1908-1909
I spent the Christmas of 1908, as usual, very pleasantly at Beaufort.
For the first time for many years the family was absolutely _au
complet_: the services of the season in the beautiful chapel were well
attended; and I sympathized with the happiness of my kind hostess, as
she knelt at the altar at midnight mass surrounded by all her children,
without exception. There were grandchildren, too, of all ages, who
amused themselves vastly in spite of appalling weather, rain, snow,
frost, thaw, and gales, following one another in rapid and unwelcome
succession. The children acted a pretty and touching miracle-play, the
hand-painted programme whereof still adorns my scrap-book; and there
were seasonable revels of various kinds. At New Year somebody
announced that 1909 was to be a great year of anniversaries, 1809
having been _annus mirabilis_. We remembered (with difficulty) eight
celebrities born that year--Mendelssohn, E. Barrett Browning, Darwin,
Tennyson, O. Wendell Holmes, Lord Houghton, W. E. Gladstone, and
Abraham Lincoln, but could think of no others. This reminded some one
else that I. Disraeli called thirty-seven the "fatal age of genius,"
four great men (among others) who died at that age having been Raphael,
Mozart, {133} Byron and Burns. I wound up with a statement new, I
think, to everybody, viz., that Saturday was the fatal day of the week
to the English Royal Family (Hanoverian Line). I have not followed the
matter down to quite recent times; but it is undoubtedly singular that
William III., Queen Anne, George I., II., III., and IV., the Duchess of
Kent, the Prince Consort, and Princess Alice all died on a Saturday.
I stayed at Loudoun Castle on my way south, finding there a big party
of young men and maidens--Howards of Glossop, Hastings', Bellasis',
Beauclercs, and Bethells, gathered for an Eglinton Hunt Ball (recalling
the days of my youth). Nearly all were Catholics, so I had quite a
congregation in the little chapel, redecorated (with the rest of the
castle) since my previous visit. I was back in Oxford before the
middle of January for the Lent term, to me always a more interesting
period than the golden weeks of summer, when everybody's heads seemed
to be full of nothing but amusement and sport. Our Sunday conferences
were given this term by Father Kenelm Vaughan (the late Cardinal's
missionary brother), who used to arrive for the week-ends with no
luggage save a little well-worn Bible hanging from the girdle of his
cassock and (possibly) a toothbrush in his pocket. If there ever was a
man who lived entirely in "a better country, and that an heavenly," it
was Kenelm. Like all the Vaughans, he was of striking appearance; and
his personality, as well as his appealing eloquence, made a great
impression on his young hearers, although his unconventional sayings
and doings had an occasionally disconcerting effect on our good host
and his guests, which used to remind me of {134} Jerome's "Man in the
Third Floor Back." Wilfrid Ward was with us for a day or two, with a
great flow of conversation, chiefly about himself. He read an
interesting paper to our Newman Society on "The Writing of the
Apologia"--anticipatory gleanings, of course (if the phrase is
permissible), of his great forthcoming biography, and including several
of the Cardinal's unpublished letters. There was a record meeting of
the Society a little later, to hear W. H. Mallock on (or "down on")
Socialism. Many dons of note were present, and there was a brisk
debate, W. H. M. holding his own very well. At supper afterwards I
ventured to remind him of two sentences of his (I forget from which of
his writings) which had given me much pleasure:--
"The Catholic Church is the Columbus of modern society, who will guide
us eventually to the new moral continent which other explorers are
trying in vain to reach."
"An aristocracy is the best of all possible orders, in the worst of all
possible worlds."
Our good Monsignore was nominally at home during these weeks, but in a
restless and excitable state. He would exhaust himself by feverish
energy at golf for a day or two, then rush off in his motor, "for
change," with valet and chauffeur, and return more tired than he had
gone away. He attended one evening a big golfing-dinner at the Master
of University's: dined well (according to his own account), drank hock,
old port, and Benedictine, came home and rolled about all night in
indescribable agony. Most of his duties he delegated to me, including,
sometimes, the task of "interviewing" bewildered Catholic parents, to
whom Oxford university life was an absolute _terra incognita_, and who
{135} were puzzled or anxious about their sons' doings. Poor Lady
E---- B----! I remember still the dismay with which she came to tell
me how her boy had made friends in college with an Egyptian Moslem ("an
unbaptized heathen Turk," was her description of him), and was bent on
taking "digs" (lodgings) with him in the following term. I felt
sympathy with the Catholic mother in her instinctive dislike to this
prospect; but I felt none with the indignation of another parent (a
distinguished diplomatist) at the refusal of one of the most
sought-after colleges to admit his son. The fact was, as I had, after
due inquiry, to explain tactfully to the aggrieved parent, that the
youth (a pupil of one of our smaller Catholic schools) gave himself, at
the preliminary interview with the college authorities, such
"confounded airs" (as one of the dons expressed it) that they would
have nothing to say to him. Probably the poor lad's "airs" were only
one of the many forms in which extreme shyness manifests itself; anyhow
it is fair to add that this was an exceptional case, and that our
Catholic freshmen, as a whole, made a favourable impression by their
good manners and modesty of demeanour. One Head, who had no sympathy
at all with the Catholic religion, told me that so pleased was he with
the Catholic contingent in his college, that he would willingly admit
as many more as I cared to recommend to him.
