A BISHOP AND MUCH ELSE.*

" IT should be borne in mind that' these are Recollections, not Notes from a Diary—a thing I never kept." In Bishop Browne's

case this is a useful announcement, because he has a really wonderful memory, and any one reading his Recollections would think that they were founded on a journal kept, if not daily, at least at frequent intervals. Things great and little, near and remote, seem to have been equally present to him while writing, and the result is a volume which may be opened at random with no fear of being bored with its contents. This is evidence, of course, of something more than a good memory. It means

that the writer is a man who has played many parts, and played them well, and also that he can describe what he has seen and done in a way that carries the reader with him. His earliest recollection is, from circumstances, one of quite unusual vividness. He remembers as a boy of six looking out with his younger brother from the nursery window, which faced the boll tower of York Minster, and watching a dull little light Which was visible

through the sounding-boards. " Suddenly,.it grew in size, and became a blaze. It spread' and began to roar, and we bolted into bed and got under the clothes." They bad seen the cause of the famous fire of 1840. Some carpenters working in the lower bell chamber had left a candle burning on their table which had fallen over and set fire to some shavings. The little boys were at once wrapped in blankets and carried to a house in Castle- gate. A cordon of cavalry had been drawn round the precinct, and the officer-in-charge refused to let the family pass out:—

" My mother always told us that the officer was a very nice- looking, very young man. ' I just smiled in his lace, ducked under his horse, and he didn't call me back.' It is quite vividly in remem- brance that as we passed along the New Market there was a fizzling noise and a smell of something burning. It was a piece of charred wood that had fallen from the sky and burned my blanket."

During each summer the Browns moved to ''a house near Bishopthorpe, and as 'the father of the future Bishop was a

Proctor in the Ecclesiastical Courts of York, the family were specially invited to sit in the great -throne pew in the little village church. They had, however, to be in their places early, " before the grand entrance of the Archbishop preceded by four attendants in sumptuous liveries." This kind of state came to an end, together with the income that supported it, at the death of Archbishop Vernon Harcourt. Archbishop Musgrave, who followed hini, found the See " shorn of its great income," and had only one plain gentleman in black to precede him. All that Bishop Browne remembers of him is that he " took snuff in his throne chair."

One of Bishop Browne's many careers has been jourmtlism. He had begun with Alpine articles in the Cornhill. Magazine, and when the Pall Mall Gazette was projected, a number of the contributors to the Cornhill Magazine were asked to a meeting in London at which Leslie Stephen assigned special departments to some of them. University matters, Alpine climbing, historical • The Recolleeffona of a Biahop. By the Bight ROY. G. P. Browne, D.D. Lou- don : Smith. Elder, and Co. Wei. Sd.. set.1

and educational affairs, and general reviewing fell to Mr. Browne's share. His first article " was passed for press with a charming note-from Frederick Greenwood, some days before the first number appeared." Cambridge, to which a Fellowship at St. Catherine's had brought him back shortly before this, gave him further employment, for UnivOrsity Letters were then a considerable feature in newspapers, and he did not confine himself to a single journal. In 1870 he lAcame editor of the Cambridge University Reports and retained the post for twenty-one years. One of the reporter's functions was to record discussions in the Senate, and the editor had to " take such notes as he could, in 'ordinary hand, and to develop them into a fairly full report." Only once was real objection taken to a report, and on this occasion the words objected to had' been taken doWn on the spot. What had happened was that the speaker had changed his opinion before the time for speaking came, but had forgotten to put the change

into his words. Ai Secretary of Local Examinations Mr. Browne took an active part in throwing them open to girls, and in 188k women were admitted to the Triposes. The direction how

to state the precise place held in the men's honour list by women students ordered them to be entered either as " equal to one

or. " between two " of the men 'students. Mr. Browne had himself drafted this rule, and in 1890 , the Senior Moderator came to hirei Late on the night before the, Tripos List had to -be

read out, and disclOsecl the secret that one of the women Who had been examined came under neither of2these heads. " After a moment's thought I said, Do you mean one of themis Wooden Spoon ? " No ! It's the other end I Then you will have to say when you read out the list of wranglers :--" Women. AboVe the Senior Wrangler," and you won't set beyond the word above." And so it happened. In 1874, Mr. Browne was elected a member of the Council of the Senate, and his opinion of that body is worth quoting. " I have boon on many important councils, commissions, committees, since. No one of them has touched the Council of the Senate of Cambridge in business power, or grip of principle and of detail, or in the complete absence of heat or even annoyance." Yet a full half of this exceptional body " was composed of Senior Wranglers and Senior Classics." This had been the training which had led to these exceptional results. In a physically active, side of his University life Mr. Browne was eminently successful, though, in the opinion of some rigid , disciplinarians, this statement may need to be qualified by " in his , own estimation." Ho was Junior Proptor for two years and Senior Proctor for four, this latter tenure being of unprecedented

