Front matter (continued 5)

To say, I. 137, that among Puritans self-restraint and concealment were sins, is so serious an imputation, especially the first word, that it should be defined which sect was meant. Nobody says that Baxter was rude, not even Howe, in private life. There is a slovenliness in this use of a big brush. Cardinal Howard does not deserve the praise he gets, II. 333. He was a very pale figure.

Observe II. 273. There are no spires in Rome. I hear that the author has never been in Italy. That accounts for many topographical mistakes, and leaves a margin to his credit.

The date of the steps of the Trinità might perhaps be discovered in the life of Cardinal Polignac, or in the article on him in Michaud or Didot. It matters not; but the correctness of local and chronological colour turns on such points as these. I think Cressy could hardly have justified what he says of the Fathers.

On looking over my lengthy prose I find something that I must add:—Valdes never renounced Catholicism, but his writings, only lately made accessible, are the writings of a Protestant. The numbers mentioned in the Irish massacre are, of course, monstrously exaggerated, as were the numbers given by Clarendon, Milton, and Baxter. I quote them to show the greatness of the alarm. The French Jesuits stood by Richelieu and allowed one of their number to be exiled for his opposition to the German war when, after the peace of Prague, it had ceased to be a war in defence of the Protestants, and was purely aggressive. This was because, in 1627, he had made them understand that they must leave France if they resisted his will. It was easier to associate resistance to Puritanism with the Catholic cause than aggression on the Catholic Powers in Germany. I do not say that the care taken to prevent conversion is absolutely impossible. Some Franciscans at that time might have done it; and something like it is told of a Jesuit a few years later.

There is a very curious passage, II. 385, on persecution: It was these selfsame ideas of the future and its relation to this life that actuated their tormentors. This is an attempt to look beneath the surface, and a soothing tribute to the feelings of those who admire Galerius and Calvin and Gregory the Thirteenth. The Natural History of Intolerance has not yet been written; but the analysis is not so simple as these words imply. Half of the persecution in the Roman Empire, all the persecution of Huguenots by the Valois, and of Roman Catholics under Elizabeth, was due to other ideas than those of the future. And where religious ideas induced men to side with the tormentors against Toleration, there is much that is not more sincere or more excusable than the ideas that have led to political massacres. The opinion expressed covers some of the ground, but only a very small part of it.

But I must stop somewhere.

Cannes March 29, 1882

If there are judges and juries in Britain, Macmillan would expose himself to fine and imprisonment by printing what I write to you. You will see in a moment, I am sure, why it could never be.

It would be an offence to the author, because there is no allowance of the large measure of praise and even of admiration due to him—nothing but the Catalogue of objections suggested to me by the belief that I was writing to a too fervent admirer of the book. Without my signature it would be a stab in the dark; and with my name it would be insufferably pretentious, uncalled-for, and unfair. And I, who make a profession of knowing about Conclaves and the like, should be bound to visit more amply, if not more severely, the strangely inadequate and pointless narrative of the election of Chigi. Few things are more curious and dramatic than the Conclaves, and this one is particularly well known.

Besides, Fraser is sure to be very hostile, both in detail and in respect of the scope and spirit of the work. He is sure to quarrel with Jesuit and Cardinal, and to say much of what I have said in strict confidence. Please, dismiss the thought; and if you compliment anything, let it be the paper and handwriting.

That is a very kind question about Gardiner; and as I have at hand, here, the means of learning more without risk of indiscretion, I had better postpone my answer. If, as a rule, those pensions are granted to people almost destitute of means, the case could not well be admitted. He ought to be at the Record Office instead of the present Hardy. It is in Jessel's gift, and he asked my advice, specially excluding clergymen, and thereby losing the two best men, Brewer and Stubbs. I suggested Freeman, Gardiner, and Bond. Freeman sent me word that he would not take it. Jessel told me he would appoint Bond—who is now the very good and estimable, but gloomy successor of Panizzi—but that he had been told that Bond was a Catholic. He said that a Jew was not strong enough to appoint a Catholic Keeper of the Archives. Bond is a Broad Churchman, and the report arose only from my recommendation. Gardiner therefore remained; but it was resolved, under I know not what pressure, to keep the thing in the Hardy family. Meantime, I think Gardiner succeeded Brewer in his professorship at King's College—not, I imagine, remunerative, but still an obstacle.

Yes, I agree about Forbes, and rather think he is one of the men Simon speaks of, and defies the Sorbonne to meet—unless I am mixing up the two divines of that name.

Spinola wrote no book. He was a Franciscan bishop, Imperial Confessor at Vienna, and produced several schemes of union, on the part of Rome, which differ from other such by being definite and sincere. Leibniz, and the Calixtine school of Lutherans, were very near adopting his plan; but as he was an agent of pope and emperor when Louis XIV. was the enemy of both, Bossuet contrived to baffle him. What was known of these transactions down to our day is in Pichler's work on Leibniz. Much more has since come out in the "Correspondence of the Electress Sophia," and there is more to come, whenever the Madonna of the Future[175] is unveiled.

Of John Inglesant, let me say that it would be a very fair text to work on—how far the pagan, human virtues, coupled with qualities which are not, in a spiritual sense, virtues, such as courage, delicacy, good nature, veracity, pride, can accomplish the outward, visible work of grace. But that is clearly not the author's design.

If Gardiner's paper is very hostile, and you then think it worth while to send my remarks to Mr. Shorthouse,[176] through his publisher or otherwise, that is a case governed by the saying of the younger Pompey.[177]

I liked what I saw of the Fox Memorials during a very short inspection; and yesterday, lunching at the parsonage at Mentone, I found the Life of Lowder. The accounts of Prince Leopold were distressing. Fancy my finding myself with two excellent clergymen, both ardent Gladstonians, and both wishing for the admission of Bradlaugh. Otherwise my journey was not altogether successful, as I got half a sunstroke, which you have already seen traces of in my letter.

*****

Cannes April 27, 1882

The description you quote of Coleridge is not more inaccurate than epigram requires. I have just drawn up a list of recommended authors for my son, as being the company I should like him to keep, after me; and after some hesitation I included S. T. C. in the number. But he has to be balanced by sounder stuff.

Lecky only arrived two days ago, and is scarcely begun. But the beginning, and the account of Junius struck me as very far indeed ahead of all his former writings. There is a good deal of slovenly writing, and it is puerile to write modern history from printed books; but this is a wonderfully solid performance. You will not think it as amusing as Froude's "Carlyle," when you come to it, but much more nutritious.

You depressed my spirits the other day by showing that the majority of 39 did not amount to quite so much as I, from a distance, had imagined. And the Budget, though open to very little remark, does not do much to raise them. If I was not conscious of being the worst accountant yet discovered, I should say that there is a slip in one of the calculations of Savings Bank deposits.

Gardiner for some reason did not publish his article.... If Arthur Lyttelton, out of pure cussedness, wishes to put in the note you speak of, I would like to see what it is he says, starting from the materials buried in my letter.

*****

*****

Cannes May 3, 1882

Lecky's merits stand undiminished by further acquaintance, but the deficiencies become more glaring. The character of Burke, though in my opinion very defective, seems to me the best I have read in the language.

*****

The May Fraser contains his article,[178] and I greatly fear that his judgment will be as critical as my own.

I wonder whether you have the Temps or Débats in Downing Street, and have read the speeches of Pasteur and Renan. I do not remember so interesting a reception, and what is serious is that the most powerful intellectual force in France has declared, virtually, for materialism.

Cannes May 5, 1882

We have nothing later than Tuesday's speech, so that the lines are not traceable into the future, and I am still in a very anxious and doubting stage.

It is not apparent why Spencer occupies a position between earth and heaven. He looks like a warming pan. Not for a prince, for that is out of the question. For Dufferin?[179] But Dufferin, who is easy, dexterous, and popular, has not the sterling and transparent quality of Spencer himself. It may well be the basis of a vast change in the machinery for the government of Ireland; but that would require legislation for which there is no time. Perplexity No. 1.

Then one must conclude that the change comes from assurances given by the moderate Irish members, that it would enable them to moderate the raging ones. But to ensure that, they must have a finger in the pie, and Russell or Shaw would have to have the offer of the Irish Office. It seems clear, from the delay, that that is not to be; and one hears of Lefevre and Chamberlain.... Perplexity 2.

There is a look of uncertainty and want of clearness about the whole thing. Cowper resigns; after an interval, half a successor is appointed; then the suspects are released; then Forster resigns; and then, after another interval showing want of preparation, there is a new Secretary. This way of doing whatever is to be done suggests that the Ministry had not the foresight to anticipate opinion, or strength to lead it. Dropping one colleague after another in their Irish course makes that course appear wanting in deliberation and design, and strengthens the notion that, under heavy pressure, they may be driven nobody knows where, like men who yield, not like men who lead. I presume that there is some evidence of ensured improvement, consequent upon concession. But one doubts that again, when Forster resigns; and it seems that the change is in the ideas more than in the facts. As to any gain on Irish opinion from the grace of concession, I should not expect it, as so many suspects remain in custody. If so, then the advantage would be derived from the new position of the Irish leaders—a very doubtful policy. Then again, I don't like the moment; immediately after Cairns's stroke, and the untimely publication of his draft report.[180] I don't like anything which looks like overtrumping, because it is not fit for such a Prime Minister to follow initiative, whether that of opponents, or of English or Irish opinion.

