FRIEND JOHN,—
I desire thee to be so kind as to go to one of those sinful men in the flesh called an attorney, and let him take out an instrument, with a seal fixed thereto, by means whereof we may seize the outward tabernacle of George Green, and bring him before the lambskin men at Westminster, and teach him to do as he would be done by; and so I rest thy friend in the light,
M.D.
Mountstuart claimed me for a short visit when I had got across the Border; and I found the big house very cheerful under the new and youthful régime, and my hostess, now a happy mother, driving the baby Lady Mary about the island and exhibitingher to the admiring farmers' wives. I made my way up the West coast to Fort Augustus to spend the rest of the Oxford "Long," travelling thence in September to Aberdeen to read a paper at the annual conference of the Catholic Truth Society. There was a large attendance, Lady Lovat doing hostess at a big reception one evening; and it was pleasant to find oneself in a genuinely Scottish, as well as Catholic, gathering, presided over by a Highland bishop (Æneas Chisholm of beloved memory), as patriotic and popular as he was pious and pleasant. My paper, on "The Holy See and the Scottish Universities," was very well received, and the local newspapers did me the honour of reprinting it verbatim next morning, while theScotsmandevoted a leading article to it. Our principal meeting, in the largest hall of the city, wound up not only with "Faith of our Fathers" but "God save the King." "Is this necessary?" whispered a prelate of Nationalist leanings to the presiding bishop, in the middle of the loyal anthem. "It may not be necessary," replied Bishop Chisholm, in a very audible "aside," "but it is very right and extremely proper."O si sic omnes!"[19]
[1] Such seeming exceptions as the noble churches of St. John at Norwich and St. Philip at Arundel, the Duke of Newcastle's sumptuous chapel at Clumber, the impressive church of the Irvingites in Gordon Square, are only satisfactory in so far as they are more or less exact imitations of mediæval Gothic. The cloisters of Fort Augustus Abbey are beautiful because they are reproductions, from A. W. Pugin's note-books, of real live fifteenth-century tracery. The more the modern Gothic architect strives to be original (a hard saying, but a true one), the more certainly he fails. And to see how feebly ineffective even his imitations can be, one need only look at the entrance tower of St. Swithun's Quad at Magdalen, and compare it with the incomparable Founder's Tower immediately opposite.
Let me add that I have no animus against Downside in particular: it is merely an instance taken at random to illustrate my thesis. I had felt just the same, years before, about the first grandiose plans for our own church at Fort Augustus. "Go to Westminster Abbey—you can see it from your windows," I wrote to the architect, "and get an inspiration from that glorious temple oflivingGothic. Your elaborate designs have no life, no reality. If they were ever realized among our Highland hills, I should expect some genie of the Arabian Nights to swoop down one day and whisk the whole impossible structure back to Victoria Street!" I still recall the pleasure and approval with which Dom Gilbert Dolan of Downside, one of the most distinguished of modern Benedictine architects, read this letter.
[2] Who was the reporter who once announced (I believe it was really a printer's error and not a little bit of malice) that "the Conservatives among the audience received the candidate with welcoming snouts"?
[3] Arthur Balfour had resigned the premiership in the previous week, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had succeeded him.
[4] Not an easy task! for Lovat wanted the Scouts to have all the honour, whichtheywished assigned to him. My inscription (I believe generally approved) ran: Erected by the Lovat Tenantry and Feuars of the Aird and Fort Augustus Districts to Commemorate the Raising of the Lovat Scouts for Service in South Africa by Simon Joseph, 16th Lord Lovat, C.V.O., C.B., D.S.O., who Desired to Show that the Martial Spirit of their Ancestors still Animates the Highlanders of To-Day, and Whose Confidence was Justified by the Success in the Field of the Gallant Corps Whose Existence was Due to His Loyalty and Patriotism. A.D. 1905.
[5] "A woman speaking in public is like a dog walking on its hind legs: it is not well done, but you are surprised to find it done at all."
[6] My native county remained consistently and uninterruptedly Tory for fifty years—from 1868, when it returned Lord Garlics, until 1918, when its separate representation was taken from it by the new Redistribution Act.
[7] Sir Charles had sat in Parliament continuously, except for a few weeks, since 1868, when he was first elected for Buteshire. It was only this very slight break which prevented him from being at one time the Father of the House of Commons.
