CHAPTER IV. 1868, 1869. "A counsellor well fitted to advise In daily life, and at whose lips no less Who, though his head be hidden in the skies, No dweller in a baseless world of dream, R. C. T. IN a sermon at the opening, after its restoration, of St. Peter's parish church, Dublin, on All Saints' Day, 1867, the Archbishop had expressed his opinion that, while there were some who would "bid us put our house in order," being sure that disestablishment was at hand, there was nothing of the kind to fear in the near future; although he took occasion from such prophecies to press home the warning as to the need of continually setting our spiritual house in order. Now, however, the storm was close on the ship which he, chiefly, must guide through it, and from the time he realized this, his anticipations were of the gloomiest. To his Wife. Dublin, April 8, 1868. The Dean of Cork, who is fresh from England, says that the general feeling there is that Establishment is certainly gone; but that our friends are strong enough, with good management, to save a DISESTABLISHMENT. 55 considerable amount of Endowment. Whiteside writes that Bright is less bitter than Gladstone. The first part of the following letter has been given in Bishop Wilberforce's Life; but as the whole is of interest and importance, it seems best to give it here, and not to separate the latter part from what precedes. To the BISHOP OF OXFORD. MY DEAREST BISHOP, Palace, April 18, 1868. I write in the midst of every possible interruption on this day of the installation tumult,* but shall probably have no time after it is over to write. There is no word of truth in the report, first started in a Roman Catholic paper here, that we were transacting for a smaller episcopate, and had made any proposal to sacrifice six of our number. I think I may say with confidence that on one thing we are agreed-not, that is, to accept what will evidently be Disraeli's proposal, namely, a starved and cut down Establishment, which will leave all causes of irritation existing still; which will entail on us all the weaknesses of an Establishment, while giving us none of the compensating advantages; and which, being a compromise resting on no intelligible principle, will inevitably cease to exist after a few years of weakness, poverty, and discredit. If you ask the policy which recommends itself here to the best and most earnest Churchmen, it is, first, to fight for everything which we possess, as believing it rightfully ours; recognizing, of course, the right of Parliament to redistribute, within the Church, its revenues according to the changed necessities of the present time. If this battle is lost, then, totally rejecting the process of a gradual starvation to which Disraeli would submit us, to go in for instant death at the hands of Gladstone, that death being one out of which a new life might spring, and, God helping us, will spring; our efforts being in this case directed to rescuing for the Church as much of her own as may be, and taking all care that, whatever this be, it be secured to the Church of Ireland in communion with the Church of England, and not to a new Church which shall have purged the Prayer-book of the Popish leaven which taints it still!!! The installation of the Prince of Wales as a Knight of St. Patrick. The Archbishop was Chancellor of the Order. which some already announce that they will have. I touch in these last words the danger of all dangers which is before us. I believe that what I have written presents the outlines of the policy which commends itself most to thoughtful Churchmen here. There are infinite secondary matters, but these two of immense importance, on which I would willingly write or talk to you, but I must reserve them, at least for the present. By the end of the month I hope that we shall be in London, and that we shall remain there for several weeks. The Bishops meet here for consultation on Monday next. If anything grows out of the meeting which it is desirable to communicate, I will not fail to write again. Many thanks for all the counsel, help, sympathy, and prayers, some of which we know, and the rest of which we are sure are not wanting to us at this trying time. The preparation of a "Household Book of English Poetry," with notes, published this year, had for many months interested the Archbishop, and occupied his hours of recreation. From SIR FRANCIS PALGRAVE. 