the best I can to express at least my sincere regard and respect for the memory of my earliest friend".

Let me thank you sincerely for all the particulars which you have been kind enough to give me in your letter.

V. TO THE REV. J. LOWE.

Rugby, March 16, 1830.

I have been feeding the press sheet by sheet with a pamphlet or booklet on the Catholic Question. You will say there was no need; but I wanted to show that to do national injustice is a sin, and that the clergy, whilst they urge the continuance of this injustice, are making themselves individually guilty of it. And I have written at any rate very peaceably; though you know you used to say that I was "violent on both sides." I saw Milman at Oxford, (where I went not as you may suppose to vote for Sir R. Inglis,) and I was sorry to hear from him rather an indifferent account of you. But from your own letter since, I am hoping that I may augur more favourably. I do rejoice that you have got Hilton, and that you are thus released from the prospect of pupils. Much as I enjoy the work of education in health, for it is at once ἕξις πρακτικὴ and ἕξις ποιητική, I think it would press heavily upon me if I were not quite well and strong. I should much like to see you in your new quarters, but my difficulty is that, when I can move at all, I like to move so far; and thus, in the summer, if all goes well, I hope to see the Alps, and swim in the Mediterranean once again. Your cousin, little Jackson, is a nice boy, and reminds me much of his poor eldest brother; but I do not and cannot see much individually of the boys in the lower part of the

a The following was the inscription which he sent:

TO THE MEMORY OF

GEORGE EVELYN, ESQ.,

ETC., ETC., ETC.

HIS EARLY YEARS GAVE A BEAUTIFUL PROMISE
OF VIGOUR OF UNDERSTANDING, KINDNESS OF HEART,

AND CHRISTIAN NOBLENESS OF PRINCIPLE:

HIS MANHOOD ABUNDANTLY FULFILLED IT.

LIVING AND DYING IN THE FAITH OF CHRIST,

HE HAS LEFT TO HIS FAMILY A HUMBLE BUT LIVELY HOPE
THAT, AS HE WAS RESPECTED AND LOVED BY MEN,

HE HAS BEEN FORGIVEN AND ACCEPTED BY GOD.

66

school, although I know pretty nearly how each is going on. Reform is a great and difficult work: I can readily allow of the difficulties, but not of the dishonest spirit which makes when it cannot find them, and exaggerates them when it can. Where there is a will there is a way," is true I believe politically as well as spiritually, and you know that mine is a commonwealth, or rather one of Aristotle's or Plato's perfect kingdoms, where the king is superior by nature to all his subjects-propter defectum ætatis. But if the king of Prussia was as sincere a lover of liberty as I am, he would give his people a constitution-for my great desire is to teach my boys to govern themselves-a much better thing than to govern them well myself. Only in their case, "propter defectum ætatis," as aforesaid, they never can be quite able to govern themselves, and will need some of my government. You would be amused to see how the gentlemen in this neighbourhood are coming round about the Catholics. The worst part I think of the whole business is the effectual manner in which the clergy generally, and of Oxford especially, have cut their own throats in the judgment of all enlightened public men-an evil more dangerous to their interests than twenty Catholic Emancipation bills, and which, as in France, may extend to more than their worldly interests, for an ignorant and selfish clergy is one of the greatest stumbling-blocks in the way of able and liberal-minded statesmen embracing Christianity thoroughly. They will compliment it generally, but they will not heartily act upon its principles so long as they who are supposed to represent its spirit best, are such unfaithful mirrors of it. I had no conception how much of the worst Puritanism still subsisted, and now stript even of that which once palliated its evils-the loss of civil liberty.

VI. TO THE REV. JULIUS HARE.

Rugby, March 30, 1829.

I am much obliged to you for sending me your Defence of Niebuhr; and still more for the most kind and gratifying manner in which you have mentioned me in it; there are few things more delightful than to be so spoken of by those whom we entirely respect, and whose good opinion and regard we have wished to gain.

I should not have troubled you with my pamphlet on the Catholic question, had it not involved points beyond the mere question, now

