Chapter III: Part 3

The first Lord Gifford (1779-1826), who was successively Lord Chief Justice and Master of the Rolls, had owed much in early life to the goodwill of Lord Eldon, and, in honour of his patron, he named one of his sons' Scott. This Scott Gifford was Mrs. George Holland's brother, and his name was bestowed on her eldest son, who was christened "Henry Scott," but has always been known by his second name. This link with George III.'s Tory Chancellor is pleasingly appropriate.

Let it be remarked in passing that the hyphen so often introduced into the name is solely a creation of the newspapers, which, always rejoicing in double-barrelled surnames, gratify a natural impulse by writing about "Canon Scott-Holland."

I regret that the most exhaustive research has failed to discover any recorded traits of "Scotty" Holland in the nursery, but his career in the schoolroom is less obscure. His governess was a Swiss lady, who pronounced her young pupil "the most delightful of boys; not clever or studious, but full of fun and charm." This governess must have been a remarkable woman, for she is, I believe, the only human being who ever pronounced Scott Holland "not clever." It is something to be the sole upholder of an opinion, even a wrong one, against a unanimous world. By this time George Holland had established himself at Wellesbourne Hall, near Warwick, and there his son Scott was brought up in the usual habits of a country home where hunting and shooting are predominant interests. From the Swiss lady's control he passed to a private school at Allesley, near Coventry, and in January, 1860, he went to Eton. There he boarded at the house of Mrs. Gulliver,[*] and was a pupil of William Johnson (afterwards Cory), a brilliant and eccentric scholar, whose power of eliciting and stimulating a boy's intellect has never been surpassed.

[Footnote *: Of Mrs. Gulliver and her sister, H. S. H. writes: "They allowed football in top passage twice a week, which still seems to be the zenith of all joy."]

From this point onwards, Scott Holland's history--the formation of his character, the development of his intellect, the place which he attained in the regard of his friends--can be easily and exactly traced; for the impression which he made upon his contemporaries has not been effaced, or even dimmed, by the lapse of seven-and-forty years.

"My recollection of him at Eton," writes one of his friends, "is that of a boy most popular and high-spirited, strong, and full of life; but not eminent at games." Another writes: "He was very popular with a certain set, but not exactly eminent." He was not a member of "Pop," the famous Debating Society of Eton, but his genius found its outlet in other spheres. "He once astonished us all by an excellent performance in some private theatricals in his house." For the rest, he rowed, steered the _Victory_ twice, played cricket for his House, and fives and football, and was a first-rate swimmer.

With regard to more important matters, it must suffice to say that then, as always, his moral standard was the highest, and that no evil thing dared manifest itself in his presence. He had been trained, by an admirable mother, in the best traditions of the Tractarian school, and he was worthy of his training. Among his intimate friends were Dalmeny, afterwards Lord Rosebery; Henry Northcote, now Lord Northcote; Freddy Wood, afterwards Meynell; Alberic Bertie; and Francis Pelham, afterwards Lord Chichester. He left Eton in July, 1864, and his tutor, in a letter to a friend, thus commented on his departure: "There was nothing to comfort me in parting with Holland; and he was the picture of tenderness. He and others stayed a good while, talking in the ordinary easy way. M. L. came, and his shyness did not prevent my saying what I wished to say to him. But to Holland I could say nothing; and now that I am writing about it I cannot bear to think that he is lost."

On leaving Eton, Holland went abroad to learn French, with an ultimate view to making his career in diplomacy. Truly the Canon of St. Paul's is an "inheritor of unfulfilled renown." What an Ambassador he would have made! There is something that warms the heart in the thought of His Excellency Sir Henry Scott Holland, G.C.B., writing despatches to Sir Edward Grey in the style of _The Commonwealth_, and negotiating with the Czar or the Sultan on the lines of the Christian Social Union.

Returning from his French pilgrimage, he wept to a private tutor in Northamptonshire, who reported that "Holland was quite unique in charm and goodness, but would never be a scholar." In January, 1866, this charming but unscholarly youth went up to Balliol, and a new and momentous chapter in his life began.

What was he like at this period of his life? A graphic letter just received enables me to answer this question. "When I first met him, I looked on him with the deepest interest, and realized the charm that everyone felt. He had just gone up to Oxford, and was intensely keen on Ruskin and Browning, and devoted to music. He would listen with rapt attention when we played Chopin and Schumann to him. I used to meet him at dinner-parties when I first came out, by which time he was very enthusiastic on the Catholic side, and very fond of St. Barnabas, Pimlico, and was also deeply moved by social questions, East End poor, etc.; always unconventional, and always passionately interested in whatever he talked of. Burne-Jones once told me: 'It was perfectly delicious to see Holland come into a room, laughing before he had even said a word, and always bubbling over with life and joy.' Canon Mason said to me many years ago that he had hoped I kept every scrap Scotty ever wrote to me, as he was quite sure he was the most remarkable man of his generation. But there was a grave background to all this merriment. I remember that, as we were coming out of a London party, and looked on the hungry faces in the crowd outside the door, I rather foolishly said: 'One couldn't bear to look at them unless one felt that there was another world for them.' He replied: 'Are we to have both, then?' I know how his tone and the look in his face haunted me more than I can say."