These misgivings occur to me although you know, if nobody else does, that I was not convinced by the argument in favour of coercion, and saw no evidence of greater demoralisation than was the direct effect of actual suffering. Since then there has been so much atrocity in Ireland, so much foreign influence, and so manifest a change for the worse in the conduct of the clergy, that I have grown reconciled to the strong hand. Even if full of sympathy with the spirit of the present policy, I cannot satisfy myself with the mode of its inception, and I shall not feel comfortable for some days, until the design grows clear. To you, they will be intensely interesting, and I shall be very glad indeed to hear that confidence reigns in Downing Street.

POST OFFICE AND SUBMARINE TELEGRAPHS.

CANNES, 5.14, 8/5, 11.54, on the 8/5, 1882.

Do not let him lose confidence in himself.[181]

ACTON.

Cannes May 9, 1882

We have only vague reports in French newspapers, but I cannot wait for full accounts of the tragedy that touches us all so nearly, to give you my warm tribute of sympathy and sorrow. It is shocking to think of her, so worthy of happiness and so afflicted. You, I know, have, of all people, the most soothing hand for the most cruel wounds.

It must have been a dreadful blow in your own home, and at a distance one grows anxious about many things. I apprehend a violent burst of passion in the country, with despair of healing such disease with lenient arts; and, if the tide turns, the change will be felt in Parliament, and will be used by men quite capable of seeing that Mr. Gladstone's statesmanship is confirmed by the very crime which will condemn it in common minds. Assuming that some of the Cabinet assent reluctantly to the heroic policy, and that the last few weeks have not added to his personal ascendency, I fear that they will either forsake him or urge him to forsake his own ideal lines. Thinking of this, of his strong affections, of the shadow on the hearth, I could not restrain my wish to send you my small vote of confidence.

For we heard at first that Spencer had instantly resigned.[182] I was ashamed to show myself, and whispered to my family how Nicholas, the bad emperor, faced a rebellious army. There is very different news to-day. I gather that Spencer remains, that Forster redeems many faults by offering to go back, that Parnell has made his choice between murder and conciliation, that the Opposition holds its hand, expecting Mr. Gladstone to turn against himself.

It seems to me that much ground must inevitably be lost, and that the true moral of this catastrophe can never be made visible to the average Englishman. Still I see great opportunities of recovery, and I know in what spirit I hope that he has had the strength to receive the blow aimed through Freddy Cavendish at himself.

I long so much to hear from you. If you can think, in sad days like these, of anything but the sorrow that is near you, do give an affectionate message from me to Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, and send me, when you have a quiet moment, a line to Munich. I start almost immediately.

*****

St. Martin Ried Haute Autriche July 20, 1882

Alexandria, Bright, and a vote of censure have been a great distraction from our Irish troubles. If Bright, the Minister, agreed to the orders, and if Bright, the Quaker, woke up at the execution of the orders, then his conduct is unstatesmanlike and weak. I conclude,—not having Monday's debate yet,—that he resigns not because of the bombardment, but because, having troops on the way, remembering the example of Paris, warned by the terrified correspondents, we nevertheless bombarded without taking precautions against consequences that were not improbable. If he takes that ground, he will, I suppose, be angry and mischievous, and his position will encourage the disaffected Whigs; and it will be awkward even if part of the blame rests on the Powers; because, when we took things into our own hands, we were bound to do all that was necessary.

I very much wish for a completer defence than I have seen yet; and at the same time I think that a good defence, with some measure of political success in Egypt, will be a source of new strength, and if there is some blame, I anxiously ask myself whether it lies at the Foreign Office, at the War Office, or at the Admiralty.

It is provoking not to know most of the names of the people going out on this difficult errand. That is one side of the question. The other, nearer home, for me, is that you are still going through terrible worry, and that the wear and tear must be telling on Mr. Gladstone. I ask myself one question, which most people would think an unlikely one, whether he thoroughly controls his colleagues, and whether the work of the House absorbs him too much.... I hope you sat next to Bright....

*****

St. Martin July 29, 1882

We are living here in my brother-in-law's house; and I will tell him that he must prepare for better guests, as soon as you tell me that it is not the baseless fabric of a vision. He is not married; so that there is no one to be on ceremony with; and his house is as big as many Tegernsees. Alfred[183] will be as welcome here as he is wherever his bright face is shown.

*****

It is impossible not to feel that the Ministry grows weaker by the associates it has lost as well as by the associates that decline to join. There are now the ingredients of an alternative Liberal Cabinet, consisting of men fairly equal to those now in office—with the necessary exception—and hostile to them. The ground is getting narrow under our feet, and the full force of the party does not support Ministers. The want of a successor to Bright indicates too clearly that Mr. Gladstone, though still master of his majority, is not what he has been, master of his party. I hope for new arrangements at the end of the session, and for a real gain of strength from ultimate success in Egypt. But, like Ireland, it is a harvest that will ripen slowly. I wonder whether things have seemed to you as gloomy as this, or whether the light before you dispels the darkness.

Mozley's book, and all others published in England since January, I have not seen. He interests me more than almost any other of our divines, and I look forward to a good time with his reminiscences, if, as I understand, it is the divine, and not the manifold writer.[184]

*****

Tegernsee August 4, 1882

With all my heart I adopt your scheme, Reform, Dissolution, and then, let Politics make way for a still higher and worthier cause.

*****

Paris, August 12, 1882

Salisbury's collapse[185] is less decisive than mine, and although there is a pleasant corner in the House of Lords, my journey ends in nothing better than disappointment and in having set you to write notes all day. My accounts show that they are not comfortable at home, so that I have no right to be basking in the ethereal sunshine of Downing Street.

It was a monstrous thing to do, suggestive of Mrs. Todgers, but I left the Dante in his[186] room at the H. of Commons. It was too late to ring at No. 10,[187] for I kept him talking till near eleven. But there was some symbolic propriety about the title[188] of the unbound volume—unbound because they did not remember the binding of the rest. Of course the impression of my one well-filled day in town—even with the part of Cordelia left out—is the very opposite of that under which I lately wrote. The session ends with a great blaze of his mastery and power. But the best of it all is, that I found him so wonderfully vigorous and well and even content. It did indeed impress me most deeply.

It is remarkable how little he chooses to realise the tremendous loss of authority and power which the party will incur by his retirement, and he has no idea how little he would soon be in harmony with them. However, Ireland is not all right yet; and there are obvious complications impending in Egypt which he cannot leave unsolved. With that, there will still be time for the Reform Bill.

Late at night I found slipped under my door your rejected letter, which will be cherished with the rest. If writing made up for sight!

This letter is written by scraps, in various places and countries. I crossed with Forster, on his way to Russia, and got him to tell me his inner history. I shall be at St. Martin the day after to-morrow....

Shorthouse's[189] letter could not go with Dante, and I will enclose it in my next. I have got Democracy. The Mays, considered an authority on the subject, do not think much of it. Forster does, and says it is not by Mrs. Adams. He says that Bright has no idea that he left either too early or too late. Will you—very earnestly—put my excuses before Mrs. Gladstone for my way of dealing with her boundless hospitality?

La Madeleine Cannes Feb. 2, 1883

I wonder whether you would come to lunch to-morrow, Saturday? Perhaps I could inscribe in your most private book the list of the hundred works that have most influenced human history.

*****

Feb. 13, 1883

... These books are enclosed to show Mr. Gladstone what good German prose is, in expounding difficult, very difficult, questions. Also, a little book, by a very famous Dane who has grown more and more to be a power since his death....

La Madeleine March 3, 1883

After seeking a moment's distraction at a chateau near Marseilles I came home to find your letter, so kindly written in the intervals of Parisian dissipations.

The failure of Challemel was truly sad, but I hope that Fedora,[190] following the little dinner on the Boulevard, made up for it. The tranquillity and sameness of Cannes will soon be thrust far out of sight by the centre of European life. We do our best, in your absence, to be a little worldly. Bright, Houghton, and the Mallets lunch to-day. I am to meet Colonel Hay at tea, and the little bishop[191] at dinner this evening.

... It is pleasant to think that Lyons made you enjoy Paris, and divined the one thing you all have a passion for, and he seems to have done the political part of his work very well by bringing you into contact both with the ruling men and with the Left Centre. That was just what was wanting to redress the Wolvertonian balance.

I am a little sorry that the visit at the Elysée was not more interesting. Grévy's speeches in 1848 were very sensible indeed, but he seems to be pushing the theory of the roi fainéant much beyond the American, or even the Merovingian, limit, if he avoids politics with such a visitor. Then I rejoice much at the visit to Jules Simon, though you don't say whether it was spontaneous or a return, and a curious question is, where was the limit drawn? Did he and Broglie, Decazes, Harcourt, avoid each other? If these former ambassadors did not call, it is matter for speculation. At Marseilles, I found myself in a nest of Legitimists, and learnt that the chief of them, Coriolis, lately asked the Count of Chambord for leave to raise the white flag. If there was more of this kind, it is odd that the advocates of expulsion made so little of it. If it had been possible to stay longer at Paris, it would have been a very desirable thing, for they do not really know or understand him,[192] and the conflict of forces there would be worth observing otherwise than in Blowitz' or Lyons's despatches.