at issue, and on which I was desirous to offer you some explanation, as I think our opinions respecting them are widely different. From what you say in the Guesses at Truth, and again in your Defence of Niebuhr, you appear to me to look upon the past with feelings of reverence, in which I cannot participate. It is not that I think we are better than our fathers in proportion to our lights, or that our powers are at all greater; on the contrary, they deserve more admiration, considering the difficulties they had to struggle with; yet still I cannot but think, that the habit of looking back upon them as models, and more especially in all political institutions, as the surest way to fetter our own progress, and to deprive us of the advantages of our own superior experience, which, it is no boast to say, that we possess, but rather, a most disgraceful reproach, since we use them so little. The error of the last century appears to me to have been this, that they undervalued their ancestors without duly studying antiquity; thus they naturally did not gain the experience which they ought to have done, and were confident even whilst digging from under their feet the ground on which their confidence might have rested justly. Yet still, even in this respect, the 16th and 17th centuries have little cause, I think, to insult the 18th. The great writers of those times read, indeed, enormously, but surely their critical spirit was in no proportion to their readingand thus the true experience to be gained from the study of antiquity was not gained, because antiquity was not fully understood. It is not, I believe, that I estimate our actual doings more highly than you do; but, I believe, I estimate those of our fathers less highly; and instead of looking upon them as in any degree a standard, I turn instinctively to that picture of entire perfection which the Gospel holds out, and from which I cannot but think that the state of things in times past was further removed even than ours is now, although our little may be more inexcusable than their less was in them. And, in particular, I confess, that if I were called upon to name what spirit of evil predominantly deserved the name of Antichrist, I should name the spirit of chivalry-the more

a "Chivalry," or (as he used more frequently to call the element in the middle ages which he thus condemned) "feudality, is especially Keltic and barbarian-incompatible with the highest virtue of which man is capable, and the last at which he arrives-a sense of justice. It sets up the personal allegiance to the chief above allegiance to God and law." And in like manner he maintained that the great excellence of the 18th century was the development of the idea of justice,—even

detestable for the very guise of the "Archangel ruined," which has made it so seductive to the most generous spirits-but to me so hateful, because it is in direct opposition to the impartial justice of the Gospel, and its comprehensive feeling of equal brotherhood, and because it so fostered a sense of honour rather than a sense of duty.

VII. TO REV. DR. HAWKINS.

May 29, 1829.

[After refusing to reprint the pamphlet on the Roman Catholic claims, and expressing his belief that the school has not and will not sustain any injury from what he has done.] I claim a full right to use my own discretion in writing upon any subject I choose, provided I do not neglect my duties as master in order to find time for it. But those who know me will be aware that, to say nothing of duty, my interest in the school far exceeds what I feel in any sort of composition of my own; and that neither here nor at Laleham, have I ever allowed my own writings to encroach upon the time, or on the spirits and vigour of mind and body, which I hold that my pupils have a paramount claim upon.

As to the principles in the pamphlet, it is a matter of unfeigned astonishment to me, that any man calling himself a Christian, should think them bad, or should not recognise in them the very principles of Christianity itself. If my principles are bad, I only wish that those who think them so would state their own in opposition to them. It is all very well to call certain principles mischievous and democratical; but I believe very few of those, who do so call them, would be able to bear the monstrous nature of their own, if they were obliged fully to develop them. I mean that they would then be seen to involve what in their daily language about things of common life their very holders laugh at as absurdity and mischief. For instance, about continual reforms, or the wisdom of our ancestors-I have heard Tories laugh at the farmers in their parish, for opposing the mending of the roads, because, as they said, what had been good enough for their fathers was good enough for them; and yet these farmers were not an atom more silly than the people who laughed at them, but only more consistent. And as to

amidst the excesses to which it was carried in some of the notions then prevalent on what was called civil and religious liberty.

the arrogance of tone in the pamphlet, I do not consider it to be arrogance to assume that I know more of a particular subject, which I have studied eagerly from a child, than those do who notoriously do not study it at all. The very men who think it hard to be taxed with ignorance of modern history, and of the laws and literature of foreign nations, are men who, till this question came on, never pretended to know anything about them: and, in the case of the Evangelicals, professed to shun such studies as profane. I should consider no man arrogant, who, if I were to talk about some mathematical or scientific question which he had studied habitually, and on which all scientific men were agreed, should tell me that I did not and could not understand the subject, because I had never liked mathematics, and had never pretended to work at them. Those only who have studied history with that fondness that I have done all my life can fully appreciate the pain which it gives me to see the most mischievous principles supported, as they have been on this question, with an ignorance truly audacious. I will only instance Mr. C.'s appeal to English History in proof that God's judgments will visit us if we grant any favour to the Catholics. On the point of Episcopacy, I can only say, that my notions, whether right or wrong, have been drawn solely from the New Testament itself, according to what appears to me its true meaning and spirit. I do not know that I ever read any Low Church or No Church argument in my life. But I should like to develop my notions on this point more fully hereafter. I have some thoughts of publishing a volume of essays on various points connected with Christian doctrine and practice: I do not mean now-but if I live, and can work out some points, on which I have not yet got far enough to authorize me to address others, yet I think I see my way to some useful truths. Meantime I trust I shall not give just cause of offence to any good and wise man-or of personal offence to any

man.

VIII. TO A PARENT HOLDING UNITARIAN OPINIONS.

Rugby, June 15, 1829.

I had occasion to speak to your son this evening on the subject of the approaching confirmation; and, as I had understood that his friends were not members of the Established Church, my object was not so much to persuade him to be confirmed, as to avail myself of