THE LATE REV. F. W. ROBERTSON.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")
do not know whether your columns are exactly the fitting channel for a short observation which I wish to make, but I think that your readers, perhaps more than those of any other journal I could single out, will sympathize with the observation.
I happened the other day to be in Oxford, which I had not visited for some years, and went to Brazenose Chapel, for the purpose of seeing the window erected a short time since to the memory of Frederick Robertson, of Brighton. With the window and its design I have no wish, even the very slightest, to find fault. The window qua window may be a very good window, though somehow I had had the false impression that it was in a much more prominent position over the communion-table. It is Only One of the ordinary windows in the northern wall filled with stained glass. My own impression, and that of a clerical friend who was with me, was one of disappointment that so meagre an acknowledgment should have been erected of such a man. Had it merely been a memorial window by his fellow-collegians or personal friends, nothing would remain to be said. But the outer world of admirers was allowed to take part in the memorial, and among them some half-dozen bishops, including Drs. hirlwall and Ewing, were anxious to do him honour. Dean Stanley, Tennyson, Ruskin, and the late Professor Conington also abetted the design. To my personal knowledge, a much handsomer and more costly memorial might with the greatest ease have been raised, for in some instances the inteuded liberality of subscribers had to be checked by the Committee. I offer no suggestion, nor do I wish to draw any invidious comparison ; but remembering that scarcely five years have elapsed since Keble's death, while already a goodly college is rising to his memory, I feel almost constrained, after my last visit to Oxford, to ask whether Robertson's friends have publicly expressed their love to their teacher as fully as they could wish to do ; whether there are not very many who would heartily rejoice to testify it more substantially. Keble's " Christian Year" has been a consolation to thousands throughout the world who speak the English tongue, not the least so to Robertson him- self. But has not Robertson in an equal degree (I venture to say a higher degree) been a teacher to this generation ? Has not he as much as any clergyman of recent times vindicated the union of faith with freedom, —of true independent manliness with reverence and fervent piety ?—I am, Sir, &c., S. C. 0.
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