[8] I heard an odd story to the effect that at the Anglican Church at Monte Carlo no one had ever heard any hymn before No. 37 announced to be sung; the reason being that the mention of any one from 1 to 36 would instantly have sent a quota of the congregation racing down to stake their money on that number! It was, and is, a current superstition that a number suggested by something as remote as possible from gambling is likely to prove a lucky one.
[9] Due, I think, largely to the fact that though the greater part of the church is ninth and tenth century work, it has the air of being very much older, and seems to recall the days of St. Ambrose himself.
[10] "Kelburn" was, I believe, the old spelling. About the same time the Duke of Athole droppedhisfinalealso; and the name-board at the well-known station, at his castle gates, displayed, as I observed on my next journey to the Highlands, the legend "Blair Atholl," instead of "Blair Athole" as formerly.
[11] Augustine Birrell, the distinguished essayist, whose literary method, easy, witty, and urbane, has evoked the word "birrelling." He succeeded Mr. Bryce a little later as Irish Secretary, and retained that office (in which he was no more successful than most of his predecessors) under Mr. Asquith.
[12]NéeLegge: one of a crowd of sisters (Ladies Louisa, Octavia, Wilhelmina, Barbara, Charlotte, and I know not how many more) with whom I made friends as a small boy when staying with my parents at Aix-la-Chapelle; and we saw much of them afterwards. We children used to call them the "Lady-legs." Their brother Augustus, who was also a friend of my childhood, became Bishop of Lichfield in 1891.
[13] Built in James II.'s reign (the original castle was of Henry VII.'s), when the accession of a Catholic King enabled Catholics, British and Irish, to emerge for a short time from the Catacombs.
[14] Lord Gormanston, like Lord Talbot de Malahide and a few others, represented the Anglo-Irish landowners of the time of Henry VII., "Lord of Ireland." My friend Lord Kenmare was typical of the enriched Elizabethan settlers in the country, while Sir Henry Bellingham was one of the seventeenth-century group of immigrants popularly known as "Cromwell's Drummers." Three out of the four mentioned were Catholics.
[15] The first baronet and Baron de Saumarez was second in command at the Battle of the Nile, and was raised to the peerage by William IV.
[16] It was the parish minister of Millport, in Cumbrae (off the coast of Ayrshire) who habitually prayed at Divine Service for the "inhabitants of the Greater and the Lesser Cumbraes, and the adjacent islands of Great Britain and Ireland!"
[17] The late Mr. Choate. "When I came into this assembly this evening, I felt very much like the prophet Daniel when he got into the lion's den. When Daniel looked around, and saw the company in which he was, 'Well,' he said, 'whoever's got to do the after-dinner speaking, it won't be me!'"
[18] A turbot's mouth is twisted on one side, rather as if it had belonged to a round fish which some one had accidentally trodden on, and had squashed half-flat.
[19] My friend Lord Ralph Kerr had, some time previously, refused to preside at a meeting of the same Society (of which he was president) in another Scottish city, on learning that the local committee would not permit the National Anthem to be sung at the close. The reason alleged, that "the Irish in the audience would not stand it," did not, naturally, strike the gallant Scottish general as an adequate one.
Before returning to Oxford for the autumn term of 1906, I spent a pleasant ten days at Abbotsford with my old friends the Lane Foxes, and visited with them Dryburgh Abbey, Galashiels, and other interesting places. Melrose, too, we thoroughly explored, agreeing that (paceSir Walter) the time for seeing it "aright" wasnot"by the pale moonlight," but on a sunlit afternoon, which alone does justice to the marvellous colouring—grey shot with rose and yellow—of the old stone. Modern textbooks talk of the "decadence" of its architecture, but it has details of surpassing beauty nevertheless. It was ill exchanging the beauties of Tweedside in perfect September weather for foggy London. I arrived there on a Sunday morning, just in time for high mass at Westminster Cathedral, of which a fog rather enhances the charm, softening the raw brick walls and imparting a mysterious and shadowy splendour to the great spaces under the lofty domes. The grave polyphonic music, perfectly rendered, greatly pleased me; but the acoustics of the building seemed to be defective.[1] A noted preacher was discoursingto an immense congregation on "Pessimism"—so the notice-boards informed me; but it might as well have been on Optimism for anything I could hear of it. Walking homewards to Regent's Park, I looked in at a Ritualistic church in Red Lion Square, where a singular function was in progress in presence of the (schismatic) Archbishop of Sinai, under the auspices of a body styling itself "The Anglican and Orthodox Churches Union."[2] As I entered, a clergyman was just remarking from the pulpit that as there was no visible Church on earth, or as, at any rate, it was temporally broken to bits, there was no use in looking for a visible head! a theory which his audience may or may not have found satisfactory.[3]
I lingered for a day at Birmingham, on my way to Oxford, to attend the opening of the nave of the Newman Memorial Church. It was the sixty-first anniversary of Newman's reception into the Church at Littlemore, as well as the sixth of the death of Lord Bute, whose conversion was a fruit of the Oxford movement, of which Newman was the inspiring genius. I was pleased with the simplicity, even austerity, of the building, relieved to some extent by the beautiful tints of the double row of marble monoliths, and by the warm russet of the coved roof of Spanish chestnut. Eight or ten prelates (the Archbishop of Westminster was the preacher) gave dignity to the function, whichwas followed by a rather higgledy-piggledy luncheon at the "Plough and Harrow" next door. The Norfolk family were of course present in force at their beloved Oratory, the Duke, with sisters, brothers-in-law, nephews and nieces, being prominent among the large gathering. Lord Ralph Kerr's boy, a pupil of the Fathers, showed me over the school; and I rather marvelled to see an educational establishment of such deserved repute housed in so quaint a collection of lean-to's and shanties, the only thing worth looking at being the fine refectory of the Oratory, which the schoolboys used as their dining-room.
