at whatever inconvenience, where there was a perseverance in any habit inconsistent with a boy's duties.

XX. TO REV. GEORGE CORNISH.

Laleham, November 30, 1827.

You have often wanted me to be master at Winchester, so I think you will be glad to hear that I am actually a candidate for Rugby. I was strongly urged to stand, and money tempted me, but I cannot in my heart be sorry to stay where both M. and myself are so entirely happy. If I do get it, I feel as if I could set to work very heartily, and, with God's blessing, I should like to try whether my notions of Christian education are really impracticable, whether our system of public schools has not in it some noble elements which, under the blessing of the Spirit of all holiness and wisdom, might produce fruit even to life eternal. When I think about it thus, I really long to take rod in hand; but when I think of the gos Tò Téλ0s, the perfect vileness which I must daily contemplate, the certainty that this can at best be only partially remedied, the irksomeness of " fortemque Gyan fortemque Cloanthum," and the greater form and publicity of the life which we should there lead, when I could no more bathe daily in the clear Thames, nor wear old coats and Russia duck trousers, nor hang on a gallows, nor climb a pole, I grieve to think of the possibility of a change; but as there are about thirty candidates, and I only applied very late, I think I need not disquiet myself. I send you this brief notice, because you ought to hear of my plans from myself rather than from others; but I have no time to write more. Thucydides prospers.

XXI. TO REV. J. TUCKER.

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December 28, 1827.

Our united warmest thanks to you and to your sisters for the joy you have felt about Rugby. For the labour I a His gymnastic exercises.

care nothing, if God gives me health and strength as he has for the last eight years. But whether I shall be able to make the school what I wish to make it, I do not mean wholly or perfectly, but in some degree, that is, an instrument of God's glory, and of the everlasting good of those who come to it,—that indeed is an awful anxiety.

XXII. TO REV. E. HAWKINS.

Laleham, December 28, 1827. Your kind little note ought not to have remained thus long unanswered, especially as you have a most particular claim on my thanks for your active kindness in the whole business, and for your character of me to Sir H. Halford, that I was likely to improve generally the system of public education, a statement which Sir H. Halford told me had weighed most strongly in my favour. You would not, I am sure, have recommended me, if you had supposed that I should alter things violently or for the pleasure of altering; but, as I have at different times expressed in conversation my disapprobation of much of the existing system, I find that some people expect that I am going to sweep away root and branch, quod absit! I need not tell you how wholly unexpected this result has been to us, and I hope I need not say also what a solemn and almost overwhelming responsibility I feel is imposed on me. I would hope to have the prayers of my friends, together with my own, for a supply of that true wisdom which is required for such a business. To be sure, how small in comparison is the importance of my teaching the boys to read Greek, and how light would be a schoolmaster's duty if that were all of it. Yet, if my health and strength continue as they have been for the last eight years, I do not fear the labour, and really enjoy the prospect of it. I am so glad that we are likely to meet soon in Oxford.

XXIII. TO REV. JOHN TUCKER.

Laleham, March 2.

With regard to reforms at Rugby, give me credit, I must beg of you, for a most sincere desire to make it a place of Christian education. At the same time my object will be, if possible, to form Christian men, for Christian boys I can scarcely hope to make; I mean that, from the natural imperfect state of boyhood, they are not susceptible of Christian principles in their full development upon their practice, and I suspect that a low standard of morals in many respects must be tolerated amongst them, as it was on a larger scale in what I consider the boyhood of the human race. But I believe that a great deal may be done, and I should be most unwilling to undertake the business, if I did not trust that much might be done. Our impressions of the exterior of every thing that we saw during our visit to Dr. Wooll in January, were very favourable; at the same time that I anticipate a great many difficulties in the management of affairs, before they can be brought into good train. But both M. and myself, I think, are well inclined to commence our work, and if my health and strength be spared me, I certainly feel that in no situation could I have the prospect of employment so congenial to my taste and qualifications; that is, supposing always that I find that I can manage the change from older pupils to a school. Your account of yourself was most delightful: life for some years has been one of great happiness, but I fear not of happiness so safe and permitted. I am hurried on too fast in the round of duties and of domestic enjoyments, and I greatly feel the need, and shall do so even more at Rugby, unless I take heed in time, of stopping to consider my ways, and to recognise my own infinite weakness and unworthiness. I have read the "Letters on the Church," and reviewed them in the Edinburgh Review for September 1826, if you care to know what I think of them. I think that any discussion on church matters must

my

VOL. I.

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do good, if it is likely to lead to any reform; for any change, such as is within any human calculation, would be an improvement. What might not - do, if he would set himself to work in the House of Lords, not to patch up this hole or that, but to recast the whole corrupt system, which in many points stands just as it did in the worst times of popery, only reading "King" or "Aristocracy," in the place of "Pope."

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Laleham, March 14, 1828.

XXIV. TO REV F. C. BLACKSTONE.

We are resigning private pupils, I imagine, with very different feelings; you looking forward to a life of less distraction, and I to one of far greater, insomuch that all here seems quietness itself in comparison with what I shall meet with at Rugby. There will be a great deal to do, I suspect, in every way, when I first enter on my situation; but still, if my health continues, I do not at all dread it, but on the contrary look forward to it with much pleasure. I have long since looked upon education as my business in life; and just before I stood for Rugby, I had offered myself as a candidate for the historical professorship at the London University; and had indulged in various dreams of attaching myself to that institution, and trying as far as possible to influence it. In Rugby there is a fairer field, because I start with greater advantages. You know that I never ran down public schools in the lump, but grieved that their exceeding capabilities were not turned to better account; and if I find myself unable in time to mend what I consider faulty in them, it will at any rate be a practical lesson to teach me to judge charitably of others who do not reform public institutions as much as is desirable. I suppose that you have not regarded all the public events of the last few months without some interest. My views of things

certainly become daily more reforming; and what I above

all other things wish to see is, a close union between Christian reformers and those who are often, as I think, falsely charged with being enemies of Christianity. It is a part of the perfection of the Gospel that it is attractive to all those who love truth and goodness, as soon as it is known in its true nature, whilst it tends to clear away those erroneous views and evil passions with which philanthropy and philosophy, so long as they stand aloof from it, are ever in some degree corrupted. My feeling towards men whom I believe to be sincere lovers of truth and the happiness of their fellow creatures, while they seek these ends otherwise than through the medium of the Gospel, is rather that they are not far from the kingdom of God, and might be brought into it altogether, than that they are enemies whose views are directly opposed to our own. That they are not brought into it is, I think, to a considerable degree, chargeable upon the professors of Christianity; the high Church party seeming to think that the establishment in Church and State is all in all, and that the Gospel principles must be accommodated to our existing institutions, instead of offering a pattern by which those institutions should be purified; and the Evangelicals by their ignorance and narrowmindedness, and their seeming wish to keep the world and the Church ever distinct, instead of labouring to destroy the one by increasing the influence of the other, and making the kingdoms of the world indeed the kingdoms of Christ.

XXV. TO AUGUSTUS HARE, ESQ.

Laleham, March 7, 1828.

I trust that you have recovered your accident at Perugia, and that you are enabled to enjoy your stay at that glorious Rome. I think that I have never written to you since my return from it last spring, when I was so completely overpowered with admiration and delight at