brown shingles below high-water mark, interposed between the snow and the water. We have been here more than three weeks, and, as it always does, the place has breathed a constant refreshment on me, although I have never worked harder; having done six of my Lectures, besides a large correspondence about the school matters, as usual in the holidays. I have, in all, written seven Lectures, and leave one more to be written in Oxford, and this last week I hope to devote to my History. We have been all well, and as my children grow up, we are so large and companionable a party, that we need no society out of ourselves. This is a great change in later married life, when your table is always full without company, and you live in the midst of a large party. And I am sure that its effect is to make you shrink from other society, which is not wanted to enliven you, and which, added to a large family in the house, becomes almost fatiguing. I will say nothing of my deep interest in this Oxford election, and in the progress of the Newmanite party, on which so many seem to look either complacently or stupidly, who yet cannot really sympathize with it. But I shall see and hear enough, and more than enough, of all this during my stay in Oxford. . I half envy you your farming labours, and wish you all manner of success in them. I could enter with great delight into planting, but I am never here at the right season, and at Rugby I have neither the time nor the ground. CCXCVIII. TO REV. HERBERT HILL. Oxford, February 9, 1842. If Mrs. Nichols' is alive and sensible, both my wife and I would wish to give her our affectionate remembrances. I can quite feel what you say, as to the good of sitting by, and watching her patience. It is a great lesson to learn how to die." Our stay here has even surpassed my expectations, and the country is more beautiful than my recollections, but my keen enjoyment of it makes me satisfied that my dislike of the Rugby country proceeds from no fond contrast with Westmoreland, but from its own unsurpassable dulness. I was to day in the valley behind S. Hincksey, and in the thickets of Bagley Wood. I went up to town to see the King of Prussia at Bunsen's, and there met both Maurice and Carlyle. We go down on Friday. All join in kindest regards to Mrs. Hill, and in love to the babies, begging Katie's pardon for the affront of so calling her. CCXCIX. TO AN OLD PUPIL. (K.) Oxford, February 9, 1842. I think the question of the expediency of your residing for some time at Oxford is rather difficult. But on the whole, unless you have some special object in coming here which I do not know, I think that I should advise against it. This place appears, at this moment, to be overridden with one only influence, which is so predominant that one must either yield to it, or be living in a state of constant opposition to those around one, a position not very agreeable. Besides, are you not already engaged more usefully both to yourself and others, than you could be here, and reading what you do read in a healthier atmosphere? I say this, but yet there is not a man alive who loves this place better than I do, and I have A poor woman near Fox How. enjoyed our fortnight's stay here even more than I expected. I have been in no feuds or controversies, and have met with nothing but kindness; but then my opinions are so well known, that they are allowed for as a matter of course, so that my difficulty here is less than that of most men. We go down to Rugby on Friday, when the school meets. It always gives me real pleasure to hear from you, nor would I answer you so briefly if I were not overwhelmed with work of various kinds, which leaves me not a moment to spare, insomuch that Rugby will be almost a relaxation. CCC. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. Rugby, March 3, 1842. [After speaking of the statutes of the Professorship.] What the University itself drew up so lately, and, which has never been more than an utter dead letter, may, I should think, be well altered by the University now. But this I should wish to leave entirely to the Heads of Houses, never having had the slightest wish to ask any thing of the Government as a personal favour to myself, and still less any thing which the University did not think desirable. I shall write again to Hawkins immediately, and, if the University wishes things to remain in statu quo, even let it be so. If they do not tender the oath, which I do not think they will, I shall not think of resigning, and they may deal with the salary as they think proper. But after the experience which I had this term, nothing shall induce me to resign so long as I can lawfully hold the place, and so long as the University itself does not wish me to give it up. Our stay in Oxford more than realized all my hopes in every way. I do not mean the attendance on the Lectures, gratifying as that was, but the universal kindness which was shown to us all, down to Fan and Walter, and the hearty delight with which I went over my old walks with the children, and seemed to be commencing residence once again. CCCI. TO ARCHDEACON HARE. Rugby, March 18, 1842. I thank you very much for your Charge, and for the kind mention of my name, and the sanction given to what I have said, which you have added in the notes. I think it likely that if I were in your situation, or in any similar office in the Church, my sense of the good to be done, even under the present system, and of the necessity of being myself not idle, would lead me to a view perhaps more exactly agreeing