MILLER’S
“A merrier man
Within the limit of becoming mirth
I never spent an hour’s talk withal.”
_Love’s Labour’s Lost._
It was not in Norfolk that I met the Rev. Joseph Miller, Hon. Canon
of his Cathedral, Rural Dean, and formerly Fellow and Tutor of some
College in Oxford. Having at one time or another inspected schools in
ten different counties I may leave the venue uncertain. It is merely
for convenience that I record the visit here.
At the time when I made his acquaintance, he had acquired some
notoriety in clerical circles in a singular way. In those days--I know
not whether the rule is altered--the Bampton Lecturer at Oxford was
appointed by a committee: there was a list of subjects to which the
lecturer was confined, and any one who felt a call to the University
pulpit sent in his application, specifying the particular subject upon
which he was moved to discourse.
Miller proposed to give a course of lectures on “The Failure of
Moses.” I suppose he sent in a syllabus with his application: but
possibly the syllabus which he showed me was made merely for his own
use.
The argument, briefly stated, was that in spite of the divine and
miraculous assistance which it enjoyed; in spite of the purity and
simplicity of its doctrines, the Mosaic system had never up to the time
of the Captivity spread over even the little country of Palestine.
Assuming the correctness of the popular chronology, there was an
interval of 881 years between the Exodus and the Captivity, and at no
time during that period was the country as a whole free from gross
idolatry. But after the return from the Captivity idolatry seems to
have disappeared in the course of years; at least there is no mention
of it in the Gospels. To what was this change due? Clearly to the
introduction from the East of the doctrine of a future life, with
future rewards and punishments.
Moses and his followers (said the Canon) promised temporal prosperity
to the righteous, and in the end ruin to the ungodly. This was not the
common experience, and the people, seeming to gain little by virtue
in this world, and having no hope for another, tried other forms of
worship, which combined pleasure with religion.
Solomon, who was strong enough to enforce uniformity, became the
founder of the doctrines of Religious Equality and Concurrent
Endowment, and applied them to his own household. Then came the schism,
and things became worse. Miller’s description of Jeroboam as the
first Home Ruler, the parent of Free Churches, would have convulsed
the undergraduate gallery. The lectures would have set Oxford in an
uproar between the Torpids and the Eights, and when published in the
following year would have filled the _Guardian_ and the _Spectator_
with correspondence. They would eventually have attracted the attention
of Convocation, and _odium theologicum_ would have blossomed into a
_gravamen_, or even an _articulus cleri_.
But it was not to be. The committee chose another man, and an informal
message was sent to Miller to the effect that the success or failure of
Moses was not among the Bampton list of subjects. Moreover, his theory
was opposed to Article VII. One Divinity Professor privately complained
to Miller’s Bishop that he should have a Rural Dean holding such views
“directly contravening the Articles.”
“Let us see the Article,” said the wary Bishop; and he opened a Prayer
Book:
“Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old Fathers
did look only for transitory promises.”
“It seems to me, Professor, that the Article is satisfied. The Rural
Dean will not be heard.”
“But, my dear Lord, he may preach the same doctrines from his own
pulpit.”
The Bishop picked up Liddell and Scott, and turned to his favourite
passage in that work:
ὀρθρο-φοιτο-συκοφαντο-δικο-ταλαίπωροι τρόποι:
“early-prowling base-informing sad-litigious plaguy ways”
“There is a branch of that Society in the Diocese, and I shall receive
prompt intimation of any breach of Article VII.”
The Professor “retired hurt,” as cricketers would put it; and his score
was 0.
Miller told me the whole story, and probably improved it a little. Who
(except the present chronicler) does not throw in a little _pourboire_
for the ever thirsty reader? “But,” he added with mock resignation,
“it has cost me a mitre. Junior Proctor I was: Rural Dean I am: Bishop
I shall never be. Do you remember Scott’s (of Balliol) lines on
Shuttleworth, Warden of New, when, according to Common Room gossip,
that dignitary refrained from giving his vote for fear of imperilling
his promotion?” He opened a drawer, and in the very tones of the Master
he read:
ἀνδρῶν δ’ οὒχ ἡγεῖτο περικλυτὸς Ἀξιόκερκις,
στῇ δ’ ἀπάνευθε μάχης πεφοβημένος εἵνεκα μίτρης:
“Shuttleworth, Warden renowned, led not his men to the battle;
Standing aloof from the fray, much afraid on account of the mitre.”
