the father in Scotland, and greatly

admired him. His early career as resident of Sattara sufficiently

corresponds to this statement. It is well, as Fitzjames maintained, that

things should be as they are. Fame generally injures a man's simplicity;

and this 'great reserve fund of ability' acts beneficially upon society

at large, and upon the few conspicuous men who are conscious of their

debt to their unknown colleagues. It would be a misfortune, therefore,

if society affected to class people according to their merits; for, as

it is, no one need be ashamed of an obscurity which proves nothing

against him. We have the satisfaction of perceiving everywhere traces of

skill and power, proving irrefragably that there are among us men 'who

ennoble nearly every walk of life, and would have ennobled any.' A

similar tone appears in the short life of his father, written in the

following year. True success in life, he says, is not measured by

general reputation. Sir James Stephen's family will be satisfied by

establishing the fact that he did his duty. It was an instance of

'prosperity' that his obscurity 'protected him, and will no doubt

effectually protect his memory against unjust censure and ignorant

praise.'

The deaths of two old friends of his father's and his own marked the

end of the year. On December 20, 1859, he hears of the death of John

Austin, and proposes to attend the funeral, 'as there were few men for

whom I had more respect or who deserved it more.' His admiration for

Austin was at this time at its warmest.[77] Macaulay died on December

28, 1859; and on January 5, 1860, Fitzjames writes from Derby, where he

has been all night composing a 'laudation' of the historian for the

'Saturday Review.'[78] It is 7.45 A.M., and he has just washed and

dressed, as it is too late to go to bed before court. 'Tom Macaulay,' as

has been seen, had been a model held up to him from infancy, and to the

last retained a strong hold upon his affectionate remembrance.

Fitzjames was now completing his thirty-first year, and was emerging

into a more independent position. He was in the full flow of energetic

and various work, which was to continue with hardly an intermission

until strength began to fail. At this period he was employed in the

Education Commission, which for some time was meeting every day; he was

writing for the 'Saturday Review' and elsewhere; he was also beginning

to write an independent book; and he was attending his circuit and

sessions regularly and gradually improving his position.[79] The story

thus becomes rather complicated. I will first say a little of his

professional work during the next few years, and I will then mention

three books, which appeared from 1861 to 1863, and were his first

independent publications; they will suggest what has to be said of his

main lines of thought and work.

V. PROGRESS AT THE BAR

His practice at the bar was improving, though not very steadily or

rapidly. 'Those cases, like Snow's or Bacon's,' he observes (Dec. 17,

1859), 'do me hardly any good.... I am making a reputation which would

be very useful for an older man who already had business, but is to me

glory, not gain. I am like a man who has good expectations and little or

no income.' Still his position is better: he has made 100_l._ this year

against 50_l._ the year before; he is beginning to 'take root,'

especially at sessions; and he 'thoroughly delights in his profession.'

In March 1860 he reports some high compliments from Mr. Justice Willes

in consequence of a good speech; and has had inquiries made about him by

attornies. But the attornies, he thinks, will have forgotten him before

next circuit. There never was a longer hill than that which barristers

have to climb; but 'it is neither a steep nor an unpleasant hill.' In

July 1861 he was appointed to a revising barristership in North

Derbyshire by Chief Baron Pollock, and was presented with a red bag by

his friend Kenneth Macaulay, now leader of the circuit. He makes 100_l._

on circuit, and remarks that this is considered to mark a kind of

turning-point. In 1862 things improve again. In July he is employed in

three cases of which two were 'glorious triumphs,' and the third, the

'Great Grimsby riot,' which is 'at present a desperate battle,' is the

biggest case he has yet had on circuit. The circuit turns out to be his

most profitable, so far. On October 20 he reports that he has got pretty

well 'to the top of the little hill' of sessions, and is beginning,

though cautiously, to think of giving them up and to look forward to a

silk gown. In 1863 he has 'a wonderful circuit' (March 20) above

200_l._, owing partly, it would seem, to Macaulay's absence, and too

good to be repeated. In the summer, however, he has the first circuit in

which there has been no improvement. On October 25 he is for once out of

spirits. He has had 'miserable luck,' though he thinks in his conscience

that it has been due not to his own fault, but to the 'stupidity of

juries.' 'There is only one thing,' he says, 'which supports me in this,

the belief that God orders all things, and that therefore we can be

content and ought to take events as they come, be they small or great.

