I may as well dispose here of one other topic which seems appropriate to University days. Fitzjames cared nothing for the athletic sports which were so effectually popularised soon afterwards in the time of 'Tom Brown's School Days.' Athletes, indeed, cast longing eyes at his stalwart figure. One eminent oarsman persuaded my brother to take a seat in a pair-oared boat, and found that he could hardly hold his own against the strength of the neophyte. He tried to entice so promising a recruit by offers of a place in the 'Third Trinity' crew and ultimate hopes of a 'University Blue.' Fitzjames scorned the dazzling offer. I remember how Ritson, the landlord at Wastdale Head, who had wrestled with Christopher North, lamented in after years that Fitzjames had never entered the ring. He spoke in the spirit of the prize-fighter who said to Whewell, 'What a man was lost when they made you a parson!' His only taste of the kind was his hereditary love of walking. His mother incidentally observes in January 1846, that he has accomplished a walk of thirty-three miles; and in later days that was a frequent allowance. Though not a fast walker, he had immense endurance. He made several Alpine tours, and once (in 1860) he accompanied me in an ascent of the Jungfrau with a couple of guides. He was fresh from London; we had passed a night in a comfortless cave; the day was hot, and his weight made a plod through deep snow necessarily fatiguing. We reached the summit with considerable difficulty. On the descent he slipped above a certain famous bergschrund; the fall of so ponderous a body jerked me out of the icy steps, and our combined weight dragged down the guides. Happily the bergschrund was choked with snow, and we escaped with an involuntary slide. As we plodded slowly homewards, we expected that his exhaustion would cause a difficulty in reaching the inn. But by the time we got there he was, I believe, the freshest of the party. I remember another characteristic incident of the walk. He began in the most toilsome part of the climb to expound to me a project for an article in the 'Saturday Review.' I consigned that journal to a fate which I believe it has hitherto escaped. But his walks were always enjoyed as opportunities for reflection. Occasionally he took a gun or a rod, and I am told was not a bad shot. He was, however, rather inclined to complain of the appearance of a grouse as interrupting his thoughts. In sport of the gambling variety he never took the slightest interest; and when he became a judge, he shocked a Liverpool audience by asking in all simplicity, 'What is the "Grand National"?' That, I understand, is like asking a lawyer, What is a Habeas Corpus? He was never seized with the athletic or sporting mania, much as he enjoyed a long pound through pleasant scenery. In this as in some other things he came to think that his early contempt for what appeared to be childish amusements had been pushed rather to excess.
I return to Cambridge. My brother knew slightly some of the leading men of the place. The omniscient Whewell, who concealed a warm heart and genuine magnanimity under rather rough and overbearing manners, had welcomed my father very cordially to Cambridge and condescended to be polite to his son. But the gulf which divided him from an undergraduate was too wide to allow the transmission of real personal influence. Thompson, Whewell's successor in the mastership, was my brother's tutor. He is now chiefly remembered for certain shrewd epigrams; but then enjoyed a great reputation for his lectures upon Plato. My brother attended them; but from want of natural Platonism or for other reasons failed to profit by them, and thought the study was sheer waste of time. Another great Cambridge man of those days, the poetical mathematician, Leslie Ellis, was kind to my brother, who had an introduction to him probably from Spedding. Ellis was already suffering from the illness which confined him to his room at Trumpington, and prevented him from ever giving full proofs of intellectual powers, rated by all who knew him as astonishing. I may quote what Fitzjames says of one other contemporary, the senior classic of his own year: 'Lightfoot's reputation for accuracy and industry was unrivalled; but it was not generally known what a depth of humour he had or what general force of character.' Lightfoot's promotion to the Bishopric of Durham removed him, as my brother thought, from his proper position as a teacher; and he suffered 'under the general decay of all that belongs to theology.' I do not find, however, that Lightfoot had any marked influence upon Fitzjames.
The best thing that the ablest man learns at college, as somebody has said, is that there are abler men than himself. My brother became intimate with several very able men of his own age, and formed friendships which lasted for life. He met them especially in two societies, which influenced him as they have influenced many men destined to achieve eminence. The first was the 'Union.' There his oratory became famous. The 'Gruffian' and 'Giant Grim' was now known as the 'British Lion'; and became, says Mr. Watson, 'a terror to the shallow and wordy, and a merciless exposer of platitudes and shams.' Mr. Watson describes a famous scene in the October term of 1849 which may sufficiently illustrate his position. 'There was at that time at Trinity a cleverish, excitable, worthy fellow whose mind was a marvellous mixture of inconsistent opinions which he expounded with a kind of oratory as grotesque as his views.' Tradition supplies me with one of his flowers of speech. He alluded to the clergy as 'priests sitting upon their golden middens and crunching the bones of the people.' These oddities gave my brother irresistible opportunities for making fun of his opponent. 'One night his victim's powers of endurance gave way. The scene resembled the celebrated outburst of Canning when goaded by the invectives of Brougham. The man darted across the room with the obvious intention of making a physical onslaught, and then, under what impulse and with what purpose I do not know, the whole meeting suddenly flashed into a crowd of excited, wrangling boys. They leapt upon the seats, climbed upon the benches, vociferated and gesticulated against each other, heedless of the fines and threats of the bewildered President, and altogether reproduced a scene of the French revolutionary Assembly.' Mr. Llewelyn Davies was the unfortunate President on this occasion, and mentions that my brother commemorated the scene in a 'heroic ballad' which has disappeared.
