Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography
who were imprisoning conscientious clergymen; so the O.U.C.S. fell to
pieces and disappeared, to be revived after long years and under more
peaceable conditions, by the present Archbishop of York, when Vicar of
St. Mary's.
The accession of Dr. King to the Pastoral Professorship brought a new
element of social delight into the ecclesiastical world of Oxford, and
that was just what was wanted. We revered our leaders, but saw little of
them. Dr. Pusey was buried in Christ Church; and though there were some
who fraudulently professed to be students of Hebrew, in order that they
might see him (and sketch him) at his lectures, most of us only heard
him in the pulpit of St. Mary's. It was rather fun to take ritualistic
ladies, who had fashioned mental pictures of the great Tractarian, to
Evensong in Christ Church, and to watch their dismay as that very
unascetic figure, with tumbled surplice and hood awry, toddled to his
stall. "Dear me! Is that Dr. Pusey? Somehow I had fancied quite a
different-looking man." Liddon was now a Canon of St. Paul's, and his
home was at Amen Court; so, when residing at Oxford, he lived a sort of
hermit-life in his rooms in Christ Church, and did not hold much
communication with undergraduates. I have lively recollections of eating
a kind of plum duff on Fridays at the Mission-House of Cowley, while one
of the Fathers read passages from Tertullian on the remarriage of
widows; but this, though edifying, was scarcely social.
But the arrival of "Canon King," with the admirable mother who kept
house for him, was like a sunrise. All those notions of austerity and
stiffness and gloom which had somehow clung about Tractarianism were
dispelled at once by his fun and sympathy and social tact. Under his
roof, undergraduates always felt happy and at home; and in his "Bethel,"
as he called it, a kind of disused greenhouse in his garden, he
gathered week by week a band of undergraduate hearers, to whom religion
spoke, through his lips, with her most searching yet most persuasive
accent.
Lovers of _Friendship's Garland_ will remember that, during their three
years at Oxford, Lord Lumpington and Esau Hittall were "so much occupied
with Bullingdon and hunting that there was no great opportunity for
those mental gymnastics which train and brace the mind for future
acquisition." My ways of wasting time were less strenuous than theirs;
and my desultory reading, and desultory Church-work, were supplemented
by a good deal of desultory riding. I have some delicious memories of
autumnal canters over Shotover and Boar's Hill, and racing gallops
across Port Meadow, and long ambles on summer afternoons, through the
meadows by the river-side, towards Radley and Nuneham. Having been
brought up in the country, and having ridden ever since I was promoted
from panniers, I looked upon riding as a commonplace accomplishment,
much on a par with swimming and skating. Great, therefore, was my
surprise to find that many undergraduates, I suppose town-bred, regarded
horsemanship not merely as a rare and difficult art, but also as
implying a kind of moral distinction. When riding men met me riding, I
saw that they "looked at each other with a wild surmise;" and soon,
perhaps as a consequence, I was elected to "Vincent's." When, after a
term or two, my father suggested that I had better have my own horse
sent from home, I was distinctly conscious of a social elevation.
Henceforward I might, if I would, associate with "Bloods"; but those
whom they would have contemned as "Ritualistic Smugs" were more
interesting companions.
The mention of "Vincent's" reminds me of the Union, to which also I
belonged, though I was a sparing and infrequent participator in its
debates. I disliked debating for debating's sake; and, though I have
always loved speaking on Religion or Politics or any other subject in
which the spoken word might influence practice, it has always seemed to
me a waste of effort to argue for abstract propositions. If by speaking
I can lead a man to give a vote on the right side, or a boy to be more
dutiful to his mother, or a sin-burdened youth to "open his grief," I am
ready to speak all night; but the debates of the Oxford Union on the
Falck Laws and the Imperial Titles Bill always left me cold.
The General Election of 1874 occurred during my second year at Oxford.
The City of Oxford was contested by Harcourt, Cardwell, and the local
brewer. Harcourt and Cardwell were returned; but immediately afterwards
Cardwell was raised to the peerage, and a bye-election ensued. I can
vividly recall the gratification which I felt when the Liberal
candidate--J. D. Lewis--warmly pressed my hand, and, looking at my
rosette, hoped that he might count on my vote and interest. Not for the
world would I have revealed the damning fact that I was a voteless
undergraduate.
In connexion with the Election of 1874, my tutor--C. A. Fyffe--told me a
curious story. He was canvassing the Borough of Woodstock on behalf of
George Brodrick, then an academic Liberal of the deepest dye. Woodstock
was what was called an "Agricultural Borough"--practically a division of
the County--and in an outlying district, in a solitary cottage, the
canvassers found an old man whom his neighbours reported to be a
Radical. He did not disclaim the title, but no inducements could induce
him to go to the poll. Gradually, under persistent cross-examination, he
revealed his mind. He was old enough to remember the days before the
Reform Bill of 1832. His father had been an ardent reformer. Everyone
believed that, if only the Bill were passed, hunger and poverty and
misery would be abolished, and the poor would come by their own. He
said--and this was the curious point--that firearms were stored in his
father's cottage, to be used in a popular rising if the Bill were
rejected by the Lords. Well, the Lords had submitted, and the Bill had
been passed; and we had got our reform--and no one was any better off.
