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Later, it was whispered about that there was in existence a volume of compare with it-plenty of everything !' At Bordeaux they have excelthe great man's sayings and opinions-of most piquant flavour-and lent wheaten bread. Still Bordeaux must, on the whole, give way to lying perdu somewhere in Paris. Instantly the whole world of savans Perigueux. There, the living is admirable; and also at Agen, far better and bibliophilists became wild with excitement. It was begged, borrowed, than at Bordeaux. Still Perigueux had its drawback. There are spots upon greedily devoured, passed from hand to hand, and, as it afterwards the sun, and the cloth table-linen was not of the cleanest; so that, perappeared, often transcribed; and not very long after, an intelligent haps, it is to the Grande Chartreuse that he looks back with fondest regret; pirate at La Haye-in those days, a famous Riff station for pirate book- for there they live on claret and white wines, and serve up astounding sellers-issued a neat hot-pressed edition, bearing title, Scaligerana. omelets of a hundred eggs each! Languedoc, too, is a land running A strange book it is, written in a composite dialect, half French, half with milk and honey; for there is to be found the best oil in the world; Latin. A singular kind of argot is the result, which is not, however, not your common nut-oil, which, though used in the king's kitchen for without a certain force and nervousness characteristic of the man. Let dressing fricasses, still wants the delicate flavour of the Languedoc virgin us now suppose him seated with his two admiring pupils at his feet, and oil with which they season their exquisite soups. Discoursing in another ready for a long, quiet evening. True, outside it is not altogether so place on mutton, he once more fondly recurs to Languedoc, where it is quiet; for, as he once sorrowfully told them: "In this place every one unsurpassed. It seems there is a peculiar flavour about the Languedoc may disturb his next neighbour with impunity. They come and riot mutton owing to the sheep being fed upon thyme. O what delicious under my very windows, and I can do nothing to stop them." [Where eating!' he exclaims with delicious rapture. The university mutton was were the proctors?] "Even on fast-days, they drink all day long, even from only pretty good; it had a disagreeable hircine taste, which could only sunrise." With all these désagrémens, he is pretty well contented with the be got rid of by keeping it a long time in pickle. But of all dishes in the university. The only drawback is the loss of all his teeth, no doubt owing to world, commend him to a green goose and garlic! This he pronounces the marshes. This was the more provoking, that there was to be seen in the fare for a king! town a stately dame who was fully ninety-nine years old, and yet boasted a handsome set. But why not have recourse to the cunning artist who fitted the Italian nobleman with a fine ivory set in gold mountings ? True, he would have to take them out at meal-times, which was an objection; and when he spoke, he would have to be putting his hand continually to his mouth to prevent their falling out, which was a further objection. So, perhaps, he was quite as well off as the Italian noble

man.

The great scholar, albeit so devoted to his books, had travelled and had met with a few incidents worth noting. He had seen Mary Queen of Scota, whom he rapturously allows to have been une belle créature. He had had an interview with the great Henry of Navarre, who had been pleased to make him the following remark: 'Hold your tongue, monsieur; you don't know what you are talking about.' He took a peep into the royal library, and found the romance of Amadis reposing between Plato and Aristotle. Of his queen, too, he has something to tell. A certain Sieur de Montpesat, who was a paragon of impudence (le plus glorieux vilain), met her at the baths of Béard. The queen said to him: "If I did not hold in all honour the king of France, your master, I should drive you from my domains sooner than you wot of!" Said he "Madame, I need not go far for that." Then she "Begone, sir, this instant!"' For this smart repartee his own uncle volunteered to put him to death; but the queen generously interfered. Indeed, there ap. pears to have been in those days a rather summary mode of dealing with all offences. Thus, one unfortunate, named Spifame, was publicly executed for having been so indiscreet as to take a lady into his house whose husband happened to be still living. When he himself was at Geneva, a frail fair one was put to death by drowning. She was very pretty, and a brunette,' he adds. All the ministers cried hard over her. So M. de la Tremblay told me, for I had not the heart to go and see the execution.' However, he once went to see two men broken on the wheel, one of whom spat out as far as any other man could do, laughing heartily all the time at his companion, who was screaming under the blows.' He seems to have had a morbid fancy for this subject, and is curious in scaffold lore. Thus There was " an executioner at Geneva called Maistre Louis, who was no other than a noble gentleman of Savoy, who had taken to this craft to spite his brothers, who had kept him out of his inheritance.' The Bordeaux Calcraft had grown so skilful from long practice, that very often the head remained on the shoulders even after the blow!' The gentleman who filled that office at Paris was quite as dexterous; he had only to let his sword drop carelessly, and the head and trunk were parted. At Venice, they had something very like the guillotine. The criminal places his head upon a block, and upon the back of his neck is laid a blade of iron, very sharp and heavy. It is then struck smartly with a hammer, and the head is severed like a piece of wood,'

