(Who had written to him fearing he would not continue in the new University unless more were done in the examinations as to Theology, than could or would be effected.)

March 15, 1837.

First, be assured that I will do nothing hastily, that I wish most earnestly well to the London University, and look upon it as so great a possible means of good, that nothing but what will appear to me imperious duty shall tempt me to leave it. Neither have I the least thought or wish of conciliating the Tories; on the contrary, I regret nothing so much as the possibility of appearing to agree with them in any thing; neither in fact, can I believe that I ever shall be so far mistaken.

Secondly, I have no wish to have Degrees in Divinity conferred by the London University or to have a Theological Faculty; I am quite content with Degrees in Arts. But then let us understand what Arts are.

If Arts mean merely logic, or grammar, or arithmetic, or natural science, then of course a degree in Arts implies nothing whatever as to a man's moral judgment or principles. But open the definition a little farther, include poetry or history or moral philosophy,—and you encroach unavoidably on the domain of moral education; and moral education cannot be separated from religious education, unless people have the old superstitious notion of religion, either that it relates to rites and ceremonies, or to certain abstract and unpractical truths. But, meaning by Religion what the Gospel teaches one to mean by it, it is nothing more nor less than a system directing and influencing our conduct, principles, and feelings, and professing to do this with sovereign authority, and most efficacious influence. If then I enter on the domain of moral knowledge, I am thereby on the domain of religious knowledge; and the only question is, what religion am I to follow? If I take no notice of the authority and influences of Christianity, I unavoidably take a view of man's life and principles from which they are excluded, that is, a view which acknowledges some other authority and influence,-it may be of some other religion, or of some philosophy, or of mere common opinion or instinct ;-but, in any case, I have one of the many views of life and conduct, which it was the very purpose of Christ's coming into the world to exclude. And how can any Christian man lend himself to the propagating or sanctioning a system of moral knowledge which assumes that Christ's law is not our rule, nor His promises our motive of action? This, then, is my principle, that moral studies not based on Christianity must be unchristian, and therefore are such, as I can take no part in.

On the other hand, I allow as fully as you can do, that the University should include Christians of every denomination without the slightest distinction. The differences between Christian and Christian are not moral differences, except accidentally; and that is what I meant in that passage in the Church Reform Pamphlet which you, in common with many others, have taken in a sense which I should wholly disclaim. An Unitarian, as such, is a Christian; that is, if a man follows Christ's law and believes His words according to his conscientious sense of their meaning, he is a Christian; and, though I may think he understands Christ's words amiss, yet that is a question of interpretation, and no more; the purpose of his heart and mind is to obey and be guided by Christ, and therefore he is a

Christian. But I believe,-if I err as to the matter of fact I shall greatly rejoice, that Unitarianism happens to contain many persons who are only Unitarians negatively, as not being Trinitarians; and I question whether these follow Christ with enough of sincerity and obedience to entitle them to be called Christians.

Then comes the question of practicability. Here undoubtedly I am met at a disadvantage, because the whole tendency of the last century, and of men's minds now, is to shun all notions of comprehension; and as the knot was once cut by persecution, so it is to be cut now by toleration and omission.

But it is an experiment undoubtedly worth trying, whether for the sake of upholding the Christian character of our University, we ought not to venture on ground, new indeed in England, just at present, but which is of the very essence of true Christianity. With all Christians except Roman Catholics the course is plain, namely to examine every candidate for a Degree in one of the Gospels and one of the Epistles out of the Greek Testament. I would ask of every man the previous question, "To what denomination of Christians do you belong?" and according to his answer, I would specially avoid touching on those points, on which I as a Churchman differed from him. I should probably say to him aloud, if the examination were public, "Now I know that you and I differ on such and such points, and therefore I shall not touch on them; but we have a great deal more on which we agree, and therefore I may ask you so and so. With the Roman Catholics there might be a difficulty, because they might possibly object to being examined by heretics, or in the Scriptures; but if so, where would be the difficulty of adding a Catholic to the number of Fellows, on purpose for this object; or where would be the difficulty of requiring from the candidate, being a Catholic, a certificate of proficiency in religious knowledge from his own priest or Bishop? What you state about doctrines might be a very good argument against examining in any Articles or Creeds, but would not affect the examination in a book or books of the Scripture; and so again with Evidences, I should not care about this; though neither do I see that your reference to Chalmers makes a valid objection; because you will and must have Examiners who differ on fifty points of taste, of politics, and of philosophy; but this signifies nothing, as long as they are sensible men; and, if they are not, the whole thing must break down any way. But the comparative value of external and internal Evidence is not a point which forms the characteristic difference between any one sect and another; it may therefore be noticed without any delicacy, just like any moot point in history; and an Examiner may express his judgment on it, though of course with such reserve and moderation as he may think fit. If you say that all points which have ever been disputed are to be avoided, you reduce your Examiners to such mere ciphers as would deprive them of all weight and dignity. Certainly I shall feel myself as in a certain degree appointed to moderate and form the minds of those who come to me for academical honours. I ought to express my judgment on many matters as that of a man qualified to instruct them, and as entitled to an authority with them. You will not suppose I mean an infallible authority. If our office be not intended to be this, it will be a great mistake, and indeed a total solecism, as far as regards education. I am perfectly aware of the delicacy of ur task as