with your own. As it is, I feel so deeply the danger and evil of the false Church system, that despairing of seeing the true Church restored, I am disposed to cling, not from choice, but necessity, to the Protestant tendency of laying the whole stress on Christian Religion, and adjourning the notion of Church sine die. But I have no time to trouble you with my notions, and you have better things to do than to read them. * Rugby, April 10, 1842. I thank you very much for your letter, which gave me a very comfortable account of you and yours. Be assured that I shall be always very thankful to you for writing; nor will I fail to answer your letters; only you will remember that I write at a disadvantage, having nothing to communicate to you from a country which you know as well as I do, to be compared with the interest of your communications, which must be full of new information to one who has never been in India. I suppose that the late events in Cabul must have produced a strong sensation all over India. They are deeply to be regretted, and very painful to me so far as I know about them, because they seem to have been brought on by such sad misconduct. Otherwise, the magnitude of their consequence seems to be overrated by many people; the Indian Empire, I believe, will stand no less securely, and will have the opportunity, whether employed or wasted, of doing great things for the welfare of Asia. There must be a great interest in having to deal with minds, whose training has been so different from our own, though it would be to me a great perplexity. I should think its tendency would be at first to make one skeptical, and then, if that was overcome, to make one fanatical. I mean that it must be startling at first to meet with many persons holding as truths, things the most opposite from what we believe, and even so differing from us in their appreciation of evidence. And first, this would incline one, I should think, to mistrust all truth, or to think that it was subjective merely, one truth for Europe, and another for India; then, if this feeling were repelled, there would be the danger of maintaining a conclusion which yet one did not feel one could satisfactorily prove, the resolving that a thing shall be believed by the mind whether reasonably or unreasonably. I should earnestly, I think, look out in a Hindoo's mind for those points which he had in common with us, and see if the enormous differences might not be explained, and their existence accounted for. In this way I have always believed in the existence of a moral sense amongst all men, in spite of the tremendous differences in the notions of different ages and countries as to right and wrong. I think these differences may be explained, and that they do not disprove a common idea of and appreciation of virtue, as consisting mainly in self-denial and love. But all this will have presented itself to you often, and mine is but hypothesis, for my sole acquaintance has been with European minds, trained more or less in the same school. You would be glad to hear of the flourishing state of Rugby. Highton is permanently settled here as a master. The school have subscribed £130 for another window in the Chapel, and Frank Penrose has looked at the roof, and given us a plan for getting rid of the flat roof, which has long been my great enemy. Of other news, I know none so good as that Clough is just elected at Oriel, which all his friends are most rejoiced at. I hear flourishing accounts of New Zealand, and Bishop Selwyn, who has gone out there, seems to me just the man lor such a place, -very active and very zealous. I suppose that you will see Tucker ere long, as I find he is returned to Madras. We are doing Elphinstone's History of India in the Sixth, for our Modern History on Thursdays, as I wished to make the fellows know something of India, of which they knew next to nothing. It is a pity that Elphinstone had not a more profound knowledge of the ancient western world, which continually illustrates and is illustrated by the state of things in India. God bless you, my dear Fox, and prosper your work. I must beg you to offer my very kind regards to Mrs. Fox, and I rejoiced to hear of the birth of your little boy. CCCIII. TO CHEVALIER BUNSEN. Rugby, May 3, 1842. Since our return from Oxford, we have been living in a quiet, which offers a curious contrast to your life in London. We have seen "It gives me a pain I cannot describe," he said in one of his latest conversations, "to hear of all this misery which I have no power to alleviate. Yet it will be as it was fewer people than usual; and as I harely ever read a newspaper, our thoughts have been very much kept within the range of our little world here, and of my subjects of writing. My Lectures will be published in a few days, and you shall have a copy immediately; and I hope to give another Lecture in Oxford in about a month, on the Life and Times of Gregory the First. Is there any good German work on that special subject? I am continually wanting to apply for information to you, but I know that you have no time to answer me. One thing I will ask,—whether there is any good information to be had about the Iberian inscriptions and coins still to be found in various collections? I have been reading or referring to various Spanish books,-Masdeu, for instance, and Velasquez,-but they seem to me worth little. By the way, in looking into Larramendi's Basque Grammar, I was delighted to find the long-lost plural of "Ego," and singular of "Nos." It was evident that Ego and Nos