H.M.I.: Some Passages in the Life of One of H.M. Inspectors of Schools

by E. M. Sneyd-Kynnersley

FOOTNOTES:

[15] See “Memoir of Dean Goulburn,” page 15.

[16] From a professional point of view Erasmus’ Geography was lamentable. He speaks of “this sea-side saint,” and says that the place is on “the extreme coast of England on the North West.” It is 7 miles from the Wash.

CHAPTER XI
MILLER’S

“A merrier man
Within the limit of becoming mirth
I never spent an hour’s talk withal.”
Love’s Labour’s Lost.

It was not in Norfolk that I met the Rev. Joseph Miller, Hon. Canon of his Cathedral, Rural Dean, and formerly Fellow and Tutor of some College in Oxford. Having at one time or another inspected schools in ten different counties I may leave the venue uncertain. It is merely for convenience that I record the visit here.

At the time when I made his acquaintance, he had acquired some notoriety in clerical circles in a singular way. In those days—I know not whether the rule is altered—the Bampton Lecturer at Oxford was appointed by a committee: there was a list of subjects to which the lecturer was confined, and any one who felt a call to the University pulpit sent in his application, specifying the particular subject upon which he was moved to discourse.

Miller proposed to give a course of lectures on “The Failure of Moses.” I suppose he sent in a syllabus with his application: but possibly the syllabus which he showed me was made merely for his own use.

The argument, briefly stated, was that in spite of the divine and miraculous assistance which it enjoyed; in spite of the purity and simplicity of its doctrines, the Mosaic system had never up to the time of the Captivity spread over even the little country of Palestine. Assuming the correctness of the popular chronology, there was an interval of 881 years between the Exodus and the Captivity, and at no time during that period was the country as a whole free from gross idolatry. But after the return from the Captivity idolatry seems to have disappeared in the course of years; at least there is no mention of it in the Gospels. To what was this change due? Clearly to the introduction from the East of the doctrine of a future life, with future rewards and punishments.

Moses and his followers (said the Canon) promised temporal prosperity to the righteous, and in the end ruin to the ungodly. This was not the common experience, and the people, seeming to gain little by virtue in this world, and having no hope for another, tried other forms of worship, which combined pleasure with religion.

Solomon, who was strong enough to enforce uniformity, became the founder of the doctrines of Religious Equality and Concurrent Endowment, and applied them to his own household. Then came the schism, and things became worse. Miller’s description of Jeroboam as the first Home Ruler, the parent of Free Churches, would have convulsed the undergraduate gallery. The lectures would have set Oxford in an uproar between the Torpids and the Eights, and when published in the following year would have filled the Guardian and the Spectator with correspondence. They would eventually have attracted the attention of Convocation, and odium theologicum would have blossomed into a gravamen, or even an articulus cleri.

But it was not to be. The committee chose another man, and an informal message was sent to Miller to the effect that the success or failure of Moses was not among the Bampton list of subjects. Moreover, his theory was opposed to Article VII. One Divinity Professor privately complained to Miller’s Bishop that he should have a Rural Dean holding such views “directly contravening the Articles.”

“Let us see the Article,” said the wary Bishop; and he opened a Prayer Book:

“Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old Fathers did look only for transitory promises.”

“It seems to me, Professor, that the Article is satisfied. The Rural Dean will not be heard.”

“But, my dear Lord, he may preach the same doctrines from his own pulpit.”

The Bishop picked up Liddell and Scott, and turned to his favourite passage in that work:

ὀρθρο-φοιτο-συκοφαντο-δικο-ταλαίπωροι τρόποι:
“early-prowling base-informing sad-litigious plaguy ways”

“There is a branch of that Society in the Diocese, and I shall receive prompt intimation of any breach of Article VII.”

The Professor “retired hurt,” as cricketers would put it; and his score was 0.

Miller told me the whole story, and probably improved it a little. Who (except the present chronicler) does not throw in a little pourboire for the ever thirsty reader? “But,” he added with mock resignation, “it has cost me a mitre. Junior Proctor I was: Rural Dean I am: Bishop I shall never be. Do you remember Scott’s (of Balliol) lines on Shuttleworth, Warden of New, when, according to Common Room gossip, that dignitary refrained from giving his vote for fear of imperilling his promotion?” He opened a drawer, and in the very tones of the Master he read:

ἀνδρῶν δ’ οὒχ ἡγεῖτο περικλυτὸς Ἀξιόκερκις,
στῇ δ’ ἀπάνευθε μάχης πεφοβημένος εἵνεκα μίτρης:

“Shuttleworth, Warden renowned, led not his men to the battle;
Standing aloof from the fray, much afraid on account of the mitre.”

“No one can say that of me, and I shall not wear the mitre.”

He never did: but in fullness of time he made an excellent Dean.

One year I sent him formal notice of his school inspection, and received a pathetic reply. I had chosen the very day which he had fixed for a ruridecanal meeting. He could not put it off, and he could not leave his rurideacons unshepherded, even to wait upon H.M.I. Would I forgive him, and, partly in evidence of forgiveness, partly by way of penance for having selected a day so obviously unsuitable, would I dine with the “Rurideacons” at 5.30—old Oxford hours, and convenient in the country, because it enabled the brethren to dine, and to get home before dark, without “falling out by the way”? He added in a P.S.—“Towzer has got the gout and can’t come.”

I was glad Towzer could not come: I had seen him last at his own school, when he was mad with gout, and shook his fist at me in his fury. Miller knew this.

On the appointed day I examined the school, and, when the afternoon work was done, strolled up to the Rectory, to wait for the arrival of the exhausted clerics.

There were seven or eight of them at dinner: the rest went empty away. It would be easy to describe the guests individually, but all the clergy between the North Sea and the Irish Channel, between Carlisle and the borders of Salop, would waste their precious time in hunting for the lineaments of themselves, or their neighbours. I need mention only two: first, the Archdeacon, who had views about the Burials Bill (which was the burning question of that day), the Revised Version, and the Unity of Christendom. He was full of goodness; rather lacking in humour, and rather hostile to inspectors, whom he regarded as a lay and inferior form of archdeacon. There were two Archdeacons in the diocese, both worthy, and both wooden; so that Canon Miller had said, in his epigrammatic way, “The Archdeacon is the oculus episcopi, and our Bishop suffers from that form of ophthalmia which is known to the faculty as amaurosis, or dullness of sight.”

The other notable was the Rev. O. Goodfellow. He was the butt of the Rural Deanery. For five tedious years he had toiled at Oxford for his degree; his college had ejected him at the end of his fourth year, and he had taken refuge in a Hall. There he exhausted the pass-coaches of Oxford, and he might have exhausted his father’s patience, but a soft-hearted examiner took pity on him, and his fate was like that of Augustus Smalls of old:

“Men said he made strange answers
In his Divinity;
And that strange words were in his Prose
Canine to a degree:
But they called his vivâ voce ‘Fair,’
And they said his books would do;
And native cheek, where facts were weak,
Brought him in triumph through.”

Possibly he might have done better in the schools if he had not devoted the October term to football, the Lent term to the Torpids, and the summer term to cricket. There is little time for reading, if a man really tries to do his duty by his college in these three branches of industry. In his parochial work his athletics helped him greatly; for the rest he was the most good-natured of men, and his wife was charming. Every one laughed at him, and everybody liked him. Also he was known to all men as Robin.

The dinner was simple and good; the conversation was varied, except in two directions: the Canon announced at the outset that if any one mentioned the Burials Bill or the word “education” he should be sconced. This, as my neighbour on the left remarked sotto voce, trumped the Archdeacon’s best trick, and left me without a card to lead.

I have omitted to mention Mrs. Miller, most delightful of hostesses, whom I, “as the representative of the Crown,” had, with friendly laughter, been instructed to take in to dinner. At this moment she asked me confidentially what would happen if she were sconced. I told her that the penalty in the case of a man was to pay for a quart of beer for the company; but that if the sconcee could drink the whole quart without stopping to take breath, the penalty rebounded on to the informer; presumably in the cases of “lunatics, infants, and married women” (under the law of that date) the guardian, parent, or husband would be liable. I gave this legal opinion with some solemnity, and the company rather embarrassed me by suspending their conversation that they might hear the decision of the Court. The Archdeacon, who, like St. Peter, “was himself a married man,” showed marked disapproval, and I hastily diverted discussion by adding that I had seen the draught completed, and the penalty reflected.