I found Oxford swept and garnished for the new term, and my old friend the President of Magdalen installed as Vice-chancellor, and performing his multifarious duties (which included the matriculation of my two Benedictine freshmen) with the mingled dignity and urbanity which characterized him. Grissell, who was in residence this term, invited me to luncheon to meet "a Roman Prince," and a lady who had, he said, been miraculously cured by the Madonna of Pompeii. The cure, unfortunately, had been incomplete or temporary, for the lady had had a relapse, was in bed, and could not turn up. The Roman Prince, or princeling, proved to be Don Andrea Buoncompagni-Ludovisi, descendant of two Popes,[4] and a freshman at Merton; a pleasant youth,but his English, though fluent, was vulgar rather than princely. I wondered where he had picked it up. A different type of Italian whom I met the same week was the distinguished South Italian violinist, Signor Simonetti. He had been fiddling at our Musical Club on the previous evening—roba Napolitana, but clever and interesting. Our conversation, however, turned not on music but on the "Evil Eye," as I was anxious to know to what extent the belief in this still prevailed in Italy. He said it was as persistent as ever, especially in the south, and told us how the most famous advocate in Naples, in quite recent times, was so universally accredited with this mysterious power, that when the leader opposed to him in an impending lawsuit died on the eve of the case coming on, another lawyer was only with the greatest difficulty found to take his place.Hewas killed by an accident on the very morning of the trial; and the dreaded advocate was face to face with the judge, who was in fear and trembling, as he expected to have to give judgment against him. The story went that when the judge rose to speak, his spectacles accidentally fell out of place. "I am struck blind!" he cried out; "forgive me, Signor Avvocato—I have not yet pronounced against you." Suddenly his spectacles fell across his nose again. "Forgive me again," he said; "I can see after all!" The Neapolitans laughed, but they believed all the same. When this redoubtable advocate fell ill, half Naples was praying fervently for his death; and if one reproached them for desiring the death of a fellowman, the answer was, "Non è un uomo, è unjettatore!" Signor Simonetti, I felt pretty sure, himselfsympathized with this sentiment, although he passed it off as a joke. I contributed a tale of a certain Count who had been pointed out to me, during my visit to Naples in the previous year, as the most dreadedjettatorein the city. He was dining alone at a restaurant, and I was told that no one, if they could avoid it, would sit down in his company. Meeting his cousin, the old Duca di M——, in the street, he gave him his arm. The Duca suddenly slipped, fell, and broke his leg. He was stunned by the shock; and his first words, on recovering consciousness, were whispered (in confidential Neapolitan patois) into the ear of his formidable kinsman: "Grazie, perchè tu me putive accidere, e te si cuntentate de m'arruinare!" ("Thanks; for you might have killed me, and you contented yourself with laming me!")[5]
Some of us went over to Radley College for the usual All Saints' play, theFrogsof Aristophanes, in Greek; and itwasGreek, no doubt, to the majority of the audience. Books of the words in English were, however, supplied—"an attention," remarked a local paper, "which the ladies received with unconcealed satisfaction, and the gentlemen with satisfaction which they vainly endeavoured to conceal." Some of the undergraduates present doubtless, like the schoolboy inVice Versa, "recognized several words from the Greek Grammar"; but what pleased me was an elderly clergyman who declined to share his wife's copy of the translation. "No, no, mydear," he said, "I can follow the Greek quite sufficiently well!" but before the end of the first act they were both very contentedly looking over the English version together.