A contemporary at Oxford writes, with reference to the same period: "When we went up, Liddon was preaching his Bamptons, and we went to them together, and were much moved by them. There were three of us who always met for Friday teas in one another's rooms, and during Lent we used to go to the Special Sermons at St. Mary's. We always went to Liddon's sermons, and sometimes to his Sunday evening lectures in the Hall of Queen's College. We used to go to the Choral Eucharist in Merton Chapel, and, later, to the iron church at Cowley, and to St. Barnabas, and enjoyed shouting the Gregorians."

On the intellectual side, we are told that Holland's love of literature was already marked. "I can remember reading Wordsworth with him, and Carlyle, and Clough; and, after Sunday breakfasts, Boswell's _Life of Johnson_." Then, as always, he found a great part of his pleasure in music.

No record, however brief, of an undergraduate life can afford to disregard athletics; so let it be here recorded that Holland played racquets and fives, and skated, and "jumped high," and steered the _Torpid_, and three times rowed in his College Eight. He had innumerable friends, among whom three should be specially recalled: Stephen Fremantle and R. L. Nettleship, both of Balliol, and W. H. Ady, of Exeter. In short, he lived the life of the model undergraduate, tasting all the joys of Oxford, and finding time to spare for his prescribed studies. His first encounter with the examiners, in "Classical Moderations," was only partially successful. "He did not appreciate the niceties of scholarship, and could not write verses or do Greek or Latin prose at all well;" and he was accordingly placed in the Third Class. But as soon as the tyranny of Virgil and Homer and Sophocles was overpast, he betook himself to more congenial studies. Of the two tutors who then made Balliol famous, he owed nothing to Jowett and everything to T. H. Green. That truly great man "simply fell in love" with his brilliant pupil, and gave him of his best.

"Philosophy's the chap for me," said an eminent man on a momentous occasion. "If a parent asks a question in the classical, commercial, or mathematical-line, says I gravely, 'Why, sir, in the first place, are you a philosopher?' 'No, Mr. Squeers,' he says, 'I ain't.' 'Then, sir,' says I, 'I am sorry for you, for I shan't be able to explain it.' Naturally, the parent goes away and wishes he was a philosopher, and, equally naturally, thinks I'm one."

That is the Balliol manner all over; and the ardent Holland, instructed by Green, soon discovered, to his delight, that he was a philosopher, and was henceforward qualified to apply Mr. Squeer's searching test to all questions in Heaven and earth. "It was the custom at Balliol for everyone to write an essay once a week, and I remember that Holland made a name for his essay-writing and originality. It was known that he had a good chance of a 'First in Greats,' if only his translations from Greek and Latin books did not pull him down. He admired the ancient authors, especially Plato, and his quick grasp of the meaning of what he read, good memory, and very remarkable powers of expression, all helped him much. He was good at History and he had a great turn for Philosophy" (_cf_. Mr. Squeers, _supra_), "Plato, Hegel; etc., and he understood, as few could, Green's expositions, and counter-attack on John Stuart Mill and the Positivist School, which was the dominant party at that time."

In the summer Term of 1870 Holland went in for his final examination at Oxford. A friend writes: "I remember his coming out from his paper on, Moral Philosophy in great exaltation; and his _viva voce_ was spoken of as a most brilliant performance. One of the examiners, T. Fowler (afterwards President of Corpus), said he had never heard anything like it." In fine, a new and vivid light had appeared in the intellectual sky--a new planet had swum into the ken of Oxford Common Rooms; and it followed naturally that Holland, having obtained his brilliant First, was immediately elected to a Studentship at Christ Church, which, of course, is the same as a Fellowship anywhere else. He went into residence at his new home in January, 1871, and remained there for thirteen years, a "don," indeed, by office, but so undonnish in character, ways, and words, that he became the subject of a eulogistic riddle: "When is a don not a don? When he is Scott Holland."

Meanwhile, all dreams of a diplomatic career had fled before the onrush of Aristotle and Plato, Hegel and Green. The considerations which determined Holland's choice of a profession I have not sought to enquire. Probably he was moved by the thought that in Holy Orders he would have the best chance of using the powers, of which by this time he must have become conscious, for the glory of God and the service of man. I have been told that the choice was in some measure affected by a sermon of Liddon's on the unpromising subject of Noah;[*] and beyond doubt the habitual enjoyment of Liddon's society, to which, as a brother-Student, Holland was now admitted, must have tended in the same direction.

[Footnote *: Preached at St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, on the 11th of March, 1870.]