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The great scholar had a smart trenchant way of disposing of those who ventured to differ with him. For instance, a certain man of the name of Srellius, came once to tell me that I was all astray in not reckoning dates after his method. I soon sent him about his business, with this answer: "Ass! why should I reckon dates after your method?" This was like Mr. Willett's manner of tackling Solomon Daisy.

An author, bearing the singular name of Popma, is thus despatched : Popma has written wretchedly on Varro. O what miserable criticism that of Popma! With all he has written, he has only been gathering so much dirt! What a butt I made of him at Geneva !'

Poor Popma. The Emperor Rudolph is an utter hog; a certain Robertelli is found to be an ass, a beast, and a grand ratisseur; while the Jesuits are, one and all, written down asses, fools, pedants, fats, devils incarnate.

One night the professor saw a ghost! He shall tell the story himself. Devils,' he says, only shew themselves to poor weak souls. They would take good care of coming near me, for I would destroy them, every one of them. When they appear to sorcerers, they take the shape of a goat, on which account I never eat of goat's flesh. My father was never afraid of the devil, nor am I. He used to say that the devil was afraid to come near him. One night I saw a black man mounted on a black horse standing in the middle of a bog, and my horse was just following hlm, as I was dozing in the saddle. Count Dabin and some others were on a good way before, whilst I had lingered a little behind. I called out to the dark man: he made no answer. My horse was just in the bog, and if I had not been very sharp, I should assuredly have been lost. I dragged him back just in time. The others heard my cries; and the whole of that night—for seven entire hours-we wandered about. The devil often decoys men into marshes with a view to their destruction. My belief is, that this was a judgment on us, because one of our party was a dreadful blasphemer.' Perhaps, looking at the late hour of the night, and the strange fact of his being asleep upon his horse, it might be possible to offer a simpler but more profane solution of the whole business.

When he was in London, he was greatly astonished at seeing the bridge all stuck over with human heads and quarters as thick as the masts of the ships. He found there twelve excellent libraries. There were some good books among them, he allows, especially historical manuscripts. They had printed a catalogue of these latter; but, as usual, omitted about ten times as much as they printed. He had heard of the Bodleian, and passes judgment on it in this fashion: There was a certain knight who presented a famous library to Oxford. It was worth about £40,000. He must have been a rich man. I say I have looked over the catalogue: they are nearly all ordinary books.' The doctrine as to literary meum and tuum was very lax in those days; at least, M. du Puy's conduct must be deemed questionable. 'O Pierre du Puy, what a good creature that was! He used to write to me such a store of things I was so anxious to know about. M. du Puy carried off some manuscripts from an abbey in this way; while some kept the doorkeeper in conversation, others were lowering tue books from a window where there were people waiting to receive them.'

But it is full time to let the ancient scholar depart in peace.