Michaelmas Term is not of course the time for triumphs in the Schools; but we were all delighted with the final achievement of the invincible Cyril Martindale, S.J., who this autumn crowned his previous successes—first classes in Moderations and "Greats," the Hertford and Craven Scholarships, and the Chancellor's and Gaisford Prizes for Latin and Greek Verse—by carrying off the Derby Scholarship for the year. Another Jesuit much in evidence at Oxford at this time was Bernard Vaughan, who was preaching sermons, giving lectures, and attending discussions and debates with characteristic energy. Colum Stuart and I heard him deliver himself, at a full-dress meeting of the Union, on the subject of Egotism. His perfervid oratory made one occasionallysquirm(it is the only word); but he was very well received by his young audience, and carried the House with him.
To the Jesuits and Benedictines, already domiciled in Oxford, were added this winter the Franciscan Capuchins, who opened with some ceremony their church and "seraphic college"[6] at Cowley. It was something of an historic event, this returning of the Friars to Oxford after a rustication of 367 years; and it evoked general and kindly interestquite outside Catholic circles. Sir Hubert Jerningham accompanied me to the inaugural function, and to dinner later at Mgr. Kennard's. We spoke of the decay of the good old custom, universal in my youth, of grace before meals. Our host recalled a country squire who, perfunctorily looking round his table, would mutter, "No parson? Thank God!"[7] and hastily seat himself. I told of a Scots farmer on a Caledonian Canal steam-boat, who, invited to "return thanks," delivered himself of this sentiment, "O Lord, we're all floating down the stream of time to the ocean of eternity, for Christ's sake, Amen!" and Sir Hubert had a family story of the chaplain who, if he espied champagne-glasses on the table, would begin his grace with "Bountiful Jehovah!" but if only sherry-glasses, "We are not worthy of the least of these Thy mercies." We all remembered Mr. Mallock's canon, who, glancing with clasped hands at themenu, beginning with two soups, comprising threeentrées, and ending with Strasburg paté, began, "O Thou that sittest between the Cherubim, whose glory is so exceeding that even they veil their faces before Thee; consecrate to their appointed use these poor morsels before us, and make them humble instruments in the great scheme of our sanctification." I took Sir Hubert next day over the Clarendon Press, which I had never myself seen. We were both struck by two things: all the machinery was American, and there was no electric light, the whole place being lit by flaringgas-jets.[8] We had planned that evening to go and hear George Wyndham speak at the Union; but it occurred to us, as a happy thought, to stay comfortably at home on a foggy November night, and read his speech in next day'sTimes. The only important politician I heard speak this term was Bonar Law, by whom I sat at the Conservative Club dinner one evening. I found him a very pleasant neighbour, and he made as good a speech as I ever heard at a gathering of the kind.
I made my way northward to Beaufort for Christmas, feeling a bit of a wreck after a sharp bout of influenza, and enjoyed to the full the breezy sunshine which so often prevails there in mid-winter. There was a shooting-party at New Year, with pleasantal frescoluncheons in sheltered corners of leafless woods, and of an evening music, and ghost stories round a great fire of beechen logs. Of telepathy between the dying and the living Lord Hamilton gave me a striking instance. He had served in South Africa; and at dawn, sleeping on the veldt, was aroused by an unmistakable voice thrice calling his name. The voice was his father's, of whose death he heard next day by cable. The quiet conviction with which he narrated this little incident impressed me much.
Staying at an uncle's in Edinburgh on my way south, I met at dinner Lord Dunedin and some other interesting people; and there was some "goodtalk" on books and poetry. Some one quoted Swinburne's opinion that the two finest lines in the language[9] were Browning's—
"As the king-bird, with ages on his plumes,Travels to die in his ancestral glooms."
Three unhackneyed images, from theCity of the Soul, I noted as admirable:
"The distant rook's faint cawing, harsh and sweet."
"Black was his hair, as hyacinths by night."
"Wet green eyes, like a full chalk stream."
The mention of Mallock reminded me of some of his delectable similes:
"Miss Drake dropped a short curtsey, which resembled the collapse of a concertina."
"Above them a seagull passed, like the drifting petals of a magnolia."
