they would make you Governor and me Bishop, I would go out, I think, to-morrow,-not to return after so many years, but to live and die there, if there was any prospect of rearing any hopeful form of society. I have actually got 200 acres in New Zealand, and I confess that my thoughts often turn thitherward; but that vile population of runaway convicts and others who infest the country, deter me more than anything else, as the days of Roman Proconsuls are over, who knew so well how to clear a country of such nuisances. Now, I suppose they will, as they find it convenient, come in and settle down quietly amongst the colonists, as Morgan did at Kingston; and the ruffian and outlaw of yesterday becomes to-day, according to our Jacobin notions of citizenship, a citizen, and perhaps a magistrate and a legislator. I imagine that the Jamaica society has never recovered the mixture of Buccaneer blood, and it is in that way that colonial societies become so early corrupted, because all the refuse of old societies find such easy access

into them.

I am very glad, indeed, that you like my Prophecy Sermons: the points in particular on which I did not wish to enter, if I could help it, but which very likely I shall be forced to touch on, relate to the latter chapters of Daniel, which, if genuine, would be a clear exception to my canon of interpretation, as there can be no reasonable spiritual meaning made out of the Kings of the North and South. But I have long thought that the greater part of the book of Daniel is most certainly a very late work of the time of the Maccabees; and the pretended prophecy about the kings of Grecia and Persia, and of the North and South, is mere history, like the poetical prophecies in Virgil and elsewhere. In fact, you can trace distinctly the date when it was written, because the events up to the date are given with historical minuteness, totally unlike the character of real Prophecy; and beyond that date all is imaginary. It is curious that when there was so allowed a proof of the existence of apocryphal writings, under the name of the Book of Daniel,-as the Stories of the apocryphal Esther, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon, those should have been rejected, because they were only known in the Greek translation, and the rest, because it happened to be in Chaldee, was received at once in the lump, and defended as a matter of faith. But the self-same criticism which has established the authenticity of St John's Gospel against all questionings,

time of life when rest is more welcome than exertion. Yet, when I think of what is at stake on that rough sea, I feel that I have no right to lie in harbour idly; and indeed I do yearn more than I can say to be able to render some service where service is so greatly needed. It is when I indulge such wishes most keenly, and only then, that strong political differences between my friends and myself are really painful; because I feel that not only could we not act together, but there would be no sympathy the moment I were to express anything beyond a general sense of anxiety and apprehension, in which I suppose all good men must share.

CCXXVII. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE.

Fox How, January 26, 1840.

We left Rugby this time so early, that your letter followed me down here, and I must have the pleasure of answering it before we go away, which alas! must be to-morrow morning. We talk of going to Norwich for a few days, to see the Stanleys, and to Cambridge, before we settle at Rugby; and really, in these most troublous times, it seems more than is allowable to be living, as we are here, in a place of so much rest and beauty.

Your letter interested me very deeply, and I have thought over what you say very often. Yet I believe that no man's mind has ever been more consciously influenced by others than mine has been in the course of my life, from the time that I first met you at Corpus. I doubt whether you ever submitted to another with the same complete deference as I did to you when I was an undergraduate. So, afterwards, I looked up to Davison with exceeding reverence, and to Whately. Nor do I think that Keble himself has lived on in more habitual respect and admiration than I have, only the objects of these feelings have been very different. At this day, I could sit at Bunsen's feet, and drink in wisdom, with almost intense reverence. But I cannot reverence the men whom Keble reverences, and how does he feel to Luther and Milton? It gives me no pain and no scruple whatever to differ from those whom, after the most deliberate judgment that I can form, I cannot find to be worthy of admiration. Nor does their number affect me, when all are manifestly under the same influences, and no one seems to be a master spirit, fitted to lead amongst men. But with wise men

in the way of their wisdom, it would give me very great pain to
differ; I can say that truly with regard to your Uncle, even more
with regard to Niebuhr. I do not know a single subject on which I
have maintained really a paradox,—that is, on which I have pre-
sumed to set up my judgment against the concurring judgment of
wise men, and I trust I never should do it. But it is surely not
presumption to prefer a foreign authority to one nearer home, when
both are in themselves perfectly equal. For instance,-suppose
that any point in English Law, although steadily defended by Eng-
lish lawyers, was at variance no less decidedly with the practice of
the Roman Law, and condemned by the greatest jurists and phi-
losophers of other countries, there can be no presumption, as it
seems to me, in taking either side strongly, according as a man's
convictions may be: nor ought one to be taxed with disrespect of
authority in either case; because, although one may be treating
some great men as clearly wrong, yet other men no less great have
justified us in doing so. Perhaps this consciousness of the actually
disputed character of many points in theology and politics rendered
it early impossible to my mind to acquiesce without inquiry in any
one set of opinions; the choice was not left me to do so.
I was
brought up in a strong Tory family; the first impressions of my own
mind shook my merely received impressions to pieces, and at Win-
chester I was well nigh a Jacobin. At sixteen, when I went up to
Oxford, all the influences of the place which I loved exceedingly,
your influence above all, blew my Jacobinism to pieces, and made
me again a Tory. I used to speak strong Toryism in the old Attic
Society, and greedily did I read Clarendon with all the sympathy of
a thorough royalist. Then came the peace, when Napoleon was put
down, and the Tories had it their own way. Nothing shook my
Toryism more than the strong Tory sentiments that I used to hear
at, though I liked the family exceedingly. But I heard lan-
guage at which my organ of justice stood aghast, and which, the more
I read of the Bible, seemed to me more and more unchristian. I
could not but go on inquiring, and I do feel thankful that now and
for some years past I have been living not in scepticism, but in a
very sincere faith, which embraces most unreservedly those great
truths, divine and human, which the highest authorities, divine and
human, seem to me concurringly to teach. I have said this de-
fensively only, for I am sure I meant to convey no insinuation
against you for not being active in inquiring after truth. I believe