CCXXLIX. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE.

Fox How, September 1, 1841.

In the midst of my perplexities, practical and historical, I am going to indulge myself by writing to you. My practical perplexity is about the meeting of the school, which in either way involves a great responsibility, and the chance of much inconvenience and loss. I believe that we might meet next week without any real imprudence, and that the amount of fever in Rugby is but trifling; but if a single boy were to catch it, after the two fatal cases of last half-year, the panic would be so great that we should not be able to keep the school together, or to reassemble it till after Christmas.

My historical perplexity has caused me many hours of work, and I cannot yet see land. It shows to me how the most notorious facts may be corrupted, even very soon after the occurrence, when they are subjected to no careful and judicious inquiry. Hannibal's march from Capua upon Rome, to effect a diversion for the besieged town, is of course one of the most striking parts of the whole war. I want to give it in detail, and with all the painting possible. But it is wholly uncertain by what road he advanced upon Rome, whether by the Latin road direct from Capua, or by an enormous circuit through Samnium, —just the road which we took last summer from Capua to Reate, and so from Reate on Rome. Cælius Antipater, Polybius, and Appian, all either assert or imply the latter. Livy says the former, and gives an account of the march, from Fabius, I think, or Cincius, which is circumstantial and highly probable; but he is such a simpleton, that after having written a page from Cincius or Fabius, he then copies from some other writer who had made him take the other road; and, after bringing Hannibal by the Latin road, he makes him cross the Anio to approach Rome, and tells divers anecdotes, which all imply that he came by the Valerian or Salarian road; for of course the Latin road has no more to do with the Anio than with the Arno. The evidences and the probabilities are so balanced, and all the narratives are so unsatisfactory, that I cannot tell what to do about it. And the same sort of thing occurs often, with such constant uncertainty as to the text, in Livy, the common editions being restored conjecturally in almost every page, where the MSS. are utterly corrupt, - that the Punic War is almost as hard in the writing as in the fighting.

Now, about my Notes, I offended in that matter deliberately, having always so enjoyed a history with many Notes, and having known so many persons feel the same, that I multiplied them purposely. But I quite agree with you that the text ought to be intelligible without them; and if you will be so kind as to point out the passages which are faulty in this respect, I shall be greatly obliged to you, and will try and manage better for the future.

I thank you much for your congratulations about the Professorship. I caught at any opportunity of being connected again with Oxford; and the visions of Bagley Wood and Shotover rose upon me with an irresistible charm. Then it suited so well with future living at Fox How, if I may dare to look forward; giving me work for my life, and an income for life, which, though not large, would be much to me when I had left Rugby (especially if the Americans go on not paying their just and lawful debts, whereby I shall lose more than fifteen hundred pounds). And now, whilst my boys are at Oxford, it will take me up there from time to time, and will give me a share in the working of the University, although not a great one. In short, there is nothing which the Government could have given me that would have suited all my wishes so well, and great rúxy it was that it fell vacant only one week before the Tories came into power.

Now as to what is to be done in it. I shall follow your advice, and ponder well before I decide on anything. With regard to party questions, I should write as I am trying to write in my Roman History, avoiding partisanship or personalities; but, as I have said in the Preface to the History, if history has no truths to teach, its facts are but little worth; and the truths of political science belong as much, I think, to an historian, as those of theology to a Professor of Divinity. As an ecclesiastical historian, I would try to hold an equal balance between Catholics and Arians; but not between Catholicism and Arianism; and so it seems to me one ought to deal with the great principles of Government and of Politics, and not to write as if there were no truth attainable in the matter, but all was mere opinion. Roman and English history particularly illustrate each other; but I do not know how I could more particularly connect my Lectures with the History. The influence of the Roman Empire upon modern Europe would naturally often be touched upon; but the more minute inquiry as to the particular effects of the Roman law on ours,

would be beyond my compass; and the transition state from ancient to modern history is not to me inviting as a period, and it has besides been so often treated of.

is going up to Trinity College, Oxford, after the long vacation. We do not know him personally, but are interested about him for his friend's sake. If your son Henry could show him any countenance, I should be very much obliged to him, and you know the value of kindness shown to a fresh

man.

We unite in love and kind regards to you and yours. I could rave about the beauty of Fox How, but I will forbear. I work very hard at mowing the grass amongst the young trees, which gives me constant employment. Wordsworth is remarkably well. I direct to Ottery, hoping that you may be there at peace, escaped from the Old Bailey.

CCLXXX. TO SIR T. S. PASLEY, BART.

Fox How, September 23, 1841.