“No one can say that of me, and I shall not wear the mitre.”
He never did: but in fullness of time he made an excellent Dean.
One year I sent him formal notice of his school inspection, and
received a pathetic reply. I had chosen the very day which he had fixed
for a ruridecanal meeting. He could not put it off, and he could not
leave his rurideacons unshepherded, even to wait upon H.M.I. Would I
forgive him, and, partly in evidence of forgiveness, partly by way of
penance for having selected a day so obviously unsuitable, would I
dine with the “Rurideacons” at 5.30--old Oxford hours, and convenient
in the country, because it enabled the brethren to dine, and to get
home before dark, without “falling out by the way”? He added in a
P.S.--“Towzer has got the gout and can’t come.”
I was glad Towzer could not come: I had seen him last at his own
school, when he was mad with gout, and shook his fist at me in his
fury. Miller knew this.
On the appointed day I examined the school, and, when the afternoon
work was done, strolled up to the Rectory, to wait for the arrival of
the exhausted clerics.
There were seven or eight of them at dinner: the rest went empty away.
It would be easy to describe the guests individually, but all the
clergy between the North Sea and the Irish Channel, between Carlisle
and the borders of Salop, would waste their precious time in hunting
for the lineaments of themselves, or their neighbours. I need mention
only two: first, the Archdeacon, who had views about the Burials Bill
(which was the burning question of that day), the Revised Version, and
the Unity of Christendom. He was full of goodness; rather lacking in
humour, and rather hostile to inspectors, whom he regarded as a lay
and inferior form of archdeacon. There were two Archdeacons in the
diocese, both worthy, and both wooden; so that Canon Miller had said,
in his epigrammatic way, “The Archdeacon is the _oculus episcopi_, and
our Bishop suffers from that form of ophthalmia which is known to the
faculty as _amaurosis_, or dullness of sight.”
The other notable was the Rev. O. Goodfellow. He was the butt of the
Rural Deanery. For five tedious years he had toiled at Oxford for his
degree; his college had ejected him at the end of his fourth year, and
he had taken refuge in a Hall. There he exhausted the pass-coaches
of Oxford, and he might have exhausted his father’s patience, but a
soft-hearted examiner took pity on him, and his fate was like that of
Augustus Smalls of old:
“Men said he made strange answers
In his Divinity;
And that strange words were in his Prose
Canine to a degree:
But they called his vivâ voce ‘Fair,’
And they said his books would do;
And native cheek, where facts were weak,
Brought him in triumph through.”
Possibly he might have done better in the schools if he had not devoted
the October term to football, the Lent term to the Torpids, and the
summer term to cricket. There is little time for reading, if a man
really tries to do his duty by his college in these three branches
of industry. In his parochial work his athletics helped him greatly;
for the rest he was the most good-natured of men, and his wife was
charming. Every one laughed at him, and everybody liked him. Also he
was known to all men as Robin.
The dinner was simple and good; the conversation was varied, except
in two directions: the Canon announced at the outset that if any
one mentioned the Burials Bill or the word “education” he should be
sconced. This, as my neighbour on the left remarked _sotto voce_,
trumped the Archdeacon’s best trick, and left me without a card to lead.
I have omitted to mention Mrs. Miller, most delightful of hostesses,
whom I, “as the representative of the Crown,” had, with friendly
laughter, been instructed to take in to dinner. At this moment she
asked me confidentially what would happen if she were sconced. I told
her that the penalty in the case of a man was to pay for a quart of
beer for the company; _but_ that if the sconcee could drink the whole
quart without stopping to take breath, the penalty rebounded on to the
informer; presumably in the cases of “lunatics, infants, and married
women” (under the law of that date) the guardian, parent, or husband
would be liable. I gave this legal opinion with some solemnity, and the
company rather embarrassed me by suspending their conversation that
they might hear the decision of the Court. The Archdeacon, who, like
St. Peter, “was himself a married man,” showed marked disapproval, and
I hastily diverted discussion by adding that I had seen the draught
completed, and the penalty reflected.