The poor were still poor, and there was misery and oppression, and the
great people had it all their own way. He had got his roof over his
head, and "a bit of meat in his pot," and it was no good hoping for
anything more, and he was never going to take any part in politics
again. It was a notable echo from the voices which, in 1832, had
proclaimed the arrival of the Millennium.
Oxford in those days was full of Celebrities. Whenever one's friends
came "up" to pay one a visit, one was pretty certain to be able, in a
casual stroll up the High or round Magdalen Walks or Christ Church
Meadows, to point out someone of whom they had heard before. I have
already spoken of Liddell and Pusey and Liddon and Acland and Burgon
and Henry Smith. Chief perhaps among our celebrities was Ruskin, who had
lately been made Slade Professor of Fine Art, and whose Inaugural
Lecture was incessantly on the lips of such undergraduates as cared for
glorious declamation.
"There is a destiny now possible to us--the highest ever set before a
nation to be accepted or refused. We are still undegenerate in race; a
race mingled of the best northern blood. We are not yet dissolute in
temper, but still have the firmness to govern, and the grace to obey. We
have been taught a religion of pure mercy, which we must either now
finally betray, or learn to defend by fulfilling. And we are rich in an
inheritance of honour, bequeathed to us through a thousand years of
noble history, which it should be our daily thirst to increase with
splendid avarice, so that Englishmen, if it be a sin to covet honour,
should be the most offending souls alive.... Will you, youths of
England, make your country again a royal throne of kings; a sceptred
isle, for all the world a source of light, a centre of peace; mistress
of Learning and of the Arts; faithful guardian of time-tried principles,
under temptation from fond experiments and licentious desires; and,
amidst the cruel and clamorous jealousies of the nations, worshipped in
her strange valour, of goodwill towards men? _Vexilla regis prodeunt._
Yes, but of which King? There are two oriflammes; which shall we plant
on the farthest islands--the one that floats in heavenly fire, or that
hangs heavy with foul tissue of terrestrial gold?"
Ruskin's lectures, ostensibly devoted to the Fine Arts, ranged over
every topic in earth and heaven, and were attended by the largest, most
representative, and most responsive audiences which had ever been
gathered in Oxford since Matthew Arnold delivered his Farewell Lecture
on "Culture and its Enemies."
Another of our Professors--J. E. Thorold Rogers--though perhaps scarcely
a celebrity, was well known outside Oxford, partly because he was the
first person to relinquish the clerical character under the Act of 1870,
partly because of his really learned labours in history and economics,
and partly because of his Rabelaisian humour. He was fond of writing
sarcastic epigrams, and of reciting them to his friends, and this habit
produced a characteristic retort from Jowett. Rogers had only an
imperfect sympathy with the historians of the new school, and thus
derided the mutual admiration of Green and Freeman--
"Where, ladling butter from a large tureen,
See blustering Freeman butter blundering Green."
To which Jowett replied, in his quavering treble, "That's a false
antithesis, Rogers. It's quite possible to bluster and blunder, too!"
The mention of Oxford historians reminds me of my friend Professor
Dingo, to whom reference has been made in an earlier chapter. He had a
strong admiration for the virile and masterful character of Henry VIII.,
and was wont to conceal the blots on his hero's career by this pathetic
paraphrase--"The later years of this excellent monarch's reign were
clouded by _much domestic unhappiness_."
Jowett has been mentioned more than once, and there is no need for me to
describe him. Lord Beaconsfield, in _Endymion_, gave a snapshot of "a
certain Dr. Comeley, an Oxford Don of the new school, who were
initiating Lord Montfort in all the mysteries of Neology. This
celebrated divine, who, in a sweet silky voice, quoted Socrates instead
of St. Paul, was opposed to all symbols and formulas as essentially
unphilosophical." Mr. Mallock, in the _New Republic_, supplied us with
a more finished portrait of "Dr. Jenkinson," and parodied his style of
preaching with a perfection which irritated the Master of Balliol out of
his habitual calm. My own intercourse with Jowett was not intimate, but
I once dined with him on an occasion which made an equally deep
impression on two of the guests--Lord Milner and myself. When the ladies
had left the dining-room, an eminent diplomatist began an extremely
full-flavoured conversation, which would have been unpleasant anywhere,
and, in the presence of the diplomatist's son, a lad of sixteen, was
disgusting. For a few minutes the Master endured it, though with visible
annoyance; and then, suddenly addressing the offender at the other end
of the table, said, in a birdlike chirp, "Sir ----." "Yes, Master."
"Shall we continue this conversation in the drawing-room?" No rebuke was
ever more neatly administered.
Jowett's name reminds me, rather obliquely, of the Rev. H. O. Coxe, who
in my time was Bodleian Librarian. He was clergyman, sportsman, scholar,
all in one, with an infectious enthusiasm for the treasures in his
charge, and the most unfailing kindness and patience in exhibiting them.
"Those who have enjoyed the real privilege of hearing Mr. Coxe discuss
points of historical detail, or have been introduced by him to some of
the rarer treasures of the Bodleian, will bear witness to the living
interest which such subjects acquired in his hands. How he would kindle
while he recited Lord Clarendon's written resignation of the