THE GUARDIAN ON

THE

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THE LIFE OF BISHOP

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Alas for human boastings! A little later Disrali is described as a marvellous man. Not a bit a Briton, but all over an Eastern Jew." Later

WILBERFORCE," BY HIS SON, R. G. WILBERFORCE. still he is the "tricky Disraeli," and "a mere mystery-man, trading

HE whole subject of preferments to vacant Archbishoprics and Bishoprics, and of the Bishop's repeated disappointments in reference thereto is laid open in these pages with a frankness that has rather scandalised some. In 1862 Archbishop Sumner died, and we have some interesting revelations in letters that passed between the Bishop and Mr. Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Palmerston's Government, as to what should be done. The Bishop very earnestly pressed the translation of Dr. Longley from York, which was

in fact effected. Then Mr. Gladstone "wrote to Lord Palmerston strongly pressing the appointment of the Bishop of Oxford to York. That Mr. Gladstone failed in securing this appointment for the man whom all England looked upon as the most peculiarly fitted for the Archbishopric of the Northern Province, and that the Bishop's former curate was appointed instead, is now a matter of history," as Mr. R. G. Wilberforce tells us. It can do no harm to say now that the whole Church, and not least Yorkshire itself, was on that occasion quite as much disappointed as Bishop Wilberforce himself could possibly have been. Humanly speaking, there was no man so eminently qualified to be Archbishop of York, and so certain to carry all in Yorkshire before him, as Bishop Wilberforce-perhaps the most eminent Yorkshireman of this generation. There were some who thought that Bishop Wilberforce was not sent thither for fear he should succeed too well. The sequel is amusing in more ways than one :

"The Archbishopric of York was offered in the first instance to the Bishop of London. Had he accepted it, the following extract from a diary entry at the end of the year shows how Lord Palmerston would have filled up the vacancy :

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December 16 (Windsor).—Talk with the Dean; he told me that if

London had taken York I was to be offered London.

"October 11 (Bedgebury).—After early breakfast and prayers, off to Marden; rail to Guildford; walked to the top of the Hog's Back; rail to Alton; ride with towards and on to the Grange; there the Carlyles. Mrs. Carlyle-account of E. Irving; Mrs. Oliphant did not understand him at all; his variety; so kind -never depreciated a living

creature; his love and loveableness the point of his character; fond of

creature comforts. Mrs. Oliphant narrow and jealous, and greatly the

cause of submitting him to his foes.

At

"October 13.-At sermon, and then rode into Winchester. Utterton's. Opening sermon; cathedral crowded; Bishop of Winchester thanked me with emotion. Lord Palmerston at meeting; very, very clever-twisted one sentence of mine sorely.

"The sentence the Bishop here alludes to was: The schoolmasters are to be religious teachers-not teachers of religion.' Lord Palmerston took this sentence as implying that the schoolmasters were only to teach secular matters; whereas what the Bishop meant was that the master was not to supersede the religious teaching of the clergyman in the school, or to release the latter in any degree from his functions as teacher of religion."

The next severe mortification of this kind that befell the Bishop-for it would be vain, in the face of the entries in the "Diary," to deny that it was a mortification-was when the Archbishopric again became vacant through Archbishop Longley's death in 1868. At that time the Conservatives were in power, and Mr. Disraeli was Premier, Lord Derby having resigned a few months previously. This was again unfortunate for the Bishop, for Mr. Disraeli and he cordially disliked one another. There was a sort of rivalry in those social circles in which both of them starred it beyond others; and a kind of mutual distrust which looks as if it were subdued rather than absent even when friendly communications were being interchanged, as was often the case in Bucks. And long and close intimacy with Disraeli's great political rival naturally and of itself threw the Bishop into an attitude towards the statesman that was not at all one of sympathy. As early as 1867 the Bishop says:— "The most wonderful thing is the rise of Disraeli. It is not the mere assertion of talent, as you hear so many say. It seems to me quite beHe has been able to teach the House of Commons to ignore Gladstone; and at present lords it over him, and, I am told, says that he will hold him down for twenty years."

side that.