fered with national prosperity. We went to Rouen, Evreux, and Chartres, and then came back through Versailles and Paris. I admired Paris, as I always had done, and we had very fine weather; but I had no time to call on any body, even if all the world had not been in the country.This little tour I owed to the election, which brought me up from Westmoreland to Warwickshire to vote, and it was so near the end of the holidays, that it did not seem worth while to go back again. I watched the elections with great interest, but not with much surprise. In 1831, when I wrote for the Sheffield Courant, I shared the common opinion as to the danger which threatened all our institutions from the force of an ultra-popular party. But the last six years have taught me,-what the Roman History ought indeed to have shown me before,-that when an aristocracy is not thoroughly corrupted, its strength is incalculable; and it acts through the relations of private life, which are permanent, whereas the political excitement which opposes it, must always be short-lived. In fact, the great amount of liberty and good government enjoyed in England, is the security of the aristocracy: there are no such pressing and flagrant evils existing, as to force men's attention from their own domestic concerns, and make them cast off their natural ties of respect or of fear for their richer or nobler neighbours; and as for Ireland, the English care not for it one groat.

CLXVI. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE.

Rugby, December 8, 1837.

I have asked to send you the two first printed sheets of my History. You had promised to look at the manuscript, and, if you agree with me, you will find it pleasanter to read print than writing. Specially will you notice my expressions in the Legends which may seem to you to approach too near to the language of our translation of the Bible. I have tried to avoid this, but, in trying to write in an antiquated and simple language, that model with which we are most familiar will sometimes be followed too closely; and no one can deprecate more than I do any thing like a trivial use of that language which should be confined to one subject only. I hope and I believe that I have kept clear of this; still I would rather have your judgment on it; I think you will at the same time agree with me that the Legends ought to be told as Legends, and not in the style of real history. We had a four hours' debate at the University, and a division in our favour with a majority of one. But the adversary will oppose us still step by step; and they are going to ask the Attorney-General's opinion, whether we can examine in the Greek Testament without a breach of our charter!!! A strange Charter surely for the Defender of the Faith to grant, if it forbids the use of the Christian Scriptures.

CLXVII. TO REV. T. J. ORmerod.

(After speaking of the affair of the Archbishop of Cologne.)

Fox How, December 18, 1837.

Certainly there is no battle in which I so entirely sympathize as in this of the Christian Church, against the Priestcraft-Antichrist. And yet this is not quite true, for I sympathize as cordially in its battle against the other Antichrist; the Antichrist of Utilitarian unbelief, against which

I am fighting at the London University. If persuades the Government to sanction his views, it will be a wrench to me to separate from the only party that hitherto I have been able to go along with; and to be obliged to turn an absolute political Ishmaelite, condemning all parties, knowing full well what to shun, but finding nothing to approve or sympathize with. But so I suppose it ought to be with us, till Christ's kingdom come, and both of the Antichrists be put down before him. .

CLXVIII.

TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE.

Fox How, December 20, 1837.

We have been here since Saturday afternoon, and I think it has rained almost ever since; at this moment Wansfell and Kirkstone and Fairfield are dimly looming through a medium which consists, I suppose, as much of water as of air; the Rotha is racing at the rate of eight or nine miles an hour, and the meadows are becoming rather lake-like. Notwithstanding, I believe that every one of us, old and young, would rather be here than any where else in the world.