"She advanced slowly towards the group, moving along the carpet like a clockwork mouse on wheels."
"Her eyes had the brown moisture that glimmers on a slug's back."
A cousin of mine at this dinner, lately returned from China, amused me by the information that the pigeon-English word, or phrase, for a bishop was "Number one topside heaven pidgin-man!"
On the evening of my arrival in London, a geographical friend carried me to a notable meeting of his Society at Queen's Hall—the sailor Duke of the Abruzzi lecturing, in quaint staccatoItalian-English, on his ascent of Ruanzori, in Equatorial Africa. The King (with the Prince of Wales) was on the platform—stout, grey-bearded, and rather bored, I fancied, at being deprived of his after-dinner cigar: he made a nice little speech of thanks and appreciation. A day or two later came the startling news of the great earthquake in Jamaica, the only Englishman who lost his life being my dear old friend Sir James Fergusson, whose body was found beneath the ruins of a tobacconist's shop in Kingston. He was a man of many gifts and many friends, who had served his country with distinction in almost every part of the Empire; and his death was a real tragedy, as well as a very real grief to me. It was followed very shortly by that of another old friend, Susan Lady Sherborne; and two very pleasant houses in Cornwall Gardens and Brook Street, where I had spent many happy hours, were thus closed to me. There was some talk, a little later, of a memorial to Sir James, the Anglican Bishop of the West Indies suggesting that this should take the form of subscriptions to his church restoration scheme. I ventured strongly to deprecate this proposal in the columns ofThe Times, and my objections were emphatically endorsed by Mr. Fleming, the well-known Presbyterian minister in Belgravia.[10]
Two more deaths I may note in the early spring of 1907—the first that of Professor Pelham, presidentof Trinity; a gentleman and a scholar, a real loss to Oxford, and (incidentally) one of my kindest friends among college heads, just as his brother Sidney (famous slow bowler and future archdeacon) had been thirty years before, when I was a feather-headed freshman at Magdalen. In the same week died our worthy Chancellor, Lord Goschen, after little more than three years of office. Lords Rosebery and Curzon of Kedleston emerged as the favourites among the many candidates "in the air"; but dining with a large party at Lord Teignmouth's a little later, I heard it confidently said that the country parsons would almost certainly "bring Curzon in." They came up, as a matter of fact, in such swarms that they practically swamped the election, Lord Curzon obtaining 1,101 votes against Lord Rosebery's 440. I sat, by the way, at Lord Teignmouth's dinner next an American "scientist" (odious word!) of some kind, who told me some odd things about the Lower Mississippi. That river, he said, had, in 176 years, shortened itself by 242 miles—an average of about l 1/10 miles per year. From this it followed that in the old Oolitic-Silurian period, some 100,000 years ago, the lower Mississippi was upwards of 1,300,000 miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod!
I went to Downside in March, for the solemn blessing of the new abbot, my kind and learned friend Dom Cuthbert Butler. The elaborate ceremony took nearly three hours: we were mercifully spared a sermon, but,en revanche, the episcopal and abbatial speeches at the subsequent luncheon were long and rather wearisome. At Fort Augustus,whatever the occasion, we never in those days derogated from the good old monastic usage of silence, and public reading, in the refectory.Summum ibi fiat silentium, said Saint Benedict: "let nomussitatio[delicious Low Latin word for "whispering"] be heard there, or any voice save that of the reader alone." The custom was one, I think, as congenial to our guests as to their monastic hosts.
I was preoccupied at this time with the rapidly-failing health of my oldest Oxford friend, H. D. Grissell of Brasenose, who spent half his year in Rome, and the other half in what seemed a bit of old Rome transported to Oxford. He was the most pertinacious and indefatigablecollectorI ever knew: coins, books and bindings, brass-rubbings, autographs, book-plates, holy relics, postage-stamps, even birds' eggs—all was fish that came to his far-flung net; and he laboured incessantly to make all his collections, as far as possible, complete. I found the old man at this time, rather pathetically, trying to complete the collection of eggshells which he had begun as a Harrow boy sixty years before. He insisted on exhibiting every drawer of his cabinet, and was greatly pleased with the motto which, I told him, Sir Walter Trevelyan had inscribed onhisegg-cabinet: "Hic Argus esto, non Briareus"; or, in plain English, "Look, but don't touch!"[11] Grissell said he would like to affix this classical caution to all his collections of curios; but he did not live to do this, or indeed to do much else ofany kind. He left England before Easter for Rome; and there (as perhaps he would have wished) he died very suddenly a few weeks later. By his own desire his body was brought back to England, at great trouble and cost (thesepost mortemmigrations never appealed to me), and was laid near his parents' graves in the pretty country churchyard of Mickleham, in Surrey. There was a large gathering in the pouring rain, Professor Robinson Ellis and I representing his many Oxford friends. As his literary executor, I came into possession of a great number of curious and interesting letters and documents, dealing chiefly with Roman matters and the early days of the Ritual movement at Oxford and elsewhere.
