ARCHDEACON DENISON.
Oxford and London : J.,Parker And Co. ANYone who really desires to study that very curious creature, the typical John Bull as he comes out when nxo,diffed by genuine confidence in an arbitrary ecclesiastical system which only a mere handful of thinking men can accept, and which,he accepts all the more confidently on account of its seeming arbitrariness, as not only true, but divine, should read Archdeacon Denison's "Notes- of My Life."* The book is like the man,-,-arbitrary, sturdy, good-humoured, lop-sided, wilful ; it contains tedious dissertation interspersed with humorous anecdote—is indeed at once freakish and persistent, odd and stolid, grotesque and intel, ligent, capricious and sagacious. From the beginning to the end you feel what a quantity of genuine fibre there is in the author, and into what very strange, irregular knots and knobs that fibre has distributed itself. There is plenty of magnanimity in him. No man is able to shake hands with his foes more heartily, or to forgive more genuinely those who have been anxious to thwart him. Mr. Ditcher, the clergyman who took ecclesiastical proceedings to test the legality of Archdeacon Denison's doctrine as to the _Real Presence, was spontaneously visited by him after the close of the proceedings, and remained his cordial friend to the day of Mr. Ditcher's death, his widow asking the Archdeacon to preach on the Sunday afterhis funeral. Everywhere through the book there is ample evi- dence how superior the man is to any sort of personal peevishness or self-regard. Evidently the Archdeacon is a strong man morally, —but anything odder or more hap-hazard than the methods °ills mind, it would be hard to conceive. One is apt to suppose that when once a being possessing intelligence is created, the very fact of the possession of intelligence must be of a nature to diminish and attenuate all those tendencies in physical nature which, for want of a better word, we are apt to call " acci- dental " or "capricious." Any one who thinks so should read the curious autobiographical "Notes" of Archdeacon Denison. We ven- ture to say that nothing more irregular and surprising in physical nature could be found than the Venerable Archdeacon. No bee- orchisi no death's-head moth, no winged Dodo that never used its wings, would be so difficult to account for as this sagacious admirer of the arbitrary, this' educated alarmist about education, this denouncer of private judgment who decides by private judgment what is above private judgment, this disobedient homilist on obedience; A good deal of the Archdeacon's " Notes " not unnaturally concerns the subject of education. It is evident that the Arch- deacon recalls with especial pride, as well as much humour,
w hat- he is pleased to call the " discipline " of his own boyish
days. "At present," he says, in his usual jolly, pessimist manner, "there being no such thing as discipline, it is interesting to recall instances " [of the discipline of the past]. And here are some of these instances for which we have to thank the past generation, instances, no doubt, which tended to make Arch- deacon Denison what he is :—
gc There were two curious bits of discipline at that school ; one, that whenever a boy committed a grave offence, every boy of the school was made a party to it ; and a penitential letter was written home by every boy precisely in the same terms, Here is an instance. One night, as we followed the nehers two and two down a passage from the school- rebus to our bedrooms, William said to me, 'George, I hate that usher fellow." So do I,' I said. shall spit on his back,' said he. 'Please don't,' said we shall both be strapped.' Strapping was administered
with a piece of carriage-trace with the buckle-holes in it, through which the air rushed as the strap descended on the hand. 'I shall spit on his back,' said he; and as I expected, the usher having, I suppose, heard whispering, turned round, and William was caught in the act. The next morning, after the due personal treatment of the leading culprit by a prottess more painful than strapping, we were all drawn up in single 'file in the school-room, and every boy, older and younger, had to write from dictation and then to copy from his slate on a sheet of letter-paper, the letter following. Letters then cost eightpence each :— 'My Dear Parents,—We have committed a great sin. For William Denison spat on the usher's back as we went to bed.—I remain, your affectionate son, Airrunit Sum.' There were four Shirt brothers in the school, Arthur, Lionel, Frederick, and Augustus Shirt. I draw a veil Over the feelings and expressions of the Shirt parents upon opening thelour letters, price 2s. 8d. The like thing happened again while I Was there; upon the mission of buying apple-tarts from an old woman over the playground-wall. In this CRSO the sin was of a more general
character, but as in the other case, was made universal My Dear Parents,—We have committed a great sin. For we have bought apple- tarts without the leave of the Master, when we have plenty to eat, and that of the beat quality.—I remain, ttc.' The other point of discipline was, that every boy who had not conducted himself well during the week had no mutton-pie on Saturday. Now this gave the mutton-pie a moral elevation which, in its own natttre, it did not deserve, being composed of what was left on the plates in the preceding days of the week. William had been at school at Esher, with our elder brothers, Evelyn and Edward, before Sunbury. There, one Sunday morning, having lost his hat, he was made to walk to school in a straw coal- Scuttle bonnet of one of the daughters of the house. The ways of discipline are various."
