See blustering Freeman butter blundering Green."
To which Jowett replied, in his quavering treble, "That's a false antithesis, Rogers. It's quite possible to bluster and blunder, too!"
The mention of Oxford historians reminds me of my friend Professor Dingo, to whom reference has been made in an earlier chapter. He had a strong admiration for the virile and masterful character of Henry VIII., and was wont to conceal the blots on his hero's career by this pathetic paraphrase—"The later years of this excellent monarch's reign were clouded by much domestic unhappiness."
Jowett has been mentioned more than once, and there is no need for me to describe him. Lord Beaconsfield, in Endymion, gave a snapshot of "a certain Dr. Comeley, an Oxford Don of the new school, who were initiating Lord Montfort in all the mysteries of Neology. This celebrated divine, who, in a sweet silky voice, quoted Socrates instead of St. Paul, was opposed to all symbols and formulas as essentially unphilosophical." Mr. Mallock, in the New Republic, supplied us with a more finished portrait of "Dr. Jenkinson," and parodied his style of preaching with a perfection which irritated the Master of Balliol out of his habitual calm. My own intercourse with Jowett was not intimate, but I once dined with him on an occasion which made an equally deep impression on two of the guests—Lord Milner and myself. When the ladies had left the dining-room, an eminent diplomatist began an extremely full-flavoured conversation, which would have been unpleasant anywhere, and, in the presence of the diplomatist's son, a lad of sixteen, was disgusting. For a few minutes the Master endured it, though with visible annoyance; and then, suddenly addressing the offender at the other end of the table, said, in a birdlike chirp, "Sir ——." "Yes, Master." "Shall we continue this conversation in the drawing-room?" No rebuke was ever more neatly administered.
Jowett's name reminds me, rather obliquely, of the Rev. H. O. Coxe, who in my time was Bodleian Librarian. He was clergyman, sportsman, scholar, all in one, with an infectious enthusiasm for the treasures in his charge, and the most unfailing kindness and patience in exhibiting them. "Those who have enjoyed the real privilege of hearing Mr. Coxe discuss points of historical detail, or have been introduced by him to some of the rarer treasures of the Bodleian, will bear witness to the living interest which such subjects acquired in his hands. How he would kindle while he recited Lord Clarendon's written resignation of the Chancellorship of the University! With what dramatic zest he read out the scraps of paper (carefully preserved by Clarendon) which used to pass between himself and his Royal Master across the Council-table!"
I quote this life-like description from Burgon's Twelve Good Men, and Burgon it is who supplies the link with Jowett. "It was shortly after the publication of Essays and Reviews that Jowett, meeting Coxe, enquired:—"Have you read my essay?" "No, my dear Jowett. We are good friends now; but I know that, if I were to read that essay, I should have to cut you. So I haven't read it, and I don't mean to.""—A commendable way of escape from theological controversy.
It is scarcely fair to reckon Cardinal Manning among Oxford celebrities; but during my undergraduateship he made two incursions into the University, which were attended by some quaint consequences. In 1873 he was a guest at the banquet held in honour of the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the Union; and it was noted with amusement that, though he was not then a Cardinal, but merely a schismatic Archbishop, he contrived to take precedence of the Bishop of Oxford in his own cathedral city. Bishop Wilberforce had died three months before, and I remember that all the old stagers said:—"If Sam had still been Bishop of Oxford, this would not have happened." The Roman Catholics of Oxford were of course delighted; and when, soon afterwards, Manning returned as Cardinal to open the Roman Catholic Church in St. Giles's, great efforts were made to bring all undergraduates who showed any Rome-ward proclivities within the sphere of his influence. To one rather bumptious youth he said:—"And what are you going to do with your life?" "I'm thinking of taking Orders." "Take care you get them, my friend." Another, quite unmoved by the pectoral cross and crimson soutane, asked artlessly, "What was your college?" The Cardinal replied, with some dignity, "I was at Balliol, and subsequently at Merton." "Oh! that was like me. I was at Exeter, and I was sent down to a Hall for not getting through Smalls." "I was a Fellow of Merton." No powers of type can do justice to the intonation.
At the time of which I speak Oxford was particularly rich in delightful and accomplished ladies. I have already paid my tribute to Mrs. Cradock, Mrs. Liddell, Mrs. Acland, Mrs. Talbot, and Miss Eleanor Smith. Miss Felicia Skene was at once a devoted servant of the poor and the outcast, and also one of the most powerful writers of her time, although she contrived almost entirely to escape observation. Let anyone who thinks that I rate her powers too highly read "The Divine Master," "La Roquette—1871," and "Hidden Depths."
No account of the famous women at Oxford would be complete without a reference to Miss Marion Hughes—the first Sister of Mercy in the Church of England—professed on Trinity Sunday, 1841, and still the Foundress-Mother of the Convent of the Holy and Undivided Trinity at Oxford.