"_Sutton Place, Jan. 8._--Lord Eversley has been talking of
Bramshill, the old home of Prince Henry, where Archbishop Abbott
shot a keeper by accident, in consequence of which it became a
question whether consecration rites received at his hands were
valid. Lord Eversley did not believe that the oak in the park, from
which the arrow glanced (with the same effect as in the case of
Rufus), was the real tree, because it was _too_ old: oaks beyond a
certain age, after the bark has ceased to be smooth, do not allow
an arrow to glance and rebound.
"The Buxtons sent me a ticket for Lord Macaulay's funeral, but I
would not leave Sutton to go. Sir John went, and described that, as
often in the case of funerals and other sad ceremonies, people, by
a rebound, became remarkably merry and amusing, and that they had
occupied the time of waiting by telling a number of uncommonly good
stories. The sight of Lady Holland[179] and her daughters amongst
the mourners had reproduced the bon-mot of Mrs. Grote, who, when
asked how this Lady Holland was to be distinguished from the
original person of the name, said, 'Oh, this is New Holland, and
her capital is Sydney.'
"Apropos of Macaulay, Sir John remarked how extraordinary it was in
growing age to see a person pass away whose birth, education,
public career, and death were all within your memory.
"He said how unreadable 'Roderick Random' and 'Tom Jones' were now.
A lady had asked to borrow 'Pamela' from his library, saying she
well remembered the pleasure of it in her youth; but she returned
it the next day, saying she was quite ashamed of having asked for
anything so improper.
"Yesterday was Sunday, and I groped my way through the dark
passages to the evening service in the Catholic chapel, which has
always been attached to the house. An old priest, seated on the
steps of the altar, preached a kind of catechetical sermon upon
Transubstantiation--'My flesh is meat _indeed_'--'and the poor
Protestants have this in their Bibles, and yet they throw away the
benefit of the _indeed_.' The sight was most picturesque--the dark
old-fashioned roof, only seen by the light of the candles on the
richly decorated altar, and the poor English peasants grouped upon
the benches. It carried one back to the time before the
Reformation. In his discourse, the old priest described his
childhood, when he sat in the east wing of the house learning his
catechism, and when there were only two Catholics in Guildford; and
'what would these two solitary ones say now if they had seen the
crowd in St. Joseph's Chapel at Guildford this morning? Yes, what
would old Jem Savin say if he could rise up and see us now, poor
man?'"
_To_ MY MOTHER (after I had returned to my Handbook explorations).
"_Aldermaston Hall, Berks, Jan. 14, 1860._--I came here from
Newbury. The weather was so horrible, and the prospect of a damp
lonely Sunday in an inn so uninviting, that I thought over all
possible and impossible houses in the neighbourhood, and finally
decided upon Aldermaston as the best, and have taken it by storm.
"It was the dampest and dreariest of mornings as I came from the
station, but this place looked beautiful in spite of it--a wild
picturesque park, and a large house, full of colour inside, like a
restored French château. Mrs. Higford Burr (who seems to live more
in Italy than here) wears a sort of Greek dress with a girdle and a
broad gold hem.... I was at once, as I rather expected, invited to
stay _per l'amore d'Italia_, and my luggage sent for. This
afternoon Mrs. Burr, who is a most tremendous walker, has taken me
to Upton Court, the home of Arabella Fermor (Pope's Belinda), a
charming old house with a ghost, which the farm-people described as
'coming a clinkerin upstairs right upon un loike.'"
"_Christ Church, Feb. 4._--I have had a terribly cold tour to
Drayton-Beauchamp, Ashridge, Aylesbury, &c. The pleasantest feature
was a warm welcome from Mrs. Barnard, wife of the great
yeoman-farmer at Creslow Pastures, the royal feeding-grounds from
the time of Elizabeth to Charles II., with a lovely and interesting
old house overlooking Christ Low (the Christ's Meadow) and Heaven's
Low (Heaven's Meadow). Thence I went to North Marston, where was
the shrine of Sir John Shorne, a sainted rector, who preserved his
congregation from sin by 'conjuring the devil into his boot.'
Buckinghamshire is full of these quaint stories.
"Arthur has just been making great sensation by a splendid sermon
at St. Mary's, given in his most animated manner, his energies
gradually kindling till his whole being was on fire. It was on,
'Why stand ye here idle all the day long?--the first shall be last
and the last first.' 'Why stand ye here idle, listless, in the
quadrangle, in your own rooms, doing nothing; so that in the years
to come you will never be able to look back and say, "In such a
year, in such a term, I learnt this or that--that idea, that book,
that thought _then_ first struck me"? Perhaps this may be a voice
to the winds, perhaps those to whom it would most apply are even
now in their places of resort, standing idle: probably even those
who are here would answer to my question, "Because no man hath
hired us."'
"Then he described the powers, objects, and advantages of Oxford.
Then the persons who had passed away within the year, leaving gaps
to be filled up--the seven great masters of the English
language,[180] the German poets and philosophers,[181] the French
philosopher[182]--'and their praise shall go forth from generation
to generation.' Then he dwelt on the different duties of the coming
life to be prepared for, and he described the model
country-clergyman (Pearson), the model teacher (Jowett), the model
country-gentleman. Then came a beautiful and pictorial passage
about the eleventh hour and the foreboding of the awful twelfth.
The congregation was immense, and listened with breathless
interest. When the signatures were being collected for the Jowett
appeal, Arthur was hard at work upon them on Sunday when Mr. Jowett
came in. Arthur said, 'You need not mind my being at work to-day,
for I can assure you it is quite a Sunday occupation, a work of
justice, if not of mercy.'--'Yes,' said Jowett, 'I see how it is:
an ass has fallen into a pit, and you think it right to pull him
out on the Sabbath-day.'"
Arthur Stanley used to see a great deal of Mr. Jowett during this
year--far too much, my mother thought when she was staying with him at
Oxford; for Jowett--kind and unselfish as a saint--was only "Christian"
in so far that he believed the central light of Christianity to spring
from the life of Christ. He occasionally preached, but his sermons were
only illustrative of practical duties, or the lessons to be learnt from
holy and unselfish lives. It was during this year, too, that the English
Church recognised with surprise that it was being shaken to its
foundations by the volume of--mostly feeble and dull--"Essays and
Reviews." But to turn to a very different religious phase.