Whenever I turn my thoughts that way it certainly does not seem to me

very important whether in this little bit of a life I can accomplish all

that I wish--so long as I try to do my best. I have often thought that

perhaps one's life may be but a sort of school, in which one learns

lessons for a better and larger world, and if so, I can quite understand

that the best boys do not get the highest prizes, and that no boy, good

or bad, ought to be unhappy about his prizes. There are things I long to

do; books I long to write; thoughts and schemes that float before me,

looking so near and clear, and yet being, as I feel, so indistinct or

distant that I shall never make anything of them. Small ties and little

rushings of the mind, briefs and magazine articles, and their like, will

clog my wheels day after day and year after year. Yet I cannot

altogether blame myself. Looking back on my life, I cannot seriously

regret any of the principal steps I have taken in it. Still I do feel

more or less disquieted or perturbed--I cannot help it.' Some

uncomfortable thoughts could hardly fail to intrude at times when the

compliments which he received from the highest authorities failed to be

backed by a corresponding recognition from attornies; and at times, I

suspect, his spirits were depressed by over-work, of which he was slow

to acknowledge the possibility. To work, indeed, he turned for one

chief consolation. He refers incidentally to various significant

performances. 'Last night,' he writes from Derby, April 10, 1862, 'I

finished a middle at two; and to-day I finished "Superstition"' (an

article in the 'Cornhill') 'in a six hours' sitting, during which I had

written thirty-two MS. pages straight off. I don't feel at all the worse

for it.' On Nov. 14 following he observes that he is 'in first-rate

health.' He wrote all night from six till three, got up at 7.30, and

walked thirty-one miles; after which he felt 'perfectly fresh and well.'

On Jan. 13, 1863, he has a long drive in steady rain, sits up 'laughing

and talking' till one; writes a review till 4.45, and next day writes

another article in court. On July 17, 1864, he finishes an article upon

Newman at 3 A.M., having written as much as would fill sixteen pages of

the 'Edinburgh Review'--the longest day's work he had ever done, and

feels perfectly well. On March 13, 1865, he gets up at six, writes an

article before breakfast, is in court all day, and has a consultation at

nine. Early rising was, I think, his commonest plan for encountering a

pressure of work; but he had an extraordinary facility for setting to

work at a moment's notice. He had a power of eating and sleeping at any

time, which he found, as he says, highly convenient. He was equally

ready to write before breakfast, or while other people were talking and

speechifying all round him in court, or when sitting up all night. And,

like a strong man, he rejoiced in his strength, perhaps a little too

unreservedly. If he now and then confesses to weariness, it never seemed

to be more than a temporary feeling.

Of the cases in which he was engaged at this period I need only mention

two--the case of Dr. Rowland Williams, of which I shall speak directly

in connection with his published 'defence'; and the case of a man who

was convicted of murder at Warwick in December 1863. The fellow had cut

the throat of a girl who had jilted him. The facts were indisputable,

and the only possible defence was insanity. Kenneth Macaulay and

Fitzjames were counsel for the defence, but failed, and, as Fitzjames

thought, rightly failed, to make good their case. He was, however,

deeply moved by the whole affair--the most dramatic, he says, in which

he had been engaged. The convict's family were respectable people, and

behaved admirably. 'The poor mother sat by me in court and said, "I feel

as if I could cling to anyone who could help him," and she put her hand

on my arm and held it so that I could feel every beat of her pulse. Her

fingers clutched me every time her heart beat. The daughters, too, were

dreadfully moved, but behaved with the greatest natural dignity and

calmness.' After the conviction Fitzjames felt that the man deserved to

be hanged; but felt also bound to help the father in his attempts to get

the sentence commuted. He could not himself petition, but he did his

best to advise the unfortunate parents. He used to relate that the

murderer had written an account of the crime, which it was proposed to

produce as a proof of insanity. To Fitzjames it seemed to be a proof

only of cold-blooded malignity which would insure the execution of the

sentence. He was tormented by the conflict between his compassion and

his sense of justice. Ultimately the murderer was reprieved on the

ground that he had gone mad after the sentence. Fitzjames had then, he

says, an uncomfortable feeling as if he were partly responsible for the

blood of the murdered girl. The criminal soon afterwards committed

suicide, and so finished the affair.

