It has been the fashion to label Charles Kingsley and his teaching with the nickname of 'Muscular Christianity', a name which he detested and disclaimed. It implied that he and his school were of the full-blooded robust order of men, who had no sympathy for weakness, and no message for those who could not follow the same strenuous course as themselves. As a fact Kingsley had his full share of bodily illnesses and suffered at all times from a highly-wrought nervous organization; when pain to others was involved, he was as tender and sympathetic as a woman. He was a born fighter, too reckless in attack, as we see in his famous dispute with Cardinal Newman about the honesty of the Tractarians. But he was not bitter or resentful. He owned himself that in this case he had met a better logician than himself: later he expressed his admiration for Newman's poem, 'The Dream of Gerontius', and in his letters he praises the tone in which the Tractarians write—'a solemn and gentle earnestness which is most beautiful and which I wish I may ever attain'. The point which Matthew Arnold singles out in estimating his character is the width of his sympathies. 'I think', he says, 'he was the most generous man I have ever known, the most forward to praise what he thought good, the most willing to admire, the most incapable of being made ill-natured or even indifferent by having to support ill-natured attacks himself. Among men of letters I know nothing so rare as this.' To the gibe about 'Muscular Christianity' Kingsley had his own answer. He said that with his tastes and gifts he had a special power of appealing to the wild rough natures which were more at home in the country than the town, who were too self-forgetful, and too heedless of the need for culture and for making use of their opportunities. Jacob, the man of intellect, had many spiritual guides, and the poor outcast, Esau, was too often overlooked. As he said, 'The one idea of my life was to tell Esau that he has a birthright as well as Jacob'. When he was laid to his rest in Eversley churchyard, there were many mourners who represented the cultured classes of the day; but what gave its special character to the occasion was the presence of keepers and poachers, of gipsies, country rustics, and huntsmen, the Esaus of the Hampshire village, which was the fit resting-place for one who above all was the ideal of a parish priest.
GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS
1817-1904
| 1817. | Born in London, February 23. |
| 1827. | Begins to frequent the studio of William Behnes. |
| 1835. | Enters Royal Academy Schools. |
| 1837. | Working in his own studio. 'Wounded Heron' and two portraits in Royal Academy exhibition. |
| 1842. | Success in Parliament House competition: 'Caractacus' cartoon. |
| 1843-7. | Living with Lord and Lady Holland at Florence. |
| 1847. | Success in second competition: 'Alfred' cartoon. |
| 1848. | Early allegorical pictures. |
| 1850. | Friendship with the Prinseps. Little Holland House. |
| 1851. | National series of portraits begun. |
| 1852. | Begins Lincoln's Inn Hall fresco: finished 1859. |
| 1856. | With Sir Charles Newton to Halicarnassus. |
| 1865. | Correspondence with Charles Rickards of Manchester. |
| 1867. | Elected A.R.A. and R.A. in same year. Portraits. Carlyle. W. Morris. |
| 1872. | New home at Freshwater, Isle of Wight. 'The Briary.' Little Holland House sold. |
| 1877. | Grosvenor Gallery opened. 1881. Watts exhibition there (200 pictures). |
| 1882. | D.C.L., Oxford; LL.D., Cambridge. |
| 1886. | November; marries Miss Fraser Tytler. Winter in Egypt. |
| 1890. | New home at Limnerslease, Compton. |
| 1895. | National Portrait Gallery opened. |
| 1896. | New Gallery exhibition (155 pictures). |
| 1897. | Gift of pictures to new Tate Gallery. |
| 1902. | Order of Merit. |
| 1904. | Death at Compton, July 1. |
GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS
Artist
The great age of British art was past before Queen Victoria began her long and memorable reign. Reynolds and Gainsborough had died in the last years of the eighteenth century, Romney and Hoppner in the first decade of the nineteenth; Lawrence, the last of the Georgian portrait-painters, did not live beyond 1830. Of the landscapists Crome died in 1821 and Constable in 1837. Turner, the one survivor of the Giants, had done three-quarters of his work before 1837 and can hardly be reckoned as a Victorian worthy.