had made a sort of match of convenience, each having lost its original partner: but behold, in Basque "gu" is "nos," and "ni" or "neu" is "ego." One cannot doubt, I think, that "ego" and "nos" have here found their lost other half. I hope to finish vol. iii. of Rome before the end of the holidays; and then, in the last month of them, my wife and I are going, I believe, to have a run abroad. I do not know where we shall go exactly, but I think very likely to Grenoble and the Val d'Isere, and thence to Marseilles, or the eastern Pyrenees. If I can get to Carthagena, it would be a great satisfaction to me; for Polybius' is so at variance with Captain Smyth's Survey of the present town and port, that it is utterly perplexing. This is better than nothing in the way of a letter, but I know that it is not much: however, if it draws even a shorter answer from you, I shall be thankful. CCCIV. TO THE REV. DR. HAWKINS. Rugby, May 19, 1842. I beg your pardon for not having thanked you for your Sermon, which I had not only received, but read, and read with very great pleasure. I am delighted to find that on the Priest question, which I think is the fundamental one of the whole matter, we are quite agreed. And I am also not a little pleased that the Archbishop should have wished a sermon to be printed, containing, as I think, so much truth, and truth at this time so much needed. I will fix, as there seems no objection, Thursday, June 2, at one P. M., for my Lecture; and it may be called, if you please, "On the Life and Times of Pope Gregory the First, or the Great." The materials are very good and plentiful, if I had but more time to work at them. Thank you for accepting my Dedication. Carlyle dined and slept here on Friday last, and on Saturday we went over with my wife and two of my boys to Naseby field, and explored the scene of the great battle very satisfactorily. CCCV. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE. Rugby, May 22, 1842. I was not ignorant of what was going on about the Colonial Bishoprics; but you can well understand that all this movement wears to me rather a doubtful aspect. While I can fully enter into the benefits of giving a centre of government where there was none, and of having a cler with the Romans in Spain; we hear often of cæsus consul cum legionibus,' but then the next year another consul and new legions go out, just as before." gyman of superior rank, and probably superior acquirements, made an essential part in the society of a rising colony, yet, on the other hand, I cannot but know that the principal advocates of the plan support it on far other principles; that it is with them an enforcing their dogma of the necessity of Succession-Episcopacy to a true Church; that accordingly the paper, which you sent me, speaks of the "Church" in America (U. S.) and of the various "sects" there,-language quite consistent in the mouths of High Churchmen, but which assumes as a truth, what I hold to be the very hαμлgóταtor wεidos of a false system. I feel, therefore, half attracted and half repelled, doubting whether the practical administrative and social advantages to be gained are likely to outweigh the encouragement given to what I believe to be very mischievous error; and while "dubitatio ista non tollitur," I cannot feel disposed to come to the practical conclusion of a subscription. Believe me, it is no pleasure to me to be obliged to stand aloof from a movement which has so much of good in it, and might be so purely and gloriously good, were it not The time which he had originally fixed for his retirement from Rugby was now drawing near, and the new sphere opened to him in his Professorship at Oxford, seemed to give a fixedness to his future prospects, which would naturally increase his long-cherished wishes of greater leisure and repose. But he still felt himself in the vigour of life, and used to rejoice in the thought that the forty-ninth year, fixed by Aristotle as the acme of the human faculties, lay still some years before him. The education of his two younger sons was a strong personal inducement to him to remain a short time longer in his situation. His professorial labours were of course but an appendage to his duties in the school, and when some of the unforeseen details of the entrance on his new office had seemed likely to deprive him of the place which he had so delighted to receive," in good and sober truth," he writes to Archbishop Whately, "I believe that this and all other things are ordered far more wisely than I could order them, and it will seem a manifest call to turn my mind more closely to the great work which is before me here at Rugby." The unusual amount also of sickness and death which had marked the beginning of the school year, naturally gave an increased earnestness to his dealings with the boys. His latest scholars were struck by the great freedom and openness with which he spoke to them on more serious subjects, the more directly practical applications which he made of their Scriptural lessons, the emphasis with which he called their attention to the contrast between Christian faith and love, and that creed of later Paganism, which made "the feelings of man towards the Deity to be exactly those with which we gaze at a beautiful sunset." The same cause would occasion those frequent thoughts of death which appear in his Chapel Sermons, and in his more private life during this last year. There had never, indeed, been a time from his earliest manhood, in which the un 1 MS. Notes of his lessons on Cic. Div. ii. 72. . |