VI. 'ESSAYS BY A BARRISTER'

I turn now to the literary work which filled every available interstice

of time. In the summer of 1862 Fitzjames published 'Essays by a

Barrister' (reprinted from the 'Saturday Review'). The essays had

appeared in that paper between the end of 1858 and the beginning of

1861. From February 9, 1861, to February 28, 1863, he did not write in

the 'Saturday Review.' A secession had taken place, the causes of which

I do not precisely know. I believe that the editor wished to put

restrictions, which some of his contributors, including Fitzjames,

resented, upon the services to be rendered by them to other periodicals.

The breach was eventually closed without leaving any ill-feeling behind

it. Fitzjames at first felt the relief of not having to write, and

resolved to devote himself more exclusively to his profession. But

before long he was as hard at work as ever. During 1862 he wrote a good

many articles for the 'London Review,' which was started as a rival of

the 'Saturday Review.' He found a more permanent outlet for his literary

energies in the 'Cornhill Magazine.' It was started by Messrs. Smith &

Elder at the beginning of 1860 with Thackeray for editor; and, together

with 'Macmillan's Magazine'--its senior by a month--marked a new

development of periodical literature. Fitzjames contributed a couple of

articles at the end of 1860; and during 1861, 1862, and 1863, wrote

eight or nine in a year. These articles (which were never reprinted)

continue the vein opened in the 'Essays by a Barrister.' His connection

with the 'Magazine' led to very friendly relations with Thackeray, to

whose daughters he afterwards came to hold the relation of an

affectionate brother. It also led to a connection with Mr. George

Smith, of Smith, Elder & Co., which was to be soon of much importance.

The articles represented the development of the 'middles,' which he

considered to be the speciality of himself and his friend Sandars. The

middle, originally an article upon some not strictly political topic,

had grown in their hands into a kind of lay sermon. For such literature

the British public has shown a considerable avidity ever since the days

of Addison. In spite of occasional disavowals, it really loves a sermon,

and is glad to hear preachers who are not bound by the proprieties of

the religious pulpit. Some essayists, like Johnson, have been as solemn

as the true clerical performer, and some have diverged into the humorous

with Charles Lamb, or the cynical with Hazlitt. At this period the most

popular of the lay preachers was probably Sir Arthur Helps, who provided

the kind of material--genuine thought set forth with real literary skill

and combined with much popular sentiment--which served to convince his

readers that they were intelligent and amiable people. The 'Saturday

reviewers,' in their quality of 'cynics,' could not go so far in the

direction of the popular taste; and their bent was rather to expose than

to endorse some of the commonplaces which are dear to the intelligent

reader. Probably it was a sense of this peculiarity which made Fitzjames

remark when his book appeared that he would bet that it would never

reach a second edition. He would, I am sorry to say, have won his bet;

and yet I know that the 'Essays by a Barrister,' though never widely

circulated, have been highly valued by a small circle of readers. The

explanation of their fate is not, I think, hard to give. They have, I

think, really great merits. They contain more real thought than most

books of the kind; they are often very forcibly expressed; and they

unmistakably reflect very genuine and very strong convictions.

Unluckily, they maintain just the kind of views which the congregation

most easily gathered round such a pulpit is very much inclined to regard

with suspicion or with actual dislike.

An essay, for example, upon 'doing good' is in fact a recast of the

paper which decided his choice of a profession. It is intended to show

that philanthropists of the Exeter Hall variety are apt to claim a

monopoly of 'doing good' which does not belong to them, and are inclined

to be conceited in consequence. The ordinary pursuits are equally

necessary and useful. The stockbroker and the publican are doing good in

the sense of being 'useful' as much as the most zealous 'clergyman or

sister of mercy.' Medicine does good, but the butcher and the baker are

still more necessary than the doctor. We could get on without schools or

hospitals, but not without the loom and the plough. The philanthropist,

therefore, must not despise the man who does a duty even more essential

than those generally called benevolent, though making less demand on the

'kindly and gentle parts of our nature.' A man should choose his post

according to his character. It is not a duty to have warm feelings,

though it may be a misfortune not to have them; and a 'cold, stern man'

who should try to warm up his feelings would either be cruelly mortified

or become an intolerable hypocrite. It is a gross injustice to such a

man, who does his duty in the station fittest to his powers, when he is

called by implication selfish and indifferent to the public good. 'The

injustice, however, is one which does little harm to those who suffer

under it, for they are a thick-skinned and long-enduring generation,

whose comfort is not much affected one way or the other by the opinion

of others.'