Perhaps an even stronger influence was that of Edward King, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, and then Principal of Cuddesdon, in whom the most persuasive aspects of the priestly character were beautifully displayed, and who made Cuddesdon a sort of shrine to which all that was spiritual and ardent in young Oxford was irresistibly attracted. Preaching, years afterwards, at a Cuddesdon Festival, Holland uttered this moving panegyric of the place to which he owed so much: "Ah! which of us does not know by what sweet entanglement Cuddesdon threw its net about our willing feet? Some summer Sunday, perhaps, we wandered here, in undergraduate days, to see a friend; and from that hour the charm was at work. How joyous, how enticing, the welcome, the glad brotherhood! So warm and loving it all seemed, as we thought of the sharp skirmishing of our talk in College; so buoyant and rich, as we recalled the thinness of our Oxford interests. The little rooms, like college rooms just shrinking into cells; the long talk on the summer lawn; the old church with its quiet country look of patient peace; the glow of the evening chapel; the run down the hill under the stars, with the sound of Compline Psalms still ringing in our hearts--ah! happy, happy day! It was enough. The resolve that lay half slumbering in our souls took shape; it leapt out. We would come to Cuddesdon when the time of preparation should draw on!" Readers of this glowing passage have naturally imagined that the writer of it must himself have been a Cuddesdon man, but this is a delusion; and, so far as I know, Holland's special preparation for Ordination consisted of a visit to Peterborough, where he essayed the desperate task of studying theology under Dr. Westcott.

In September, 1872, he was ordained deacon by Bishop Mackarness, in Cuddesdon Church, being chosen to read the Gospel at the Ordination; and he was ordained priest there just two years later. It was during his diaconate that I, then a freshman, made his acquaintance. We often came across one another, in friends' rooms and at religious meetings, and I used to listen with delight to the sermons which he preached in the parish churches of Oxford. They were absolutely original; they always exhilarated and uplifted one; and the style was entirely his own, full of lightness and brightness, movement and colour. Scattered phrases from a sermon at SS. Philip and James, on the 3rd of May, 1874, and from another at St. Barnabas, on the 28th of June in the same year, still haunt my memory.[*]

[Footnote *: An Oxford Professor, who had some difficulty with his aspirates, censured a theological essay as "Too 'ollandy by 'alf."]

Holland lived at this time a wonderfully busy and varied life. He lectured on Philosophy in Christ Church; he took his full share in the business of University and College; he worked and pleaded for all righteous causes both among the undergraduates and among the citizens. An Oxford tutor said not long ago: "A new and strong effort for moral purity in Oxford can be dated from Holland's Proctorship."

This seems to be a suitable moment for mentioning his attitude towards social and political questions. He was "suckled in a creed outworn" of Eldonian Toryism, but soon exchanged it for Gladstonian Liberalism, and this, again, he suffused with an energetic spirit of State Socialism on which Mr. Gladstone would have poured his sternest wrath. A friend writes: "I don't remember that H. S. H., when he was an undergraduate, took much interest in politics more than chaffing others for being so Tory." (He never spoke at the Union, and had probably not realized his powers as a speaker.) "But when, in 1872, I went to be curate to Oakley (afterwards Dean of Manchester) at St. Saviour's, Hoxton, Holland used to come and see me there, and I found him greatly attracted to social life in the East End of London. In 1875 he came, with Edward Talbot and Robert Moberly, and lodged in Hoxton, and went about among the people, and preached in the church. I have sometimes thought that this may have been the beginning of the Oxford House."

All through these Oxford years Holland's fame as an original and independent thinker, a fascinating preacher, an enthusiast for Liberalism as the natural friend and ally of Christianity, was widening to a general recognition. And when, in April, 1884, Mr. Gladstone nominated him to a Residentiary Canonry at St. Paul's, everyone felt that the Prime Minister had matched a great man with a great opportunity.

From that day to this, Henry Scott Holland has lived in the public eye, so there is no need for a detailed narrative of his more recent career. All London has known him as a great and inspiring preacher; a literary critic of singular skill and grace; an accomplished teacher in regions quite outside theology; a sympathetic counsellor in difficulty and comforter in distress; and one of the most vivid and joyous figures in our social life. It is possible to trace some change in his ways of thinking, though none in his ways of feeling and acting. His politics have swayed from side to side under the pressure of conflicting currents. Some of his friends rejoice--and others lament--that he is much less of a partisan than he was; that he is apt to see two and even three sides of a question; and that he is sometimes kind to frauds and humbugs, if only they will utter the shibboleths in which he himself so passionately believes. But, through all changes and chances, he has stood as firm as a rock for the social doctrine of the Cross, and has made the cause of the poor, the outcast, and the overworked his own. He has shown the glory of the Faith in its human bearings, and has steeped Dogma and, Creed and Sacrament and Ritual in his own passionate love of God and man.

Stupid people misunderstand him. Wicked people instinctively hate him. Worldly people, sordid people, self-seekers, and promotion-hunters, contemn him as an amiable lunatic. But his friends forget all measure and restraint when they try to say what they feel about him. One whom I have already quoted writes again: "I feel Holland is little changed from what he was as a schoolboy and an undergraduate--the same joyous spirit, unbroken good temper, quick perception and insight, warm sympathy, love of friends, kind interest in lives of all sorts, delight in young people--these never fail. He never seems to let the burden of life and the sadness of things depress his cheery, hopeful spirit. I hope that what I send may be of some use. I cannot express what I feel. I love him too well."