5, York Gate, Regent's Park, N. W., June 5, 1868. MY LORD ARCHBISHOP, I am much obliged to your Grace for your kindness in sending me the volume of "Household Poetry," and I am much pleased to find that you think favourably of the little attempt which I have made in the same direction. There is room for many selections of this kind, our flower garden is so rich and varied; and even if the same flowers perpetually reappear, yet they often gain a new charm by re-arrangement and annotation. Some things in the book are new to me, and others, which had been outvoted for the "Golden Treasury," now seem to gain new merit when removed by selection from more ordinary matter. I should much like to know whether the fine Cavalier song, printed from a manuscript annotation to Lovelace, has been printed before, and whether any reasonable conjecture can be formed as to its authorship. It seems to me far too good for any but a practical hand, and it is tolerably free from the bouncing tone of bravado which (poetically) spoils most of its class. I see the omission of one stanza in Lovelace's ode to Lucasta is not noticed in your notes. 66 'HOUSEHOLD BOOK OF ENGLISH POETRY." 57 The epithalamium of (I think) Hymen and Eucharis in Marlowe's "Hero and Leander" I have often thought worthy to be brought out of its present obscurity. It is one of the Chiswick reprints. Doyle's poem reads very well. J. H. Newman has an elegy on a sister in his recent volume, of singular tenderness and simplicity. But, in truth, the last thirty years alone would supply a volume or two well worth selection. With renewed thanks, believe me, your Grace's obedient servant, FRANCIS PALGRAVE. Amongst letters preserved by the Archbishop is one from Cardinal Newman, dated June 3, thanking him for sending him the "beautiful volume," and for giving him "a place in such high company." Mr. Frank Millson writes in answer to some questions of the Archbishop concerning editions of Vaughan's poems: MY LORD, Southport, Albert Road, July 25, 1868. Your reply to my note was sent to me to Arran, where I was staying. Since my return, I have compared the two copies of Vaughan's poems. I think that your supposition that the 1655 edition is the same book as the one of 1650, with a new title-page and additions, can hardly be correct, though I know that Lyte, the editor of Pickering's reprint, thinks as you do. The preface to the 1655 edition is dated September 30, 1654, and contains this passage, which seems to me to refer to the fact of a new edition. A comparison of my two copies shows that the 1650 edition consists of half a sheet, title and dedication, and 110 pages. The second edition has title, preface, dedication, motto, the 110 pages of the first edition, with eighty-four pages of new matter, and a table of first lines. A noticeable thing in the arrangement is that the sheets do not begin with new printer's marks, as they might be expected to do, if the second part were simply new matter added to the first volume, but begin with A, the last sheet of the former volume having ended with G. I am sorry to trouble you with these trifling details; but, as Vaughan has long been a favourite author of mine, they have an interest for me, and, if they help to show that he was not neglected by readers of his own time, I shall be glad. I may venture to say, that I would not have troubled you with my note, if I had not noticed in the notes to your selection an accuracy of statement which is very rare in works of the kind. * The notes in the volume of "Household Poetry" are only too few, and most valuable to those who would fain be led by a poet through a treasure-house of poetry, especially by one so unerring as the Archbishop in his discernment of true poetic merit. "I return the jeu d'esprit on Lord Houghton, which is very happy, also four verses," he writes to a friend in 1863; "the last are feeling and good, but, as you ask me, do not seem to me to pass that line, so real, yet so hard to trace, which separates graceful verses from poetry." To the BISHOP OF OXFORD. Broomfield, Wicklow, August 27, 1868. I think your presence,† above all in the present condition of things, of very high importance indeed. Your absence would be a loss to us in many ways greater than I can say; else, knowing all which is always on your hands to do, I would not so press you to come. Judge Berwick and his sister, two of our oldest and most honoured friends in Ireland, for whom I was in fear when I last wrote, perished in that Welsh horror. Few could have been better prepared for their great change. We have lost no others who were in any way near to ourselves, but friends and acquaintances have been stricken on every In a note to his translation of part of St. Hildebert's "Extra Portam," Dr. Neale says, after expressing his inability to agree with Archbishop Trench in his interpretation of a word in the poem ("worthy of St. Hildebert though such an interpretation be "), "At the same time, any one who differs on such a point from such a critic, must feel that he does it at his peril." At the Church Congress in Dublin. The collision of the Irish down mail, near Abergele, with a train containing barrels of paraffin, by which several carriages in the mail were in a few moments burnt up. There is a beautiful sonnet of the Archbishop's on the death of this brother and sister, beginning— and ending "Men said, who saw the tender love they bore "He Who loved them best of all, |