This, like Fitzjames's other bits of self-portraiture, is not to be

accepted too literally. So taken, it confounds, I think, coldness and

harshness with a very different quality, a want of quick and versatile

sympathy, and 'thickness of skin' with the pride which would not admit,

even to itself, any tendency to over-sensibility. But it represents more

or less the tone which came naturally to him, and explains the want of

corresponding acceptability to his readers. He denounces the quality for

which 'geniality' had become the accepted nickname. The geniality,

whether of Dickens or Kingsley, was often, he thought, disgusting and

offensive. It gives a false view of life. 'Enjoyment forms a small and

unimportant element in the life of most men.' Life, he thinks, is

'satisfactory' but 'enjoyment casual and transitory.' 'Geniality,'

therefore, should be only an occasional element; habitually indulged and

artificially introduced, it becomes as nauseous as sweetmeats mixed with

bread and cheese. To the more serious person, much of the popular

literature of the day suggests Solomon's words: 'I said of laughter, it

is mad; and of mirth what doeth it?' So the talk of progress seems to

him to express the ideal of a moral 'lubberland.' Six thousand years of

trial and suffering, according to these prophets, are to result in a

'perpetual succession of comfortable shopkeepers.' The supposition is

'so revolting to the moral sense that it would be difficult to reconcile

it with any belief at all in a Divine Providence.' You are beginning, he

declares after Carlyle's account of Robespierre, 'to be a bore with your

nineteenth century.' Our life, he says elsewhere ('Christian Optimism'),

is like 'standing on a narrow strip of shore, waiting till the tide

which has washed away hundreds of millions of our fellows shall wash us

away also into a country of which there are no charts and from which

there is no return. What little we have reason to believe about that

unseen world is that it exists, that it contains extremes of good and

evil, awful and mysterious beyond human conception, and that these

tremendous possibilities are connected with our conduct here. It is

surely wiser and more manly to walk silently by the shore of that silent

sea, than to boast with puerile exultation over the little sand castles

which we have employed our short leisure in building up. Life can never

be matter of exultation, nor can the progress of arts and sciences ever

fill the heart of a man who has a heart to be filled.' The value of all

human labours is that of schoolboys' lessons, 'worth nothing at all

except as a task and a discipline.' Life and death are greater and older

than steam engines and cotton mills. 'Why mankind was created at all,

why we continue to exist, what has become of all that vast multitude

which has passed, with more or less sin and misery, through this

mysterious earth, and what will become of those vaster multitudes which

are treading and will tread the same wonderful path?--these are the

great insoluble problems which ought to be seldom mentioned but never

forgotten. Strange as it may appear to popular lecturers, they do make

it seem rather unimportant whether, on an average, there is a little

more or less good nature, a little more or less comfort, and a little

more or less knowledge in the world.' Such thoughts were indeed often

with him, though seldom uttered. The death of a commonplace barrister

about this time makes him remark in a letter that the sudden contact

with the end of one's journey is not unwelcome. The thought that the man

went straight from the George IV. Hotel to 'a world of ineffable

mysteries is one of the strangest that can be conceived.'

I have quoted enough from the essays to indicate the most characteristic

vein of thought. They might have been more popular had he either

sympathised more fully with popular sentiment or given fuller and more

frequent expression to his antipathy. But, it is only at times that he

cares to lay bare his strongest convictions; and the ordinary reader

finds himself in company with a stern, proud man who obviously thinks

him foolish but scarcely worth denouncing for his folly. Sturdy common

sense combined with a proud reserve which only yields at rare intervals,

and then, as it were, under protest, to the expression of deeper

feeling, does not give the popular tone. Some of the 'Cornhill' articles

were well received, especially the first, upon 'Luxury' (September

1860), which is not, as such a title would now suggest, concerned with

socialism, but is another variation upon the theme of the pettiness of

modern ideals and the effeminate idolatry of the comfortable.

