rector read a sonnet of Wordsworth's, | himself and others have told me, there the second of the two sonnets headed seems good reason to believe that he en"Brugès;" and in the conversation which hanced the value of his influence by a followed the reading, he said he consid- judicious admixture of criticism with enered the thought, couragement.

The Spirit of Antiquity. .

Mounts to the seat of grace within the mind,

one of Wordsworth's finest. And it is evident how that thought must have ap pealed to a man like Pattison. What he thought of Words worth generally I had the opportunity of judging from several subsequent conversations. As might have been expected, he was not one of the poet's unconditional admirers; he did not place him in the same category with Mil ton and Shakespeare, nor did he, following a recent distinguished critic, consider him greater than Schiller. He admitted the strength, the loftiness of thought, that characterize much of his work, whilst he regretted the sudden descents to positive prose that mar so many of his most beautiful passages. All that was really worth preserving of Wordsworth's work he believed could be compressed into a small volume like Mr. Arnold's "Selection."

During the remainder of this my first term, I continued to receive, at intervals, signs of Pattison's remembrance and goodwill. Several times he sent for me and asked me to join at tea in his drawingroom some young ladies, relations and friends, who were staying with him. Pat tison's popularity among women of all ages was remarkable; nor was this to be wondered at; for, whatever may be said, justly or unjustly, of his manner to men, there can be no doubt that he treated ladies with genuine and chivalrous politeness and courtesy, whilst his conversation with them was marked by more than ordinary brilliancy and lightness of touch. I recollect coming in to an afternoon party at the house of a distinguished Oxford professor one day, and being struck by a large group of ladies, gathered near one of the windows, and evidently deeply interested in some one who was discoursing to them. I drew near, and saw that the centre of the group was Pattison. Upon women the effect of his personality seems, indeed, to have been more powerful even than upon men; not only were they charmed by his wit, and the refined courtesy of his manner: they seemed to feel, and submit to, the influence of the seriousness and earnestness of a moral and intellectual nature elevated far above the every-day level. Of this, no doubt, Pattison was sensible; and from what both he

In the following terms my intercourse with Pattison was resumed, and my relations with him were strengthened. There were occasional walks, and afternoon talks in his study, so that, upon the whole, scarcely a week passed without my seeing him for an hour or two. The conversation turned, almost invariably, on literary subjects. In February, 1878, he had written a review of Miss Zimmern's "Life of Lessing,” in the course of which he had indulged in his favorite sarcasms about the badness and want of polish of German writing, and had dealt a few hits at the "unkempt and spectacled Teuton," who was the only person for whom the foggy German style, and the crabbed type, was at all suited. We discussed the article and its subject, and I then asked him how far these sarcasms on the Germans were to be taken as genuine indications of his opinion. He said, "Well, of course, you mustn't take that sort of thing too literally. I don't always like to say only yea, yea, and nay, nay; and I haven't much patience with people who only understand you when you do. When I speak of the unkempt and spectacled Teuton, I refer to the untidiness of the ordinary German literary man. I object to that dressinggown-and-slipper fashion that I have seen in German writers; very few of them dress decently." I quoted to him one of the sentences in his Lessing article, in which he had said, "The interest of the English reading public in any German writer must at best be languid." "Well," he said, "it's the fault of the English, of course. Only I do wish the Germans wouldn't always involve their meaning in a blue mist, but write clearly and straightforwardly what they have to say. I can't help saying that, after reading as much of them as I have. We are obliged to read them, because they're about the only people who know anything. However, I hope Miss Zimmern won't be angry with me." I went on to tell him that I had been reading "L'Orient," by Théophile Gautier, and had found it well written but rather unsubstantial. "Yes," he said, "that is unfortunately the characteristic of very much of the most recent literature of France. The style is good, but the matter is insignificant. But," he continued, "if you read all these things, what will become of your moderations? I have come

across a good many young men who have failed to get on, although they had been very promising, and only because they spread their interests over too wide a field. Just as many fail in this way as when their interests are too narrow.' To a question as to the best way of reading the Eneid for the schools, he replied, "Read it through once first without commentary, merely so as to get to know the poem. Then, at the second reading, use a commentary, Forbiger or Conington (Conington, being in English, is perhaps the most practical), and note down pas sages you consider cruces. Pay attention to the difficulties in these, and con them, so that you are quite familiar with them, and able to render them without the context." A lecturer to whom I mentioned this plan said it might all be very well if we had a lifetime in which to prepare for moderations.