Of events of general interest this spring, I recall a fascinating
lecture by Sven Hedin on his Tibetan travels. The eminent explorer had
a bumper audience and a great reception, and was given an honorary
degree by Convocation next day. Kennard and I agreed in resenting his
arrogant and bumptious {136} manner; and the tone of some of his
remarks might have prepared us for the outburst of anti-English
fanaticism for which he made himself notorious a few years later.
There was a big gathering at the Schools one evening in celebration of
the centenary of Darwin. The oratorical tributes and panegyrics were,
as usual, so lengthy as to become wearisome; but an interesting feature
was the presence of three of Darwin's sons, of whom one (Sir George)
gave us some pleasant personal details and reminiscences of his
distinguished father. His affectionate loyalty to a parent's memory
one can sympathize with and understand; but I confess that, reading the
"pulpit references" to the centenary that week, I was puzzled to
comprehend how Christian ministers could "let themselves go" in
indiscriminating panegyric of a man of whom I hope it is not
uncharitable, as it is certainly not untrue, to say that he was, if any
man ever was, a self-confessed unbeliever in revelation and in
Christ.[1] The utterances on such an occasion of a distinguished
occupant of the university pulpit a generation earlier[2] would
certainly have been pitched in a different key; and so would those of
my old friend Dr. Frederick George Lee, whose summary of the logical
result of Darwin's teaching was--
The Incarnation is but a dream, the Supernatural a delusion. Our only
duties are to feed and to breed. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow
we die.
I received into the Church this term an undergraduate of one of the
smaller colleges, who was reading {137} for natural science honours and
rowed in his college boat; but he had evidently had time for reading
and reflection as well, and had thought the whole matter out so
carefully that I had little left to do. In order to keep him back at
the eleventh hour, his tutor (an Anglican divine of some repute) kept
propounding to him historical difficulties such as "How was it that
Henry of Navarre was allowed by the Pope to have two wives at once?"
and so on. My young friend used to bring me these nuts to crack, and
we had a good deal of fun over them.
It was proposed, and decided, before Easter that Oxford should send a
representative to Louvain in the summer, to take part in the jubilee
celebrations of the Catholic University. Cambridge, London, Glasgow,
Aberdeen, and, I believe, other universities, had all elected, as a
compliment to Louvain, to send a Catholic representative on this
occasion; and the senior proctor told me that my name had been
mentioned before the Council in this connection. Oxford, however,
declined to associate itself with the other universities in this
graceful act of courtesy--one which, as I heard privately from Louvain,
was very highly appreciated there. A clergyman of the Church of
England was nominated as the Oxford representative; and to a letter of
remonstrance which (after consulting one or two of our resident
masters) I sent to the Vice-chancellor, he replied by a
courteously-worded note of explanation--which explained nothing.
Early in March I paid an interesting little visit to Douai Abbey, in
the beautiful wooded country about Pangbourne, and lectured to the
community and their eighty pupils on Jerusalem. I had a warmly {138}
Benedictine welcome here, and was glad to see additions being made to
the buildings of the former diocesan college of Portsmouth, which the
bishop had made over to the monks when they were expelled from their
beloved home at Douai, by decree of the French Government dated April
3, 1903. Term over, I went up to Yorkshire to spend St. Benedict's
festival with my brethren at Ampleforth, where I found myself deputed
that evening to present the football colours in the college. They were
scarlet and black; but while reminding the young players that those
were the traditional colours of Mephistopheles, I disclaimed any
intention of suggesting a common origin. My stay here was saddened by
the rather unexpected news of the death of my dear old friend George
Angus of St. Andrews. He had long been the only Catholic member of his
Oxford Hall; and exactly a week before his death I had had, by a
consoling coincidence, the pleasure of reconciling to the Catholic
Church an undergraduate of the same venerable foundation.