Johnson, my left-hand neighbour, a Yorkshire man, said that in his
county it would not be a remarkable feat. “I remember a case in
point,” he continued; “a discussion arose at the ‘Red Lion’ in ----ton,
whether any man could drink _two_ quarts without stopping to take
breath. Finally it was agreed that if such a man existed, it was Will
Pike. Bets were made, Will was sent for, and the case was laid frankly
before him; would he try?
“To the surprise of his backers he hesitated, and at last asked whether
they could give him a two-three minutes just to see about it. This was
conceded; Will retired, and in less than three minutes he returned, and
drank his two quarts in manner prescribed. The opposition paid up, but
one man, feeling a little sore, complained of the delay. Why didn’t
Will begin at once?
“Will hesitated a minute, and then confessed that he himself didn’t
feel quite sure of his ability--I might say ‘capacity’--so, to make
sure, he had just stepped down to the ‘Black Lion’ to try. As he stood
there, he contained four quarts.”
Mrs. Miller was quite unmoved by the horror of this anecdote; she
laughed with the rest, but added a word of caution to me: “They do very
strange things in Yorkshire, Mr. Kynnersley; if you could hear Mr.
Johnson’s fishing stories, you would add to your knowledge of natural
history.”
“This is hard,” said Johnson, plaintively; “Mrs. Miller alludes to a
very remarkable experience of mine last June. I was fishing for trout
in the West Riding, and a farmer offered to show me the way, and gave
me some hints. He pointed out the best pool to begin on; advised a
particular fly; and specially charged me, when I hooked a trout, not to
let the line get slack, or the fish would get clear. A big trout took
the farmer’s pet fly, and by bad luck I stumbled against a root, let
the line slack as I fell, and in a moment the fish drew the line over a
sharp-edged rock, cut it, and sank.
“‘Now watch him,’ said the farmer: I saw that trout slowly rise, and
swim to a log that checked the current: there it worked with its
mouth against the wood, till it had extracted the hook: it caught
the hook between its jaws; swam close to the log, and deliberately
planted it with its barb fixed in the soft wood. Finally it drew back,
and contemplated its trophies. There was a complete row, January,
February, March, April, the Mayfly....”
A shout of indignant laughter cut short the list. Only the Archdeacon
was grave. He waited till the “mirth unseemly” was done, and then in
solemn tones asked Johnson whether this had really happened to him.
“Well, not exactly to me, I admit: it was a friend of mine who
witnessed the feat: but the story is more effective in the first
person. I hope, Mr. Archdeacon, you don’t doubt my friend’s veracity?
He is a Diocesan Inspector.”
“Oh, not at all,” said the other hastily. But he looked grave, and Mrs.
Miller crumbled her bread.
“Very hearty, genial sort of folk in Yorkshire, are they not?” I
interposed by way of eirenicon.
“Very much so: not quite that refinement of thought and manner which
stamps the caste of--er--the Lower House of Convocation,” said he,
with a glance at the sceptic. “I remember a singular instance of this
so-to-say lack of delicacy. A young doctor in my first parish was
coming home late at night, when he heard the noise of wheels; then a
crash, and then a shout. He ran hastily in the direction of the sound,
and by the help of a feeble moon and a cart-lantern found a young
collier in difficulties: a wheel had come off the cart, and he was
extricating what seemed to be a long box. The doctor offered first aid,
which was readily accepted.
“‘Aw’ve ’ad a reight mullock (_a regular misfortune_), tha’ sees. Aw’ve
been ovver tut t’Union, wheer ar owd man deed, an getten leeave to tak
’im hooam, and burry ’im in t’ Church yard, an nar me cart is brokken
daan: aw s’all hav to leeave all t’ job in t’ field whol mornin’.
Nowt’ll mell (_meddle_) on ’em.’
“It was his father!
“The doctor gave a hand, and together they carried the light shell down
through the gateway into the field, and left it in a corner. The driver
turned his lantern on his helper’s face, and said briskly:
“‘Why, it’s Maister Smith, t’ yung doctor, for sewer?’
“Smith assented.
“‘Sithee,’ said the collier confidentially; ‘aw’ll tell tha wot aw’ll
do’; and, coming closely to him, he said in an undertone, ‘Aw’ll sell
tha t’owd un fer awf a crawn.’