Johnson, my left-hand neighbour, a Yorkshire man, said that in his county it would not be a remarkable feat. “I remember a case in point,” he continued; “a discussion arose at the ‘Red Lion’ in ——ton, whether any man could drink two quarts without stopping to take breath. Finally it was agreed that if such a man existed, it was Will Pike. Bets were made, Will was sent for, and the case was laid frankly before him; would he try?

“To the surprise of his backers he hesitated, and at last asked whether they could give him a two-three minutes just to see about it. This was conceded; Will retired, and in less than three minutes he returned, and drank his two quarts in manner prescribed. The opposition paid up, but one man, feeling a little sore, complained of the delay. Why didn’t Will begin at once?

“Will hesitated a minute, and then confessed that he himself didn’t feel quite sure of his ability—I might say ‘capacity’—so, to make sure, he had just stepped down to the ‘Black Lion’ to try. As he stood there, he contained four quarts.”

Mrs. Miller was quite unmoved by the horror of this anecdote; she laughed with the rest, but added a word of caution to me: “They do very strange things in Yorkshire, Mr. Kynnersley; if you could hear Mr. Johnson’s fishing stories, you would add to your knowledge of natural history.”

“This is hard,” said Johnson, plaintively; “Mrs. Miller alludes to a very remarkable experience of mine last June. I was fishing for trout in the West Riding, and a farmer offered to show me the way, and gave me some hints. He pointed out the best pool to begin on; advised a particular fly; and specially charged me, when I hooked a trout, not to let the line get slack, or the fish would get clear. A big trout took the farmer’s pet fly, and by bad luck I stumbled against a root, let the line slack as I fell, and in a moment the fish drew the line over a sharp-edged rock, cut it, and sank.

“‘Now watch him,’ said the farmer: I saw that trout slowly rise, and swim to a log that checked the current: there it worked with its mouth against the wood, till it had extracted the hook: it caught the hook between its jaws; swam close to the log, and deliberately planted it with its barb fixed in the soft wood. Finally it drew back, and contemplated its trophies. There was a complete row, January, February, March, April, the Mayfly....”

A shout of indignant laughter cut short the list. Only the Archdeacon was grave. He waited till the “mirth unseemly” was done, and then in solemn tones asked Johnson whether this had really happened to him.

“Well, not exactly to me, I admit: it was a friend of mine who witnessed the feat: but the story is more effective in the first person. I hope, Mr. Archdeacon, you don’t doubt my friend’s veracity? He is a Diocesan Inspector.”

“Oh, not at all,” said the other hastily. But he looked grave, and Mrs. Miller crumbled her bread.

“Very hearty, genial sort of folk in Yorkshire, are they not?” I interposed by way of eirenicon.

“Very much so: not quite that refinement of thought and manner which stamps the caste of—er—the Lower House of Convocation,” said he, with a glance at the sceptic. “I remember a singular instance of this so-to-say lack of delicacy. A young doctor in my first parish was coming home late at night, when he heard the noise of wheels; then a crash, and then a shout. He ran hastily in the direction of the sound, and by the help of a feeble moon and a cart-lantern found a young collier in difficulties: a wheel had come off the cart, and he was extricating what seemed to be a long box. The doctor offered first aid, which was readily accepted.

“‘Aw’ve ’ad a reight mullock (a regular misfortune), tha’ sees. Aw’ve been ovver tut t’Union, wheer ar owd man deed, an getten leeave to tak ’im hooam, and burry ’im in t’ Church yard, an nar me cart is brokken daan: aw s’all hav to leeave all t’ job in t’ field whol mornin’. Nowt’ll mell (meddle) on ’em.’

“It was his father!

“The doctor gave a hand, and together they carried the light shell down through the gateway into the field, and left it in a corner. The driver turned his lantern on his helper’s face, and said briskly:

“‘Why, it’s Maister Smith, t’ yung doctor, for sewer?’

“Smith assented.

“‘Sithee,’ said the collier confidentially; ‘aw’ll tell tha wot aw’ll do’; and, coming closely to him, he said in an undertone, ‘Aw’ll sell tha t’owd un fer awf a crawn.’

“It was his father.”

Mrs. Miller shuddered. “If any one mentions Yorkshire again,” she declared, “I will talk about the Burials Bill (which seems much wanted in that county), and if the Canon is sconced, and drinks all that beer, he will have the gout, and I pity the Rural Deanery.”

Johnson chuckled with the satisfaction of a man who has hit the mark, and the conversation became general. The Archdeacon tried to interest our hostess in the Revised Version, but she did not know the aorist from the paulo-post-futurum. She skilfully played a spade, and introduced gardening: but he did not know a pelargonium from a potentilla. Then she led a small club, and brought in the Girls’ Friendly Society Annual Meeting, and he followed suit.

Some one mentioned the Bishop, and though not much could be said about the local Diocesan in the Archdeacon’s presence—for as you would not abuse a man’s eye to the owner, so you should not abuse the owner to the eye—yet it led to talk about bishops generally, and we became anecdotical, as we ate our gooseberry tart. At that date men told stories of S. Wilberforce, and Magee: Stubbs and Temple were not yet in all men’s mouths. Most of the stories were familiar, but we enjoyed them as old friends, and in the telling of them, and in the subsequent discussion, curious light was thrown on the gradual accretion and expansion to which such legends are subject. In the case of one well-known story we were able to trace the aboriginal myth:

“Bishop Magee was at a meeting of bishops, discussing the rubrical words ‘Before the table.’ He wrote on a bit of paper, and passed it to a colleague:

“‘Before the table’ means ‘at the north end of the table.’ Qu.: was ‘the piper that played before Moses’ standing at the north end of Moses?”

And this is the complete legend, many years younger.

The Bishop of Peterborough was standing on a railway platform in Northamptonshire, waiting for a train, when he was accosted by a prominent Evangelical clergyman in his diocese, who was much exercised about the question of the “Eastern Position.” “My Lord,” said the latter, “the case is perfectly clear: when the rubric says ‘Before the table’ it means standing ‘at the north end of the table.’”

“I see,” replied the Bishop, meditatively; “in my country we have a saying, ‘By the piper that played before Moses’: hitherto I have always supposed that the piper stood in front of Moses: now I see that he stood at the north end of Moses. Here is my train: good morning.”

The stories of Wilberforce were equally familiar, and all went to illustrate what we may call his diplomatic talent. One came from private sources, and may perhaps be recorded here. A man fresh from the Oxford diocese told it:

There was a great function of some sort in a church near Oxford, and many clergy had assembled to meet the Bishop, and were using the schoolroom as a vestry. Five minutes before service time the Rector came in great trouble to Wilberforce: the clergy had been specially requested to bring their surplices, but Mr. A. and Mr. B. had come with black gowns, and the effect would be ruined: would the Bishop speak to them?

“My dear Mr. X., leave them to me,” was the only reply.

Three minutes passed, and again the Rector pleaded for help: “Leave them to me,” was repeated.

Just before the clock struck the Bishop moved down to the two black-legs. “How do you do, Mr. A.? so glad to see you here: will you read the first lesson for us? How do you do, Mr. B.? will you read the second lesson? so much obliged.”

Greatly flattered, the two men hastily borrowed white robes, and the situation was saved.

“That,” he added, “is a true story.”

I resent this sort of warranty. It has a tendency (firstly) to imply that previous stories were not true: (secondly) to assume that truth is better than fiction. Moved by this feeling I ventured to interpose. If truth was to gain extra marks, I knew a Wilberforce story of such authenticity that it was vouched by a Judge of the Common Pleas, and a Bishop: and I offered this contribution to the chronicles of the evening:

It happened just after the Summer Assizes at Oxford that Mr. Justice Keating was going on to Worcester; and in the carriage with him (among others) was Bishop Wilberforce. Opposite the latter was a seat untenanted, but littered with correspondence. A lady looked in, just before the train was starting, and asked whether the empty seat was engaged:

“Occupied,” said the courtly prelate with a courtly smile, and the lady moved hurriedly on.