I stayed a night in London, on my way to Arundel, to hear Lord Hugh
Cecil discourse at our Westminster Dining-club, with his usual
perfervid rhetoric, on "Some Diseases of the House of Commons." Two of
our University Members, Sir William Anson and Professor Butcher, joined
in the interesting subsequent discussion. A friend next morning
insisted on carrying me off to Selfridge's, the huge new emporium in
Oxford Street, and showing me all over it. He amused me by a story of
how there, or in some other Brobdingnagian London store, the electric
light suddenly went out, just at the busiest hour of the evening.
"There they were--thousands of {139} 'em," the narrator of the incident
is supposed to have said, "pinching the goods right and left--'aving
the time of their lives, with not a light in the 'ole place; and there
was _I_--just my blooming luck--where do you think? _in the grand piano
department!_"
I went for the week-end to Rickmansworth, to stay with Lady Encombe,
who had a little party for the laying of the foundation-stone of the
new church of the Assumptionists. The Bishop of Kimberley (S.A.) gave
a nice address. I preached next day (Sunday) in the old church, and in
the evening we all listened to a quaint Franco-English sermonette from
good Fr. Julian, the superior. Monday was Jack Encombe's tenth
birthday: I gave him _Jorrocks_, with coloured plates, which delighted
him; saw him and his brother start hunting on their ponies (their
mother following them awheel); and then left for Arundel, where I was
very glad to find myself (though not yet fully robust) able to take my
share in the solemn Easter services. I found the castle grounds at
length "redd up" and in perfect order; the hordes of workmen vanished,
and lawns and terraces and shrubberies and flower-beds twinkling in the
April sunshine. It was a joy to see the beautiful home of the Howards
looking itself again after all these years of reconstruction and
upheaval. The Duke had told me that he was determined to get the place
shipshape within a year of his second marriage, or (like Trelawny)
"know the reason why!" and he had been as good as his word. I heard
with pleasure in Easter week that my nephew had got his first in
moderations at Balliol; and with sorrow of the death of my kind old
friend Bishop {140} Wilkinson, successor of St. Cuthbert as Bishop of
Hexham, and a shining example of loyalty and devotion to his Church and
his country. I lunched in London, on my way to Oxford, with Lady
Maple, at Clarence House, the pretty residence in Regent's Park left to
her by Sir Blundell Maple. Telephoning previously to "Clarence House"
to inquire the luncheon-hour, I was informed in haughty tones that
"their Royal 'Ighnesses were in Egypt, and that nothing was known about
any luncheon!" It turned out that I was in communication with the
other Clarence House, the St. James's residence of the Duke of
Connaught.
My first duty, on returning to Oxford, was to marry my cousin John
Simeon,[3] until recently an undergraduate of the House, to Miss
Adelaide Holmes a Court. My little sermon at the Jesuit church (which
was almost filled with the wedding guests) was not intended to be
otherwise than cheerful, and I was surprised in the course of it to
observe the unusual phenomenon of the bridegroom's father dissolved in
tears! The happy couple motored off later to North Wales in a downpour
of rain, which (I heard) never once stopped during their brief
honeymoon.
Father Maturin (whose repute as an orator had been long established in
Oxford) was giving our weekly conferences this term, and I was greatly
struck with them--packed close with thought and luminous argument, and
scintillating besides with {141} genuine eloquence. I had heard many
of his pulpit orations, but I thought this series of lectures the
finest thing he had ever done, though perhaps slightly over the heads
of his undergraduate auditors. I was myself fully occupied at this
time with a long article (biographical and critical) on St. Gregory
Nazianzene,[4] which, by a happy coincidence, I completed on May 9, the
feast-day of that great saint and doctor. I took two days off for a
visit to Cambridge (my first for fourteen years) in connection with the
Fisher Society dinner, at which I represented Oxford and the "Newman."
Some distinguished guests--a Cardinal, a judge, an author, and a
statesman--failed us at the last moment; but the gathering was cheery
and successful and the after-dinner oratory much less wearisome than
usual. I visited, of course, while at Cambridge, the really noble
Catholic church of Our Lady--finer, I thought (as I had thought
before), and more impressive outside than in. I remembered that the
great church of St. John at Norwich had given me precisely the contrary
impression.
