His attitude was this: that we are compelled to admit the aristocratic quality of the English polity and should, while decently veiling its cruder aspects, enjoy to the full the benefits which such a constitution confers upon society and upon our individual selves.
By a genial observance of such canons he became one of the most respected among those whom the chances of an academic career presented to him as pupils or parents. He was the guest and honoured friend of the Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of Pembroke, the Duke of Limerick (“Mad Harry”), and the Duke of Lincoln; he had also the honour of holding a long conversation with the Duke of Berkshire, whom he met upon the top of an omnibus in Piccadilly and instantly recognised. He possessed letters, receipts or communications from no less than four Marquises, one Marquess, ten Barons, sixteen Baronets and one hundred and twenty County Gentlemen. I must not omit Lord Grumbletooth, who had had commercial dealings with his father, and who remained to the end of his life a cordial and devoted friend.[9]
His tact in casual conversation was no less remarkable than his general savoir faire in the continuous business of life. Thus upon one occasion a royal personage happened to be dining in Hall. It was some days after the death of Mr. Hooligan, the well-known Home Rule leader. The distinguished guest, with perhaps a trifle of licence, turned to Lambkin and said “Well, Mr. Bursar, what do you think of Hooligan?” We observed a respectful silence and wondered what reply Lambkin would give in these difficult circumstances. The answer was like a bolt from the blue, “De mortuis nil nisi bonum,” said the Classical Scholar, and a murmur of applause went round the table.
Indeed his political views were perhaps the most remarkable feature in a remarkable character. He died a convinced and staunch Liberal Unionist, and this was the more striking as he was believed by all his friends to be a Conservative until the introduction of Mr. Gladstone’s famous Bill in 1885.
In the delicate matter of religious controversy his own writings must describe him, nor will I touch here upon a question which did not rise to any considerable public importance until after his death. Perhaps I may be permitted to say this much; he was a sincere Christian in the true sense of the word, attached to no narrow formularies, but following as closely as he could the system of Seneca, stiffened (as it were) with the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, though he was never so violent as to attempt a practice of what that extreme stoic laid down in theory.
Neither a ritualist nor a low-churchman, he expressed his attitude by a profound and suggestive silence. These words only escaped him upon one single occasion. Let us meditate upon them well in the stormy discussions of to-day: “Medio tutissimus ibis.”
His learning and scholarship, so profound in the dead languages, was exercised with singular skill and taste in the choice he made of modern authors.
He was ignorant of Italian, but thoroughly conversant with the French classics, which he read in the admirable translations of the ‘Half-crown Series.’ His principal reading here was in the works of Voltaire, wherein, however, he confessed, “He could find no style, and little more than blasphemous ribaldry.” Indeed, of the European languages he would read German with the greatest pleasure, confining himself chiefly to the writings of Lessing, Kant, and Schiller. His mind acquired by this habit a singular breadth and fecundity, his style a kind of rich confusion, and his speech (for he was able to converse a little in that idiom) was strengthened by expressions of the deepest philosophic import; a habit which gave him a peculiar and individual power over his pupils, who mistook the Teutonic gutturals for violent objurgations.
Such was the man, such the gentleman, the true ‘Hglaford,’ the modern ‘Godgebidden Eorldemanthingancanning,’ whose inner thoughts shall unroll themselves in the pages that follow.