The Corpus Professor of Latin, old Robinson Ellis, and I saw subsequently (perhaps drawn together by the loss of our common friend) a good deal of one another. At "meat tea," a meal he dearly loved, we used to sit long together, and talk classics, the only subject in which he seemed in the least interested. I wish I had noted down all the odd bits of erudition with which he used to entertain me. Cicero's last words, he said (I cannot imagine on what authority) were "Causa causarum, miserere mei!"[12] A curious story (perhaps mediæval) of Ovid was of how two monks visited his tomb, and in gratitude for the noble line—the best, in his own opinion, that he had ever written—"Virtus est licitis abstinuisse bonis," began reciting Paters and Aves for his soul. The poet's spirit, unhappily,was unappreciative of their charity; and a voice was heard from the tomb declaiming the irreverent pentameter: "Nolo Paternoster: carpe, viator, iter!" The professor told me that in his opinion the best elegiac couplet ever written in English was:
"Three Patagonian apes with their arms extended akimbo:Three on a rock were they—seedy, but happy withal."
He said that one of Dr. Johnson's acutest literary criticisms was his remark that Tacitus seemed rather to have made notes for a historical work than to have written a history. The word "jour," he pointed out to me, was derived from "dies" (though every single letter was different) through the Italian—"dies, diurnus, giorno, jour." He asked if I could tell him the authorship of the striking couplet—
"Mors mortis! morti mortem nisi morte dedisses,Æternae vitæ janua clausa foret."
This I was unable to do: on the other hand, I evoked a chuckle (whimsical etymologies always pleased him) by telling him how a fifteenth-century writer[13] had rendered the "Royal Collegiate Church of Windsor" into Latin as "Collegium Domini Regis deVentomorbido!"
At the end of Lent Term I spent a few days at Eastbourne, which struck me (as the Honourable Mrs. Skewton struck Mr. Dombey) as being "perfectly genteel"—no shops on the front, no minstrels or pierrots or cockshys or vulgarity. The hill behind seemed to swarm with schools: my host took me to one where he had two sons—a finesituation, capital playgrounds, and the head a pleasant capable-seeming little man, who trotted briskly about on his little Chippendale legs, clad in knickerbockers, and was as keen on his Aberdeen terriers as on his young pupils. I remember at Eastbourne a quite appallingly ugly Town Hall, and a surprisingly beautiful fourteenth-century church, I suppose the only bit of old Eastbourne left. I went on to Arundel for my usual pleasant Easter-tide visit; and after hearing much florid church-music there, I enjoyed, on Low Sunday, the well-rendered plain-chant at Westminster Cathedral; but I did not enjoy a terrible motett composed by an eminent Jew—the words unintelligible and the music frankly pagan. My nephew Kelburn and his wife ran me down one day to Chatham in their new motor—cream-colour lined with crimson, very smart indeed. He had been lately posted as first lieutenant to H.M.S.Cochrane, and took us all over the great grey monster, vastly interesting. We buzzed home through Cobham and Rochester, stopping to look over the grand old Norman cathedral. "How strange," observed the simple sailor, looking at the sculptured images round the west doorway, "to see all these old Roman Catholic saints in a Protestant cathedral!" How I wished some of my young Oxford friends had been by to hear him! Our whole drive to town was of course redolent of Dickens and "Pickwick"—to me, but not to my modern nephew and niece.
For the last week of the vacation a friend was bent on taking me to Belgium; but great guns were blowing when we reached the coast, so we alighted at Dover and stayed there! finding it quitean interesting place of sojourn. I was astonished at the antiquity, extent, and interest of the Castle, especially of its church, once a Roman barrack, and its tower, the ancient Pharos or lighthouse. Gilbert Scott and the Royal Engineers between them had done their best (or their worst) in the way of "restoration," disjoining the Pharos from the main building, and adding an Early English (!) front, windows, and door; but it still was, and is, by far the oldest edifice in England used for religious worship, and of the greatest antiquarian interest.