I was always bidden to (and pleased, when I could to attend) the
numerous weddings of my youthful relatives. One, in these early summer
days, was that of my pretty cousin, Eleanor Bowlby, to a Dorrien-Smith,
heir-apparent to the "King of Scilly," as his sobriquet was, though I
believe his proper local title was "Lord Proprietor." I sat at the
ceremony next to my brother-in-law Charles Dalrymple, who did not
approve of the ever-popular "O for the Wings of a Dove!" which a little
chorister warbled in the course of the service. {142} "Absurd and
unreal!" I heard him mutter. "They are going to Paris for their
honeymoon, and don't want doves' wings, or to be at rest either."[5]
On the same evening I attended, at the invitation of the genial head
master of University College School (whom I had known when on the staff
of Inverness College), an excellent presentation of _Alcestis_ in the
fine oak-panelled hall of his school at Hampstead. Not all the
audience witnessed dry-eyed the death of the poor heroine; the
sustained pathos, too, of Admetus was admirably portrayed; but the
chief honours of the evening fell to a young hero of six-foot-four, who
had played great cricket for the school against the M.C.C., and was a
most doughty and convincing Herakles. A very pleasant evening's
entertainment, which I had to abandon not quite completed to catch the
midnight train to Oxford; for I was interested in a debate in
Convocation next day, on the perennial problem of how and where to
house the ever-increasing thousands of books accruing to the Bodleian
Library. There were some drastic suggestions thrown out--one, if I
remember right, was to make a bonfire of all the obsolete works on
theology, philosophy and natural science! but our final decision was to
adopt somebody's ingenious proposal to excavate underground chambers,
with room for a million or so volumes, under the grass-plots round the
Radcliffe camera. This point settled, I went to lunch with my friend
Hadow in his rooms at Worcester, the former calefactory or
recreation-room (so he said) of {143} our whilom Benedictine students,
and looking out on a long narrow raised garden which there is reason to
believe was once the monastic bowling-green. I thought, as often
before, of the many unknown nooks and corners in this dear Oxford of
ours, each bearing its silent witness to some phase of her "strange
eventful history."
A few interesting incidents in this--my last summer term in
residence--come back to me as I write. I recall a crowded meeting at
the Town Hall enthusiastically cheering a vitriolic attack on the
Admiralty by "Lieutenant Carlyon Bellairs, M.P., R.N." (a most
un-sailor-like person); a paper, or rather a harangue, at the Newman
Society, from Hilaire Belloc on "The Church and Reality," which left us
gasping at his cleverness but rather doubtful as to his drift; and an
odd meeting of dons and dignitaries at Hertford College, whereat Lord
Hugh Cecil was accepted as prospective Parliamentary candidate for the
university. I have called it "odd"; for odd it certainly was to hear
the Master of University, who proposed Lord Hugh, assert that he did so
in spite of his own profound disagreement with him on fiscal,
ecclesiastical, and educational questions! As a matter of fact, it
mattered little what the Master of University or anybody else thought,
said, or did; for as every one knew that the six hundred clerical
members of Convocation would vote for Lord Hugh to a man, his election
was of course a foregone conclusion.
My last evening at Oxford was a happy one: a pleasant party gathered
round the Vice-chancellor's hospitable table, and after dinner the
Commemoration concert at Magdalen, Waynflete's ancient {144} hall
echoing with old madrigals perfectly rendered by the unrivalled choir,
and we guests, during the interval, flitting about the cloisters, dimly
lit with Chinese lanterns, and set out with tables of refreshments. I
left Oxford next day for Birmingham, for a jubilee celebration at the
Oratory School--a solemn memorial service in the fine church, an
admirable representation of Terence's _Phormio_ (as arranged by
Cardinal Newman), and a prize-distribution presided over by the Duke of
Norfolk. The Duke was next day the chief guest at an Oxford and
Cambridge Catholic graduates' dinner in London, and proposed the toast
of Oxford University, to which I had the pleasure of replying. I took
occasion to point out our guest's new and close family connection with
Oxford, where he had recently had three nephews, while two more were
shortly going up. His own father, the previous Duke, had been a
Cambridge man. London was so sultry during these midsummer days, that
it was pleasant to find oneself transported to the Antarctic Circle,
listening (at the Albert Hall) to Shackleton's fascinating narrative of
his trip to the South Pole. His great lantern pictures made one feel
almost cool: and the groups of solemn penguins, in their
black-and-white, pacing along the snowy shores, were quite curiously
reminiscent of a gathering of portly bishops--say at a Pan-Anglican
Congress.