Yes, "the ways of discipline are various," but it is not perhaps immaterial to note that discipline so completely irrational and arbitrary as this, has a tendency to produce, in a sturdy character like the Archdeacon's, not evenly distributed strength, but knota of character that look more like tough excrescences, than the natural armour of a strong soul. Amongst other odd results, it is probably the arbitrary character of the discipline of his day which has made the Archdeacon a little disposed to defend even some thorough abuses, on the ground that there was no "pru- dery and false delicacy in them." Here was the old manner of
"taking leave" from the Eton master, and the Archdeacon's Mamba upon it :—
4‘ Upper School boys, when 'taking leave 'in my time used to slip a X10 note into Reales hand. Being in some fright when I found my- self alone with him in chambers, just as I was putting out my hand I dropped the note on the floor. My tact, if I had any, deserted me, and I stooped to pick it up and present it. So doing, my hand came in collision with Keate's foot, which had followed the note and covered and secured it. Since that time, a great deal of what is called Reform ' has taken place in this and other things at Eton. I don't observe that the Reform 'has done Eton any good. There was a good deal of a sort of prudery and false delicacy, I remember, talked about the note-giving practice," We should have thought it neither prudery nor false delicacy to insist that a teacher's remuneration be received as of right, and not conferred by blushing boys, and seized by unblushing masters, as matter of bounty. But the standard of taste fostered by these supremely arbitrary modes of discipline is as quaint and irregular as the standard of intellectual truth pro- duced by equally strange inculcations of dogma ; and even as re- gards the commonest claims of others, the Archdeacon's confessions tell us, quaintly enough, how little his education had fitted him to appreciate the responsibility of authority. Here is an amusing story of the Archdeacon's first efforts in medicine,—medicine taken out of a little medicine-chest injudiciously presented to him by his mother :-
"I had a gardener then, an old soldier, William Finley; he had picked up somehow a great deal of very graphic language, which he used freely upon the ordinary occasions of life. Ho came to me and said : I'm bad all over, inside and out, wants you to give me some physic. They tells me you've got a medicine-cheat, and a book as be-
longs to - Well,' said I, • I have ; what will you take Some rhubarb,' said he.—' I'll look in the book,' I said, 'and see how much.' Now the book has—I have it still, with the chest—at least my wife has, for I carefully made her a wedding present of both,—the book has at the beginning a table of doses ; quite an inexcusable snare, I think, to simple people. It is constructed on a hypothetical principle'If to an adult a dram, so much to other ages.' The hypothetical part escaped me; an adult, I dram—a dram, that's 60 grains—magnesia to be added upon experience ; how much ? I suppose half-30 grains- 90 grains in all. I got a half-sheet of the Tinies,—I remember telling Mr. Delano, when they made me tell the story at a dinner at Bishop Wilberforce's, that it was the only use I could find for the Times,—pnt it on the dining-table and mixed up. It looked a good deal ; but I said to myself, Must be all right, hero's the book ; Finley's an adult.' He was over 70. So I rang the boll. Here's your physic ; I hope it will put you all right.'—' I be to take all that.'—' Yes, that's just what the book says ; small doses foolish things.'—' All right,' says ho. Then I began to encourage him. Now, Finley, you're not very well, don't try and do any work to-day; go home, keep yourself warm, and tell your who to mix it up in some warm water,—not too much water ; you'll be much better in the morning. I should, if I were you, take it at once.'—' All right,' he said. Poor man his confidence in me had no limits. I thought no more about it till next morning, my conscience was quite easy ; I had done a wise and kind thing ; I had made a good use of my dear mother's gift. When I was dressing in the morning, I looked out of the window, and there was Finlay standing between me and the garden wall. Ho looked, so to speak, shadowy, almost ghostly ; the wall, as it were, was visible through him ; but, as it was daylight, I wasn't afraid. 'Hope you're better this morning ; glad to think you must be, or you would not have come up.'—' Well,' he said, I be a trifle better.'—' Ah,' I said, I thought so ; you took your physic of course.'—' Why, didn't you tell me to take it? I'll tell you all about it. I goes home to my wife, and says, " Thoro, you mix that up ; mind, net much water." "Lord's sake !" she said, "you be not going to take all that ; why it would kill a horse and a cow." "You foolish woman hold your tongue, go and do as I bids you. Master's got a book, and knows a sight more than you." So she goes and mixes up in a slop-basin, and brings it back with a spoon standing up in the middle.' At this part of his report I began to have misgivings. He went on : 'I got hint down ; but it was a tough job,—and goes to bed.' I draw a veil over what followed. I reeled about with laughing, struggling to look sympathetic, but my misgivings increased. His exact account of what had befallen him during the night I took down just as it came out of his mouth. I shall be happy to communicate it ipsissimis verbis,to anybody who may like to complete the tale. 'Well,' I said, as soon as I could steady my voice, 'go into the kitchen, and have some nice warm breakfast, and then we'll see what is to be done next.' Half-an- hour after I was on my way to Oxford as fast as I could go, and went to my dear friend Dr. Wootton. In the course of conversation, I asked him in a kind of careless way about rhubarb, as a guide for my paro- chial practice. 'Well,' he said, it's a fine medicine, and I give good doses of - Yes, what is a good dose 1'—' Eighteen grains is quits enough for anybody.'—' Eighteen grains,' I said, why I gave a man sixty yesterday, and thirty magnesia.' Ho opened his great eyes and said, Is he very old ?'—' Yes, over seventy.'—' Then perhaps 'MO wwoinne, won't die. Go home as fast as you can, and pour in porter and port But it is the sequel of this story which is amazing. Ten days later, says the Archdeacon, the man came to him again for some more of "that there physic." Mr. Denison now knew perfectly well that eighteen grains was a full dose ; more than this, he promised the poor man not to give him more than half what he had given him on the previous occasion, and the half would have been thirty grains. It is difficult to believe,—but the Archdeacon himself tells us,—justly remarking that "many people have been hanged for a less offence than his,"—that he actually gave the unfortunate man forty-five grains of rhubarb and fifteen of magnesia on the second occasion. Finlay survived it, but' we think the Archdeacon does not take much pains to conceal that he dealt with the poor man in a spirit of whimsical caprice which was thoroughly unjustifiable, and indeed, that he played on him a practical joke, the result of whioh, as he well knew, might have been serious.