He turned to the judge: “‘Occupied,’ not ‘Engaged’; you observe the distinction: I have a great deal of work to do in the train, and the guard is good enough to allow me the use of a second seat for my papers.”

The judge, an Irishman by birth, was much tickled, and told the story to a friend in London. The friend repeated it at a dinner table, where Archdeacon John Allen of Salop was a fellow guest; and concluded with much virtuous indignation, boldly asserting that the distinction was inconsistent with honesty. The Archdeacon was the most excellent and the most combative of men, except his brother Archdeacon of Taunton (Denison). He went to the root of the matter by denying emphatically that the Bishop ever made the remark, and undertook to get his Lordship’s authority for his denial. Accordingly he wrote to Cuddesden that night: told his story in full, and asked for an official contradiction. The maligned man vouchsafed no answer, good or bad: only he forwarded the petition to the Bishop of Lichfield, and wrote at the bottom:

“Dear Bishop of Lichfield,

Can’t you find something for your archdeacons to do?

Yours always,
S. Oxon.”

The man who told me the story had, I believe, heard it from Sir Henry Keating. I repeated it to a clerical friend, who, when I reached the end, said, “Yes, that is quite right: I was examining chaplain to the Bishop of Lichfield, and he told me the story.”

A vehement discussion arose during dessert: some accusing, others excusing, and Mrs. Miller looked anxious. But the Canon broke in, just as she was preparing to retreat to the drawing-room: “Why,” he exclaimed, “do you have two standards of morality? Let me tell you two stories: I cannot tell them in parallel columns, but you must put them side by side in your minds.”

He told them in order, and I, the chronicler, put them in parallel columns:

The Bishop.

The Premier.

He went to a provincial town for some function: the clergy and others met in the Assembly room of the chief hotel; and there was to be a procession through the streets. While they were robing, an elderly farmer came hurriedly into the room, made straight for the Bishop, and greeted him heartily. “How do you do-o?” said the Bishop: “so glad to see you: how is the old grey?” “Very hearty, thank ye, my Lord, and the grey mare too: very good of your lordship to remember the old lass.” “So-o glad,” purred the Bishop: “so good of you to come: good bye.” “Who’s your friend?” said one, when the door was shut. “Really, I have no idea.” “Why, you asked him after his old grey.” “Yes,” replied the Bishop reproachfully; “but when you see a man with a great coat covered with grey hairs, you may assume that he has been driving a grey horse.”

Lord Palmerston and Sir J. Paget (who told the story) were walking down Bond Street. A man came up and saluted the statesman. “How do you do, Lord Palmerston?” “Ah, how do? glad to see you: how’s the old complaint?” The stranger’s face clouded over, and he shook his head: “No better.” “Dear me: so sorry: glad to have met you: good bye.” “Who’s your friend?” said Sir James when the stranger was gone. “No idea.” “Why, you asked about his old complaint!” “Pooh, pooh,” replied the other, unconcernedly: “the old fellow’s well over 60; bound to have something the matter with him.”

“Now when you hear one story, you say, ‘Good old Pam’ and admire his worldly wisdom: when you hear the other, you say ‘How like Sam’ and deplore his crafty cunning.”

We looked at one another, and shame covered our faces. “Agreed,” said Johnson: “S. Oxon was great; he was genial, and he was witty. What was his best saying? I am inclined to give the first prize to his comment on Bishop X’s marriage. Let me recite it. The Bishop, you remember, married some one of humble station, and that so quietly that no one knew of it for some time. Then there was an outcry, and the Bishop resigned the see. This was reported to Wilberforce, who remarked that his right-reverend brother might fitly be appointed to the See of Ossory and Ferns, then vacant, for he believed ferns were cryptogamous.”

The laughter was partial, for certainly Goodfellow, and possibly another, besides Mrs. Miller, failed to catch the point, and the Archdeacon seemed in doubt whether the story were quite proper: but Mrs. Miller turned calmly to me, and begged that I would perform the necessary surgical operation, if I was quite sure——eh?

“Quite safe,” I assured her: “I examine in Botany: plants which have visible flowers and so on are phanerogams: the others, which marry in secret, are cryptogamous: ferns are cryptogams.”

“No joke can survive a post mortem”: Mrs. Miller smiled sadly and left us.

“Have a cigar before you go?” said our host, and we made for the study.

CHAPTER XII
MILLER’S STUDY

“Pereant qui ante nos nostra narraverint.”

But not all. I stopped in the hall to search my great-coat pocket for my pipe, and I overheard the farewell of the Archdeacon. Domestic circumstances called him home, and the Canon remained to see him off the premises. It fell to me, therefore, to break to the others the news that the venerable one would not join them. They bore up.

“He can’t take my new hat,” said the Rev. Patrick O’Brien, LL.D., “it hasn’t the curly brim: but he gets first pick of the umbrellas. I suppose he was created for some wise purpose, but he doesn’t eat, he doesn’t drink, he doesn’t talk, and he doesn’t smoke. Hwat can ye do with um?” And he lit a fat cigar.

“Reminds me of what Topers of Brasenose said to the Professor,” commented an elderly rector named Oldbury: (Oxford; high and dry; broadcloth, silk hat, bit of a squarson; good old chap). “Do you remember Topers?” he asked me.

I pleaded comparative youth.

“Ah, of course. Well, Topers and another man were dining at Balliol High Table with one of the dons, and the only other don present was Professor Aldrich, who hated Topers and all his ways, and was infinitely disgusted to meet him as a guest. Topers was quick to see this, and excelled himself in wit and anecdote, while the Professor was mute. The dinner was prolonged: the undergraduates departed: even the scholar whose duty it was to say Grace was released, when Topers turned to his host, and pleaded for a bottle of that admirable Balliol port to mellow the Stilton. This was too much for Aldrich: he got up and said, ‘Gentlemen, you will find coffee in the Common-room, when you are ready for it,’ and he was stalking down the empty hall.

“Topers rose from his seat with tragic solemnity: ‘Go, sir,’ he said, with a majestic wave of his hand, ‘and take with you that appreciation of the good things of this world which Heaven has not given you, and the conversation of which we have heard not a word.’”

Ah me! As the others laughed, I saw the old Hall, now used as a library, the three black-gowned figures at High Table, the empty Hall half-lighted, and at the far end two or three scouts who were clearing away dishes, turning stupidly to stare at the short square don with firm-set chin and gleaming eyes; while John de Baliol, Dervorguilla, his wife, “and others, benefactors of this college,” in their gilt-framed pictures, looked on with the cold impartiality of Gallio.

“Topers was a brilliant man,” said Miller, free from his Archdeacon: “he had the marvellous gift of concentration which so few possess.”

“Would you call it absorption, Canon?” murmured Johnson: and there was a stifled laugh, which annoyed Miller: Topers’ weakness was notorious.

“Concentration, I prefer. Day after day he used to go to Parker’s, the bookseller’s in the Broad, and take up the new book of the day. As he stood there, he read in spite of all distractions, and picked the entire marrow of it before he came away. What a faculty for a barrister, a judge, a statesman to possess! Yet he did nothing but make epigrammatical remarks which are mostly forgotten. I never meet a man called Littler without thinking of Topers. Littler came up for vivâ voce in Collections: ‘Mr. Littler,’ said Topers with venomous looks, ‘your Greek prose is disgusting, your Latin prose is disgusting, your translation is disgusting, and your name is ungrammatical.’”

“What was his name?” asked Goodfellow, whose mind travels slowly.

“Topers,” said the narrator hastily, determined that there should be no more post mortems; and went on, while Goodfellow pondered on the grammatical defects of this proper noun: “It was severe; but a more caustic address is recorded of the great Dean Mansel. That eminent philosopher was examining a raw Cockney in Greek. The lad came to the word ‘hippos,’ which he pronounced ‘ippos,’ and translated ‘orse.’ ‘I can understand your calling it ORSE,’ drawled Mansel, ‘for I suppose your father and mother called it ORSE, and you never heard it called anything else: but I can’t conceive why you should call it IPPOS, because I don’t suppose they ever heard the expression.’”

