30 SEPTEMBER 1938, Page 24

AN OXFORD FIGURE

Dr. Routh. By R. D. Middleton. (Oxford- University Press: 525. 6d.) I SUPPOSE that Dr. Routh's chief claim to general fame was on the score of longevity ; and that hiS name, if it is rezhem- bered at all beyond the walls of Oxford, is remembered as that of an extraordinary old person who, living well on into the reign of Queen Victoria, looked as if he had stepped out of an eighteenth-century picture, wig, cassock, bands and all, and having reached his hundredth year consequently achieved some remarkable records. It will interest those numerous persons who have the mentality of letter-writers to The Times on who is the oldest Etonian or Wykhamist or what not, to know that Dr. Routh resided at Magdalen as undergraduate, Fellow and President for eighty-three years, of which he was President for sixty-three and that during that time he admitted 183 Fellows, 234 Demies and 162 choristers. His memories ranged correspondingly. In 1851 he told a friend that he had talked with a lady whose mother remembered Charles II walking in the Parks at Oxford with his dogs. Routh himself had seen Dr. Johnson in a snuff- coloured coat, walking up the steps into University College, and knew well at Magdalen Dr. West, who was in college with the last of the Fellows who had been ejected by James II.

And so on.

But it was not merely these adventitious associations, which any centenarian might have collected, that made Routh a name in his day. He was a person of remark in himself, a scholar of great learning and solid achievement. This biography of him, as is the way with biographies, would have it that he was a good deal more; that as a patristic scholar he had a European reputation ; that it was through his efforts that the Church of Scotland was " brought out of its place of hiding "—whatever that may mean ; that he had some part in bringing about " the close relationship- now existing between the Orthodox Church and our own "—whatever advantage that may be ; and again that he played a role through Bishop Seabury in " obtaining the Episcopate for America "—according to the clerical phrase. There are chapters on all these subjects. But it does not appear that Routh's role in relation to America was more than to tell Seabury to go to Scotland for his consecration--though the old toy was apt in later life to think he had played an important part, as so many octogenarians, and even younger, are liable to do.

With regard to the Russian Church, he simply allowed the eccentric Palmer to go abroad with his backing and make a fool of himself. Palmer's dealings on the Continent make a chapter of absurd reading. And what Routh chiefly. did for the Scottish Church was to dedicate a book to its bishops—

as this one is, in rather flatulent terms.

No ; the real interest of Routh's career, such as it is, rests on more solid, conventional grounds. He was the son of a parson, with very little means and thirteen children to provide for. Yet Routh, by his own abilities and owing to the fortunate circumstance of his being elected President of Magdalen while under forty, made a handsome thing out of his career and must have left a substantial fortune. It is one of the lacunae in this book that we are not told how much he left ; it would have been an interesting piece of social history to know, and more important than many of the ecclesiastical details we are given. With so many children it was a hard struggle for Routh's father, and though he may not have been ambitious, he cer- tainly had an eye to the main chance for his children. His correspondence is filled with such points as this : " The two pupils you have in mind may prove a desirable acquisition_ if the old gentleman should live to be a Bishop and continue any time upon a see " ; or recommending another son to the young Fellow of Magdalen in case " anything offer in his way, and particularly if a Bailiff or Steward be thought of for your estates in Norfolk and Suffolk." A second son did become Fellow of Magdalen, strange to say ; altogether the Rouths must have done well out of the college. In addition the President was presented by his brother-in-law to the fat living of Tilehurst in Berkshire, worth a thousand pounds a year, when the pound was worth a pound.

" The profits of the living this year, as Dr. Chandler died before Harvest," (writes Routh's sister) must, I suppose, be very con- siderable; which will enable you to-have -repairs done, -as also to furnish the Parsonage, where I sincerely wish you may live long

to enjoy health and happiness, as also dear Sam in his new situation."

He 'did.

What a good old institution the Church of England was for them ! No wonder they did not want any change, and were such Tories in politics. There Is a significant sentence in a letter of Routh to Dr. Phillpotts, the famous Harry of Exeter, against the Reform Government's suppression often redundant Irish bishoprics : " In the first place, the transferring the lees of .the episcopal estates to the tenants from the landlords is enormously unjust, and should make the possessors of all manorial property afraid of similar arrangements on varicius 'pleas in favour of the tenants."

It was fear of Reform encroaching upon the Church of England which began the Oxford Movement; and Routh's sympathy for, and treatment of, Newman is one of the best things to his credit. He was rewarded with one of those affecting, nostalgic dedications with which that magic hand seduces the heart : " To Martin Joseph Routh . . . who has been reserved to report to a forgetful generation what was the theology of their fathers " and so on. Routh, though he had a pretty turn for a Latin sentence, never wrote anything like this. His letters are uniformly dullso unlike the delightful specimens we are givert from the correspondence of his friend the eccentric and radical Dr: Parr. It is clear that Parr would make an altogether more amusing biography than Routh.

This is a work of piety and scholarship. It will interest those who are interested in the Church of England, perhaps those who are interested in Oxford, most of all, there can be

no doubt, members of Magdalen. A. L. ROWSE.