One evening in February, 1878, I had been dining at the rector's when I noticed, in the drawing-room, a number of uncut books. Thinking that he must find it very wearisome to cut them, I offered to do that work for him, whenever he had any to do. The next day, and often again, I found large piles of new books awaiting me in my room, to be cut at my leisure. I mention the circumstance, because the small service I was thus able to render to the rector, gave me frequent opportunities, of which I made use, for seeing him. I would often take the books back myself, and discuss such as, in the process of cutting, had struck me ; and Pattison gave me leave to keep, as long as I liked, any of them I found interesting. "I think it a great shame of me to give you such hard work," he said once. One work we spoke of from amongst these piles was a life of B. R. Haydon, edited by his son. "Haydon endeavored," Pattison said, "to introduce historical painting as a regular branch of art. He failed. I think Haydon was no great painter. He had not the power of Benjamin West, but he knew a great deal about the theory of art. In my own undergraduate days, I heard him lecture at the Clarendon, and I got my first ideas on art from him."

Those batches of books were often an agreeable indication to me, when press of work prevented Pattison from communi. cating with me in any other way, that he had not forgotten me. Not that walks were ever given up for long. Once he said, "I am very sorry not to have any young ladies for you. If you don't mind' putting up with an old man like me, and have nothing else to do, come for a walk on Monday at 2.30." At a later time he gave me a standing invitation for walks and calls. "Don't wait for me to send. for you. Come and take me out for a walk whenever you feel disposed; and you will find me disengaged, if you like to come in and have a talk, any day when I am in Oxford, at 4.30." Of this general permission I constantly availed myself during the remainder of my Oxford time. Pattison's cordiality, his unconstraint, his refreshing interest, his kindliness and sympathy, seemed to grow at every meeting, and I could not help recalling what, at an earlier date, I had heard said of him, "that the rector of Lincoln was like an oyster-hard to open, but delicious when you had opened him." Whatever might be the truth of the first part of the comparison, I could certainly agree with On another of these occasions I the second. In the smoking-room of an brought him an album, into which I had evening, after dinner, he would quite unbeen in the habit of copying favorite pas- bend. He would put on a loose grey sages of poetry and prose, and asked him smoking-jacket, and enjoy a cigar with for his autograph. Surely," he said, the rest of the company. One of those "you don't write things down to which evenings I remember with especial disyou have constant access in the original tinctness, when the late Leonard Montebooks?" On my replying that I did, he fiore entertained us, and not least the seemed to think it a waste of time; how-rector, with a selection from his inex

66

haustible stock of aneodotes, which he | We had several times on our walks spoken told with admirable taste and vivacity. of university arrangements, and their adePattison had a very great appreciation for all that was bright and humorous, especially when it was combined with an artistic sense of limit and proportion; and the frequent recurrence of his low, quaint laugh, which seemed to go almost wholly into himself, and to emerge, so to speak, but imperfectly, showed that Montefiore had adopted the right style for his lis

tener.

quacy for educational purposes, and Pattison had said, "What I should like to see, would be a college consisting entirely of scholars, all reading honor subjects, and all maintained, if necessary, at the expense of the college or university." This and similar utterances, as well as his published views in the "Essays on the Endowment of Research," and elsewhere, led me to think that where it was This year, 1878, was memorable at Ox- a question of giving help and opportunity ford for the phenomenon of a contested to real merit, he would be prepared to Parliamentary election, to fill a vacancy waive a point in the matter of some of in the representation of the university. those college dues and the like, which The Liberals adopted as their candidate flowed into channels to undergraduates at the late Prof. Henry Smith, to oppose Mr. least mysterious. A scholar had been J. G. Talbot. The resident members of elected whose merits were well known to Convocation elected the Liberal candidate me. I was aware also that he was not in by a decided majority; but, as usual, the a position to pay the usual caution money. flood of country voters set in with all its Accordingly, I went to the rector, told old force, and swamped them; and the him what I knew of the man, and asked Conservative was returned. Oxford was him whether, considering that the money, crowded for a few days with these de- if paid, would have to be borrowed, and parted sons of hers, making holiday to would therefore lose some of its signifi record their votes in the election of a rep-cance, not to speak of the disadvantage of resentative who could not, in any proper sense of the word, be said to represent them. The weather during the election had been extremely rainy, and some one at Pattison's wanted to know what sin we had been committing that was thus being visited upon us. "Oh, it's the number of Tories that have come to Oxford," said the rector; and the young lady who had once entertained us with a Chinese song, thought this "a very happy solution." As a rule, practical politics seemed to have no very great interest for Pattison. That he was a Liberal in principle there can be no doubt, but he spoke on the subject rarely. In the matter of this Oxford election, he agreed with Punch, who, in a current number, asked: "Did any one ever expect that the best man would be elected for Oxford University?" but any definite opinions it was hard to get from him. I remember some one once asking him what he thought of Lord Beaconsfield. He turned to me, with a smile, and said, "Ah! now that's rather a complicated question, isn't it?" And more he could not be induced to say.