These articles deal with many other topics: with the legal questions in

which he is always interested, such as 'the morality of advocacy' and

with the theory of evidence, with various popular commonplaces about

moral and social problems, with the 'spirit-rapping' then popular, with

various speculations about history, and with some of the books in which

he was always interested. One is the 'laudation' of Macaulay which I

have noticed, and he criticises Carlyle and speaks with warm respect of

Hallam. Here and there, too, are certain philosophical speculations, of

which I need only say that they show his thorough adherence to the

principles of Mill's 'Logic' He is always on the look-out for the

'intuitionist' or the believer in 'innate ideas,' the bugbears of the

Mill school. In an article upon Mansel's 'Metaphysics' he endeavours to

show that even the 'necessary truths' of mathematics are mere statements

of uniform experience, which may differ in another world. This argument

was adopted by Mill in his 'examination of Sir W. Hamilton's

philosophy.'[80] I cannot say that I think it a fortunate suggestion;

and I only notice it as an indication of Fitzjames's intellectual

position.

The 'Cornhill' articles had to be written under the moral code proper to

a popular magazine, the first commandment of which is 'Thou shalt not

shock a young lady.' Fitzjames felt this rather uncomfortably, and he

was not altogether displeased, as he clearly had no right to be

surprised, when Mr. George Smith, the proprietor of the magazine,

suggested to him in December 1862 the superior merits of 'light and

amusing' articles, which, says Fitzjames, are 'just those which give me

most trouble and teach me least.' They are 'wretched' things to occupy a

man of 'any sort of mind.' Mr. Smith, as he says a year afterwards, is

the 'kindest and most liberal of masters,' but he feels the drudgery of

such work. Reading Bossuet (February 28, 1864), he observes that the

works are so 'powerful and magnificent in their way' that they make me

feel a sort of hatred for 'the trumpery that I pass my time in

manufacturing.' It makes him 'sad to read great books, and it is almost

equally sad not to read them.' He feels 'tied by the leg' and longs to

write something worth writing; he believes that he might do more by a

better economy of his time; but 'it is hopeless to try to write eight

hours a day.' He feels, too (July 21, 1864), that the great bulk of a

barrister's work is 'poor stuff.' It is a 'good vigorous trade' which

braces 'the moral and intellectual muscles' but he wishes for more. No

doubt he was tired, for he records for once enjoying a day of thorough

idleness a month later, lying on the grass at a cricket match, and

talking of prize-fighting. He is much impressed soon afterwards by a

sermon on the text, 'I will give you rest'; but his spirits are rapidly

reviving.

In March 1865 be says, 'I cannot tell you how happy and prosperous I

feel on the whole.... I have never felt so well occupied and so

thoroughly fearless and happy on circuit before.' This was partly due to

improvement in other respects. Circuits were improving. He had given up

the 'Cornhill,' and was finding an outlet in 'Fraser' for much that had

been filling his mind. Other prospects were opening of which I shall

soon have to speak.

VII. DEFENCE OF DR. WILLIAMS

I go back to another book which was closely connected with his

professional prospects and his intellectual interests. His 'Defence of

Dr. Rowland Williams' appeared in the spring of 1862, and represented

some very energetic and to him intensely interesting work. Certain

clergymen of the Church of England had discovered--what had been known

to other people for several generations--that there were mistakes in the

Bible. They inferred that it was desirable to open their minds to free

criticism, and that the Bible, as Jowett said, should be read 'like any

other book.' The result was the publication in 1860 of 'Essays and

Reviews,' which after a time created a turmoil which seems a little

astonishing to the present generation. Orthodox divines have, indeed,

adopted many of the conclusions which startled their predecessors,

though it remains to be seen what will be the results of the new wine in

the old bottles. The orthodoxy of 1860, at any rate, was scandalised,

and tried, as usual, to expel the obnoxious element from the Church. The

trial of Dr. Rowland Williams in the Arches Court of Canterbury in

December 1861 was one result of the agitation, and Fitzjames appeared as

his counsel. He had long been familiar with the writings of the school

which was being assailed. In 1855 he is reading Jowett's 'Commentary on

the Epistle to the Romans,' and calls it a 'kind, gentle Christian

book'--far more orthodox than he can himself pretend to be.

Characteristically he is puzzled and made 'unhappy' by finding that a

good and honest man claims and 'actually seems to possess a knowledge of

the relations between God and man,' on the strength of certain

sensibilities which place a gulf between him and his neighbours. He

probably met Jowett in some of his visits to Henry Smith at Oxford. At

the end of 1861 and afterwards he speaks of meetings with Jowett and

Stanley, for both of whom he expresses a very warm regard.