I thank you very heartily for your letter, and, in this precious leisure time of the holidays, I can answer it at once and without hurry. Your judgment as to the Legends, determines me at once to recast that whole first chapter. I wish, however, if it is not giving you too much trouble, that you would get the manuscript, and read also the chapter about the banishment of the Tarquins and the battle by the Lake Regillus. I think that you would not find it open to the same objections; at least Wordsworth read it through with a reference merely to the language, and he approved of it; and I think that it is easier and more natural than the first chapter. But I have not, and I trust I shall not, shrink from any labour of alteration, in order to make the work as complete as I can; it will, after all, fall infinitely short of that model which I fancy keenly, but vainly strive to carry out into execution. With regard to the first chapter, you have convinced me that it is faulty, because it is not what I meant it to be. But as to the principle, I am still of opinion, that the Legends cannot be omitted without great injury, and that they must not be told in my natural style of narrative. The reason of this appears to me to be, the impossibility of any man's telling such stories in a civilized age in his own proper person, with that sincerity of belief, nay even with that gravity which is requisite to give them their proper charm. If I thought that they contained really an historical skeleton, disguised under fabulous additions, it would of course be easy to give the historical outline as history in my own natural language, and to omit, or to notice with a grave remark as to their fabulousness, the peculiar marvels of the stories. This was done by Goldsmith, Rollin, &c. But I wish to give not the supposed facts of the stories, but the stories themselves in their oldest traceable form; I regard them as poetry, in which the form is quite as essential as the substance of the story. It is a similar question, and fraught with similar difficulties, to that which regards the translation of Homer and Herodotus. If I were to translate Herodotus, it were absurd to do it in my common English, because he and I do not belong to analogous periods of Greek and English literature; I should try to translate him in the style of the old translation of Comines rather than of Froissart; in the English of that period of our national cultivation which corresponds to the period

of Greek cultivation at which he wrote. I might and probably should do this ill; still I should try to mend the execution without altering my plan ; and so I should do with these Roman stories. For instance, the dramatic form appears to me quite essential; I mean the making the actors express their thoughts in the first person, instead of saying what they thought or felt as narrative. This, no doubt, is the style of the Bible: but it is not peculiar to it; you have it in Herodotus just the same, because it is characteristic of a peculiar state of cultivation, which all people pass through at a certain stage in their progress. If I could do it well, I would give all the Legends at once in verse, in the style and measure of Chapman's Homer; and that would be the best and liveliest way of giving them, and liable to no possible charge of parodying the Bible. The next best way is that which I have tried and failed in executing; but I will try again; and if it is not too much trouble, I will ask you to look at the new attempt. I feel sure, and I really have thought a great deal upon this point, that to give the story of the white sow, of the wolf suckling the twins, of Romulus being carried up to heaven, &c., in my own language, would be either merely flat and absurd, or else would contain so palpable an irony as to destroy the whole effect which one would wish to create by telling the stories at all.

For the other and greater matter of the University, I think it is very probable that I shall have to leave it; but I cannot believe that it is otherwise than a solemn duty to stand by it as long as I can hope to turn it to good. Undoubtedly we must not do evil that good may come ; but we may and must bear much that is painful, and associate with those whom we disapprove of, in order to do good. What is the evil of belonging to the University à priori? There is no avowed principle in its foundation which I think wrong; the comprehension of all Christians, you know, I think most right; if more be meant, I think it most wrong; but this is the very point which I am trying to bring to issue; and, though my fears of the issue outweigh my hopes, yet while there is any hope I ought not to give up the battle.

CLXIX TO REV. DR. HAWKINS.

Fox How, January 23, 1838.

I had intended to answer your kind letter of the 21st of November long before this time; I reserved it for the leisure of Fox How, and I have found, as is often the case, that the less I have to do, the less I do of any thing. Now our holidays are fast wearing away, and in little more than a week we shall leave this most delightful home; a home indeed so peaceful and so delightful, that it would not be right to make it one's constant portion; but after the half-years at Rugby, which now begin to be quite as much as I can well bear, the rest seems to be allowed; and I drink it in with intense enjoyment, and I hope with something of the thankfulness which it claims.

To London I must go, on account of our meeting of the London University on the 7th, when the question of Scriptural Examination will again be discussed. It was curious to me, knowing my character at Oxford, to hear myself charged, at our last meeting in December, with wishing to engross the University of London for the established Church, as the other Universities were engrossed by it already. The opposition is