“_It was his father._”
Mrs. Miller shuddered. “If any one mentions Yorkshire again,” she
declared, “I will talk about the Burials Bill (which seems much wanted
in _that_ county), and if the Canon is sconced, and drinks all that
beer, he will have the gout, and I pity the Rural Deanery.”
Johnson chuckled with the satisfaction of a man who has hit the
mark, and the conversation became general. The Archdeacon tried to
interest our hostess in the Revised Version, but she did not know the
aorist from the paulo-post-futurum. She skilfully played a spade,
and introduced gardening: but he did not know a pelargonium from a
potentilla. Then she led a small club, and brought in the Girls’
Friendly Society Annual Meeting, and he followed suit.
Some one mentioned the Bishop, and though not much could be said about
the local Diocesan in the Archdeacon’s presence--for as you would not
abuse a man’s eye to the owner, so you should not abuse the owner to
the eye--yet it led to talk about bishops generally, and we became
anecdotical, as we ate our gooseberry tart. At that date men told
stories of S. Wilberforce, and Magee: Stubbs and Temple were not yet
in all men’s mouths. Most of the stories were familiar, but we enjoyed
them as old friends, and in the telling of them, and in the subsequent
discussion, curious light was thrown on the gradual accretion and
expansion to which such legends are subject. In the case of one
well-known story we were able to trace the aboriginal myth:
“Bishop Magee was at a meeting of bishops, discussing the rubrical
words ‘Before the table.’ He wrote on a bit of paper, and passed it to
a colleague:
“‘Before the table’ means ‘at the north end of the table.’ Qu.: was
‘the piper that played before Moses’ standing at the north end of
Moses?”
And this is the complete legend, many years younger.
The Bishop of Peterborough was standing on a railway platform in
Northamptonshire, waiting for a train, when he was accosted by a
prominent Evangelical clergyman in his diocese, who was much exercised
about the question of the “Eastern Position.” “My Lord,” said the
latter, “the case is perfectly clear: when the rubric says ‘Before the
table’ it means standing ‘at the north end of the table.’”
“I see,” replied the Bishop, meditatively; “in my country we have
a saying, ‘By the piper that played before Moses’: hitherto I have
always supposed that the piper stood in front of Moses: now I see that
he stood at the north end of Moses. Here is my train: good morning.”
The stories of Wilberforce were equally familiar, and all went to
illustrate what we may call his diplomatic talent. One came from
private sources, and may perhaps be recorded here. A man fresh from the
Oxford diocese told it:
There was a great function of some sort in a church near Oxford, and
many clergy had assembled to meet the Bishop, and were using the
schoolroom as a vestry. Five minutes before service time the Rector
came in great trouble to Wilberforce: the clergy had been specially
requested to bring their surplices, but Mr. A. and Mr. B. had come with
black gowns, and the effect would be ruined: would the Bishop speak to
them?
“My dear Mr. X., leave them to me,” was the only reply.
Three minutes passed, and again the Rector pleaded for help: “Leave
them to me,” was repeated.
Just before the clock struck the Bishop moved down to the two
black-legs. “How do you do, Mr. A.? _so_ glad to see you here: will you
read the first lesson for us? How do you _do_, Mr. B.? will you read
the second lesson? _so_ much obliged.”
Greatly flattered, the two men hastily borrowed white robes, and the
situation was saved.
“That,” he added, “is a true story.”
I resent this sort of warranty. It has a tendency (firstly) to imply
that previous stories were not true: (secondly) to assume that truth
is better than fiction. Moved by this feeling I ventured to interpose.
If truth was to gain extra marks, I knew a Wilberforce story of such
authenticity that it was vouched by a Judge of the Common Pleas, and
a Bishop: and I offered this contribution to the chronicles of the
evening:
It happened just after the Summer Assizes at Oxford that Mr. Justice
Keating was going on to Worcester; and in the carriage with him
(among others) was Bishop Wilberforce. Opposite the latter was a seat
untenanted, but littered with correspondence. A lady looked in, just
before the train was starting, and asked whether the empty seat was
engaged:
“Occupied,” said the courtly prelate with a courtly smile, and the lady
moved hurriedly on.
He turned to the judge: “‘Occupied,’ not ‘Engaged’; you observe the
distinction: I have a great deal of work to do in the train, and the
guard is good enough to allow me the use of a second seat for my
papers.”