This is the tribute of one friend; let me add my own. I do not presume to say what I think about him as a spiritual guide and example; I confine myself to humbler topics. Whatever else he is, Henry Scott Holland is, beyond doubt, one of the most delightful people in the world. In fun and geniality and warm-hearted, hospitality, he is a worthy successor of Sydney Smith, whose official house he inhabits; and to those elements of agreeableness he adds certain others which his famous predecessor could scarcely have claimed. He has all the sensitiveness of genius, with its sympathy, its versatility, its unexpected turns, its rapid transitions from grave to gay, its vivid appreciation of all that is beautiful in art and nature, literature and life. No man in London, I should think, has so many and such devoted friends in every class and station; and those friends acknowledge in him not only the most vivacious and exhilarating of social companions, but one of the moral forces which have done most to quicken their consciences and lift their lives.

* * * * *

By the death of Henry Scott Holland a great light is quenched,[*] or, to use more Christian language, is merged in "the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

[Footnote *: Written in 1918.]

Light is the idea with which my beloved friend is inseparably associated in my mind. His nature had all the attributes of light--its revealing power, its cheerfulness, its salubrity, its beauty, its inconceivable rapidity. He had the quickest intellect that I have ever known. He saw with a flash into the heart of an argument or a situation. He diffused joy by his own joy in living; he vanquished morbidity by his essential wholesomeness; whatever he touched became beautiful under his handling. "He was not the Light, but he came to bear witness of that Light," and bore it for seventy years by the mere force of being what he was. My friendship with Dr. Holland began in my second term at Oxford, and has lasted without a cloud or a break from that day to this. He was then twenty-five years old, and was already a conspicuous figure in the life of the University. In 1866 he had come up from Eton to Balliol with a high reputation for goodness and charm, but with no report of special cleverness. He soon became extremely popular in his own College and outside it. He rowed and played games and sang, and was recognized as a delightful companion wherever he went. But all the time a process of mental development was going on, of which none but his intimate friends were aware. "I owed nothing to Jowett," he was accustomed to say; "everything to Green." From that great teacher he caught his Hegelian habit of thought, his strong sense of ethical and spiritual values, and that practical habit of mind which seeks to apply moral principles to the problems of actual life. In 1870 came the great surprise, and Holland, who had no pretensions to scholarship, and whose mental development had only been noticed by a few, got a First Class of unusual brilliancy in the searching school of _Literoe Humaniores_. Green had triumphed; he had made a philosopher without spoiling a Christian. Christ Church welcomed a born Platonist, and made him Senior Student, Tutor, and Lecturer.

Holland had what Tertullian calls the _anima naturaliter Christiana_, and it had been trained on the lines of the Tractarian Movement. When he went up to Oxford he destined himself for a diplomatic career, but he now realized his vocation to the priesthood, and was ordained deacon in 1872 and priest two years later. He instantly made his mark as a preacher. Some of the sermons preached in the parish churches of Oxford in the earliest years of his ministry stand out in my memory among his very best. He had all the preacher's gifts--a tall, active, and slender frame, graceful in movement, vigorous in action, abundant in gesture, a strong and melodious voice, and a breathless fluency of speech. Above all, he spoke with an energy of passionate conviction which drove every word straight home. He seemed a young apostle on fire with zeal for God and humanity. His fame as an exponent of metaphysic attracted many hearers who did not usually go much to church, and they were accustomed--then as later--to say that here was a Christian who knew enough about the problems of thought to make his testimony worth hearing. Others, who cared not a rap for Personality or Causation, Realism or Nominalism, were attracted by his grace, his eloquence, his literary charm. His style was entirely his own. He played strange tricks with the English language, heaped words upon words, strung adjective to adjective; mingled passages of Ruskinesque description with jerky fragments of modern slang. These mannerisms grew with his growth, but in the seventies they were not sufficiently marked to detract from the pure pleasure which we enjoyed when we listened to his preaching as to "a very lovely song."

Judged by the canons of strict art, Holland was perhaps greater as a speaker than as a preacher. He differed from most people in this--that whereas most of us can restrain ourselves better on paper than when we are speaking, his pen ran away with him when he, was writing a sermon, but on a platform he could keep his natural fluency in bounds. Even then he was fluent enough in all conscience; but he did not so overdo the ornaments, and the absence of a manuscript and a pulpit-desk gave ampler scope for oratorical movement.

I have mentioned Holland's intellectual and moral debt to T. H. Green. I fancy that, theologically and politically, he owed as much to Mr. Gladstone. The older and the younger man had a great deal in common. They both were "patriot citizens of the kingdom of God"; proud and thankful to be members of the Holy Church Universal, and absolutely satisfied with that portion of the Church in which their lot was cast; passionate adherents of the Sacramental theology; and yet, in their innermost devotion to the doctrine of the Cross, essentially Evangelical. In politics they both worshipped freedom; they both were content to appeal to the popular judgment; and they both were heart and soul for the Christian cause in the East of Europe. Holland had been brought up by Tories, but in all the great controversies of 1886 to 1894 he followed the Gladstonian flag with the loyalty of a good soldier and the faith of a loving son.