I refused to stay in London (as I had proposed doing) to attend an
international anti-vivisection meeting in Trafalgar Square, when I
found that I was expected to speak (from the back of a lion?). I fled
to Surrey, to stay first with my sister at her {145} newly-acquired
home near Reigate, a pretty old house in a "careless-ordered garden" of
which Tennyson would have approved; and then to the Kennards at their
charming Elizabethan manor-house of Great Tangley. The Sunday of my
visit here I spent partly at the fine diocesan seminary of Wonersh, and
partly at the Greyfriars monastery at Chilworth. The same architect
had designed the chapels at both; and I admired the skill with which he
had achieved extremely effective results by entirely different methods
of treatment. From Surrey I travelled to Scotland, to preach a charity
sermon at Saltcoats, in Ayrshire, for the excellent work of the Society
of St. Vincent of Paul. Saltcoats was within easy reach of Kelburn,
and I went thither for a short visit, finding my sister enjoying what
was always one of the chief pleasures of her life--that of having
helped to secure the happy engagement of one of our numerous nieces,
the elder daughter of my third brother.
My Oxford Local Examination work lay this summer not among the little
maidens of Dumfries Convent School, but at St. Wilfrid's College at
Oakamoor, in the picturesque Staffordshire Highlands, a country quite
new to me. My room commanded a lovely view of wooded glens and distant
purple hills; and the place itself was full of interest, incorporating
as it did the old house of Cotton Hall, given by Lord Shrewsbury fifty
years before to Faber and his "Wilfridian" community, most of whom
joined the Oratory after their conversion to Catholicism. I admired
Pugin's church, at once graceful and austere, with the famous east
window which the architect told Lord Shrewsbury he "could {146} die
for."[6] I had a pleasant week here, presiding on the last day at the
school prize-distribution, and promising the boys a new set of Scott's
novels, to replace the one which, I was glad to see, was worn out with
assiduous reading.
Going on to Cardiff from Staffordshire, I found Lady Bute entertaining
the Cymnodorion and other mysterious Welsh societies in the castle
grounds. I was lodged in the lofty clock-tower, in one of Burges's
wonderful painted chambers, and said mass for the family and large
house-party on Sunday in the richly-decorated but tiny domestic
chapel--so tiny (it has been the dressing-room of Bute's grandfather,
who died there) that most of my congregation were outside in the
passage, and the scene recalled my mass in the Grotto of the Nativity
at Bethlehem eight years before. I had never thought to see a Pageant
again; but the Welsh one, for some reason, had been postponed to this
summer, and we all attended the opening representation on July 26, most
of our house-party, indeed, taking part in the show. Lady Bute was
Dame Wales, and Lady Ninian Stuart Glamorgan; but the great reception
of the day was reserved for Lord Tredegar, veteran of Balaclava, and
the most popular magnate of Wales, who came on in full armour as Owen
Glendower, with Lady Llangattock as Lady Glendower. I thought the
finest feature of the Pageant the singing of the national hymn, "Hen
Wlad fy nhadau," at the close, actors and audience all joining in the
stirring chorus with thrilling effect. Most of {147} the next day we
spent at Caerphilly Castle, whither Princess Louise and the Duke of
Argyll came to explore the imposing ruins.
I spent a couple of nights, on leaving Cardiff, at Belmont Priory, full
to me of old Benedictine memories; and in August I was once more my
brother's guest at his pleasant river-side home near Shepperton. One
day we devoted to a visit to Hampton Court--my first, curiously enough.
We saw everything conscientiously, great hall, state-rooms, pictures (I
had not expected so many good ones), big vine, and Dutch garden; but I
think I was most struck, entering Clock Court under the red turreted
tower, with the almost uncanny likeness of the place to the familiar
School-yard at Eton.[7] From Shepperton I presently moved higher up
the river to Goring, to attend the local regatta, of which my kind host
there was secretary and treasurer. He was likewise the leading
Catholic of the little mission, and had given up his commodious
boat-house to serve as a chapel till the pretty church was built. The
_padre_ at that time was a German priest called Hell (to which he later
added an e for euphony), while the name of the Anglican vicar, oddly
enough, was Dams! My host's son accompanied me up to town on an
excursion to the White City, where the outstanding attraction (how
strange it seems to-day!) was the aeroplane in which Bleriot had
achieved the unprecedented feat of crossing the Channel. London struck
me as a curious place in mid-August: a city of aliens and country
visitors, French and German {148} chattered everywhere, and the only
familiar face among the millions that of Simon Lovat, whom I came
across at Hatchard's buying books.
