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a Quaker printer, to whom Lord Ducie took me, a praiseworthy man, Bellows by name, who has made a French dictionary and a discourse of Glevum1, and who sits in his printing-office over a piece of the wall thereof, of his own digging out. Well, at dinner I found that my voice was gone; but kind folk coddled me up with cloves and port, and I got through the talk somehow, seemingly to the general approval of the Claudian city. Next day I got rather wet, and did some sneezing; but I seemed all right on Thursday, went up to London, sat on Commission, heard Stubbs and Coleridge (jus pontificum and jus civile) wrangle a bit, and spake myself a word or two of Her Majesty's just title as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Then to Tooting, whither came Anthony Trollope to dinner, who, being much scolded of Macmillan, fell sick next day, as has been more largely expressed in all the newspapers, only without the bit of secret history. (As ever, we get the wars without the 'Avéκdora 3.) It must have been the same day or very near to it that my Lord Chief Justice fell

sick also.

. . . Then, as if there had been a murrain among us, I fell sick also, coughing mightily all Friday and having gouty woes in my right foot. So we had to send telegrams about to Stubbs, Bryce, and others, and to leave Hunt to walk vainly to and fro at the top of Duke Street, Piccadilly. So Mrs. Macmillan and her doctor took hold of me, and would not let me go, but bathed me and dosed me and puddinged me behind and before, tho' all the while I did not think there was much the matter. But they felt pulses and made faces, and talked hard words; so I had to knock under. There I was in prison for eight days, saw no man out of the house save once, P. G. Hamerton, did very little work, but read a heap of novels, as John Inglesant, My Jo John, Unknown to History, Vice Versa, and my usual portion of Walter Scott. Wednesday, November 8, Eleanor

1 The name of the Roman city called by the English Gloucester. 2 Ecclesiastical Courts Commission.

3 An allusion to the works of the historian Procopios, who wrote a history of wars in eight books, and a book of anecdotes ('Avékdora). The well-known etcher, author of Thoughts about Art, Etching and Etchers, Round about my House, &c.

came up, and, November 11, carried me home. I have not been allowed to go out, save once in a close carriage; but I don't feel really bad, and can walk again.

I am taking a course of Gardiner, as I thought I knew less of those times than I ought. His general notion of men then seems to be that they were great scoundrels, but that they did not know it. His Bacon is distinctly less wise, less great, and less mean, than Macaulay's.

TO THE REV. CANON LIDDON.

Somerleaze, December 8, 1882. .. We are put on the toes of expectation to-day by a rumour that there is something in Spectator's hint of Saturday --that Church is to be Archbishop, and you to succeed him as the High Dean of Poules. 'Tis too good to believe; but I have been searching for precedents, and I find that when, as the late Archbishop said, changes in Church and State are a-coming, precedents are for choosing a simple Presbyter (or less), and latterly a Dean of Poules. Only how Church will kick! The people's William will have to copy the other William, who was not the people's, and to drive the staff into his hand by main force1. N.B.-I conceive the scene according to an answer that I once got in the Schools. How is a bishop appointed?' 'He is appointed by the Prime Minister, by the delivery of a staff.' Another answer was that he was elected by the minor canons'; a mysterious answer, to the force of which Boase alone saw his way.

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TO MISS EDITH THOMPSON.

Somerleaze, December 17, 1882. We have had no guests since Anthony Trollope in October (of whom I have made a small Antoniad in Macmillan), and he was the only one since Delia went in September. I have been a good deal shut up and left, but I have been in tip

1 Referring to the forcible investiture of Anselm with the Bishop's staff by William Rufus; Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 16. See Reign of William Rufus, i. 396-399.

top working order, and have got on well with many things. I fear that poor dear Johnny Green is in a very bad way indeed. Bryce also is in those parts-Cannes and Mentone to wit-and hopes to see him.

... John Rhŷs verily knows what he is about; but I have not yet read him through. But, from what Arthur says, I gather that he will bring certain strange things to our ears1.

With Gardiner I have got only a little way into Charles I. He certainly does not tell his story like Macaulay. But he impresses me with the feeling that he is telling a true story. Also his rare references to earlier times are as invariably right as Froude's are invariably wrong. I have not yet marked any unfairness to Laud and those; but I have hardly reached the time for it. But here comes the nuisance of the seventeenth century. One can't go unreservedly with any side, as one can with our friends in the thirteenth. My political and my religious sympathies are divided. I go with the Parliament as Parliament; but I can get up no sympathy with the Puritan as Puritan. I don't like his particular form of religion, and he is no more tolerant than anybody else. Surely Gardiner shows that in matters of opinion Laud was immeasureably more liberal than his enemies, and to the little that he really enforced in matters of ceremony there is the best witness, namely, that it has long been universally accepted without anybody of any party objecting, and that, though the letter of the law still allows something else. Where then was the hitch? Was it 1. A most unjust notion of tending to the Pope?

2. An unlucky connexion with the Crown when the Crown was going wrong?

3. Laud's most unlucky way of doing things; so that the very best scheme, if he took it up, was safe to offend people?

I have no doubt that there is something in all these; but I feel that they only lie on the surface, and that there is something deeper. Isn't it that the whole Anglican system, though I think unfairly called a compromise by Macaulay and others, still has the disadvantage of being neither beast nor bird?

1 Acts xvii. 20.

I fancy people will lay on more zealously for either of the extremes. But I have not got far enough really to judge of Gardiner's treatment.

Remember on the other hand that, though neither Reformers in the sixteenth century or Puritans in the seventeenth century strove in any sense for 'religious liberty,' or for anything but to set up one intolerant system instead of another, yet every blow of the kind was a gain for religious liberty in the long run.

... You saw, I suppose, about Church and the Archbishopric. 'Twas too good to be possible. I like the little I know of Benson.

TO JOHN (aged six), son of ALEXANDER MACMILLAN, UNCLE TO HIS HALF-BROTHER'S CHILDREN.

MY DEAR UNCLE JOHN,

Christmas Day, 1882.

I suppose I may call you Uncle John, like Uncle Tom, whom they called Uncle, though they were not his nephews and nieces. You see you have the advantage of me, as I never was uncle to anybody; so I don't know how it feels to be an uncle. You have taken to it early. I take it out in being grandfather to several people (which you are not yet to anybody), one of whom, my grandson Edward, has sent me a goat of his own sewing (mark 'tis sew and not sow), which came by the same post as your pretty card with eggs and flowers. Thanks for thinking of me. I am glad you are learning a Lay of Ancient Rome; you don't say which. If 'tis Horatius, I shall be afraid, as haply you will 'shake your little fist' (I won't think that you will 'scream out curses') if I should come too soon before you are ready. Perhaps you may go some day on a donkey from Cora to Norba or up the white street of Tusculum.

Why don't you make your mamma bring you and Mary to see me some day? Only come when it is less muddy, and you shall run prettily up the hills, and feed the peacock, and play with Hakon (mickle swart hound), and Foochou

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1 I. e. Fight, lay on blows, as in Shakespeare's Macbeth, Lay on Macduff.'

(mickle yellow hound from China), and Minnie (yellow cat). Greet well all at home and Mary and Lucy [Geikie]. Perhaps Lucy has taught her father to eat strawberry ices by this time (though 'tis hardly the time for them, except in America). I think a philosopher might do so, even though he is not a botanist, I dare say you don't understand, but I dare say Lucy will. Here is near the end of the sheet; so no more Johnny boy, bonny boy.

From your very good friend,

E. A. F.

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