WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE
BY REV. J. C. RICHMOND.
Noticing in the journals some brief but very just remarks upon the character of the eminent Roman Catholic historian of England, who died July 17th, at the good old age of more than four-score years, I am induced to think that an account of a visit which I had the honor to make this celebrated scholar, may not be altogether without interest for your readers.
March 12, 1850, having a leisure day at Lancaster, and having already visited John of Gaunt's castle, in company with several of those genial spirits who afford me an unusually delightful social remembrance of the dingy buildings and narrow crooked streets of that famous old town, one of them happened to mention the name of Dr. Lingard. I instantly inquired after him with interest, and, observing my enthusiasm, Mr. T. J—— proposed a drive to his residence at Hornby, a village some twelve or thirteen miles distant. I of course gladly acceded to the proposal, and we were soon on our way, with a fleet horse, over the absolutely perfect English turnpike road—for the roads in England are always passable, and not "improved," like some of those around New-York, in so continued a manner as to be useless.
After a fine rural drive, crossing the river Loon, and through Lonsdale, we came within sight of an old church and castle. I took the church to be that of the historian, but found, to my surprise, that the famous old sage was placed in entire seclusion, and ministered to a very few, and those very poor, sheep, in a little chapel, or room, under his own roof. In this remote and by no means picturesque village, at an antiquated house, we knocked, and were told by the aged domestic that the venerable historian had been very feeble of late, and had gone out, on this fine day in the spring, for a walk. After many inquiries among the villagers, by whom he was as well known as beloved, I proposed to take the line of the new railway, and, after quite a walk, met a feeble old man, with a scholar's face, a bright twinkling black eye, supporting his steps on a staff, and wrapped up with all the care which an aged and faithful housekeeper could bestow upon a long-tried and most indulgent master. I pronounced his name, and gave him my own; stated that I was a presbyter in the holy (though not Roman) Catholic church, that I had long admired his integrity and faithfulness as an historian, and that it was by no means the least of my happy days in England that I was now permitted to speak to him face to face. The kind and gentle old man seemed truly astonished that any one who had come so far, and seen so much, should care for seeing him, and rewarded my enthusiasm with a hearty grasp of the hand that had wielded so admired a pen. We then walked on together towards his house, and you will not blame me for saying, that I was proud to offer the support of my arm to this fine octogenarian, who had not suffered the spirit of the priest to becloud the candor of the historian. We conversed with the greatest freedom upon our points of difference, and he repeated to me, personally, his entire disbelief in the fable of the nag's head ordination. He seemed to be only historically aware of a disruption between us, for the benevolence of his heart would acknowledge no actual difference.
I cannot refrain from quoting a somewhat amusing illustration of his infinite and childlike simplicity of character, combined with an utter ignorance of those rudiments of modern science which would be much more familiar to our district school-boys than to many men educated in those classic homes of ancient learning, the English universities. Some posts had been set in the ground, and were bound together, for strength, by iron wires; and the venerable sage said, "I suppose this is the Electric Telegraph." I was obliged to insist with a kind of explanatory and playful pertinacity, that this supposition must be incorrect, because electricity could not be conducted, unless the wires were at least continued through the thick posts, instead of being wound around them. At his house, we found the study not very well supplied with books, for the aged scholar had now almost ceased to peruse these. At my request he wrote out very slowly, but in a wonderfully distinct hand for eighty, his own name and the date, "John Lingard, Hornby, March 12, 1850;" and voluntarily added a Latin punning inscription, which he had made the evening before, which he humorously proposed to have engraved upon the new Menai bridge. In this he had spoken of the builder of the bridge, the celebrated Stephens, as Pontifex Maximus. I need not say that I shall preserve these papers among the most precious of my English mementos. I was sorry I could have no hopes that the branch which he gave me from the tree that he had transplanted with his own hands from the battle-field of Cannæ to the quiet of his garden at Hornby, would ever flourish in America. After many hospitable invitations, which other engagements obliged us to decline, and many modest expressions of the gratitude which he seemed deeply to feel for the pains that I had taken to come so far to visit him, we bade farewell to the candid priest, who began, as he told me, an essay to defend his Church against the aspersions of Hume, and had ended by producing a voluminous as well as luminous history.
[For another part of this magazine we have compiled a more full and accurate account of the life of the deceased scholar than has hitherto appeared in this country. See Recent Deaths, post, 285-6.]