The first Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem is to be consecrated at Lambeth next Wednesday. He is to be the legal protector of all Protestants of every denomination towards the Turkish government, and he is to ordain Prussian clergymen on their signing the Augsburg Confession and adopting the Prussian Liturgy, and Englishmen on their subscribing to our Articles and Liturgy. Thus the idea of my Church Reform pamphlet, which was so ridiculed and so condemned, is now carried into practice by the Archbishop of Canterbury himself. For the Protestant Church of Jerusalem will comprehend persons using different Liturgies, and subscribing different Articles of Faith; and it will sanction these differences, and hold both parties to be equally its members. Yet it was thought ridiculous in me to conceive that a national Church might include persons using a different ritual and subscribing different articles. Of course it is a grave question what degrees of difference are compatible with the bond of Church union; but the Archbishop of Canterbury has declared in the plainest language that some differences are compatible with it, and this is the great principle which I contended for.

In your letter of the 2d of August, you ask whether I think that a Christian ministry is of divine appointment. Now I cannot conceive any Church existing without public

prayer, preaching and communion, and some must minister in these offices. But that these "some" should be always the same persons, and that they should form a distinct profession, and, following no other calling, should be maintained by the Church, I do not think to be of divine appointment, but I think it highly expedient that it should be so. In the same way, government for the Church is of divine appointment, and is of absolute necessity; but that the governors, should be for life, or possess such and such powers, or should be appointed in such or such a way, all this appears to me to be left entirely open. I shall be very anxious to hear what reports Malcolm gives of himself, when he gets a little used to his new life.

*

CCLXXXI. TO REV. A. P. STANLEY.

Rugby, September 29, 1841.

I have not written to yo since I accepted the Professorship, though it has made me think of you very often. I should like very much to have your opinion as to the best line to choose in my lectures; the best practicable, that is, for the best draws is beyond my means to compass. I had thought of trying to do for England what Guizot began so well for France; to start with the year 1400, and make the first year's course comprise the 15th century. My most de tailed historical researches happen to have related to that very century, and it gives you the middle ages still undecayed, yet with the prospect of daybreak near. I could not bear to plunge myself into the very depths of that noisome cavern, and to have to toil through centuries of dirt and darkness. But one century will show fully its nature and details, the ripened corruption of the Church, and in England the ripened evils of the feudal aristocracy, and those curious wars of the Roses, which I suppose were as purely personal and party wars, without reference to higher principles, as ever existed. I think I shall write to Sir F. Palgrave, and put some ques tions to him which he can answer, I suppose, better than any one. Do you know whether there exists in rerum naturâ anything like a Domesday Book for the 15th century? would be very curious to trace, if one could, the changes of property produced by the wars of the Roses, and the growth of the English aristocracy upon the gradual extinction of that purely Norman.*

This plan, as will be seen, he altered.

I think of coming up in Michaelmas term to give my Inaugural Lecture. The interest which I shall feel in lecturing in Oxford, you can understand, I think, better than most men. As to the spirit in which I should lecture with respect to the peculiar feelings of the place, the best rule seems to me to lecture exactly as I should write for the world at large; to lecture, that is, neither hostilely nor cautiously, not seeking occasions of shocking men's favorite opinions, yet neither in any way humoring them, or declining to speak the truth, however opposed it may be to them. Oxford caution would in me be little better than weakness or ratting, especially now that the Tories are in the ascendant.

CCLXXXII. TO W. EMPSON, ESQ.

Rugby, October 15, 1841.

As each successive year passes, I turn to Fox How with more homelike feelings, and our long stay there this summer has encouraged this greatly. It is one of the great recommendations of the Professorship to me, that it will be consistent with our living at Fox How, and will only call us away for a part of the year to Oxford, the place to which I still have the strongest local affection of any in the world, next to our valley of the Rotha.

The Spanish journey was a sad failure on the whole; yet I saw much that I wanted to see in France, and which will make it quite needless to travel southwest again; and the two or three hours of fine weather which we had between St.. Jean de Luz and Irun, gave me a view of the maritime Pyrenees, and of the union of mountain and sea about the mouth of the Bidassoa, which I shall not soon forget. The Landes also delighted me from their resemblance to the New Forest: the glades of heath, surrounded by wood, and the dark ironcolored streams fringed with alders, were quite like the south of Hampshire, and delighted me greatly.

Cur eldest son is gone up to Oxford this day to commence his residence at Balliol. It is the first separation of our family, for, from our peculiar circumstances, all our nine children have hitherto lived at home together, with very short exceptions, but now it will be so no more.

I have read Stephens's article on Port Royal, with great admiration it seems to be at once eloquent, wise, and good. Is it not strange that the Guelf and Ghibelin contest should