may

excuse if I do not try to make the school something like my beau ideal, it is sure to fall far enough short in reality. There has been no flogging yet, (and I hope that there will be none,) and surprisingly few irregularities. I chastise at first, by very gentle impositions, which are raised for a repetition of offences- flogging will be only my ratio ultima and talking I shall try to the utmost. I believe that boys be governed a great deal by gentle methods and kindness, and appealing to their better feelings, if you show that you are not afraid of them; I have seen great boys, six feet high, shed tears when I have sent for them up into my room and spoken to them quietly, in private, for not knowing their lesson, and I have found that this treatment produced its effects afterwards in making them do better. But, of course, deeds must second words when needful, or words will soon be laughed at.

III. TO THE SAME.

Laleham, Dec. 19, 1828.

I should have greatly enjoyed seeing you again and seeing you with your wife, and at your own home, to say nothing of resuming some of the matters we discussed a little in the summer. The constitutional tone of different minds naturally gives a different complexion to their view of things, even when they may agree in the main; and in discussing matters besides, one, or at least I, am apt to dwell on my points of difference with a man rather than on my points of agreement with him, because, in one case, I may get my own opinions modified and modify his - in the other, we only end where we began. I confess that it does pain me when I find my friends shocked at the expression of my sentiments, because if a man had entered on the same particular inquiry himself, although he should have come to a wholly different conclusion at last, still, if he gave me credit for sincerity, he ought not to be shocked at my not having as yet come to the same conclusion with himself, and would rather quietly try to bring me there — and if he had not inquired into the subject, then he certainly ought not to be shocked; as giving me credit for the same fundamental principles with himself, he ought not to think that non-inquiry would lead to truth, and inquiry to error. In your case, I know that your mind is en

tirely candid; and that no man will conduct an inquiry with more perfect fairness; you have, therefore, the less reason for abstaining from inquiry altogether. I can assure you, that I never remember to have held a conversation such as those which we had last summer, without deriving benefit in some way or other from the remarks urged in opposition to my own views; very often they have modified my opinions, sometimes entirely changed them—and when they have done neither, they have yet led me to consider myself and my own state of mind; lest even whilst holding the truth, I might have bought the possession of it too dearly (I mean, of course, in lesser matters) by exercising the understanding too much, and the affections too little.

IV. TO MRS. EVELYN.
(On the death of her husband.)

Rugby, February 22, 1829.

I need not, I trust, say how deeply I was shocked and grieved by the intelligence contained in your letter. I was totally ignorant of your most heavy loss, and it was one of the hopes in which I have often fondly indulged, that I might some time or other again meet one who I believe was my earliest friend, and for whom I had never ceased to retain a strong admiration and regard. I heard of him last winter from a common friend who had been indebted to his kindness, and whom I have also lost within the last few months, Mr. Lawes, of Marlborough; and since that time I had again lost sight of him, till I received from you the account of his death. He must indeed be an irreparable loss to all his family; for I well remember the extraordinary promise which he gave as a boy, of mingled nobleness and gentleness of heart, as well as of very great powers of understanding. These were visible to me even at an earlier period of his life than you are perhaps aware of; for it was not at Harrow that I knew him, but at Warminster, when we were both very young, and since the year 1806 I have never seen him; but the impression of his character has remained strongly marked on my memory ever since, for I never knew so bright a promise in any other boy; I never knew any spirit at that age so pure and generous, and so free from the ordinary meannesses, coarsenesses, and littlenesses of boyhood. It will give me

great pleasure to comply with your wishes with regard to an inscription to his memory, if you will be kind enough to furnish me with some particulars of his life and character in later years; for mine is but a knowledge of his boyhood, and I am sure that his manhood must have been even still better worth knowing. You will, however, I am sure, allow me to state in perfect sincerity, that I feel very ill qualified to write anything of this nature, and that it requires a peculiar talent which I feel myself wholly to want. I should give you, I fear, but a very bad inscription; but if you really wish me to attempt it, I will do 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

*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 VIGOR 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.

་

more favorably. 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 ποιητικὴ, 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 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 neighborhood 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 stumblingblocks 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 love 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, is 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 reading, and 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