upon the principles and ultimate existence of an honourable minority," and as one of those who are content to "use religion as an instrument of obtaining ever so short a tenure of place at the cost of ever so entire a sacrifice of that which they so use." The following words refer to both the great political leaders in characteristic terms. They were written when the death of Bishop Hamilton caused a vacancy in the see of Salisbury :

"I wait, not without deep anxiety, for the nomination of his successor. I have not any misgivings about Gladstone personally. But as leader of the party to which the folly of the Conservatives and the selfish treachery of Disraeli bit by bit allied him he cannot do what he would, and, with all his vast powers, there is a want of sharp-sighted clearness as to others. But God rules.

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"I do not see how we are, after Disraeli's Reform Bill, long to avoid fundamental changes both in Church and State."

Disraeli was not the man to forget a friend, nor yet to forget one who was not a friend. And having the power, on the vacancy at Canterbury, at the decease of Archbishop Longley, he did not forget to requite the Bishop with a "shrewd turn." But we must leave the Diary here to speak for itself in the following curious extracts :

"Preached on 'I am the Resurrection and the Life,' with much interest; many in tears. Then back to rectory, and by rail to Windsor, to House of Mercy, and confirmed in the chapel. Then to Deanery. Dean of St. Paul's, General Seymour dined. Mrs. Wellesley to Castle. Dean of St. Paul's to bed. Much talk with Dean of Windsor. He talked with great reserve about the late appointments, but said, 'The Church does not know what it owes to the Queen. Disraeli has been utterly ignorant, utterly unprincipled he rode the Protestant horse one day; then got frightened that it had gone too far, and was injuring the county elections, so he went right round and proposed names never heard of. Nothing he would not have done; but throughout he was most hostile to you; he alone prevented London being offered to you. The Queen looked for Tait, but would have agreed to you.'"

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have him; then Disraeli agreed most reluctantly and with passion to "Disraeli recommended - for Canterbury !!!-the Queen would not objected strongly; no experience; passing over Bishops, &c.; then she Tait. Disraeli then proposed Wordsworth for London. The Queen suggested Jackson, and two others, not you, because of Disraeli's expressed hostility, and Disraeli chose Jackson.

"How can

have got that secret understanding with Disraeli ? You are surrounded by false, double-dealing men. Disraeli opposed Leighton with all his strength on every separate occasion. The Queen would have greatly liked him, but Disraeli would not hear of him. You cannot conceive the appointments he proposed and retracted or was overruled; he pressed Champneys for Peterborough; he had no other thought than the votes of the moment; he showed an ignorance about all Church matters, men, opinions that was astonishing, making propo sitions one way and the other, riding the Protestant horse to gain the boroughs, and then, when he thought he had gone so far as to endanger thoroughly unprincipled fellow. I trust we may never have such a man the counties, turning round and appointing Bright and Gregory; again."

When the great historical see of Winchester was at disposal by the resignation of Bishop Sumner, in 1869, it was naturally offered to Bishop Wilberforce by Mr. Gladstone's Government, which came into power after the general election of 1868. It was a mere slander to insinuste that this appointment was the price of Bishop Wilberforce's votes on the Irish Church Bill. In truth the Bishop cannot be said to have advocated or assisted the carrying into effect of the Irish Disestablishment at all. But after the general election, which turned upon the question, had beyond all possible doubt indicated the determination of the country on the subject, the Bishop dissuaded the Bishops and Churchmen generally from protracting a futile resistance, and gave such help as be could towards obtaining the best terms possible for the Irish Church. Nobody now would doubt that this policy was the best under the circumstances, and, indeed, it commended itself to thoughtful Churchmen generally at the time, notably to Archbishop Trench, as appears from this volume. Indeed, when the Irish Church Bill was before Parliament the Bishops' Resignation Act was not passed, nor was there any prospect of the vacancy at Winchester. In offering that see to Bishop Wilberforce, Mr. Gladstone said, and said with truth, that he only sealed the ver dict of the country."

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