after his completion of the edition of Thucydides. But besides, and perhaps even more than this, was the strong impression that on those subjects, which he himself had most at heart, it was impossible for him to bear up against the tide of misunderstanding and prejudice with which he was met, and that all hope for the present of direct influence over his countrymen was cut off. His only choice, therefore, lay in devoting himself to some work, which, whilst it was more or less connected with his professional pursuits, would afford him in the past a refuge from the excitement and confusion of the present. What Fox How was to Rugby, that the Roman History was to the painful and conflicting thoughts roused by his writings on political and theological subjects.

But besides the refreshment of Westmoreland scenery and of ancient greatness, he must have derived a yet deeper comfort from his increasing influence on the school. Greater as it probably was at a later period over the school generally, yet over individual boys it never was so great as at the period when the clamor to which he was exposed from without had reached its highest pitch. Then, when the institution seemed most likely to suffer from the unexampled vehemence with which it was assailed through him, began a series of the greatest successes at both Universities which it had ever known; then when he was most accused of misgovernment of the place, he laid that firm hold on the esteem and affections of the elder boys, which he never afterwards lost. Then, more than at any other time, when his old friends and acquaintance were falling back from him in alarm, he saw those growing up under his charge of whom it may be truly said, that they would have been willing to die for his sake.

Here, again, the course of his sermons in the third volume gives us a faithful transcript of his feelings; whilst his increased confidence in the school appears throughout in the increased affection of their tone, the general subjects which he then chose for publication,

indicate no less the points forced upon him by the controversy of the last two years, the evils of sectarianism, the necessity of asserting the authority of "Law, which Jacobinism and Fanaticism are alike combining to destroy," Christianity, as being the sovereign science of life in all its branches, and especially in its aspect of presenting emphatically the Revelation of God in Christ. And in other parts, it is impossible to mistake the deep personal experience with which he spoke of the pain of severance from sympathy and of the evil of party spirit; of "the reproach and suspicion of cold friendship and zealous enmity," which is the portion of those who strive to follow no party but Christ's-of the prospect that if "we oppose any prevailing opinion or habit of the day, the fruits of a life's labor, as far as earth is concerned, are presently sacrificed," and "we are reviled instead of respected," and "every word and action of our lives misrepresented and condemned," of the manner in which "the blessed Apostle, St. Paul, whose name is now loved and reverenced from one end of the Church of Christ to the other, was treated by his fellow-Christians at Rome, as no better than a latitudinarian and a heretic.""

L. TO THE REV. J. HEARN.

Rydal, January 1, 1833.

New Year's Day is in this part of the country regarded as a great festival, and we have had prayers this morning, even in our village chapel at Rydal. May God bless us in all our doings in the year that is now begun, and make us increase more and more in the knowledge and love of Himself and of His Son; that it may be blessed to us, whether we live to see the end of it on earth or no.

I owe you very much for the great kindness of your letters, and thank you earnestly for your prayers. Mine is a busy life, so busy that I have great need of not losing my intervals of sacred rest; so taken up in teaching others, that I have

* Sermons, vol. iii. pp 263, 363, 350.

need of especial prayer and labor, lest I live with my own spirit untaught in the wisdom of God. It grieves me more than I can say, to find so much intolerance; by which I mean over-estimating our points of difference, and under-estimating our points of agreement. I am by no means indifferent to truth and error, and hold my own opinions as decidedly as any man; which of course implies a conviction that the opposite opinions are erroneous. In many cases, I think them not only erroneous, but mischievous; still they exist in men, whom I know to be thoroughly in earnest, fearing God and loving Christ, and it seems to me to be a waste of time, which we can ill afford, and a sort of quarrel by the way," which our Christian vow of enmity against moral evil makes utterly unseasonable, when Christians suspend their great business and loosen the bond of their union with each other by venting fruitless regrets and conplaints against one another's errors, instead of laboring to lessen one another's sins. For coldness of spirit and negligence of our duty, and growing worldliness, are things which we should thank our friends for warning us against; but when they quarrel with our opinions, which we conscientiously hold, it merely provokes us to justify ourselves, and to insist that we are right and they wrong.

