CHAPTER IV.
Private Tuition Under Mr. Blomfield.
"Had the public masters of the school been attentive to the advancement of the scholars in learning while negligent of their morals, and had I been making progress in my studies while losing my innocence, I might have continued longer in that place; for I did not fall into gross, outward, vicious habits, and it is possible that no difference was perceived in my behaviour at home. But I suppose my father saw a wide difference between the care which Mr. Godley bestowed on me and that which boys in the public tutors' houses could receive. I know not exactly the reasons that led to the change; but, in the Christmas holidays at the end of the year 1813, Mr. Blomfield was invited to Althorp, and he was pointed out to me as my intended future tutor. Many of my readers will know at once that he is now [Footnote 1] the Protestant Bishop of London. My father had presented him somewhat before this period with the rectory of Dunton, in Buckinghamshire, having been led to do so by the distinguished character which he heard of him from Cambridge for he did not personally know him when he offered him this piece of preferment. From the time that I made his acquaintance, and received some directions from him for private reading at Eton during the remaining time of my stay there, I began to take some more decided interest than I had yet done in advancing myself in literary knowledge.
[Footnote 1: This was written in 1836. See Preface. Dr. Blomfield died in 1857.]
This, as well as my growing older and more independent of other boys, and falling in with more sensible companions, gave to my mind a more satisfactory turn during my last year at Eton. There was no return, though, to religion whilst I remained there, nor was there likely to be; and so, most blessed was the change for me when, before Christmas 1814, I left Mr. ***'s, and, after remaining at home for about three months in company with my brother Frederick, returned for the first time from sea, I went to Mr. Blomfield's in March, 1815. I staid there till near the time of my first going to Cambridge, which was in the summer of 1817. Simplicity and purity of mind, alas! are not regained with the readiness with which they are lost: the falling into bad company and consenting to it will utterly ruin all innocence. The removal of occasions may prevent the growth of evil habits and the farther increase of corruption; but this alone will not restore that blessed ignorance of evil which was no longer mine. My residence with Blomfield was, however, the means to me of great good. Here I was confirmed in that love for study and knowledge of which I have already noticed the commencement. He had himself, as is well known, though still young, gained a reputation for classical learning among the scholars of England and the Continent; and his example and conversations inspired me with desires for the like distinctions, to which he gave all possible encouragement. This I reckon to have been a considerable advantage to my religious welfare; for, although the motive I set before me was merely worldly, and the subjects which I studied had little of a good and much of a bad tendency, as must needs be the case with pagan literature, yet, by gaining a habit for study, I was directed in a line widely distinct from the most vicious of the society through which I was afterwards to pass; and, by being a reading man at Cambridge, I was saved from much perversion."
We shall be pardoned for interrupting the course of this interesting narrative, by inserting an anecdote, which shows how unchanged was his opinion on the merits of pagan literature. In a conversation with his religious companions, shortly before he died, he happened to say something about the discoveries of Cardinal Mai among the Bobbio manuscripts. Some one remarked that it was nothing less than Vandalism for the old monks to erase one of the classic authors, and write some crude chronicle or other over it. "Well," replied Father Ignatius, "I suppose the monks had as much respect for Virgil and Ovid as the angels have."
To resume.
"But what was of the chief importance to me at this time was, being in a house and with company, where, if subjects of religion were not so much put before me as with Mr. Godley, and if I was not constantly exhorted and encouraged in simple piety, I and my fellow pupils felt that no word of immorality would have been anywise tolerated. Prayers were daily read in the family, the service of the Church was performed with zeal and regularity, the Sunday was strictly observed, and a prominent part of our instruction was on matters of religion. It was also to me an invaluable benefit, that the companion with whom I was principally associated, during the chief part of my time at Dunton, was one who, like me, after a careful education at home, where he had imbibed religious feelings, had gone through the corruptions of another public school, but was now, like me, happy to find himself in purer air.
"With him I was confirmed at Easter, 1816, by Dr. Howley, then Protestant Bishop of London, now Archbishop of Canterbury. It was an incalculable blessing to me, slave as I was to false shame, and cowardly as I was to resist against bold iniquity, that I now had had a period granted me, as it were, to breathe and gain a little vigour again, before the second cruel and more ruinous devastation which my poor heart was shortly to undergo. I prepared seriously for my confirmation, and for receiving the Sacrament from time to time, and recovered much of my former good practices of private devotion. I remember especially to have procured once more a manual of prayers, and during the last months of my stay at Dunton I spent a long time in self-examination by the table of sins in that book, somewhat similar to our Catholic preparation for confession. But, alas! I could go no further than the preparation. Oh! the great enemy of our souls knew well what he was doing in abolishing confession. As before, when I first lost my innocence and piety at Eton, confession would, I am convinced, have preserved me from that fall; so now that I was almost recovering from the fall, if I had had the ear of a spiritual father to whom I might with confidence have discovered the wounds of my poor soul, he would have assisted me utterly to extirpate the remains of those evil habits of my heart. He would have shown me what I knew so imperfectly, the horrible danger of the state in which I had been so near eternal damnation; he would have made me feel that holy shame for my sins, which would have overcome that false earthly shame by which I still was ready to be mastered; and he would, in short, have poured in that balm and oil which the ministers of God possess, to heal, and strengthen, and comfort me for my future trials, so that I might have stood firm against my enemies. But it pleased Thee, O my God, that once more, by such sad experience, I should have occasion to learn the value of that holy discipline of penance, the power and admirable virtue of the divine sacraments, with the dispensation of which Thou hast now entrusted me, that I may be a more wise and tender father to Thy little ones whom Thou committest to my care."