Some people will think that stories of this kind can have no serious bearing on the Archdeacon's character as a Churchman and a politician. On the contrary, as it seems to us, they have
the closest possible bearing on both. It is hardly possible to read the Archdeacon's account of his own tenacious and sturdy war for his own views of Church matters, in Court and out of Court, in Convocation and out of Convocation, in the Legislature and out of the Legislature, and to read his expressions of theological opinion,—say, as to "Scriptural Difficulties," for instance,—with- out remembering how arbitrary his early discipline had been, and in how irregular and often obtuse a sort of strength it had resulted ; how irrationally strong he could be in refusing to re-examine his assumptions,—how tenacious at times in acting on them as if they were infallible,—and how whimsically, at other times, even in ecclesiastical and spiritual matters, he could dispense with principles which he himself acknowledged as absolutely authori- tative. Take, for instance, the following confession, in relation to the burial of people who are supposed to bare died unrepentant. When we remember that to Archdeacon Denison this is a matter of the highest importance, it is impossible not to find some- thing quite as spiritually whimsical in the confession of omissions in its closing words, as there was of moral whimsicalness in giving the poor gardener, of malice prepense, a dose of medicine nearly two and a half times as big as the doctor had told him was wise or safe :—
" I have often been asked by clergy, what they can do in cases where their conscience is greatly troubled at being required to road 'the Order for the Burial of the Dead' over the body Of a notorious evil liver, living in open habit of deadly sin, and dying so that no man is able to testify to his repentance. My answer has been, by process of inquiry Have you presented such person, while living, to tho Ordinary to be judged ? if found guilty, to be first admonished ; and upon failure to repent and amend his life, to be excommunicated ?'- 'No, I have not.'—' Then, in that case, the desecration of the Church Service, and the grievous scandal of such a burial, rests with yourself. You have no justification to allege upon the merits, as you have cer- tainly none in law, for refusing to read all the Service.' If, on the other hand, such presentment bad taken place, and it had been, that when in the hands of the Visiting Ordinary, the Visiting Ordinary had got rid of it by taking no account of it, then the burden has been shifted from the shoulders of the parish priest presenting, to those of the Ordinary indifferent and recusant. It is not easy to conceive a worse or a heavier burden. I am bound to add here that though, in my capacity of Visiting Ordinary, I have been ready always to judge upon presentment ; in my capacity of parish priest, not resident within the limits of my own archdeaeonry, I fall under my own censure, and have to bear all the burden myself. For I have never presented any ono; I ought to have presented not a few."
With all the strength of the man, you feel throughout the book a certain obtuseness of mind in Archdeacon Denison, no doubt in part due to the arbitrary discipline of his earlier days, and the pride he evidently took in that arbitrary discipline. The worthy dignitary is not only odd, but he takes a pride in his own oddity. He fancies it a sign of strength to be thus eccentric in his ways. He has something like the British habit of exulting in anomalies. No wonder that he justifies himself against Anglican Bishops, against the British Legislature, against the Church of Rome, and against everything but that Ritualism to which, late in life, he has become a convert, on the ground that it is the only adequate testimony to the sacramental doctrine by which be holds so strongly,—and is all the better satisfied with his theological position because he hardly agrees with any one, and hardly any one agrees with him. Even in religious matters he acts very much as he did in medical matters. Having ascertained the maxi- mum dose of a spiritual remedy which the authorities declare it safe to give, he multiplies by some considerable multiplier at his own discretion, and administers it on his own responsibility, or else on a like responsibility refrains altogether from administer- ing the remedy which he himself confesses that he thinks essential. More insular pride in the irregularity of his mental, moral, and spiritual development than Archdeacon Denison's we have seldom met with. Ile has been fighting State education all his life, and he has been in his natural position in so doing. His own education seems to have resulted in educating all the powers which would be apt to render his view of education wilful, and even capricious, and in starving all the others. A sturdy and mag- nanimous English ecclesiastical wrestler no doubt he is ; but a judgment less evenly or more grotesquely developed than his can hardly belong, we suspect, to any public man of his day who is so completely incapable of feebleness of character as Archdeacon Denison,
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