Scripture or of reason, what need of the human mind,―nay, even what respectable weakness there is, which craves the support of those opinions to which I am so opposed. I am well aware that there must be something to fascinate such minds as I have known overcome by them. But I never yet have been able to make out what it is; and, being thus painfully out of sympathy with the persons so affected, I am unable to be of the service to them which I could wish to be. And this may account to you at least, for any thing which may seem harsh or over-positive in my writing against them. It is difficult to speak hesitatingly on points which you feel to be the most clear and certain truths in existence; and it is difficult to speak with consideration of what appears to you not error merely, but error absolutely unaccountable-error so extraordinary as to appear equivalent to an absolute delusion. And therefore you will do me a great service if ever you can make me understand what is the attractive side of these opinions-attractive, I mean, to those who believe and are familiar with the Scriptures, and therefore are persuaded that they hold already, as far as their own sin and infirmity will allow them, all that hope and strength and comfort— and these resting immediately on a Divine Author,—which these opinions would give us through a human or formal medium. Many years ago Keble told me that the sin forbidden to us by the second commandment was, he thought, the having recourse to unauthorized mediators or means of approach to God. Now the whole of these opinions seem to me to be susceptible of this definition, that they contain a great variety of ways of breaking the second commandment, and nothing else.

CCXCV. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE.

Fox How, December 26, 1841.

I will say nothing about the Oxford contest, nor about the matters connected with it, only asking you to consider your expression about "descending all the way to my level" in religious opinions. Is it not rather assuming the question to call my views low, and the opposite ones high? You know that I should urge the authority of St. Paul for reversing the epithets, according to his language in the Epistle to the Galatians. Neither are my opinions properly low as to Church authority. I am for High Church, but no Priest; that is, I no more entertain a low sense of the Church, by denying the

ight and power of the Priesthood, than I entertain a low sense of he State or of Law, because I deny the authority of Tugades, or of hose oligarchies which Aristotle calls duvária. I am not saying hether I am right or wrong, only contending that the opposite. iews have no right to be called high in comparision with mine, ither religiously or ecclesiastically.

I will remember what you say about Vincentius Lirinensis, and ill see the passage in Bishop Jebb; but I doubt excessively his ferences to all the men to whom he appeals. Of course everydy would allow that "Quod plerumque, quod à pluribus," &c., is an thority, and that I have admitted; but the question is, whether be a paramount authority.

Wordsworth is in high force, and I hope that we shall see much I him while we are here. The country is in most perfect beauty. cannot tell you how much I am obliged to you for all the conusion of your letter; and I trust that I shall enter into, and act in e spirit of it. But how startling is it to see how quietly opposite pinions lie side by side, so long as neither are entertained keenly; ut, when both become deep and real convictions, then toleration is 10 longer easy. I dreamt some years ago of a softening of the opposition between Roman Catholics and Protestants, having been beguiled by the apparent harmony subsisting between them, while the principles of both were slumbering. But I do not dream of it now; for the principles are eternally at variance, and now men are eginning to feel their principles, and act on them. I should not low be surprised if I live to see a time of persecution; and the histories of the old martyrs appear to me now things which we may ourselves be called upon to realize, for wherever men are not indifferent, I doubt greatly whether they are much advanced in charity.

CCXCVI. TO THE REV. DR. HAWKINS.

(With regard to difficulties in the statutes of the Professorship.)

Fox How, December 26, 1841.

. . The matter lies in a short compass, the present regulations could not be observed without injury to the University, if I were resident altogether and had nothing to do with Rugby. Twenty Lectures a year, if they are to be such as a Professor of History in Oxford ought to give, cannot be prepared in a year. I

could give fifty, on the other hand, or any number which might be required, if I made my course an abridgment of all Modern History, . . . collected apparently from some popular book like Russell. My object would be to give eight Lectures every year like Guizot's on French History, for the history, chiefly the internal history of England, beginning at the fifteenth century. It would be a work for my life, and eight Lectures a year would be, I am sure, as much as any man could give with advantage. My present course will be introductory, on the method of reading History; and this, too, will consist of eight Lectures. Now I am willing to go on with the present regulations, if the University think it advisable, provided always, that I am required to take no oath about them; because then as much of the salary may be forfeited now, as the Vice-Chancellor may think proper, and the question of reducing the number of Lectures may be considered at leisure, before I come to leave Rugby. But feeling earnestly desirous to do the duty of the Professorship efficiently, and believing that I can do it, I think I may ask the sanction of the University authorities for an application to the Government about the regulations, to have them altered as regards the number of Lectures, and, I think, also, to take away the oath, if such a thing be not required of other Professors. In the last century, there was a sad recklessness in requiring oaths on all occasions worthy or unworthy; but there is a better feeling now prevalent, and I should hope to show that without

the oath the duty might be done effectually.