When in 1884 Gladstone appointed Holland to a Canonry at St. Paul's, the announcement was received with an amount of interest which is not often bestowed upon ecclesiastical promotions. Everyone felt that it was a daring experiment to place this exuberant prophet of the good time coming at what Bishop Lightfoot called "the centre of the world's concourse." Would his preaching attract or repel? Would the "philosophy of religion," which is the perennial interest of Oxford, appeal to the fashionable or business-like crowd which sits under the Dome? Would his personal influence reach beyond the precincts of the Cathedral into the civil and social and domestic life of London? Would the Mauritian gospel of human brotherhood and social service--in short, the programme of the Christian Social Union--win the workers to the side of orthodoxy? These questions were answered according to the idiosyncrasy or bias of those to whom they were addressed, and they were not settled when, twenty-seven years later, Holland returned from St. Paul's to Oxford. Indeed, several answers were possible. On one point only there was an absolute agreement among those who knew, and this was that the Church in London had been incalculably enriched by the presence of a genius and a saint.

In one respect, perhaps, Holland's saintliness interfered with the free action of his genius. His insight, unerring in a moral or intellectual problem, seemed to fail him when he came to estimate a human character. His own life had always been lived on the highest plane, and he was in an extraordinary degree "unspotted from the world." His tendency was to think--or at any rate to speak and act--as if everyone were as simply good as himself, as transparent, as conscientious, as free from all taint of self-seeking. This habit, it has been truly said, "disqualifies a man in some degree for the business of life, which requires for its conduct a certain degree of prejudice"; but it is pre-eminently characteristic of those elect and lovely souls

"Who, through the world's long day of strife,
Still chant their morning song."

III

_LORD HALIFAX_

There can scarcely be two more typically English names than Wood and Grey. In Yorkshire and Northumberland respectively, they have for centuries been held in honour, and it was a happy conjunction which united them in 1829. In that year, Charles Wood, elder son of Sir Francis Lindley Wood, married Lady Mary Grey, youngest daughter of Charles, second Earl Grey, the hero of the first Reform Bill. Mr. Wood succeeded his father in the baronetcy, in 1846, sat in Parliament as a Liberal for forty years, filled some of the highest offices of State in the Administrations of Lord Palmerston and Mr. Gladstone, and was raised to the peerage as Viscount Halifax in 1866.

Lord and Lady Halifax had seven children, of whom the eldest was Charles Lindley Wood--the subject of the present sketch--born in 1839; and the second, Emily Charlotte, wife of Hugo Meynell-Ingram, of Hoar Cross and Temple Newsam. I mention these two names together because Mrs. Meynell-Ingram (whose qualities of intellect and character made a deep impression on all those who were brought in contact with her) was one of the formative influences of her brother's life. The present Lord Halifax (who succeeded to his father's peerage in 1885) writes thus about his early days:

"My sister was everything to me. I never can remember the time when it was not so between us. I hardly ever missed writing to her every day when we were away from one another; and for many years after her marriage, and as long as her eyes were good, I don't think she and I ever omitted writing to one another, as, indeed, we had done all through my school and college life. She is never out of my mind and thoughts. Her birthday, on the 19th of July, and mine, on the 7th of June, were days which stood out amongst all the days of the year."

This extract illustrates the beautiful atmosphere of mutual love and trust in which the family of Sir Charles and Lady Mary Wood were reared. In other respects their upbringing was what one would naturally expect in a Yorkshire country-house, where politics were judiciously blended with fox-hunting. From the enjoyments of a bright home, and the benign sway of the governess, and the companionship of a favourite sister, the transition to a private school is always depressing. In April, 1849, Charles Wood was sent to the Rev. Charles Arnold's, at Tinwell, near Stamford. "What I chiefly remember about the place is being punished all one day, with several canings, because I either could not or would not learn the Fifth Declension of the Greek Nouns."

So much for the curriculum of Tinwell; but it only lasted for one year, and then, after two years with a private tutor at home, Charles Wood went to Eton in January, 1853. He boarded at the house of the Rev. Francis Vidal, and his tutor was the famous William Johnson, afterwards Cory. "Billy Johnson" was not only a consummate scholar and a most stimulating teacher, but the sympathetic and discerning friend of the boys who were fortunate enough to be his private pupils. In his book of verses--_Ionica_--he made graceful play with a casual word which Charles Wood had let fall in the ecstasy of swimming--"Oh, how I wish I could fly!"

"Fresh from the summer wave, under the beech,
Looking through leaves with a far-darting eye,
Tossing those river-pearled locks about,
Throwing those delicate limbs straight out,
Chiding the clouds as they sailed out of reach,
Murmured the swimmer, 'I wish I could fly!'

"Laugh, if you like, at the bold reply,
Answer disdainfully, flouting my words:
How should the listener at simple sixteen
Guess what a foolish old rhymer could mean,
Calmly predicting, 'You will surely fly'--
Fish one might vie with, but how be like birds?

* * * * *

"Genius and love will uplift thee; not yet;
Walk through some passionless years by my side,
Chasing the silly sheep, snapping the lily-stalk,
Drawing my secrets forth, witching my soul with talk.
When the sap stays, and the blossom is set,
Others will take the fruit; I shall have died."

Surely no teacher ever uttered a more beautiful eulogy on a favourite pupil; and happily the poet lived long enough to see his prophecy fulfilled.

The principal charm of a Public School lies in its friendships; so here let me record the names of those who are recalled by contemporaries as having been Charles Wood's closest friends, at Eton--Edward Denison, Sackville Stopford, George Palmer, George Lane-Fox, Walter Campion, Lyulph Stanley,[1] and Augustus Legge.[2] With Palmer, now Sir George, he "messed," and with Stopford, now Stopford-Sackville, he shared a private boat. As regards his pursuits I may quote his own words:

[Footnote 1: Now (1918) Lord Sheffield.]

