Friendships have through life been essential to my enjoyment, I might almost say to my existence. Intimate acquaintance with people of remarkable character in my Windsor days was a source of intense gratification.
The Rev. W. Walford, for some years minister of a Congregational Church at Yarmouth, then classical tutor at Homerton College, and finally pastor of the old Meeting House, Uxbridge, was one of the most remarkable men I ever knew. I see him now, with his handsome face, bald head, well-knit form, keen eyes, compressed lips, rather tottering in gait, and brusque in manner. What walks and talks we had! In conversation he expressed himself with singular accuracy on theological and metaphysical subjects. He had Butler and Jonathan Edwards at his fingers’ ends, and could pack into a few words some of their most abstruse definitions and arguments. He had a habit of turning round when you walked with him, and standing face to face, when he would, in a most luminous style, state his propositions and adduce his proofs. He read Sir William Hamilton with immense admiration, though he did not in all respects adopt his views; and, at a period when looseness of religious thought was becoming prevalent, it was a treat to see him make a stand, figuratively as well as literally, for a distinct utterance of what people believe. From no man’s conversation have I derived more instruction and advantage. I can never forget his reading to me, with tears in his eyes, a translation he had made of Plato’s “Phaedo.”
One day an old gentleman called to say he was about to reside at Old Windsor, and intended joining our worship at William Street Chapel. He had a cheerful, lively expression of countenance, with a few short grey locks on each side of his bald head, and showed in his gait signs of paralytic seizure. Full of humour and kindness, he made a pleasant impression. Thus began my friendship with Mr. Samuel Bagster of famous Polyglot memory. Notwithstanding his lameness, he could at that time walk from Old Windsor to our house with the aid of a stick, only asking a helping hand at the commencement of his pedestrian attempts. Thus started off he would steadily pursue his journey dressed in a short cloak and wearing a very broad-brimmed hat. He was one of the chattiest, most amusing friends I ever had. He possessed a large fund of anecdotes, which he knew I liked; and from time to time, as I visited his house, he doled them out with no niggard hand. He had lived on books, and books were his delight. Many choice editions in handsome bindings lined the walls in his rambling, quaint sort of residence, where also flowers, gathered in his little garden, formed conspicuous ornaments. There he would sit nursing his foot, complaining of pain in his great toe, and would launch out for a pleasant sail over the lake of memory, and take me from one point to another. The old books he had bought and sold, the circumstances connected with the origin of his Polyglot and Hexapla, the fire which occurred on his premises in Paternoster Row—these he would narrate in a characteristic way.
He often talked about the French Revolution and events connected with it in our own country. Clubs of a more than questionable description were established, and he told me that, invited by a person of his own age to attend a meeting held in an obscure street, he was surprised, on his entrance, to find a number of men ranged on either side of a room, sitting by long tables, with a cross one at the upper end. There sat the president for the evening. Several foaming tankards were brought in, when the president calling on the company to rise, took up one of the pots, and striking off the foam which crested the porter, gave as a toast: “So let all . . . perish.” The blank was left to be filled up as each drinker pleased. The avowed dislike to kings entertained by these boon companions suggested to Mr. Bagster the word “kings” or “tyrants”; and at once he gladly left the place, not a little alarmed, lest he should be suspected of treasonable designs. With characteristic caution, he took care not to observe the thoroughfare through which he passed on his way back, that he might be able conscientiously to declare he did not know the situation of the place. He also related that his father had a workman in his employ, whom he knew to be a disaffected subject. He expostulated with him on the horrors of a revolution as illustrated in France, and dwelt upon the confusion which would ensue upon outbreaks on established order. The man lifted up the skirt of his threadbare coat against the window, and significantly asked: “Pray, sir, what have I to lose?” My friend was no Radical, no Whig, but a Tory of the old-fashioned type, who approved of things as they were, without, however, any consciousness of wishing to tyrannise over other people. He was a great admirer of Izaak Walton, and had made a collection of drawings illustrative of his “Compleat Angler,” of which he intended to publish a new edition, with a life of the author. When he had completed his “Comprehensive Bible,” which, by permission, he dedicated to George IV., he was allowed personally to present it to His Majesty; and I have heard him say that on that occasion he was introduced to the royal presence by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The publisher was already paralysed, and could walk only with a tottering step; but the Primate gave him his arm, and led him up to the so-called first gentleman of Europe, who received him very graciously, and accepted at his hands the handsomely-bound volume.