It is a pity to have missed Mrs. Craven, who would take to you intensely if you saw more of each other—a woman of great talent and elevation of mind, but who has just written on the Salvation Army a paper that seems to portend the approach of mental decay. Lady Blennerhassett is very far her superior. Tell her all about Cannes if you see her.... Mrs. Green writes me a touching letter to say that she has no hope left....

*****

La Madeleine, March 7, 1883

This is only a hasty line of thanks and congratulation on your prosperous journey. I have not yet seen either the Wolvertons or the Anson family, and to-day there are a couple of inches of snow over Cannes. Incorrigible Potter circulates the Financial Reform Almanack in the name of the Cobden Club, for which Reay, A. Russell, and others have denounced him. He asked me to read it through, which has been the melancholy occupation of a whole day, ending in agreement with the critics.

I am losing Mallet, who is less well and goes to Mentone. Also, Colonel Hay,[193] Lincoln's secretary and biographer, who proved a most agreeable acquaintance. Yesterday, there was an expedition to Pégomas (Houghton, Dempsters, &c.) and I find that the old lady[194] is the original of St. Monica in Ary Scheffer's picture. Myers, translator of Homer, is here, with a nice, newly-married wife, and Cross is in great force, writing the biography[195] and wanting me to read the papers.

Thanks for the MS., with the answer for which pray express my acknowledgments.

*****

You have heard that the Ashburnham MSS. are offered to the Museum, and that some of them were stolen from public libraries in France. We propose, if we buy at all, to resell to France as many of these as can be proved to be stolen, and Delisle, the French Panizzi, comes this week to produce his evidence, amicably, before the Museum experts.

I say nothing about the purchase, and have only insisted that —— was a thief, and that we must, as we did before, make terms with Paris. But I want you to know that Léopold Delisle is one of the most eminent scholars in France, that he is a most estimable and high-minded man, tho' not a conspicuous bookmaker or littérateur, that he stands as high in Germany as any Frenchman living, and that I have long enjoyed the privilege of his friendly acquaintance. So that, if it should be otherwise feasible, any civility shown him by the P.M.[196] on this his very peculiar international mission, would be taken in France as a marked sign of courtesy and goodwill, just after the visit to France.

This is quite independent of the decision the Treasury may come to about the grant. I may add that Delisle is perfectly trustworthy, and that we are safe in the hands of the Museum people, to come to right judgments as to the MSS....

Cross has shown me, with some secrecy, a very curious letter of Dickens, declaring that only a woman could have written the "Scenes from Clerical Life." But he gives no good reason, and I am persuaded that he had heard the secret from Herbert Spencer, who at once detected it. I dare not express my doubt. John Morley writes pleasantly, but says he still feels like a fish out of water on the benches.

This is written at your table in considerable solitude and vacancy.

*****

I have just heard that Green is dead, and I must go to Mentone....

La Madeleine March 21, 1883

I hope to see them at the station, and then we can make plans for next week. The hotel is very full, but Cross tells me that there is just room for them. Ill-timed is really all I say against that passage of the lecture;[197] and, if other people had gone straight, it would not even have been ill-timed. My censure has never gone farther than that.

Nobody can well be more strongly persuaded than I am of the necessity, the practical and moral necessity, of governing nations by consent, national consent being proved both by the vapour of opinion, and by the definite mechanism of representation. I am not even surprised that many Irishmen should be suspicious of the goodwill of a country which turns as readily to a Tory government as to a Liberal, which is seldom awake to its sins and the consequences of its sins, unless roused by terror, and which has made amends only under compulsion, or under the intense, but not permanent, influence of one resolute mind. Even that is not all that I concede to them. Therefore, in substance, Herbert has all my sympathy; only, if anything awkward arises, it is his father who has to find the remedy or bear the burden. The danger now is that the great wave, of his own raising, that has sustained his policy of generosity, and even of eventual confidence, will fall. People will lose, not only sympathy, which is not to the point, but hopefulness. I cannot even say that they will be wrong to lose hope. But if men cease to look forward to success, they cannot be made to go straight by looking back to their own evil deeds. Nobody, then, would stand by the P.M. except pure Democrats, like Chamberlain and Morley. If I was a Minister, I would say, not that we shall devise new schemes to disarm this new evidence, not that we shall relax our efforts in just indignation and despair, but that we shall go on with our appeal from the ill-disposed to the well-disposed, pursuing a policy which is not dictated by momentary hope or momentary fear, but proceeds from the heart and spirit of the principles which are our raison d'être as a party and as a government. But I don't say that I should succeed.

If flurry and apprehension penetrate Downing Street, nothing can sustain Mr. Gladstone better than your own serenity. Be true to him and to his cause even if these odious crimes continue, even when you feel that the harvest will not be reaped in his time. The mills of God grind slowly.

It is very easy to speak words of wisdom from a comfortable distance, when one sees no reality, no details, none of the effect on men's minds. What is glorious is the way in which Mr. Gladstone rides on the whirlwind. You need not wonder much what I am thinking of it all.

As long ago as 1870 I ceased to be sanguine that we could govern Ireland successfully. The best influence over the Irish people is the influence of the clergy, and an ultramontane clergy is not proof against the sophistry by which men justify murder or excuse murderers. The assassin is only a little more resolutely logical or a little bolder than the priest.

I hope you will read and like Montégut's articles on George Eliot, especially the second, in the Revue of March 15. See pp. 307 and 329 for some very excellent criticism.

Miss B. met Cross here at lunch, was intensely excited, and explained it by saying that he is Ladislaw. But I cannot believe it. They say that Dorothea is here too. H—— has been in great force. He is unwell now, but looks forward to M——'s arrival to-day, declaring, with accurate self-knowledge, that he likes nothing so much as an impostor.

He has given me Bradley's Recollections to read, from which I learned very little, and Stephen's very curious history of our criminal law.

Oscar Browning is here, divided between the French Revolution and the Gracchi—the most interesting of all purely secular topics.

La Madeleine March 31, 1883

The Wickhams are most inaccessible people, only to be seen on the road to Gourdon or St. Cézaire. I have had only a glimpse of them; but we hope to overtake them between Château Scott and S. Paul's on Sunday. They have some wild scheme of visiting Languedoc.

Cross told me that he had asked for some criticisms of mine which you told him of. I answered that I did not believe you would send them, and he said that if you did, he would forward them unread. But I am sure there is nothing of any possible use to him. He is very communicative, and I am to see her letters and to advise as to publication. What I have seen is of such a kind that merely strung together with a few short notes, it would make a very interesting book: "Memorials of George Eliot."

The real answer to your remark[198] about that list[199] is that which Johnson gave about fetlock.[200] I have nothing to say about physical science that is not a reminiscence of conversations with Owen or Hooker, Paget or Tyndall; and it would be important to put down all the decisive works in those branches. I have tried to know the books on the history and method of discovery, the laws of scientific progress, and the tests of truth and error; and I find that this is a matter which very few scientific men take any interest in.

If I must defend my list, this is the sort of sophism I would employ:—

We all know some twenty or thirty predominant currents of thought or attitudes of mind, or system-bearing principles, which jointly or severally weave the web of human history and constitute the civilised opinion of the age. All these, I imagine, a serious man ought to understand, in whatever strength or weakness they possess, in their causes and effects, and in their relations to each other. The majority of them are either religious or substitutes for religion. For instance, Lutheran, Puritan, Anglican, Ultramontane, Socinian, Congregational, Mystic, Rationalist, Utilitarian, Pantheist, Positivist, Pessimist, Materialist, and so on. All understanding of history depends on one's understanding the forces that make it, of which religious forces are the most active, and the most definite. We cannot follow all the variations of a human mind, but when we know the religious motive, that the man was an Anabaptist, an Arminian, a Deist or a Jansenist, we have the master key, we stand on known ground, we are working a sum that has been, at least partially, worked out for us, we follow a computed course, and get rid of guesses and accidents. Thirdly (I am thinking, let us say, of my own son), we are not considering what will suit an untutored savage or an illiterate peasant woman who would never come to an end of the Imitation or the Serious Call. Her religion may be enough for heaven, without other study. Not so with a man living in the world, in constant friction with adversaries, in constant contemplation of religious changes, sensible of the power which is exerted by strange doctrines over minds more perfect, characters that are stronger, lives that are purer than his own. He is bound to know the reason why. First, because, if he does not, his faith runs a risk of sudden ruin. Secondly, for a reason which I cannot explain without saying what you may think bad psychology or bad dogma—I think that faith implies sincerity, that it is a gift that does not dwell in dishonest minds. To be sincere a man must battle with the causes of error that beset every mind. He must pour constant streams of electric light into the deep recesses where prejudice dwells, and passion, hasty judgments and wilful blindness deem themselves unseen. He must continually grub up the stumps planted by all manner of unrevised influence. The subtlest of all such influences is not family, or college, or country, or class, or party, but religious antagonism. There is much more danger for a high-principled man of doing injustice to the adherent of false doctrine, of judging with undeserved sympathy the conspicuous adherent of true doctrine, than of hating a Frenchman or loving a member of Brooks's. Many a man who thinks the one disgraceful is ready to think the other more than blameless. To develop and perfect and arm conscience is the great achievement of history, the chief business of every life, and the first agent therein is religion or what resembles religion. That is my sophism, beyond Dr. Johnson. But I think I represent Anglicanism by only one book, or two at most. Others, such as books on Church and State, cover much secular ground. Luckily, the paper limit stops me in the middle of a long prose.

