Sunday Afternoon, July 4.—I am writing this in a most lovely spot on the hills between Bonn and Godesberg, after attending the German Protestant service, and afterwards in the same Church the English Service, and receiving the Holy Communion. On "The spot where I am sitting is one of the best points of view. A German family have come here also, the little girls are picking whortleberries, and bringing them to their mamma. I wish they were two certain little girls and a little boy whom I know, and the mamma, my own dear Fanny; but it is not so, and yet I am very happy and thankful. one side of me is the whole flat plain traversed by the Rhine, bordered by a line of wooded hills, like Sedgmoor [in Somersetshire, near Heale], only the plain is larger, the hills about the same height. In the horizon is the spire and large unfinished cathedral of Cologne. I can see by glimpses the Rhine all the way from Cologne to Bonn, and villages and churches dappling its banks; then comes Bonn about four miles off, glittering in the hot sun, and all the houses on the opposite bank of the river reflected in the still water. To the right the Sieben Gebirge rise out of the Rhine. From here I cannot see the water, but the whole seven ending with the Drachenfels, are stretched out before me. Then on this side of the river is the conical wooded hill, topped by the ruins of Godesberg, which I dare say you'remember: it is altogether a lovely sight, and one calculated to carry on, and fix the feelings of love and joy which this morning communion has left on my mind. Were you also at the Communion today? "10 o'clock, Eve.-I have returned from my walk not at all tired, and I have had a good supper. I heard some Englishmen talking German, and I gathered from their talk, one came from Yorkshire. I asked him whether he knew Archdeacon Wilberforce. Judge my surprise at his answer, 'I am Archdeacon Wilberforce!' He is come here to learn German. A little man, very like his father. "July 7.—I have made the acquaintance of four professors; two I met last night at the house of Mr. Glover, a clergyman 1847] Visits Bonn. 161 here, who kindly invited me there, Professor Hässe, and Professor Dorner, the latter one of the first men in Germany, very lively and animated in his talk, and very deep and intense in spiritual life and feeling; he has succeeded Nitzsch, whose name you probably know, as the greatest of the German Protestants. The other two Professors are Arndt (a delightful old man), and Welcken. But I am stealing this out of working time, so adieu, I will describe them hereafter. I work ten hours a day on German. I send you a piece of poetry, the production of a 'Truant Hour' this week. I think you will like it, it is the only piece I have written for more than a year : "The golden stars keep watch," &c.8 "July 18.-I shall leave this place with regret, having spent many profitable hours with my books, and met with every civility and kindness. "Yesterday the first load of wheat entered Bonn from the present harvest. It was decorated with flags, and had a band of music on it, and the following lines inscribed on it [the German given], i. e. in English : "He who clothes the lilies and birds of the field, "The abundance here is really astonishing. I was told today the harvest is expected to be three times the average quantity, and the grapes even more than that. I understand that in England also, every thing is very prosperous. How can we be thankful enough to the Giver of all good who has thus answered (so far at least) our prayers! "July 22.-I must now conclude my last letter. Yesterday I called by appointment on Professor Scholz, to see his cabinet of curiosities, and spent three hours with him, and was very much interested by his various and curious collections of copper-plates, wood-cuts, memorials, manuscripts, and every conceivable thing, which he has brought from the East and "Poems," p. 259. all parts of the world, where he has been in search of manuscripts of the Scriptures. I have just had a visit from old Professor Arndt, a glorious old fellow of nearly eighty, who was the object of Buonaparte's persecutions in 1807. He is the author of the famous song,— 'Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?' and as lively and active, and full of spirit as a youth of twenty. Last year he swam across the Rhine; he talks very loud, and is full of all sorts of information and good-humour. I don't know when I have seen such a striking old man'. "I have worked harder, and lived cheaper here than I anticipated. I hope I have facility enough now to read slowly all the commentaries which I want. In spirits I have never drooped, as I have had too much to do. When tired of my German work I have taken up my