Walked on to Meyringen. Saw the Reichenbach, and made arrangements for sending our things to Stanz. I dismissed my guide at Rosenlaui, who had come with us from Lauterbrunnen-slept on a shakedown. Monday, 18th.-Left Meyringen at 10; weather re-established. Dined at Guttenen; slept at Handeck, in the chalet on beds of hay. Mr. Scholey walked about above, and nearly frightened Georgiana into a fit. Curds, cream, &c. in abundance. Tuesday, 19th.-Saw this most splendid waterfall, with its iris in full beauty, whereupon I wrote these verses :— FALLS OF THE AAR AT HANDECK. Fanned by thy whirlwind's everlasting play, What charms, what terrors, mighty stream, are thine! Two rival floods, no more asunder pent, Leap raging down, on mutual ruin bent, Like foemen grappling with their latest breath, Who meet in fight, but never part in death. Breakfasted on chamois, walked to the Grimsel, dined there, and walked to the glacier of the Rhone, where we slept. Wednesday, 20th.-Walked over to Realp, an inn kept by the Capuchins, with whom I talked Latin. Tuesday, 26th.-Walked from Stanz to Stadt, thence in boat to Lucerne beautiful view. Bought Atala and a little drawingbook for Georgiana, who has become fond of drawing buildings. Thursday, 28th.-I ascended the Rigi with Scholey, of whom I took my leave at the top; returned to Kussnacht, and walked with Georgiana, whom I had left below, to Aar. Saturday, 30th.-Walked to the top of Mount Albis; got into the mud in the dark. Old woman with whom Georgiana would not shake hands. Sunday, 31st.-Walked to Zurich. Monday, August 1st.-Got a letter from Fred announcing his election [to the Fellowship at Magdalen]. Went in the coupé of the diligence to Schaffhausen-saw the Fall. Walked to Dusenhofen in the dark. Tuesday, 2nd.-Walked to Stein. Georgiana sketched. Miserable hole, full of old nuns. Constance. Fell in with a retour, who took us to The succeeding entries are in the main illegible; they merely record walking excursions. Then there is an entry, 'Wesen-pen too bad,' with which the Diary closes abruptly. They walked, as he records, 700 miles all over Switzerland, which, as some facetious traveller remarked, would be a very big country if it were only flattened out; Mrs. Lowe carrying her sketch-book and drawing materials, and he himself the wardrobe and money, which, being silver, was the heaviest of all.' It was during this tour that Lord Sherbrooke composed those Swiss Sketches' in verse to be found in his slender volume, Poems of a Life. These verses were written for the gratification of his wife, and (together with fugitive pieces which from time to time he had given to various friends) were subsequently printed for private circulation. At a late period of his life this collection was, by a mistake, published to the world in an uncorrected form and without any explanation of its origin. The error could only be partially repaired by calling in the first and issuing a second corrected edition. In this volume will be found most of the verses which he wrote, while his wife sketched, during this very happy summer-time of 1836 in Switzerland. 119 CHAPTER VI ROBERT LOWE AND THE TRACTARIANS (1841) NEWMAN himself tells us that the Catholic revival' in the English Church dates from July 14, 1833, when Keble preached the Assize Sermon, in the University pulpit, on National Apostacy. This famous sermon, and the still more famous Tracts for the Times following it, were the result of the inevitable reaction, religious and political, from the aggressive Liberalism which had passed the Reform Bill of 1832 and suppressed the ten Irish bishoprics, and which threatened yet more portentous changes in Church and State. Strangely, nothing in the whole Liberal programme so disgusted Newman as the proposal to emancipate' the Roman Catholics. From the earliest time that Lord Sherbrooke began to think, and had opinions of his own, he was, until the close of his life, on all these points, a staunch Liberal. He saw nothing but good in this early Reform movement, and was a strong upholder of the policy of Grey and Brougham. What was held to be a still more heinous offence in the Oxford of his day-as it touched the college revenues—he was an earnest advocate of the abolition of the Corn Laws. Mr. Froude once told me that parents were chary about sending their sons to Lowe, though he was admittedly the most successful private tutor in Oxford, for fear he might instil into their minds the 'heresy of Free-trade.' As to the Church, Lowe held, as against Keble, Pusey, and Newman, that instead of being weak or oppressed, she was altogether too powerful and dominant, especially at the University. He was therefore opposed root and branch to the 'Oxford,' or Tractarian' movement, the aim of which was to combat, and, if possible, overthrow the rising tide of Rationalism and Liberalism in England by the revival of medieval theology, and the strenuous assertion of the power and authority of the Church. It may well be imagined that, to an intellect so essentially masculine and positive as Lowe's, much of the Tractarian propaganda, with its theological casuistry and mere wordspinning (as he would regard it), seemed too utterly futile to call for serious attention. In this he was plainly mistaken; for the mass of men are led much more by their emotions than by their reason, and the Tractarian party alone, in Oxford at this time, appealed to the deeper feelings and pious sentiments of the rising generation. On this very point Newman makes a most pregnant observation: The Roman Church stops the safety-valve of excitement of Reason; we, that of the excitement of feeling. In consequence, Romanists turn infidels, and Anglicans turn Wesleyans." Meantime the leaven was working, and these earnest young religious reactionaries were drawing some strange fish into their net. There was Lowe's late schoolfellow, the unfortunate 'senior prefect,' W. G. Ward, who left Winchester an admirer of Mill and Bentham, and, after he reached Oxford, was for a while a religious Liberal of the school of Dr. Arnold. One would have thought when this same Ward became an avowed This title is surely to be preferred to "Oxford Movement," which seems to destine that ancient seat of learning never to move, except, backwards.'Cardinal Manning, by A. W. Hutton, p. 252 n. 2 From letter of the Rev. J. H. Newman to Rev. H. J. Rose, in Letters and Correspondence of J. H. Newman, edited by Anne Mozley, vol. ii. p. 187. Newmanite, and began to play those fantastic tricks which at length closed Oxford and opened Rome to him, that Robert Lowe would have paused from his daily drudgery of ten hours' tuition, and sprung into the fray. Probably he regarded his old schoolfellow's transformations of faith as too constitutionally pantomimic to be amenable to rational criticism. Doubtless he heard of the movement' from his more intimate friend, Roundell Palmer (Catholicus,' as he playfully styles him); but what he heard evidently did not flutter his pulse. Lord Selborne expressly bears testimony that he held himself aloof from the theological controversies by which the minds of many Oxford men, resident and non-resident, were much occupied.' But Newman's Tract 90 was too much for Robert Lowe, and he forthwith entered into the theological fray by publishing an anonymous pamphlet, entitled The Articles Construed by Themselves. Ward promptly took up the cudgels, and of course made Newman's position (as he doubtless intended) absolutely untenable. Lowe retorted with great vigour, and with but little consideration for the feelings of his fellowWykehamist; which, to do Ward justice, he never murmured at, for he preferred a stout foe, who could hit out straight and hard. It is singular, when we consider the future eminence of Lord Sherbrooke, no less than the marked ability displayed in these short controversial pamphlets, that his share in the fierce battle that raged round Tract 90 should have been almost completely ignored. So far as I know, no writer on this subject seems to have called attention to them except the late Dean Church and Mr. Wilfrid Ward in comparatively recent publications. Cardinal Newman himself, in his wellknown Apologia, in which he has so much to say of his own tract, omits all reference to what Lord Selborne describes as 'perhaps the most sensible' of all the replies which it evoked. But this is not surprising, as Newman evidently desired to |