*****

Hotel Klinger Marienbad Sept. 1, 1883

... Here, at last, I am resting from hard times at Marienbad, where the waters get into one's head, as my letter will probably show. You insist on my recording everything on which you will disagree, so I must say that I should have voted more in royal than episcopal company.[201] In our Church and in the countries I have lived in much, one is so accustomed to those marriages that one does not think of a law to prevent them. Then as to Egypt, I was not orthodox as to the policy of the argument in favour of Lesseps, but vehemently comforted by the line taken, to make no sordid profit out of our military position, and to resist every entanglement that would indefinitely prolong the occupation. When I consider that our presence there should be the pivot for the settlement of the Eastern question, and the means of civilising Africa, I can see so much to dazzle ambitious politicians that I fear no Minister but one will ever be strong enough—in ascendency as well as in moral power—to evacuate, and I complacently take note of that additional steam to my propeller, whenever the question of retirement stirs again; and my third heresy is about the Pope. His declaration was concerted, I suppose, to hit some of the clergy between wind and water, and so had a political, not a moral aim. We may get embarrassed if we prompt and promote the political influence of the Pope, whose principles are necessarily, whose interests are generally, opposed to our own. It is as dangerous for us that his political authority should be obeyed in Irish confessionals as that, in this instance, it should be defied. Having morally supported the movement which upset his sovereignty, being prepared to oppose any movement to restore it, we come with a bad grace to ask him to prop and protect our authority in our dominions. Long ago I remember writing to headquarters that it would become impossible—impossible for Liberals—to govern Ireland after the Council; and although I am avowedly the worst of prophets, this prophecy has had a good deal of confirmation. It was an interesting question whether the Pope would definitely and unconditionally condemn murder, whether from religious or political motives. It would have borne untold consequences, as a direct revocation of the Vatican system, which stands or falls with the doctrine that one may murder a Protestant. But I don't believe that so audacious a change of front would have moved a single priest in Ireland.

Of George,[202] in the sixpenny edition, I had a glimpse at Cannes. The better part of him, with more moderation and philosophy, and a wider induction, may be found in the writings of the academic Socialists, who, in the last ten years, have occupied almost all the Chairs of Germany, and who have been the warmest admirers of the Irish policy.

One can hardly congratulate you ... about St. Peter's.[203] At Montreux I met a newly-married young clergyman whose ugliness almost made me take him for ——, and who assured me that it was offered to Holland. The dean of St. Paul's[204] was at Munich the other day, and delighted Döllinger, who believes, in consequence, that a more mischievous fellow than Chamberlain does not eat bread. He also sent him, and enabled me to read, Mozley's washy "Recollections." Liddon, I see, is busy with Rosmini, in the intervals of Pusey.[205] Rosmini will interest you if the book ripens. He had much of Newman, and nearly reformed the papacy. But I am troubled with a doubt. His book was answered, by Passaglia, Thenier, Curci, and others, and it was condemned by the Index. Rosmini wrote a long and curious defence of it, which he printed, but did not publish, so as not to defy his censors. Liddon ought to have this defence before him, to strengthen his text withal. Perhaps Lockhart, and the other English Rosminians, may scruple to give it to him, lest they break the measured silence of their chief. It may be worth while to ask the eloquent and impulsive Canon, whenever you see him, whether he knows of it. Do let me thank you warmly for speaking of me to Mrs. Craven. She was almost my earliest friend, and I am shocked to think that I seemed unfaithful to memories forty years old. She was intimate with my mother before I was born. What does it matter that she also bores me a good deal by her restlessness, her curiosity and indiscretion, her want of serenity, &c.? I always liked her in spite of it, and she was always a great, but uncomfortable, admirer of Mr. Gladstone. Not so Waddington. You must have seen at once that he is a very estimable, solid, deeply religious man. There is hardly so great a scholar in France, and I think he is the only Frenchman before whom Mommsen has retracted a statement. That indeed is his proper line. Like George Lewis, he is really happiest among his coins and inscriptions, and was never made for the active life in which his high character, his knowledge, and now his willingness to serve a party not his own, have carried him so far. He has more caution than go, and has neither eloquence, nor influence over men. Above all things, he is cautious to do nothing that would enable adversaries to accuse his patriotism. His language about Egypt, and the future of France in the East, would seem exaggerated, but I dare say you have read "Memories of Old Friends," a book meant for invalids at Bohemian wells, and curiously displaying English minds as they were about 1840. In the second edition Mill's letters are appended, in one of which he describes Tocqueville's opinion that one must not lower national pride, "almost the only elevated sentiment that remains in considerable strength." Waddington might adopt those words with even greater justice now. He once befriended me, so that I am bound to speak up for him. We had met but once, at the Embassy, when he asked me to dinner, and arranged that I should meet, besides Lyons, Wimpfen and Hohenlohe, whom he knew to be old friends of mine, Louis Arco, and the three most learned men in Paris, and then he gave me his box at the Français. But whilst I testify what a good fellow he is, it is necessary, highly necessary, to add that he is not a friend of Mr. Gladstone. That class of scholars to which he belongs, men busy with inscriptions, ruins, medals, vases, contriving thereby to amend a text or fix a date, inevitably resent the spirit in which Mr. Gladstone studies antiquity, carrying with him emotions and ideals derived from elsewhere, and considerably disturbing accepted habits and conclusions. Then it is very hard for an extra patriotic Frenchman to see with patience a powerful government that does not always use its strength, that accepts rebuke and repulse, and is ready to draw in the outposts of the empire. Whatever the true cause, I am pretty sure of the fact that he will come to Hawarden, like Ruskin, curious to probe the great Gladstonian mystery, not favourably prepossessed. I hope you will have him soon, and deal justly with him.

When you sit down to Macaulay, remember that the Essays are really flashy and superficial. He was not above par in literary criticism; his Indian articles will not hold water; and his two most famous reviews, on Bacon and Ranke, show his incompetence. The essays are only pleasant reading, and a key to half the prejudices of our age. It is the History (with one or two speeches) that is wonderful. He knew nothing respectably before the seventeenth century, he knew nothing of foreign history, of religion, philosophy, science, or art. His account of debates has been thrown into the shade by Ranke, his account of diplomatic affairs, by Klopp. He is, I am persuaded, grossly, basely unfair. Read him therefore to find out how it comes that the most unsympathetic of critics can think him very nearly the greatest of English writers.

My good friend Bright[206] got me into controversy by sending me Beard's "Hibbert Lectures," on the Reformation. There was a great deal to say, with the usual result; but you would think them interesting as a stimulant. Have I ever told you that I have read the Diaries, letters, &c., of G. Eliot? Cross wants me to review them in the Nineteenth Century, or at least wanted; but I know not where he is, or whether he still wishes it.

I always see Miss Helen Gladstone in the papers, and suppose she is with you. I don't know whether Miss Renouf is in her house.[207] She is a sort of god-child of mine, and her father is, without exception, the most learned Englishman I know. The daughter of such a man should be something unusual; the mother, too, is of a clever family, a Brentano.

Lady Blennerhassett gave me some accounts of you at Holmbury. Minghetti, whom I saw lately, tells me that our friend Bonghi has a Roman History in the press, which the Italians hope to set up against Mommsen. I forgot, to complete my confession, that I have never been happy about our policy with Cetewayo. But the general result of the session cannot be lamented, only it is not heroic success, such as Mr. Gladstone's supremacy and the flatness of the Opposition would demand. The great thing is his health. I did not come over, not being once summoned, so that we shall only meet at Cannes. Do talk about plans. Can there be anything before Cannes? It can never be too soon to meet.

La Madeleine Feb. 9, 1884

You make writing as difficult as living afar, by your unspeakable goodness, but also by the infusion of the contrary quality. If I promise not to attack the Government, and to believe in Lord Derby, will you agree not to hit me so hard? I cannot well help doing what I do, taking all things into consideration; and as to my tiresome book,[208] please to remember that I can only say things which people do not agree with, that I have neither disciple nor sympathiser, that this is no encouragement to production and confidence, that grizzled men, except ——, grow appalled at the gaps in their knowledge, and that I have no other gift but that which you pleasantly describe, of sticking eternal bits of paper into innumerable books, and putting larger papers into black boxes. There is no help for it. But your reproaches are much more distressing to read than you suppose, and make me think them better to read than to hear. Otherwise, I too would have a dream, to describe, and wish that yours came true from January 1 to December 31.