[Footnote 2: Afterwards Bishop of Lichfield.]

"I steered the _Britannia_ and the _Victory_. I used to take long walks with friends in Windsor Park, and used sometimes to go up to the Castle, to ride with the present King.[3] I remember, in two little plays which William Johnson wrote for his pupils, taking the part of an Abbess in a Spanish Convent at the time of the Peninsular War; and the part of the Confidante of the Queen of Cyprus, in an historical in which Sir Archdale Palmer was the hero, and a boy named Chafyn Grove, who went into the Guards, the heroine. In Upper School, at Speeches on the 4th of June, I acted with Lyulph Stanley in a French piece called _Femme à Vendre_. In 1857, I and George Cadogan,[4] and Willy Gladstone, and Freddy Stanley[5] went with the present King for a tour in the English Lakes; and in the following August we went with the King to Koenigs-winter. I was in 'Pop' (the Eton Debating Society) at the end of my time at Eton, and I won the 'Albert,' the Prince Consort's Prize for French."

[Footnote 3: Edward VII.] [Footnote 4: Afterwards Lord Cadogan.] [Footnote 5: The late Lord Derby.]

A younger contemporary adds this pretty testimony:

"As you can imagine, he was very popular both among the boys and the masters. One little instance remains with me. There was a custom of a boy, when leaving, receiving what one called 'Leaving Books,' from boys remaining in the school; these books were provided by the parents, and were bound in calf, etc. The present Lord Eldon went to Eton with me, and when Charles Wood left, in July, 1858, he wanted to give him a book; but knowing nothing of the custom of parents providing books, he went out and bought a half-crown copy of _The Pilgrim's Progress_, and sent it to C. Wood's room. Two shillings and sixpence was a good deal to a Lower Boy at the end of the half; and it was, I should think, an almost unique testimony from a small boy to one at the top of the house."

In October, 1858, Charles Wood went up to Christ Church. There many of his earlier friendships were renewed and some fresh ones added: Mr. Henry Chaplin coming up from Harrow; Mr. H. L. Thompson, afterwards Vicar of St. Mary-the-Virgin, Oxford, from Westminster; and Mr. Henry Villiers, afterwards Vicar of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, from a private tutor's. Charles Wood took his full share in the social life of the place, belonging both to "Loder's" and to "Bullingdon"--institutions of high repute in the Oxford world; and being then, as now, an admirable horseman, he found his chief joy in hunting. In his vacations he visited France and Italy, and made some tours nearer home with undergraduate friends. In 1861 he took his degree, and subsequently travelled Eastward as far as Suez, and spent a winter in Rome. In 1862 he was appointed Groom of the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales, and in this capacity attended his royal master's wedding at St. George's, Windsor, on the 10th of March, 1863, and spent two summers with him at Abergeldie. At the same time he became Private Secretary to his mother's cousin, Sir George Grey, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and retained that post until the fall of Lord Russell's Administration in 1866.

"There was," writes Lord Halifax, "a question of my standing for some Yorkshire constituency; but with my convictions it was not easy to come out on the Liberal side, and the project dropped. I never can remember the time when I did not feel the greatest devotion to King Charles I. and Archbishop Laud. I can recall now the services for the Restoration at Eton, when everyone used to wear an oak-leaf in his button-hole, and throw it down on the floor as the clock struck twelve."

This may be a suitable moment for a word about Lord Halifax's "convictions" in the sphere of religion. His parents were, like all the Whigs, sound and sturdy Protestants. They used to take their children to Church at Whitehall Chapel, probably the least ecclesiastical-looking place of worship in London; and the observances of the Parish Church at Hickleton--their country home near Doncaster--were not calculated to inspire a delight in the beauty of holiness. However, when quite a boy, Charles Wood, who had been confirmed at Eton by Bishop Wilberforce, found his way to St. Barnabas, Pimlico, then newly opened, and fell much under the influence of Mr. Bennett at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, and Mr. Richards, at All Saints', Margaret Street. At Oxford he became acquainted with Dr. Pusey and the young and inspiring Liddon, and frequented the services at Merton College Chapel, where Liddon used often to officiate. By 1863 his religious opinions must have been definitely shaped; for in that year his old tutor, William Johnson, when paying a visit to Hickleton, writes as follows:

"He told me of Mr. Liddon, the saintly and learned preacher; of the devout worshippers at All Saints', whose black nails show they are artisans; of the society formed to pray daily for the restoration of Christian unity."

And again:

"His father and mother seem to gather virtue and sweetness from looking at him and talking to him, though they fight hard against his unpractical and exploded Church views, and think his zeal misdirected.... And all the while his mother's face gets brighter and kinder because she is looking at him. Happy are the parents who, when they have reached that time of life in which the world is getting too strong and virtue is a thing of routine, are quickened by the bold, restless zeal of their sons and daughters, and so renew their youth."

In 1866 he was induced by his friend Mr. Lane-Fox, afterwards Chancellor of the Primrose League, to join the English Church Union.