“Mansel was great,” Oldbury remarked: “Tommy Short was brilliant: greatest and most brilliant was Henry Smith of Balliol. Did you ever hear his comment on the mathematical papers of two of his friends? Brown and Jones were in for what is called ‘Second Schools,’ that is to say, a pass in Mathematical Greats after the Classical Honours examination. ‘How did you get on to-day, Mr. Brown?’ he asked.

“Brown produced the paper of Questions: ‘In the Euclid I did that, and that, and that; I left out those, and I had a shot at those. In the Algebra I did those, and left out those.’

“‘Oh yes,’ said Smith, without faintest comment: ‘and Mr. Jones, what did he do?’

“‘In the Euclid he did those, and left out those; in the Algebra he did those and left out those.’

“‘Oh yes,’ said Smith with increased politeness: ‘then I should think he would be ploughed TOO.’”

What evil spirit prompted Robin Goodfellow to rush into the fray? When was any anecdote of his not condemned? Yet at this moment he started forward:

“I say, I heard a good story the other day,” he began, chuckling feebly at the reminiscence; “and I doubt if even you, Miller, ever heard it before. A woman brought her girl to be christened, and when the parson, you know, asked her to name the child, she said, ‘Luthy thir,’ because she lisped, don’t you know. ‘Lucifer!’ said the parson, ‘you might as well call him Beelzebub: I shall christen him John,’ and so he did. Good, wasn’t it?”

The story was not well received. “You’ve forgotten the end, Robin,” shouted one man: “when I first heard that story at a private school in Lancashire about thirty years ago, it went on:

“But the father muttered, ‘Tha’st called hoo Jahn, and hoo’s a wench.’” (General assent.)

The Canon rose wrathfully from his seat: “Goodfellow, you call that a new story! do you know that it is to be found in the ‘Life of St. Augustine,’ in the chapter describing his reception in Kent in the year 596? Where is the book?” And he went to the bookshelves, picked up a huge folio, and read with some fluency:

Inde, precibus finitis, postquam omnes dispersi essent, advenit femina filiolam in manibus gerens. “Quid petis, mea filia” inquit Augustinus: “Ut infantem baptizare velis” respondet mater. (H’m, it’s very poor print.) Quo concesso omnes redierunt, et ad Fontem aggrediebantur.

“Now that is very interesting,” interposed Johnson, to give the Canon time. “You see ‘Fons’ would not be the font, of course, but a spring: Augustine, no doubt, was preaching on a hillside, and at the foot in the meadow there would be a fons, or spring. I beg pardon for interrupting you, Miller.”

“Not at all,” said the Canon, grinning with complete understanding of the motive: he had spent the interval in careful study of the folio, and now resumed more easily:

“Nomina hunc infantem” inquit sacerdos.

“Lu-lu-lucia” respondit illa, balbutiens propter quandam hesitationem linguæ.

“Quid dixisti, mulier?” petit Augustinus; quippe qui—(“‘quippe qui’ is good,” muttered Johnson to me)—post tot pericula per terram et mare, et tantos labores paululum surdus erat;—

“Is it ‘erat’ or ‘esset’?” enquired Johnson, with kindly concern for the Latinity of Augustine, or his biographer.

“‘Esset’ of course: it’s the vilest print,” said the Canon, smothering a laugh: “where was I? h’m, h’m”:

surdus esset: “num audes infanti mox Christiano futuro nomen Luciferum ascribere? quem ego certe Johannem appellare mallem”; et ita factum est.

“There, Goodfellow, I think that settles the antiquity of your story.”

With furtive laughter we applauded the student of Augustine. Robin, who like Cedric at Torquilstone, was a little deaf in his Latin ear, asked to be allowed to read the passage for himself: but it happened most unfortunately that as the book was being handed to him, it fell, and the reference was lost, nor could it be found again. The conversation was hurriedly changed by Johnson, who congratulated the Canon on his intimate acquaintance with the Fathers, and also with the Latin language.

“Some of us,” he went on to say, “get a little rusty in our dead languages. Last month I was dining with my squire (who, you know, is a scholarly man) and a clerical friend, who shall be nameless, was there. The squire reads the lessons for me: he does it well, and the people like to hear him. After dinner he suddenly asked me whether in reading the Revelation he ought to say ‘õ-mĕgã’ as a dactyl with the accent on the O, or ‘õ mégger’ as two words, if you understand me. I said the latter might be right, but it would be as pedantic as Samarĩa, or Alexandrĩa: I preferred the former. And my clerical brother volunteered approval: he said it was õmĕgã in the original Hebrew. And he made the statement quite with the air of a man who had the gift of tongues more than we all. The squire stared, but we made no remark, and the fellow’s complacency was undisturbed.”

Oldbury remarked that not all of us lose our acquaintance with the classics. He had written lately to the Bishop in reply to a request for information as to church attendance: and had stated that on Sunday mornings the attendance was very good, especially in the case of aged people; but whether that was due to piety, or to the necessity of adducing regular church-going as a condition precedent of benefiting by Tomkins’ dole, he should be sorry to say. And the Bishop wrote back:

“Sit dolus, an virtus, quis in hoste requirat?”

Oldbury considered that neat. But Miller objected that it only went to show that even a bishop knew the second “Æneid.”

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” said a man opposite, who was the Diocesan Inspector of Religious Knowledge; “I was complaining to Squire B., who, you know, made his money in the Black Country, about the character of his schoolmaster, a notoriously intemperate man:

“‘Well of course,’ replied the squire, ‘if we ever found him drunk, we should give him his sine quâ non at once.’”

Goodfellow had been pondering silently. At this point he pushed his chair near Johnson’s, and whispered, “I say, did Joe Miller make up all that rot about St. Augustine?”

“My dear chap,” replied Johnson soothingly, “what, all that? ‘Bradley’s Exercises’ couldn’t have done it right off: it would have taken Cicero all his time.”

“Well, of course, it was a long story,” Robin admitted; and confidence was partially restored. A bold stroke of Miller’s completed the work. I think he must have overheard part of Robin’s question, as he passed behind us to concoct a parting drink for O’Brien. He returned with a post card in his hand.

“Talking of Latin reminds me that I got a Latin postcard from an old Oxford friend this morning, which you may like to hear:

“‘Dives quidam ad portas’—h’m, let me translate it to save time.”

A certain rich man having arrived at the gates of heaven begged St. Peter to admit him into the company of the blest. “Admit thee, O Dives?” said the holy janitor: “what good thing hast thou done in thy life?”

Dives paulisper meditatus—er—that is, after a little thought Dives replied, “Once I gave an obol to a poor man who asked an alms of me.”

“One obol! thou!” said the saint: “is there nothing more of good?”

“And another time,” pleaded Dives, “on a very cold day, a poor boy, scantily clad and ill fed, offered to sell me for an obol a box of fire-bringing sticks (I suppose Dives meant matches), and moved with compassion, I gave him the obol, nor accepted the sticks.”

The saint, much perplexed, turning to the Archangel Michael, enquires what should be done: “O sancte Petre” inquit ille, “hunc duobus obolis donatum ad Orcum demittas.”

“Which, I think, we may translate ‘give him twopence, and send him downstairs.’ Like to see the card, Goodfellow?” And Robin was satisfied, though the Latin was beyond his grasp. “Is it St. Augustine?” he asked.

“Ulpian, I think, from the style,” replied Miller; and Robin tacitly admitted Ulpian into the company of Early Fathers.

“I have a lot of these cards,” said Miller; “my friend supplies me with the Common Room anecdotes in this inexpensive manner. Here is another, which I give in English—for the sake of the Inspector:”

A certain undergraduate, erudite and devout, Puseyite and Augustan, went to his Father-Confessor; and, the secrets of his heart having been revealed, asked for absolution not without penance.

“Thou hast erred, my son,” said the priest, devout but not erudite; “go to thy chamber and recite the Attendĩte.”

“It is short, father,” said the young man shuddering.