George[209] did not catch me at Marienbad, and came from Munich in a big box, only the other day. I had partly read him, but I was in a difficulty about thanking you for it with full honesty as long as I only knew it casually, by unhallowed copies. But I do thank you, if I may do so even now, most gratefully for the kindness of it altogether, and particularly for your belief that I should understand it, and care for it apart from the sender. Although in this you have flattered me; for there are points in which I dare say I do not like him as much as you do.

Do not think ill of the people they call academic Socialists. It is only a nickname for the school that is prevailing now in the German universities, with a branch in France and another in Italy, a school whose most illustrious representative in England, whose most eminent practical teacher in the world, is Mr. Gladstone. In their writings, inspired by the disinterested study of all classic economists, one finds most of the ideas and illustrations of Mr. George, though not, indeed, his argument against Malthus. This makes him less new to one; but nobody writes with that plain, vigorous directness, and I do believe that he has, in a large measure, the ideas of the age that is to come.

I am glad, too, that you like Seeley's book. It is excellent food for thought. But so is the first article in the January Quarterly.[210] I wrote eight pages of criticism and should have liked to send them to you instead of Maine, but perhaps you have not read him.

Liddon's objection to saying what may damage a very meritorious body of surviving friends of Rosmini is practically reasonable; but it is rather a reason for not writing at all on the subject. Rosmini made a vigorous attempt to reform the Church of Rome. He was vehemently attacked, repelled, censured; and he defended himself in a work more important, argumentatively, than the first. If this dramatic incident is left untold, if his stronger statements are omitted from his case, we shall get an imperfect notion of a memorable transaction, and of an interesting, if not a great, divine.

I am so very glad that Mr. Gladstone is in his best health, and that the troubled times have put out of sight the notion of retirement. For that reason I could almost console myself in looking at the Soudan. That affair has been in the hands of a colleague without much original resource, attentive to the wind, and glad to follow the advice of local agents. It chances that I have been reading ——'s confidential letters written to a friend sure not to show them to Ministers; and I have thought him deficient in imagination—in the discovering faculty—and also in independence. There is no denying that there has been a lack of initiative genius in the last few weeks, and that Mr. Gladstone would have done more if Bonaparte had been his departmental colleague.

Of all critics of my list,[211] Lubbock is best informed in a vast region where I am a stranger. I by no means disregard his criticisms. I have not got the list myself, and should like nothing in the world so much as to sit with you and talk over the objections you have collected. But will that, or will anything like it, ever be? If it may, do send one line on Tuesday to wait arrival at 18 Carlton House Terrace.

*****

18 Carlton House Terrace S.W. Feb. 13, 1884

Here is a ceremonious invitation to dine to-morrow, which I most gladly accept.

I gather, from something I have just heard, that Froude will not wish for the Professorship. As to Freeman, I am not quite sure. There can be no real competitor but Gardiner.

Dinner without any prospect beyond will be mere dust and ashes; but what awful fun Oxford[212] would be!

Feb. 15, 1884

... It was such a delight to meet the greatest of all our historians[213] at this particular moment. There never was so much kindness in this world. I can think of nothing but our journey, and the wretchedness of having only one day there. Of course I am going to live at the Clarendon. If any doubt arises, do not let it exist for a moment. Then I must visit the Bodley for an hour, and Stubbs, Liddon, M. Müller, Jowett, Brodrick, Bright of University.

But these are my private wanderings. Do remember that, and let them not spoil the cachet of their own grouping. As all passes through you, do take an opportunity to say how thankfully and joyously I accept his invitation.

La Madeleine March 17, 1884

May I employ the fleeting and disrespectful pencil to express sentiments of the most opposite kind? I am still so stupidly weak, unaccountably pulled by an illness which is an anachronism here, that I am afraid to wait till I am quite ripe for ink, to speak of the happy time I owed to your companionship in the two capitals of greater Britain. There has never been anything like it, and I wonder when there will again. Cambridge is in reserve; but nothing can ever equal the sensation of festive home among people I had never seen, that you procured for me at Keble. The worst recollection is the parting at Paddington. I chose my hour next day so badly that, coming at 6, I found your mother invisible, yourself out, and your sister gone. I have said nothing yet to M——; but I do look forward two months to another meeting. I am very glad that my last conversation with Mr. Gladstone left no worse impression, for in the obscurity of St. James I preached heavily on my favourite text: "après moi le déluge;" and on my favourite preacher.

Meanwhile the troublesome question of retirement is in a new phase. The half Reform bill is floated by a half pledge as to redistribution which is personal to himself. He cannot leave it to be redeemed by others, who, he expressly stated, are not parties to it. He is virtually pledged to complete the work himself; that is, to meet the next Parliament. For they will inevitably force him to dissolve in the autumn, if they do not succeed in crowding out the Reform question. If not carried by an immense majority, it will be carried by Irish votes. The Lords will be able to say that England ought to be consulted definitely, that it ought not to be overruled by Ireland, in an old Parliament, and that such a change in the Constitution is not to be carried by enemies of the Constitution until the country has pronounced.

I don't imagine that it is a bad point to dissolve upon—at any rate, there is no swopping in such a crossing.

But I suppose he has abandoned the hope of himself retiring from Egypt, and if he does not, nobody else will; and so one must begin to face what is inevitable, and to acknowledge that the Soudan has altered our position in Egypt. A further complication cannot be far off. The best time to re-open the Turkish question will be whilst we are a little damaged as to disinterestedness by Cyprus and Egypt, whilst our increased security makes us less anxious and less nervous about Constantinople, and whilst the censor of the Turk resides at No. 10. The position in the East is so much altered since Berlin[214] that Russia will not long be bound by that Treaty, having a price by which Austria can be won. Every step of that sort will help to fix us in Egypt.

And as long as we are at Alexandria or even at Souakim, the future of Central Africa will depend on us, or at least on our people. I do not believe that Mr. Gladstone would revive John Company and send him to the Equatorial lakes; and yet I fancy there is an opening there for inventive statesmanship.

My eagerness about Liddon's elevation does not mean that my head was turned by the ambush of that deferential Sacristan at Oxford Station,[215] or that the Warden[216] talked me over—though he talked wisely. For I am not in harmony with Liddon, and scarcely in sympathy. He has weak places that nobody sees and resents so sharply as I do; and he has got over, or swallowed, such obstacles on the road to Rome that none remain which, as it seems to me, he ought logically or legitimately to strain at. I will even confess to you alone—that that affair of Rosmini leaves a bad taste in one's mouth. But one might pick holes in any man, even in the new Bishop of Chester.[217] Nothing steadies a ship like a mitre—and as to his soundness, his determination to work in and through the Church, and not on eccentric courses, I satisfied myself with the supreme authority of Dean Church, on my last night in town. One cannot help seeing that Liddon is a mighty force, not yet on its level. He knows how to kindle and how to propel. Newman and Wilberforce may have had the same power, but one was almost illiterate; the other knows what he might have learnt in the time of Waterland or Butler; whereas Liddon is in contact with all that is doing in the world of thought....

*****

*****

La Madeleine March 30, 1884

... You ask a question on which I can express unexpected agreement. As long as property is the basis of representation, I think it hard to exclude female owners. There is an obvious principle in it, of course. But though obvious it is not stringent; because female influence is not excluded. We not only have no Salic Law, but we allow women to vote on matters not political, and we have attached political influence to property so closely, that rich old women, like the Duchess-Countess,[218] or Lady Londonderry, are dreadful powers in the land. The argument from consistency does not, therefore, make for exclusion.

At the same time, I think it an evil in many ways. Girls and widows are Tories, and channels of clerical influence, and it is not for them so much as for married women that your argument tells. If we ever have manhood suffrage—dissociating power from property altogether, it will be difficult to keep out wives. The objections to voting wives are overwhelming.

*****

You open a delightful vista of Colleges and Chapels at Cambridge. It is not so easy to answer quite definitely. If the Reform Bill, read a second time before Easter, is sent up by Whitsuntide, the division in the Lords will be early in June. My difficulty would then be that, having to come in June, I could hardly come to England in May. Supposing my Reform vote to be wanted only after Midsummer, then my probable plan would be to come to London by the middle of May; and I should be at your orders for Cambridge any time between 20th and 30th May....

Subject to these conditions, I shall be only too happy to escort you down to the Sidgwicks', to whom, please present my best thanks. If Maine is there, I dare say we can count on a luncheon there.... I am talking of myself and own plans; but all the time I am thinking of your cares and troubles, of which you say so little. If you can send me a line of good news to Rome, I shall be so glad.

La Madeleine June 19, 1884

You will be careful, another time, I hope, as to the enclosures you forward, seeing how long a reply they involve, and how great a delay. The difficulty which prolongs and has delayed my letter will be very apparent to you before you reach the end.

First, as to the personal question:—

It was not my purpose to depreciate Canon Liddon. I came over with the highest opinion of him—an opinion higher perhaps than Dr. Döllinger's, or even than Mr. Gladstone's, whose ostensible preference for divines of less mark has sometimes set me thinking. Impressed by his greatness, not as a scholar to be pitted against Germans, but as a spiritual force, and also by a certain gracious nobleness of tone which ought to be congenial, I tried, at Oxford and in London, to ascertain whether there is some element of weakness that had escaped me.