The event of the summer at Oxford was the installation of our new Chancellor, Lord Curzon, who was by no means content, like the Duke of Wellington, Lord Salisbury, and others of his not indistinguished predecessors, to be quietly inducted into office by the university officials at his own country residence. There was a great function at the Sheldonian, and a Latin harangue from my lord which was both elegant and well delivered, though it was thought by some that his emotional reference to his late wife was a little out of place.
Oxford had caught the pageant-fever which was this summer devastating England; and a great part of the term was spent (some cynics said wasted) in the extensive preparations for our own particular show. When they were all but complete, one of the historic "rags" by which Christ Church has from time to time distinguished itself broke out, in consequence of the House becoming head of the river; and among other excesses, some damage was done to the pageant-stands already erected in the meadows. A few days after thisémeutea description of it, which is really too good to be lost,appeared in theCorriere della Seraof Milan, "telephoned by our London correspondent." I translate literally from the Italian:—
Recently the students of Oxford were beaten by those of Cambridge in the great annual regatta: the other day they were defeated by the sportive group (il gruppo sportivo) of Merton College; finally, they allowed themselves to be vanquished by the sportive section (la sezione sportiva) of the Society of Christ Church, to whom was adjudged the primacy of the Thames. Yesterday, profoundly moved in theiramore proprio, the students of Oxford permitted themselves to proceed to deplorable excesses, even to the point of applying fire to thestandserected on the riverside by the rival Societies. They set fire also to the tent of the Secretariat of Christ Church, feeding the flames with the chairs which they discovered in the vicinity.[14]
I believe that our Oxford pageant (in spite of the wet summer) proved financially successful, if not altogether so artistically. A few of the scenes were very pretty, especially the earliest (St. Frideswide), and also the one representing Charles I. and his family at Oxford. And the ecclesiastical and monastic episodes were instructive, if only as showing the incompetence of twentieth-century Anglicanism to reproduce even the externals—much more the spirit—of the Catholicism of old England. Even more deplorable was the "comic" scene (written by the Chichele professor of modern history!) in which theclarum et venerabile nomenof one of Oxford's saintliest sons was dragged in the mud: Roger Racon being depicted as a mountebank cheap-jack, hawking quack medicines from amotor-bicycle![15] My brother, who had entertained me at Warwick, came as my guest to witness the Oxford effort; and we had the rather interesting experience of viewing it in the company of Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain. They were both pleased and interested; but it was impossible to deny that the poetic glamour of the Warwick pageant (largely due to the romantic beauty of its setting) was almost wholly wanting at Oxford.
Of the other pageants which were sprouting up all over the country during this summer (unhappily one of the wettest on record), I attended only one—that held at Bury St. Edmunds, which attracted me as being mainly concerned with Benedictines. The setting was almost as fine as at Warwick—verdant lawns, big trees and the majestic ruins of our famous abbey all "in the picture"; and the "monks," mostly represented by blameless curates, were at least presentable, not unkempt ragamuffins as at Oxford.[16] The appearance of "Abbot Sampson" (played, I was told, by a local archdeacon) was grotesque enough: he wore throughout a purple chasuble over a black cassock, with a white mitre, and strode about brandishing a great wooden crosier! but he spoke his lines very well. Everything, however, was spoilt by the pitiless rain, whichfell unceasingly. A clever black-haired lady who played Boadicea (I believe the wife of an Ipswich dentist) had to abandon her chariot and horses and appear on foot, splashing through several inches of mud; and some of the "early British" matrons and maidens sported umbrellas and mackintoshes! I had to leave half-way through the performance, chilled to the bone, and firmly convinced that open-air drama in England was a snare and a delusion.