length. In these offices his motto was, " Prevention is better than cure." Ho held that in dealing with high-spirited young men a culprit should be allowed to see that " his serape was as natural to him as the infliction of the penalty is to the disciplinary officer." Another rule that he laid down for himself was that a chance gathering of undergraduates should not be hurried. " They should have time for the good that is in them to tell." One conclusion he drew from these maxims was that a Proctor should be seen afar Off. Accordingly, his first act on taking

office was to remove a large beard so as to allow the proctorial bands to act' as 'a warning to keep out of his way. For groat

occasions, such as, " the fifth " and " the'ninth," he had a speci- ally huge pair of bands made. In „these he sought " the glare of the gas lamps; anything to let it be known that the Proctor was coming. And the Proctor made a point of 'coming very slowly." This plan was justified by its results, for he quotes with modest pride the account given of his last " fifth" by a pre decessor in the same office, who went out to see how things were going, and reported that he "had found the Senior Proctor, with a very large pair of bands, alone in. the Market Place, leaning against a gas lamp, and bewailing the degeneracy of the days." This account of his proctorial career is further enlivened by ten pages of good stories of undergraduates and judges. Of these we will only quote one—a conversation with Dr. Cooper, then the Cambridge correspondent of the Times. Sir George Paget had gone to the University Sermon on a Scarlet Day in his black gown. The next Sunday, Dr. Cooper joined the Proctor as he left the University church. On the way the latter took the name of an undergraduate who was not wearing his gown:— " Ah ' Cooper said, you bully the undergraduates and you• daren't say a word when Paget breaks the law about his gown.'— ' It isn't my business to say a word to him. He's not in my Pixie- diction.'—` Whose, then ? The Vice.Chanoollor's.'—fiell not say anything,. And you, 'of course, do nothing.'—' Last Monday I wrote to the lioe.Chancellor and told him' that the fine for Paget's

offence was a guinea.'—' He won't fine him.'—' I told him also that by statute if he didn't fine him he must pay the guinea himself.'- ' He won't.'—' I also wrote to the Senior Auditor of the University. Accounts, warning him that the accounts must not be certified d that guinea is not brought in.' " This is a very neat example of the cumulative value of answering one question at a time. Mr. Browne's residence at Cambridge virtually ended with his

appointment to a canonry at St. Paul's. His was one of the rare cases in which a man's friends hear of his promotion before he himself knows it. On a January morning in 1891, as he

entered the Council Room, the Vice-Chancellor rose from his seat and congratulated him in the name of the Council on the good news. The announcement had appeared in the morning Papers, which Mr. Browne had been too busy to look at, and Lord Salisbury's letter had been sent to an old address and only reached him by a later post. The new office suited the new occupant exactly. It gave him endless opportunities of inter- esting employment, and he made full use of them all. He failed to recover the great bronze flambeaux, " designed by Wolsey for his own lying-in-state," from the Chapter of Ghent, but he got leave to take a cast of one of them, and from this the Chapter of St. Paul's, " at a time when there was a little money in hand," ordered the pair of candelabra now in the Cathedral to be made.

As the junior member of the Chapter, most of the details of Sir William Richmond's mosaic decorations passed through his hands.. He was largely concerned in the creation of the Church Historical Society, of which he was the first Chairman. It is

hardly wonderful, therefore, that when Bishop Temple insisted on his accepting the bishopric of Stepney, there was much lamentation on the part of some very good judges. Archbishop Benson had frankly " blamed the Bishop of London for taking me away from historical studies, and had told me I ought to have persisted in my refusal. Professor Middleton, the Director of South Kensington, had exclaimed with wrath, What a shame!

They've made Browne a Bishop ! Why, he's a man that can do other things!'" This last comment touches on the great difficulty in Bishop-making. It is natural to choose men who have done good work in ether directions, but this may often involve the want of any certainty that the Bishop will do his new work as well as he has done those from which he has been taken. Bishop Browne, however, contrived to do many " other things " both ati Bishop of Stepney and as Bishop of Bristol, and certainly he was never accused of doing his episcopal work negligently.

We have touched on only a few chapters out of the nineteen into which The Recollections of a Bishop is divided. But there

is not one of them which is not full of interesting matter, including a great number of good stories. Can there be a better commen- dation for a book of this kind ?