Evidently, Liddon is in no peril from the movement of modern Science. He has faced those problems and accounted for them. If he is out of the perpendicular, it is because he leans the other way.

The question would rather be whether a man of his sentiments, rather inclined to rely on others, would be proof against the influence of Newman, or of foreign theologians like Newman.

On the road Bishops and Parliament were taking a few years since, there would be rocks ahead, and one might imagine a crisis in which it would be doubtful who would be for maintaining the National Church and who would not. I have chanced to be familiar with converts and with the raw material of which they are made, and cannot help knowing the distinct and dissimilar paths followed by men like Newman himself, Hope, Palmer, R. J. Wilberforce, Ward, Renouf, many of whom resembled Liddon in talent and fervour, and occupied a position outwardly not far from his own.

He once called the late Bishop of Brechin[219] the first divine in the Church. I knew the Bishop well, and am persuaded that the bond that held him in the Anglican Communion might easily have snapped, under contingencies to which he was not exposed.

Putting these questions not quite so crudely as they are stated here, I thought that I obtained an answer. At any rate, I was assured that Liddon is made of sterner stuff than I fancied, that he knows exactly where he stands, where others have stood before him, and where and why he parts with them; that the course of Newman and the rest has no secrets and no surprises for him; that he looks a long way before him, and has no disposition to cling to the authority of others. In short, it appeared very decidedly that he is—what Bishop Forbes was not—fixed in his Anglican position.

Under this impression, I could not help wondering why Wilkinson, Stubbs, and Ridding are judged superior to Liddon. I could have felt and have expressed no such wonder if I had not taken pains to discover that he has tried and has rejected the cause of Rome, and that neither home difficulties nor external influence are at all likely to shake him.

Far, therefore, from meaning disparagement, I rate him higher than any member of the English clergy I know; and touching the question of stability, I have the sufficient testimony of his friends, of men naturally vigilant on that point, of which I am not competent to judge or to speak.

So little competent, indeed, that I should be at a loss to define his system, or to corroborate, of my own knowledge, the confidence which others have expressed. It seemed to me necessary to indicate that, for myself, I could not speak without some qualification or reserve, such as perhaps would only occur to a close student of Roman pathology. To do more, will be giving undue and unfair prominence to a parenthesis. It lays stress where there ought to be none, makes the deduction, the exception, greater than the positive statement, and gives me the air of a man whose praise is designed to convey a slur of suspicion.

That is why your letter with its formidable enclosure has afflicted me with dumbness. The doubt which I indicated in writing to you has been suggested chiefly by what passed in reference to Rosmini.

You will remember that you sent Liddon word that Rosmini wrote a very long defence of the little book which he was translating. He preferred not to make use of the information and not to see the book; and he avoided the subject when we met at Oxford. The reason is, that the Rosminians wish the Defence to be ignored, as it qualifies the submission of the author when the book defended was condemned.

The suppression injures nobody; it only puts the readers of the translation slightly off the scent, and gives an imperfect article instead of none. There is some trace of complicity with those who are interested in a suppressio veri. But it may have been due, as he was under obligations to them, and this is only preliminary matter.

My real difficulty is, that he speaks of his author with great respect, and evidently thinks his doctrine sound and profitable.

Now Rosmini, allowing for some superficial proposals of reform, was a thorough believer in the Holy See. His book itself, by the nature of the reforms proposed, implies that no other defects of equal magnitude remain to be remedied. Apart from the Five points he accepts the papacy as it stands; and he has no great objection to it, Five points included.

He was what we vulgarly call an ultramontane—a reluctant ultramontane, like Lacordaire. An Anglican who views with satisfaction, with admiration, the moral character and spiritual condition of an Ultramontane priest, appears to me to have got over the principal obstacle on the way to Rome—the moral obstacle. The moral obstacle, to put it compendiously, is the Inquisition.

The Inquisition is peculiarly the weapon and peculiarly the work of the Popes. It stands out from all those things in which they co-operated, followed, or assented as the distinctive feature of papal Rome. It was set up, renewed, and perfected by a long series of acts emanating from the supreme authority in the Church. No other institution, no doctrine, no ceremony is so distinctly the individual creation of the papacy, except the Dispensing power. It is the principal thing with which the papacy is identified, and by which it must be judged.

The principle of the Inquisition is the Pope's sovereign power over life and death. Whosoever disobeys him should be tried and tortured and burnt. If that cannot be done, formalities may be dispensed with, and the culprit may be killed like an outlaw.

That is to say, the principle of the Inquisition is murderous, and a man's opinion of the papacy is regulated and determined by his opinion about religious assassination.

If he honestly looks on it as an abomination, he can only accept the Primacy with a drawback, with precaution, suspicion, and aversion for its acts.

If he accepts the Primacy with confidence, admiration, unconditional obedience, he must have made terms with murder.

Therefore, the most awful imputation in the catalogue of crimes rests, according to the measure of their knowledge and their zeal, upon those whom we call Ultramontanes. The controversy, primarily, is not about problems of theology: it is about the spiritual state of a man's soul, who is the defender, the promoter, the accomplice of murder. Every limitation of papal credit and authority which effectually dissociates it from that reproach, which breaks off its solidarity with assassins and washes away the guilt of blood, will solve most other problems. At least, it is enough for my present purpose to say, that blot is so large and foul that it precedes and eclipses the rest, and claims the first attention.

I will show you what Ultramontanism makes of good men by an example very near home. Saint Charles Borromeo, when he was the Pope's nephew and minister, wrote a letter requiring Protestants to be murdered, and complaining that no heretical heads were forwarded to Rome, in spite of the reward that was offered for them. His editor, with perfect consistency, publishes the letter with a note of approval. Cardinal Manning not only holds up to the general veneration of mankind the authority that canonised this murderer, but makes him in a special manner his own patron, joins the Congregation of Oblates of St. Charles, and devotes himself to the study of his acts and the propagation of his renown.

Yet I dare say I could find Anglican divines who would speak of the Cardinal as a good man, unhappily divided from the Church of which he was an ornament, and living in error, but yet not leading a life of sin—I should gather from such language that the speaker was not altogether averse from the distinctive characteristic of Ultramontanism, and had swallowed far the largest obstacle on the road to Rome.

The case of Rosmini is not so glaring, but it is substantially the same. Language implying that an able and initiated Italian priest accepting the papacy, with its inventory of systematic crime, incurs no guilt, that he is an innocent, virtuous, edifying Christian, seems to me open to grave suspicion. If it was used by one of whom I knew nothing else, I should think ill of him. If I knew him to be an able and in many ways an admirable man, I should feel much perplexity, and if I heard on the best authority that he deserved entire confidence, I should persuade myself that it is true, and should try to quiet my uneasiness.

That is what I have done in the case of Liddon. When he speaks of an eminent and conspicuous Ultramontane divine with the respect he might show to Andrewes or Leighton, or to Grotius or Baxter, he ignores or is ignorant of the moral objection, and he surrenders so much that he has hardly a citadel to shelter him. I dare say he would give me a very good answer, and I do not hesitate to utter his praises. But I have no idea what the answer would be, and so must leave room for a doubt.

I should hardly have resolved to say all this to anybody but yourself, relying on you not to misunderstand the exact and restricted meaning of my letter. I should like my reason for misgiving to be understood. But I care much more to be understood as an admirer, not an accuser of Canon Liddon. My explanation is worthless if it fails to justify me there.

St. Martin Haute Autriche June 20, 1884

The idleness of Coombe Warren[220] has much to answer for. I was taken by surprise when you sent me that letter,[221] and would have given a great deal to escape the necessity of answering it. Ever since, it has stood grievously in the way of writing to you; and I have conquered my difficulty with extreme reluctance. Try to forgive my not writing—try, much harder, to forgive my writing.

*****

When I come I shall have to congratulate you on your authorship. I do not do so now, because it would be meaningless, the C.R.[222] being due here to-morrow only. I do hope you liked doing it, and like having done it, and like to think of doing it again.

I still think that we ought to evacuate;[223] but I thought there would be no time for Mr. Gladstone to do it, and no obligation on others. The convention is a very dexterous way of laying compulsion on the Ministers, whoever they may be, several years hence. It meets what I thought an insurmountable difficulty, if it succeeds, as I hope it will. But I cannot look with satisfaction on the principle as compensation for the risk of failure. The cause does not seem to me so sacred or so pure as to offer consolation for the fall of the Ministry.

It is an indefinite principle, depending for its application on variable circumstances. It is not clean cut. We retain certain ill-gotten possessions, obtained by treaty or by necessity. It is not evident that we should surrender a possession which is not ill-gotten.

Our motives for surrender are mixed. It is to relieve us from a very troublesome and very dangerous engagement, to avoid a formidable expenditure, to disarm the menacing jealousy of other Powers. The mixture of motives is obvious, and we are not in a position to claim the merit which belongs to the purest among them.