forcing a man to begin his university course in debt, he did not think that, in this instance, there was some cause for advising a dispensation. Pattison was angry; he said, "If a man comes to college, he must come prepared to meet the expenses required of him. You people come up here, and want all sorts of dispensations, and want your scholarships, and want us. We don't want you - -we don't want you we don't want you!" His voice had risen at each repetition. I said I was very sorry to have troubled him, begged his pardon, and rose to go. "No," he said more quietly, “don't go yet, like that. You are coming to walk to the schools with me." I went with him, and soon found that this ebullition had only been momentary. He told me he "had had a bad time of it in the vacation," and I thought at once that his displeasure might be due in part to ill-health. Since then, I have realized how he might well have been annoyed for other reasons. The episode, however, was without any effect on our future relations. We took a walk together a few days later, and all traces of The beginning of the next academical annoyance had disappeared; he was, in year, October, 1878, brought the only oc fact, more than usually friendly, and incasion, so far as I know, on which I called vited me to bring some visitors who were down upon myself the rector's displeas. staying with me, to lunch at his house on ure. I relate the incident, because it the following Sunday. His reluctance to characterizes Pattison, though from a side entertain the suggestion about the dispenof which I knew what I did know by hear-sation for a moment, had seemed to me, say rather than from personal experience. at the time, to involve, in such a man as

Pattison, a contradiction in terms; and that, to a certain extent, there was such a contradiction, gains confirmation from the current report in college to be taken, of course, for what it is worth that in all matters of improvement and reform, the rector was invariably to be found in a minority of two with the most Conservative spirit in the meeting. If such apparent anomalies can and need be explained, the reason may perhaps, in this case, be sought in the fact that Pattison was embittered by the rejection of his larger schemes of root-and-branch reform, and therefore declined to be a party to anything short of that.

art, from the largest to the minutest, from architecture to enamelling; and there aren't more than half-a-dozen men living who have any title to review it."

Pattison's love of nature has been al ready alluded to, and our walks gave frequent opportunity for an expression of it. Another instance of it occurs to me. He had a regular habit of devoting his morning to reading, and was strict in reserving it for that purpose. He could not bear to be disturbed during those hours, and any one who "broke in upon his morning was guilty of treason. One January morning in 1880, I was playing truant from my work to show a friend from London some of the beauties of Oxford. The snow was on the ground. We went to the Broad Walk in the grounds of Christ Church, and there, walking a few yards in front of us, was Pattison. He had "broken in upon " his own morning, and had come out to admire the bare trees covered with hoarfrost, and glittering in the bright sunlight of that clear and beautiful day. But he did not confine himself to admiration. One of the fellows of Lincoln, himself a close practical student of natural history, recently published in the Oxford Magazine an elaborate catalogue of Oxford wild birds. I had the privilege of seeing, in that gentleman's rooms, a supplementary list of a number of varieties, with Latin names carefully added, sent him by the rector, in his own handwriting. That was two months before his death.

During the remainder of my undergraduate days our intercourse went on without interruption. The usual walk was to the Parks, up Headington Hill, or through "Mesopotamia." Once we had a long conversation on ideals, how they varied with different men, and on their practical value. I remember only one characteristic detail. I had observed that to some men the highest ideal in life seemed to be expressed in the words, "After labor, well-earned rest." “And I'm not at all sure," said Pattison, "that those men aren't right." On another occasion, when we had been to Headington, we were coming back along the High; the anti-tramway agitation was at its height, and I expressed my sympathy with the opposition that was being offered to the scheme. "Indeed," said the rector, "now, I shouldn't have expected that at all from you. We have There is one other incident of undercoal-wagons and hansom cabs, and it graduate days that calls for record. I have seems to me there is nothing worse about seen it stated, in one of the articles on a tramway." Meanwhile we had stopped Pattison published after his death, that at Gee's book-shop, and he added, "I he was "very popular with the undergradshould have thought there was nothing uates of his college." That is not the more incongruous about a tramway-car in fact, at any rate it was not so during the the High, than there is about that num-years over which my own observation exber of the Nineteenth Century lying be- tended. Pattison was not unaware of the side that Camden's History of the Reign true state of affairs, and though he would of Elizabeth' in the window." Once we have been the last person to desire or spoke of Mrs. Pattison's "Renaissance of court what is generally understood by Art in France." It was some little time" popularity," he was unwiling that the after its appearance, and I had expressed surprise that in one of the leading literary journals there had, as yet, been no review of it. "That book," said the rector, "is the result of immense labor; and the amount of learning and study that has been brought to bear upon it is truly remarkable. It treats of every branch of

