There is a pleasant story contributed by Professor Kenny—to whom this portion of the narrative is greatly indebted—of a debate upon a motion that certain annotations upon the annual report of the Union's proceedings should be cancelled in the interests of "the literary credit of the Society." The notes were ungrammatical, ludicrous, unauthorised. They had been composed during the Long Vacation by the Society's senior servant in the name of the absent Secretary. There was nothing to be said for them save that it was hard that a good old man should be humiliated for an excess of official zeal. Maitland was Secretary at the time and chivalrously undertook the defence of his subordinate. It was the eve of the Fifth of November; the name of the mover was James. Such an historical coincidence was not lost upon the ingenious mind of the Secretary. "Tomorrow," he observed, boldly carrying the war into the enemy's country, "is the Feast of the Blessed Saint Guy. Appropriately enough the House appears to be under search this evening for indications of a new plot. Enter King James the Third, surrounded by his minions, with a loud flourish of his own trumpet. He produces the dark lantern of his intellect and discovers—not a conspirator, but a mare's nest." And when, at last, by successive strokes of humour Maitland had won over the sympathies of the House, he proceeded to venture upon the merits of his defence. "We are attacked," he said, "for bad grammar. A great crime, no doubt, in some men's eyes. For at times I have met men to whom words were everything, and whose everything was words; men undistinguished by any other capacity, and unknown outside this House, but reigning here in self-satisfaction, lords of the realm of Tautology."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "The Cambridge Apostles," by W. D. Christie. Macmillan's Magazine, Nov. 1864.
[2] A Biographical Notice by Mrs Reynell (privately printed).
[3] Cambridge University Reporter, Dec. 17, 1904.
[4] A punning squib, very spirited and amusing, entitled "A solemn Mystery," and contributed to The Adventurer, June 4, 1869, seems to have been Maitland's first appearance in print.
[5] Cambridge University Reporter, Dec. 7, 1900.
[6] There were four candidates for the Fellowship: W. Cunningham, Arthur Lyttelton, F. W. Maitland, and James Ward, every one of them distinguished in after life. With so strong a competition the College might have done well to elect more Fellows than one in Moral and Mental Science.
[7] Such for instance as:—
"The love of simplicity has done vast harm to English Political Philosophy."