The Ministry would not be united for common action on this question, if the motives of expediency did not come to aid the motive of principle. The bit of gold has to be beaten very thin to gild the whole of them. One sees and recognises the surface gilding, but one knows that there is inferior metal beneath.

The position would be loftier and more correct if we retired from an enterprise crowned with success, in the fulness of conscious superiority as well as of conscious rectitude. But we have not accomplished triumphantly the work from which we withdraw. We are not incurring the sacrifice of stopping short in a career of victory and of political triumphs, so that the world wonders at our moderation and self-control. We are giving up an undertaking in which we have disappointed the expectation of the world, in which we have shown infirmity of purpose, want of forethought, a rather spasmodic and inconclusive energy, occasional weakness and poverty of resource; and our presence and promise have been mixed blessings for the Egyptian people. So that the principle is not large enough as a basis for such a structure, nor clear enough to yield me comfort for the enforced close of such a career.

Do not be angry with me for saying all this—you have heard it before.

St. Martin Aug. 15, 1884

In spite of breakfast, dinner, and tea, of garden parties and evening parties, of road and rail, I have brought away with me a feeling of having hardly seen you, and of having had very little talk, so that I begin at once to look forward to next time and the good opportunities it may yield. It will, I hope, be very early in November. We left you for a very pleasant day at Seacox with Morier, and an easy journey, diversified by meeting young Lacaita at Wurzburg, and travelling with him all night.

*****

You never told me what plans there are for the short recess. I am glad the Scottish campaign is to be soon, so as to give guidance to the popular movement. There is a good deal of nonsense in the air; but I hope there will be strength.

Salisbury's avowal of numerical principles set me thinking. I cannot make out whether it is a surrender or a snare. It confirms the expectation that they will put the minority theory forward, which is, I think, their best card. Not so much because I agree with them, as because it divides the Liberal party, and rescues them from the position of mere resistance.

The objections to Northbrook's mission[224] are obvious; and yet I should have liked to go out with him, and try to understand the problem as it now stands; for it is taking a new shape, unwelcome, I fear, to Mr. Gladstone, and yet not unforeseen, at least since the appearance of Blignières. It does not seem impossible to combine rigid principle with practical necessities.

There is not a brighter spot in my retrospect than our visit to Cambridge, the execution of it, as well as the delight of it, due to you. Looking back I fancy that I can never have said to you nearly how much I was impressed by Sidgwick's conversation—to say nothing of their hospitality. But the fact is we never talked over anything, and it is all to come.

Alfred's[225] triumphant bowling makes me hold his coat and umbrella comparatively cheap, yet I suppose we got beaten after all.[226]...

I have been staying at Tegernsee with Döllinger. The impending vacancy at Lincoln was announced while I was there, and I am sorry to say that we did not quite agree in the speculations which it suggested. I hope you will see my dear friend at Chester.[227] There is not a greater Tory in England, or a greater ornament to that perverse party.

St. Martin Aug. 29, 1884

There was nothing definite to quote in my conversation with the Professor[228] about Liddon. He hardly knows the better side of Liddon, as a preacher, and as a religious force. He sees that he is not a very deep scholar, and thinks his admiration for Pusey a sign of weakness, I think he once used the term fanatical—meaning a large allowance of one-sidedness in his way of looking at things. Indeed, Döllinger is influenced by nearly the same misgivings that I felt some months ago; and he has not had the same opportunities for getting rid of them. For instance, the Dean of St. Paul's[229] assured me that Liddon, far from reclining on others, is masterful and fond of his own opinion. Moreover, Liddon's attitude in the question of Church and State, is a matter which the Professor and I judge very differently, and it is a difference which it is useless to discuss any more.

I am waiting very eagerly for the speeches in Midlothian. They will be almost the most important of his whole career.

Forwood's proposal of equal electoral districts is another sign of dissolution in Toryism. The principle of setting a limit to inequality might be defended much more plausibly. I am glad to figure in your company in Northumberland as well as at Cambridge. Your experiment[230] is perhaps worth trying, and Stuart knows his people too well to promote it if it is likely to fail. An outsider has not any secure means of forecasting; but I shall retain some hesitation.

Your letter was waiting here when I came from Tegernsee, where I have spent another few days with my Professor.[231] Knesebeck, the Empress' secretary, was there; and I was dismayed to learn that Morier has spoken to him in the most hostile terms of our foreign policy. I was sorry, in London, that you did not see more of that strong diplomatist in Downing Street.

In the doubt as to your movements I direct to Hawarden, where I hope you will see the excellent, learned, homely, humble Bishop of Chester, whose virtues ought to disarm even the recalcitrant Dean.[232] In about two months I hope we shall meet.

*****

St. Martin Sept. 10, 1884

I was able to realise your late experience,[233] even to the tones of voice in certain passages, and I envied you. It must make one change. He[234] cannot any longer elaborately and perversely ignore the fact that he himself is the life and the force of the Liberal party. His reception by Midlothian in 1880, when he did not appear as a candidate for office, constrained him to become Prime Minister; and the more definite issue laid before Midlothian in 1884, still more emphatically answered, determines that he must remain P.M. Just as he accepted the consequences then, when they involved withdrawal of public declarations, he must accept them now, when they compel, and are very definitely designed to compel, the surrender of private aspirations.

The public voice has spoken this time more loudly and more consciously. It would not be right towards the country, but especially towards his colleagues, to obey it then and to resist it now. It would be not only a breach of the contract now made by something more than implication, but a yielding up of the party to its enemies in an inextricable crisis. I have not the least doubt that the position will be so understood.

I think less of the gain which the Ministry derives from the policy, the limitation and the enormous effect of the speeches. It is possible, I think, to detect a weak place in them. When one speaks in answer to opponents who are present, and who state their own case, the thing to do is to demolish it. But when one addresses the public, in the absence of debate, it is often good policy to state the opposite case in one's own way, prior to demolition; one's own way is the way one would state it if it was one's own: and everybody knows that he would make the Tory position more logical, more plausible, and stronger than they make it themselves, if he was on their side. It is a process one has to go through for oneself, to see what the adversary's case looks like, stripped of all the passion, ignorance, and fallacy with which he presents it. We are not sure we are right until we have made the best case possible for those who are wrong; and we are strictly bound not to transform the sophisms of the advocate into flaws in his case.

An intelligent Tory might say that this figure or precept of rhetoric was not followed, and that their argument was presented, not unfairly, but not at its best.

Of course he would see the point of the speeches in the restraint of agitation, and the offer to make terms. I hope—against hope—that this moderation is founded on knowledge of what is going on among the Tories. One sees signs of collapse in their policy of reform, but not in their determination to resist, and my own impression is that even Wemyss meant to fight it out, only in another way. But if there is no collapse, I see no resource except the agitation which Mr. Gladstone still deprecates.

To my mind the most significant passage was that in which he spoke of the probable fall of several Ministries. That means that the Home Rulers are going to be the arbiters of party government. That means ruin to the Liberal party. Many Liberals see the moment looming when they will have more sympathy with a party led by moderate Conservatives than with a party inspired by Radical Democrats. The looming will be quickened by the necessity of presenting a front to the Irish. But that is only a small part of the argument accumulating against retirement before the next Parliament, when the new constituencies will be fixed for generations.

Odo Russell[235] leaves a larger gap than he filled, and he is difficult to replace at a moment of peculiar soreness and strain. In the service, I should prefer Dufferin; out of it—Bedford! I understand that he would not accept. I find Lord Granville quite feels that our strongest diplomatist, Morier, is out of the question at Berlin, but it will be ten times worse to send Carlingford, and an indication of weakness.

Many, very many, thanks for your letter, which did not seem to me to suffer from the distractions and dissipations of Dalmeny. The best part of it is the good report of your father's health and spirits.

Cannes Nov. 12, 1884

Your delightful letter came from Munich this evening after I had posted mine.

It is an exquisite pleasure to look forward to meeting in such a short time. I should so much wish to have a glimpse of you, and a chat, before the plot thickens with us, so as to get the bearings. If all goes well, I have some chance of arriving pretty early on Monday, and my first business will be to ask if there is a line from you at the Athenæum. There is an uncertainty about the through trains, as there are no travellers yet, and so I may be disappointed.

It is a very important crisis, as there is a possibility of such complete and perfect success for Mr. Gladstone's policy of Reform; and I do so hope he may have it in all fulness. There never was such personal ascendency; and I trust nothing will happen in Africa to disturb it.

Yes, I would give a trifle to have heard the discussion of our Revolution by our greatest statesman[236] and our greatest historian.[237] The latter betrayed his uncompromising Conservatism by half a parenthesis at Keble. It is very superficially disguised in his book, and he ought to have been more grateful to me than he was for abusing Macaulay. Brewer was just like him in judging those events, and Gardiner contrives only by an effort not to revile the good old Cause. We are well out of the monotonous old cry about Hampden and Russell.

*****

La Madeleine Nov. 12, 1884

We have had a long journey from St. Martin, and are hardly settled down in the midst of a vast solitude, when the unreasonable success of the Government compels me to pack my bag once more.

