crisis. That extract which you wrote out for me is indeed glorious, and fills one with thankfulness that God has raised up such a King in a great Protestant country at this momentous time; when the great enemy in his two forms at once, Satan and Antichrist, the blasphemy of the epicurean Atheist, and the idolatry of the lying and formal spirit of Priestcraft, is assailing the Church with all his might. May Christ's strength and blessing be with the King and with you, that Prussia may be as the mountain of the Lord, the city of God upon the hill, whose light cannot be hid.

I have in the last week again felt the effects of your true friendship. Bishop Stanley procured for me from Lord Melbourne, the offer of the Wardenship of Manchester College, just vacant; and he told me that he had been especially induced to try to get something for me by a letter of yours, in which you expressed your great anxiety that I should be relieved from the burden of Rugby. But indeed, dearest friend, Rugby, while it goes on well, is not a burden, but the thing of all others which I believe to be most fitted for me while I am well and in the vigour of life. The Wardenship I declined, for the income was so comparatively small, that I should have found a difficulty in educating my children on it; but much more, I must either have made the office a sinecure, or it would have involved me in labours and responsibilities quite equal to those which I have now, and of a kind quite new to me. And I think that the Bishop was satisfied that I did right in declining it; but I do not feel the less strongly his great kindness and yours. bless and prosper you always.

CCXIX. TO AN OLD PUPIL. (B.)

God

Rugby, August 17, 1840.

I do not give heed to much of what I hear about men's opinions, because, having had my own often misunderstood, I am prepared to find the same thing in the case of my neighbours. Yet I confess that I should

......

like to know the position of your mind at the present moment, because some three or four years ago it had attained, I think, to an unusual degree of independence and vigour, and therefore its progress is to me a greater matter of interest. And I remember well, by my own experience, the strong tendency of an Oxford life upon any one who is justly fond of Oxford, to make him exceedingly venerate those who are at the head of Oxford society. But then in those days the excessive admiration was less injurious, because it was merely personal; there was no set of opinions identified with Davison and Coplestone which one learnt to venerate for their sake. The influence of the place in this way can hardly be resisted during a certain time of a man's life; I got loose from it before I left Oxford, because I found, as my own mind grew, that those whom I had so reverenced were not so much above myself, and I knew well enough that I should myself have made but a sorry oracle. And this I think has hindered me from looking up to any man as a sort of general guide ever since; not that I have transferred my idolatry from other men's minds to my own, which would have been a change greatly for the worse, but as much as I have felt its strength comparatively with others, so also have I felt its absolute weakness and want of knowledge. I have great need of learning daily, but I am sure that other men are in the like predicament,—in some things, though in fewer than in any other man whom I know, Bunsen himself. But all the eminent Englishmen whom I know have need of learning in a great many points; and I cannot turn my schoolfellows into my masters; οὐ πολυ διαφέρει άνθρωπος ἀνθρώπου is a very important truth, if one appreciates properly the general wisdom of mankind as well as its general unwisdom; otherwise it leads to scepticism, a state which I dread and abhor every day more and more, both in itself and as being so often the gate of idolatry.

My object in saying all this is mainly to warn you against the secret influence of the air in which you are

living for so large a portion of the year. Like all climates it has its noxious elements, and these affect the constitution surely but unconsciously, if it be continually exposed to their influence, unless a man, knowing that he is living in an aguish district, looks to his diet and habits accordingly; and, as poor Davison did when he lived in the fens, gets his supply of water from a distance.

Perhaps my late journey makes me more alive to the mischievous effects of any one loeal influence. One cannot help feeling how very narrow the view of any one place must be, when there are so many other views in the world, none scarcely without some element of truth, or some facility for discerning it which another has not.

For my own especial objects, my journey answered excellently. I feel that I have no need of going to Italy again; that my recollection of Rome is completely refreshed, and that having seen Naples, and the interior of the country between Naples and Terni, I have nothing more to desire, for it would be idle to expect to visit every single spot in Italy which might in itself be interesting. The beauty of the country between Antrodoco and Terni surpassed, I think, any thing that I saw, except it be La Cava, and the country dividing the bay of Naples from that of Salerno. But when we returned to Fox How, I thought that no scene on this earth could ever be to me so beautiful. I mean that so great was its actual natural beauty, that no possible excess of beauty in any other scene could balance the deep charm of home which in Fox How breathes through every thing. But the actual and real beauty of Fox How is, in my judgment, worthy to be put in comparison with any thing as a place for human dwelling. I have run on at greater length than I intended.

CCXX.

*

TO REV. H. BALSTON,

(Who was threatened with consumption.)

Rugby, August 17, 1840.

I grieved not to see you on our way to France, as Rugby, I fear, must be forbidden ground to you at present; this cold air would ill suit a delicate chest. I have great confidence in a southern climate, if only it be taken in time, which I should trust was the case in the present instance. But certainly my summer's experience of Italy has not impressed me with a favourable opinion of the climate there; for the changes from heat to cold, and severe cold, were very trying; and after sunset, or at any considerable elevation of ground, I found the cold quite piercing on several occasions. And in the Alps it was really miserable, and I never worked at lighting a fire with such hearty good will as I did at Airolo in Italy in this present year. We enjoyed greatly our four days at Fox How, and are now returned in good bodily condition, and I trust disposed in mind also, to engage in the great work which is here offered, a work, the importance of which can hardly, I think, be overrated.

I thank you most truly for the kind expressions with which your note concludes. It would make me most happy if I could feel that I duly availed myself of my opportunities here to teach and impress the one thing needful. It was a wise injunction to Timothy, "to be instant in season and out of season," because we so often fancy that a word would be out of season when it would in fact be seasonable. And I believe I often say too little from a dread of saying too much. Here, as in secular knowledge, he is the best teacher of others who is best taught himself; that which we know and love we cannot but communicate; that which we know and do not love we soon, I think, cease to know.

CCXXI. TO THE CHEVALIER BUNSEN.

Rugby, September 4, 1840.

Both public and private matters furnish me with more points on which I should like to talk to you, than it is possible to enter on in a letter. May God avert the calamity of a general war, which would be, I think, an unmixed evil, from which no power could gain any thing, except it were Russia. I cannot help looking to Russia as God's appointed instrument for such revolutions in the races, institutions, and dominions of Europe, as He may yet think fit to bring about. But, as far as England and France are concerned, war could only be disastrous to both parties.

My private prospects have acquired a fixedness which they never before have had so completely, because I have now reason to know that I should never be appointed to one of those new Professorships in Oxford, which above all other things would have been acceptable to me.

It vexes me to be thus shut out from the very place where I fancy that I could do most good; but these things are fixed by One who knows best where and how He would have us to serve Him, and it seems to tell me plainly that my appointed work is here. I know that I have yearnings after opportunities for writing,-not so much on account of the History as for other matters far nearer and dearer, above all that great question of the Church. But still the work here ought to satisfy all my desires; and, if I ever live to retire to Fox How with undecayed faculties, the mountains and streams, which I so love, may well inspire me with a sort of swan-like strain, even in old age. Meantime, the school is fuller than ever, and all seems encouraging. I shall have another new master to appoint at Christmas, and shall perhaps be able to find one amongst my own old pupils.

I have to thank you for Göttling's book on the Roman Constitution, and for Dorner's work on the