paragon of the Oxford Class list, of Queen's College. Stanley was Secretary, and opened characteristically by misdirecting the letters to the Chancellor and the Vice-Chancellor of the University; the Chancellor being Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, whom Tory adoration had comically thrust into that place, as he seemed to proclaim at his inauguration by making false quantities in reading his Latin speech and wearing his Academical cap wrong side before. I was Assistant Secretary-Treasurer, my services being in request because I had studied for a literary purpose the documentary history of the Colleges, to which, the muniment rooms of the Colleges hostile to the Commission being closed, there was no longer access. The Commission, being Royal, not Parliamentary, had no compulsory powers.

The most active spirit of the Commission was Dr. Jeune, the Master of Pembroke. The Head of a House, to sit on a Commission of Inquiry to which Oxford generally and his own Order in particular were bitterly opposed, required courage. Jeune had it. He was a man of superabundant energy, remarkable acuteness, and lively wit. He had raised Pembroke from the lowest place among the Colleges to a respectable position. He was a strict political economist, and used to say that at the Day of Judgment he would be able to plead that he had never given a penny to a beggar. He was, however, really a very kind-hearted man, and would probably have given the beggar twopence. He

was excellent company and said good things. A lady at his table asked him the delicate question on what principle they chose the Heads of Colleges. "They always take the handsomest man among the Fellows," was his reply. "I should not have thought," said the lady, "that the Provost of Worcester had been chosen on that principle." "Ah! but you have not seen the Fellows of Worcester."

Another important member of the Commission was Liddell, joint author with Scott of our Greek Lexicon. He was a man of stately figure, character, and mind; an artist, drawing beautifully, as well as a great classical scholar and a first-class in Mathematics. He sometimes made me think of the union of art and science in Leonardo da Vinci. It appears that he had a greater share in the lexicon than his partner. But at one time we expected of him something more than a Lexicon. At the height of the Tractarian movement he preached one or two liberal and philosophical sermons which seemed to open a door and to promise us a leader. But he did no more in that line. Probably his intellect, like that of Bishop Thirlwall and other great Liberals in Orders, felt the pressure of the white tic.

With Tait I then formed a friendship which happily for me proved lasting. During one of our visits to England in after years, my wife and I were the Archbishop's guests at Addington, and when we took leave of our host he was lying on a bed of sickness from which he hardly rose again. If ever I knew a good man, he

was one. His belief in his liberal evangelicism was thoroughly sincere, and his sincerity, combined with a toleration as large as the law of his Church would permit, and with unfailing courtesy and kindness, carried him safely through all the difficulties of his position in very perilous times. Nothing could be simpler than his personal habits and demeanour. He had thoroughly endeared himself to the great mass of the laity, who looked upon him as a wise and good guide. He began his career as a Tutor at Balliol College, and was one of the four College Tutors who sounded a warning note against Romanizing tendencies. Then he became Head Master at Rugby, a place which did not suit him so well; afterwards Dean of Carlisle. The loss of four of his children all at once by an epidemic was said to have moved the Queen's maternal pity and led to his promotion to the Bishopric of London, from which he went to Canterbury. If this was so, Her Majesty had far better reason for her action than she knew.

Johnson, of Queen's, was a man of the finest intellect and the broadest culture. As an undergraduate he had been the first of his day both in classics and mathematics. Great things were expected of him. But he had spent his strength in University competitions, and was a warning to ambitious students of that danger. As a Fellow of a wealthy College, condemned by medieval statutes, or at least by a custom supposed to be founded on them, to miserable Trulliberism and uselessness, he had been personally impressed with the

need of reform. He was presently made Dean of Wells, and I spent many happy days with him and his lovely wife under the roof of the old Deanery in that city of ecclesiastical beauty, history, and repose. Has the tide of change and unrest yet disturbed the peacefulness of Wells?

The Commission of Inquiry, in spite of all obstruction on the part of the close Colleges' resistance, produced an unanswerable Report; and to carry its recommendations into effect Parliament passed an Act appointing an executive Commission, to which there were two Secretaries, Wayte,' afterwards President of Trinity College, who represented High Church conservatism, and myself. Gladstone, by this time, after hovering between Conservatism and Liberalism, had alighted on the Liberal side. As second in command to Lord Russell in the Commons he not only approved but framed the Bill, and with all his power of exposition and combative energy pushed it through the House. One morning I went to him at ten o'clock to help in settling the details of the Bill. He said that he had been at work on it till a very late hour on the previous night. We worked at it all day, Gladstone only leaving me for about an hour and a half to attend a Privy Council. At six I was very glad to get away to my Club. Gladstone went down to the House, where he made a speech

[1 Samuel William Wayte; scholar, fellow, rhetoric lecturer, tutor, dean, bursar, and then President of Trinity College, Oxford. 1820-1878.]

at one o'clock in the morning. The Bill was a good deal cut up by adverse amendments in the House of Commons, Disraeli doing his worst, and some Radicals ignorantly playing into his hands. When the Bill got to the Lords, Lord Derby,' who was Chancellor of Oxford, made a pretty stiff speech against it. But when he sat down, the Duke of Newcastle 2 came over to me and said that he thought that there would be no real opposition, as there had apparently been no Whip on the side of the Conservatives and they were in a minority. Lord Derby, as a man of sense, was probably content with a decent show of resistance, being conscious of the weakness of his case, and having early in life committed himself against the religious or rather chapel-going part of the Oxford system. I ventured to suggest that, having a majority present, the Government might grasp the opportunity of reversing the Commons' amendments and restoring the integrity of the Bill. I said that when the Bill went down again to the Commons the Radicals might be better advised than they were before, and that, as the end of the Session drew near, Opposition members were likely as usual to be out of Town. Lord John Russell on being consulted, condemned my proposal as rash and fraught with risk to the Bill. Gladstone was laid up with chicken-pox; but on an appeal being made to

[ Edward George Geoffrey Smith Stanley, fourteenth Earl of Derby. 1799-1869.]

[2 The fifth Duke. 1811-1864.]

[3 First Earl Russell.]