Of his undergraduate career there is little to be told. Called by his enemies “The Burford Bounder,” or “dirty Lambkin,” he yet acquired the respect of a small but choice circle who called him by his own name. He was third proxime accessit for the Johnson prize in Biblical studies, and would undoubtedly have obtained (or been mentioned for) the Newdigate, had he not been pitted against two men of quite exceptional poetic gifts—the present editor of “The Investor’s Sure Prophet,” and Mr. Hound, the well-known writer on “Food Statistics.”
He took a good Second-class in Greats in the summer of 1864, and was immediately elected to a fellowship at Burford. It was not known at the time that his father had become a bankrupt through lending large sums at a high rate of interest to a young heir without security, trusting to the necessity under which his name and honour would put him to pay. In the shipwreck of the family fortunes, the small endowment was a veritable godsend to Josiah, who but for this recognition of his merits would have been compelled to work for his living.
As it was, his peculiar powers were set free to plan his great monograph on “Being,” a work which, to the day of his death, he designed not only to write but to publish.
There was not, of course, any incident of note in the thirty years during which he held his fellowship. He did his duty plainly as it lay before him, occasionally taking pupils, and after the Royal Commission, even giving lectures in the College hall. He was made Junior Dean in October, 1872, Junior Bursar in 1876, and Bursar in 1880, an office which he held during the rest of his life.
In this capacity no breath of calumny ever touched him. His character was spotless. He never offered or took compensations of any kind, and no one has hinted that his accounts were not accurately and strictly kept.
He never allowed himself to be openly a candidate for the Wardenship of the College, but it is remarkable that he received one vote at each of the three elections held in the twenty years of his residence.
He passed peacefully away just after Hall on the Gaudy Night of last year. When his death was reported, an old scout, ninety-two years of age, who had grown deaf in the service of the College, burst into tears and begged that the name might be more clearly repeated to him, as he had failed to catch it. On hearing it he dried his eyes, and said he had never known a better master.
His character will, I think, be sufficiently evident in the writings which I shall publish. He was one of nature’s gentlemen; reticent, just, and full of self-respect. He hated a scene, and was careful to avoid giving rise even to an argument. On the other hand, he was most tenacious of his just rights, though charitable to the deserving poor, and left a fortune of thirty-five thousand pounds.
In the difficult questions which arise from the superior rank of inferiors he displayed a constant tact and judgment. It is not always easy for a tutor to control and guide the younger members of the aristocracy without being accused of pitiless severity on the one hand or of gross obsequiousness on the other. Lambkin, to his honour, contrived to direct with energy and guide without offence the men upon whom England’s greatness depends.
He was by no means a snob—snobbishness was not in him. On the other hand, he was equally removed from what is almost worse than snobbishness—the morbid terror of subservience which possesses some ill-balanced minds.