"At that time," he writes, "I was much concerned with the affairs of the House of Charity in Soho and the Newport Market Refuge. 1866 was the cholera year, and I recollect coming straight back from Lorne's[*] coming of age to London, where I saw Dr. Pusey, with the result that I set to work to help Miss Sellon with her temporary hospital in Commercial Street, Whitechapel."

[Footnote *: Afterwards Duke of Argyll.]

In this connexion it is proper to recall the devoted services which he rendered to the House of Mercy at Horbury, near Wakefield; and those who know what religious prejudice was in rural districts forty years ago will realize the value of the support accorded to an institution struggling against calumny and misrepresentation by the most popular and promising young man in the West Riding. There lies before me as I write a letter written by an Evangelical mother--Lady Charles Russell--to her son, then just ordained to a curacy at Doncaster.

"I want to hear more about Lord and Lady Halifax. I knew them pretty well as Sir Charles and Lady Mary Wood, but I have lived in retirement since before he was raised to the peerage. His eldest son was not only very good-looking, but inclined to be very good, as I dare say Dr. Vaughan may have heard. Do you know anything about him?"

That "very good" and "very good-looking" young man was now approaching what may be called the decisive event of his life. In April, 1867, Mr. Colin Lindsay resigned the Presidency of the English Church Union, and Mr. Charles Lindley Wood was unanimously chosen to fill his place. Eleven years later Dr. Pusey wrote: "As to his being President of the E.C.U., he is the sense and moderation of it." He has administered its affairs and guided its policy through fifty anxious years. Indeed, the President and the Union have been so completely identified that the history of the one has been the history of the other. His action has been governed by a grand and simple consistency. Alike in storms and in fair weather, at times of crisis and at times of reaction, he has been the unswerving and unsleeping champion of the spiritual claims of the English Church, and the alert, resourceful, and unsparing enemy of all attempts, from whatever quarter, to subject her doctrine and discipline to the control of the State and its secular tribunals. The eager and fiery enthusiasm which pre-eminently marks his nature awakes a kindred flame in those who are reached by his influence; and, even when the reason is unconvinced, it is difficult to resist the leadership of so pure and passionate a temper.

It would be ridiculous for an outsider, like myself, to discuss the interior working of the E.C.U., so I avail myself of the testimony which has reached me from within.

"Like most men of his temperament, Lord Halifax seems now and again to be a little before his time. On the other hand, it is remarkable that Time generally justifies him. There is no question that he has always enjoyed the enthusiastic and affectionate support of the Union as a whole."

It is true that once with reference to the book called _Lux Mundi_, and once with reference to the "Lambeth Opinions" of 1899, there was some resistance in the Union to Lord Halifax's guidance; and that, in his negotiations about the recognition of Anglican Orders, he would not, if he had been acting officially, have carried the Union with him. But these exceptions only go to confirm the general truth that his policy has been as successful as it has been bold and conscientious.

It is time to return, for a moment, to the story of Lord Halifax's private life. In 1869 he married Lady Agnes Courtenay, daughter of the twelfth Earl of Devon, and in so doing allied himself with one of the few English families which even the most exacting genealogists recognize as noble.[1] His old tutor wrote on the 22nd of April:

[Footnote 1: "The purple of three Emperors who have reigned at Constantinople will authorize or excuse a digression on the origin and singular fortunes of the House of Courtenay" (Gibbon, chapter xii.).]

"This has been a remarkable day--the wedding of Charles Wood and Lady Agnes Courtenay. It was in St. Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, which was full, galleries and all, the central passage left empty, and carpeted with red. It was a solemn, rapt congregation; there was a flood of music and solemn tender voices. The married man and woman took the Lord's Supper, with hundreds of witnesses who did not Communicate.... Perhaps a good many were Church Union folk, honouring their Chairman."

Of this marriage I can only say that it has been, in the highest aspects, ideally happy, and that the sorrows which have chequered it have added a new significance to the saying of Ecclesiastes that "A threefold cord is not quickly broken."[2]

[Footnote 2: Charles Reginald Lindley Wood died 1890; Francis Hugh Lindley Wood died 1889; Henry Paul Lindley Wood died 1886.]

In 1877 Mr. Wood resigned his office in the household of the Prince of Wales. It was the time when the affairs of St. James's, Hatcham, and the persecution of Mr. Tooth, were first bringing the Church into sharp collision with the courts of law. The President of the Church Union was the last man to hold his peace when even the stones were crying out against this profane intrusion of the State into the kingdom of God; and up and down the country he preached, in season and out of season, the spiritual independence of the Church, and the criminal folly of trying to coerce Christian consciences by deprivation and imprisonment. The story went that an Illustrious Personage said to his insurgent Groom of the Bedchamber: "What's this I hear? I'm told you go about the country saying that the Queen is not the Head of the Church. Of course, she's the Head of the Church, just the same as the Pope is the Head of his Church, and the Sultan the Head of _his_ Church.'" But this may only be a creation of that irresponsible romancist, Ben Trovato; and it is better to take Lord Halifax's account of the transaction:

"I remember certain remonstrances being made to me in regard to disobedience to the law and suchlike, and my saying at once that I thought it quite unreasonable that the Prince should be compromised by anyone in his household taking a line of which he himself did not approve; and that I honestly thought I had much better resign my place. Nothing could have been nicer or kinder than the Prince was about it; and, if I resigned, I thought it much better for him on the one side, while, as regards myself, as you may suppose, I was not going to sacrifice my own liberty of saying and doing what I thought right."

