LETTERS TO TIlE EDITOR.
SIR,—My memories of Balliol have lately been reawakened by Professor Knight's interesting Life of Nichol, and, still more, by that charming biography of a charming man, Sir H. Cunningham's Life of Lord Bowen. As my time at Oxford was a very interesting one, the Broad Church tide being then at its full, I hope you will let me say a few words about it.
Mark Pattison once said that Mr. G-oschen and Bowen were the two most receptive of his private pupils,—the two who most quickly and completely assimilated what he taught them. And he added with mock plaintiveness,—" I was accustomed to store up enough food for an hour's coaching ; but these two men consumed their rations in half the time, so that I had to furnish a double supply."
Though I was three years junior to Bowen, I saw a good deal of him. We sat, as Balliol scholars, at the same table in Hall ; I coached with him (as also with Nichol), and both he and I belonged to the Essay Society, of which Sir H. Cunningham says (p. 46), that "it rejected with scorn the depreciatory sobriquet of ' Mutual Improvement Society.'" I think that in my time we accepted the sobriquet with resignation, though we preferred styling ourselves (not very modestly) "The Essay Society," and sometimes "The Wise and Good." The bantering nickname of " The Jolly Pan- theists," imposed on the Society on account of the plus-glum Jowettian sentiments of one or two of its members, was vehemently repudiated by their more devout colleagues, one of whom was T. H. Green.
The Union at the time presented a singular spectacle. Extreme Toryism was the creed of the great majority ; and, by a not unnatural reaction, an advanced and aggressive Liberalism was the creed of nearly all the beet speakers. " It was A. V. Dicey," says Sir H. Cunningham, "who shared with Bowen the honour of debate in the opinion of the critical. Dicey, however, was bard to hear and difficult to follow." This, I own, seems to me hard on Mr. Dicey. Following the example of outspokenness about the living, I will express my convicti;ri that he was by far the most effective debater in the Union. The late General Bruce, who was present at some of the debates in attendance 'on the Prince of Wales, once said in my presence that it was very rarely indeed that the oratorical faculty was so highly developed in so young a man. Miscuit utile dulci ; and he thus steered between the Scylla of Bowen and the Charybdis of T. H. Green. Green, with all his abilities, had a way of enunciating unpopular views with a solemn and somewhat apostolic fervour which at once bored and irritated his audience. On the other hand, there was in Bowen's look and voice, perhaps without his knowing it a suggestion of persiflage, which was admirable in some of our stormy dis- cussions on private business, but was less appropriate in political debates. He seemed incapable of warming up ; and thus it fell out that the first undergraduate of his time hardly gave the impression of being quite serious. And this brings me again to the thankless task of making a not wholly favourable comment on my much-admired friend :-
" The Rugby monitor," writes the biographer, " was supposed to pride himself on his moral thoughtfulness ; ' a scoffing world denounced him as a prig. There were those who thought that they had discovered in Charles Bowen, on his first arrival at Oxford, a touch of this Rugbeian temper, lurking under an almost deferential urbanity of manner. If it were so, it speedily dis- appeared under the wholesome influences of the larger world to which he now belonged. No one was ever less anxious to pose as superior. His aim seemed rather to keep his superiority well out of sight."
True ; but he was slow in acquiring the art to conceal his art. At first it cost him a conscious effort to "keep his superiority out of sight ; " and his hearers were sometimes conscious of his conscious effort. Perhaps, too, the long continuance of that effort, and also of the effort to keep social inquisitors at bay, left permanent traces on his voice and manner. Hence it came about that, in the opinion of unfriendly critics, he retained to the last more or less of that inelastic and, as it were, stereotyped graciousness which outsiders, according to their several standpoints, have variously denominated the Rugby manner, the Balliol manner, or the Oxford manner. Per- sonally I should prefer saying that he was a complete embodiment of what a yet more famous Rugbeian has called sweet reasonableness.
When I coached with Bowen in 1858 I asked him what he thought of Positivism, towards which I was at the time strongly attracted. He perplexed me by answering that he looked upon "Jowett as a further development than Comte." But I thought that I took in the meaning of this hard saying of his when, on my subsequently hinting to him that some of his principles might lead to complete scepticism, he replied, "If that is the logical conclusion I decline to draw it And if I am inconsistent, I am not more so than Jowett ! " Doubtless he did not intend this apologia pro fide sud to be taken quite seriously ; and doubtless, also, he would have expressed himself differently at the close of his life. But throughout his life he continued, rightly or wrongly, to be what may be called a Neo-Anglican, thus showing himself a loyal disciple of his and my beloved Master. For Jowett, more by his example and influence than by his direct teaching, imbued some of his followers with the belief that, even when most harassed by spiritual doubts, a philosopher is commonly wise in trying to reform religion from within,—in broadening and enlightening, instead of forsaking, the theology of his country. " We are born Anglicans as we are born English- men; and Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, is what the Ideal, symbolised in Anglican forms and worshipped. with Anglican rites—is what the God of our fathers—says to us." The writer of these words thinks that when he used them in 1893 he was giving expression to the view which was. then entertained by Jowett and Bowen as well as by himself._
Hotel d'Angleterre, Biarritz, February 1st.
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