The Story of My Life, volumes 1-3

by Augustus J. C. Hare

"We have been to Buckingham Palace to see the rooms which were arranged for the Sultan, which are dull and handsome. The chief fact I derived from the housekeeper was that the Sultan never 'goes to bed' and never lies down—in fact, he cannot, for a third of the imperial bed at either end is taken up by a huge bolster, in the middle of which he sits all night, and reclines either way in turn. There was a picture of the late Sultan in the room, and of Frederick, Prince of Wales, sent from Windsor for the occasion. One room was entirely hung with portraits of French kings and their families."

From London I went to visit Bishop Jeune,[345] who was most wonderfully kind to me, really giving up his whole time to me whilst I was with him, and pouring forth such stores of information as I had not received since the days of Dr. Hawtrey; and it was a great pleasure to feel, to be quite sure—which one so seldom is—that he liked my visit as much as I liked being with him.

From my JOURNAL.

"August 10, 1867.—On the 8th I went to Peterborough, where I have had a most agreeable visit at the Palace. When I arrived at half-past seven, the family were all gone to dine with Dr. James, an old Canon in the Close, whither I followed them. He was a charming old-fashioned gentleman, most delightful to see.

"In the morning the Bishop, wearing his surplice and hood, read prayers at a desk in the crypted hall of the Palace. Afterwards we walked in the garden. I spoke of there being no monument in the Cathedral to Catherine of Arragon. 'It is owing to that very circumstance,' said the Bishop, 'that you are here to-day. If Catherine of Arragon had had a tomb, I should never have been Bishop of Peterborough. When people reproached Henry VIII. with having erected no monument to his first wife, he said, "The Abbey of Peterborough shall be a cathedral to her monument," and he instituted the bishopric; the last abbot was the first bishop.' As we passed the lavatory of the old convent, the Bishop said that a touching description was still extant of its dedication and of the number of cardinals, bishops, and priests who were present. 'How few of them,' he said, 'would have believed that not only their buildings, which they believed would last for ever, could become an indefinite ruin, but that their Church, whose foundations they believed to be even more eternally rooted in the soil, should be cast out to make way for another Church, which is already tottering on its base and divided against itself.' He said he 'firmly believed that the ends both of the Church and monarchy were close at hand, that the power of government was even now in the hands of a few individuals, who were in their turn in the hands of a few Irish priests.'

"While passing through the garden in returning to the Palace, the Bishop showed me a white fig-tree growing out of the old wall of the refectory and abundantly bearing fruit. 'This,' he said, 'I believe to be the white fig-tree which is nearest to the Pole.' Passing a fine mulberry-tree he said, 'We owe that to James I., as he was so excessively anxious to promote the manufacture of silk, that he recommended to every one the cultivation of the mulberry-tree, but especially to the clergy, and those of the clergy planted it who wished to stand well with him. Therefore it is to be found in the neighbourhood of many of our cathedrals.'

"Afterwards the Bishop showed the old chronicle of the Abbey, which he had had splendidly restored at Oxford. He read me some Latin verses which had evidently been inserted by one of the monks descriptive of his amours. 'Yet,' said the Bishop, 'these sins of the monk were probably only sins of the imagination, quite as vivid as real ones. You know,' he added, 'there are far more acted than enacted sins, and the former are really far the more corrupting of the two.'

"In the afternoon we drove to Croyland. The Bishop talked the whole way. I spoke of his patronage, and envied the power it gave him; he bitterly lamented it. He said, 'I have in my gift three canonries, two archdeaconries, and sixty livings, and if any of these fell vacant to-morrow, I should be at my wit's end whom to appoint. On the average, two livings fall vacant every year, and then comes my time of trouble. A bishop who would appoint the best man would be most unpopular in his diocese, for every one of his clergy would be offended at not being considered the best.' With regard to the canonries, I suggested that he could find no difficulty, as he might always choose men who were employed in some great literary work. The Bishop allowed that this was exactly what he desired, but that no such men were to be found in his diocese. There were many very respectable clergy, but none more especially distinguished than the rest. He said that when he was appointed bishop, Dr. Vaughan advised him never to become what he called 'a carpet-bag bishop,' but that this, in fact, was just what he had become: that when he was going to preach in a village and sleep in a clergyman's house, he did not like to trouble them by taking a man-servant, and that he often arrived carrying his own carpet-bag. That consequently he often never had his clothes brushed, or even his boots blacked, but that he brushed his boots with his clothes-brush as well as he could, as he was afraid of ringing his bell for fear of mortifying his hosts by showing that he had not already got all that he wanted. He said, however, that the work of a bishop was vastly overrated, that there was nothing which did not come within the easy powers of one man, yet that a proposition had already been made to exclude the bishops from the House of Lords, to reduce their incomes to £1500, and to double their number. He said that he believed all Conservatives had better at once emigrate to New Zealand, and that he wondered the Queen did not invest in foreign funds; that it was utterly impossible the monarchy could last much longer; that the end would be hastened by the debts of the two Princes.