In those emphatic words speaks the true spirit of the man. To "say and do what he thinks right," without hesitation or compromise or regard to consequences, has been alike the principle and the practice of his life. And here the reader has a right to ask, What manner of man is he whose career you have been trying to record?

First and foremost, it must be said--truth demands it, and no conventional reticence must withhold it--that the predominant feature of his character is his religiousness. He belongs to a higher world than this. His "citizenship is in Heaven." Never can I forget an address which, twenty years ago, he delivered, by request, in Stepney Meeting-House. His subject was "Other-worldliness." The audience consisted almost exclusively of Nonconformists. Many, I imagine, had come with itching ears, or moved by a natural curiosity to see the man whose bold discrimination between the things of Cæsar and the things of God was just then attracting, general attention, and, in some quarters, wrathful dismay. But gradually, as the high theme unfolded itself, and the lecturer showed the utter futility of all that this world has to offer when compared with the realities of the Supernatural Kingdom, curiosity was awed into reverence, and the address closed amid a silence more eloquent than any applause."

"That strain I heard was of a higher mood."

As I listened, I recalled some words written by Dr. Pusey in 1879, about

"One whom I have known intimately for many years, who is one of singular moderation as well as wisdom, who can discriminate with singular sagacity what is essential from is not essential--C. Wood."

The Doctor went on:

"I do not think that I was ever more impressed than by a public address which I heard him deliver now many years ago, in which, without controversy or saying anything which could have offended anyone, he expressed his own faith on deep subjects with a precision which reminded me of Hooker's wonderful enunciation of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and of the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ."

After so solemn a tribute from so great a saint, it seems almost a profanity--certainly a bathos--to add any more secular touches. Yet, if the portrait is even to approach completeness, it must be remembered that we are not describing an ascetic or a recluse, but the most polished gentleman, the most fascinating companion, the most graceful and attractive figure, in the Vanity Fair of social life. He is full of ardour, zeal, and emotion, endowed with a physical activity which corresponds to his mental alertness, and young with that perpetual youth which is the reward of "a conscience void of offence toward God and toward man."

Clarendon, in one of his most famous portraits, depicts a high-souled Cavalier, "of inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of a glowing and obliging humanity and goodness to mankind, and of a primitive simplicity and integrity of life." He was writing of Lord Falkland: he described Lord Halifax.

IV

_LORD AND LADY RIPON_[*]

[Footnote *: George Frederick Samuel Robinson, first Marquess of Ripon, K.G. (1827-1909); married in 1851 his cousin Henrietta Ann Theodosia Vyner.]

The _Character of the Happy Warrior_ is, by common consent, one of the noblest poems in the English language. A good many writers and speakers seem to have discovered it only since the present war began, and have quoted it with all the exuberant zeal of a new acquaintance. But, were a profound Wordsworthian in general, and a devotee of this poem in particular, to venture on a criticism, it would be that, barring the couplet about Pain and Bloodshed, the character would serve as well for the "Happy Statesman" as for the "Happy Warrior." There is nothing specially warlike in the portraiture of the man

"Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his mind or not,
Plays in the many games of life, that one
Where what he most doth value must be won;
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Not thought of tender happiness betray;
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpast."

These lines always recurred to my memory when circumstances brought me into contact with the second Lord Ripon, whose friendship I enjoyed from my first entrance into public life.

I know few careers in the political life of modern England more interesting or more admirable than his, and none more exactly consonant with Wordsworth's eulogy:

"Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpast."

The first Lord Ripon, who was born in 1782 and died in 1859, entered public life as soon as he had done with Cambridge, filled pretty nearly every office of honour and profit under the Crown (including, for four troubled months, the Premiership), and served impartially under moderate Whigs and crusted Tories, finding, perhaps, no very material difference between their respective creeds. The experiences of the hen that hatches the duckling are proverbially pathetic; and great must have been the perplexity of this indeterminate statesman when he discovered that his only son was a young man of the most robust convictions, and that those convictions were frankly democratic. To men possessed by birth of rank and wealth, one has sometimes heard the question addressed, in the sheer simplicity of snobbery, "Why are you a Liberal?" and to such a question Lord Goderich (for so the second Lord Ripon was called till he succeeded to his father's title) would probably have replied, "Because I can't help it." He was an only child, educated at home, and therefore free to form his own opinions at an age when most boys are subject to the stereotyping forces of a Public School and a University. Almost before his arrival at man's estate, he had clearly marked out his line of political action, and to that line he adhered with undeviating consistency.

He was supremely fortunate in an early and ideally happy marriage. Tennyson might well have drawn the heroine of _The Talking Oak_ from Henrietta, Lady Ripon:

"Yet, since I first could cast a shade,
Did never creature pass,
So slightly, musically made,
So light upon the grass."

Her mental constitution corresponded to her physical frame; she was the brightest of companions and the most sympathetic of friends. She shared to the full her husband's zeal for the popular cause, and stimulated his efforts for social as well as political reform.