From the minutes of the Society[54] 'I learn further details of this historic scene. The debate (November 27, 1849) arose upon a motion in favour of Cobden. His panegyrist made 'such violent interruptions' that a motion was made for his expulsion, but carried by an insufficient majority. Another orator then 'became unruly' and was expelled by a superabundant majority, while the original mover was fined 2l. The motion was then unanimously negatived, 'the opener not being present to reply.' From the records of other debates I learn that Fitzjames was in favour of the existing Church Establishment as against advocates of change, whether high churchmen or liberationists. He also opposed motions for extension of the suffrage, without regard to education or property, moved by Sir W. Harcourt. He agrees, however, with Harcourt in condemning the game laws. His most characteristic utterance was when the admirer of Cobden had moved that 'to all human appearance we are warranted in tracing for our own country through the dim perspective of coming time an exalted and glorious destiny.' Fitzjames moved as an amendment 'that the House, while it acknowledges the many dangers to which the country is exposed, trusts that through the help of God we may survive them.' This amendment was carried by 60 to 0.
The other society was one which has included a very remarkable number of eminent men. In my undergraduate days we used to speak with bated breath of the 'Apostles'—the accepted nickname for what was officially called the Cambridge Conversazione Society. It was founded about 1820, and had included such men as Tennyson (who, as my brother reports, had to leave the Society because he was too lazy to write an essay), the two younger Hallams, Maurice, Sterling, Charles Buller, Arthur Helps, James Spedding, Monckton Milnes, Tom Taylor, Charles Merivale, Canon Blakesley, and others whom I shall have to mention. The existence of a society intended to cultivate the freest discussion of all the great topics excited some suspicion when, about 1834, there was a talk of abolishing tests. It was then warmly defended by Thirlwall, the historian, who said that many of its members had become ornaments of the Church.[55]
But the very existence of this body was scarcely known to the University at large; and its members held reticence to be a point of honour. You might be aware that your most intimate friend belonged to it: you had dimly inferred the fact from his familiarity with certain celebrities, and from discovering that upon Saturday evenings he was always mysteriously engaged. But he never mentioned his dignity; any more than at the same period a Warrington would confess that he was a contributor to the leading journals of the day. The members were on the look-out for any indications of intellectual originality, academical or otherwise, and specially contemptuous of humbug, cant, and the qualities of the 'windbag' in general. To be elected, therefore, was virtually to receive a certificate from some of your cleverest contemporaries that they regarded you as likely to be in future an eminent man. The judgment so passed was perhaps as significant as that implied by University honours, and a very large proportion of the apostles have justified the anticipations of their fellows.
My brother owed his election at an unusually early period of his career to one of the most important friendships of his life. In the summer vacation of 1845 F. W. Gibbs was staying at Filey, reading for the Trinity Fellowship, which he obtained in the following October. Fitzjames joined him, and there met Henry Sumner Maine, who had recently (1844) taken his degree at Cambridge, when he was not only 'senior classic' but a senior classic of exceptional brilliancy. Both Maine and Gibbs were apostles and, of course, friends. My brother's first achievement was to come near blowing out his new friend's brains by the accidental discharge of a gun. Maine happily escaped, and must have taken a liking to the lad. In 1847 Maine was appointed to the Regius Professorship of Civil Law in Cambridge. The study which he was to teach had fallen into utter decay. Maine himself cannot at that time have had any profound knowledge of the Civil Law—if, indeed, he ever acquired such knowledge. But his genius enabled him to revive the study in England—although no genius could galvanise the corpse of legal studies at the Cambridge of those days into activity. Maine, as Fitzjames says, 'made in the most beautiful manner applications of history and philosophy to Roman law, and transfigured one of the driest of subjects into all sorts of beautiful things without knowing or caring much about details.' He was also able to 'sniff at Bentham' for his ignorance in this direction. 'I rebelled against Maine for many years,' says Fitzjames, 'till at last I came to recognise, not only his wonderful gifts, but the fact that at bottom he and I agreed fundamentally, though it cost us both a good deal of trouble to find it out.' I quote this because it bears upon my brother's later development of opinion. For the present, the personal remark is more relevant. Maine, says Fitzjames, 'was perfectly charming to me at college, as he is now. He was most kind, friendly, and unassuming; and, though I was a freshman and he a young don,[56] and he was twenty-six when I was twenty—one of the greatest differences of age and rank which can exist between two people having so much in common—we were always really and effectually equal. We have been the closest of friends all through life.' I think, indeed, that Maine's influence upon my brother was only second to that of my father.