“Then say it twice,” replied the Confessor with placid countenance.

“What is the Attendĩte?” I asked.

“The 78th Psalm, ‘Attendĩte, popule,’ ‘Hear My law, O ye people’; 15th evening, don’t you know?”

“Short!” said Goodfellow: “it’s 73 verses!”

And he hasn’t seen the joke yet.

O’Brien finished his stirrup-cup, and obtained leave to go home: he had a seven miles’ drive. I was not sorry to lose him, for I disliked the man, though he had the merit of furnishing the diocese with a good story. It is said that when he went up for Ordination, the Bishop put him up for the night, or nights, at the Palace with the other candidates; and on the Saturday night, though there were no outside guests, the examining chaplains and the future priests and deacons made a large party at dinner. About half way through the meal the attention of all was arrested by the voice of Mr. O’Brien addressing the Bishop:

“Have ye read my sermon, my lord?” (It appears that each candidate had to submit a sample sermon for the episcopal criticism.)

“Not yet, Mr.—er——”

“O’Brien, my lord.”

“Mr. O’Brien, I have not yet had time: may I ask what is the subject that you have chosen?”

“It’s on the Atonement, my lord.”

The Bishop shuddered, and replied coldly: “You have chosen a very difficult subject, Mr. O’Brien.”

“Faith, my lord, it’s signs ye haven’t read it, or ye’d say it was easy enough.”

But he was ordained, and, still more surprising, he found a woman with money to marry him. With her money he bought a good living and settled down in the country. As the late Master of Trinity would have said, “The little time he could spare from the neglect of his parochial duties he devoted to the breeding of prize poultry;” and on that point his opinion was deemed valuable. Also he had the national fluency, and the Colonial and Continental Society offered him holiday chaplaincies in the choicest spots of Middle Europe.

“What is the name of Dr. O’Brien’s parish?” I asked the Canon, when he came back from the door: “I don’t meet him in any school.”

“Exby: he succeeded a very different man, old Wright, of whom many stories are told. It is not a college living, but Wright had been a don for many years, and, having a good bit of money, bought Exby sooner than wait any longer for Zedtown, his fat college living. He never married, and he kept up his Common Room habits, especially including the rubber, which was the delight of his life. But he was a very prudent man, and he didn’t like losing his money. If he was losing, he went to bed early: if he was winning, he would sit up all night, or as long as he could get the other men to sit up. One night, they say, he had a great run of luck, and went on playing till after the early hours of the morning: in fact, it was about five, when they heard a most fearful rumbling in the chimney, increasing in noise, till at last with a cloud of soot a black apparition in human form descended, and stood on the hearthstone.

“I may tell you in confidence that it was only the sweep: his proceedings were perfectly in order, but the servants had omitted to notify the Rector that the visit was impending.

“The gamblers, and especially the Rector, reasonably concluded that it was the Prince of Darkness, who had come to carry them off; and they started from the table. Old Wright dropped on his knees, and held up his trembling hands with a goodly assortment of trumps and court-cards, and stammered out:

“‘Spare me, oh, spare me, till I have finished the rubber.’”

All the “Ruri-deacons,” as Miller called them, knew the story; but familiarity with it even now cannot hinder me from laughing in sleepless hours of the night at the picture of the blear-eyed four, with shattered nerves, clinging to the table, and gazing at the still more startled sweep.

“I knew Wright,” said one on my right: “he told me he used to keep his store of money in £5 notes which he hid in a volume of Tillotson’s sermons in his study. I asked, ‘Why Tillotson?’ and he said, ‘Because it is not likely that a burglar would be fond of sermons, and if he was, he wouldn’t want to read Tillotson.’”

It needs some acquaintance with Tillotson to get the full aroma of this appreciation.

“He was a great man for schools, Inspector,” said another: “used to do all the thrashing for the schoolmistress; and one time he did his duty to a boy so nobly that the mother came to complain. ‘You know, parson,’ she said, ‘as Scripture says as a man should be merciful to his beast.’

“‘But he wasn’t my beast, Mrs. Green,’ retorted old Wright: and she was so much pleased with the homely repartee that she retired chuckling.”

“Have you met O’Brien’s new Curate, Rogers, yet?” said Johnson to the Rural Dean. “A very different man from our friend. He told me of a singular experience that befell a fellow student: he was, you know, formerly a Dissenter of sorts, and was educated at one of their colleges.”

“That accounts for the excellence of his preaching, I suppose?” said our cynical host.

“No doubt,” replied the narrator coolly; “any how, he is a good fellow. Well, at those colleges it is the custom to send out students to preach in outlying districts, both to give them the confidence that comes from experiments on vile bodies, and also to keep the cause together. One Saturday afternoon Rogers’ friend was sent off with instructions to go some miles by train; then to walk two miles to Blankby; and there to ask the way to Mudby, where one John Hodge would put him up for the night. He got all right to Blankby, and so on to Mudby. Then he enquired for Mr. Hodge.

“‘Which Mr.’Odge would ’a be?’

“He explained that he was going to preach at the chapel next day; and it was agreed that Jahn ’Odge o’ th’ owd farm, being great wi’ th’ chapel folk, was like to be the mon, and full directions were given. As that sort of people always tells you ‘right,’ when they mean ‘left,’ it was late and dark when the missioner arrived. Old Mrs. Hodge opened the door, and admitted his plea for hospitality. Her husband had not yet come in. It was a mere cottage, and the evening meal did not take long. Noticing that her guest was weary, the dame suggested, ‘’appen yo’d loike ta goo ta bed?’ He gladly agreed, and followed his hostess. As he went, it struck him that there were not many rooms, but it was not his affair, and he was soon in bed and asleep. He knew not at what later hour he felt a dig in the ribs, saw a light, and heard Mrs. Hodge’s voice:

“‘Thee move a bit furder on, yoong mon: theer’s me an’ my owd mon to coom yet.’”

“Oh, but that is good,” shouted Miller, “and I don’t care whether it is true or not. Not going away, Oldbury? Tell the Inspector the story of Wilberforce and Lady A. before you go. He has never heard it.”

“I always obey my Rural Dean,” said Oldbury. “The story was told me many years ago by a pillar of the Church, and I think it is little known.

“It was at the time of the Crimean War that the Bishop was dining at a solemn banquet given by one of the Peelite Ministry of that time. There were three or four ministers present, and among the ladies was an illustrious Marchioness, Lady A. She sat next to the Bishop, and when the solemnity of the statesmen had killed all other conversation, they became aware that the Church and the world were still full of life. And this is what they heard:

Lady A. Do you ever go down to Boreham now, Bishop?

Bishop. It is seldom that I can find time: but from old associations the place has a peculiar interest for me. Last year I was fortunate enough to be able to accept an invitation from my friend Mr. Goodheart, and at dinner I sat next a very worthy, elderly, man of the name of Polycarp, who in a very touching manner was recounting to me the many blessings which he had received in the course of a life prolonged beyond the usual limits.

Lady A. (stifling a yawn). Dear me, Bishop.

Bishop. Yes: and it appeared that he considered the chief of his blessings to be that he had had twenty-three children. And while I was trying to find words to express my opinion that some people might regard that as a not unmixed blessing, a black-eyed lady, whom I had observed to be listening with much attention to our conversation, leant across the table, and said with remarkable distinctness: ‘Only Sixteen by me, Mr. Polycarp.’”

“Good-night, Miller. Good-night, Mr. Inspector.”

Solvuntur risu tabulae; they all went home. But the night was still young, and Miller and I drew up our chairs to the fire.

“Good men, and true!” said the Rural Dean, turning over in his hands a bundle of the Oxford postcards. I was turning over in my mind the men to whom I had just bidden farewell. One puzzled me:

“Who was the big man with gold spectacles, sitting next O’Brien; hardly spoke a word all the time?” I asked.

“Gold spectacles? Oh, old Weights of Slobury; most worthy, but not lively. There is a story of him. It is said that when the new railway was being made through his parish, he one day paid a pastoral visit to the navvies’ huts; and having gained admission to one hut, he talked and read till the master grew weary, and suggested that it was about tea-time. Weights took the hint, and his leave. As he closed the door, the man pointed compassionately over his shoulder at the ponderously retreating figure, and muttered:

“‘Theer goos a good navvy—spiled.’”