Mark Twain, whom I have mentioned above, was one of the miscellaneous celebrities, including Prince Arthur of Connaught and "General" Booth, whom our Chancellor nominated for honorary degrees at his first Encænia. I met Mrs. Whitelaw Reid (the American Ambassadress) at dinner at Magdalen on Commemoration evening, and lunched with her a few days later at Dorchester House. One of the attachés was told off to show me the famous "old Masters," about which I found he knew a good deal less than I did! The same agreeable young American accompanied me a little later to Bradfield, to see the boys playAntigone: a real summer's day, for once, and the performance was admirable, especially that of the title-rôle, the youth who played the part proving himself a genuine tragedian. The comments of a lady just behind us, who was profoundly bored most of the time, were amusingly fatuous.[17]
I was in spiritual charge this term of our Catholic undergraduates (fifty or so), their chaplain having gone off on an invalid's holiday, and left his flock in my care. I was delighted to have the company every week-end of Robert Hugh Benson, who was giving the Sunday conferences in our chapel. "Far from being the snake-like gloomy type of priest so common in fiction," a weekly paper said of him about this time, "Father Benson is a thorough man of the world, liberal, amiable, and vivacious." He was, of course, all this and a great deal more; and I greatly appreciated the opportunity which these summer weeks afforded me of becoming really intimate with him. It was the beginning of a genuine friendship, which was only interrupted (not, please God, broken) by his premature and lamented death seven years later.[18]
[1] "Very satisfactory, I think, from an architectural point of view," said the alderman to his colleague, as they surveyed together the interior of the new town hall; "but I fear the acoustics are not exactly what they ought to be." His companion sniffed several times. "Do you think not?" he said. "I don't notice anything myself!"
[2] [Greek: Henôsis tes anglichánês chaì tes Orthodóxou Echchlêsías.]
[3] It was at least a convenient method of disposing of the Pope and his claims.
[4] Collaterally, of course: Gregory XIII. (Buoncompagni), 1572-1585; and Gregory XV. (Ludovisi), 1621-1623. I interested Don Andrea by telling him that Gregory XIII. (reformer of the Julian Calendar and builder of the Quirinal) was probably the last Pope officially prayed for at Oxford, and that in his own college chapel. Mass certainly continued to be celebrated in Merton Chapel well into the Pontificate of Gregory XIII.
[5] The possession of the Evil Eye has never been considered incompatible with the highest moral excellence. Pius IX., who was venerated by his people as a saint, was nevertheless regarded by many of them as an undoubtedjettatore.
[6] The traditional name given by the Franciscans to their monastic schools. But they had, if I remember rightly, sufficient sense of humour not to apply it to their Cowley seminary.
[7] Nearly, but not quite, the shortest grace on record. That palm, perhaps, belongs to the north country farmer wiping his mouth with the back of his hand after a plentiful meal, and ejaculating the single word, "Then!"
[8] Perhaps for the same reason as was given me by a Christ Church don, who rashly prophesied that Wolsey's great hall would never be lighted by electricity, as the additional heat given by the gas-jets was absolutely essential by way of supplement to the huge fireplaces.
[9] A large assumption; but Swinburne was doubtless better qualified than most people to make it. The lines are fromSordello(ed. 1863, p. 464).
[10] My own idea, suggested by a proposed memorial to Goschen at Rugby school, where James Fergusson had been his school-fellow, was that the memory of the latter also should be perpetuated there in some fitting manner. I received letters cordially approving this suggestion; but I never heard whether it was carried out in the case of either, or both, of these distinguished public servants.
[11] Is it necessary to explain that Argus Panoptes, the all-seeing guardian of Io, had a hundred eyes, and Briareus, the pugnacious son of Earth and Heaven, a hundred arms? Sir Walter's application of these myths was distinctly neat.
[12] Authentic or not, I added them to the collection ofnovissima verbaof famous men which I had been long compiling. See Appendix.
[13] Clement Maydeston, in hisDirectorii Defensorium(A.D. 1495). "Windsor," of course, means the "winding shore," not the "sick wind!"
[14] The truth underlying the last sentence of this delectable report is that some of the wilder rioters chucked the Secretary of the Pageant's desk (containing all his papers) into the Cherwell; but it was rescued so speedily by two of their more sober comrades that no harm was done.
[15] This particular episode was really regarded by many people as almost an outrage; and an article called "A Blot on the Pageant," which I devoted to it in a weekly review, elicited many expressions of sympathy and approval in Oxford and elsewhere.
[16] The Master of the Oxford Pageant, to whom I protested emphatically against the scandalous caricatures of the Benedictines of Abingdon, calmly told me that the British public looked on a monk as a comic kind of creature, and would think itself defrauded unless he were so represented!
[17] The lines (vv. 824-826):
[Greek: échousa ... tàn phrygian xénantàn, chissòs ôs atenês,petraía blasta davasen]
seemed to strike the good lady particularly—the sound, that is, not the sense of them. "Kisson——blast her—d—n her! Dear me!" she remarked; "what language, to be sure! I had no idea that Antigone [pronouncedAntigoan] was that kind of young person!"
[18] The Rev. R. H. Benson died on October 19, 1914.