Maine brought Fitzjames into the apostles in his first term.[57] Maine, says my brother, 'was a specially shining apostle, and in all discussions not only took by far the first and best part, but did it so well and unpretentiously, and in a strain so much above what the rest of us could reach, that it was a great piece of education to hear him.' Other members of the little society, which generally included only five or six—the name 'apostles' referring to the limit of possible numbers—were E. H. Stanley (afterwards Lord Derby), who left in March 1848, Vernon Harcourt (now Sir William), H. W. Watson, Julian Fane,[58] and the present Canon Holland. Old members—Monckton Milnes, James Spedding, Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam, and W. H. Thompson (the tutor)—occasionally attended meetings. The late Professor Hort and the great physicist, Clerk Maxwell, joined about the time of my brother's departure. He records one statement of Maxwell's which has, I suspect, been modified in transmission. The old logicians, said Maxwell, recognised four forms of syllogism. Hamilton had raised the number to 7, but he had himself discovered 135. This, however, mattered little, as the great majority could not be expressed in human language, and even if expressed were not susceptible of any meaning.
This specimen would give a very inaccurate notion of the general line of discussion. By the kindness of Professor Sidgwick, I am enabled to give some specimens of the themes supported by my brother, which may be of interest, not merely in regard to him, but as showing what topics occupied the minds of intelligent youths at the time. The young gentlemen met every Saturday night in term time and read essays. They discussed all manner of topics. Sometimes they descended to mere commonplaces—Is a little knowledge a dangerous thing? Is it possible ridentem dicere verum? (which Fitzjames is solitary in denying)—but more frequently they expatiate upon the literary, poetical, ethical, and philosophical problems which can be answered so conclusively in our undergraduate days. Fitzjames self-denyingly approves of the position assigned to mathematics at Cambridge. In literary matters I notice that he does not think the poetry of Byron of a 'high order'; that he reads some essays of Shelley, which are unanimously voted 'unsatisfactory'; that he denies that Tennyson's 'Princess' shows higher powers than the early poems (a rather ambiguous phrase); that he considers Adam, not Satan, to be the hero of 'Paradise Lost'; and, more characteristically, that he regards the novels of the present day as 'degenerate,' and, on his last appearance, maintains the superiority of Miss Austen's 'Emma' to Miss Brontë's 'Jane Eyre.' 'Jane Eyre' had then, I remember, some especially passionate admirers at Cambridge. His philosophical theories are not very clear. He thinks, like some other people, that Locke's chapter on 'Substance' is 'unsatisfactory'; and agrees with some 'strictures' on the early chapters of Mill's 'Political Economy.' He writes an essay to explode the poor old social contract. He holds that the study of metaphysics is desirable, but adds the note, 'not including ontological inquiries under the head of metaphysics.' He denies, however, the proposition that 'all general truths are founded on experience.' He thinks that a meaning can be attached to the term 'freewill'; but considers it impossible 'to frame a satisfactory hypothesis as to the origin of evil.' Even the intellect of the apostles had its limits. His ethical doctrines seem to have inclined to utilitarianism. The whole society (four members present) agrees that the system of expediency, 'so far from being a derogation from the moral dignity of man, is the only method consistent with the conditions of his action.' He is neutral upon the question whether 'self-love is the immediate motive of all our actions,' and considers that question unmeaning, 'as not believing it possible that a man should be at once subject and object.' He writes an essay to show that there is no foundation 'for a philosophy of history in the analogy between the progressive improvement of mankind and that of which individuals are capable,' and he holds (in opposition to Maine) that Carlyle is a 'philosophic historian.' The only direct reference to contemporary politics is characteristic. Fane had argued that 'some elements of socialism' should be 'employed in that reconstruction of society which the spirit of the age demands.' Maine agrees, but Fitzjames denies that any reconstruction of society is needed.
Theological discussions abound. Fitzjames thinks that there are grounds independent of revelation for believing in the goodness and unity of an intelligent First Cause. He reads an essay to prove that we can form a notion of inspiration which does not involve dictation. He thinks it 'more agreeable to right reason' to explain the Biblical account of the creation by literal interpretation than 'on scientific principles,' but adds the rider, 'so far as it can be reconciled with geological facts.' He denies that the Pentateuch shows 'traces of Egyptian origin.' He thinks that Paley's views of the 'essential doctrines of Christianity' are insufficient. He approves the 'strict observance of the Sabbath in England,' but notes that he does not wish to 'confound the Christian Sunday with the Jewish Sabbath.'