“But here, Inspector,” he continued, “here is a postcard that will suit you. You were at Balliol, were you not?”

He gave it to me, and it may be anglicised thus:

A traveller in Central Africa was surprised and carried off by hostile natives, who brought him before their chief. A drum-head court-martial was held, and sentence of death was speedily passed. But while the executioner was making the necessary preparations, the tribe were ransacking his baggage, and one of them with a shout of joy held up an Oxford blazer of the Balliol pattern. The chief saw it, and his grim features relaxed. In excellent English he said—

“Were you at Balliol? So was I: you may go. Good old Jowett!” (Abi in pacem: Jowettii, et nostrum, haud immemor.)

CHAPTER XIII
CHESHIRE

“Then there is the County Palatine.”
Merchant of Venice.

Three profitable years I spent in Norfolk, learning my business, and I became weary of exile. When on my appointment I received my instructions from the Secretary, he said that, looking to my experience gained as Inspector of Returns, it was not necessary that I should serve any further apprenticeship: I “need not take up my headquarters in Norfolk.” This in official language meant that as soon as possible I should be given a district of my own; and in my ignorance of official life I took no thought for the morrow. But, as my third year of expatriation began to draw to a close, it occurred to me that the Secretary was not personally interested in me, and that in the Civil Service, as elsewhere, a man who wants promotion must see that he gets it.

I reminded Sir Francis that I was hungry—not for promotion, but for amotion to less remoteness. He at once admitted my claim, and created a new district for me, the headquarters of which would be King’s Lynn, and the territory West Norfolk and East Cambridgeshire. I remember that Wisbech and Whittlesey were included. I never saw either, but I should class them with Timbuctoo and Borrioboola Gha. My capital had a population of 17,000, and a member of Parliament: the grass grew in the streets, and on Tuesdays the cattle from the Hinterland came to market and ate it down. There was no Grand hotel, and no place where I could lodge; it would be necessary to take a house, and manage it. Matrimony stared me in the face. The greater part of the aforesaid Hinterland was fen district, imprudently reclaimed from the great dismal swamp. I pointed out these drawbacks to the Secretary, and he kindly suggested that I should beguile the tedium of existence by shooting gulls. It might have come to secretary-birds.

In a few weeks Providence intervened. I heard that H.M.I. at Chester wanted, for family reasons, to live near Lynn: would I change? I felt as Clive must have felt when the pistol, which he snapped at his own head, failed to go off. “He burst forth (says Macaulay) into an exclamation that surely he was reserved for something great.” Can it ever at any other time have happened that a man wanted to leave Chester to go to King’s Lynn?

With great difficulty I persuaded Sir Francis that to the Cheshire and Norfolk people it must be a matter of profound indifference whether Gyas or Cloanthus inspected their schools. Granted that Cheshire suffered loss, yet how pleasant to think of the joy of Norfolk. He grudgingly agreed, and in due course it was arranged. On October 1, 1877, I took charge of the Chester district.

We read at times in the history of great men that after some turning-point in their career they “never looked back.” I am not a great man, and in one sense I often looked back. There were many days when I thought of my successor; in winter frostbitten in the fens; in spring shivering in a dogcart, beating up against the east wind, smothered with yellow dust on Roudham Heath; at any time of the year wearily waiting for slow trains at dismal roadside stations: and at such times the old pious ejaculation rose to my lips, “There but for the Grace of God goes poor John Bradford.”

For I had got the best, or at least the most comfortable, district in England. In six months I was relieved of the eastern side of Cheshire, and my limit was a radius of from 10 to 20 miles round Chester. There were eight railway lines centred in the ancient city to carry me about, and on some of the lines trains were frequent. The school inspections had been so craftily arranged that I could spend the winter months in Birkenhead, where all the travelling was done in cabs; the spring in and around Chester, where there were hansom cabs instead of the perilous dogcart; the summer months in the more distant places at the end of my chain; and the autumn in the Wirral peninsula, between the Dee and the Mersey.

Late in the ’eighties an old colleague asked why I did not apply for a London district, and so get rid of all the travelling. There was the leading case of S. who used to inspect the four northern counties, giving six months to Northumberland and Durham, and six to Cumberland and Westmorland: now he had a compact area in East London, a mile across one way, and a mile and a quarter the other.

“And a yellow fog by way of a change from a black fog, and absolute monotony of schools all the year round,” I replied: “town children differing only in degrees of dirt; school buildings which would not be tolerated outside the large towns; and managers who take a cab to Whitehall, if they don’t like their Report. And at the back, and using private and political influence at the Office, a Debating Society calling itself the London School Board. Here in Cheshire I get variety. On Monday I had a town school of 400 boys in a black hole: on Tuesday a suburban school of 150 girls in a beautiful building with a lavish supply of teachers: on Wednesday I drove 10 miles to a country village, where the whole 45 lambs of the flock were collected in what an esteemed inspector called ‘a third class waiting-room and a jam cupboard.’ I am going to get Monday’s school shut up in 12 months: in London it would take 12 years. London! I had rather be a country dog, and bay the moon.”

He admitted that the School Board was as bad as the fog. H.M.I. is all but powerless in Board Schools; the Board inspectors hold the purse strings and control the promotion, and if H.M.I. tries to raise the standard of education to the level of other towns the Board combine with the teachers to worry his life out.

“But,” he added, “H.M.I. sometimes has an innings and scores freely. Did you hear about Bouncer? Member of the Board, you know: prominent educational reformer. Went down to a Board School the other day, and walked through the class-rooms. When he got to Standard V. he found them sitting upright, and a middle-aged sort of man balanced on the fireguard in front of the class.

“‘Hallo,’ said Bouncer, ‘what is this class doing?’

“‘At present,’ said the middle-aged man, not liking the Bouncerian manner, ‘they are doing nothing.’

“‘Nothing! then they had better go home,’ snorted Bouncer.

“‘Not a bad idea,’ said the middle-aged man meditatively.

“Bouncer was furious. ‘Pray, sir,’ he asked, ‘do you know who I am?’

“‘Haven’t a notion,’ said the middle-aged man.

“‘My name is Bouncer, sir, John Bouncer; and I am a member of the School Management Committee.’

“‘Ah,’ said the man on the fireguard, ‘and do you know who I am?’

“‘You, sir? No, I do NOT know.’

“‘I am the inspector, what you call Her Majesty’s Inspector of Schools. Now, boys, here is teacher with the map of Europe. What is the capital of Herzegovina?’”

I thought I would do without Bouncer. No one behaved like that in West Cheshire: I should be frightened.

“And then,” I continued, “look at my playground. There are three railways to take me into Wales; eighty minutes to Llandudno, three and a half hours to the foot of Snowdon, two and a half hours to the foot of Cader Idris. Do you offer me Margate and Primrose Hill?”

So I abode in Chester for twenty-five years. This is not a biography. I got to know the whole district topographically and individually—managers, teachers, and children. A new generation of managers sprang up; many of the teachers had been children under my inspection; the children were the sons and daughters of my earliest victims. The buildings had grown up with the teachers and children; there were few, indeed, that had not been enlarged, modernised, or practically reconstructed, and many of them brought pleasant recollections of hard fought battles waged with managers for the sake of the children, or with the powers of darkness for the sake of both managers and children.

But I began to think that I had been there too long. We knew one another too well, and there was an increasing danger of my standard being regarded as the standard standard. So I mused, and waited.

CHAPTER XIV
MY LORDS

“Nay, do not think I flatter:
For what advancement may I hope from thee?”
Hamlet.

Some years ago the present chronicler and others were staying at a small hotel in a remote corner of Silesia. After breakfast the waiter appeared and addressed the linguist of the party. What did the Herrschaft propose? he should recommend the ascent of the Flaschenberg. At what hour would the Herrschaft dine?

“What does he call us?” I asked the linguist.

“Herrschaft,” he said: “Their Lordships; you ought to know.”