George Lane Fox claimed my services as chaplain, before I returned to
Scotland, at Monkhams, the pretty place near Waltham Cross where he was
then living with his family; the house stood atop of a high hill
(pleasantly cool in these sultry August days), and was quite rural,
though the Lights o' London were clearly visible at night not many
miles away. There was a tiny chapel for our daily services, and a big
scouts' camp in the park close by, whence a quota of young worshippers
turned up for Sunday mass. George took me to see the noble church at
Waltham (surely one of the finest Norman naves in England),[8] and,
across the Lea, the beautiful and still perfect Eleanor Cross in the
market-place, before I went north to pay a few farewell visits to
Scottish relatives, in view of my approaching departure for South
America. At Blairquhan I found my brother entertaining his customary
August party, with, as usual, a considerable naval contingent. The
weather was "soft"--in other words, it rained every day and all day;
but people shot, fished, golfed, motored and played tennis quite
regardless of the elements. My brother had {149} developed a passion
for mechanical music; and the house was continuously resonant with the
weird strains of pianolas, gramophones and musical boxes. There was
music, too, of a strenuous kind when I reached Dunskey in preparation
for an amateur concert for some good object (I forget what) at
Portpatrick. My brother-in-law, David Glasgow, sang a naval song or
two with astonishing vigour and sweetness for a man of seventy-six; I
contributed "The Baby on the Shore," which I had first sung on the old
_Magdalena_ going out to Brazil in 1896; and the entertainment was so
successful that an overflow concert had to be arranged for the
following evening. I was sorry to leave the merry and pleasant party;
but I was due at Aberdeen to assist at the presentation of his portrait
to our kind old friend Bishop Chisholm, on the occasion of his
sacerdotal golden jubilee. The presentation ceremony took two hours,
and the luncheon afterwards two hours more! Why is there no time-limit
to the oratory on such occasions? I contrived to propose the health of
the whole Hierarchy of Scotland[9] in exactly six minutes (one minute
for each bishop); but the length of some of the speeches was appalling.
Next day I went on to Fort Augustus, where I found myself, after a
quarter of a century, "presiding" (as the phrase is) again at the
organ, our organist being away on a walking tour among the hills. In
the week after my return our local games (the Gleann Mhor Gathering)
came off in {150} glorious weather. Motors from neighbouring lodges
occupied the monastic lawns: the Chief of Glenmoriston and other noted
highlanders were acting as judges; and "quite a special feature (so
said one of the reporters) was given to the gay scene by the
black-robed monks, who flitted [I like that word] hither and thither
with a word of welcome for all." As a matter of fact, one of our
community (a Macdonell, to wit) was the moving spirit of the Gathering,
the success of which was in great measure owing to his efforts and
enthusiasm.
[1] I would not venture to make such a statement except on the best
authority--Darwin's own words. See Appendix.
[2] Dean Burgon. See _ante_, page 104.
[3] His grandfather, Sir John Simeon, M.P. for the Isle of Wight, had
married my father's cousin, one of the Colvilles of Culross. They were
both converts to the Catholic Church. Johnnie succeeded his father as
fourth baronet in 1915.
[4] For the _Catholic Encyclopaedia_ (vol. vii., pp. 10-14).
[5] The most inappropriate wedding-anthem I ever heard was at a smart
marriage in Scotland; it was sung by a lady, and was called, "With thee
th' unsheltered moor I tread!"
[6] Pugin's ecstatic allusion was, of course, to the tracery of the
window designed by himself, not to the (contemporary) stained glass,
which is in truth _laid a faire fremir_.
[7] The likeness was the more remarkable in view of the fact that there
is a difference of eighty years in the respective dates (Eton _c._
1440, Hampton Court, _c._ 1520) of the two buildings.
[8] George was greatly amused with a description which I afterwards
sent him from a fifty-year old church paper, of a Victorian
"restoration" of this fine old church. There were oak choir-stalls (so
wrote the aggrieved reporter), but no choir, the stalls being occupied
by fashionably-dressed ladies. The only ornament of the restored
sanctuary was a gigantic Royal Arms under the East Window--"a work in
which the treatment of the Unicorn's tail is especially remarkable for
what Mr. Ruskin would call its 'loving reverence for truth.'"
[9] I amused the company, in this connection, with the tale of the
undergraduate who was asked in an examination to enumerate the Minor
Prophets. "Well," said the youth after some hesitation, "I really do
not care to make invidious distinctions!"
{151}