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We arrived here on Saturday, and on Sunday night there fell a deep snow, which is now however melting; otherwise it would do more than anything else to spoil this unspoilable country. We are living in a little nook under one of the mountains, as snug and sheltered as can be, and I have got plenty of work to do within doors, let the snow last as long as it will.

LI. TO W. K. HAMILTON, ESQ.

Rydal, January 15, 1833.

[After speaking of his going to Rome.] It stirs up many thoughts to fancy you at Rome. I never saw any place which so interested me, and next to it, but, longissimo intervallo, Venice then of the towns of Italy, Genoa — and then Pisa and Verona. I cannot care for Florence or for Milan or for Turin. For me this country contains all that I wish or want, and no travelling, even in Italy, could give me the delight of thus living amidst the mountains, and seeing and loving them in all their moods and in

all mine. I have been writing on Church Reform, and urging an union with the Dissenters as the only thing that can procure to us the blessing of an established Christianity; for the Dissenters are strong enough to turn the scale either for an establishment or against one; and at present they are leagued with the antichristian party against one, and will destroy it utterly if they are not taken into the camp in the defence of it. And if we sacrifice that phantom Uniformity, which has been our curse ever since the Reformation, I am fully persuaded that an union might be effected without difficulty. But God knows what will come to pass, and none besides, for we all seem groping about in the dark together. I trust, however, that we shall be spared the worst evil of all, war.

LII. TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN.

Rydal, January 17, 1833.

.. As my pamphlet will probably reach you next week, I wish you to hear something from me on the subject beforehand. My reasons for writing it were chiefly because the reform proposed by Lord Henley and others seemed to me not only insufficient, but of a wrong kind; and because I have heard the American doctrine of every man paying his minister as he would his lawyer, advanced and supported in high quarters, where it sounded alarming. I was also struck by the great vehemence displayed by the Dissenters at the late elections, and by the refusal to pay Church-rates at Birmingham. Nothing, as it seems to me, can save the Church, but an union with the Dissenters; now they are leagued with the antichristian party, and no merely internal reforms in the administration of the actual system will, I think, or can satisfy them. Further, Lord Henley's notion about a convocation, and Bishops not sitting in Parliament, and laymen not meddling with Church doctrine, seemed to me so dangerous a compound of the worst errors of Popery and Evangelicalism combined, and one so suited to the interests of the Devil and his numerous party, that I was very desirous of protesting against it. However, the pamphlet will tell its own story, and I think it can do no harm, even if it does no good.

LIII. TO THE SAME.

February 1, 1833.

As for my coming down into Westmoreland, I may almost say that it is to satisfy a physical want in my nature which craves after the enjoyment of nature, and for nine months in the year can find nothing to satisfy it. I agree with old Keble,* that one does not need mountains and lakes for this; the Thames at Laleham Bagley Wood, and Shotover at Oxford were quite enough for it. I only know of five counties in England, which cannot supply it; and I am unluckily perched down in one of them. These five are Warwick, Northampton, Huntingdon, Cambridge, and Bedford. I should add, perhaps, Rutland, and you cannot name a seventh; for Suffolk, which is otherwise just as bad, has its bit of sea-coast. But Halesworth, so far as I remember it, would be just as bad as Rugby. We have no hills no plains not a single wood, and but one single copse: no heathno down no rock no river- no clear stream scarcely any flowers, for the lias is particularly poor in them—nothing but one endless monotony of inclosed fields and hedge-row trees. This is to me a daily privation; it robs me of what is naturally my anti-attrition; and as I grow older, I begin to feel it. My constitution is sound, but not strong; and I feel any little pressure or annoyance more than I used to do; and the positive dulness of the country about Rugby makes it to me a mere working-place; I cannot expatiate there even in my walks. So, in the holidays, I have an absolute craving for the enjoyment of nature, and this country suits me better than anything else, because we can be all together, because we can enjoy the society, and because I can do something in the way of work besides.

Two things press upon me unabatedly-my wish for a Bible, such as I have spoken of before; and my wish for something systematic for the instruction of the poor. In my particular case, undoubtedly, the stamp-duties are an evil; for I still think, that a newspaper alone can help to cure the evil which newspapers have done and are doing; the events of the day are a definite subject to which instruction can be attached in the best possible manner; the Penny and Saturday Magazines are all ramble-scramble. I think often of a

* Christian Year, First Sunday after Epiphany.