We were “My Lords”! Probably some Hanoverian monarch had imported the title from Germany, and had applied it to a Committee of the Privy Council. Under this sign they conquered. It took the place of the kingly and editorial WE. It called up a vision of phantasmal, coroneted heads, shaking a negative, more rarely nodding an affirmative. In front there might seem to be a Secretary, an Assistant Secretary, even a clerk: but when the suppliant got as far as “What ho! Arrest me that agency,” the official vanished, and there was but a voice, “My Lords regret.” “And so the vision fadeth.” With this weapon they put to silence inquisitive members of the Opposition, who “wanted to know” things better unknown: with this they conquered School Boards and school managers of all denominations: with this they even tried to intimidate H.M. Inspectors themselves, who well knew that it was no lion that roared, but only Snug the joiner.

My Lords were but a Parliamentary fiction; in theory composed of the Lord President, the First Lord of the Treasury, and some Secretaries of State: in practice they had no existence; but I think the Whitehall staff had by long “making believe” persuaded themselves that they were flesh and blood. A newly appointed examiner would go to his immediate superior with a letter from the School Board of Swaggerby, protesting against a deduction of one-tenth from the annual grant paid in respect of the Slum Street Board School: how should he reply?

“Pooh, pooh: it’s Article 32, c. (3): tell them to go to the deuce.” And the beardless stripling would sit down, and write:—

“Adverting to your letter of the 24th inst., I am directed to inform you that My Lords regret that They are unable to reconsider Their decision in the matter. I am to refer you to Art. 32, c. (3) of the Code; and I am to add that Their Lordships will look for a marked improvement in the results of the next examination as a condition of the payment of any further grant.”

The capital letter prefixed to the third personal pronoun always seemed to me the height of impertinent arrogance. But the examiners enjoyed it immensely; and I am convinced that, if they ever went to church and heard the petition in the Litany supplicating wisdom and understanding for the Lords of the Council, they mentally added, “Meaning US, though WE are already well supplied.”

The composition of the Education Department was very simple in 1872 when I trod the corridors. At that time elementary education pure and simple was controlled from Whitehall. Science and art were the care of another establishment, which we knew as “South Kensington.” The Montague and Capulet retainers never met; only they bit their thumbs when the other house was mentioned. When—in the later ’seventies—we began to clash, science and art were considered pastimes for retired officers, who had exchanged the sword for an H.B. pencil, and all sorts of majors and captains used to be mixed up with the study thereof. They used to examine in drawing, and they conducted examinations in May and December with a code of regulations of their own composing. They even invented an envelope with a fastening that reminded one of Rob Roy’s purse—(“the simplicity of the contrivance to secure a furred pouch, which could have been ripped open without any attempt on the spring, &c.”)—and when, as occasionally happened, we were appealed to for help in superintending their examinations at the training colleges, we danced in fetters of red-tape.

It used to be told of one of the best known of the Whitehall officials, F. T. Palgrave, of Golden Treasury fame, that a school manager once interviewed him on some grievance, and, getting little satisfaction, enquired whether he might ask whom he had the honour of addressing.

“Oh, certainly,” said he, “my name is Francis Palgrave.”

The visitor thanked him, but explained that he rather wished to know the official’s rank: for instance, was his opinion final?

“Not at all,” replied Palgrave airily; “I am what they call a Senior Examiner: above me are the three Assistant Secretaries, Mr. A., Mr. B., and Mr. C.: above them is the Secretary, Sir Francis Sandford: above him the Vice-President, Mr. Forster: above him the Lord President, Lord Ripon: and above him, I believe, the Almighty.”

I served the Department, or Board, in one capacity or another and with some interval for more than thirty-five years. In all that time I never saw a Lord President, and I should often have found it hard to tell the name of the reigning potentate if I had been asked suddenly. He was always a peer: I dimly remember two dukes, two marquises, some earls, and a viscount. Barons were nothing accounted of. It was said that when Greville, the diarist, sometime Clerk of the Council, had attended his first Council meeting, some one asked a Cabinet Minister whether he had noticed that they had a new clerk: and the noble lord replied, “Not I; when the tall footman puts coals on the fire, do you suppose I notice whether it is Charles or James?” And the remark being repeated to Greville induced him to form a low estimate of the statesman.

That was very much our attitude towards the Lord President of the Council. For our master at the Education Department of the Privy Council was master of all the branches of that Vehmegericht, if I may adopt Sir Walter Scott’s spelling. I believe agriculture and public health were our rivals in his affections, and it was often said that the chief knew more about cattle plague than he did about the education code. In actual practice he confined himself (as we understood) to the patronage; that is to say, to the appointment of the indoor staff (examiners) and outdoor staff (inspectors). Sometimes a Lord President would take the same kindly interest in education that his wife might take in the gardens of the family place; liking to see a good show of flowers, and at times venturing to give a hint to the head-gardener, but shrinking back if that magnate showed signs of impatience or resentment. It was even said of one Lord President that he liked to read reports, if type-written, on educational matters; but we were warned, “you mustn’t talk to him about P.T.’s and Article 68 or Circular 321: he dislikes technical details.”

Alas! the Lord President is extinct as the mammoth.

The Vice-President, known in the Office as the V.P., was a much more real person. He was always in the Lower House, and quite often was chosen for some fancied fitness for the post. It was his duty to defend the Office and the Inspectors against the attacks of numerous enemies, and once a year, late in the Session, when the House was getting thin, he was allowed to move the Estimates, and to make a nice long speech. For anything I know to the contrary he may have thought that he both reigned and governed. But the ever watchful Permanent Secretary knew better. Let us hear Susan Nipper on a similar situation.

Oh! bless your heart, Mrs. Richards, temporaries always order permanencies here, didn’t you know that? Why, wherever was you born, Mrs. Richards? But wherever you was born, and whenever, and however (which is best known to yourself), you may bear in mind, please, that it’s one thing to give orders and quite another thing to take ’em.—(Dombey.)

There was often a good deal of Nipperism in the Secretary when the temporary V.P. wanted to give orders.

The outdoor staff troubled itself very little about the temporaries. Almost every new V.P. came in like a lion, and rumours would reach us from time to time that the new man was giving trouble, and might be expected to produce a new Code. Generally the malady took the form of what we may call Circularitis,[17] and after that the patient experienced relief. When the furthest recesses of our peninsula had been made to tremble at the new policy, the afflicted man began to amend, and the disease yielded to treatment at the hands of the permanent physician. Then he went out like a lamb.

Of all the V.P.’s of my era, the most obtrusive was Mr. Anthony John Mundella. Everyone knows Tacitus’ estimate of Galba, that “by universal consent he was fit for empire, if he had not been an emperor.” But I doubt if even this faint praise could be given to Mundella. He was made Vice-President, we may suppose, to pacify the Birmingham League, to keep the fussy man himself quiet, to satisfy the advanced wing of the party. And it was generally conceded that no man ever in the office was more keenly interested in education; no man more anxious to do and say the right thing. At times he soared above earth, and won admiration for his absence of pretence, and his strenuous endeavours to carry out what he conceived to be the right policy. But no one could have thought him fit to govern. He had never held office before, and neither the manufacture of hosiery, nor the part which he had played in the local politics of Nottingham had fitted him for the difficult and delicate task which fell upon him. Men in the Office said he was a pulpit-cushion thumper, and nothing more: he was incapable of deciding a case submitted to him.

Moreover, as is often the case in similar circumstances, he could not work with men above him, or below him. It was told me by one in the secrets of the Office that the Secretary went one day in subdued fury to the Lord President with a paper in his hand. “Look,” he said, “what Mr. Mundella has said to me.” The noble earl read it, and said soothingly, “I assure you that this is nothing to what he says to me.”

The argument, if it can be so called, is a bad one; for a rude remark to a subordinate differs from a rude remark to a superior. But pity for the helpless chieftain stayed the other’s wrath.

