LAMBETH PALACE.* Tins handsome volume has attractions and excellences apart
altogether from the late Dr. Tait, who wrote the introduc- tion to it. An author at once so modest and so much in love with his subject as Mr. Cave-Browne here shows himself to be, would be the last man in the world to object to this short essay being glanced at before his own work is considered. It is interesting, if for nothing else, as being a specimen of the best style of the late Primate. While essentially a modern man, and
• Lambeth Palace and its Associations. By J. Cave-Brown, M.A. With an Introduction by the late Archbishop of Canterbury. London and Edinburgh ; William Blackwood and Sons. 1892.
seeking to adapt the Church of which he was the pilot to what he terms here "these somewhat democratic times," he had a strong historic sense. His dual nature, indeed, accounts to some extent at once for what robuster and more audacious person- alities considered his individual weaknesses, and for what all fair critics of his Primacy admit to be his official strength. Here, this historic sense, which, though not so literary, was quite as warm as the late Dean Stanley's, is allowed free scope, the
result. being what Mr. Arnold—himself full of this same sense —might style archwology touched with emotion. The following, for example, may not be in the grand, but still it is in a good
style :—" Even if we confine our thoughts to the time—now nearly seven centuries—during which the Archbishops have lived in Lambeth, we find ourselves connected, by the associa- tions which cluster round these walls, with each step in the onward progress of our Church and people towards fuller light and higher liberty. We can find memorials here of the success- ful efforts made to secure freedom from the thraldom of Rome, which marked the reigns of the later Plantagenets and of the Lancastrian and Yorkist Sovereigns. We can trace the mode in which Christian influence was main- tained throughout the land, in spite of marauding Barons and rapacious Kings. We can see how the professed followers of Christ bore themselves amid the straggles preceding that great upheaval of society, in which the hitherto non-privileged classes asserted their rights as Englishmen. We learn how the Church of England, notwithstanding the grave faults of many of its rulers, adapted itself—under the good hand of God—in all these tronblous times, said in the changing days which followed them, to the real wants of the English people. The admonitions of places are, to the student of history, as powerful as the admonitions of books. Men's hearts may well be stirred, and their loyalty to the National Church confirmed, as they trace the many memorials in the architecture, pictures, and orna- ments of Lambeth which bring them face to face with the past, and so arouse their high hopes for the future." It may be doubted if any one but a Scotsman, the native of a country trained to the mental realisation of a demo- cratic ideal by the tradition of Presbyterian parity, and full, as Cobden found it, of the rights of man,—as distinguished from "The Rights of Man,"—could have written so contentedly of "that great upheaval of society in which the hitherto non- privileged classes asserted their rights as Englishmen." As for the Church of England adapting itself "in all these troublous times, and in the changing days which followed them, to the real wants of the English people," that is simply the image of
Dr. Tait's favourite " comprehension " reflected in the evolution of history.
Mr. Cave-Browne very cordially acknowledges his obligations to former historians of Lambeth Palace, and particularly to Mr. Thomas Allen, a resident in the parish, who some time ago com- piled a volume of a popular rather than of an archasological character. As that is now, however, out of print, Mr. Cave- Browne's work supplies a want. His method and style are alike excellent. After telling, in an interesting preliminary chapter, how Lambeth Palace became the London residence of the great English prelates, he then proceeds, somewhat in guide- book fashion, though certainly not in guide-book English, to describe in succession the Great Gateway or Morton's Tower, the Great Hall, the Guard-room, Creamer's Tower, the Tower of the Lollards, the Chapel, &c. Every corner of the old house will be found full of special interest to special readers, who will naturally have their preferences. For our part, we have found most pleasure in the chapters which tell of the pictures in the guard-room—as a series, Mr. Cave-Brown truly says they are unrivalled—and the MSS., &c., in the library. He admits that the portrait gallery "lacks that telling, yet indescribable charm which variety of costume always gives to a collection in which are mixed here and there portraits of warriors and statesmen with more sombrely clad divines." "Yet," Mr. Browne pro- ceeds to say, in a passage which deserves quotation, as an example of his style,—
" A more careful examination will detect variety even here, and variety not without interest. The close-fitting skull-cap of Warham spreads out at the four corners, on the heads of Cranmer and Parker, till it asaurees monstrous proportions over the face of Sheldon, and with Tillotson is stiffening into the trencher-cap, as retained in the Universities of to-day. Again, the plainly-buttoned rochet of the earlier Prelates becomes stiffly frilled round the necks of Abbott and Land, turns into a plain roll-collar with Jason, and expands into a broad fiat one with Sheldon and Bancroft; and then, being nearly covered by the stole, the collar disappears, leaving only the ends visible, which pass into mere broad bands with Tillotson, and as such are still in use on the Episcopal Bench. With Tillotson came another change. Up to his time, in spite of the universally prevalent lay custom of false curls, which had come in with the Stuarts, the Bishops always wore their own hair, at first very short, and gradually descend- ing into somewhat.shaggy curls, as seen in the portraits of Sheldon and Bancroft; but with Tillotson came in again short hair, and the• wig with stiff curia; these are somewhat reduced in size by each succeeding Prelate until, as worn by Manners-Sutton, Howley, and Sumner, they hardly deserved the name, which still clung to them, of the full-bottomed wig ; with the latter, even this entirely disappeared, except on State occasions."
Mr. Cave-Browne rightly describes the Lambeth Library as "a
fountain-head at which the real student of the history of the English Church can drink deeply ; and perhaps it is the Biblical scholar who will find here the richest rewards for his labours, in
the manuscripts of the New Testament, little known and there- fore little used, in which this library is so rich." Among these treasures are an illuminated copy of "The Gospel of Mac,
Durnan," Abbot of Derry and Bishop of Armagh, written in Latin, and belonging to the ninth century ; "De Virginitater by Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmesbnry and Bishop of Sherburn, which is a work of the seventh century ; a copy of Wicliffe'e
Version of the Old and New Testaments ; a variety of Missals ; and a singularly beautiful manuscript of the fifteenth century, bearing the title "The Notable Wise Dietes and Sayings of Philosophers, translated out of French into English, by Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers ; finished December 24th,. aunt) 16 Edward IV." Some of the Lambeth Librarians. havebeen notable men, such as Ducal-el; Todd, the editor of Johnson's Dictionary and biographer of Cranmer ; Edmund Gibson, the Anglo-Saxon scholar ; and, first but far from least,. Henry Wharton, the pupil of Newton, who was a prodigy of
learning, and died when a little over thirty, and at the very time when it might have been expected he would have been able to use that learning for the benefit of his countrymen. Alto- gether, Mr. Cave-Browne's is one of those books which reverent Anglicans and antiquarians, and others who may be neither, but who yet find profit and pleasure in indulging the historical sense, will gladly give a place to on their shelves.
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