me undecided, and what Wolf and Niebuhr have done for Greece and Rome seems sadly wanted for Judæa.

You must not think that I had forgotten you, though your kind letter has remained so long unanswered. I was always conscious of my debt to you, and resolved to pay it; but though I can write letters of business at any time, yet it is not so with letters to friends, which I neither like to leave unfinished in the middle, nor, to say the truth, do I always feel equal to writing them; for they require a greater freshness and abstractedness of mind from other matters than I am always able to command. I have been greatly delighted with all I have heard of you since you have been at Cambridge; it is vexatious to me, however, that from want of familiarity with the system, I cannot bring your life and pursuits there so vividly before my mind, as I can those of an undergraduate in Oxford; otherwise, to say nothing of my personal interest for individuals, I think that I am as much concerned about one university as the other. Lake will have told you, I dare say, all our vacation news, and probably all that has happened worth relating since our return to Rugby. In fact, news of all sorts you will be sure to hear from your other correspondents earlier and more fully than from me.

I was obliged to you for a hint in your letter to Price, about our reading more Greek poetry, and accordingly we have begun the Harrow "Musa Græca," and are doing some Pindar. You may be sure that I wish to consult the line of reading at both Universities, so far as this can be done without a system of direct cramming, or without sacrificing something, which I may believe to be of paramount importance. Aristophanes, however, I had purposely left for Lee to do with the Fifth Form, as it is a

book which he had studied well, and can do much better than I can.

I am doing nothing, but thinking of many things. I forget whether you learnt any German here, but I think it would be well worth your while to learn it without loss of time. Every additional language gained is like an additional power, none more so than German. I have been revelling in my friend Bunsen's collection of hymns, and have lately got a periodical work on Divinity, published by some of the best German divines, "Theologische Studien und Kritiken." I mention these, because they are both so utterly unlike what is called Rationalism, and at the same time so unlike our High Church or Evangelical writings: they seem to me to be a most pure transcript of the New Testament, combining in a most extraordinary degree the spirit of love with the spirit of wisdom.

It is a very hard thing, I suppose, to read at once passionately and critically, by no means to be cold, captious, sneering, or scoffing; to admire greatness and goodness with an intense love and veneration, yet to judge all things; to be the slave neither of names nor of parties, and to sacrifice even the most beautiful associations for the sake of truth. I would say, as a good general rule, never read the works of any ordinary man, except on scientific matters, or when they contain simple matters of fact. Even on matters of fact, silly and ignorant men, however honest and industrious in their particular subject, require to be read with constant watchfulness and suspicion; whereas great men are always instructive, even amidst much of error on particular points. In general, however, I hold it to be certain, that the truth is to be found in the great men, and the error in the little ones.

I am delighted that you like Oxford, nor am I the least afraid of your liking it too much. It does not follow because one admires and loves the surpassing beauty of the place and its associations, or because one forms in it the most valuable and most delightful friendships, that therefore one is to uphold its foolishnesses, and try to perpetuate its faults. My love for any place or person, or institution, is exactly the measure of my desire to reform them; a doctrine which seems to me as natural now, as it seemed strange when I was a child, when I could not make out, how, if my mother loved me more than strange children, she should find fault with me and not with them. But I do not think this ought to be a difficulty to any one who is more than six years old. I suppose that the reading necessary for the schools is now so great, that you can scarcely have time for any thing else. Your German will be kept up naturally enough in your mere classical reading, and ancient history and philosophy will be constantly recalling modern events and parties to your mind, and improving in fact, in the best way, your familiarity with and understanding of them. But I hope that you will be at Oxford long enough to have one year at least of reading directly on the middle ages or modern times, and of revelling in the stores of the Oxford libraries. I have never lost the benefit of what I enjoyed in this respect, though I have often cause to regret that it is no longer within my reach.

I do not know why my Thucydides is not out; I sent off the last corrected sheet three weeks ago. I am amused with thinking of what will be said of the latter part of the Preface, which is very conservative, insomuch that I am rather afraid of being suspected of ratting; a suspicion which, notwithstanding, would be quite unfounded, as you will probably believe without any more

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solemn assurance on my part. Nor do I feel that I am in any greater danger of becoming a Radical, if by that term be meant one who follows popular principles, as opposed to or distinct from liberal ones. But liberal principles are more or less popular, and more or less aristocratical, according to circumstances, and thus in the application of precisely the same principles which I held two years ago, and ten years ago, I should write and act as to particular persons and parties somewhat differently. In other words, the late extraordinary revolution has shown the enormous strength of the aristocracy and of the corrupt and low Tory party; one sees clearly what hard blows they will not only stand, but require, and that the fear of depressing them too much is chimerical. A deeper fear is behind; that, like the vermin on the jacket in Sylla's apologue, they will stick so tight to the form of the constitution, that the constitution itself will at last be thrown into the fire, and a military monarchy succeed. . . . . . But of one thing I am clear, that if ever this constitution be destroyed, it will be only when it ought to be destroyed; when evils long neglected, and good long omitted, will have brought things to such a state, that the Constitution must fall to save the Commonwealth, and the Church of England perish for the sake of the Church of Christ. Search and look whether you can find that any constitution was ever destroyed from within by factions or discontent, without its destruction having been, either just penally, or necessary, because it could not any longer answer its proper purposes. And this ripeness for destruction is the sure consequence of Toryism and Conservatism, or of that base system which joins the hand of a Reformer to the heart of a Tory, reforms not upon principle, but upon clamour; and therefore both changes amiss, and preserves amiss, alike blind and low principled in what it gives and what it withholds. And therefore I would oppose to the utmost any government predominantly Tory, much more one exclusively Tory, and most of all a government, at once exclusively Tory in

heart, and in word and action simulating reform. Conceive the Duke of Ormond and Bolingbroke, and Atterbury, and Sir W. Wyndham intrusted with the administration of the Act of Settlement. So have I filled my paper; but it is idle to write upon things of this kind, as no letter will hold all that is to be said, much less answer objections on the other side. Write to me when you can, and tell me about yourself fully a.

XCIX. TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN.

Rugby, March 22, 1835.

I have been thinking of what you say as to a book on the origin of Civilization, and considering whether I could furnish any thing towards it. But history, I think, can furnish little to the purpose, because all history properly so called belongs to an age of at least partial civilization; and the poetical or mythical traditions, which refer to the origin of this civilization, cannot be made use of to prove any thing, till their character has undergone a more complete analysis. I believe with you that savages could never civilize themselves, but barbarians I think might; and there are some races, e. g. the Keltic, the Teutonic, and the Hellenic, that we cannot trace back to a savage state, nor does it appear that they ever were savages. With regard to such races as have been found in a savage state, if it be admitted that all mankind are originally one race, then I should say that they must have degenerated; but, if the physiological question be not settled yet, and there is any reason to suppose that the New Hollander and the Greek never had one common ancestor, then you would have the races of mankind divided into those improveable

a The latter part of this letter was occasioned by a regret expressed at his vote in the Warwickshire election. For the distinction between "Liberal and Popular principles," see his article in the Quarterly Journal of Education, vol. ix. p. 281.