On the retirement of Sir Francis Sandford, in 1884, Mundella determined to have a secretary after his own heart. Sir Francis had recommended the appointment of one of the ablest of the Inspectorate as his successor, and the Lord President had agreed: but when this was revealed to Mundella, he protested vehemently that the Board Schools would not be safe in such hands, and insisted on the appointment of Mr. Cumin, then an assistant secretary in the Office. The President adhered to his choice, and Mundella straight-way seized a piece of paper, wrote his resignation, and handed it to his superior officer. What could be done? It is easy to say with Dogberry, “Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go, and thank God that you are rid of—an undesirable person.” But the situation was difficult. Mundella would have given his reasons in the House, and would have stirred up the Radicals against the old Whigs: the Birmingham League and the Dissenters in both camps would have supported their Goliath against the Whig David: I think there was no remedy. Cumin was appointed.

It was not a good appointment; but if the new secretary did not justify his patron’s praises, he equally failed to justify his expectations of favouritism. The traditions of the Office require that the permanent staff shall treat all classes and sects of schools with equal hand; and though there were many willing to cast a stone at the Secretary, I cannot remember that he was ever accused of undue partiality to one type. There were times, whoever might be secretary, when the balance seemed to be depressed on one side or the other; but it was always explained by nods, and upheaval of the shoulder that pointed to the V.P.’s room, that THOSE FELLOWS were giving trouble. In the last few months a recently emancipated secretary, who employs his well-earned leisure in theological warfare, has informed us that he “puts Protestantism before politics.” I believe I am correct in saying that during his long period of service in Whitehall no one even suspected him of ecclesiastical prejudices.

This habit of mind Mundella could not understand. In office, as in business, he did not seem to run straight; but when financial troubles caused his downfall, men pitied him, because they thought his errors, there also, were errors of judgment rather than of moral sense.

Of other Vice-Presidents before the arrival of Sir John Gorst, I think Mr. Acland was the most demonstrative. He had been a clergyman in Priest’s Orders, but he “renounced them all,” and entered Parliament, and in 1892 was made Vice-President by Mr. Gladstone. It was said that the Premier was under the impression that his new Minister had never gone beyond Deacon’s Orders, and that, knowing that the abandonment of Priest’s Orders involved excommunication, he would with fuller knowledge have made another choice. Ecclesiastical law is one of the few subjects that I have never examined in, and I repeat the canonical proposition without any warranty. It may be a joke. When Mr. Gladstone is concerned, one must always remember the excellent rule laid down by a critic in the Times, when reviewing a book of Oxford anecdotes: “What one requires of a story (at Oxford) is not that it should be true, but that it should be suitable to the character of the man of whom it is told.” (I quote from memory.) Accepting the story with this reservation, I think it was open to the new Minister to retort that the change from Tory M.P. for Oxford to Radical M.P. for Mid Lothian more richly deserved the greater excommunication.

However that may be, the new V.P. had little sympathy with his former brethren. His zeal for education was great, but whether in Whitehall or in the West Riding it has always been the zeal of the tailless fox yearning to bite the well-tailed little ones. To us inspectors much of this fury was welcome. There were many schools which we had long been anxious to close on account of the defects of their buildings, and always hitherto, whether Tories or Radicals were in power, we were thwarted by My Lords. Now we began to hope. But it was not till November, 1893, that the V.P. succeeded in forging a weapon with which to smite his foes. In that month appeared the famous Circular 321, which demanded full information about the premises of every Public Elementary School, and we spent a busy year in compiling the answers. The mesh was narrow, and if we had been properly supported in Whitehall we should have netted all the offenders. But there never was any backbone to My Lords. Voluntary Schools and Board Schools for once went hand-in-hand: the backstairs of the Office crawled with protestants of all denominations: there ensued consternation, procrastination, prevarication. In some districts we kept the fire banked up, and in a later year, with the help of the Aid Grant,[18] we moved. But it required continual stoking. Excommunicated Mr. Acland may be, but many a child has to thank him for increased health and comfort; and I trust that when he comes to work off his sentence in Purgatory, he may be able to plead these good works as an equitable set off.

The last of the V.P.’s, and the only one that I ever saw, was Sir John Gorst. Nature had not designed him for the position of second fiddler; but the Lord President, finding that his understudy, when he got hold of the first fiddle, played out of tune and threw out the band, insisted on his keeping the lower place. This amused the House of Commons, and the Duke omitted to stipulate that Sir John never should

“With arms encumbered thus, or thus head shake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As, ‘Well, we know’; or, ‘There be, an if there might’;
Or such ambiguous giving out——”

intimate that some people could play fiddles better than others who had a great name. Then the Secretary asserted that he was Conductor, whoever was playing first fiddle. It was rumoured that there was incompatibility of temper in exalted circles. “What odds to Hippokleides?” we said, we others.

There came a new Code,[19] that was to put elementary education on a really satisfactory basis. This was so common a phenomenon that we hardly turned our heads to look at it: but to our amazement it was followed by an invitation to attend at the Foreign Office one March day, that we might hear the V.P.’s opinions on his new baby, and on education generally. We assembled from the Solway to the Channel, from the Irish Sea to the German Ocean. Whitehall lay down with South Kensington, and the great Hall of the Foreign Office had a novel congregation. There for the first and only time I saw a V.P. His views on education were pronounced “very crude,” “amateurish,” and so on; but it was a holiday, and the country paid our expenses: I think my bill came to about £4. I lunched with a Treasury clerk, who suggested that the V.P. had not spent all his “Vote,” and wanted to knock down the balance, instead of refunding it to the Treasury. But it is the way of the Treasury to take low views of human motives.

The Lord President and the Vice-President have passed away. It may be that the dual control was unworkable; but there was something to be said for it. The V.P. was not a first-class Minister; the President was not a first-class educationalist. Therefore the V.P. put on the steam, and the other put on the brake. We are now better able to appreciate the value of the arrangement.

There came a change after an Act of 1899. The Education Department of the Privy Council cut the cable, became independent, and took the title of “Board of Education.” My Lords vanished, and the Lord President and Vice-President were transformed into a President and a Parliamentary Secretary. The former may be chosen from either House, but the first to hold office was a noble lord who would have fitly adorned the post of Lord President of the Council. He was followed by a philosophic commoner; and he again by other commoners, whom their friends applauded, and their enemies severely censured for their activity. It may be suggested that a more experienced statesman in the Upper House might have exercised a wholesome restraining influence.

On a former page the Lord President was disrespectfully compared with the tall footman. The permanent secretary occupies the more exalted position of head waiter. It is to the head waiter that the experienced traveller pays court. He controls the loaves and fishes, and without him one may hang on and starve while others wax fat. He arranges the tables, and gives to his chosen friends corner seats by the fire, or choice spots in the bow window commanding a rich prospect; but to the ungodly a draughty place near the door. As the older visitors drop off, it is his to move up those who find favour in his eyes, and to let the runagates continue in scarceness. If he smiles, the understrappers scowl in vain: a word to the great man will do all that is wanted. The directors, the manager who appointed him, pretend to superior dignity, and their emoluments are on a more generous scale: but in their secret hearts they admit that the key to the success of the establishment is in the hands of the maître d’hôtel.

These valuable, if tedious, reflections come to me too late. I never paid court to the great man: I never went near him, unless I wanted something very much. It was sufficient for me to cultivate the goodwill of the waiter at my table, though I was well aware that he would endure but for a time. As soon as I had got to know Rosencrantz he was moved on, and I had to begin again with Guildenstern. I sat in a dark corner and carefully avoided the master eye. But I was very well treated.

Presidents, V.P.’s, secretaries, and all the host that called themselves “My Lords” trouble me no more. I can sit like Amyas Leigh on Lundy and dream of my old friends and foes:

“And I saw him sitting in his cabin like a valiant gentleman of Spain, and his officers were sitting round him with their swords upon the table at the wine. And the prawns and the crayfish, and the rockling they swam in and out above their heads....”

Shadowy presidents and vice-presidents; sturdy Sir Francis with his pleasant smile and rich Doric accent; the grim and cautious head of Cumin; sharp-tongued A., rough-tongued B., double-tongued C., honey-tongued D.

“She lies in fifteen fathoms at the edge of the rocks, upon the sand, and her men are lying all around her, asleep until the Judgment Day.”

And so I bid them farewell. Requiescant in pace, as they let me do.