The favorite short "constitutional" for dons was, of course, round the parks, and Pattison had got so accustomed to going round in one direction, turning to the left at the entrance, that he declared it made him giddy to go the other way.

younger men should think him a being to be shunned, or one who felt no concern in their interests, provided they were seri. ous. One day, in my last year, he sent for me, and, after speaking on other subjects, said, "The reason why I asked you to come was this. I feel that the men are afraid of me, think me sarcastic and cynical, and avoid me. Now, it's impossible for me to take or show any interest in their 'kicking-matches,' and their boat. ing; but I don't want them to imagine that I wish to shut myself out from them

if they have any serious interests in which take up his quarters at the "Angleterre," I could help them. On the other hand, I where I was staying. Thus I had daily don't like to force myself upon them opportunities for seeing him, and conversagainst their will, to walk with them if it ing with him. He had come out for his bores them or frightens them, or to talk health and to take a real holiday; and it with them when they would rather be in was delightful to see how he enjoyed his the cricket-field. I want to know from quiet morning strolls along the beach, or you, whether you can suggest anything his country walks; and with what interest that would enable those who care for it, to and admiration he watched the great Atcome to me without any difficulty." Ilantic rollers, or the beautiful sunsets. said it appeared to me to be the best plan | After meals we smoked together, and exfor him to fix a day and an hour when the rector was known to be "at home" for all undergraduates, so that any who really had the desire to come might do so, and the others need feel in no way bound. He said he would think over the idea; and I believe that it was, in some form, subsequently carried out. At the same time, there were those to whom the manner in which Pattison held aloof, comparatively speaking, from the rest of the college, commended itself. One of the subordinate college officials, after expressing to me, during the rector's last illness, the fear that he would not recover, said: "I should be very sorry to lose him. He has been a very good rector - never in. terfered with any one's business, and that's more than you can say of a good many of them!"

Leaving the university did not sever my connection with Pattison. When any thing took me to Oxford, he was ready with an offer of quarters; and whenever I asked his help or counsel, I could rely upon its being forthcoming with the great est promptitude. Any letter that required an answer, he would reply to, if it was possible, by return. The score or two of his letters which I have happily preserved, form a series of touching proofs of his unchanging interest. Sometimes, if he heard indirectly of anything concerning me, he would write and ask for particulars.

For instance: "I hear from Mthat you have been selected, etc. I hope it is a thing both good in itself and in its outlook?... I shall be glad to hear any. thing you can tell me about it." In March, 1882, my occupation took me to Biarritz. Pattison, on hearing this, at once offered me several introductions to friends of his who were staying there, and added, to my great satisfaction, "It is just possible that I might turn up myself at Biarritz during the next fortnight." His next letter confirmed this news, and a few days later I had the pleasure of meeting him at the station. He had ordered a room at the Grand Hotel; but I had heard of a case of scarlet fever there and induced him to

changed cigars; and he was ready for serious or light conversation, but preferred the latter. He made the acquaintance, at the hotel, of a very intellectual gentleman, who knew Pattison, as Pattison knew him, by repute. This gentleman at once tackled the rector on various deep questions, and the two would engage in discussions that lasted for hours. Pattison said to me once: "I feel quite as if I had been doing a hard day's work: I have been having a long discussion with T————, and he is an uncommonly close reasoner: you have to keep your attention concentrated on what he says every minute of the time."

Shortly after our return to England, I asked Pattison's advice as to the publication of a school-book I had been editing. He took the matter up with his usual readiness. "I had thought," he soon wrote, 'if your book had been one likely to be acceptable to the delegates, of proposing to you to let me bring it before the Board of the University Press. But on examining the copy you sent, I found that, though likely to be of great practical use to teachers, its method travelled too far out of the ordinary routine to make it probable that the Clarendon Press would have adopted it. As I did not wish you to have your book rejected, at any rate by us, I thought it best that you should try X. I have accordingly sent it up to X- and written them a note asking the favor of its being looked at. than this it is useless to ask: publishers will not risk their money merely because a friend asks them to do so." When the book was subsequently published, the rector wrote to me about it, and added: "I am almost thinking of getting a pupil on whom I could try some of your exercises. I don't believe half our commoners could do some of them."

More

Meanwhile, with Pattison's help and advice, I had been engaged on another literary project. On one of our Oxford walks he had said to me: "I am going to give you a valuable idea: if I were a younger man, I should carry it out myself.