There were other people I met with at Windsor whom I may mention. At the house of Dr. Ferguson, a Scotch physician of good birth and high culture, I met with his son-in-law, the Rev. Mr. Moultrie, Incumbent at Rugby, and friend of Dr. Arnold. He was a man of genius and piety, and gave a conviction of personal goodness, which made me value his volume of poems even more than I had done before. I like to look at authors through their books, and then again at books through their authors. In some cases the personal damages the literary judgment; but in many cases I have enjoyed works much more after knowing the worker.
Mr. Jesse, the naturalist, was another of my acquaintances. He held an office in connection with royal parks and palaces, and I spent pleasant hours as he drove me in his little pony gig from Windsor to Hampton Court, in the restoration of which he felt great delight. An amiable disposition, gentlemanly manners, and large information, made him an excellent companion. From the account he gave of his early life I found his father was a clergyman, a friend of Lady Huntingdon’s, and an occasional preacher at Spafields Chapel. Mr. Stark, the eminent landscape artist, was one of my hearers, a man of decided religious convictions, and conscientious in art as in other things. He and Mr. Bristow, the animal painter, were amongst my friends; and in Windsor Forest they found subjects for their united skill, Stark putting in the trees, Bristow dogs and horses.
Amongst London friends at that time, and long afterwards was John Bergne, brother to my fellow-student Samuel Bergne, already mentioned. Clerk in the Foreign Office, he rose to the superintendence of the Treaty Department. Full of knowledge respecting European affairs, he often amused me by his taciturnity whenever they came on the carpet,—abstinence from communication of office secrets having become to him second nature. His mind was rich with information on various subjects; and in the science of numismatics he was well skilled. His collection of coins was of great value, including examples of English money from the earliest time, and valuable portions of “great finds” in Greek states. His affluent conversation, overflowing with humour, his rapid utterance and command of language surpassed what I have heard from many good talkers, whom it has been my fortune to meet with during a long life.
With other remarkable persons, I became intimately acquainted after my removal to Kensington. These I shall notice in their proper place.
In 1833 arose the Puseyite or Tractarian controversy as it was called. Of this a full account is given by Dr. Newman, in his “Apologia”—an account, of course, proceeding from his own point of view. The strife both inside and outside the University of Oxford, where the masters of the Tractarian movement lived and worked, was of the hottest kind; and those engaged in it on both sides, under the influence of party feeling, failed to appreciate each other’s position, and to estimate correctly the tendencies involved. The Anglo-Catholics did not believe they were so near Rome; the staunch Protestants did not calculate on the wonderful effect which the controversy would have in stirring up the latent energies of the Church, and in modifying forms of worship, even amongst Evangelical parties. An amusing story I remember hearing when the famous Tract, “No. 90,” was published. The then Bishop of Winchester (I think) wished to see it, and wrote to his bookseller to forward a copy, but from illegibility of penmanship “No 90” was mistaken for “No go”; and the poor bookseller, after inquiring in the Row for a pamphlet with that title, wrote to inform his Lordship, that there was no such tract in the market. The story ran its round, and the Evangelicals pronounced “No. 90” “No go.”
Dr. Newman condensed within the space of a few years the Romeward tendencies of Christendom during successive ages: starting with Tractarian doctrines, it was consistent for him to become a Roman Catholic in the sequel; and Dr. Pusey, in pausing where he did, never explained the grounds of his practical inconsistency. I felt it my duty to point out the unscriptural character of the Tractarian movement in a course of lectures, afterwards published under the title of “Tractarian Theology.”