journal, having the satisfaction, that I was recording what would be hereafter interesting to myself, and that I was writing to my dear ones in England. If God will, and I can afford it, I should much like to repeat it next year with you and the dear children." The course of his next year was however ordered otherwise. In that year of revolutions (1848), few summer tourists, if any, ventured to visit the Continent. France, after prolonged internal struggles, became a Republic under Louis Napoleon. Louis Philippe, the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, and the Pope, fled from their capitals. Paris was for four months in a state of siege, and there was fighting in Milan, Naples, and Messina, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Prague, and Madrid. Wars raged between Austria and Sardinia, Denmark and Prussia. Our own country was disquieted by the Chartist Demonstration of April 10, on Kennington Common, and by acts of sedition in Ireland. In such a year travelling abroad was out of the question, and his vacations were spent as we shall see, in visits to the West of England, a short tour in Wales, and in the North of Devonshire. 9 He was born in the same year as Napoleon, 1769 and died in 1860. CHAPTER V. 1847-1851. GIVES UP PUPILS-PUBLISHES ANOTHER VOLUME OF SERMONSPUBLISHES THE FIRST VOLUME OF GREEK TESTAMENT-CANDIDATE FOR THE REGIUS PROFESSORSHIP OF DIVINITY, CAMBRIDGE-DEATH OF HIS ELDEST SON. A FTER his return from Bonn and the extension of his acquaintance with German commentators, the magnitude of the work which he had undertaken grew upon him. Happy and useful as his life was at Wymeswold he could not but perceive that the combined occupations of a tutor and a parish clergyman were scarcely compatible with the work of a commentator on the entire New Testament. He therefore made an effort to obtain a change of situation, whereby without forsaking the active ministerial life which was of all the most congenial to him, he might devote the time now absorbed in tutorial work to the composition of his Commentary. With this view he wrote to Bishop Pepys of Worcester (whose son was one of his pupils at Wymeswold) the following letter; to which the Bishop, probably from want of a suitable opportunity, did not then give the desired answer, but which is inserted here as a faithful description of his views at this time : TO THE BISHOP OF WORCESTER. "I have been now for some years employed on an edition of the Greek Testament for the use of students in the Universities; and am earnestly endeavouring, by devoting all my energies to the work, to produce an edition more worthy of the present state of Biblical criticism than any which we now have. The work is one of Herculean labour, comprising as it does, on my plan, no less than a thorough digest of various readings founded on the present improved collations of the principal MSS.; an entirely new collection of references not to the subject-matter, but to verbal and constructional usage, and copious English notes exegetical and philological. It necessitates a thorough acquaintance with what has been done both here and in Germany of late years, and collateral reading of various kinds. With the progress of the work an increasing wish has possessed my mind to devote myself wholly to it; and indeed I see no reasonable prospect of completing it unless I can do so. "My present circumstances however wholly preclude this. I may be excused mentioning that since my residence here I have felt the wants of the parish to be so pressing as to wholly prevent my accumulating money. The church twelve years ago was tumbling down; there were no schools, or none worthy the name; no habitable parsonage. These are all now provided for, and I don't know which way to turn. I am most unwilling to give up that to which I look as the work of my life, and for which I do believe that the course of my studies has in some measure fitted me; and yet I now feel that I am hindered in carrying it on, when perhaps that hindrance might be relieved by the kindness of some of those who have taken an interest in me and my pursuits. I am deeply interested in the work, and desire no reward but being spared to complete it." This appeal was responded to afterwards as we shall see, but meantime he had to plod on at Wymeswold for six more years. Soon after writing to the Bishop he was a visitor at Hartlebury Castle, as will appear in the following letter to his wife, dated from Heale, where he spent part of his Christmas vacation : "Here I am in the very room which you so long inhabited in childhood and youth, which I remember as your nursery under all sorts of circumstances in days long gone by, by the same blazing fire at which we have played many a Christmas |