The judge, an Irishman by birth, was much tickled, and told the
story to a friend in London. The friend repeated it at a dinner
table, where Archdeacon John Allen of Salop was a fellow guest; and
concluded with much virtuous indignation, boldly asserting that the
distinction was inconsistent with honesty. The Archdeacon was the most
excellent and the most combative of men, except his brother Archdeacon
of Taunton (Denison). He went to the root of the matter by denying
emphatically that the Bishop ever made the remark, and undertook to
get his Lordship’s authority for his denial. Accordingly he wrote to
Cuddesden that night: told his story in full, and asked for an official
contradiction. The maligned man vouchsafed no answer, good or bad: only
he forwarded the petition to the Bishop of Lichfield, and wrote at the
bottom:
“Dear Bishop of Lichfield,
Can’t you find something for your archdeacons to do?
Yours always,
S. Oxon.”
The man who told me the story had, I believe, heard it from Sir Henry
Keating. I repeated it to a clerical friend, who, when I reached the
end, said, “Yes, that is quite right: I was examining chaplain to the
Bishop of Lichfield, and he told me the story.”
A vehement discussion arose during dessert: some accusing, others
excusing, and Mrs. Miller looked anxious. But the Canon broke in,
just as she was preparing to retreat to the drawing-room: “Why,” he
exclaimed, “do you have two standards of morality? Let me tell you two
stories: I cannot tell them in parallel columns, but you must put them
side by side in your minds.”
He told them in order, and I, the chronicler, put them in parallel
columns:
The Bishop.
He went to a provincial town for some function: the clergy and others
met in the Assembly room of the chief hotel; and there was to be a
procession through the streets. While they were robing, an elderly
farmer came hurriedly into the room, made straight for the Bishop, and
greeted him heartily. “How do you do-o?” said the Bishop: “so glad to
see you: how is the old grey?”
“Very hearty, thank ye, my Lord, and the grey mare too: very good of
your lordship to remember the old lass.”
“So-o glad,” purred the Bishop: “so good of you to come: good bye.”
“Who’s your friend?” said one, when the door was shut.
“Really, I have no idea.”
“Why, you asked him after his old grey.”
“Yes,” replied the Bishop reproachfully; “but when you see a man with
a great coat covered with grey hairs, you may assume that he has been
driving a grey horse.”
The Premier.
Lord Palmerston and Sir J. Paget (who told the story) were walking
down Bond Street. A man came up and saluted the statesman.
“How do you do, Lord Palmerston?”
“Ah, how do? glad to see you: how’s the old complaint?”
The stranger’s face clouded over, and he shook his head: “No better.”
“Dear me: so sorry: glad to have met you: good bye.”
“Who’s your friend?” said Sir James when the stranger was gone.
“No idea.”
“Why, you asked about his old complaint!”
“Pooh, pooh,” replied the other, unconcernedly: “the old fellow’s well
over 60; bound to have something the matter with him.”
“Now when you hear one story, you say, ‘Good old Pam’ and admire his
worldly wisdom: when you hear the other, you say ‘How like Sam’ and
deplore his crafty cunning.”
We looked at one another, and shame covered our faces. “Agreed,” said
Johnson: “S. Oxon was great; he was genial, and he was witty. What was
his best saying? I am inclined to give the first prize to his comment
on Bishop X’s marriage. Let me recite it. The Bishop, you remember,
married some one of humble station, and that so quietly that no one
knew of it for some time. Then there was an outcry, and the Bishop
resigned the see. This was reported to Wilberforce, who remarked that
his right-reverend brother might fitly be appointed to the See of
Ossory and Ferns, then vacant, for he believed ferns were cryptogamous.”
The laughter was partial, for certainly Goodfellow, and possibly
another, besides Mrs. Miller, failed to catch the point, and the
Archdeacon seemed in doubt whether the story were quite proper: but
Mrs. Miller turned calmly to me, and begged that I would perform the
necessary surgical operation, if I was quite sure----eh?
“Quite safe,” I assured her: “I examine in Botany: plants which have
visible flowers and so on are phanerogams: the others, _which marry in
secret_, are cryptogamous: ferns are cryptogams.”
“No joke can survive a post mortem”: Mrs. Miller smiled sadly and left
us.
“Have a cigar before you go?” said our host, and we made for the study.