In the mean time this uncertainty is very inconvenient, because we have actually engaged our house in Oxford, and I shall have enough to do to finish my Lectures in time if they are wanted, and, if they are not wanted, I can ill afford the time to work upon them. But this cannot be helped, only the oath is a serious matter; and if I am required to take it to the regulations attached to my patent, I have no alternative but to refuse it most positively. We are all well here, and have the most beautiful weather; the mountain tops all covered with snow, and all their sides and the valleys rich with the golden ferns and the brown leaves of the oaks.

[The regulations in question were found not to be in force.]

CCXCVII. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE.

Fox How, December 31, 1841.

[After explaining the difficulties about the Professorship.] I do >t like undertaking more than I can do, or being thought to do the ork of my place inefficiently. And I would rather give up the rofessorship a hundred times than to be thought to make a job of

Yet I do value it very much, and look forward to having great rties of the young men of the various great schools with no small easure. I shall ask our Rugby men to bring their friends of ner schools, when they are good men. And I hope to see some my boys and girls well bogged in the middle of Bagley Wood. is the last night of the year. May the new year begin and go . happily with us both, and I think that at our age we begin to el that the word "happy" has no light meaning, and requires ore than mere worldly prosperity or enjoyment to answer to its gnification. Our family greetings to all yours.

CCXCVIII. TO THE SAME.

Fox How, January 9, 1842.

I have nearly finished six Lectures, although I scarcely 10w whether I shall deliver them. If I do go up to Oxford, many ings, I can assure you, have been in my thoughts, which I wished radually to call men's attention to; one in particular, which seems o me a great scandal, the debts contracted by the young men, and their backwardness in paying them. I think that no part of this evil is to be ascribed to the tradesmen, because so completely are the tradesmen at the mercy of the under-graduates, that no man dares refuse to give credit; if he did, his shop would be abandoned. The Colleges take care to secure themselves by requiring caution money, and other expedients; and I cannot but think that their authority might be exerted to compel payment to tradesmen with nearly the same regularity, as they exact their own battells.

CCXCIX. TO THE REV. J. HEARN.

Fox How, January 17, 1842.

I do not like to leave your kind letters unanswered, lest you should think that I am indifferent to receiving them, which would

be most far from the truth; and yet I have been so busy, and still am, that it not only makes it difficult to find time to write letters. but it makes them not worth reading when they are written, because it so engrosses me with one or two pursuits, that it leaves me nothing to communicate which can be of interest to others. Next week, I suppose, our life will have variety and excitement enough, when we go up to Oxford with all our family, and are established at our house in Beaumont Street, which we have taken for three weeks. Nevertheless, I prefer writing from the delicious calm of this place, where the mountains raise their snowy tops into the clear sky by this dim twilight, with a most ghost-like solemnity; and nothing is heard, far or near, except the sound of the stream through the valley. I have been walking to-day to Windermere, and went out on a little rude pier of stones into the lake, to watch what is to me one of the most beautiful objects in nature, the life of blue water amidst a dead landscape of snow; the sky was bright, and the wind fresh, and the lake was dancing and singing, as it were, while all along its margin lay the dead snow, covering everything but the lake,-plains and valleys and mountains. I have admired the same thing more than once by the sea side, and there the tide gives another feature in the broad band of brown shingles below high-water mark, interposed between the snow and the water. We have been here more than three weeks, and, as it always does, the place has breathed a constant refreshment on me, although I have never worked harder; having done six of my Lectures, besides a large correspondence about the school matters, as usual in the holidays. I have, in all, written seven Lectures, and leave one more to be written in Oxford, and this last week I hope to devote to my History. We have been all well, and as my children grow up, we are so large and companionable a party, that we need no society out of ourselves. This is a great change in later married life, when your table is always full without company, and you live in the midst of a large party. And I am sure that its effect is to make you shrink from other society, which is not wanted to enliven you, and which, added to a large family in the house, becomes almost fatiguing.

I will say nothing of my deep interest in this Oxford election. and in the progress of the Newmanite party, on which so many seem to look either complacently or stupidly, who yet cannot really sympathize with it. But I shall see and hear enough, and more