What makes it a pleasure, I need not say. If all things go as I expect, I shall be in town on Monday night or early on Tuesday.

If you are so very kind as to send a line to the Athenæum suggesting the right end and object and reward of travel, please put outside, to wait arrival.

I do not stay with the Granvilles this time, that I may vote against Ministers at my ease. And I do not bring M——, which is a grief; still, I look forward to a deal of riotous living, and to many sources of public and private satisfaction.

La Madeleine Dec. 9, 1884

... M— received an account which pleased her, of my bath of goodness and spirituality at Oxford; and the writing to her about scenes and people she knows, and trying to explain thoughts and facts, has been half the pleasure of my solitary journey.

The meeting at your door[238] of the professors of heterodoxy[239] and chatterboxy[240] in political economy is delightful, and I hope it will fructify. But my friend the "nice little old gentleman"[241] will always be too strenuous and urgent for the Fra Angelico of Economists; and besides, we live in the Gladstonian era—and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. That, however, might be a bond of union between those Sophisters.

In London I could not escape a luncheon with ——, who threatens me with a friendly visit next month at Cannes. Next week I expect Bryce with Robertson Smith. Did I tell you of my pleasant dinner with them on Wednesday, and meeting Creighton?[242] He is an agreeable and superior man, whom you would like; and he is full of general knowledge. But I am afraid you will find his book[243] a severe study.

Thursday—Rather an uninteresting dinner at ——; but one goes there to eat. Lord G. not in very good spirits. I conciliated Enfield, who ... was a little shocked to find that I agree with Courtney.

There was not a gap of time for a farewell in Downing Street, and I had to decline dinners with the Granvilles, Mays, and Pagets, and a visit to Seacox—Hamlet left out.

The journey succeeded beautifully, for it was the roughest passage I remember, and I was none the worse for it. At Calais one gets into a sleeping-car and gets out of it at Cannes, after dining and sleeping comfortably. A young Englishman described the Grasse Hotel to me, where he had lived with Cross, who was writing a book. He did not discover that it[244] was the book in my hand. I have sent it back with some considerable suggestions.

Mrs. Green writes an amusing account of Dr. Stubbs's violent language in politics when she approaches him with her history. I have advised her to sacrifice everything and everybody to the object of securing his help. Leviathan will not aid her.

I have strongly urged May to write a new chapter of Constitutional History, coming down to this our era of Good Feeling, as Americans call the last administration of Monroe.[245] It is the greatest landmark in English Politics; and it has the merit of all well-defined epochs, that it is not going to last.

At the British Museum, Gardiner was working, and I wished him joy on the endowment of Research.

*****

Cannes Dec. 18, 1884

If sleeplessness comes on again do represent the merits of Cannes in their proper light. January is often the finest month, and this is the finest season ever known. Also it is the emptiest. I hear that Thorenc is not to let, in the hope that the Wolvertons may take it. Such rest and change as he would get here, after so much hard work, might be quite invaluable, especially if it is in his thoughts that the Session of 1885 is to be his last in office. That would be worth refreshing for; and we shall do our best to occupy and distract him, and all of you, during your stay.

Croker[246] was so large and promising a morsel that I postponed temptation and read no part of him carefully; besides it is a question hot with hidden fire. Have you not discovered, have I never betrayed, what a narrow doctrinaire I am, under a thin disguise of levity? The Duke of Orleans nearly described my feelings when he spoke, testamentarily, of his religious flag and his political faith. Politics come nearer religion with me, a party is more like a church, error more like heresy, prejudice more like sin, than I find it to be with better men. And by these canons I am forced to think ill of Peel, to think, if you won't misunderstand me, that he was not a man of principle. The nature of Toryism is to be entangled in interests, traditions, necessities, difficulties, expedients, to manage as best one may, without creating artificial obstacles in the shape of dogma, or superfluous barriers of general principle. "Périssent les colonies plutôt que les principes" (which is a made-up sentence, no more authentic than "Roma locuta est"), expresses the sort of thing Liberalism means and Toryism rejects. Government must be carried on, even if we must tolerate some measure of wrong, use some bad reasons, trample on some unlucky men. Other people could recognise the face and the sanctity of morality where it penetrated politics, taking the shape of sweeping principle, as in Emancipation, Free Trade, and so many other doctrinaire questions. Peel could not until he was compelled by facts. Because he was reluctant to admit the sovereignty of considerations which were not maxims of state policy, which condemned his own past and the party to which he belonged.

But if party is sacred to me as a body of doctrine, it is not, as an association of men bound together, not by common convictions but by mutual obligations and engagements. In the life of every great man there is a point where fidelity to ideas, which are the justifying cause of party, diverges from fidelity to arrangements and understandings, which are its machinery. And one expects a great man to sacrifice his friends—at least his friendship—to the higher cause.

Progress depends not only on the victory, the uncertain and intermittent victory, of Liberals over Conservatives, but on the permeation of Conservatism with Liberal ideas, the successive conversion of Tory leaders, the gradual desertion of the Conservative masses by their chiefs—Fox, Grenville, Wellesley, Canning, Huskisson, Peel—Tory ministers passing Emancipation, Free Trade, Reform—are in the order of historic developments. Still the complaints of Croker are natural. He had been urged along a certain line, and being a coarse, blatant fellow, he overdid it, and wrote things from which there was no release. It was not in his brutal nature to appreciate the other side of questions. He did not begin by seeing the strong points of his enemy's case, and so far he was dishonest.

My impression is that Peel was justified towards his party in 1846 by what occurred in 1845. He explained his views; some of his friends declared against them; and he resigned. After the exchange of Stanley for Mr. Gladstone, it was a new Ministry, a new departure on distinct lines. Nobody was betrayed. Peel did not carry his friends with him because he had not the ascendency which his great lieutenant possesses. The Radicals have been made to look as foolish as Croker. The bread has been taken out of their mouths, as they are not to devour the Lords. They have consolations in the future which the Protectionists have not; but they are in as false a position as the Protectionists were; and yet they stand fire on the whole well, and without secession.—But I am conscious of more nearly hating Croker than anybody, except Lord Clare, in English history. It was my one link with a late, highly-lamented statesman and novelist.[247]

*****

La Madeleine Jan. 14, 1885

Yes! at last, foreign affairs are in a very wretched way, and are unjustly and unreasonably injuring Mr. Gladstone's own position. If Morier is still in England, I wish he could see him before Petersburg. He is our only strong diplomatist; but he is only strong.

I have bored the P.M. to extinction with praise of Liddon, and as all I could say is obvious to others, I am not tempted to repeat the offence. But the death of that uninteresting, good Bishop Jackson[248] disturbs my rest. It is clear, very clear to me, that it would not be right to pass Liddon over now that there are two important vacancies to fill; and one asks oneself why he should not be chosen for the more important of the two, and who is manifestly worthier to occupy the greatest see in Christendom? The real answer, I suppose, is that his appointment will give great offence, and that he is a decided partisan, and a partisan of nearly the same opinions as the P.M. himself.

No doubt there would be much irritation on the thorough Protestant side, and in quarters very near Downing Street, and I feel, myself, more strongly than many people, that partisanship in Liddon runs to partiality, to one-sidedness, to something very like prejudice. And with all that strong feeling, I cannot help being agitated with the hope that the great and providential opportunity will not be lost.

Assuredly Liddon is the greatest power in the conflict with sin, and in turning the souls of men to God, that the nation now possesses. He is also, among all the clergy, the man best known to numbers of Londoners. There must be a very strong reason to justify a Minister in refusing such a bishop to such a diocese.

The argument of continuity does not convince me, because it was disregarded when Philpotts died. Still more, because so eminent a representative of Church principles had not occupied the see of London within living memory, and there is a balance to redress. When I think of his lofty and gracious spirit, his eloquence, his radiant spirituality, all the objections which I might feel, vanish entirely.

The time has really come when the P.M. has authority to do what he likes, and to disregard cavil. He is lifted above all considerations which might weaken action at other times and in other men. No ill consequences of his use of patronage can reach him. He can be guided by the supreme motive, and by the supreme motive only. It may well be that these are the last conspicuous ecclesiastical appointments that will be his to make. He is able now to bequeath an illustrious legacy to the people of London.

And, speaking on a lower level, the shock of Liddon's elevation might be blunted by the contemporaneous choice for Lincoln.

One qualification ought to be remembered. He is more in contact than other churchmen with questions of the day. Not only politics and criticism, but science. Paget delights to relate how Owen was discoursing on the brevity of life in the days of the patriarchs, and how beautifully Liddon baffled him by asking whether there is any structural reason for a cockatoo to live ten times as long as a pigeon. If it was my duty, which it is not, or my habit—which it is still less—to speak all my mind, I would say that there is, within my range of observation, some inclination to make too much of distinguished men in the Church. I name no names, but if I did, I might name Pusey, Wilberforce, Mozley, Church, Westcott, as men whom there has been some tendency to overestimate, at least in comparison with Liddon. Not that he is their superior, but that he seems to me to have fallen short of his due as much as they, in various ways, have been overpaid, in praise, confidence, and fame. If there have been reasons explaining this, I think they ought not to operate now.